Chapter IX: Part 9

But Beebo was recalling Leo’s words: “If you ever mean more to her than her career, I’ll lose her. I won’t let that happen. I’ll fight you—I’m warning you, Beebo.” When she thought of leaving Venus, she meant to leave a path open behind her for an occasional meeting, a correspondence, a night together now and then when Venus was in New York. But Leo was about to sabotage even that small hope. She looked at him and caught her own thoughts in his eyes.

“That shellacking I gave you was only the opening round, Beebo. Unless you’re ready and willing right now to walk out of here and never come back. Never call, never write, never speak to Venus or see her again. _Never._”

“Leo, I love this girl!” Venus said. “If you insist on kicking her out of my home, you can kick me out with her.” It was not what she had thought she would say when the time came. She felt a sort of amazed pride in her foolish bravery.

Beebo, too, was overcome with gratitude; yet wondering at the same time what recriminations Venus would vent on her as the weeks and months went by, if they did leave together. Where would they go, with Venus as notorious as she was? The thought of running away with her—of being tied to her for life—alarmed Beebo in spite of herself.

Leo walked to his wife and spoke straight in her face. “Fine,” he said. “Go with her, Venus. Never mind losing your money, your name ... and your son. Not to mention me. The things that have sustained you all these years. Ditch them all.

“What for? For your bargain, here: Beebo. She’ll love and protect you better than I can, no doubt. You’re thirty-eight years old and you won’t have that face of yours so damn much longer. If you quit now, it’ll go to hell in a hurry. By the time Beebo’s twenty-eight, you’ll be nudging fifty. Probably a grandmother with a face full of charming crow’s feet. Every night you and Beebo will sit by the TV and watch old Bogardus movies on the late late show.”

Beebo and Venus stared at him.

“You won’t have your face or your fortune or your home, or me to fight your battles, or Toby to love and respect you at last. You won’t have Toby at all, for that matter. Do this, Venus, and you’ve lost him forever. No state board in its right mind would give custody of a child to an infamous Lesbian who’d surround him with scandal and expose him to homosexual obscenities—even if the child himself wanted to be with her, which he damn well would not.

“And what do you trade Toby for? A big, overgrown, penniless butch with no job and no prospects for one, who’ll dump you the minute that face and body begin to sag.”

“You bastard!” Beebo shot at him, appalled.

“Shut up, Beebo,” he said coolly. “Do you have a job?”

“No, but—”

“Do you deny you’re gay?”

“No, but—”

“Do you deny Venus would lose everything if she went with you? Do you love her so much you can’t wait to destroy her?”

“Leo, for the love of God—”

“For the love of my wife I say these hard things!” he shouted at Beebo. “You were warned. You have no business standing there now with a slack jaw. What will you do, take a cold-water flat in Greenwich Village and live on love till you get hungry and cold? Do you think Venus Bogardus can go anywhere in the world right now with the papers headlining her lewd romance with another woman? ‘Venus Bogardus, queen of hearts, has found a queen of her own.’” He was quoting, unknown to the two women, the morning’s gossip columns.

Venus, thinking he had made it up, turned all her famous fury on him. “Get out of this house, you stinking dog!” she cried. “I never want to see you or hear your filth again!”

“I’ll be over at Sam’s when you’re ready to call me,” Leo said, referring to the friend who took him in whenever Venus turned him out.

“I’ll never call you!” she screamed at his retreating back. It was always her parting shot. Later in the day she would pick up the phone and tell him that even though he was a sonofabitch, she guessed he’d better come home. Miss Pinch had just squeezed a batch of fresh orange juice.

At the door Leo picked up a stack of newspaper columns, torn from the morning papers, and held them out to Venus. “These will pass the time while Beebo is packing,” he said, but Venus refused to glance at them. Beebo, in the grip of a spiraling alarm, took them instead.

Leo looked at her. “I’m sorry I had to hurt you,” he said. “If you weren’t so young you might have handled things better. I got hurt too, Beebo. The most I can hope for now is to save Venus and Toby. It’ll take all my ingenuity—and maybe all my money. And I have to start at once. Just like you have to get gone.”

She didn’t answer him, but she felt moved, realizing slowly that he needed her pity as much as she needed his. She could never forgive him for calling her a freak, and yet it had been a valuable lesson in the prevailing attitude toward mannish women.

Jack had been sympathetic and patient with her. Pat, himself quite feminine, had responded to her much the way that the Lesbians who liked her did. Even the people back in Juniper Hill had been pretty used to her most of her life. They watched her grow up and while they laughed unkindly and sometimes lied about her, still they had never said to her face the things Leo Bogardus had said. Beebo damned well had to stand up and fight back, or lose her self-respect forever.

Her gaze fell on the pile of columns in her hand, as Leo left them alone. Venus tried to throw them all in the wastebasket, till she saw the spreading shock on Beebo’s face. She read over Beebo’s shoulder, holding her breath:

“Venus Bogardus, ruler of the hearts of men the world over, is ruled herself it seems: by a WOMAN! Is this true, or just vicious gossip? Readers of my column know I never use any but the most carefully validated tips from reliable sources. This one has been double-checked and we can say positively: the handsome youngster sharing the Bogardus manse as companion to Venus’s son, is really the apple of the movie star’s eye. Is Venus Bogardus really one of those unfortunate misfits, a LESBIAN? Leo, do you know about this? Does your stepson know it? Our hearts are with you in this difficult situation.

