Women in the Shadows

Ann Bannon

www.spice-books.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Afterword

Endpages

Copyright

Chapter One

JUNE 8: God help me. God help me to stand it. Today was our second anniversary. If I have to go on living with her I’ll go crazy. But if I leave her—? I’m afraid to think what will happen. Sometimes she’s not rational. But what can I do? Where can I turn?

That damn party was awful. Anniversaries are supposed to be happy affairs, but this one was more like a wake. Everybody got drunk and sang songs, but there was always that corpse there in the middle of the room … the corpse of that romance. Jack got terribly drunk, as usual. There’s another one. If he doesn’t crack up it won’t be because he hasn’t tried. What’s wrong with us all, anyway? What’s the use of living when things are like this all the time?

Laura shut her diary with a sudden furtive gesture, her pen still poised, and strained her ears at a sound. She thought she heard the front door open. It would be Beebo coming back. But it was only the dachshund, Nix, scratching himself on a stool in the kitchen. Laura sighed in relief and turned back to the diary. She ordinarily kept it locked in a little steel strongbox on the closet floor, and she wrote in it only when she was alone, in the evenings before Beebo got home from work.

Beebo had never read it—or seen it, in fact. It was Laura’s own, Laura’s aches and pains verbalized, Laura’s heart dissected and wept over, in washable blue ink. If Beebo ever saw it she would tear it up in a frenzy. She would make Laura swallow it, because it did not say very nice things about Beebo. And Beebo always did things in a big way, the good along with the bad.

Laura opened the notebook once more and wrote a last brief entry: Jack asked me to marry him again … but I could never marry a man, not even him. Never.

Then she closed it quickly and took it back to the closet and locked it in the strongbox. She sat down from sheer inertia on the closet floor and picked up a shoe. It was one of her pumps, rather long and narrow—too large to be really fashionable. But it had the proper shape and the newest styled heel. Beebo liked to see her smartly dressed. She cared more about that than Laura did herself. Laura had worn these shoes to the unfortunate anniversary party two nights before.

Beebo was still hungover from that long night of dreary festivity. Jack was always hungover, so he didn’t count. As for Laura, she had learned from Beebo to drink too much herself, and she was learning at the same time how it feels the next day. Bad. Plain bad.

It had been a strange night, with moments of wild hilarity and stretches of gloom when everybody drank as if they made their living at it. Laura remembered Jack arriving ahead of everybody else with a couple of bottles under his arm. “Thought I’d better bring my own,” he explained.

“Jack, you’re not going to drink two fifths all by yourself!” Laura had exclaimed. She always took things at face value at first, a little too seriously.

“I’m going to try, Mother,” he said, laughing, his eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses sparkling cynically at her.

Beebo had been in a sweat of preparation all day, and the apartment ended up looking almost new. A fever seemed to have gotten hold of her. This had to be a big party, a good party, a loud, drunk, and very gay party. Because this party was going to prove that Beebo and Laura had lived together for two whole years, and in Greenwich Village that is a pretty good record.

Friends were invited, to admire and congratulate. Oh, to get drunk and live it up a little too, on Beebo and Laura. But mostly to stand witness to the fact that the girls had been together two whole years. Or rather, Beebo had hung on to Laura for two whole years.

Maybe that’s a hard way to say it. Maybe it isn’t fair. After all, Laura stuck with Beebo, too. But Laura stuck because she didn’t have the courage to let go, because her life was empty and without a purpose, and living with somebody and loving—or pretending to love—seemed to bring some sanity into her world. But for a long time she had begun to squirm and struggle under Beebo’s jealous scrutiny.

Laura let Beebo make most of the arrangements for the party. She felt almost no enthusiasm for it. The whole thing had been Beebo’s idea in the first place. Laura felt almost as outside of it as a late-arriving guest. She ran a few errands, but it was Beebo who planned and organized, who put up streamers and cleaned the apartment, who called everybody, who picked up the liquor and the ice cubes, and even made hors d’oeuvres.

She treated Laura with unwonted gentleness and attention all day. She wanted her in a good mood for the party. They had quarreled so much and so bitterly lately that they were both a little sick over it. Beebo wanted to have a good day behind them, a day full of good will and even tenderness.

There wasn’t much time to foster tenderness, though, with the vacuum going, the kitchen upside down with food in various stages of readiness, the dog barking, and the phone ringing in an endless hysterical serenade. But still, Beebo tried. She touched Laura’s hair softly when she passed her or brushed her hands over Laura’s face. And once she stopped to kiss her, so carefully that Laura was touched in spite of herself and submitted, though without returning the kiss. Beebo went away flushed with success. Laura had not suffered herself to be kissed for nearly a week.

So when the guests finally started arriving, Beebo greeted them with high color in her cheeks and almost too much heartiness. Everything had started out so well, it had to end well.

It was a weird group that assembled to fete the anniversary. Beebo had wanted a big party. “Jesus, honey,” she complained. “How many people down here stick it out this long? We have something to be proud of, for God’s sake. Let’s advertise it.”

“What have we got to be proud of?” Laura said sarcastically. “We’re just a couple of suckers for punishment. We just happen to enjoy beating each other’s heads in.”

Beebo had risen to the occasion with her quick and awful temper and left Laura crying. And she had had her way. They invited just about everybody in the neighborhood: the ones they knew, the ones they knew by sight only, and the ones they didn’t know at all, male and female. Beebo did all the calling, so it came as a shock to Laura to see two of Beebo’s old flames among the guests. But she said nothing about it. There would be time to shout about it afterwards. And shout they no doubt would.

Jack came early because he liked the chance to talk to Laura by himself now and then. He liked to be with her lately, since his own life had taken a sickening dip into loneliness and frustration. They were old friends; sometimes they thought of one another as each other’s only friend. They were very close. It could never be a question of physical love between them, only deep affection, a mutual problem, a sort of harmony that sprang from sympathy and long acquaintance.

They were both homosexual. And if Laura could never understand why a man would desire another man, she at least knew, very well, how it was to love another woman. And so she could build a bridge of empathy on that knowledge and comfort Jack when some lovely boy was giving him hell. And he could do the same when Beebo raked her over the coals.

The party went along well enough for the first hour or so. Every time Beebo came near Laura she pinched her or bussed her. It was a part of her advertising campaign—a way to say, “She’s still mine. And it’s been two years. Hands off, the rest of you!” And she would look around at the guests a little defiantly.

But for Laura it was tedious. It scared her and bored her all at once. The fierce passion for Beebo that had boiled when they first knew each other flared up rarely now. And when there was no love there was nothing but fighting between them. She hated to be put on exhibit like this. And yet she kept her peace and let Beebo kiss her when she felt like it. After all, it was a party. Have a good time. If you can. Forget. If you can. Everybody drink up and laugh. Laugh, damn you all! If you can.

It was when Lili (she would spell it that way; she was born plain Louise) was well plastered that the party took a downward curve from which it never recovered. Lili was a former amour of Beebo’s; Lili of the ash blonde hair and carefully blackened lashes; Lili of the lush, silk-draped body; Lili with the lack of inhibitions. Laura hated her with a good healthy female jealousy. It had been intolerable at first when she was still in love with Beebo and Lili had tried to manage their lives for them. Now it was just an exasperation to Laura to have her around.

Lili got high in a hurry. She believed in getting things done efficiently, and getting drunk was one of the things. She began to saunter from group to group around the small apartment, flirting, feeding sips from her martini to interested parties, telling tales. She came upon Beebo in the kitchen, getting more sandwiches from the refrigerator. The kitchen was crowded with people waving empty glasses and looking for refills. Jack was pouring them as fast as he could and sampling them all.

“Important to get it just right,” he said. “Takes a good concentration of alcohol or you don’t get fried till three in the morning. Terrible waste of time.”

Lili wriggled through the crowd to Beebo and stood in front of her, weaving slightly, her underlip thrust out.

“I want something from you,” she pouted. Beebo offered her a sandwich, but she shook her head murmuring, “No, no, no, no, no!”

“Jack’s handling the concession,” Beebo said a little nervously, jerking her head toward him.

“I don’t want liquor,” Lili said. “I want you. How come you never come to see me anymore, Beebo? You’re enough to drive a girl frantic.”

It was typical cocktail party drivel and Beebo was impatient with her. “You know why, Lili,” she said. “Now scram.”

But Lili was pugnacious. “If it’s because of that bitchy little Laura out there, everybody knows you’re all washed up. It’s been obvious for weeks. You do nothing but fight. In fact, I was saying to Irene just five minutes ago that I can’t imagine why you wanted to give this party in the first place and—” She stopped. Beebo’s face had gone pale and dangerous.

“You say that once more and I’ll kick you out of here on your fat can,” Beebo snapped.

Lili drew herself up. “Okay, lie to yourself, I don’t give a damn,” she said. “Only it’s perfectly clear—”

“Damn you, Lili, don’t you understand English?” She said it loud enough to make heads turn.

Lili smiled. She generally performed better with an audience. “I understand,” she cooed. “I understand you prefer a button-breasted bad-tempered little prude to a real woman.”

Beebo took her roughly by the arms and pushed her out of the kitchen to the front door, causing a stir of curiosity in her wake. “Now get out of here and stay out!” she said.

“You never could handle me right,” Lili smiled. Suddenly she took hold of her dress at the neckline and pulled it—soft, unresisting knit—down far enough to disclose that she wore nothing underneath. Two creamy, full breasts were bared. “All right, you fool—suffer!” Lili cried dramatically and burst out laughing. Beebo stared and then slammed the door.

