Part 14

“I’ll ask you again,” he said. “But don’t yell. Where are you going?”

When he freed her mouth this time she murmured, “Home. I’m going home. Let me go.”

“How you getting home?”

“I—I’ll walk. It’s not far. Just a block.”

“You know what block this is?” He smiled with superior knowledge.

“It can’t be far,” she said.

He shook his head quizzically. “I don’t get it. You’re not even drunk. You’re tore up but you’re no tramp neither. Mostly the ones I find down here are hitting the bottle. Or they wouldn’t be down here. Or kids, exploring. Not pretty girls.” He smiled and Laura’s one intense hope was that she not faint and fall into his clutches.

“Let me go,” she said, trying to sound controlled. But her big eyes and urgent breathing gave her away.

“Okay.” He took his hands away from her altogether, and said, “Go. But I’ll bet you need a dime to telephone with.”

She turned, dragging on the gate behind her until he said, “Here. Let me.” He opened it for her. And when she saw that he was really going to let her go, she allowed herself to turn and look at him. See him. He was holding out a dime.

“Take it,” he said. “At least you can call somebody to come get you.”

Laura stared at him. He was big and ugly, seamy-faced, and wearing dirty clothes with a worn cap tilted over his ear. But he had a nice honest grin. And he looked, for all his dirt and size, rather childish. Laura stood poised at the gate, wavering between flight and the dime. At last she took it, her face reddening. She had to drop her sharp stone to get it.

“Didn’t need that, didya?” he said with a smile, watching it fall.

She shook her head and whispered, “Thanks.”

“That’s all I want to hear,” he said and let her go. She ran halfway down the block, and then turned, overwhelmed with curiosity, to see what had happened to him. He was standing there behind the closed gate gazing after her, smiling. _He’s nuts_, she thought. _An idiot. A damn man! That’s probably all he does, save people from the river. But even that ... even that pitiful life is worth more than mine. All I’ve ever done is hurt the people I love the most._

At the end of the block she stopped running and looked once more. He was gone.

10

Laura hid herself for a minute in a shadowed doorway and tried to make sense of things. She was a mess, with mud on her torn clothes and on her face, tangled hair and dried blood.

She made an effort to smooth her hair down. There was some Kleenex in her pocket and she wiped her face off carefully, reaching every corner of it and rubbing till the skin turned pink. She brushed at her disheveled clothes rather hopelessly. Maybe it was late enough so nobody would notice her.

She began to walk, holding her arms together in front of her as if to keep herself warm, but in fact to keep the worst rips from showing. And she kept her head down. _If only the police don’t stop me_, she thought. _I must look like a whore._

Laura walked straight west on Forty-first Street, for it was Forty-first, past Lexington Avenue and Park and Fifth and Broadway and over to Seventh. No cops stopped her, although more than one passerby stared.

It was cold, a raw March night with the sting of coming storm in the air. Laura went south on Seventh Avenue, walking almost mechanically. When she thought of it she realized it was cold. But she hardly thought of it. There was too much else on her mind.

She was very surprised to reach Fourth Street so quickly. She had known, without thinking, that that was where she was going. In less than five minutes she had entered the little court in front of Beebo’s apartment building and the old familiar trembling had begun.

She sat down on a bench in the court to gather her strength. At last she looked up the wall of dark windows behind her, twisting on the bench to see, and saw lights in Beebo’s living room, and began to shiver.

Ten or a dozen times she looked up anxiously at the lights on the second floor. They were faint, as if only one small light were on. With a sudden rush of desire that eliminated the need to make a decision, she pulled open the inside door and raced up the stairs.

At the top she stood trying desperately to get her breath. But she knew after a moment that her whole body would shake and sweat and wear itself out with unbearable anticipation if she didn’t get the door open. She reached for the knob, but it was locked.

She rattled the knob hard and then she knocked.

When the door swung open a moment later she gasped in amazement. It was Milo Robinson—Tris’s husband.

“Milo!” she exclaimed.

He stared at her.

“Don’t you remember me? I’m Laura. Laura Landon.”

“I remember,” he said quietly. “I just never saw you fresh out of the gutter before.”

She looked down at herself and her cheeks went scarlet. “I look awful, don’t I?”

“Somebody after you?” Milo asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Can I come in?”

“I guess you can,” he said, stepping back. “You’ve got as much right to be here as me, that’s for sure.”

Laura walked into the living room and just the sight of it, warm and comfortable and a little raggy, made her want to weep. She sank down on the couch, exhausted.

