Chapter V: Part 5

Laura paused, gazing seriously at Jack. At last she explained, “He’s a Negro. And so is she. Only he’s much darker than Tris. Very handsome, but he’d never pass as an Indian. And right away he humiliated her, without meaning to.” She smiled sadly. “She’s from New York, Jack. She was born right here and her name is Patsy Robinson. She’s only seventeen but they’ve been married two years. She makes him keep out of sight because she thinks he’d be a drag on her career. That’s why she tells everybody she’s Indian, too—because she wants to get ahead and she thinks it makes it easier.”

Jack shook his head. “I feel for her,” he said.

“And I weep for her,” Laura said. “You should have seen her, Jack. She was wild when Milo talked about her fake Indian past. I think it made him pretty damn mad. That, and all the flirting, and having to live apart. And her gay and him straight! Lord, what a mess. He’s in love with her; she’s his wife. And she denies him, and hides him.”

Laura stopped talking then for a little while, sipping the burgundy and staring at her feet. “I took the bus back,” she said at last. “She screamed at me to leave. Milo apologized for her. That poor guy.”

“Do you still think you love her?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “She fascinates me. I feel sick about it, about the way things happened. If I thought I could stand it I’d go back to her. But I know I couldn’t. What is love, anyway, Jack?”

“‘If you have to ask you never get to know,’” he quoted. “More?” He reached for her glass and she relinquished it with an unsteady hand. She felt completely lost, completely frustrated.

“What’s Beebo doing?” she asked.

He picked up the bottle and poured some more wine into her glass. “All kinds of things,” he said. “She got fired, of course. Hadn’t showed up for weeks.”

“Of course,” Laura repeated, bowing her head.

“She’s shacking up with Lili at the moment.”

“Ohhh,” Laura groaned, and it made her feel dismal to think of it. She felt a spasm of possessiveness for Beebo. “Lili is a terrible influence on her,” she said irritably.

“So are you.” He handed her her drink. “The worst.”

“Not _that_ bad.”

“Life with you,” he reminded her, “damn near killed the girl.”

“And me,” Laura replied. “Did she leave the apartment?”

“No, she gets over there from time to time.”

“I wonder how she pays the rent.”

“It isn’t due yet,” he said. “Besides, I imagine Lili can help out.”

Laura shut her eyes suddenly, overwhelmed with a maddening tenderness for Beebo. “I hate her!” she said emphatically to Jack. And he, with his uncanny ear for emotion, didn’t like the emphasis.

After a slight pause he said, “I got her a dog. Another dachshund pup.”

“That was nice of you,” she said to him in the tone mothers use when someone has done a kindly favor for their children.

“Beebo didn’t think so. She didn’t know whether to kiss it or throw it at me,” he said. “She finally kissed it. But the poor thing died two days later ... yesterday, it was.”

“It died?”

“Yes.” He looked at her sharply. “I think she ... shall we say—put it to sleep?”

“Oh, Jack!” she breathed, shocked. “_Why?_ Did it remind her of Nix?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t cheer her up, that’s for damn sure.”

Laura sat there for a while, letting him fill her glass a couple of times and listening to the FM radio and trying not to feel sorry for Beebo. “She doesn’t really need me any more, Jack,” she told him.

“I do,” he said, and she smiled.

“You didn’t fall off the wagon,” she said. “I’m so glad. I was afraid you might.”

“I never get drunk over the women in my life,” he said sardonically. “Only over the boys. And there are no more boys in my life. Now or ever.”

Laura swirled the royal purple liquid in her long-stemmed glass and whispered into it, “Do you think I could make you happy, Jack?”

“Are you proposing, Mother?”

She swallowed and looked up at him with butterflies in her stomach. “Yes,” she said.

He sat quite still and smiled slowly at her. And then he got up and came to her and kissed her cheeks, one after the other, holding her head tenderly in his hands.

“I accept,” he said.

* * * * *

The day was hot and muggy, one of those insufferably humid August days in New York. Laura and Jack waited together outside the office of Judge Sterling Webster with half a dozen other sweating, hand-clasping couples.

Jack wasted no time when Laura said yes. As fast as arrangements could be made, they were made. Laura stayed with him in the Village apartment a few days while they hunted for another apartment, cooking for him and getting the feel of living with him. During the days, when he was out, she went uptown. This was Jack’s idea. He had no intention of making his bride a sitting duck for Beebo. It was only for four days, anyway, and much to Laura’s surprise, Beebo made no attempt to reach her.

They had found the apartment on the east side two days after Laura got back from the disillusioning sojourn with Tris. It was too expensive, but it was newly renovated, lustrous with new paint, elegant with a new elevator, and bursting with chic tenants.