There was some confusion among the guests. It was funny. And yet there was Laura, watching the whole thing. Everybody was uncomfortable. There was uncertain laughter. Jack, who took it all in from the kitchen door, said simply, “Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing new. She did it to Kitty Jackson last week.”

After that there was obvious tension between Laura and Beebo. Beebo didn’t kiss her anymore and Laura had nothing to say to Beebo. She eyed her coolly from across the room, and moved away if Beebo drew near. The guests absorbed the mood.

Jack took it with quiet cynicism, the way he took most things. He saw and he understood but he said very little. It was not his affair. No matter that he had brought Beebo and Laura together once, a couple of years ago. He hadn’t forced them to fall in love. That was their idea and he took no credit. And no blame,

Laura came suddenly into the kitchen where he was lounging by the liquor bottles, waiting for customers and watching the company through the door.

“She’s impossible!” Laura cried. “God, I can’t stand it anymore!” She covered her face with her hands, and her usually ivory skin crimsoned under her own harsh fingers.

“Take it easy, Mother,” he said mildly, crossing his arms over his chest. “She may be impossible, but she loves you.”

“That doesn’t excuse the way she’s acting—”

“She loves you a hell of a lot, Laura. She wouldn’t hang on to you like this if she didn’t.”

“I don’t want to be hung on to. I hate it! Jack, help me get out of here.”

“I can’t, honey, it’s your mess. I wish to God I could. If I were young and female I’d lure her away from you. But I’m middle-aged and male. And short on allure.”

Laura took advantage of the momentary seclusion of the kitchen to speak confidentially. She went to Jack and stood beside him, facing the sink, while he watched the door for intruders.

“She’s in there showing off with that damn dog again,” Laura said.

“Nix is a nice dog.”

“Jack, we can’t go to bed without that animal.” She turned away to blow her nose. “Sure, he’s a nice dog. But he eats more than I do, and he isn’t housebroken when he’s excited—which is right now. I swear Beebo loves that dog more than she loves me.” Nix gave a volley of excited barks from the living room and they heard Beebo’s throaty laugh. “Do it again,” she was saying. “Come on, Nix, do it again.”

“He will, too.” Laura sighed. “He’ll do anything she tells him to. And wet the rug like a happy idiot. Do you know what that rug cost me? Seventy-seven bucks. And I paid for it myself. Beebo didn’t even have a rug in this place before I moved in.”

“Okay,” Jack said slowly. “The dog isn’t housebroken and Beebo’s old mistresses are a pain in the neck. Still, she loves you, Mother. So much that it astonishes me. I never thought I’d see that girl fall for anybody. Maybe you don’t want her love, but you have to respect it. Real love isn’t cheap, Laura. When you give it up once you sometimes never find it again.”

“If it has to be like this, I don’t ever want it again.”

Jack finished his drink quickly, put it down on the kitchen counter, and turned Laura around to face him. He was the same height as she was but Laura looked up to him with her mind and heart.

“Mother,” he said gently. “Don’t ever say that. Don’t ever throw love away. If it gets so you can’t stand it, move out. But don’t degrade it and don’t disdain it. You can’t stop her from loving you, Laura.”

“I wish I still loved her. That’s an odd way to feel but it would solve everything.”

“You do love her, in a way. Only she exasperates you.”

“No. It’s all over, Jack. The only problem is how to get out without hurting her too much.”

“No, the problem is to realize what your own feelings are and then have the courage to live with them.”

“What you’re trying to say is, you don’t believe me. You think I still love her.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?”

“It’s true.”

“It’s not!” she cried, grasping his arms, and then she heard Beebo laugh again and looked up to see her standing in the other room against the far wall. She was strikingly handsome and for a moment Laura felt the old feeling for her, but the love left almost as fast as it had come.

Beebo was a big girl, big-boned and good looking, like a boy in early adolescence. Her black hair was short and wavy and her eyes were an off-blue, wide, well spaced. She had come to New York from a small town near Milwaukee before she was twenty, and she had had a sort of heartiness then, a rosy-cheeked health that had faded too fast in the hothouse atmosphere of Greenwich Village. She took odd jobs where she could, anything that would let her wear pants. And she ended up running an elevator and wearing a blue uniform with gold trim. She had been there for over ten years.

The manager took her for “one of those queers, but perfectly harmless.” But he meant a male homosexual, to Beebo’s endless hilarity. She was fond of remarking, “I’m the world’s oldest adolescent. I’m a professional teenager.” It was funny enough the first time, but Laura was sick of it.

Now she stood in the living room of their small apartment playing with Nix, and her merriment brought color to her cheeks. She had begun to wear clothes that made her look sportier and healthier than she was: men’s jackets and slacks, men’s shirts. And even, to Laura’s dismay, a sort of riding habit, with modified jodhpurs, a slightly fitted coat, and boots. She had a pair of high black boots in butter-smooth leather with little ankle straps, boots made to fit the finely shaped feet that she was proud of. It made her one of the sights of the village.

“You look like a freak!” Laura had exploded when Beebo first tried them on, and succeeded in offending Beebo royally. But the older girl stuck stubbornly to her outfit.

“I’m no man. Okay. But I’m sure as hell no woman, either. I don’t look good in anything. At least these things fit me,” she defended herself.

“Your underwear fits you, too, darling,” Laura said acidly. “Why don’t you parade around in that if you want to cause a sensation?” But though she needled her, Laura couldn’t make her change.

Now Beebo stood in the living room, visible to Laura through the kitchen door, dressed in the riding clothes. She did not look mannish like some Lesbians. She simply looked like a boy. But she was thirty-three years old, and there were very faint lines around her eyes and mouth.

Laura’s little flash of desire faded almost before it bloomed. And when she found that Nix had wet the floor, that Beebo had kissed Frankie Koehne and Jean Bettman, and that the police had appeared saying they had two complaints and the party would have to simmer down, Laura gave up.

She stormed into the bathroom and locked the door—the one lockable door in the apartment. The guests took the hint and filed out, leaving the apartment a quiet shambles.

When Laura came out, only Jack and Beebo were still there. They were sitting in the kitchen where they had collected most of the glasses, and were finishing up whatever liquor was left in them.

Beebo looked up when Laura came in. She was quite drunk and through the mists she saw Laura, with her long blond hair and pale face, as a sort of lovely vision. “Hi, sweetie,” she murmured. “You sure got rid of the company in a hurry.” She grinned.

Laura glanced disapprovingly at the used glasses Beebo was drinking from. “You’ll get trench mouth,” she predicted.

“Will you make love to me when I’ve got trench mouth?”

“NO!”

Beebo laughed. “You won’t anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” she said dryly. “Come sit on my lap.”

Laura leaned against the kitchen counter near Jack. “No,” she said.

“Be nice to me, baby.”

“Nix is nice to you. You don’t need me. Nix ruins the rug for you. He barks loud enough to wake the dead. He even sleeps with you.”

But Beebo felt too much desire for her to be jockeyed so fast into an argument. “Please, baby,” she said softly. “I love you so.”

And Jack, watching her, felt a pang of sympathy and regret go through him. She sounded too much as he sounded himself a couple of months ago. And Terry had left him anyway and wrecked his life. It was all so sad and wrong; unbearable when you’re mismated and desperately in love.

“Go to her, Mother,” he said suddenly. “She needs you.” Laura was miffed at his interference. But she knew what was bothering him, and to soften it for him, she went. Once she was on Beebo’s lap, everything seemed to relax a little. Beebo held her, leaning back against the wall and pulling Laura’s head down on her shoulder, and Jack watched them enviously. He knew, as Laura knew, and even Beebo must have known in her secret heart, that the affair was doomed, that the party had celebrated an ending, not a new beginning. And yet for a moment things were serene. Beebo held Laura and whispered to her and stroked her hair, and Jack listened to it as if it were a lullaby, a lullaby he had heard somewhere before and had sung once himself. But it was a mournful lullaby and it turned into the blues—a dirge for love gone wrong.

Beebo nuzzled Laura and Laura lay quietly in her arms and endured it. She relaxed, and that made it better. She didn’t want Beebo to excite her; she didn’t want to give her that satisfaction. So she shifted suddenly and asked Jack, “Do you think they had a good time?”

“Lili did. She loves to promote her bosom,” he said.

“Laura, baby.” Beebo turned Laura’s face to hers and tickled her cheeks with the tip of her tongue. “You taste so sweet,” she whispered. “I want to lick you all over like a new puppy.”

Laura couldn’t stand it. The once-welcome intimacy sickened her now that she no longer loved Beebo. She got up abruptly and walked over to the stove. “Anybody want some coffee?” she said.

“You and your goddamn coffee,” Beebo said irritably.

“You could use a little,” Laura said, “both of you.”

“I’d be delighted,” Jack said, speaking with deliberate care as he always did when he was drunk.

Laura made the instant coffee and passed the cups around. Jack doctored his with a double shot of scotch and took a cautious first sip. “Delicious,” he said, looking up to find a storm brewing. Beebo was glowering at Laura.

“I said I didn’t want coffee,” she said. “Nobody around here understands English tonight.”

“If you’re referring to Lili, I don’t like to be classed with your old whores,” Laura said.

“Why not? You’re in good company baby. You don’t think you’re any better than they are, do you?”

“You should have told me you asked Lili! You should have told me, Beebo! And Frankie, too. God, don’t you think I have feelings?”

“Good.” Beebo grinned. “I didn’t think you could get jealous any more.”

“Oh, grow up, Beebo!” Laura cried, exasperated. “I can be humiliated. I can be embarrassed and hurt.”