“Want some coffee?” Milo said, staring at her.

“No, thanks. I’ve had too much tonight.”

“Milk?”

“I guess so. Thanks.”

“You look real bad, Laura. You’d better get to bed,” he said frowning at her.

“Where’s Beebo?”

“Tell me that and I’ll tell you where my wife is,” he said sharply.

“You coming back to Beebo?” he asked her.

“If she’ll have me.”

“From what I know of it, she won’t. But I’m on your side, Laura. I’d do anything to pry Patsy loose.”

It startled her to hear him call Tris by her real name. “Is Beebo in love with her?” she asked cautiously.

“Naw,” he said with leisurely disgust. “She puts up with her but she’s not in love with her.” He ambled out to the kitchen to pour her some milk. “I should be so lucky,” he called. “I’d dump her. Right now.”

“How about Tris? How does she feel?”

He answered her while he poured the milk. “I don’t know, Laura. I never could figure that kid. Living with her only makes it more confusing.” He sounded very tired, like a man defeated. “I wish I could forget her, forget the whole thing.”

He came back and handed her the milk and sat down in a chair near her.

They looked at each other. He was a tall young man in his early twenties, handsome and well educated. His skin was dark and satiny in the pink lamplight.

“Does she love you?” Laura asked gently.

He shrugged and gave a little laugh. “Who knows?” he said. “She says so now and then. But that’s only when I lay down the law on the Lessie stuff.”

“What’s the law?” Laura said.

“Well, goddam it, enough’s enough!” he exclaimed. “I like to see her once in a while myself. She’s my wife.”

Laura thought of Jack and felt the tears start quietly down again. “Excuse me,” she sniffled. “I’m running like a sieve tonight. I don’t know why. Did Jack Mann come over here tonight?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Milo said. “I’ve only been here since midnight.”

“Did he call?”

“Nobody called.”

“Nobody?” She had been so certain Jack would follow her here. “When does Beebo get in?”

“You tell me, then we’ll both know.” He sighed.

“What will you do with Tris, Milo?” She spoke softly, sympathetically, in a raspy tired voice.

“Take her home again.”

“Do you understand her? What makes her so contrary?”

“No.” He turned and gave her a doleful grin, lighting another cigarette from the first. “We’ve been married almost two years but I don’t know her at all, to tell the truth. But I sure won’t let her go.”

“Does she want you to?”

“I don’t think she does,” he said. “Sound screwy? Well, not so very. She needs me. Because I’m a man.” There was a pause and Laura mopped up the useless tears and tried to think of Milo’s troubles, not her own.

“How long are you going to stay?” she asked him finally.

“I guess till they get back,” he said.

“Are you sure they’re together?”

“More or less. Patsy has a big thing on her.”

“Milo? Would you stay here till they get back, then? I’m afraid—I’m afraid of Beebo. She might hurt me.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “Yeah. Okay,” he said, studying her. “Say, haven’t you been gone a while? Patsy doesn’t tell me much, but I got the idea.... I haven’t seen you around or anything.”

“Yes. I’ve been gone awhile,” she said, getting up. “I’m going to take a shower and get cleaned up. Don’t tell her I’m here if she comes.”

“Patsy?”

“Beebo! Either of them.”

“Who shall I say is in the shower?”

“Santa Claus,” she said. She looked at him sitting glumly slumped in the chair. “Why do you put up with it?” she said. “She’s too much. Tris is too much for anybody.”

“Don’t call her Tris. She’s been Patsy ever since she was six years old and skinned her knees in front of my house. Tris. Christ! It’s too affected.”

“Did she ... ever really love me, Milo?” Laura asked it with a catch in her throat.

“Did she ever love any of us? I don’t know.”

“Why do you keep coming back for more?”

He shrugged. “Same reason you do. You love Beebo. You know it’s a mess and you’re in for a lot of hell. It’ll never be right. But you love her. So you take it.” He gave another sad little chuckle. “I wish I knew what it is about you girls. What makes you love each other?” Laura stared at him. “If I knew there’s one thing sure—I’d put a stop to it. What makes you queer, Laura? You tell me.”

“What makes you normal, Milo?”

“I was born that way. Don’t tell me you were _born_ queer! Ha!” And he was sarcastic now.

“I was made that way,” she said calmly.

“By who?” he asked skeptically.

“A lot of people. My father. A girl named Beth. Myself. Fate.”

