Chapter VI: Part 6

It was warm and well-lighted. It was pretty and it was comfortable. It was home. And Laura felt a sort of gratitude to Jack that needed words. She went to find him. But he wasn’t in the living room, nor in the bedroom.

She stood on the threshold of the bedroom and said, “Jack? Hey, Jack! Where are you?”

“Here,” he said from the kitchen.

“Oh. It’s me. I thought you’d be in bed.” She slipped her coat off while she walked through the living room to find him. “Hi,” she said. He was sitting on a kitchen chair and he answered, “Hi.”

Laura stood in the doorway and looked at him. And he stared back at her, and she knew something was wrong but she didn’t know what. Her long fine hair had come loose when she ran from Beebo and she reached up and pulled it down in a shimmering cascade, watching Jack all the while through narrowed eyes.

“Have fun?” he asked.

“Beebo and Tris ... are ... shacking up.” She threw it at him point-blank. She wanted his sympathy.

Jack put his head back and laughed, that awful bitter laugh she hadn’t heard for months, and she knew with a sudden start of fear and pity that he was drunk. “That makes everything perfect,” he said, still laughing, his eyes wicked and sharp behind the horn rims.

“Jack ...,” she said shakily, coming in to sit beside him and seeing now the whiskey bottle on the table in front of him, two-thirds empty. “Jack, darling.” She took his hands and her eyes were big with alarm.

Jack took his hands back. Not roughly, but as if he simply didn’t want to be touched. Not by Laura, anyway.

“Mother, you are a living doll. If I had known you could keep secrets so well I’d have told you a few,” he said. He spoke, as always when he was drunk, with a slow precision, as if each word were a stepping stone.

“Secrets?” Laura said.

“You are the living picture of guilt, my dear,” he said. “It is written all over your beautiful face.”

Laura put her hands over that face suddenly with a gasp. “Terry!” she sobbed through clenched teeth. “_Terry!_ If I hadn’t gone out he wouldn’t have come.”

“He comes when the mood hits him,” Jack said. “Which is most of the time, most anywhere. It had nothing to do with you going out, my little wifey.”

Laura looked up, her delicate face mottled pink and white and wet from the eyes down. “He wrote—”

“Indeed he did. He told me the whole romantic story.”

“Jack, darling, I only kept it secret because I was afraid you’d—you’d start drinking, or something—I—”

“You hit the nail on the head. I’m indebted to you. Your solicitude is exemplary.” He waved the fast-emptying bottle at her.

“Oh, shut up! Shut up! I _love_ you. I did it because I love you.”

“You opened my mail because you love me?” He continued to drink while he talked ... slowly, but steadily.

“I knew it was from him, Jack. I just had a feeling. The handwriting and everything.”

He laughed ruefully. “Just think what you’ve spared me!” he said. “I can drink in peace now. My wife loves me. Thanks, wife.” He saluted her.

Laura slid off her chair to her knees and put her arms around him, still crying. “Jack, Jack, please forgive me. I’ll do anything, I couldn’t bear to hurt you, I’d die first. Oh, please—”

“You’re forgiven,” he interrupted her. “Why not?” And he kept on laughing. But his pardon was so light, so biting, that she cringed from it. She lifted her face to him, streaming with tears, and he said, smiling at her, “You make a lovely picture, Mother. Sort of Madonna-like. If I could paint you, I’d paint you. Black, I think. From head to toe.”

She put her head down on his knees and said softly, “You’ll never forgive me, will you?”

“I already have.”

“Never,” she whispered, stricken.

“Oh, let’s not get maudlin,” he said. “I admit I would have been grateful for a little forewarning. But after all, it’s a simple question of sex. Maybe I should get rid of mine. That would solve everything.” And his soft, insane chuckling underlined everything he said.

Laura felt terror then. It rose and fell inside her like nausea. Whenever she looked at Jack it surged in her throat. It wasn’t the sweet guilty thrill of coming near Beebo that had cost her such sensual pain earlier in the evening.

“Jack, darling,” she said.

“Yes, Laura darling.” And the sarcasm burned her. But she went on, determined, raising herself back into her chair again with effort.

“Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”

“Oh, it was dandy,” he said. “You should have been here. Incidentally, he asked about your health.” Laura couldn’t watch him while he talked. She looked at her hands. And all the while he told her about it she kept thinking, _If only I hadn’t gone out tonight. Every time I do something completely selfish I suffer for it. And so does he. Damn Terry! Damn him to hell! He won’t ruin Jack, I won’t let him. This is once he won’t have his way._

* * * * *

It had been so completely unexpected, so startling, that Jack would never forget it or recover from it. Terry was as far removed from his life as if he were dead. And his life, Jack felt, had become a good thing at last. He had Laura to live for, not a wild, irresistible, good-for-nothing boy who wore him out and broke his heart and his bankroll. He had a new stature in the world as a married man, a new security. And the sweet hope of a child someday....

When he heard the bell ring, almost an hour after Laura had gone out, he took it for a neighbor and stood with the front door open while the elevator ascended. But when Terry stepped out, Jack was speechless. He couldn’t believe it, and he would have slammed the door and passed it off as a nightmare if he could have moved a little faster.

But Terry caught him and from then on it was as degrading and overwhelming as it had ever been. Jack put up the best fight he could, but it was little more than a gesture of protest. He was helplessly angry, helplessly infatuated. And all the while Terry prated to him of San Francisco and the Beats and the fog and the styles in clothes and the styles in love-making, Jack kept wondering, _How did he find me?_ And the answer was, had to be, _Laura_. Laura had failed him. Betrayed him. It almost tore him apart.