Beebo poured her coffee into an empty highball glass, which cracked from the heat with a loud snap. Her eyes looked up slyly at Laura, expecting a reprimand, but Laura ignored it, too angry to do anything. Beebo laughed and poured herself a watery drink from another glass. “Did I hurt you, Laura, baby? Did I really? How did it feel? Tell me how you liked it.”

Laura didn’t like the way she laughed. “Does that strike you funny?” she said sharply.

Beebo began to chuckle, a low helpless sort of laugh that she couldn’t control; the miserable sort of laugh that comes on after too much to drink and too little to be happy about. “Yes,” she drawled, still laughing. “Everything strikes me funny. Even you. Even you, my lovely, solemn, angry, gorgeous Laura. Even me. Even Jackson here. Jack, you doll, how come you’re so handsome?”

Jack grinned wryly, twisting his ugly intelligent face. “The Good Fairy,” he explained. “The Good Fairy is an old buddy of mine. Gives me anything I want. You want to be handsome like me? I’ll talk to him. No charge.”

Beebo kept laughing while he talked. She sounded a little hysterical. “No, I don’t want to be handsome,” she said. “I just want Laura. Tell your damn fairy to talk to Laura. Tell him I need help. Laura won’t let me kiss her any more.” She stopped laughing suddenly. “Will you, baby?”

“Beebo, please don’t talk about it. Not now.”

“Not now, not ever. Every time I bring it up, same damn thing. ‘Not now, Beebo. Please, Beebo. Not now.’ You’re nothing but a busted record, my love. A beautiful busted record. Kiss me, little Bo-peep.” Laura turned away, biting her underlip, embarrassed and defiant. “Please kiss me, Laura. That better? Please.” She dragged the word out till it ended in a soft growl.

Laura hated Beebo’s begging almost more than her swaggering. “If you didn’t get so drunk all the time, you’d be a lot more appealing,” Laura said.

Beebo got up and lurched across the room in one giant step and took Laura’s arms roughly. She turned her around and forced a kiss on her mouth. They were both silent afterwards for a moment, Laura looking hot-faced at the floor and Beebo, her eyes shut, holding the love she was losing with awful stubbornness. Jack watched them in a confusion of pity.

He liked them both, but he loved Laura as well. In his own private way he loved her, and if it ever came to a showdown it was Laura he would side with.

At last Beebo said softly, “Don’t shut me out, Laura.”

Laura disengaged herself slightly. “If you didn’t drink so much I wouldn’t shut you out.”

“If you didn’t shut me out I wouldn’t drink so much!” Beebo shouted, suddenly. “I wouldn’t have to.”

“Beebo, you drink because you like to get drunk. You were drunk the night I met you and you’ve been more or less drunk ever since. I didn’t do it to you, you did it to yourself. You like the taste of whiskey, that’s all. So don’t give me a sob story about my driving you to drink.”

“There you go, getting holy on me again. Who says you don’t like whiskey?”

“I have a drink now and then,” Laura flashed at her. “There are so many damn whiskey bottles in this apartment I’d have to be blind to avoid them.”

Jack laughed. “I’m blind,” he said, “most of the time. But I can always find the booze. In fact, the blinder I am the better I find it.” He chuckled at his own nonsense and swirled the spiked coffee in his cup.

“Laura, you lie,” Beebo said. “You lie in your teeth. You just like the way it tastes, like me.”

Laura had been drinking too much lately. Not as much as Beebo, but still too much. She didn’t know exactly why. She blamed it on a multiplicity of bad breaks, but never on herself. “If you wouldn’t drag me around to the bars all night,” she said. “If you wouldn’t continually ask me to drink with you….”

“I ask you, Bo-peep. I don’t twist your arm.” She eyed Laura foggily.

Laura turned to Jack. “Do I drink as much as Beebo?” she demanded. “Am I an alcoholic?”

Beebo gave a snort. “Jack,” she mimicked, “am I an alcoholic?”

“Do you have beer for breakfast?” he asked her.

“No.”

“Do you take a bottle to bed?”

“No.”

“Do you get soused for weeks at a time?”

“No.”

“Do you … have a cocktail now and then?”

“Yes.”

“You’re an alcoholic.”

Beebo threw a wet dishcloth at him.

“I’m going to bed,” Laura announced abruptly.

“What’s the matter, baby, can’t you take it?”

“Enough is too much, that’s all.”

“Enough of what?”

“Of you!”

Beebo turned a cynical face to Jack “That means I can sleep on the couch tonight,” she said. “Too bad. I was just getting used to the bed again….” She hiccuped, and smiled sadly. “Don’t you think we make an ideal couple, Laura and me?”

“Inspirational,” Jack said. “They should serialize you in all the women’s magazines. Give you a free honeymoon in Jersey City.”

“Knowing us as well as you do, Doctor,” Beebo said, and Laura, her teeth clenched, stood waiting in the doorway to hear what she was going to say, “what would you recommend in our case?”

“Nothing. It’s hopeless. Go home and die, you’ll feel better,” he said

“Don’t say that.” Suddenly Beebo wasn’t kidding.

“All right. I won’t say it. I retract my statement.”

“Revise it?”

“God, in my condition?” he said doubtfully. “Well … I’ll try. Let’s see … My friends, the patient is dead of the wrong disease. The operation was a success. There is only one remedy.”

“What’s that?” Laura asked him.

“Bury the doctor. Oops, I got that one wrong too. Excuse me, ladies. I mean, marry the doctor. Laura, will you marry me?”

“No.” She smiled at him.

“I’m an alcoholic,” he offered, as if that might persuade her.

“You’re damn near as irresistible as I am, Jackson,” Beebo said. She said it bitterly, and the tone of her voice turned Laura on her heel and sent her out of the room to bed. Beebo went to the open kitchen door and leaned unsteadily on it.

“Laura, you’re a bitch!” she called after her. “Laura, baby, I hate you! I hate you! Listen to me!” She waited while Laura slammed the door behind her and then stood with her head bowed. Finally she looked up and whispered, “I love you, baby.”

She turned back to Jack, who had finished the coffee and was now drinking out of the whiskey bottle without bothering with a glass. “What do you do with a girl like that?” she asked.

Jack shrugged. “Take the lock off the bedroom door.”

“I already did.”

“Didn’t work?”

“Worked swell. She made me sleep on the couch for five days.”

“Why do you put up with it?”

“Why did you? It was your turn not so long ago, friend.”

“Because you’re crazy blind in love.” He looked toward her out of unfocused eyes. Jack’s body got very intoxicated when he drank heavily, but his mind did not. It was a curious situation and it produced bitter wisdom, sometimes witty and more often painful.

Beebo slumped in a chair and put her hands tight over her face. Some moments passed in silence before Jack realized she was crying. “I’m a fool,” she whispered. “I drink too much, she’s right. I always did. And now I’ve got her doing it.”

“Don’t be a martyr, Beebo. It’s unbecoming.”

“I’m no martyr, damn it. I just see how unhappy she is, how she is dying to get away from me, and then I see her brighten up when she’s had a couple, and I can only think one thing: I’m doing it to her. That’s my contribution to Laura’s life. And I love her so. I love her so.” And the tears spilled over her cheeks again.

Jack took one last drink and then left the bottle sitting in the sink. He said, “I love her too. I wish I could help.”

“You can. Quit proposing to her.”

“You think I should?”

“Never mind what I think. It’s unprintable. I’m just telling you, quit proposing to her.”

“She’ll never say yes,” he said mournfully. “So I don’t see that it matters.”

“That’s not the point, Jackson. I don’t like it.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

“Jack, you don’t want to get married.”

“I know. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“What would you do if she did say yes?”

“Marry her.”

“Why?”

“I love her.”

“Drivel! You love me. Marry me.”

“I could live with her, but not with you,” he said. “I love her very much. I love her terribly.”

“That’s not the reason you want to marry her. You can love her unmarried as well as not. So what’s the real reason? Come on.”

If he had not been so drunk he would probably never have said it.

“I want a child,” he admitted suddenly, quietly.

Beebo was too startled to answer him for a moment. Then she began to laugh. “You!” she exclaimed. “You! Jack Mann, the homosexual’s homosexual. Dandling a fat rosy baby on his knee. Father Jack. Oh, God!” And she doubled up in laughter.

Jack stood in front of her, the faintest sad smile on his face. “It would be a girl,” he mused. “She’d have long pale hair, like Laura.”

“And horn-rimmed glasses like her old man.”

“And she’d be bright and sweet and loving.”

“With dames, anyway.”

“With me.”

“Oh, God! All this and incest, too!” And Beebo’s laughter, cruel and helpless, silenced him suddenly. He couldn’t be angry, she meant no harm. She was writhing in a net of misery and it eased the pain when she could tease. But the lovely child of his dreams went back to hide in the secret places of his heart.

After a while Beebo stopped laughing and asked, “Why a girl?”

“Why not?”

“You’re gay. Don’t you want a pretty little boy to play with?”

“I’m afraid of boys. I’d ruin him. I’d be afraid to love him. Every time I kissed him or stroked his hair I’d be thinking, ‘I can’t do this any more, he’ll take it wrong. He’ll end up as queer as his old man.’”

“That’s not how little boys get queer, doll. Or didn’t your mama tell you?”

“She never told me anything.” He smiled at her. “You know, Beebo, I think I’m going mad,” he said pleasantly.

“That makes two of us.”

“I’m serious. I’m even bored with liquor. By Jesus, I think I’ll go on the wagon.”