He snorted. “Why don’t you give up women?”

“Why don’t _you_!” she flashed.

He blinked at her, beginning to feel her stormy intensity.

“Is it _that_ bad?” he asked.

“_Sure_, it’s that bad! Do you think I live this way because I like it? Would you live like you do if you could live like a white man?”

After a moment he shook his head, looking curiously at her.

“Neither would Tris. _Patsy._ So don’t be too hard on her, Milo. You damn men, you’re all lousy selfish bastards.”

And to his astonishment, she threw the dirty dime at him.

Laura was pulling on a pair of Beebo’s big men’s flannel pajamas when she heard the front door open, and her heart came to a sudden stop in her breast. It started again with a wild thump, and she stood with an ear to the door struggling to pull the roomy tops over her damp body and hear what was said.

“Where is she?” Milo demanded.

The front door shut and there was a pause. Laura heard the scrape of a match and the soft whistle of expelled breath.

“I sent her home,” Beebo said. And her voice sent a sharp thrill of desire and recognition through Laura. She pressed her hands firmly over her breasts till the flesh nearly burst between her fingers, as if to still her own hard breathing.

“Where, the studio?” Milo said.

“Yeah. You entertaining, Milo?”

“What?”

“Who’s the milk drinker?”

And Laura remembered suddenly the milk Milo had fixed her. She hadn’t finished it; just left it sitting on the table.

“Santa Claus,” Milo said.

“No kidding,” Beebo said with a grin. “I used to leave Santa Claus a glass of milk. And cookies. When I was a little kid. But that was Christmas Eve. This isn’t Christmas Eve, Milo.”

“Check the shower,” Milo said. “I didn’t ask her over. You sure Patsy’s home?”

“Hell, no,” Beebo said and she was right by the bedroom door. Laura leaped backwards across the room, stumbling and catching herself on the bed. She straightened up, her heart in her throat, watching the door. Her long blond hair was still damp from the shower, and she had on only the long, striped tops of Beebo’s pajamas. They reached to mid-thigh on her.

Beebo’s hand twisted the knob. “Go home, friend,” she said to Milo, pausing. “Your wife needs a man tonight.”

Milo shrugged at her. “She asked me to stay.”

“_Who_ asked you to stay?”

He thumbed at the bedroom. “Says you might hurt her.”

Beebo stared hard at him for only a second more before she threw the door open hard. It cracked like a shot against the wall and Laura opened her eyes slowly. Her arms were crossed at the wrists and clamped tight over her breasts, as if to ward off attack. She looked at Beebo and Beebo looked at her without a word for several amazed minutes. Laura felt such a flash of agonized desire for this big, handsome, passionate girl who had been her lover that she was unable to speak.

Finally Beebo walked slowly into the room, her hands shoved into the pockets of her pants, squinting through the smoke of the cigarette between her lips. “I thought Lili was kidding,” she said softly. “Seeing things.” And she gave a single short laugh. She walked to the bed and dropped her coat. “Relax, Laura, I’m not going to rape you,” she said. She turned, with her weight on one foot and the other on the bed rung, and called to Milo, “You can go now, Sir Galahad.”

“It’s all right?” He came to the door and looked at Laura, who finally found the strength to nod at him. “Okay,” he said. He looked her up and down, surprised to find how desirable she looked with a clean skin and no rags. “Lotsa luck, girls,” he said with his rueful defeated smile, and he went out.

“Thank you, Milo,” Laura called after him, but her voice was so low and husky with emotion that he did not hear her.

There followed a long strange silence while Beebo stared at her. Laura kept her eyes on her toes, afraid to meet that penetrating gaze.

At last Beebo crushed her cigarette and lay down on the bed, crossing her feet and stuffing her hands behind the pillow to raise her head.

“All right, Laura,” she said calmly. “You’re here. Tell me what you want.”

Laura looked up then, slowly, still very afraid. She was prepared for any violence, any brutality. It no longer mattered if Beebo hurt her or not. She was ready to submit to anything if Beebo would only take her back.

“What do you want?” Beebo said.

“To stay,” she whispered.

Beebo’s eyes widened with surprise. “To stay? With me?” She looked away then at the wall. “You could have stayed last August.”

“Last August I was miserably unhappy because of you. I had to get away. I found out I’m more unhappy without you than with you.”

Beebo laughed outright then. “Doesn’t give you much of a choice, does it?” she said and her voice was not kind. Her laughter made Laura realize that she was a little drunk. Laura walked over to the side of the bed and knelt beside it, with her heart working as if it had taken her up a stiff hill.

