Chapter IV: Part 4

“Let’s disappoint her, then,” Laura said and they smiled a little at each other. Laura was surprised at the strength of her relief. But when Beebo got up to ring the buzzer that opened the door below, the strange fear returned.

Far away downstairs she heard the front door open. Laura sat in uneasy silence in the kitchen, listening to the steps coming up the stairs out in the hall. She could picture Beebo leaning against the door jamb, waiting for the knock. More than once she had begged Beebo to be cautious opening that door. She had nightmares about the hoodlums that raped Beebo coming back to try it again—and getting Laura too this time. But Beebo shrugged it off.

“They won’t be back,” she had said.

“How do _you_ know?”

“I know,” was the cryptic answer, and that was all Laura could get out of her.

Laura found herself staring into her milk glass and whispering a prayer: _Let it be Jack. Please, dear God. I need him._

The knock came. Beebo opened the door. There was a moment of silence and then the sound of a sweet feminine voice using a very dainty English. It was Tris!

Laura froze in a panic. For one frightened second she thought of climbing down the fire escape. And then she put her glass down with trembling hands and poised herself, tense with the near-hysterical force piling up inside her.

Suddenly Beebo said, “Well, I’ll be goddamned. Hey, Laura! It’s our little Indian buddy. From Peck and Peck. Come on in, sweetheart.”

“Thank you,” Tris said.

Laura held her breath. Beebo’s friendliness would last just as long as it took her to start wondering what Tris was doing there and how she found the place. Laura could have slapped Tris. She hardly dared go in the living room and face them both.

Beebo called her. “Get in here, baby. Make like a hostess, for God’s sake. How’d you find us?” she said, her voice lowering as she turned to Tris.

“I ran into Laura at the Hobby Shop,” Tris said. “I was looking for a gift.”

“Find one?” Beebo settled down on the couch, appraising Tris’s slim smooth body with a cool and practiced eye. Laura saw the glance as she stood in the kitchen doorway. She disliked the way Tris let herself be admired.

“Hello, Laura,” Tris said, almost shyly.

“Hello, Tris.” Laura wanted Beebo to stop looking at that warm brown body, lightly sheathed in silk. Her eyes snapped angrily at Tris, and Tris saw it. “Sit down,” Laura said.

“So ...,” Beebo mused, her eyes half-closed and calculating. “You discovered Laura in the Hobby Shop and got chummy, hm?”

“She told me where you live,” Tris said, turning to her with an ingratiating smile. “It’s not far from me. She said to come over sometime, so here I am. Perhaps I come at a bad time?” She looked from one to the other.

“Any time is a bad time in this little love nest,” Beebo said. She thumbed at Laura. “We hate each other,” she explained. “We only live together so we can fight.”

“Oh.” Tris looked uncomfortable.

Beebo grinned at the two girls, pleased to have embarrassed them both, her mind simmering with suspicions. Laura, stony-faced, refused to say anything to Tris to put her at ease. She was furious with her for coming in the first place.

“What’s your name, honey?” Beebo said to Tris. “I’ve forgotten.”

“Tris Robischon.”

“Didn’t you say you were Indian or something?”

“Yes.”

Beebo laughed and shook her head. “Yeah ...,” she said. “Indian.”

Tris began to squirm under her gaze. She was no longer so pleased to be looked at as she had been when she entered. Beebo stared so hard, in fact, that Tris finally said coldly, “Perhaps you object to dark skins.”

“So what if I do?” Beebo said casually, grinning.

Tris gasped. “Some people,” she said sharply, “think all non-whites are inferior. Perhaps you are one of those?”

“Now what gives you a dumb idea like that?” Beebo said. “Do I look unfriendly?”

“You stare at me as if I were not welcome.”

“I stare at you as if you were a damn pretty girl. Which you are. You’re also too sensitive, but you’re welcome. I like that color.” She waved at Tris’s shapely legs, crossed at the knees and poised on high-heeled shoes. “On you it looks good.” And she grinned. There was an awkward pause and Laura saw, with great irritation, that Tris was simply returning Beebo’s gaze now, bashfully but rather eagerly.

“Have some coffee, Tris?” Laura said.

“Yes, please.” Tris looked at her swiftly, as if she knew Laura didn’t like her interest in Beebo.

“What do you do with yourself all day, Tris?” Beebo said. Laura was afraid of the way her voice sounded now.

“I dance.”

“Where?”

“My studio. I teach.”

“That all?”

“I—I have done professional work.”

They talked for a few minutes until Laura brought the coffee in. She gave Tris a cup and placed one in front of Beebo. But Beebo reached out and collared her with one long arm and pulled her down on the couch beside her.

“Let go!” Laura snapped, but Beebo only held her harder.

“So you ... just ran into Laura in the Hobby Shop,” Beebo said to Tris. “Fancy that.” She smiled a dangerous smile.

“Yes. It’s not so surprising. I mean I—I live so close by.”

Laura felt her fear rising in her throat and sweat bursting from her and she was desperately impatient to get rid of Tris.

“You know something, little Indian girl?” Beebo said.

“What?”

“I don’t believe you.”

The atmosphere became tense and ominous. “I apologize for her, Tris,” Laura said with a show of casualness. “She doesn’t believe anything.”

“Now tell me, Tris,” Beebo said, ignoring her, “how did you and Laura really meet?”

Tris looked squarely at her and said, “You know how. I have told the truth.” She lied very gracefully. Laura wondered how many lies she had been fed herself. “But I see I am not welcome here,” Tris went on. She stood up and replaced her coffee cup carefully in the saucer on the table. “Thank you for the coffee,” she said regally and headed for the front door.