Terry didn’t leave until nearly eleven, and Jack saw him out, still with the feeling that it hadn’t happened, that it was all an incredible dream. It wasn’t until he got the bottle and began to drink that he believed in it at all. By the time Laura got home he wished the whole damned world to hell, with himself first in line.

* * * * *

“And that’s all,” Jack said. “Naturally, the only thing to do after he left was get drunk.” He had nearly finished the bottle and it was all he could do to get the words out. They left his mouth slowly, discreetly, each one a pearl of over-articulation.

Laura took away what was left—a shot or two at the most—and he didn’t even try to protest. She helped him up and half dragged, half carried him to the bedroom, where she dumped him on his bed. He was unconscious the minute she pushed his head down on the pillow. Laura undressed him, tears running down her face.

“Sleep,” she said. “Sleep and forget it for a while. I’ll make it up to you, darling. All I wanted tonight was to cry on your shoulder. And you can’t even hold yourself up.”

She dragged and shoved and pulled until she got him under the covers. “He won’t get you, Jack,” she whispered. “You’d fight for me if I were in trouble. And I’ll fight for you.”

* * * * *

In the morning, Laura got up, moving softly as a bird on the sand, and left him to himself in the bedroom, still noisily and miserably asleep with a full-blown, brutal hangover brewing under his closed eyes.

She had to make it up to him, redeem herself. And she could only think of one thing. So before noon she called Terry and asked him to dinner.

“Sounds great,” he said in innocent surprise and pleasure. “I was counting on mooching from you,” he admitted, laughing.

When Jack woke up she told him what she had done. She waited until he had had four cups of coffee and eight aspirins and some forced warm milk and raw egg. He said nothing but “No. No! _No!_” to whatever she was trying to get into him. He sat in the kitchen with his head in his hands, and Laura began to fear he was still a little drunk. She had thrown out the rest of the whiskey.

“Where’s the bottle?” he asked her finally, around the middle of the afternoon.

“Gone. I tossed it.”

He nodded painfully, resigned.

“Jack,” she said softly. “Terry’s coming to dinner.”

He lifted his throbbing head to gape at her. “Are you trying to kill me, Mother? Or just drive me nuts?” he said.

“I’m going to save you. Save _us_,” she said passionately. “We’re at the crossroads, Jack. This is the first real crisis we’ve had. We can’t just fall apart. We have too much to save, too much worth saving. We have love, too, and I’m not going to let him hurt you any more.” Somehow in the strength she found to fight Jack’s battle was the strength to fight her own. The downright shock and humiliation of finding that her two ex-lovers were romancing might have thrown her into a full-blown depression. But now she hadn’t time. It was Jack’s turn. She loved him, she was absolutely sure of that. She was not absolutely sure she loved Tris any more. Nor was she sure now that she _didn’t_ love Beebo. Jack was her security, her chosen life; he deserved her loyalty.

But to her chagrin, her noble speech had very little effect on him. He got out of his chair with much agonized effort, making a face, and headed for the coat closet.

“Where are you going?” she asked anxiously, running after him.

“For a bottle.”

“Oh, Jack, no!”

He turned to face her, sliding awkwardly into his coat sleeves. “Do you want me to go through this sober?”

“Darling, you don’t even have to _look_ at him! You can lock yourself in the john and sing hymns if you want to. I just want to talk to him.”

“About the weather?”

“I’ll get him out of here, I swear I will!”

“How? With a can opener? TNT?” He was moving toward the door as he spoke with Laura clinging to his arm and trying to hold him back.

“Darling, trust me!” she begged. She was not at all sure that she could get Terry out again, once he got in, but she had to make Jack calm down. She was frantic to stop him.

“Trust you?” He turned and looked at her uncertainly, his hand on the front door knob, and gave a little snort. “That doesn’t work. I tried it.”

“Oh, you damn, fatuous idiot!” she cried in exasperation, dropping his arm to stamp to the middle of the room and face him from there as if from a podium. “I open _one_ goddam letter—out of love and anxiety—to spare you pain. And the thing backfires. Do you have to crucify yourself? I said I was sorry and I am. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she yelled.

“Were you born that way?” he snapped.

“Shut up and listen!” she cried. “Jack, let me make it up to you, let me _try_. You have no right to call yourself my husband if you won’t give me a chance, and I’m telling you right now, Jack Mann, if you won’t I’ll walk out of this house and your life forever.” She paused, flushed and trembling, for breath, while Jack stared at her, surprised, half-convinced, and himself trembling slightly from the hangover.

Finally he went to the arm of the nearest chair and sat down and said, “All right, Wife. Read him the riot act while I sing hymns in the bathroom, if you think it’ll do any good.”

“Oh, Jack.” She ran to him, all pity and tenderness, and kissed his frowning face. He put his head back and ignored her.

Terry arrived at seven, half an hour late, with a huge bouquet of roses for Laura. “For Mrs. Mann,” he said, bowing, and then gave her a quick embrace. “You look great, honey.”

“Thanks,” she said with reserve. “I’ll put them in water.”

“Where’s Jack? Oh, there you are.” Terry made a running jump to the couch where Jack was lying in state, wearing his hangover like a royal robe.

Jack let out all his breath in a wail of anguish when Terry hit him.

“Where did you get the flowers?” Laura asked, coming back in with them arranged in a tall vase.

“Nick’s. On the corner. I had to charge ’em to you, Laur. I hope you don’t mind.” He smiled charmingly. “Your credit’s much better than mine around here.”