“When you go on the wagon, boy, I’ll believe you’re going mad for sure. But not before.” She put her own glass down as if it suddenly frightened her. “Why do we all drink so much, Jackson? Is it something in the air down here? Does the Village contaminate us?”

“I wish to God it did. I’d move out tomorrow.”

“Are we all bad for each other?”

“Poisonous. But that’s not the reason.”

“It’s contagious, then. One person gets hooked on booze and he hooks everybody else.”

“Guess again.”

“Because we’re queer?”

“No, doll. Come with me.” He took her by the hand and led her on a weaving course through the living room to the bathroom. The dachshund, Nix, followed them, bustling with non-alcoholic energy. Jack aimed Beebo at the mirror over the washbowl. “There, sweetheart,” he said. “There’s your answer.”

Beebo looked at herself with distaste. “My face?” she asked. Jack chuckled. “Yourself,” he said. “You drink to suit yourself. As Laura said, you drink because you like the taste.”

“I hate the taste. Tastes lousy.”

“Beebo, I love you but you are the goddamn stubbornest female alive. You don’t drink because anybody asks you to, or infects you, or forces you. You’re like me. You need to or you wouldn’t! Ask that babe in the mirror there.”

“I can’t live with that, Jack,” she whispered.

“Okay, don’t. I can’t either. I just made up my mind: I’m quitting.”

She turned and looked at him. “I don’t believe you.”

He smiled at her. “You don’t have to,” he said.

“And what if you do? How does that help me?”

He shook his head. “You have to help yourself, Beebo. That’s the hell of it.” He turned and walked toward the front door and Beebo followed him, scooping Nix off the floor and carrying him with her. “Don’t go, Jack,” she said. “I need somebody to talk to.”

“Talk to Laura.”

“Sure. Like talking to a wall.”

“Talk anyway. Talk to Nix.”

“I do. All the time.” She held the little dog tight and turned a taut face to it. “Why doesn’t she love me anymore, Nix? What did I do wrong? Tell me. Tell me …” She glanced up at Jack. “I apologize,” she said.

“What for?”

“For laughing about your kid. Your little girl.” She stroked Nix. “I know how it feels. To want one. You just have to make do with what you’ve got,” she added, squeezing Nix.

Jack stared a little at her. “You know, it comes to me as a shock now and then that you’re a female,” he said.

“Yeah. Comes as a shock to me too.”

He saw tears starting in her eyes again and put a kind hand on her arm. “Beebo, you’re trying too damn hard with Laura. Relax. Ignore her for a couple of days.”

“Ignore her! I adore her! I die inside when she slams that door at me.” She dropped Nix suddenly and threw her arms around Jack, nearly smothering him. “Jack, you’ve been through it, you know what to do. Help me. Tell me. Help me!” And her arms loosened and she slumped to the floor and rolled over on her stomach and wept. Nix licked her face and whimpered.

Jack stood looking over her, still smiling sadly. Nothing surprised him now. He had lived with the heartbreaks of the homosexual world too long.

“Sure, I know what to do,” he said softly. “Just keep living. Whatever else turns rotten and dies, never mind. Just keep living. Till it’s worse than dying. Then it’s time to quit.”

“Ohhhh,” she groaned. “What shall I do?”

“Stop loving her,” he said.

Beebo turned over and gaped at him. Jack shrugged and there was sympathy in his face and fate in his voice. “That would straighten things out, wouldn’t it?”

Beebo shook her head and whispered, “I can’t You know 1 can’t.”

“I know,” Jack repeated. “Goodnight, Beebo.”

Chapter Two

THE BEDROOM DOOR opened and Beebo surprised Laura sitting on the closet floor fingering her shoes and dreaming. The party was two days past, the hangovers were still with them, but love was seven days behind them. Beebo didn’t know how much longer she could take it. She had tried, since Jack’s advice about relaxing, to keep her distance from Laura. It had not worked miracles, but it had helped.

However, Laura resented the love she could no longer return. Perhaps it was anger at her own failing, her own empty heart. Laura felt a sort of shame when Beebo embraced her. She blamed herself secretly for her fading affection. Beebo’s love had been the strongest and Beebo’s words, when she spoke of it, the truest. And yet Laura had said those same words and felt those same passions and believed, as Beebo had believed, that it would last.

She could not be sure where she had gone wrong or when that lovely flush of desire had begun to wane in her. She only knew one day that she did not want Beebo to touch her. When Beebo had protested, Laura had lost her temper and they had had their first terrible fight. Not a spat or an argument or a disagreement, as before. A fight—a physical struggle as well as a verbal one. An ugly and humiliating thing from which they could not rise and make love and reassure each other. That had been almost a year ago. Others had followed it and the breach became serious, and still they clung to each other.

Only now Laura’s need was weakening and it was Beebo who held them together almost by herself. It was Beebo who gave in when a quarrel loomed, who took the lead to make peace afterwards, to try to soothe and spoil Laura. Beebo had the terrible fear that one of these days the quarrel would be too vicious and Laura would leave her. Or that she would go beyond the point of rational suffering and kill Laura.

Once or twice she had dreamed of this, and when she had wakened in sweat and panic she had gone to the living room and turned the light on and spent the time until dawn staring at it, repeating the jingles of popular tunes in her mind as a sort of desperate gesture at sanity.

Now Beebo stood looking down at Laura and at Nix, who was chewing on a pair of slippers, and she felt a wrenching in her heart. It just wasn’t possible for her to ignore Laura any longer. She had kept hands off since the party and her talk with Jack. There had been no begging, no shouting, no furious tears. Now she felt she deserved tenderness and she knelt down and took Laura’s chin in her hand and kissed her mouth.

“I love you,” she said almost shyly.

And Laura, who wanted only to leave her, not to hurt her, lowered her eyes and looked away. She could not say it anymore. I love you, Beebo. It wasn’t true. And Beebo knew it and the knowledge almost killed her, and yet she didn’t insist. “Laura,” she said humbly. “Kiss me.”

And Laura did. And in a little wave of compassion she said into Beebo’s ear, “I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

Beebo took it the wrong way, the way that hurt her least. She took it to mean that Laura was apologizing and wanted her love again. But Laura meant only that Beebo had been dear to her once and that it was awful to see her so unhappy. “It’s my fault,” she said. “Only—”

“Only nothing,” Beebo said quickly. “Don’t say it. Say sweet things to me.”

“Oh, Beebo, I can’t. Don’t ask me. I’ve forgotten the sweet things.” Suddenly she felt like crying. She had never meant to wound Beebo. She had had the best intentions of loving her faithfully for the rest of her life. And yet now every pretty face she saw on the streets caught her eye, every new set of eyes or curving lips at the lunch counter.

Laura was afraid and ashamed. She had always protested hotly when somebody accused Lesbians of promiscuity. And yet here she was refuting her own argument, at least in her thoughts and desires. It was still true that in the whole time they had lived together, she had never betrayed Beebo with another woman.

Knowing how Beebo felt only made Laura’s conscience worse. It made her resentful and gentle by fits. Either way it was nerve-wracking and left her exhausted.

Suddenly Beebo picked her up and put her on the bed. She sat down beside her and slipped her arms around her and began to kiss her with a yearning that gradually brought little darts of desire to Laura. She didn’t want it until it happened. And then, inexplicably, she did. It was good, very good. And she heard Beebo whisper, “Oh, if it could always be like this. Laura, Laura, love me. Love me!”

Laura turned her head away and shut her eyes and tried not to hear the words. Gradually the world faded out of her consciousness and there was only the ritual rhythm, the wonderful press of Beebo’s body against hers. It hadn’t been like this for Laura for months, and she was both grateful and annoyed.

Beebo made wonderful love. She knew how, she did it naturally, as other people eat or walk. Her hands flowed over Laura like fine silk in the wind, her lips bit and teased and murmured, all with a knowing touch that amounted to witchery. In the early days of their love Laura had not been able to resist her, and Beebo had loved her lavishly.

Often Laura had felt an ache for those days, when everything was sure and safe and certain in the fortress of passion. She had taken passion for love itself, and she had been secure in Beebo’s warm arms. Now it seemed that Beebo had been just a harbor where she could rest and renew herself at a time when her life was most shattered and unhappy. She didn’t need the safe harbor now. She was grateful, but she needed to move on. It was time to face life again and fight again and feel alive again. For Beebo the time of searching was over. It ended when she met Laura.

She had a small ten-watt bulb in a little bedstand lamp that shed a peachy glow around them, and she always had it on when they went to bed. Laura had loved it at first, when just the sight of Beebo’s big firm body and marvelous limbs would set her trembling. But later, when she was afraid her slackening interest would show in her face, she asked Beebo to turn it out. It had been one more in a series of harsh arguments, for Beebo had known what prompted her request.

Now they lay beside one another, their hearts slipping back into a normal rhythm, their bodies limp and relaxed. Laura wanted only to sleep; she dreaded long intimate talks with Beebo. But Beebo wanted reassurance. She wanted Laura’s soft voice in her ears.

“Talk to me, Bo-peep,” Beebo said.

“Too sleepy,” Laura murmured, yawning.

“What did you do today?”

“Nothing.”

“Shall I tell you what I did?”

“No.”

“I got a new shirt at Davis’s,” Beebo said, ignoring her. “Blue with little checks. And guess who rode in my elevator today?”

Laura didn’t answer.

“Ed Sullivan,” Beebo said. “He had to see one of the ad agency people on the eighth floor.” Still no response. “Looks just like he does on TV,” Beebo said.

Laura rolled over on her side and pulled the covers up over her ears. For some moments Beebo remained quiet and then she said softly, “You’ve been calling me ‘Beth’ again.”