Beebo sprang up from the couch suddenly and Laura, frightened, followed her with almost the same movement. Beebo caught Tris at the door and turned her around and without even a pause for breath kissed her harshly on the mouth. It was a long and physically painful kiss, and Laura’s furious exclamations did nothing to help. She pounded ineffectually on Beebo’s back. “Beebo, stop it!” she cried.

But Beebo stopped in her own good time, and that was not until she had bruised Tris’s mouth enough to make her cry. She cried softly, without a sound, her eyes shut and her head back against the door, still lifted toward Beebo.

Laura was shaken. “Tris—Tris—” she said, trying to get near her, but Beebo shouldered her out of the way.

“That’s for being such a good friend of Laura’s,” Beebo said. “And that’s all you get, too, my little Indian. Now get the hell out and don’t come back.”

“Beebo, please!” Laura felt her own angry tears start up, and it was unbearable to have Tris turn and leave so quickly, so quietly, without giving her a gesture of comfort or apology. “Tris, I’m so sorry!” she called after her, but it sounded trite and insincere.

Beebo shut the door and stood for a moment with her back to Laura. Laura, shaking, moved away from her.

“Where did you meet her?” Beebo asked, still not looking at her. “Tell the truth, Laura.”

“At work.”

Beebo whirled around. “How long are you going to lie to me!” she said.

“This is the last time!” Laura exploded, throwing her caution out with her patience. “I’m leaving you, Beebo. I’ve _had_ it. You make me sick. You’re ruining my life. I’m so damn scared and so damn miserable that nothing is any fun, nothing helps. Life isn’t worth living, not like this!”

“Where did you meet her?” Beebo said, with single-minded jealous fury.

“I went to her apartment!” Laura blazed at her. “I went back for her card and I went to her apartment.”

“And made love to her.”

“No!” She shouted it angrily at first, but then she repeated it, frightened, “No, Beebo! I swear!”

But Beebo came across the room in one sudden leap of rage and threw her down hard on the floor, her big hands on Laura’s slim shoulders, holding her cruelly and banging her head down again and again until Laura screamed with pain and terror. And then Beebo dropped her and slapped her and all the time she kept repeating like a mad woman, “You made love to her, love to her. Where’s that key? The _key_, damn it!”

“I’ll give it to you,” Laura sobbed at last. “Oh, God, Beebo, don’t kill me! I’ll give it to you.”

Beebo let her up then, or rather, dragged her to her feet. Laura stood beside her, swaying and dizzy, her eyes blurred by tears and her head aching. She went into the bedroom, shoving Beebo’s hands away from her with sharp gestures of hatred, her teeth clenched. And she opened her purse and pulled out her wallet and gave Beebo the key.

Beebo snatched it from her and picked up the box like a miser going after a cache of gold. And Laura, seeing her chance, grabbed the purse and a sweater that hung on the back of a chair and backed silently out of the bedroom. She fled, on feet made feather-light with fear, to the front door. She ran down the stairs with all the speed her fear could muster and ran all the way—two blocks—to Seventh Avenue.

After a few frantic moments of scanning the street and looking back over her shoulder she hailed a cab and climbed in, crying audibly. “Drive uptown,” she told the man. “Just drive uptown for a few minutes.”

“Okay,” he said, giving her a quick, cynical onceover.

Laura looked up and saw Beebo rush into Fourth Street as the cab turned around and headed north, and she sank down in the back seat, her hands over her face. She let him drive her almost to Times Square before she could control her sobs and give him Jack’s address.

_What if Beebo’s already there?_ she wondered suddenly. _Oh, God!_ She would be, of course. But Jack would save her somehow. Better to be with him, even if it meant facing Beebo again.

6

Laura was right. Beebo went straight to Jack’s apartment. She stormed in and beat noisily on his door until he opened it.

“Christ in the foothills!” he exclaimed, pulling on the door and looking into her wild furious face. She entered and slammed it behind her.

“She’ll be over here in a few minutes,” Beebo said wildly, waving the diary at him. “I haven’t read much of this but I’ve read enough to know what a bitch she is. And you—you—” For once in her life Beebo was at a loss for words. “You lousy crawling scum sonofabitch, you’ve been egging her on! You’ve been putting ideas into her head—about leaving me.”

She ranted hysterically at him, and Jack, although Laura had never described her diary to him, began to get the idea in a hurry.

“Where is she now?” he said quietly when he could get a word in edgewise.

“I don’t know, but she’ll be here before long. Whenever we have a quarrel she drags her can over here as fast as she can move. You’re her father confessor, her lover by proxy. She tells you everything. She only lives with me.” She spat it at him enviously. “I’m her lover for good and real but I’m not good enough to know what she thinks or what she does. She saves that for you. I’ll kill her! By God, I will.”

“Scram, Beebo,” Jack said. His low voice was in sharp contrast to her own, loud and hard with wrath.

“What’s the matter, isn’t my company good enough for you?” She turned on him suddenly. He would have to take her threats till Laura got there; she couldn’t hold them back.

“It’s just that I don’t like prospective murderers,” Jack said. “They make me nervous.”

“You bastard! You holier-than-thou bastard! You think you’re so damn superior because you’re still on the wagon. You _are_ on the wagon, I can tell. You look so goddam sober it’s repulsive. Repulsive!”

“That’s the word for it, all right,” Jack agreed. His compliant attitude only goaded her further.