Jack laughed softly. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” he said to Terry.

Laura sat down and looked at Terry’s bright young face, smiling happily around a mouthful of salted pecans, and wondered if her little trick would work. It had to. But it might not. She felt a little sick, seeing Jack so miserable.

“No drinks?” Terry said, suddenly conscious of the lack of alcohol.

“Milk,” Laura offered.

“Milk punch?” he asked.

“Just bare milk,” Jack drawled.

“What’s the matter with you?” Terry said and laughed at him. “Have a nut.” And he popped one in Jack’s half open mouth. “You aren’t on the wagon, are you?”

“I was,” Jack said. “Till last night.”

“No kidding. God. Amazing. Since when?”

“Since we got married last August. A little before.”

“Laura, how’d you do it?” He grinned at her.

“I didn’t have to,” she said. “The day you walked out of his life all the good things walked in.”

“Including you?” Terry asked.

“Including me,” she shot back.

“Oh.” He smiled ruefully. “I wasn’t _that_ bad, was I?” he asked Jack. He seemed to think it was comfortably funny, like everything else connected with Jack. “Did I drive you to drink, honey?” he said.

“Only on the bad days,” Jack said. “Unfortunately, there weren’t any good days.”

Terry laughed and stuck another nut in Jack’s mouth.

“That’s all,” Jack told him, wincing. “The damn pecans sound like depth charges when I chew.” He stroked his head carefully.

There was a silence while Terry ate, Laura stared at him nervously, and Jack concentrated on his pains. Laura wanted to make Terry uncomfortable, self-conscious. But it was nearly a lost cause.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked suddenly, unaware that he was supposed to notice the silence.

She told him.

“Great,” he said. More silence. Laura was determined to embarrass him, and Jack was too ill to care about conversation. Slowly, Terry began to realize something was amiss. Rather than take the hint he tried to lighten the atmosphere with chatter.

“How do you like the married life, old man?” he asked.

“He liked it fine the day before yesterday,” Laura said crisply. Jack groaned. Terry understood.

He sat up and leaned toward his hostess. “Laura, honey, I don’t want to mess things up for you,” he said. “I just love Jack, too, that’s all. You know that. You always knew it, even before you got married.”

“I know you nearly killed him,” she said quietly.

“No fair exaggerating.”

“No fair, hell. It’s true!” she exclaimed.

“It’s not either!” he said with good-humored indignation, as if they were playing parlor games. “Is it, Jack?”

But Jack, his eyes on Laura now, kept silent.

“Well,” Terry admitted, “I was pretty bitchy sometimes. But so was he. And no matter what, we loved each other. Even at the end, when he kicked me out.”

“If he hadn’t kicked you out that night he might have killed himself with liquor.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Laura threw her hands up, exasperated. “What more do you _want_ from Jack, Terry?” she said. “What do you want from _me_?”

Terry grinned. “Equal time,” he said, nodding at the bedroom.

Jack laughed weakly and Laura got up and stamped her foot. “Terry, Jack loves you. I know that and I’ll have to live with it. But that love is destructive, and I’m asking you now to get out of our lives forever and never come back to hurt us again.” She said it with quiet intensity.

“Before dinner?” he asked.

“Oh, God!” Laura spluttered at the ceiling.

Terry lighted a cigarette for Jack, who had fumbled one from the box on the cocktail table, and told Laura, “I can’t go away forever. Any more than you could desert Beebo forever. I love him. I’m stuck with him.”

“I’ve _left_ Beebo,” she said.

“You’ll go back,” he told her serenely. “It was that kind of affair.”

Laura held on to her self control as her last and dearest possession. She didn’t dare to lose it. “Take me seriously, Terry,” she begged, almost in a whisper. “Please let us live together in peace.”

Terry shrugged. He didn’t like to get serious. “What are you going to do the rest of your lives?” he asked them. “Live like a couple of old maids in your fancy little apartment? Pretend you’re both straight? What a kick!” He said it sarcastically but without malice. “A kick like that won’t last long, you know.”

“It’s not a kick. It’s something we both need and want,” Laura said earnestly.

“Nuts,” Terry said amiably. “What you both need and want is a few parties. Get out and camp. Do you good.”

“Sure,” Laura said sharply. “So you make love to Jack and he goes out and drinks a fifth of whiskey, after _eight months_ on the wagon. Was that what you had in mind?”

Terry made a little grimace of perplexity. “That was pretty silly,” he told Jack. “Now she won’t let me see you at all.”

“He needs me more than he needs you, Terry,” Laura said.

“Yeah? But he _wants_ me more.” He grinned at her. “You’ve got to admit that counts for something,” he told her. “I can give him something you can’t give him.” He looked so smug, so sure of himself, that Laura, with her heart in her throat, decided to pull her rabbit out of the hat. If it didn’t work, she would have to give up.

“And I can give him something _you_ can’t give him,” she said, her voice low and tense. “A child.”

There was a long stunned silence. Jack and Terry both stared at her—Jack with a slight smile of amazement and Terry with open-mouthed dismay.

“A child!” Terry blurted finally. “Don’t tell _me_! I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“It’s true,” Laura spat at him. “And I’m not going to have any empty-headed, pretty-faced queers hanging around my baby! Not even _you_, Terry Fleming.”

Terry turned to gape at Jack, his mouth still ajar. “She’s kidding!” he exclaimed. “Isn’t she?”

Jack paused slightly and then shook his head, and the strange little smile on his face widened. It was brilliant, he thought. Cruel, to himself even more than to Terry, because it wasn’t true. But clever.