“Readers who doubt me may ask themselves if I would dare to print such an accusation under the threat of legal action from Miss Bogardus, if it were false. No! I would never, etc., etc....”

Beebo shuffled through the others quickly. It was the top story in all the trades and made full columns in the big L.A. dailies. She looked at Venus and saw such a pallor on her face that she was afraid Venus would drop where she stood. Beebo helped her to her satin-draped bed where Venus deflated in a heap.

Beebo stood beside her, her hands crammed into her pockets, afraid to touch her. At last she asked, “Does this mean I have to go right now? Alone?” She knew it did; she had known all along it was coming. Yet here they were, and the time was upon them, and it was abysmally hard to do. Strangely, she found herself picturing Paula again. It comforted her. Not that she had any illusions about a warm welcome from Paula. But even the thought of a fight with the little redhead was better than the thought of not seeing her at all.

Beebo touched Venus’s long hair gently. “A few minutes ago you were telling Leo he’d have to kick you out, too, if he wanted me to go.” It wasn’t kind to remind Venus, and yet it was a relief in a way.

“Oh, darling, I’m such a coward,” Venus said brokenly. “I can’t bear it. Where in hell did they find out? Miss Pinch would never tell. The others don’t like me, but they wouldn’t do anything to ruin Leo. Besides, I was never around during the day and at night we were so careful. How in hell—?”

Beebo knew perfectly well how it got out. She touched the telegram in her pocket fearfully, and Venus saw her face change and guessed. “Your friends in New York?” she asked.

Beebo pulled out the wire. Jack had written: “Hope this catches you before the sky falls, pal. If not, chin up. We love you. I found out too late from Pat that Mona wired the Hollywood press. Come home and ride out the storm. This is a time for friends to help you, not lovers. Jack.”

Beebo folded it with the meticulous care you give to the oddments of life that happen to be in your hands when pain strikes; each fold careful, straight, and neat—as tidy as her life was not. There is an obscure comfort in smoothing a small piece of paper to its ultimate neatness. It seems a symbol of order and reason that must somehow rescue you from the chaos of suffering. It eases the misery that wants to pour out of your eyes and wail from your throat.

“My friends in New York,” Beebo said huskily, “are still my friends. My enemies in New York did this to me. Venus, Venus....” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve been trying to tell you, but I didn’t know how. I thought we could part lovers and come together again, still lovers, some day.”

Venus reached up for her, both of them admitting tacitly that it could never have lasted; neither willing to say the words outright.

But Beebo rejected her arms. “I have to confess something terrible to you,” she said. “I—I brought on Toby’s attack. I was telling him I thought I would have to leave here, so you wouldn’t be hurt by the papers. He got more and more upset and strange ... he tried to answer me ... and then suddenly he shot up and fell over.”

Venus looked away. “It might have happened anyway,” she said. “We know so little.... I’m going to lose him, Beebo. He’ll never get over this.”

“You’re wrong. You’ve got to be! You can’t lose all you worked for with him in one stroke like that,” Beebo said.

“Maybe Leo can help me,” Venus said, the dimmest spark of hope in her eye. “He always seems to put me back together. Maybe he can do it for Toby.”

Beebo could see that she was floundering at the prospect of losing the props that had supported her for so long: Leo, Toby, her money, mass love.

“One thing you have I’ll never have, darling,” Venus told her quietly. “Courage. I’ll bet you didn’t know how much till now. Maybe you’ve got it because without it you’d have been destroyed long ago. Well ... I hate to admit it, but Leo is my courage. I can’t run away with you, even though my heart breaks to let you go.” She stopped talking for a minute till her voice steadied a little. “I thought you’d given Toby to me at last, but I’m afraid you’ve lost him for me forever.”

“I hope to God he has better sense than that,” Beebo said, kneeling by the bed with her face near Venus’s. “I hope he loves both of us more than that, and I think he does. He’s brighter and steadier than you are, Venus. Besides, he’s lived all his life with a condition that makes him different from ordinary people. Maybe that will help him understand me a little now.”

Venus stopped crying and embraced Beebo. “Forgive me,” she whispered. “All I want to say to you is, thank you. For the time I had with Toby, for the love you gave me.”

For a moment Beebo wanted to stay so badly she was ready to sacrifice her life again—but only for a moment. It was easy to get carried away when you had your arms full of Venus.

“I love you, Beebo,” Venus said seriously. “Some day you’ll know how it feels when you’re my age, and the girl you’ll adore forever is yours. And you know it’s going to end before long and you’ll have to go on living somehow.”

Beebo caressed her shoulders without looking at her face. “You’ll never say you love me again, will you?” she murmured. “Will you say it to another girl?”

Venus’s arms tightened around her. “Will you?” she countered.