“You hate me because Laura only comes to see you when she feels bad. She _lives_ with me. But she doesn’t give a damn about you until she feels bad. Then she comes running to good old Jack!”

“Beebo,” he said and did not raise his voice. “When I lost Terry I did a hell of a lot of drinking and hollering. I came and drank your whiskey and told you my troubles and you listened to me. And it helped. Now you’re welcome to my whiskey—there’s still a little in the kitchen—and you’re welcome to cry on my shoulder. But you’re not going to murder anybody, here or anywhere else.”

“Only Laura,” Beebo said, and her voice was low now, too.

“Nobody,” Jack said. “Now scram, or I’ll throw you out.”

Beebo grabbed the lapels of his sport jacket. “She cheated on me, Jack. You gave her the idea so don’t try to squirm out of it.”

“Cheated on you with who?”

“An Indian!” Her eyes were so big and her face so contorted that Jack came very near laughter.

“What tribe?” he asked carefully.

“Not an _American_ Indian, you owl-eyed idiot! An _Indian_ Indian. A dancer! Jesus!” And she lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “A _dancer_!”

“Classical or belly?”

“Oh, shut up! You think it’s funny!” She gave him a hard shove, but Jack didn’t shove easily. He just stood his ground and surprised her. “It doesn’t matter who she is, anyway,” she said and ran a distraught hand through her close-cropped dark hair that waved and rolled around her head and used to delight Laura. “What matters is, they’ve been sleeping together and that cheeky little bitch—”

“Which one?”

“Jack, goddam you, quit interrupting me!” She paused to glare at him and then said, “Tris. The dancer. She had the nerve to come over to the apartment. Tried to tell me they met at the Hobby Shop. Oh, God!” And she gave a despairing laugh.

“Maybe they did.” He offered it unobtrusively.

“Who’re you kidding?” Beebo snapped. “Laura _admitted_ she went to the girl’s apartment.”

“After you pounded it out of her.”

Beebo held the diary out to him. “Read this, Jack. It’s all in here,” she said.

“Does it say they slept together?”

“Damn right!”

“Did you read it?”

“No, but it’s in here,” she said positively, in the grip of the spiraling violence that possessed her. “Jack Mann, college graduate, engineer, former gay boy, former whiskey drinker, former human being. Current know-it-all and champion bastard of Greenwich Village. _Read_ it!”

He shook his head without even glancing at it.

“Are you too proper? Too moral? Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly developed a conscience! After all these years,” she said.

He shrugged. “Why read it? You’ve told me what’s in it.”

“Maybe you’d like to know what she says about me.” He saw her face color up again and a shivering clearly visible in her hands and he said, “No.” But Beebo opened the diary, leafing through it for the worst slander she could find.

Jack took the book from her hands so suddenly that she let it slip before she knew what he was up to, and then he socked her when she reached for it, catching her on the chin. She reeled backwards and sank to the floor. Jack leaned down and picked her up, hoisting her over his shoulder. He carried her that way, head dangling in back and feet in front, down the hall and out the door to the apartment building.

There he set her dizzily on her feet. She hardly knew where she was and let him hold her up. He found a taxi for her on the corner of Fourth and Seventh Avenue and told the driver, “She’s drunk. It’s only a couple of blocks, but I can’t take her home,” and handed him five dollars. “Take her upstairs,” he said, giving him the address. “Apartment 2B.”

He was headed up the steps to his apartment again when he heard Laura’s voice calling him, and he turned around to see her running up the sidewalk, hair awry and face like chalk.

“Laura!” he exclaimed and caught her. She began to sob the moment she felt his arms around her, as if she had only been waiting to feel him for the tears to start.

“Is she here?” she asked, and he could feel her quivering.

“She left,” he said. “I just put her in a cab. Your timing is faultless, Mother.”

Laura looked at him out of big amazed eyes. “She’s gone? How did you do it?” she asked. “What happened?”

“Come on inside,” he said. He led her down the hall and in his kitchen at last, with the front door locked and no Beebo anywhere around and a comforting drink to brace her, she heaved a long sigh of relief.

“Now,” said Jack, making himself some coffee. “Who is Tris?”

Laura clasped her glass in both hands and looked into the whiskey for an answer. “She’s a dancer—”

“I know that part. I mean, are you sleeping with her?”

“No!” Laura flashed.

“Do you want to?”

And after a pause she whispered honestly, “Yes.”

“So Beebo’s not imagining things.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Laura cried bitterly. “She’s got my diary.”

“I saw it.”

“Did you read it?”

“No, but Beebo did.”

“What did she say?” Laura’s throat had gone dry all of a sudden at the idea of Beebo perusing those private pages, and she took a sip of her whiskey.

“She wants to solve the whole thing by murdering you.”

“I think she would, too,” Laura said, unsurprised. “Oh, Jack, help me. I’m scared to death.”

“All right.” He came over, pulling his chair, and sat down beside her. “Marry me.”

Laura covered her face with her hands and gave a little moan. “Is that all you can think of? Is that all you can say?” she said, and she sounded a little desperate. “I’m in love with Tris, and Beebo wants to _murder_ me and you want to _marry_ me. What good will that do? I might as well be dead as married!” And she said it so emphatically that Jack was stung.

But he never let personal hurts show.

“Mother, you’re in a mess,” he said. “Nobody has a perfect solution for you. And you have none at all for yourself. So listen to one from an old friend who loves you and don’t stomp on it out of sheer spite.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, sipping the drink again. She let the tears flow unchecked, without really crying. Her face was motionless, but still the tears rolled down her cheeks, as if they had business of their own unrelated to her emotion.