Laura woke up suddenly and completely. Beth … the name, the girl, the love that wound through her life like a theme. The tender first love that was born in her college days and died with them less than a year later. The love she never could forget or forgive or wholly renounce. She had called Beebo “Beth” when they first met, and now and then when passion got the best of her, or whiskey, or nostalgia, Beth’s name would come to her lips like an old song. Beebo had grown to hate it. It was the only rival she knew for certain she had and it put her in the unreasonable position of being helplessly jealous of a girl she didn’t know and never would. Whenever she mentioned her, Laura knew there was a storm coming.

“If I could only see that goddamn girl sometime and know what I was up against!” she would shout, and Laura would have to pacify her one way or another. She would have to protest that after all, it was all over, Beth was married, and Beth had never even loved her. Not really. But when Laura grew the most unhappy with Beebo, the most restless and frustrated, she would start to call her Beth again when they made love. So Beebo feared the name as much as she disliked it. It was an evil omen in her life, as it was a love theme in Laura’s.

Laura turned back to face Beebo now, nervous and tensed for a fight. “Beebo, darling—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Sure, I know. Darling.” She lampooned Laura’s soothing love word sarcastically. “You just pick that name out of a hat. For some screwy reason it just happens to be the same name all the time.”

“If you’re going to be like that I won’t apologize next time.”

“Next time! Are you planning on next time already? God!”

“Beebo, you know that’s all over—”

“I swear, Laura, sometimes I think you must have a girl somewhere.” Laura gasped indignantly, but Beebo went on, “I do! You talk about Beth, Beth, Beth so much I’m beginning to think she’s real. She’s my demon. She lives around the corner on Seventh Avenue somewhere and you sneak off and see her in the evenings when I work late and her husband is out.” Her voice was sharp and probing, like a needle in the hands of a nervous nurse.

“Beebo, I’ve never betrayed you! Never!”

Beebo didn’t really believe she had. But Laura had hurt her enough without betraying her and Beebo, who was not blind, could see that Laura would not go on forever in beautiful blamelessness.

“You will,” Beebo said briefly. They were the words of near despair.

Laura was suddenly full of pity. “Beebo, don’t make me hurt you,” she begged. She got on her knees and bent over Beebo. “I swear I’ve never touched another girl while we’ve lived together, and I never will.”

“You mean when you stumble on a tempting female one of these days you’ll just move out. You can always say, ‘I never cheated on Beebo while we lived together. I just got the hell out when I had a chance.’”

“Beebo, damn you, you’re impossible! You’re the one who’s saying all this! I don’t want to cheat, I don’t want to hurt you, I hate these ugly scenes!” She began to weep while she talked. “God, if you’re going to accuse me of something, accuse me of something real. Sometimes I think you’re getting a little crazy.”

Beebo clasped her around the waist then, her strong fingers digging painfully into Laura’s smooth flesh, and sobbed. They were hard sobs, painful as if each one were twisting her throat.

“Forgive me, forgive me,” she groaned. “Why do I do it? Why? Laura, my darling, my only love, tell me just once—you aren’t in love with anybody else, are you?”

No!” said Laura with the force of truth, resenting Beebo’s arms around her. She wanted to comfort her, yet she feared that Beebo would pounce on the gesture as a proof of love and force her into more lovemaking. Her hands rested awkwardly on Beebo’s shoulders.

“If you ever fall for anybody, Bo-peep, tell me. Tell me first, don’t spare me. Don’t wait till the breach is too wide to heal. Give me a chance. Let me know who it is, let me know how it happened. Don’t keep me wondering and agonizing over it. Anything would be better than lies and wondering. Promise you’ll tell me. Promise, love.”

She looked up at Laura now, shaking her so hard that Laura gasped. “Promise!” she said fiercely.

“All right,” Laura whispered, afraid of her.

“Say it.”

“I promise—to tell you—if I—oh, Beebo, please—”

“Go on, damn you!”

“If I ever fall—for somebody else.” Her voice was almost too weak to hear.

Beebo released her then and they both fell back on the bed, worn out. For a long time they lay awake, but neither would make a move toward the other or utter a word.

The next day Beebo awoke feeling that they had come closer to the edge of breaking up than ever before, and she could feel herself trembling all over. She got up before Laura was awake and, taking Nix with her into the kitchen, she poured herself a shot. She was ashamed of this new little habit she was acquiring. She hadn’t told anybody about it, not even Jack. Just one drink in the morning. Just one. Never more. It made her hands steady. It made the day look brighter and not quite so endless. It made her situation with Laura look hopeful.

She took the hot and satisfying amber liquid straight, letting it burn her tight throat and ease her. Then she washed out the shot glass and returned it to the shelf with the bottle.

“Nix,” she said softly to the little dog, “I’m a bad girl. Your Beebo is a wicked bitch, Nix. Do you think anybody cares? Do you think it matters? What the hell good is it to be a bad little girl if nobody notices you? What fun is it then? Shall I have another shot, Nix? Nobody’s looking.”

He whimpered a little, watching her with puddle-bright eyes, and made her laugh. “You care, don’t you, little dog?” She leaned down and picked him up. “You care, anyway. You’re telling me not to be an ass and let myself in for a lot of trouble. And you’re right. Absolutely.”

She sat down on a kitchen chair and sighed. “You know, if she loved me, Nix, I wouldn’t have to do it. You know that, don’t you? Sure you do. You’re the only one who does. Everybody else thinks I’m just turning into an old souse. But it’s not true. It’s because of Laura, you know that as well as I do. She makes me so miserable. She has my life in her hands, Nix.” She laughed a little. “You know, that’s kind of frightening. I wish I knew if she was on my side or not.”

There was a moment when she thought she would cry and she dumped Nix off her lap and quickly poured herself one more shot. It went down easier than number one, but she washed the shot glass out as before and put it and the bottle back on the shelf as if to tell herself: That’s all, that’s enough.

Beebo turned and smiled at Nix. “Now look at me,” she said. “I’m more sober than when I’m really sober. My hands have quit shaking. And I’m not going to quarrel with her when she gets up. I’m going to say something nice. Come here, dog. Help me think of something….

“I’d sell my soul to be an honest-to-God male. I could marry Laura! I could marry her. Give her my name. Give her kids … oh, wouldn’t that be lovely? So lovely….” Jack’s desire for a child didn’t seem grotesque to her at all anymore.

“But Nix,” she went on, and her face fell, “she wouldn’t have me. My baby is gay, like me. She wants a woman. Would God she wanted me. But a woman, all the same, She’d never take a man for a mate.”

She felt the vile tears sneaking up on her again and shook her head hard. “She couldn’t take that, Nix. It’d be even worse than—than living with me.” And she gave a hard laugh.

Beebo heard the bedroom door open and she dropped Nix and went to the icebox. Within moments Laura entered the kitchen.

“‘Morning,” she said.

“Good morning, Madam Queen. What’ll it be?”

“Soft boiled egg, please. Have to hurry, I’ll be late to work.” She had a job in a tourist trap over on Greenwich Avenue, where they sold sandals and earrings and trinkets.

Beebo busied herself with the eggs and Laura poured orange juice and opened the paper. She buried herself in it, moving just a little to let Beebo put her plate down in front of her.

Beebo sat down opposite her and ate in silence for a minute, eating very little. She lighted a cigarette after a few minutes and sipped cautiously at her hot coffee.

“Laura?” she said.

“Hm?”

“Even in the morning, with your hair up and your nose in the paper and your eyes looking everywhere but at me … I love you, Laura.” She said it slowly, composing it as she went and smiling a little at the effect. The liquor had loosened her up.

“What?” said Laura, her eyes following a story and her ears deaf.

“I have a surprise for you, Bo-peep,” Beebo tried again.

“Oh. Says here it’s going up to ninety today … A surprise?” She lowered the paper a bit to look at Beebo.

“Um-hm. I didn’t get you an anniversary present. I thought we might get you a new dress tonight. Stores are open.”

Laura was embarrassed. It still upset her to have to accept gifts from Beebo. She felt as if each one was a bid for her love, a sort of investment Beebo was making in Laura’s good will. It made her resent the gifts and resist them. And still Beebo came home with things she couldn’t afford and forced them on Laura and made her almost frantic between the need to be grateful, the pity she felt, and the exasperation that was the result of it all.

“I don’t need a dress, honey,” Laura said.

“I want you to have one.”

“God, Beebo, if I bought all the clothes you want me to have we wouldn’t have money to eat on. We’d be broke. We’d be in hock for everything we own.”

“Please, baby. All I want to do is buy you an anniversary present.”

“Beebo, I—” What could she say? I don’t want the damn dress?

“I know,” Beebo said abruptly. “I embarrass you. You don’t like to be seen in the nice stores with me. I look so damn queer. Don’t argue, Bo-peep, I know it,” she said, waving Laura’s protests to silence. “I’ll wear a skirt tonight. Okay? I look pretty good in a skirt.”

It was true that Laura was ashamed to go anywhere out of Greenwich Village with her … Beebo, nearly six feet of her, with her hair cropped short and her strange clothes and her gruff voice. And when she flirted with the clerks!

Laura had been afraid more than once that they would call the police and drag Beebo off to jail. But it had never happened. Still, there was always a first time. And if she had a couple of drinks before they went, Laura wasn’t at all sure she could handle her.