“You’ll say it to men as long as you live, won’t you?” Suddenly it seemed unbearable to Beebo; bad enough to know that other girls would follow her, even if Venus never loved any of them. But intolerable that she would keep on climbing into bed with men, too. Her hands hardened on Venus’s shoulders. “God, how I wish I could make you choose!” she said. “Be gay or be straight. Don’t be both. The only other girl I know who’s both is contemptible.”

Venus answered quietly. “Beebo, you knew what you were early in life. Some of us don’t find out till after we’ve committed ourselves to a man and children. You’re one hundred per cent gay. You never doubt it. You breathe such easy contempt for me. But darling, believe me, you’re the lucky one. You knew yourself in time to save yourself from housewifery and husbands—things the rest of us have to live with.

“But I didn’t know till it was too late. It wasn’t just all the men I’ve known that confused me. It was the way I was raised, too, and the girls I knew. It was having a man and a child and a career in my life to defend before I knew I wanted anything else. It was a paralyzing fear of the truth. I didn’t have a body like yours that threw the truth at me whether I wanted to see it or not. I could pretend. I pretended with men and men and more men.

“And the more clearly I realized I was gay, the more terrified I was to admit it to myself, and the more I had to lose. Do you have to loathe me for it, Beebo? Am I sort of second-class Lesbian, is my love a second-class love, because I live with a man and I’ve borne a child?”

Beebo shut her eyes. “I’m your lover, not your judge,” she said, pulling Venus’s head down on her shoulder. “All I know is, I hate it—sharing you. If it were another girl, I could fight back on my own ground. But Leo confronts me with marriage and motherhood and morality and ... God, what can I say? Tell all of society to go to hell?” She kissed Venus disconsolately. “If you’d known what you were when you were young, would you really have given up all this for the life of a Lesbian? The kind of life I’ll lead?”

“If I’d known I could be as happy with a girl as I’ve been with you, Beebo ... and I didn’t have my son or a name to worry about ... I could have given up anything to be with you.”

Beebo couldn’t hate her, in spite of the distressing knowledge that she had been used. Venus was no Mona Petry. Venus proved her love and did her utmost to go beyond her limitations for the sake of that love. But she had lived too long in the world of safety and social acceptance that is the normal woman’s—a world Beebo would never know—to leave it now. She was imprisoned in the only security she knew, just as Beebo was imprisoned in her body and her strong emotional needs.

“You despise me a little for hiding behind my husband and child,” Venus said, seeing it in Beebo’s face. “What do you want me to do with them, darling? I love Toby and I need Leo. I can’t wish them out of existence. They existed for me long before you did.”

“Venus, I don’t know what’s right or wrong,” Beebo said. “I only know I love you and it’s made me miserable. God spare either of us another affair like this one.” She caught Venus in an impassioned embrace, holding her hard enough to hurt her and crying soundlessly against her cheek.

Then she released her, walking swiftly to the door. Venus gave a small scream and rushed after her. “Oh, not like this! Wait, stay with me a while. There’s no need to go just yet. I need you more than I ever did. Beebo!”

“Don’t make it hurt any worse, Venus,” she said. “Let’s not cut it off an inch at a time.” Beebo was the strongest and it was up to her to make the break physical and final.

“Say it one last time, then,” Venus pleaded wildly. “I’ll never see you again! Beebo, darling—say it!”

“I love you,” Beebo said huskily. “Goodby, lover.” She reached out and put her hands on Venus’s shoulders to draw her near; kissed her ardently on the lips and then chastely on the brow.

Venus gazed at her, afraid to believe it for a minute, and then dropped her face into her hands with a sob. Beebo left her, running down the curving stairs to the front door. If she were to move at all, it had to be at top speed.

* * * * *

It was raining in New York when Beebo landed at Idlewild, a standard, sharp November rain: liquid ice tumbling out of a dirty sky. She reached Jack’s familiar door early in the evening and rang his bell. The answer was immediate, as reassuring as a personal word.

She dashed up the stairs and saw him leaning in the open doorway, waiting for her. Neither of them said a word. Beebo went up and hugged him against her damp jacket. He fit neatly under her chin, letting himself be squashed in the name of friendship.

“Come in, pal,” he said.

“I should have wired you. I left in such a damn hurry,” she said. “Jack—you aren’t even surprised to see me!”

“I read the garbage in this morning’s paper,” he said. “I didn’t think Venus would keep you around long after that. But I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for her phone call.”

Beebo’s mouth fell open. “Venus called _you_?” she said.

“About four hours ago. Said you were flying back. She remembered my name and had her secretary try every Jack, John, and J. Mann in the Manhattan directory,” he chuckled. “She sounded very sweet and sad. I was impressed with her—I really was. She said to tell you she loves you.”

Beebo leaned forward on the sofa. “Poor Venus,” she said, too tired even to feel surprise at her compassion. “She’s so afraid I won’t believe her. You know something, Jackson? She does love me. That’s the craziest part of it. She just isn’t strong enough to snap her fingers at the world. And God knows she had more at stake than I had—mostly a son she’s just beginning to know and love. I have no business condemning her. But oh my God, it hurts so much. She was so lovely.”