“Tell me something,” Jack said gently, putting an arm over the back of her chair and leaning close to her. And as always with him, she didn’t mind. She liked his nearness and the fact that he was male and strong and full of affection for her. Perhaps it was because she knew he would never demand of her what a normal man would; because she felt so safe with him and so able to trust him. “Tell me why you went to live with Beebo two years ago,” he said.

“I thought I loved her.”

“Why did you think you loved her?” he asked.

“Because she—well, she was so—I don’t know, Jack. She excited me.”

He lighted a cigarette with a sigh. “And that’s love,” he said. “Excitement. As long as you’re excited you’re in love. When it turns flat you’re not in love. Lord, what a way to live.”

Laura was taken aback by the selfishness she betrayed. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. It had never seemed so cheap to her before.

“Are you in love with Tris?” he asked.

“I—I—” She was afraid to answer now.

“Sure you are,” he said. “Just like Beebo. Fascinating girl. More excitement. Beebo’s worn out now, let’s try Tris. And when we wear Tris out, let’s find another—”

“Stop it!” Laura begged.

“Where’s your life going, Laura?” he asked her. “What have you done with it so far? Does it matter a damn, really? To anybody but you ... and me?”

“And Beebo.”

“Beebo’s more worried about where her next drink is coming from than she is about you.” He knew it wasn’t true. He knew if it ever came to a choice, Beebo loved Laura desperately enough to give up drinking. But Jack was fighting for Laura now.

Laura began to cry now, her face concealed behind her hands. “Please, Jack,” she whispered, but he knew what he was doing. He had to make her see it his way so clearly, feel the hurt so hard, that she would turn away from the whole discouraging mess of homosexual life and come to live with him far from it all.

“Look at me, Laura,” he said and lifted her face. “We can’t think straight because we always think gay,” he said. “We don’t know anything about a love that lasts or a life that means something. We spend all our time on our knees singing hosannas to the queers. Trying to make ourselves look good. Trying to forget we aren’t wholesome and healthy like other people.”

“Some of the other people aren’t so damn wholesome either,” Laura said.

Jack put his arms around her suddenly and pulled her tight against him and said, “Let’s get out of it, Laura. Let’s run like hell while we have a chance. We could get away, just the two of us. But we can’t do it alone; we need each other. We could move uptown and get a nice apartment and you wouldn’t have to work. We could get married, honey.”

“But—”

“Please, Laura, please,” he begged her. “Maybe we could even ... adopt a child. Would you like that? Would you?” He sounded a little breathless and he leaned back to see her face.

Laura was startled. “I don’t know anything about kids. They scare me to death.”

“You’d get over it in a hurry,” he said. “You’re female. You have instinct on your side.”

“Do _you_ like kids?”

“I love them.”

“_I_ don’t. You’re more female than I am,” she said.

He laughed. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” he said. “Seriously, Laura—would you like a child? A daughter?”

“Why not a son?” she asked him, sharp-eyed.

“Okay.” He shrugged warily. “A son.”

Laura slid back in her chair and looked at the ceiling. “I never even thought about it before,” she said. “I just never dreamed I’d ever have anything to do with a child of my own ... with _any_ child.”

“Do you want one?” He seemed so eager that she was reluctant to hurt him. But she couldn’t lie to him.

“No,” she said. And when his face hardened, she added, “Because I’d be a terrible mother, Jack. I’d be afraid of it. And jealous, I think. I’d be all thumbs. I’d stick it full of pins and never be sure if I did it on purpose or by mistake.”

“You won’t always feel that way,” he said, and she knew from the tone of his voice that there was no arguing with him.

“Maybe not,” she said. “But if I marry you, Jack—” And they were both startled to hear the words, as if neither had really expected Laura to consider it seriously. “If I marry you, I wouldn’t dare adopt a child for years. Not till I was sure we were safe together and the marriage would last.”

“It would. It will. Say yes.”

“I can’t,” she said and drove him to his feet in a fit of temper.

“Goddam it, Laura, do you want to grow _old_ here in the Village?” he said. “Have you seen the pitiful old women in their men’s oxfords and chopped-off hair, stumping around like lost souls, wandering from bar to bar and staring at the pretty kids and weeping because they can’t have them any more? Or living together, two of them, ugly and fat and wrinkled, with nothing to do and nothing to care about but the good old days that are no more? Is that what you want? Because if you stay here, that’s what you’ll get.

“Pretty soon you won’t know any other way of life. You won’t know how to live in the big world. You don’t care a goddam about that world now when you’re young. So when you’re old you won’t _know_ a goddam about it. You’ll be afraid of it and of normal people and you’ll hide in a cheap walk-up with a dowdy old friend or a stinking cat and you’ll yammer about lost loves. Tempting, huh?” And he leaned on the kitchen table, his eyes so bright with urgency that she couldn’t look at them and only watched his mouth.

“Horrible,” she said.

He straightened up and shoved his hands in his pockets, and when he started to speak again he was gazing out the window. “I want to get so far away from here,” he said, “that—”

“That Terry will never find you again,” she guessed.

He dropped his head a little. “Yes,” he said. “That, too. Terry and Joe and Archie and John and God knows who. We’d go way uptown and leave no forwarding address ... nothing. Just fade out of the Village forever. No Beebo, no Terry....”

“No Tris,” Laura whispered.