Terry stood up, bewildered, and walked around the living room. Laura watched him, her face flushed, sweating with expectation. Finally Terry turned to look at them. Jack, raising himself on one elbow, watched him.

“Do you still want me to have dinner with you?” he asked wryly, and Laura saw hesitation in his look and felt a first small hope.

She didn’t know what to say. But she was thinking, _I’ve made Jack a man in his eyes now. He’s thinking, Jack can do what he could never do himself. He’s thinking, at least if I was wrong about him ruining Jack’s life, I’m right about ruining a baby’s. He knows damn well he could do that. Or does he?_

But at least he _was_ thinking. His lovely young face was screwed up with the effort.

Suddenly he said to Laura, as if expecting to trip her up, “When’s it due? The kid?”

“November,” she said. She had anticipated him.

“Well!” His face brightened. “If it isn’t due till November, we’ve got a long time to play around.” And it was Jack he looked at now.

But Laura jumped at him, bristling. “I don’t want an alcoholic for a husband!” she said. “I don’t want my baby to have an alcoholic for a father. A drunken, miserable, tormented man who doesn’t know which sex he is, who has to chase around after a thoughtless character like you all night. I don’t want to lose my husband, Terry. Not to you or any other gay boy in the world. You’d ruin his health and make him wild inside of a month.”

She was crying, though she didn’t realize it, and her cheeks were flaming. Terry stared at her for some moments in surprised silence. And then he looked at Jack, who was still propped on one arm, taking it all in with an inscrutable smile.

“Well ...,” Terry said again, almost diffidently. Apparently he believed they were having a child. He looked to Jack for moral support. “Is that the way you feel too, honey?” he asked.

“Why certainly,” Jack said cheerfully, incongruously. “Can’t you tell? Whatever she says, goes.” A soft note of hysteria sounded in his voice.

“I guess you don’t want me to stay for dinner now,” Terry said, glancing at Laura. For answer she only turned away and began to cry. Terry walked over to Jack and knelt before him on the floor, putting his hands on Jack’s shoulders. “I do love you, Jack. I never lied about that. I didn’t know it was so bad. For you, I mean. I still don’t see how it could have been. But I don’t want to mess things up for the kid. Shall I go? _You_ tell me.” He waited, watching Jack’s face.

“I told you to leave me once, Terry. I haven’t the strength to say it again. It’s up to you.”

Terry leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. “If you haven’t the strength to say it, I haven’t the strength to do it. No matter what she says,” he said.

Laura came at him suddenly from across the room. “Go!” she flashed. “Go, damn you, and never come back!”

Terry looked uncertainly from Laura to Jack, and Jack covered his face abruptly with a noise rather like a sob.

Terry stood up. “All right,” he said in a husky voice. “I’ll go. I’ll go for the baby’s sake. But not forever, Laura. Not forever.”

At the front door he turned to her. “You say you love him,” he said. “Then you must understand why I _can’t_ leave him forever. I love him too.” He said it sadly but matter-of-factly. And Laura, staring at him through tear-blurred eyes, realized that he never would understand what he had done to Jack or how. He thought it was a simple matter of giving a kid a break. And because he loved Jack enough he was able to do it.

“Enjoy your flowers,” he said with a rueful grin, and then Terry went out the front door and shut it carefully behind him. Neither Jack nor Laura stirred nor made a sound until they heard the elevator arrive, the doors open, shut again, and the elevator leave.

“He’s gone,” she whispered. “Dear God, don’t let him ever come back.”

Jack rolled over, his back to her, and wept briefly and painfully with desperate longing. There was a moment of silence while she watched him fearfully. And then he stood up and headed for the door. Laura threw herself against it.

“No! Don’t follow him, Jack!” she implored, her voice rising.

“I won’t,” he said, trying to reach past her to open the door, but she threw her arms around him and begged him to stay with her.

“I got him to leave, Jack. He won’t dare come back for a long time. Maybe he’ll find somebody new. Maybe we’ll be lucky and he’ll never come back.”

“I should be so lucky,” he said acidly.

She looked at him, dismayed. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” she asked.

He stopped trying to grab the doorknob for a minute to look at her. “Yes,” he said, with effort. And after a pause, “You were masterful, Mother. You really played your scene.”

She looked at the floor confusedly, hearing all the sarcasm and the hurt and the grudging admiration in his voice. “Do you hate me for it?” she asked.

“No. I’m grateful.”

“Do you still love me?” she whispered.

“Yes. But don’t ask me to prove it now.” He got the door open in a sudden deft gesture, but Laura was still clutching him.

“Where are you going?” she asked fearfully.

“For a bottle.”

“Oh, God!” she gasped. “Then it’s all been for nothing,” she said despairingly.

“No,” he said. “I’m not drinking this for Terry. I’m drinking it for the baby.”

“The baby?” she said tremulously.

“The little kid who wasn’t there.”

He turned to go and she followed him into the hall.

“But Jack—” she protested as he rang for the elevator. “Jack, I—I—” She looked up and saw the long bronze needle moving swiftly toward “three” as the elevator ascended, having barely emptied Terry into the first floor. It seemed to be measuring off the last seconds of their marriage. She had to do something. Trembling and scared, she caught his lapels and said, with great difficulty, “I meant it, Jack.”

“Meant what?”

“About the baby.”

He stared at her, one hand holding back the door of the just-arrived elevator.

“I’ll have a baby,” she said. “If you still want one.”