Jack sat down beside her. “I know the feeling,” he said. “I guess it’s the one pain on earth you can always remember perfectly, down to the last mean twinge.”

Beebo smiled a bit, putting her head back on the sofa and accepting gratefully a lighted cigarette from Jack.

“How about a peppermint schnapps?” he said. “Or would you prefer Scotch and water?”

“That’s more like it.”

“It’ll warm you up a bit. What a rotten day for a homecoming.” The rain pelted the roof and windows with an endless muted rattle. He handed her the drink, making one for himself.

“Thanks, Jack,” she said. “You know, it was sunny in California. Eighty-two degrees and not a cloud in the sky.”

“I was stationed there a while during World War II. I remember that weather.”

The small talk comforted Beebo and the drink relaxed her. They had another, and it wasn’t till Beebo had been there several hours and told Jack all the highlights of her life with Venus, that she became aware at last of a void in the room. She sat up. “Where’s Pat?” she said.

Jack glanced down into his drink. “Pat left,” he said simply.

“Left?” Beebo looked at him incredulously. “Jack, he couldn’t just leave, he was so fond of you!” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“So am I. But it’s winter, after all. Spring will bring somebody new. It always does.”

Beebo’s heart turned over for him. “But you ... really loved him. Oh, Jackson,” she sighed. “And you let me deluge you with my problems.”

“Yours are worse than mine, pal,” Jack said kindly. “And newer. Pat left me about four weeks after you did. First of October.”

Beebo shook her head, still half-disbelieving. “Why?” she said.

“He found somebody else,” Jack said, and when Beebo exclaimed in protest, he added, “A woman.” Beebo stared at him. “I guess you put that bug in his ear,” Jack said wryly. “He began to brood about being gay. He thought if he could be so attracted to you, maybe it would work with another aggressive girl. And he was a bit lost when you left, anyway. Then he met Sandra and got quite a crush on her. She took him on. It all happened in a few weeks’ time. They’re living upstate, running an antique shop. She’s teaching him the business. And I guess he’s exterminating her termites. Now and then he comes down to see me. We get along fine.”

“And I thought he was so happy here,” Beebo mourned.

“I think you meant more to him than we realized. He moped around after you left and wanted to follow you to L.A. I talked him out of it, but it seemed to relieve him to talk about you. Frankly, he talked too much. I warned him, and he really tried to stop, but he’d have a drink or two and open up. And he always got around to you. It was complimentary—what he said—but there was too much of it. Mona or Pete managed to get most of the dope.

“And when Pat realized he was hurting you, he began to blame himself for all your troubles. He felt guilty about living with me—‘off me’—when he couldn’t give me his whole love. He’s a damn nice kid, Beebo. It’s best for him that he look around a bit more.”

“What’s best for you, Jackson?” Beebo asked fondly.

“Somebody new, I guess.”

“I hope you don’t have to wait till the spring.”

“I’d rather. It’ll give me time to get over Pat. Besides, I’d rather fall in love in the sunshine than the rain.”

He fixed another round while Beebo mused, “I hope Venus’s son gets through this all right. It’s tough enough on Leo and Venus ... but Toby. I was his best friend. He thought if I ever left he’d lose his mother again.”

“He didn’t lose her,” Jack said. “Venus said Leo explained things to him at the hospital. It shook him up pretty badly, but he came out of it on Venus’s side. That Bogardus must be a wise man. Venus said he didn’t say one bitter word about you. Anyway, Toby ended up wanting to comfort her. She said it saved her life. She couldn’t have stood to lose you both in one day.

“Toby doesn’t know what to think about you, and maybe he never will.”

“That will draw him closer to Venus, at least,” Beebo said. “I don’t like to think he’d ever hate me. But there’s some comfort in knowing I brought him and his mother together. It’s a funny thing ... all of a sudden she seems as remote and inaccessible as—as the California sunshine. The end of the rainbow. Jack, I hate to give up the pot of gold.”

She bent her head and shut her eyes a moment. When she looked up she asked, “How’s Pasquini doing?”

“Got a new driver—a boy,” Jack shrugged. “Marie can still cook. I don’t know about Pete. He’s a scared little man. I guess that’s what makes him so vindictive. He feels brave hurting somebody who can’t hurt back.”

“He and Mona sent the scoop to Hollywood, didn’t they?”

“They did. They called me about it later. They were that sure of themselves.” He studied her face. “Venus told me about the boxing match with Leo. He must have given you those bruises.”

“It’s all right,” Beebo said, touching her face. “I gave him some, too.”

Jack lighted a cigarette. “There’s one more thing, honey,” he said. “Your brother.” He spoke carefully in an effort to keep from alarming her.

“Jim?” Beebo said, grimacing. “God, I suppose he read about all this, too. Did he tell Dad?”

“No,” Jack said. “Somebody sent your father the news, but he never saw it. I suppose it was Mona.”

“Damn it, why does that girl enjoy persecuting me? All I ever did was get my wires crossed on a date with her once. I can’t understand—”

“You will,” Jack promised her. “Beebo, listen to me. Your father ... never knew.”