“I told you, Mother ... I’m no bluebeard. If you want affairs, have them. You’re young, you need a few. Only keep them out of the Village and keep them very quiet.”

“Do you think Terry would really come looking for you again?” she asked. “After the way you threw him out?”

“There aren’t many men stupid enough to put up with his antics as I did,” he said. “I think he might try to put the touch on me between affairs.”

“Damn him!” Laura cried indignantly.

“Yes, he might try to find me. And Beebo would pace the city looking for you. But let them. We’d be through with them forever.”

And Laura felt a very queer unwelcome pang for Beebo, for all that wealth of misdirected love. Jack was standing behind her now, his hands on her shoulders. “Well?” he said quietly. “Will you marry me?”

“Could I—answer you in the morning?” she asked.

“What the hell will you do tonight?”

“See Tris.”

“Oh. And if she’s nice, it’s no to old Jack. If she’s bitchy, it’s yes. Right?” He said it lightly but she knew he was hurt.

“Not quite,” she said. “I want to test myself, I guess. Jack, for the first time I feel almost—almost like saying yes. But I want to see her first. Please let me.”

“You don’t need my permission, Mother.”

“Maybe Beebo’s found her already.”

“Beebo’s in bad shape. I lay odds she sleeps it off for a while. Even if she’s found Tris she won’t be in condition to do either of you much harm. Just call a cop and say she’s molesting you.”

Laura got up and turned to face him and they gazed at each other for some minutes in silence. “Okay, Mother,” he said. “Go. And come back _mine_.”

She smiled and then she walked past him to the door.

* * * * *

Tris was at home giving lessons when Laura got there. She had evening classes twice a week, for adults. She didn’t slam the door in Laura’s face, but she gave her a black look and directed her curtly to sit down and be quiet. Her delicate mouth was ever so slightly swollen.

Tris went back to work and danced with her pupils for another forty minutes without a word or a glance at Laura. It was lovely to watch. There were only two students—a man and a girl—and they were learning an intricate duet at Tris’s direction. They would execute what looked to Laura like a perfect step and suddenly Tris would swoop down on them, shouting temperamental criticisms. She finally made the man dance with her, to give the girl the idea.

Laura watched her fascinated as she leaped into his arms, straight and smooth and beautifully sure of herself. And Laura realized slowly that only when she danced with the man did Tris look over at her to see her expression.

_She’s trying to make me jealous_, Laura thought, and she was suddenly weary; weary of all the envy and ill feeling and violence. She wanted nothing more than to lie down quietly by Tris’s side, when the couple had gone, and gently, without explanations or apologies, make love till they both fell asleep. She knew if it happened like that—naturally and easily and without pain—that she would stay with Tris. But she was afraid that even if it were bitter and unhappy, she would stay anyway.

And still, an angry core of resentment smoldered in her, resentment at Tris for having the effrontery to walk in on Laura and Beebo and cause the bitter outburst that had separated them. She was brooding about this when Tris suddenly dismissed her dancers.

The two went into her bedroom to change and Laura waited for Tris to speak to her. But Tris only glared, performing a few indolent turns until her students returned. Then she unexpectedly introduced them all. She was curt, almost unpleasant about it.

The young man smiled at Laura and said, “Never mind her, she’s bad company tonight. Thanks, Tris.” And he gave her a strange look and left, following the girl.

Tris shut the door after them and turned to Laura. “The girl is insufferable,” she said. “She can’t dance, and she is a vixen besides.”

“The boy can dance,” Laura said, not without a jealous twitch.

“Yes, he can. He can make love, too. And he does—when I don’t have company.”

She said it pointedly and Laura felt her whole face go a hot red. She stood up without speaking and made for the door, her head swimming, but Tris stopped her there by embracing her. Laura was in no mood for Tris’s sudden turnabouts.

“God damn you, let me go,” she exclaimed.

“Tonight, I am grateful for the company,” Tris said. “He bores me.”

“I’ve had all I can take from you, Tris. You split me and Beebo up tonight—”

“Ah, then I did you a favor, no?” and she smiled.

“You damn near got me killed!”

“She is not gentle, is she?” Tris said, releasing Laura to touch her bruised mouth, but she was still smiling a little.

“Gentle?” Laura exploded. “Beebo? Gentle like a tornado. Why did you do it, Tris? _Why?_”

Tris shrugged, walking away from her. “I felt like it. I don’t know why. I wanted to see you. I wanted to see—well, I wondered what she was like ... Beebo.”

“You’re incredible,” Laura breathed, furious, watching her saunter suggestively toward her bedroom.

“Are you coming with me?” Tris asked.

And Laura felt her legs weaken and her heart jump, and she hated herself for it. “No,” she said.

“Of course you are. That is why you are here. Come.”

And Laura, helpless, went to her. Tris took her hands and led her, walking backwards herself, into the room and onto the low couch. She began to kiss her and Laura felt her fury rise and change into passion. Tris had never been so close to her, so tantalizing.

Somehow her anger made her passion sharper and wilder. She wanted to hurt Tris with it. Beebo believed they had made love, did she? Well, Laura would give truth to her fantasies.

Laura could feel Tris’s body begin to respond. A surging feeling of triumph flashed through her. She felt the familiar, wonderful insanity come over her and she relinquished herself wholly to feeling. It took her a few moments to understand that Tris was fighting her. And suddenly she came to herself with a shock and felt Tris slip away from her and saw her standing a few feet from the bed.

Tris gave her a look—almost of pity—and then turned and raced from the room. By the time Laura reached the door, it was locked. At first she was stunned, motionless. And then she began to throw her weight against it. “Tris! Tris, let me out!” she cried in a panic.