For a while they stood in the dim little hall and gazed at each other. And then Jack let his hand slip from the elevator door and, circling her waist with his arm, led her back into the apartment.

“He’ll be back, you know,” he said, stopping to look at her.

“I know. But by that time he’ll know we aren’t kidding,” she said, looking dubiously at her tight, flat stomach. “By that time you’ll be strong again. And ready for him. You’ll know he’s coming and you’ll be able to take it. It won’t be like now.”

He kissed her. “Goddam it,” he whispered, grateful and amazed. “I _do_ love you.”

9

The doctor’s waiting room was crowded, heavy with the eager boredom of people waiting to talk about themselves. It was the fourth doctor they had been to see within a week. Jack, as Laura might have expected, was in a hurry. But he had to find the right man, too—a man he genuinely liked. Not just any bone-picker was going to perform the wizardry to bring _his_ child into being.

Laura had simply sat in red-faced silence through Jack’s expositions of their supposed marital troubles, both unwilling and unable to contribute a word. And the whole thing had been lengthy and bewildering and not a little tiring.

But when they finally got into Dr. Belden’s plush, paneled office, it went well. And she knew, suddenly paying attention to the words of the men, that it was going to be settled. And it was.

She answered the standard questions, her voice low with embarrassment. They always bothered her excessively, like so many spiders crawling over her tender shame. Other girls might not mind, or even liked to yammer to doctors about their intimate selves, but not Laura.

Jack bolstered her up as they were leaving. “You were heroic, Mother,” he assured her. “I know you hate it—yes you do, don’t lie,” he added impatiently when she tried to protest. “It’s all right, honey, it’s all in a good cause.”

“Don’t call me honey.”

“Why?”

“Terry calls everybody honey.” She was in a grumpy mood; he saw it and let her be for a while. “When do I have to go back?” she asked as they rode home in a taxi.

“A week from Thursday.” He looked at her somewhat anxiously as if wishing that Thursday had already come. “You won’t change your mind, of course,” he said to comfort himself. His voice was calm but his eyes were worried.

“No,” she sighed. She looked at her gloved hands until his anxious gaze moved her to give him one and make him smile.

He looked strangely different, almost young. Jack had the kind of a face that must have made him look forty when he was twenty. In a sense it was an ageless face because it had hardly changed at all. Laura supposed that when he was sixty, he would still look forty. But for the few weeks after Terry disappeared it looked young. And Laura thought with an ache of how much of that was due to her. How much she had forced him to depend on her. She was deeply committed now. There was no retreating.

* * * * *

Laura saw Doctor Belden three days in a row, and it was unspeakably humiliating for her. But she endured it. By the time her appointment came due, she was too afraid for Jack not to go. But she prayed when she was alone, with big wild angry sobs, that the artificial insemination wouldn’t work; that she was barren or Jack was sterile or the timing was off; anything. And she felt a huge, breathtaking need for a woman that absolutely tortured her at night.

After her first examination with Belden she went out of the office to meet Jack and told him she was going to the Village.

“I don’t know why I need to. I just do,” she said.

“Sure, sweetheart,” he said at last, standing facing her on the pavement outside the doctor’s office. “Go. Only, come back.”

“I will,” she said, near tears, and turned and almost ran from him. She couldn’t bear to touch him, and it was painful even to look at him.

It was mid-day in the Village and mothers walked their babies in the park. Laura hurried past them. Old ladies strolled about in the unusually warm weather, dogs barked, and a few hardy would-be artists had set up shop in the empty pool at the center of Washington Square. A small crowd of students had gathered to offer encouragement and argue.

Laura walked quickly through the park to Fourth Street, and then she turned and walked west, not sure why. On the other side of Sixth Avenue she stopped and found a drugstore and went in for coffee.

_I can’t see Tris_, she told herself, playing nervously with her hands. _I won’t see Beebo. Or rather, Beebo won’t see me. That’s for sure._ She tried to think of anything but what she had just been through, but it didn’t work. It never does.

_Just so it’s normal_, she thought angrily. _I won’t hate it but I couldn’t stand an abnormal child. God, I’ve got to talk to somebody, somebody who doesn’t know, who’ll put it out of my mind._ She thought of Inga then, but she couldn’t remember her last name and she wasn’t too sure where the girl lived. She had been too drunk that night.

And then, for no apparent reason, she thought of Lili. Beautiful, brazen Lili. At least Lili would talk. Laura wouldn’t have to open her mouth. Maybe it would be better that way. She wouldn’t betray any secrets to Beebo’s old lover about her marriage. But Lili would be only too happy to tell Laura what had gone on between Beebo and Tris if only to see her squirm, and Laura was burning to know.

She went to the phone booth at the back of the store and looked up Lili. She was still listed, still in the same apartment on Greenwich Avenue. It was late afternoon by the time Laura got there. Lili would just be getting out of bed, if she followed the same habits she used to have.

Laura felt very tired and reluctant when she finally found the right building and the right button to press; afraid and a little ashamed. But she rang anyway, as if she had no will to stop herself. And when the answering ring came she went inside and walked up the stairs.

Lili, hanging over the bannister to see who was waking her up so early, saw her coming. Laura stopped on the first landing at her amazed, “Laura! Again! Are you a ghost?”

Laura gazed up, her long pale hair hanging defiantly free and her eyes blue-shadowed the way they were when she was tired or scared. Now she was a little of both.

“No, no ghost,” she said.