She looked at him, suddenly white-faced, and whispered, “Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Jack? He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“I guess I shouldn’t have told you tonight,” Jack said. “Coming on top of the rest, maybe it’s too much.”

“No,” she said, breaking down and crying a little. “Do you know, Jack, I’m almost glad. I’m sick that I wasn’t with him at the end—if I’d known it was so close I’d have come back. But that poor unhappy man went through too much over me as it was. I think—I hope—that he knew why I left him. Maybe he seized the chance to lay his burdens down.

“Oh, I don’t mean he’d kill himself. But he kept himself alive through sheer will power, to help me out of my scrapes. After I left, he was free to surrender. For all he ever knew, I ended up the doctor he hoped I’d be.” She shook her head. “Such a good man. So kind, so humanly frail. I loved him, Jack.”

“I got quite a biography of him from Jim,” Jack said. “His drinking, his poverty, his tantrums. Jim’s bitter as hell.”

“I was the cause of most of it,” Beebo said. “What happened to Jim?”

“He sent me a letter from the University of Wisconsin. He said your father didn’t have any money, but you could have any of his belongings you wanted. If he doesn’t hear from you before the end of this month he’s going to sell what he can and throw out the rest.”

“Is that all?”

“He said he was sorry for you but he never wants to lay eyes on you again.”

She laughed sourly. “I’ll bet,” she said. “That’s the nicest he’s ever put it, too. I never loved him, Jack, but he’s all the family I have, and he’s no family at all. It’s too bad ... but he’s right. We’re poison together. I guess I’ll let him sell Dad’s things. I have his picture and my memories. They’re worth more to me than some worn-out furniture.”

She fell into bed soon after, lying in the familiar warmth and watching Jack move around the room. She envied the fullness and strength of his arms and chest.

When the lights were out she asked him softly, “Jack? How’s Paula Ash?”

“Pretty lonesome.”

“Do you see her at all?”

“All the time. We shore each other up.”

“What do you do together?”

“Talk about Pat and Beebo.”

Beebo smiled faintly in the dark. “Is that all? Does she hate me?”

“No, little pal.”

“Does she ... love me?”

“You’ll have to ask Paula that one.”

“Jack, is she living with anybody?”

“She was. The girl with the Plaid Pajamas moved in for a while.”

Beebo felt an odd melancholy that had nothing to do with her father or Venus. “Have you met her? Plaid Pajamas?”

“Yes.”

“Who is she?”

“Nobody you’d go for. Didn’t Paula tell you about her?”

“Not much.”

“Well, you’ll meet her one of these days,” he said.

That was all she could get out of him.

* * * * *

Beebo spent the next week resting and living quietly out of sight. She had no plans for wild revenge against Pete and Mona; only the wish to forget, to learn to live with herself again.

Venus was often in her thoughts and would be for a long time. But more and more, as the hurt faded, she found herself preoccupied with Paula. Paula, so real and so faithful; so unlike the fairy-tale princess, Venus, who had vanished inevitably into Never-Never Land. Beebo had crashed back to earth, and she wanted a real girl in her arms.

The cackling in the papers about the Bogardus-Brinker affair made life awkward for her for a while, with reporters trying to scout her down and people whispering about her wherever she went. But the talk was slowly yielding at the other end of the country to Venus’s surprising dignity. She appeared in public at Leo’s side emphasizing the duration of their life together. Both of them swore that their marriage had never been stronger, and in a way, it was true. They needed each other extremely then.

The official story was that Beebo was a young woman who had taken a job on the household staff and subsequently became a close friend of Toby’s. Nobody was aware that she was harboring a feverish crush on Venus. When the situation blew up in their faces, Venus and Leo were as startled and shocked as the rest of the movie colony. They expressed their sympathy for their unfortunate young friend and hoped she could find a happier life somewhere else.

“No one who knows me will believe that there was anything between this poor girl and myself except a friendly relationship based on her closeness to my son,” Venus was quoted. And Beebo, reading the statement, could picture Leo writing and rewriting it at the desk in his library, with a cigar fuming in his mouth and a glass of orange juice nearby.

Somehow, Leo brought it off—partly by expending huge sums on public relations and partly by exploiting Toby’s illness: he hinted broadly that unless the furor died down, the boy’s health was in danger of permanent damage.

Beebo shed a few tears over it in private. But it was, after all, as merciful towards her as Leo and Venus dared to make it. Her picture was kept out of the papers. She still had some anonymity in this biggest of all big cities.

* * * * *

It had been two weeks since she returned to New York; weeks spent resting and job-hunting. Beebo was tense throughout the day, for that night the second segment of _Million Dollar Baby_ was scheduled for showing. It was the one in which Venus sang, “I’m Putting My All On You”—the song Leo and Beebo had coaxed out of her that night in the recreation room.

Beebo tried all day to forget about it. But when she came home again that night without a job, Jack had to cheer her up with a cold martini. “When are you going to call Paula?” he said casually.

“Paula who?” she said with a little smile.

Jack pinched her amiably in the arm. “She wants to see you. This would be a dandy night not to watch television.”