“Stay where you are till you cool off,” Tris said. Her voice was very near, just on the other side of the door, and Laura was wild to join her.

“Please, Tris!” she implored and her voice was low with coming tears. “Tris, don’t do this to me!” Her whole body ached and after a moment more of futile beating on the door she slumped to the floor, moaning.

A long time later she dragged herself off the floor and back to the bed and lay there, sleepless, until early dawn. She was sick with the need to hurt and the need for love all scrambled inside her; she was imprisoned in her homosexuality and thinking ... thinking hard of Jack.

The first daylight was coming in the window when Laura heard the door open and saw Tris glide across the floor toward her. Laura smothered a first harsh impulse to jump at her. Tris came on tiptoe, thinking Laura would be asleep, and when she saw Laura’s blue eyes staring at her, she was startled.

Then she came and sat in silence on the edge of the bed and looked at Laura for a while, until Laura, who was restraining herself tightly, saw that Tris was crying. And the crying became suddenly audible and made Tris cover her face with her hands. Laura lay beside her, refusing to touch her, feeling her spite and misery soften a little, feeling even a shade of pity. She wanted to beat the girl and at the same time stroke her shaking shoulders.

Tris turned her back to Laura and finally spoke with considerable effort. “I’m going out on the Island tomorrow,” she said. “For two weeks, a vacation. Come with me.”

Laura stared at her back, frowning in disbelief. “What?” she said.

“I want you to come with me,” Tris whispered. Her voice sounded, as once before, quite American.

“You must enjoy torturing me,” Laura said.

There was a long pause while Tris snatched a piece of face tissue from a box by the bed and blew her nose. Finally she said, “It was torture for me, too. But still, it was inexcusable, what I did to you. I was a beast. I—I can’t talk about it,” and she gave a quick sob. “But I promise it will never happen again—if you promise never to mention it. Promise?” And she turned and looked at Laura.

“Why did you do it?” Laura asked.

“I had to! I _had_ to! I wanted to hurt you—last night—you made me feel—” and her speech was clipped again and careful—“you made me want you so much, Laura. And I hate it! I _hate_ it!” She was almost shrieking.

“Why?” Laura asked.

“Because I’m not really a Lesbian. Not like you. It’s men I love, Laura. Really,” she added desperately.

And Laura felt compassion for her. “You’re sick, Tris,” she said, but she said it kindly.

“Sick?” And Tris went a strange ashy color that scared Laura. “How do you mean?”

Laura realized then that she couldn’t destroy Tris’s illusion without destroying Tris. She raised herself to one elbow and brushed away the tears on Tris’s cheek. “Let’s put it this way,” she said. “If you feel like this about me, we shouldn’t be together any more. In two weeks we’d drive each other wild. I know you feel terrible about last night, Tris, I can see it. I know I can’t forget you, or forgive what you did. If we were living together, I’d want you and you’d hate me for it. And pretty soon I’d hate you too, for denying me.”

“I won’t deny you, Laura,” Tris whispered, without looking at her. “I promise you. If you’d just let me do it my way. Don’t let it be like last night. When I feel as if I’m losing control, it’s as if I were drowning, as if I were losing my sanity along with my will. It’s as if—if I let it happen—I—I’ll lose my mind.” She spoke so painfully, with such evident anxiety, that Laura was touched.

“Poor Tris,” she murmured, and smoothed her hair. “I thought I’d be pulling your hair out this morning, not playing with it,” she said, running her long fingers over the sleek black braid.

“Come with me,” Tris pleaded. “Let me make it up to you.”

“Where are you going? Fire Island?”

“God, no!” Tris flared. “_That_ place! It’s crawling with queers. I wouldn’t go near it.”

“Tris ...,” Laura said, a little hesitantly. Her ear did not betray her. Tris’s accent fluctuated strangely and roused her curiosity. She asked cautiously, “What part of India do you come from?”

“Why do you ask?” And Tris’s eyes narrowed.

Laura lifted her shoulders casually. “You never told me.”

“I said New Delhi.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Besides, it has nothing to do with the vacation. I’m going to a place on Long Island. Stone Harbor. It’s not far from Montauk, on the north side. I have a cottage there for two weeks. It’s very secluded. No one will bother us. I was there last year and it’s really lovely. You’d like it, Laura, I know you would. You can swim every day—we’re only two blocks from the beach and—”

“Tris?” Laura stopped the almost compulsive flow of speech and startled the dancer.

“Yes?”

“Why won’t you tell me about India?”

“You wouldn’t be interested.”

“I’d be fascinated. Everything about you fascinates me. For instance, what are you doing in this country?”

“Dancing.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Dead.”

“How did you get here?”

“Scholarship.”

“Are you a citizen?”

“Laura, stop it! Why do you ask me such things? What has this to do with our vacation? I refuse to be quizzed like a criminal. We’ll leave tomorrow at eight. Can you be packed by then? I’ve rented a car.”

“I can’t even get into my own apartment,” Laura admitted. “You fixed me up just fine.”

“Of course you can. Call the police.” Her odd green eyes flashed.

“No. Maybe Jack could get my things. I’ll call him.”

“Who’s Jack?”

“Jack? He’s a—sort of—fiancé. A permanent fiancé.” She smiled slightly.

Tris snorted. “Does he know you are gay?”

“Of course.” She would tell her no more. If Tris were going to seal her private life behind a wall of secrets, Laura could play it that way, too. “Can I use your phone?” she asked.