Beebo turned her head to watch her. “What’s that for?” she said, catching a corner of her pajamas between thumb and forefinger. Her flesh was only inches away from Laura’s for the first time in eight long months and there was a sudden current of feeling between them that leaped like a spark from Beebo’s hand to Laura’s breasts.

“I had to change. My clothes were filthy. I took a shower and borrowed your pajamas.... I’ve been walking all night. All the way from midtown.”

“What the hell did you do that for? Don’t they still have taxis in this town?” She was cold. Her hand dropped away from Laura.

“I didn’t have any money. And I had to see you.”

“Why?”

Laura put her head down on the bed on her clasped hands and began to cry. “I love you,” she wept. And it was the first time since they had met that Beebo had heard her say it that way.

She got up on one elbow and leaned toward Laura. Her face was impassive, but shrewd. “Not Tris?” she said.

“Not Tris.”

“Anybody else?”

“Nobody else.” Laura lifted her tearful face. “Oh, Beebo, I’ve done you so wrong, darling. I didn’t know how bad it was. Lili told me—”

“I know she did, the miserable bitch. God damn her soul. The only secret she can keep is her age.”

“Beebo, I’ll do anything for you—anything—if you’ll have me back. Oh, darling, it took me months to figure out what was wrong with me. I’ve been so confused. And lately I’ve been thinking of you all the time. I don’t think I ever stopped loving you, Beebo. I thought when you saw me here you’d beat the hell out of me. If you want to ... do it ... if it’ll help.” She looked at her out of large frightened eyes, half expecting Beebo to jump her.

But Beebo sat up then, grasping her ankles with her hands. “No, Laura, it’s too late for that. What good would that do?” She made a face, frowning. “There was a time when I would have. If you had come back last fall instead of now. I would have loved you enough then to hate you. But I’ve changed, Laura.... It doesn’t seem to matter so much any more.”

There was a shocked silence from Laura. “You mean,” she ventured finally, “you don’t love me any more? Oh, Beebo! Oh, Beebo! No!” She covered her mouth with both hands, pressed so tight they turned white.

Beebo looked at her curiously. “I love you, Laura,” she said, but it was impersonal, detached, as if it were just another fact in her life like her job or her black hair. “I’ll always love you. But I’ll never love you again the way I did before you ran out on me last summer. That was too much. When it happened it was a question of either dying of it ... or living with something else, changing myself. Becoming a different person. That’s what happened.”

Laura, in her desperation, found the courage to touch Beebo then. She reached out for her, and Beebo unexpectedly turned to help her. She dragged Laura up on the bed with her two strong arms, and Laura gave a long groan of need and fear and gratitude, all mixed up together. Beebo held her in both arms, her back pressed against the wall, watching Laura struggle to control her tears and trembling. She was kind, she was patient. And it scared Laura, who suddenly discovered that she missed the old stormy fury and passion. Beebo seemed odd to her, and it was true that she had changed.

“Laura,” she said. “I’ve been doing some thinking. I want to tell you something. Maybe you won’t want to come back to me so much any more.”

“Let me tell you something first,” Laura begged. “If I don’t tell you, Beebo, I haven’t any right to touch you. I haven’t any right to be here. Maybe I don’t anyway. Darling, I—I’m married.” Beebo gasped a little, and Laura said quickly, “To Jack.”

Beebo simply gaped at her for a second and then she burst out laughing. “Good God! _That’s_ what happened!” she exclaimed. “You and Jack. Oh, God!”

“It wasn’t exactly—ridiculous,” Laura whispered, hurt. “We loved each other.” But Beebo went on laughing.

“I’m sorry, baby, but it sounds so damn—goofy,” she said.

And when she called her baby, Laura felt a small glow of warmth and hope. Maybe it wasn’t hopeless; maybe things could work out. She clung to Beebo and found herself half laughing with her, and half weeping to hear Jack’s name.

“Where is he now? Does he know you’re here?” Beebo asked her.

“He knows,” Laura said, for there could be no doubt that he did.

“Did he send you? Married life got him down?”

“No, I ran away. I—I hurt him. It meant so much to him to have a wife and all....” She couldn’t say any more about it; it broke her up to think of it.

Beebo sobered a little. “You have a talent for that, Laura—hurting people. Sometimes I think that’s your only real ability.”