“How do you know Paula wants to see me?”

“Well, if she hadn’t called to say so, I’d still know. I’m telepathic.”

“You’re psychopathic. What am I supposed to do, go over there and beat the daylights out of Miss Plaid Pajamas? You said they were living together.”

“_Were_—past tense. I don’t know what the situation is now, with you home. Anyway, pal, what’s the matter with you? Afraid of a little fight? Or isn’t Paula worth it?”

“What are you promoting it for, Jackson? Taking bets?”

“If the Pajamas are still hanging around, you can take her with one hand behind your back. Leo must have taught you _something_.”

“And after I kayo her, then what do I do?”

“You claim the fair damsel, stupe,” Jack said. “Jesus, you’re thick sometimes, Beebo.” He chuckled at her.

Beebo sobered slightly. “Jack, I’m not so sure. I mean, I hurt Paula. I was damned unfair and unfeeling with her.”

“Really? _Unfeeling?_”

“I ditched her for what must seem like the cheapest kind of affair, when Paula needed me and Venus only wanted me.”

“You’re ashamed of yourself. Is that why you’re stalling? Beebo, don’t you know a girl in love is always ready to forgive her lover?”

“Provided the lover’s in love with her,” Beebo said.

“Well, aren’t you? Not one letter did I get from California that you didn’t fret and worry over Paula Ash.”

Beebo looked at him. “I’ve been thinking about just two people for the past two weeks: Venus and Paula. And every day, it’s more Paula and less Venus. And yet I think if Venus were to call and say, ‘Come back, I can’t stand it without you’—I’d go.”

“No, you wouldn’t, pal. You’ve learned too much.” Jack nodded at the phone. “Besides, she’ll never call. Venus Bogardus isn’t real any more. She’s the doll millions of us will watch and covet tonight on TV. And you’re just one of the millions now.”

Beebo felt momentarily swamped with frustration. Gradually she became aware of Jack’s voice saying, “Paula doesn’t belong to the public or a bank or a one-track husband. She doesn’t have any of those things. Paula can get up when the show is over and turn the set off, and come back to your side, ready for love. Venus will be gone forever with a turn of the knob.”

Beebo lighted a cigarette to cover her emotion. “Maybe I should call Paula. The least I can do is apologize. But I don’t want to see her till I’m sure—”

“Sure of what?” Jack said. “Loving her? Beebo, you can wait a lifetime trying to be sure of love. You didn’t wait to be sure of Venus. I didn’t wait to be sure of Pat.”

“And look how those affairs turned out,” she said.

“If we had waited, we wouldn’t have known any happiness at all with them. I still love Pat. We’re friends and I think we always will be. Venus loves you, Beebo, and the things you gave her are the most precious in her life. Because of her, you’re growing up a little, at last. Would you rather it had never happened, just because it hurt?”

She glanced at him, puzzled. “No. But I don’t want to hurt Paula any more. She doesn’t deserve anything but my love, and I don’t know if I can give her that yet.”

“Well, she can give you hers. And right now, that makes her the strong one. You need love and it’s her joy to give it. Maybe the gift will transform the recipient. That’s what happened to Venus.”

“God, if I could make myself love her, I would,” Beebo said, but Jack laughed at her.

“Hell, honey, that’s _her_ job,” he said. “Be honest with her and she’ll take it from there. If she’s willing to risk a love affair with you now, knowing all she knows, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Beebo doused her cigarette. “Can you eat all that hamburger by yourself?” she said, pointing at it.

“Without the slightest strain.” He smiled at her.

“Okay,” she said, answering the smile reluctantly. “I’m going calling. But if I come back here tonight with two black eyes and a broken heart, by God, Mann, you’re going to pay for it.”

“I can’t wait,” he said.

Beebo threw a plastic saucer at him, which he fielded deftly, and left with his laughter in her ears.

* * * * *

She walked through the night air, crisp and cold enough to crack if you just knew how to grasp it, all the way to McDonald Street. It was easy enough to find Paula’s building. Not so easy to go in and ring her bell.

Beebo looked at the small black button for several minutes before she pressed it. When the answer sounded at once, she wondered if Jack had called to forewarn Paula. She opened the door and walked down the hall with the feeling of reliving in life what she had once dreamed an eon ago.

Paula’s door was open as it had been the night they met. A slice of light lay across the hall. Beebo felt her heart beating higher in her chest. Soon Paula would appear in a pair of plaid pajamas that weren’t hers, and say sleepily, “Yes?”

But she didn’t. Beebo stopped at her door and waited. She could feel Paula’s presence somewhere just inside the room. Finally she glanced in, blinking at the light. Paula was leaning against the far wall, facing the door. Her hair had grown quite long in the few months since they had seen each other, and it washed over her pink silk shoulders in an auburn tide.

Her eyes were enormous and there was a flush of love and fear in her cheeks. She wasn’t just pretty. She was so lovely that Beebo’s breath caught in her throat. Everything Paula felt and feared and hoped for shone on her face.