“I don’t believe you. But come in anyway. I have the most divine friend who’s a Medium. Where the hell have you been? I thought sure you’d come back, after you saw Beebo a couple of weeks ago.” She watched Laura mount the stairs as she spoke and took her by the arm when Laura reached her. “You look worn out, poor lamb,” she said. “I’ll give you a drink. What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing!” It was an explosion, not a question. “God. Next you’ll be telling me you’ve gone straight.”

“I came to ask about Beebo,” Laura said.

“Oh,” said Lili knowledgeably. “I thought so.” She went about fixing Laura and herself a drink in spite of Laura’s objections. “Well, lamb, what about her?”

“Are she and Tris living together?”

“Mercy, who told you _that_?” Lili turned to stare at her.

“A friend of mine.”

“Your friend lies. They aren’t living together and they never did. Oh, Tris spent the night with her a few times. You know how it is.” She laughed sociably, coming toward Laura with two filled glasses. “Here, lamb, I insist. It’ll revive you. My doctor says—”

“Tell me about Tris and Beebo.”

“Well,” Lili said, confidentially. “It was just an affair.”

“What does that mean?” she said.

“It means when you can’t get what you want you take what you can get,” Lili said archly.

“They saw each other all the time. Beebo even had Tris going into the gay bars. I know this, Lili, don’t hide it,” Laura said.

“All right, all right,” Lili said soothingly. “Tris had to go to the gay bars to find Beebo, that’s all. Beebo’s never home. You know how she is. And she didn’t chase Tris so Tris had to chase her.”

Laura felt an ineffable lightening of the heart. Somehow, if it had to happen, that was the best way.

“Tris was nuts about her,” Lili said juicily. “She came over when she got back from Long Island last summer ... without _you_, if you recall.”

“I recall.”

“Yes. Well! Beebo was pretty low. You may remember that, too.” She looked at Laura sharply, and Laura looked at the floor and refused to answer. “Anyway, Tris fell into her arms and Beebo just caught her. I wish I could say that Beebo fell for her. I think it would have spared her some of the agony you inflicted on her.” So now it was out in the open. Lili spoke dramatically, but it wasn’t all play-acting. She had loved Beebo once, and she didn’t like to see her hurt as Laura had hurt her.

The two females eyed each other, wary but curious, each eager to know what the other could tell her. Lili was ready to hurt Laura to find out. She had seen what happened to Beebo when Laura left her, and it was shocking. Laura didn’t know about it, and to Lili it seemed as if she was nothing but a spoiled, headstrong little bitch who didn’t care whom she hurt ... a little like Lili herself ten years before, and that made Lili even more critical.

If Laura were told how hard Beebo had taken it—how intensely she had suffered and torched for her—maybe it would touch her and make her sorry. Lili enjoyed the idea of Laura on her knees to Beebo, and Beebo kicking her out. For she knew what Laura did not—that Beebo was a different girl now. And to Lili’s way of thinking it meant that Beebo would never take Laura back.

So they were agreed, without having said a word about it, that Lili would talk and Laura would listen to her; Lili because she had to hurt and Laura because she had to know.

Lili lighted a cigarette and stuck it carefully into an ebony holder with a water filter, a rather bulky conversation piece. Everything she did was staged.

“I’m going to talk turkey to you, lamb,” she informed her guest. “Now that I have you in my clutches.” She smiled slightly, a warning smile.

“Talk,” Laura said. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d spare me the sermon.”

“I’m sure you would.” Lili gazed at her. “But, unfortunately, you _need_ a sermon. Oh, just a little one, of course. I won’t be crude about it.”

Laura ignored her, picking up the drink she didn’t think she wanted and sipping at it.

“Well,” Lili began. “You almost killed her. I suppose you could have guessed that.”

“I knew it would be hard for her,” Laura said, “but not that bad.” Her voice said she thought Lili was exaggerating, but in her heart she was afraid ... afraid it was true.

“It was bad enough to send her to the hospital with a stomachful of sleeping pills. I know. I took her over.” She said this with her green eyes flaring and her voice low enough to make Laura strain a little to hear her.

“Oh, damn it, Lili, don’t make up a melodrama for me!” Laura cried.

“I thought I was stating it rather plainly. But I’ll try again.”

“Beebo wouldn’t take sleeping pills!” Laura said contemptuously, and this she really believed. “It’s not like her. It’s too—I don’t know—phony. It’s more like something _you’d_ do than Beebo.”

“Luckily I’m not in love with you, pet,” Lili countered. They glared at each other. “You don’t know her at all, do you?” Lili went on. “You lived with her for more than two years, and you just don’t know her at all.”

“I know her better than anybody! What do you mean?”

“All right, lamb, we won’t argue the point. Anyway, when she got back from the hospital she was terribly despondent. I kept telling her you’d come back. Everybody did. I didn’t believe it, of course, but I was afraid if I told her you were gone for good she’d try something worse than sleeping pills.”

“Did she drink awfully hard?”

“Are you kidding? She drank like a fish, naturally,” Lili said. “As if you had to ask. Then she got a job. But I’m getting ahead of myself. You wanted to hear about Tris.”

Again she smiled, and Laura hated her smile. “Just tell me, Lili,” she said. “Without the dramatics.”

“Certainly, darling.... Well, Tris came back and the first thing she did was come looking for you to tell you she was sorry. I don’t know for what. But I was there when she arrived. I couldn’t leave Beebo alone for five minutes, it was that bad. So anyway, we were having dinner when Tris came and she looked very surprised not to see you, but if you ask me, she was thrilled to death. She’s been on the make for Beebo ever since you met at the dress shop. She strung you along for a contact with Beebo.”