“I know,” Laura murmured, shame-faced. “And the trouble is, I never want to. I never mean to. I’d give anything to undo it, once it’s done. But I begin to feel like I’m smothering. Like I’d die of it if I can’t get away.”

“Is that the way _I_ made you feel?” Beebo said.

Laura hung her head. “Yes,” she whispered. “I won’t lie about it.”

“You can’t very well. I read the damn diary—every word of it.”

Laura flushed at the thought of the thing. “Beebo, I—I didn’t understand before how you felt. Or how I felt myself. But I know now I love you.” She said it quivering with hope.

But Beebo only answered, “Do you, Laura? How do you know?” There was a little smile on Beebo’s face. She asked the question gently as if she were talking to a bewildered child, brushing Laura’s hair from her forehead.

“Because I want so terribly to be with you,” Laura said, shaking her head to emphasize her words. “I can’t bear it like this, being apart from you.”

“I’ve changed so much,” Beebo said, wondering at it, “and you haven’t changed at all. Have you? I think you’re just tired of being a wife, honey.”

“No. I love Jack. But it’s different. I don’t _need_ him like I need you.”

“How about Jack? Doesn’t he need you?”

Laura covered her face again with her hands to stifle the sudden sobs. “A lot, I’m afraid. I’d be better off dead, Beebo, I swear I would. I’ve caused so much heart ache. And most of all to myself. I’m no good to anybody. I wish to God you’d get that big knife and do to me what you did to Nix. I wish you’d beat me the way you beat yourself—”

“Laura! God, spare me!” And for a second the latent fire in her flared and gave Laura a curious thrill.

“I thought you would,” Laura cried. “I was prepared for anything, even that, when I came here. I still can’t believe you—I mean, you seem so funny. I thought you’d hurt me, and you’re so calm, so quiet—”

Beebo shook her head, looking at Laura with her disillusioned eyes. “I won’t hurt you, baby,” she said.

“You said once you’d kill me,” Laura said wildly, as if she were asking for it, as if it would be proof of Beebo’s huge need for her.

“I know. I meant it then, too. I was nearly crazy. But things have changed, Laura. I don’t throw my threats around so easily any more. There was a time when I could have done it, but no more. No more. Stop crying, baby. Stop, honey.” She began to stroke Laura’s long hair.

Laura looked up at her through pink eyes, her chest heaving in Beebo’s warm embrace, and they gazed at each other for some time before Beebo told her, kindly, trying to ease it for her, “I said I loved you, Laura. But it’s not the same for me, now. I don’t love you the way I used to. I couldn’t and go on living. You were my whole life for two years. I thought I couldn’t exist without you. I thought it would be better to kill you and die with you than go on without you. So what did I do?” She smiled in contempt for herself. And pity. A bitter smile. “I chickened out. I slaughtered a poor innocent pup instead. In the fury I should have saved for you. And what did it prove? Nothing. How did it help? It didn’t. It was a wasted gesture, Laura. A stupid, senseless thing.

“But you see, I was out of my mind in love with you at the time. Now all the madness has gone out of me, Laura. There’s not much fire left.” And she bent suddenly to touch Laura’s brow with her lips. Laura felt the sweet touch flow through her to her toes and she nestled close against Beebo, weeping at her words. “It’s not wild and wonderful and tormenting any more.”

“How did it happen?” Laura begged her, cruelly disappointed. “Maybe it’ll change.” She felt almost betrayed, as if she were in the arms of a stranger.

“No. I wouldn’t want it to change, now. It happened because if it hadn’t I would have died, Laura. I was so sick, so lost without you, that I would have gone to pieces. I’d have used the damn cleaver on myself.”

“Oh!” Laura breathed, horrified.

“I changed to save my life ... and my sanity. It took all my strength, but I did it. And strangely enough, it was a relief. I felt as if I’d laid down a killing burden.” She looked down at Laura, pulling her so tight that they could feel one another’s hearts beating, and Laura, her eyes shut, was saying to herself, “No, no, no....”

“I love you still, baby,” Beebo told her. “I know I should be proud and angry with you. I should kick you out or beat you up or both. But if I did it wouldn’t mean anything. It would only hurt, like I hurt Nix, for no purpose. I know Lili and the rest of them will bitch at me for taking you back—”

“Oh, will you, Beebo? Darling, darling, will you?”

“If you want it that way....” She stopped, looking into Laura’s tear-bright eyes.

“I want it that way,” Laura gasped.