Beebo stood in the doorway, her hands characteristically shoved into her pockets, her bright blue eyes fixed on this gentle girl who, incredibly, learned to love her in three days and loved her still after three months.

“Paula,” Beebo said. “Are you still my Paula?”

“Still yours,” she answered.

“I don’t see any plaid pajamas around,” Beebo said, but it was no wonder: she didn’t see anything around that room but Paula Ash.

“She left,” Paula said. “The day you came home. I told her to leave. Oh, Beebo.” Paula shut her eyes, and when she opened them, Beebo was standing beside her, hesitating, absorbing the mystery of their attraction.

“Paula, I feel as if I’m seeing you for the first time,” Beebo said. “I swear I do.”

“I’m no match for the goddess,” Paula said, smiling without any malice. She was prompted by an innocent little-girl need to be admired and loved, so transparent that it charmed Beebo completely.

“The goddess was no match for you.” Strangely, all at once, it was true. “Jack was right—you’re the real woman.” She closed the small space between them, taking Paula’s shoulders in her big hands and kissing her suddenly on the mouth. Paula put her arms around her, so hard Beebo could feel her quivering.

“Paula—darling—I want to know just one thing,” Beebo said. “Where are your damn sleeping pills?”

“I gave them to Jack the day you left,” Paula said. “Kiss me again, Beebo.” Beebo obeyed her gladly, over and over, rediscovering with her all the things they had learned to need and love in each other months before.

When Paula took Beebo’s hands and turned them palms up to kiss, Beebo groaned with the delight she couldn’t hold back. “Paula,” she said, “oh, Paula. I came here like the self-centered idiot I am, thinking I could pay you off for what you’ve been through with a few silly kisses. Honey, I’m the one who wants them. I’m the one who needs them. I just didn’t have the sense to see it.”

She was full of crazy joy that was part nostalgia, part relief, and mostly desire. The touch, the fragrance, the feel of this marvelous girl were beyond anything Beebo had remembered.

Beebo picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, bending over her on the bed, her hands supporting her weight on either side of Paula’s face. “Oh, that hair, that mouth. Paula, I came so close to loving you before. And then ... Jesus, she dazzled me. Honey, I was helpless with her.”

“Don’t explain, Beebo. I got through it somehow, and it’s over. Jack practically adopted me. We talked all night every night for a week after you left. He told me you’d be back, and he was so sure of it that I believed him. I knew you weren’t in love with me, but I knew you wanted me. And because of Jack, I never despaired. I wasn’t even afraid of Mona any more. She thought I was nuts, but—”

“Mona! Has she been after you, too?” Beebo flared. “Hasn’t she hurt me enough? Does she have to take it out on you?”

“You stood her up for me, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Beebo leaned over to kiss her. “Unbutton me, Paula,” she whispered.

Paula complied with a tremor. “Mona thought she owned me,” she said softly. “She shucked me off months before, but I wasn’t supposed to love anybody new for the rest of my life.”

“Paula ...” Beebo seized her hands and looked at her searchingly. “Are you trying to tell me—oh my God!—was _Mona_ the girl in the plaid pajamas?”

Paula nodded, still opening buttons until Beebo’s shirt slipped off. “She came back this fall when you left. She wanted information about you at first, but then she decided to live with me again. I let her do it. I supposed I was looking for a way to hurt you both. Make you jealous, and get even with Mona for the pain she gave me. She was astounded when I told her to get lost two weeks ago. She’s still waiting for you to snub me, and then she’ll come back to say, ‘I told you so.’”

“That’s one thing she’ll never say,” Beebo said emphatically. “She won’t have the chance. How could you fall for a girl like that, darling? You so sweet all the way through, and Mona so sour?”

“It’s you I love, Beebo. Let’s not talk about Mona.”

Beebo kicked her slacks off, lying down beside Paula. “Did you know Mona was going to send that smear to the gossipists?” she asked.

“Yes,” Paula confessed and shocked Beebo. “I’ll be truthful. This is the hardest thing I have to tell you, Beebo. I knew, and maybe I could have stopped her, I’m not sure. But I didn’t even try. I knew it would separate you and Venus. It would have come sooner or later, but I wanted you so awfully and this was the fastest way to do it. I couldn’t have done it to you myself. But when I found out what Mona and Pete were up to, I didn’t have the guts to stop them.”

There was a long silence. “Beebo, I forgive you everything. Can you forgive me this?” Paula’s voice, slight and sweet as herself, hung close to tears. This was the test.

Beebo turned Paula’s face up to hers finally and kissed it. “You have far more to forgive than I do,” she said. “If you can, so can I.”

Once again they held each other, immersed in the swell of love. Paula lay beneath Beebo, letting her work a while; letting the ardor slowly take fire inside her, until the urge to respond became irresistible.

Then, suddenly, her head went back in a beautiful arch, into a pool of auburn hair. Her body heaved against Beebo’s, and one of her legs slipped between her lover’s. Her hands began to wander through Beebo’s close-cropped curls, over her broad back and trim hips, caressing her everywhere. Beebo answered her with gratitude, amazement, and the first warm thrill of real love. Not an infatuation that knocks the breath out of you and dislocates your life for a while. But the slow sure kind, strong and reassuring, that holds together. Honesty, trust, respect, all were growing between them.