“Yes. In the kitchen.” Tris followed her across the empty studio into the sunny blue and yellow kitchen and while Laura was dialing she asked, “You will come, of course?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Laura said. “... Jack?”

“Good morning, Mother.”

“Jack, I wonder if you could—if you’d mind going over to the apartment and getting my clothes. Do you think you could? I hate to ask you, but I don’t dare go near her.”

“Sure,” he said. “Did you pass your test?”

“My test? Oh.” She glanced at Tris. “I—I flunked,” she said and felt a tidal wave of pity and shame all at once. “Jack—I’m sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry. Let me come over—”

“Come get your clothes at five,” he said. “I’ll leave the door open.” And he hung up.

Laura surprised Tris by dropping into a chair and sobbing. Tris sat down opposite her and waited in silence till she caught her breath, expecting an explanation. But Laura only dried her eyes and asked for some coffee.

Jack wasn’t home when she went to pick up her clothes. She had known he wouldn’t be there, and still it made her want to weep. She was in a blue mood, and even the sight of Tris, waiting for her outside at the wheel of a rented convertible, didn’t cheer her up. She made several trips with the clothes, leaving most of her other possessions behind, and on the last trip she wrote him a note. It said, in part:

_You’re the only man I would ever marry, Jack. Maybe it will still work out. Tris wants me to spend two weeks with her on Long Island. I’ll call you the minute I get back. I’m crazy about her, but she’s a sick girl and I’ve had enough of wild scenes with sick lovers. I don’t know what to expect so am leaving most of my things here. Hope they won’t be too much in the way. I quit my job, by the way. Will find something else when I get back. Thank you so much for everything, Jack darling. Hope Beebo didn’t give you any trouble. Don’t start drinking, I’m not worth it. I love you. Laura._

* * * * *

The cabin had two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, and a bathroom. It was furnished à la 1935, full of sand and ants, but comfortable. The walk to the beach was short and just enough to get you pleasantly warm before you soaked in the salt water.

There were a lot of other vacationers living all around them—young couples with dozens of hollering kids, mostly. Laura watched them romping on the sand, the little ones screaming and giggling and pouring water on each other. She wondered if she could ever want a child.

She lay on the beach with Tris, the day after they arrived, and luxuriated in the sun. Tris had lathered herself lovingly with rich sun cream and was sitting under a huge beach umbrella that she had erected with the help of a young man they discovered while they looked for a place to lie down. He was not very subtle about his admiration, which he confined to Tris. And Laura was not very pleased to see her prance for him. But she said nothing.

“You’ll burn to a crisp, Laura,” Tris warned her.

“I put some stuff on,” Laura said lazily, wiggling a little and feeling the hot rays toast the backs of her legs.

“Not enough for one so fair,” Tris maintained. “Such fair skin you have.” And Laura heard the yearning in her voice. “If mine were that light I would never expose it like you do. I’d do everything to keep it as light as I could. Even bleach it. They say buttermilk works wonders.”

Laura looked up at her through eyes squinted against the sun. “Your skin is beautiful, Tris.”

“Oh, not like yours,” Tris said, embarrassed.

“How can you say that? You’re the prettiest color I ever saw.”

“And you’re a dirty hypocrite!” Tris snapped.

Laura stared at her, dumbfounded, for some seconds, before she answered softly, “No, I mean it.” She was afraid to say more. “You think I only say it to flatter you, don’t you?” she asked finally. “I won’t say it, then. I’d rather you turned your temper on yourself than on me.”

After an elaborately casual pause, full of much smoothing lotion and gazing around, Tris said, “Do you really like my color?” The little-girl pleading in her voice touched Laura.

“If I say yes, you call me a liar. If I say no you call me a bigot.”

“Say yes.”

“Yes.” And Laura smiled at her and Tris smiled back and gave Laura the feeling of false but sweet security.

Tris said, “Did you ever notice, when we lie on the bed together, how we look?”

Laura finished, “Yes, I noticed.” She looked at Tris in surprise. It wasn’t like her to mention such things. “Me so white and you so brown. It looks like poetry, Tris. Like music, if you could see music. Your body looks so warm and mine looks so cool. And inside, we’re just the other way around. Isn’t it funny? I’m the one who’s always on fire. And you’re the iceberg.” She laughed a little. “Maybe I can melt you,” she said.

“Better not. The brown comes off,” Tris said cynically, but her strange thought excited Laura.

“God, what a queer idea!” Laura said. “You’d have to touch me everywhere then, every corner of me, till we were both the same color. Then you’d be almost white and I’d be almost tan—and yet we’d be the same.” She looked at Tris with her squinty eyes that sparkled in the glancing sun. And Tris, struck herself by the strangeness of it, murmured, “I never thought of it that way.”

Laura hoped Tris would look at it that way for the rest of the vacation.

7

Jack walked into his apartment at five-thirty in the afternoon, tired and thirsty but dolefully sober. He was a stubborn man and he had dedicated all his resistance to fighting liquor. He meant to head for the kitchen and consume a pint of cider and fix himself some dinner. Since Laura had left five days ago he had not had much appetite. He did not admit that she would ever come back or that he had lost a battle. It was only a temporary setback. But it rocked him a little and it hurt him a lot.

He came wearily down the hall, stuck his key belligerently into the lock and kicked his front door open. He dumped a paper bag full of light bulbs, cigarettes, and Scotch tape on a chair, switched on a light and started toward his kitchen. It came as a distinct shock to find Laura sitting on his sofa.