“Why don’t you let me find something for myself?” Laura asked, pleading. “I know you hate to put a skirt on. You don’t have to come. I’ll pick out something pretty.” But she knew, and so did Beebo, that unless Beebo went along Laura would buy nothing. She would come home and say, “They just didn’t have a thing.” And Beebo would have to face the fact that Laura resented her little tributes.

So she said, “No, I don’t trust your taste. Besides, I like to see you try on all the different things.”

So it was that Laura met her at Lord and Taylor’s on Fifth Avenue after work. It had to be a really good store, and Beebo had to pay more than they could afford, or she wasn’t satisfied. Laura anticipated it with dread, but at least it was better than another awful quarrel. If Beebo would just be quiet. If she would just keep her eyes—and her hands—off the cute little clerks in the dress departments. Laura always tried to find a stolid middle-aged clerk, but the shops seemed to abound in sleek young ones.

Still, Beebo, subdued perhaps by her plain black dress and by Laura’s nervous concern, kept quiet. Laura noticed a little whiskey on her breath when they met outside the store, but nothing in her behavior betrayed it.

“Do I stink?” she had asked, and when Laura wrinkled her nose Beebo took a mint out and sucked on it. “I won’t disgrace you,” she said. She was making a real effort.

They zigzagged around the Avenue, finding nothing that both looked right and could be had for less than a fortune. At Peck and Peck, near nine o’clock, Laura said, “Beebo, I’ve had it. This is positively the last place. I don’t want you to dress me like a damn princess. I’d much rather have one of those big enamelware pots—”

“Oh, goddamn the pots! Don’t talk to me of pots!” Beebo exclaimed and Laura answered, “All right, all right, all right!” in a quick irritated whisper.

She went up to the first girl she saw, determined to waste as little time as possible. “Excuse me,” she said. “Could you show me something in a twelve?”

The girl turned around and looked at her out of jade green eyes. Laura stared at her. She was black-haired and her skin was the color of three parts cream and one part coffee. In such a setting her green eyes were amazing. There was a tiny red dot between them on her brow, Indian fashion, but she was dressed in Occidental clothes. She gazed at Laura with exquisite contempt.

“Something in a twelve?” she repeated, and her voice had a careful, educated sort of pronunciation. Laura was enchanted with her, pleased just to look at her marvelous smooth face. Her skin was incredibly pure and her color luminous.

“Yes, please,” Laura said.

With a light monosyllable, unintelligible to Laura, the girl shrugged at a row of dresses. “Help yourself,” she said in clipped English. “I cannot help you.”

Laura was surprised at her effrontery. “Well, I—I would like a little help, if you don’t mind,” she said pointedly.

“Not from me. Go look at the dresses. If you see one you like, buy it.”

Laura stared at her, her dander up. “You just don’t care if I buy a dress or not, do you?” she prodded. The girl, who had begun to turn away, looked back at her in annoyance.

“Can you think of one good reason why I should?” she asked.

“You’re a clerk and I’m a customer,” Laura shot back.

“Thank you for the compliment,” she said icily. “But I am no clerk. And if I were, I wouldn’t wait on you.”

It was so royal, so precise, that Laura blushed crimson. “Oh,” she said in confusion. “Please forgive me. I—I just saw you standing there and I—”

“And you took it for granted that I must be a clerk? How flattering.” She stared at Laura for a minute and then she smiled slightly and turned away.

Laura was too interested in her just to let her fade away like that. She started after her with no idea of what to say, feeling idiotic and yet fascinated with the girl. She touched her sleeve and that lovely beige face swiveled toward her, this time plainly irritated. But before either of them could speak Beebo came toward them. She had a couple of dresses over one arm and she sauntered up with typical long strides, a cigarette drooping from one corner of her mouth. Laura saw her coming with a sinking feeling.

“I found these, Laura. Try them on,” she said, looking at the Indian girl. There was a small awkward silence. “Well?” Beebo said suddenly, smiling at the strange girl. “Friend of yours, Bo-peep?”

Laura could have slapped her. She hated that pet name. It was bad enough in private, but in public it was intolerable.

“No, I—I mistook her for a clerk,” Laura said. Her cheeks were still glowing and the girl looked from her to Beebo and back as if they were both dangerous. Laura’s hand fell from her arm and she stepped backwards, still watching them, as if she half-feared they would follow her.

“Don’t mind her,” Beebo told her, thumbing at Laura. “She thinks her best friends are clerks. She’s just being friendly.” Laura heard the edge in her voice and became uneasy.

But the Indian girl, if she was an Indian girl, unexpectedly relented a little and smiled. “It’s all right,” she said. She looked at Laura. “I’m not a clerk,” she said. “I’m a dancer.”

“Oh!” Suddenly an unwelcome little thrill flew through Laura. She couldn’t have explained it logically. The girl was very demure and distant. But she was also very lovely, and Laura had a brief vision of all that creamy tan skin unveiled and undulating to the rhythm of muffled gongs and bells and wailing reeds.

She must have looked incredulous for the girl said suddenly, “I can prove it.”

“Oh, no! No, that’s all right,” Laura protested, but the girl handed her a little card with a name printed on it, and Laura took it eagerly. “I did not mean I would demonstrate,” the girl said carefully.

Beebo laughed. “Go ahead,” she said. “We’re dance lovers. I don’t think Laura’d mind a bit, would you, baby?” She was mad at Laura for flirting and Laura knew it.

The little card read, Tris Robischon and underneath, Dance Studio and an address in the Village. “I just didn’t want you to think I was lying,” the girl said, somewhat haughtily. And before Laura or Beebo could answer her she turned and left them standing, staring after her.

Beebo turned to frown at Laura. “You made a hit, it seems,” she said acidly. “Let’s see her card.” She snatched it from Laura’s reluctant fingers.

“Take it. I don’t want it!” Laura said angrily, for she did want it very much. She turned away sharply, giving her attention to a row of dresses, but she knew Beebo wouldn’t let her off the hook so easily. There would be more nastiness and soon.

“You got her name out of her, at least. Pretty smooth.” Beebo’s voice was hard and hurt. “Tris Robischon. Doesn’t sound very Indian to me.”

“How would you know, swami?” Laura snapped. “If you throw a jealous scene in here I’ll leave you tonight and I’ll never come back, I’m warning you!” she added in a furious hiss, and Beebo glared at her. But she didn’t answer.

Finally Laura dragged some dresses off the rack and turned to her. “I’ll try these,” she said. Beebo followed her to the dressing room and watched her change into one and then another in angry silence.

At last Laura burst out, “I didn’t ask her for the damn card. I don’t know why she gave it to me.”

“It’s obvious. You’re irresistible.”

Laura took two handfuls of Beebo’s hair and shook her head till Beebo stopped her roughly and forced her to her knees. Fury paralyzed them both for a moment and they stared at each other helplessly, trembling.

Laura wanted that card. She wanted it enough to soften suddenly and play games for it. “Beebo, be gentle with me,” she pleaded, her tense body relaxing. “Don’t hurt me,” she whispered. “I don’t know who the girl is and I don’t care.”

Beebo stared at her suspiciously till Laura reminded her, “We came to get a dress, remember? Let’s not spoil it. Please, Beebo.”

Beebo released her and sat staring at the floor. Laura tried on dresses for her, but Beebo wouldn’t look at them. No tender words, no coaxing, no teasing that would have been so welcome any other time worked with her tonight. When Beebo got jealous she was a bitch—irrational, unreasonable, unkind.

“I’m going to take this one,” Laura said finally, a little desperate. “Whether you like it or not.”

Beebo looked up slowly. “I like it,” she said flatly, but she would have said, “I hate it,” in the same voice.

Laura went over to her and took her face in both hands, stooped down, and kissed her petulant mouth. “Beebo,” she murmured. “You love me. Act like it.” It was so foolishly selfish, so unexpected, and so almost affectionate that it was funny, and Beebo smiled wryly at her. She took Laura’s shoulders and pulled her down for another kiss just as a clerk—a genuine clerk—stuck her face in and said, “Need any help in here?”

“No thanks!” Laura blurted, looking up in alarm. Beebo put her head back and laughed and the clerk stared, pop-eyed. Then she shut the door and sped away. Beebo stood up and swept Laura into her arms and kissed her over and over, all over her face and shoulders and ears and throat until Laura had to beg her to stop. “Let’s get out of here before that clerk makes trouble!” she implored.

When they left the dressing room Laura noticed that Beebo had put Tris Robischon’s card in the sand pail for cigarettes. It stuck out like a little white flag. Laura risked her purse—with $15.87, all they had for the next week—to get the card back. She left the purse on the chair as she followed Beebo out. And so it was that she was able to make an excuse to go back and retrieve them both, purse and card, while Beebo paid for the dress.

Chapter Three

IT’S AN AWFUL THING ABOUT JACK, Laura wrote in her diary, sitting on the floor by the closet door. Such a nice guy, so bright and so—this will sound corny—so fine. But ever since Terry left him he’s been a little crazy. I was really afraid of how much he was drinking until tonight when we had a beer at Julian’s. Or rather, I had a beer. Jack’s on the wagon. Maybe that will straighten him out. If he can stick with it. If he’d been straight I think he would have done something wonderful with his life. But is it fair to blame the failures on homosexuality? Is it, really? I’m selling junk here in the Village because Beebo wants me near her. She runs an elevator so she can wear pants all day. And Jack’s a draughtsman so he can be in an office full of virile engineers. What’s the matter with us? We don’t have to spend our lives doing it. So why do we?

She had asked Jack the same question at Julian’s little bar just off Seventh Avenue, earlier that evening. “Why do we do it, Jack? Throw our lives away?” she said.

“We like to,” he shrugged. “We all have martyr complexes.”