When they had slept a little, Beebo raised herself up on one elbow to light a cigarette and talk. “You know something, Paula,” she said. “I tried to tell you this our first night together, and you wouldn’t believe it. But it’s true, and it has a lot to do with the way I feel about you now.”

“What, darling?” Her look of love, so womanly and so complete, moved Beebo warmly.

“You brought me out, Paula. You were the first. I spent my life back home saying no to everything but my daydreams. There wasn’t a soul I could have touched without the whole town finding out. It would have killed my father. That’s one of the reasons I had to leave. Paula, you precious girl. God, how lucky I was that it was you.”

“It might have been Venus,” Paula said.

“If it had, I’d have botched it. She would have laughed at me.”

“Her show is on,” Paula said, looking at the clock-radio by the bed. “Want to watch it?”

“No thanks.”

“I think you should. Come on, I’ll watch it with you.” Paula got up smiling and pulled her halfway out of bed.

“Paula, honey, I don’t give a damn—”

“No fibs!” Paula cautioned, throwing her pink silk wrapper around herself. “Come with me, Beebo.” She stood at the bedroom door, waiting, and Beebo couldn’t turn her down. She stood up, but not without misgivings.

The show had already started and the commercial was in progress. Beebo took Paula in her arms and together they settled back on the sofa.

“If you had refused to look, I would really have been scared,” Paula admitted. “I would have thought you were still tied to Venus emotionally—too much to bear to see her, even on the screen.” She twisted around in Beebo’s arms to look at her face and kissed her swiftly a dozen times till Beebo was suddenly embracing her tightly and murmuring her name eagerly.

Paula was trembling with the immensity of her feeling, full of whirling thoughts hard to word. “I know you don’t love me yet the way I love you, Beebo,” she said at last. “But God, I hope you will. It’s kept me going—that hope—all this time. You felt so right to me.”

Beebo stroked her hair and gazed at her, unaware that Venus, in black satin, was singing, “I’m Putting My All On You.”

“You’ve only seen the rough side of gay love,” Paula told her. “People can be so cruelly selfish. Even the people who try to be good to you, and I guess Venus tried.

“Darling, Lesbian love doesn’t have to be brief or heartbreaking, just because it’s a love between two women. I want to teach you that. I want to live with you and do things for you and even let you do things for me.

“Oh, Beebo, don’t you see it? Women have a special knack for loving. Even Venus, in her way, found that knack. There’s a tenderness, an instinctive sympathy, between two women when their love is right ... it’s very rare in any kind of love. But it comes near perfection between women.

“You haven’t known that tenderness yet. You’ve only known a hectic affair with a fantastically difficult actress. I want to give you a home. I want you to come back to me every night and know you’ll be loved and cared for and spoiled. Beebo, darling, I want you to spoil me a little, too.”

“Paula, it’ll be a pleasure,” Beebo smiled.

Paula relaxed in her lap and Beebo put her hand back on the cushions. They watched the end of the song as the camera closed in on the face of Venus Bogardus. She was talking the words the way Beebo had suggested, her head tilted to one side and her eyes full, glittering with a give-away brilliance of real tears.

At the end, she let her head drop so that her gleaming hair swung around her face and hid her eyes. The tune—just a gimmicky little love song to begin with—had become a torch. And for just one moment, Venus was living flesh for Beebo again.

Beebo moved Paula off her lap and got up, going to the TV and turning it off. “It’s not that I’m still close to her, Paula,” she said, coming back to the sofa. “It’s just that that was goodby. From her to me.”

They looked at each other. “Did you really love her, Beebo?” Paula whispered.

Beebo sat down and took both of Paula’s hands in hers and kissed them in a gesture that had become special to them both. And then she pulled Paula down on the couch in her arms and kissed her neck until she squirmed and laughed. “I won’t know for sure what love is till I’ve spoiled you for a while, sweetheart,” Beebo grinned.

THE END
of an Original Gold Medal Novel by
Ann Barron

Transcriber’s Notes

The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical and punctuation errors as well as variations in hyphenation were silently amended. All other changes are shown here (before/after):

[p. 25]:
... ravioli, and drew it out with a potholder, spooning in onto ...
... ravioli, and drew it out with a potholder, spooning it onto ...

[p. 34]:
... that run his wife’s errands and pocket all the money Marie ...
... than run his wife’s errands and pocket all the money Marie ...

[p. 49]:
... told me. He looks hungry, as if he needed to be cared for.” ...
... told me. He looks hungry, as if he needs to be cared for.” ...

[p. 50]:
... must be waiting to erupt someone so intense, so yearning, ...
... must be waiting to erupt from someone so intense, so
yearning, ...

[p. 80]:
... the cotton tops out far enough to brush Beebo’s chest with ...
... the cotton top out far enough to brush Beebo’s chest with ...

[p. 151]:
... “Oh, you don’t have to worry. He likes kids. Beside,
he’s ...
... “Oh, you don’t have to worry. He likes kids. Besides,
he’s ...