“I don’t believe you,” Laura lied bravely. “Go on.”

“Well, darling, that makes it slightly awkward. It’s essential to the narrative that you believe it.” But Laura’s cold white face discouraged her sarcasm and she went on. “Well, Tris was nuts for her. That time she burst in on you and Beebo got so mad—yes, she told me about it—she came to see Beebo, not you. She didn’t care a damn if it got you in trouble. The only thing she cared about was seeing Beebo. She wasn’t very happy about the way Beebo treated her then, but she’s had better luck since....

“Well, Beebo didn’t even try to fight her off. She just let her in and they spent a couple of weeks together. And the whole time that awful Milo—Tris’s husband—I think you’ve met?—yes. That must have been jolly.” She grinned maliciously. “Well, Milo was over there all the time, just mad as hell. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill Beebo, the way Tris carried on about her. It took him four whole months to drag her away, and Tris still comes over whenever she can sneak out. But Beebo and Milo get along better now. Since he realized Beebo’s not in love with his wife.

“For some strange reason she can’t seem to fall in love with anybody. I think she’s crazy myself. I mean, after all, you’re not _that_ irresistible.” She paused and Laura took advantage of it to switch the subject, fast.

“What about the job? You said she had a job.”

“Oh, yes, I did, didn’t I? Well, she’s waiting on tables at the Colophon. Oh, don’t look so disappointed, lamb, she _likes_ it. Besides, she can wear pants.” Lili knew how Laura hated Beebo’s elevator uniform, and it pleased her to point out that Beebo hadn’t reformed. “She works from five to eleven,” Lili went on. “Really very good hours. And then of course she’s free to get soused till dawn.”

“Does she?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is it very bad?” Laura asked, her voice a little shaky with fatigue.

“Sometimes.”

“God, Lili, is that all you can say? Sometimes? _Tell_ me about her, I haven’t heard anything for eight months!”

“That’s the way you wanted it, darling.”

“No. No, it isn’t,” she whispered. “That’s the way it had to be.”

“I would say—judging strictly from your very interesting diary—that you were glad to get rid of Beebo. Maybe you’re just here to ease your conscience, hm? Be sure she hasn’t done anything messy you’d have to blame yourself for?”

Laura had to look away for a minute. The shame was too plain on her face. “That was a stupid thing, that diary,” she mumbled. She started crying softly, helplessly. “Lili, cut out the sarcasm,” she pleaded, knowing it would do no good.

“Why, don’t be silly!” Lili exclaimed, enjoying the scene. “I haven’t an ounce of sarcasm in me. I’m just a reporter giving you the facts.”

“You’re a lousy gossip columnist!” Laura said. “You’re all dirty digs and snide cracks, and about a tenth of what you say is true. Tris Robischon was shy and neurotic. She hated gay bars. She wouldn’t have gone in if she hadn’t been forced. She hated gay people so much that she wouldn’t associate with them.”

“Like hell,” Lili said elegantly. “She lived in the Village, didn’t she? Who do you think her ballet pupils were, anyway?”

“Children! Men! Little girls!”

“_And_ big girls, darling.”

“She never had affairs with them. She might have slept with one or two of the men, but not with the girls. I’m sure of it.”

“Have you talked to Milo about that?”

“No ... not about that. But I _know_ Tris!”

“Must be wonderful to be so sure of yourself, pet,” Lili drawled. “The fact is, your little pseudo-Indian slept with dozens of her pupils. She went to the Lessie bars because Beebo did, and Beebo’s not the first girl she’s done it with. You can check it. Go ask the bartender at the Cellar. Ask the lovelies at the Colophon. At Julian’s. Go on. Scared?”

Laura stood up suddenly and headed for the door. “I’ve had enough, Lili. Thanks. Thanks a lot.” She spoke briefly, afraid of more tears, and grabbed her coat as she went. But Lili got up and ran after her.

“But darling, I want to know where you’ve been all this time!”

“It’s no business of yours.”

“Oh, tell me, Laura. Don’t be difficult,” she said. “Beebo would be interested,” she wheedled.

“Oh, I doubt it. After what you’ve told me. But just for the record, I’ve been living uptown.”

“Where uptown?”

But Laura shook her head.

“Alone?” Lili said.

“No.” Laura didn’t know why she said it. It just seemed easier than arguing. Besides, she didn’t want Lili to think she was friendless and despised everywhere.

“You know, Jack Mann disappeared from the Village the same time you did,” Lili said, her voice vibrant with curiosity.

“Yes.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I see him now and then.” She slipped her coat on and opened the front door, not bothering to look back at Lili. Her face was streaked with tears and torment and she wanted to go, to get out, to hide somewhere.

“Where are you going, pet? Why in such a hurry?”

“I’m a little sick, Lili, thanks to you. You have that effect on me,” Laura said.

Lili laughed charmingly. “Imagine!” she said. “It’s an even trade, then. Well, just so you don’t go near Beebo, I guess it’s safe to let you loose.”

“I have no intention of going near Beebo,” Laura said coldly, turning to look at her.

“Good,” Lili said. “She’d kill you for sure.”

Laura felt a red fury come up in her and she stepped back into the living room, her face so strange and tense that Lili, for the first time since Laura had come, became rather alarmed.