“We give away the best part of ourselves—our youth and our health are all just given away. Free.”

“What sort of profit did you expect to make on them?” he said. “You want to get paid for being young and healthy?”

Laura glared at him. “That’s not what I mean—”

“If you’re not giving, you’re not living, doll,” he said. “I quote the sob columns. Give yourself away, what the hell. What’s youth for? And health? And beauty, and the rest of it. Keep it and it turns putrid like everything else. Give it away and at least somebody enjoys it.”

“Jack, you know damn well I mean wasting it. Wasting it all day long on costume jewelry or a push-button elevator or a slide rule. God, when I think of what you—”

“Don’t think of all the fine things I could have done with my life, Mother,” he pleaded. “You give me the shudders. I’m not happy, but I’d be worse off trying to live straight. I like men. My office is full of them.”

“You hate your work.”

“I never have to think about it. Purely mechanical. I just sit there and flip that little slip stick and I say, ‘Evens, Johnson is straight. Odds, he’s queer. If Johnson is queer on Tuesday—according to the slide rule—I make it a point to give him a kind word.”

“Johnson is straight and you know it. Every man in your office is straight Why do you torture yourself?”

“No torture, Mother. When the whole world is black, pretend it’s rosy. Somewhere, in some little corner. If everybody’s straight, pretend somebody’s gay.”

“That’s a short cut to the bug house.”

“I wouldn’t mind the bug house. If they’d let me keep my slip stick.” He laughed to himself and leaned over the bar to order. “One whiskey and water,” he said.

“How about you, Mann?” Julian asked.

“Nothing.”

“Are you on the wagon?” Laura was stunned. When he nodded she said, “Just a beer for me. I’m drinking too much anyway.” Then she smiled. “You’ll never last, Jack. You know what you need?”

“Do I know? Are you serious?” He grinned at her, but it was a pained smile.

“You need a real man,” Laura said softly. “Not a bunch of daydreams at the office. That’s enough to drive anybody nuts. You worry me, Jack.”

“Good.” He smiled and squeezed her arm. “Now I’ll tell you what I really need.” He looked at her through his sharp eyes set in that plain face Laura had come to love and find attractive. “I don’t need a man, Laura,” he said. “I’m too damn old to run after pretty boys anymore. I look like a middle-aged fool, which is exactly what I am. When Terry left me, I was through.”

“Do you still love him? Even after what he did?”

“I won’t talk about him,” he said simply. “I can’t. But he was the last one. The end. I want a woman now. I want you, Laura.” He turned away abruptly, embarrassed, but his hand remained on her arm.

Laura was touched. “Jack,” she said very gently. “I’m a Lesbian. Even if you renounce men, I can’t renounce women. I won’t even try.”

“There was a time when you were willing to try.”

“That was a million years ago. I wasn’t the same Laura I am now. I said that before I even met Beebo—when another girl was giving me hell, and I was new to the game and to New York and so afraid of everything.”

“So now you know the ropes and you’re absolutely sure you’d rather give your life away to the goddamn tourists and a woman you don’t love than come and live with a man you do love.”

“Jack, darling, I love you, but I don’t love you with my body. I love you with my heart and soul but I could never let you make love to me.”

“I could never do it, either,” he said quietly. “You’re no gayer than I am, Laura. If we married it would never be a physical union, you know that.” Somewhere far back in his mind the sweet shadow of that little dream child hovered, but he suppressed it, lighting a cigarette quickly. His fingers shook.

“If it wasn’t a physical union, what would it be?” Laura asked. “Just small talk and community property and family-plan fares?”

He smiled. “Sounds a little empty, doesn’t it?”

“Jack,” Laura said, speaking with care so as not to hurt him, “you’re forty-five and life looks a little different to you now. I’m only twenty-three and I can’t give up my body so casually. I could never make you promises I couldn’t keep.”

“I wouldn’t ask that promise of you, Laura,” he said.

“You mean I could bring girls home? To our home, yours and mine? Any girls, any time? And it would be all right?”

“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “If you fell in love with somebody, I’d be understanding. I’d welcome her to the house, and I’d get the hell out when you wanted a little privacy. I’d keep strict hands off and just one shoulder for you to cry on. As long as you really loved her and it wasn’t cheap or loud or dirty, I’d respect it.”

He knocked the ashes off the tip of his cigarette thoughtfully. “… Only,” he said, “you’d be my wife. And you’d come home at night and tuck me in and you’d be there in the morning to see me off.” He sounded so peculiarly gentle and yearning that she was convinced that he meant it. But she was not ready to give in.

Laura smiled at him. “What would there be in all this for you, Jack?” she said. “Just getting tucked in at night? Is that enough compensation?”

“Nobody ever tucked me in before.” He said it with a grin but she sensed that it was true.

“And breakfast in the morning?”

“Wonderful! You don’t know what a difference it would make.”

“That’s nothing, Jack, compared to what you’d be giving me.”

“You’d be my wife, Laura, my honest-to-God lawful legal wife. You’d give me a home. You don’t know what that would mean to me. I’ve been living in rented rooms since I was out of diapers. You’d give me a place to rest in and be proud of, and a purpose in life. What the hell good am I to myself? What use is an aging fag with a letch for hopelessly bored, hopelessly handsome boys? Christ, I give myself the creeps. I give the boys the creeps. And you know something? They’re beginning to give me the creeps. I’m so low I can’t go any place but up. If you’ll say yes.”

“What if I did? What about Beebo?” Laura said softly, as if the name might suddenly conjure up her lover, jealous and vengeful.

“It would solve everything,” he said positively. “She could still see you, but you wouldn’t be her property anymore. It’s bad for her to have the idea she owns you, but that’s the way she treats you. If you were my wife she’d have to respect the situation. It would be a kind way to break with her,” he added slyly. He was feeling too selfish to waste sympathy on Beebo now.

Laura thought it over. There was no one she respected more than Jack, and her love for him, born of gratitude and affection, was real. But it was not the love of a normal woman for a normal man she felt for him, and the idea of marrying him frightened her.

“Do you think, if we married, we could keep our love for each other intact, Jack?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Even if I were having an affair?” She was thinking at that moment of Tris Robischon, the lovely, lithe Indian girl.

“Yes. I told you ‘yes.’”

Laura finished her beer in silence, gazing into the mirror over the bar and pondering. She knew she would say no. But she didn’t quite know how. “I can’t, Jack,” she said at last, in a small voice.

“Not now, maybe?” He wouldn’t give up.

“Never.”

“Never say never, Mother. Say ‘not now’ or something.”

She did, obediently. But she added, “We’d quarrel and we’d end up destroying our love for each other.”

“We’d quarrel, hell yes. I wouldn’t feel properly married if we didn’t.”

“And there’s always the chance that you’d fall in love. And regret that you married me.”

He turned to her with a little smile and shook his head. “Never,” he said. “And this once it’s the right word.” He took her hands. “Say yes.”

“No.”

“Say maybe.”

“No.”

“Say you’ll think about it, Laura. Say it, honey.”

And out of love and reluctance to hurt him, she whispered, “I’ll think about it.”

Laura was walking up Greenwich Avenue, searching for number 251. She had a small white card in her hand to which she referred occasionally, although she had memorized the address. It was a hot day, late in the afternoon, and she had just come from work, wilted and worn and bored. The idea of going home right away depressed her and she had decided to walk a little.

She hadn’t gone two blocks before she was daydreaming of Tris Robischon and suddenly shivering with the thought of seeing her again.

Beebo wouldn’t be home until nine o’clock that evening, and Tris’s studio address was only a short distance from the shop where Laura worked. All at once she was walking fast.

She found the address with no trouble at all. In fact it was almost too easy, and before she knew it she was standing in the first floor hallway of the modest building reading the names on the mailboxes. TRIS ROBISCHON. There it was. Third floor, Apartment C. Laura climbed the stairs.

What will I say to her! she asked herself. How in God’s name will I explain this visit? Ask her for a dance lesson? Me? She had to smile at herself. Her long slim legs would never yield to the fluid grace and discipline of dancing.

Laura stood uncertainly before the door of Apartment C, a little afraid to knock. She could hear the sounds of music inside—rather sharp, tormented music. Laura glanced at the card once again. It had been almost three weeks since the Indian girl had given it to her. Perhaps she wouldn’t even remember Laura. It might be embarrassing for them both. But then Laura envisioned that remarkable face, and she didn’t care how embarrassed she had to be to see it once again. She knocked.

There was no response. She knocked again, hard. This time there was a scampering of feet and the music was abruptly shut off. Laura heard voices and realized with a sinking feeling that Tris wasn’t alone.

Suddenly the door swung open. Laura was confronted with a young girl of twelve or so in a blue leotard. “Yes?” said the little girl. There were three or four others in the room in attitudes of relaxation, and then Tris appeared around a corner, wiping her wonderful face on a towel and coming quickly and smoothly toward the door. It was almost a self-conscious walk, as if she expected any caller to be a prospective pupil and had to demonstrate her talent even before she opened her mouth to speak.

She stopped behind the young girl and looked up. Laura waited, speechless and awkward, until Tris smiled at her, without having said a word. “Come in,” she said.

“I hope I’m not interrupting a class,” Laura said, hesitating.

“It does not matter. You are welcome. Please come in.” Laura followed her into the room and Tris waved her to a seat. It was only a bench, set in a far corner of the room, but Laura went to it gratefully and sat there while Tris collected her charges and put them through a five-minute routine. It looked very pretty to Laura, although the Indian girl seemed dissatisfied.