He stared at her. She had her legs up, crossed, on the cocktail table, and her head back, gazing at the ceiling. She knew he was there, of course; she heard him come in. She turned and looked at him finally, and something in her face dispelled his melancholy. He felt elated. But he checked it carefully. He slipped his coat off without a word, dropped it on the chair with his package, and walked over to her, standing in front of her with his hands in his pockets.

“Run out of suntan lotion?” he said.

“No. But you’re out of whiskey.”

“I gave it to Beebo. Traded it for your clothes.”

“Take the clothes back and get the whiskey.”

“Later,” he said, and smiled. Then he added, “Was it bad?”

“Very bad,” Laura said and for a moment they both feared she would start crying. But she didn’t.

“Want to tell me?”

“Jack,” she said with an ironic little smile. “You’ll have to write a book about me someday. I tell you everything.”

He grinned. “I’ll leave that to somebody else. But I’m saving my notes, just in case.” He sat down beside her. “Well, it could only be one of three things, seeing that she’s gay,” he said. “She’s a whore.”

“No.”

“A junkie.”

“No.”

“—or she’s married.”

“She’s married.”

He lighted a cigarette with a long sigh, his eyes bright on her.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“I didn’t. But it had to be something that would shock you. And you seem pretty damn nervous about the idea of gay people being married.” He paused and she had to drop her glance. “Does she hate him?” he asked returning to Tris.

“Most of the time. God, Jack, I need a drink.”

“Steady, Mother. My neighbor always has a supply. I’ll fix you up.” He came back in less than three minutes with a bottle of sparkling burgundy.

“Ugh!” Laura said. But she took it gratefully.

“Now,” he said, settling down on the cocktail table with a cup of instant coffee, “begin at the beginning.”

Laura rubbed her forehead and then sipped the prickly drink. “It started ... beautifully,” she said. “Like a dream. It was all hot sand and cool water and kisses. We held hands in the movie, we sat up till all hours in front of the fireplace with a bottle of Riesling and sang, and danced. We traded secrets and we made plans. We made a boat trip to the point—”

“Did you make love?”

“You just can’t wait, can you?” she said, half teasing, half irritated.

“My future may depend on it,” he said and shrugged.

There was a long reflective pause and finally Laura said, sadly, “Yes. We made love. Only once.”

“And that was the end?”

“It wasn’t that simple. You see, she—well, she flirted. She flirted with men until I thought I couldn’t stand it. Till I wanted to flirt myself to get even, if only I weren’t so damn awkward with men. She’s not. She’s a genius with them. She didn’t give a damn if they were married or not. She had them all proposing to her.

“After the first couple of days it got intolerable. She had been making me sleep on one bed and she took the other. And after she turned the lights out she made a rule—no bed hopping.”

“And you obeyed her little rule?”

“I had to, Jack,” she defended herself. “We had a sort of agreement before we left the Village.... It was supposed to be up to her to choose the time and place.”

“That’s the lousiest agreement _you_ ever made, Mother,” he commented.

“No. She’s sick, you see. Really. She thinks she’s straight. And if you hint she’s not, she gets terrified. Almost hysterical. She can’t accept it.”

“Why do you always fall for these well adjusted ladies?” he asked.

“Beth was well adjusted.”

“Beth is dead. As far as you’re concerned.” Laura glared at him while he smiled slightly, lighting another cigarette from the one he was finishing. “So Tris is a queer queer,” he said. “And she flirts with the opposite sex. Very subversive. So what came next?”

“Well, they followed us home—”

“Who?”

“Men!” she flashed peevishly. “They followed us at the beach, in the bars, in the stores. They followed _Tris_, I should say. I was cold as hell with them. I tried to keep quiet about it, but after three days of it I blew up. We had a miserable quarrel, and I was ready to pack up and leave right then. But she relented suddenly. I don’t know why. I think she really likes me, Jack. Anyway, she got drunk. Just enough so that she wouldn’t have to watch what I did to her ... or hear what I said to her ... or care too much....”

“That’s pretty drunk,” Jack said. He knew from the way she spoke that it had hurt her to make love like that, wanting so much herself, and herself so unwanted. “I know, Laura honey, I know the feeling,” he said and the words comforted her.

“Jack, I hope I always love you this much,” she said softly.

He looked up from his coffee cup with a little smile. “So do I,” he said. And they looked at each other without speaking for a minute before she went on.

“Well,” she said, “it was torture. I didn’t want it any more than she did, if it had to be so cold and sad, and at the same time I _had_ to have her. I was on fire for her. I have to give her credit, Jack, she tried. But it didn’t mean anything to her.”

“It’s a lonesome job,” Jack said. “And it’s never worth it.”

“I cried all night,” Laura said. “Afterwards ... I just got in my own bed and cried. And she was awake all night too, but she didn’t come to me or try to comfort me. I think she was embarrassed. I think she just wished she’d never gotten mixed up with me.

“The next night—around dinner time—her husband arrived. I don’t know whether she got sick of me or just scared and called him, or if they got their dates scrambled and he came too soon. You see, it turned out she had planned to meet him out there all along, after I left. But maybe I got to be too much for her and she told him to come and chase me out.... I don’t know. There wasn’t time to go into the fine points. But I think myself she needed a man just then, to make herself feel normal. And protected.”

“What was he like?”

“A nice guy. He really is. I know I sound—Tris would say—hypocritical. But I liked him. I understood right away, the minute I saw him, an awful lot of things about Tris.”

“How?”