“Lili, goddamn you to hell, quit telling lies! Quit exaggerating!” Laura cried. “I hurt Beebo, but not _that_ much. I didn’t ruin her life, for God’s sake! Or cripple her or kill her or drive her crazy! And I won’t stand here and be accused of something I didn’t do. Beebo’s no angel, you know. Beebo damn near drove _me_ out of my mind when we lived together. She hurt me more than once—I mean _really_ hurt, and I’ve got scars to prove it. I know she loved me, but that doesn’t make her perfect and me a double-damned bitch. Love affairs have broken up before. The world keeps on spinning!” She spoke fiercely to bolster up her words. For the truth was that Laura remembered only too well the night Beebo had told her she might kill her someday, and then herself.

But she couldn’t let Lili see that, or suspect it, or think that Laura feared it. She hated Lili with all the force of her own fear and uncertainty and resentment at that moment, and her wild hair and hot face actually did scare Lili.

“All right,” Lili said finally, putting her drink down on a dainty Empire drawer table near the door. “All right, Laura Landon, I’ll tell you something.” And Laura saw now that Lili had to defend the things she had said with a good serving of bitter anger: the _pièce de résistance_. “You think Beebo would welcome you back with loving arms? You think she’d forgive you?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You think I’ve been kidding about how hard she took it when you broke up? When you left her? Sure you do. You make yourself think it. Because you don’t want to feel guilty about it. But you listen to this. Listen!” she cried suddenly as Laura made a sudden move to leave.

Lili threw herself against the door, panting with the exaltation of mingled fear and pleasure at hurting Laura. “Remember Nix? Remember that nice little dog you hated so much? Oh, you hated him all right. Beebo didn’t have to tell me, I saw it with my own eyes. Everybody did. You did everything but kick him. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you did even _that_ when nobody was looking. Well, what happened to poor Nix?”

“You know damn well!” Laura flashed, feeling trapped and desperate. “You know as well as I do. Let me out of here, Lili!”

“He died, didn’t he? Rather messily. Let’s say, horribly. Such a nice little dog. You know how he died, Laura?”

“If you’re trying to say _I_ did it—”

“Beebo killed him. Sliced him in half with that big chef’s knife you had in the kitchen table drawer.”

For a horrified second, Laura was silent, paralyzed. She almost fainted. She actually staggered backwards and lost her balance. Lili grabbed her to break the fall and left her lying on the floor, her face buried in the plush carpet, sobbing, wailing with shock and horror. Even Lili, finally, was worried about her. She tried to snap her out of it with sarcasm.

“You could have shown a little concern when it happened,” she said, “instead of saving it all for now. It’s a little late now. Those are crocodile tears, Laura.” But they weren’t, and Lili couldn’t get much conviction into her voice. She bent over Laura and said, “Stop it! Really, Laura! Don’t make a scene. Oh!” she exclaimed in exasperation and alarm. “And she accuses _me_ of theatrics!” she cried to the ceiling, her hands to her temples.

After a long while Laura rolled over, her breath tumbling uncontrollably in and out of her, her face blotched and stricken.

“It isn’t true, is it?” she whispered. “You just wanted to hurt me. Lili?”

Lili, sitting on the edge of her velvet couch, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, said, “It’s true.” She gazed at Laura and there was no pose, no elegance in her. It wasn’t worth the effort now. Laura was beyond noticing or caring. With her face relaxed, the lines of thirty-seven years showed around Lili’s mouth and eyes. She was wondering if the startling effect her words had had was worth it.

Laura looked sick. What a bother to have to call a doctor! She shouldn’t have told her. She had had a good time roasting her. She should have let her go. But there was Laura, her bosom heaving, her face a strange color, her eyes enormous. _Odd, I never noticed how big they are_, Lili thought idly.

“Did anyone ... really ... beat her up?” Laura said, her breath betraying her and making her gasp. “Or did she make up the hoodlums, too—like Nix?” And she covered her face to cry while Lili answered her.

“She did that to herself. After she killed Nix. I don’t know why she did it. I hate to admit it, but I guess she did it out of frustrated love. I tried to make her explain it when she told me about it—and believe me, she wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been fried—and she just said, ‘Laura hated him. I thought she might stay with me longer if he was gone.’ After she did it she beat herself. I don’t know how. I don’t know with what. She didn’t say. Maybe she just whacked at herself with her fists. Maybe she used something heavy. Anyway, she did it while she was hysterical. At least, that’s what I think. I don’t see how she could have hurt herself that much if she hadn’t been half crazy. She was mourning for Nix and she was afraid of losing you.”

Lili stopped talking, and Laura realized dimly that there had been no cutting edge in her voice for the past few minutes.

After a little while of silence Laura got up dizzily from the floor and dried her eyes. Her face had gone very white and she sat down for a minute in a chair.

“Did you ever love her?” Lili asked. “Really?”

Laura turned to look at her, and her eyes seemed remarkably deep and different, as if she had seen something for the first time. She didn’t seem to have heard Lili.

“Did you ever love her, Laura?” Lili asked again.

“Not until now,” Laura said, and Lili stared at her.

* * * * *

When Laura got home, all she wanted was to go in the bedroom, turn out all the lights, and crawl half dressed into her bed. And try to make sense of her awful knowledge, try to live with it. She couldn’t think of Beebo without pain.

Jack followed her into the bedroom where she sprawled on the bed sobbing. He went to her and said worriedly, “Jesus, honey. Tell me about it.” He sat down beside her, his hands on her shoulders trying to ease her. “Did the stock market crash?”

She wept on as if he weren’t there.

“You got a bad pickle in your hamburger?”

No response.

“Your girdle split?”

She rolled over and looked at him with mournful eyes. “Jack, this is no time to be stupid.”

“I can’t say anything very bright till you tell me what’s the matter,” he said.