“You can do much better than that for our visitor, girls,” she said in her dainty English that Laura had nearly forgotten. It was a strange accent, like none Laura had ever heard, very precise and softly spoken, but not noticeably British or anything else. Laura puzzled over it, watching Tris move and demonstrate things to her students. She had on black tights and a small cotton knit bandeau that covered her breasts and shoulders but left her long supple midriff exposed. She was the same luscious tan from waist to bosom, and Laura, sitting there watching her, was helplessly fascinated by it; almost more by what she could see than by what she couldn’t.

Tris gave two sharp claps with her hands suddenly. “That is all for today, girls,” she said, and they broke up quickly, running into another room to change their clothes. Tris turned to look at Laura. She simply looked at her without saying anything, a stare so frank and unabashed that Laura lowered her eyes in confusion, feeling the red blood come to her cheeks.

“What is your name?” Tris asked her then, and Laura answered, surprised, “Laura.” Of course, I’d forgotten. She doesn’t even know my name!

Laura looked up to find Tris studying her with a little smile. The girls began to file past saying goodnight to her. She smiled at one or another, touched their heads and shoulders, and spoke to some. In between little girls she watched Laura who felt rather like a specimen on exhibit.

The studio was bare except for the bench, a record player next to it on the floor by Laura’s feet, and mirrors. The mirrors were everywhere, long and short, all over the walls. Most gave a full view of you to yourself. The room where the children dressed was furnished as a bedroom. Laura could see parts of it, and there were more mirrors in there. There was a swinging door, shut now, which apparently led to a kitchen. Laura gazed around her, trying to appear interested in it, so she wouldn’t have to look at Tris.

The front door shut finally, rather conspicuously, and a small silence fell. They were alone.

“You like my little studio, then?” said Tris.

Laura dared to look at her then and found that the last child was certainly gone and the studio was empty. Awfully empty.

“Yes, I like it,” she said. She felt the need to excuse her presence and she began hurriedly, “I hope you won’t think I—”

But Tris never let her finish. “Shall I dance for you?” she said suddenly with such a luminous smile that Laura felt her whole body go warm with appreciation. She returned the smile. “Yes, please. If you would.”

Tris walked to the record changer beside Laura, knelt, and slipped a record into place. Then she looked up at Laura, her eyes larger and greener than Laura remembered, and infinitely lovelier seen so close. She waited there, looking at her visitor, until the music began to flow. It was not harsh like the music Laura had heard through the door, but languid and rhythmical, perhaps even sentimental.

Tris began to move so slowly at first that Laura was hardly aware that she was dancing. Her arms, long and tender and graceful, began to ripple subtly toward Laura, and then her head and body began to sway, and finally her strong legs, deceptively slim, moved under her and brought her, whirling slowly, to her feet.

It was a strange dance that flowed and undulated. This marvelous body seemed to float and then to sink like mist, and at one point Laura had to shut her eyes for a minute, too thrilled to bear it. She wanted terribly to reach out, put her hands on Tris’s hips and feel the rhythm move through her own body.

The music stopped. Tris stood poised over Laura, looking down at her, and for a moment she remained there, balanced delicately and smiling. Laura felt a familiar surge of desire and she watched Tris like a cat watching a twitching string, ready to pounce if Tris made a sudden move. And yet afraid Tris might touch her and startle her passion into the open.

But Tris relaxed as the needle began its monotonous scratch, and she turned off the machine. She sat on the floor then, grasping her black-sheathed knees in her arms, one hand holding the wrist of the other.

“Did you like it?” she said, glancing up, and she seemed for a moment to be unsure and distant, as she had been in the dress shop.

“I thought it was wonderful,” Laura said, herself a little shy. “I didn’t know dancing could be like that.”

“Like what?” Tris demanded suspiciously.

“Well—like–I don’t know. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen … as if you were floating. It was beautiful.”

Tris softened a little. “Thank you, Laura,” she said. And Laura felt a wild confusion of delight at the sound of her own name. “I dance very well,” Tris went on oddly. “There is no point in false modesty. I hate that sort of thing, don’t you? It’s so hypocritical. If you dance well, or do anything else well, say so. Be frank. I think men like a girl who is frank. Don t you?”

Laura was taken aback. “Oh, yes,” she affirmed quickly. But she stared. She can’t be straight! she thought to herself, in a sudden agony of doubt. From the first she had taken it for granted that the lovely Indian girl was a Lesbian. It seemed so right, perhaps only because Laura wanted it that way. And too, Laura always prided herself on being able to tell if a girl were homosexual or not. She was sick at the thought that Tris might love men.

Tris watched her, interested. “What are you thinking of?” she said.

“Nothing,” Laura protested uneasily.

“All right. I will not pry.” Tris smiled. “Will you have some tea with me?’

“Thank you.” Laura was glad to ease the tension a little. Tris got up and she followed her through the swinging door into the kitchen.

Tris made the tea while Laura watched her in a rapture of pleasure. “You moved so beautifully,” she blurted, and then blushed. “I—I mean, it shows in all your movements. Dancing, or walking, or just getting down the teacups.” She laughed. “I feel like a clumsy ox, watching you.”

“You are wrong,” Tris said. “I have been watching you, too. You move well, Laura. You could learn to dance. Would you like to learn?”

Laura looked away, confused and delighted but scared. “I’d be your worst pupil,” she said.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s—probably very expensive.”

“For you …,” Tris shrugged and smiled, “nothing,” she said.

Laura turned to look at her, surprised. “Nothing?” she repeated.

“Or perhaps your friend … the big one,” Tris added softly. “Perhaps she would be interested?”

“Beebo?” Laura exclaimed. “Oh God no!”

Tris handed her a cup quickly, as if to make her forget the suggestion. “Do you like me, Laura?” she said, her green eyes too close and her sweet skin redolent of jasmine.

“Yes, Tris,” Laura said, saying her name for the first time and feeling the fine shivering return to her limbs.

“Good.” Tris grinned at her. “That is payment enough.” Laura felt suddenly like she had better sit down or she would fall down. “You say my name now, that means you feel closer to me, hm?” Tris asked.

“Yes. A little.” Laura gazed at her, completely confused, afraid to move, until Tris gave a little laugh.

“Come, we’ll sit in the other room,” she said, and Laura once again followed her across the bare studio into the bedroom.

The room was fitted up Indian fashion with rich red silk drapes on the bed. The bed itself was actually more of a low couch, very capacious, and covered with tumbled silk cushions. There were books and records scattered around, a couple of pillows on the floor to take the place of chairs, and a number of ashtrays.

“This is my bedroom, my living room, my den, my playroom—whatever you want,” Tris said smiling, and sat down on the bed. “Come, don’t stand there looking afraid of me,” she said, “sit down.” And she patted the bed beside her.

Laura came and sat there and as she did Tris lay back on the cushions and watched her. She put her tea on the floor while Laura held hers carefully, anxious about spilling it on the lush red silk.

“Are you—are you Indian, Tris?” she asked awkwardly, turning to look at her.

Tris crossed her black-sheathed legs. “Yes,” she said. “Half

Indian, at least. My mother was Indian but my father was French.”

“Did you grow up in India?”

“Yes. In New Delhi. Have you been there?” Her clear eyes looked sharply at Laura.

“No. I’ve never been anywhere,” Laura said. “Except New York and Chicago. I was born in Chicago.”

“Is your family there?”

“Just my father. He’s all the family I have.”

“Do you see him often?”

“I never see him.” She looked away, suddenly overwhelmed with the thought of her father. She had not seen him for two years. Not since she had gone to live with Beebo and admitted to him that she was a Lesbian. There had been a terrible scene. And then Laura had fled and Merrill Landon, for all she knew, had gone back to Chicago.

“Is that where your roommate is from? Chicago?” Tris asked slowly.

“No. Milwaukee.” Laura turned to frown at her and Tris, sensing her reticence, changed the subject. “Would you like to see my scrapbook?” she said. Before Laura could answer she was off the bed and searching for it among some books and papers across the room. She came back and sat next to Laura, spreading the green leather book open over their knees and putting an arm around Laura’s waist.

“These were all taken six months ago,” she said. “This boy is German. Isn’t he handsome? I love blond hair. He’s wonderful looking.”

He was indeed. Jack would have appreciated the view more than Laura, for he was young and muscular and nearly naked. His body had been oiled so that every smooth ripple on arms and back and tight hips and long legs was highlighted. He had a shock of rich blond hair and particularly handsome features, and he was shown in a number of poses: some that looked like Muscle Beach shots and others that seemed like dance positions.

“He does dance,” Tris said, anticipating Laura’s question. “With me. He’s named Paul Cate. We have a lot of routines together. We are a sort of—team.”

“Are you engaged?” Laura asked. It sounded ridiculous once it was said, but she found herself unreasonably jealous of the boy.

Tris threw her head back and laughed. “Engaged!” she exclaimed. “He is a homosexual, Laura.”

“A homosexual?” It sounded like fake innocence, even to Laura.

But Tris was too amused to notice. “Yes, of course,” she said, still laughing. “Can you imagine two homosexuals getting married? Could anything be sillier? What would they do with each other?” And her laughter was too hard.

Laura was shocked at her crude dismissal of the possibility of a homosexual marriage, which made her feel instantly protective and tender about Jack. But she had said, “Two homosexuals,” and Laura’s heart rose. “Are you gay, Tris?” she asked, almost in a whisper, afraid to look at her.

“Not really.” Tris flipped the words at her casually, turning pages in the scrapbook and concentrating on them. Laura sensed embarrassment in her concentration.

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