“We can’t afford it,” was Laura’s first comment, to which Jack replied, smiling, “You’re beginning to sound like a wife already.”

And now, here they were, waiting on yellow oak chairs in the hall, while one couple after another passed in and out of the judge’s office with the classic stars in their eyes.

Laura, who was sitting quietly in her chair, said, “They all look so happy,” and drew courage from the fact.

“They’re scared witless,” Jack said, pacing up and down in front of her.

“Jack!” Laura exclaimed, appalled. “They’ll hear you.”

“Ours will be a happier marriage than any of these,” he said with a contemptuous wave of his hand. He sat down suddenly beside her. “Ours could be damn near perfect, Laura, if we work at it a little. You know that? We won’t have to face the usual pitfalls. Ours will be different ... better.”

“I hope so, Jack,” she said in a near whisper, and a little thrill of passionate hope went through her.

“Will you try, honey?” he asked.

“I will. With all my heart I will.” She gave him a tremulous smile. “I want this to work, Jack, as much as you do. I’ll give it all I’ve got. I want terribly for it to be right.” And she meant it.

“Then it will,” he said and his smile gave her a needed shot of confidence.

Laura had had some bad nights since she said yes to him. Awful hours of yearning for Tris had tormented her. Stray unwelcome thoughts of Beebo had hurt her even more.

There were the lonely times when she thought about herself and Jack, so different, so dear to each other, and wondered if marital intimacy might not ruin it all with its innocent vulgarity. She tried to imagine Jack shaving in the morning ... the toilet flushing ... his wrinkled pajamas, still warm from sleep, tossed on the floor ... his naked loneliness mutely reproaching her. The idea of living with a man ... a _man_ ... made her think of her father, her huge heavy domineering father, with his aggressive maleness stamped all over his body.

But for the most part, Laura tried not to think at all. She let Jack do her thinking. She let Jack make the plans. She let Jack take her by the hand and lead her where he deemed it best for her to go. And, trusting him, she went.

So here they were outside Judge Sterling Webster’s door with its glass window and neatly stenciled name, and they were next in line. Their predecessors in the marriage mill were slower than the rest, or so it seemed. And by the time they came out Jack was very nervous.

He herded her in ahead of him, and Judge Webster, as dignified and antique as his name, stood to greet them with an extended hand.

In less than five minutes he pronounced them man and wife and they signed the certificate of marriage. Jack turned to Laura and kissed his tall and trembling young wife on her cheek. He gave the Judge ten dollars, and then he took Laura’s arm and steered her out again to let the next impatient couple take over.

Laura had to sit down for a minute on one of the limed oak chairs and cover her face with her hands. Jack leaned over her and said, “You’re setting a lousy example, Mother. Every female here is watching you and figuring me for a wife-beater. Come on, Mrs. Mann.”

She looked up and saw him grinning at her, and it gave her a lift. She grasped his hand and let him pull her to her feet. He was beaming, and Laura had to smile at all the nervous cynicism of half an hour ago.

They went straight to the apartment to rest for a while before they went out to dinner. Jack had made reservations for them at the Stork Club.

“We’ll have a proper honeymoon at Christmastime,” he said, when they reached the house on East Fifty-third. “I’ll take a month off then. I have it coming.”

Ignoring Laura’s protests, he insisted on carrying her across the threshold. He swung her up easily, to their mutual pleasure.

“Jack, I think you’re the world’s worst sentimentalist,” she teased him when he set her down, but he denied it at once.

“God forbid!” he said. “I just don’t want anything to go wrong. We’re going to do it all right, right from the start.”

“And you’re superstitious.”

He laughed with delight. “Laura,” he said and came to take her hands. “I’m so happy. You’ve made me so happy.”

“I haven’t done a thing, yet,” she said, wondering a little at him, at his uncontainable good spirits.

“You’ve married me. That’s something,” he said. “I’m a married man. God Almighty, think of it!”

“If you were any prouder you’d explode,” she giggled.

“I just may,” he said. And they gazed at each other with a huge, wordless approval and relief.

“This calls for a celebration,” he said suddenly. “I got a little something—”

“Oh, Jack, no drinking,” she said. “I don’t have to have a drink, really. I don’t want you to get started.”

“No nagging on our wedding day,” he said and produced a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator. He poured her a glassful and himself a swallow. “Medicinal,” he explained, and they toasted each other. He made her drink all of hers and kept pace with her with ginger ale. “I feel so good, by God, I don’t even need it,” he said, and laughed.

Laura watched him affectionately. She had never seen him so animated, so happy. He glowed with it. He was almost handsome, with his brilliant eyes and his proud smile. It made her feel a little like crying, and she stopped him in the middle of a delirious tirade of compliments to say, “Jack, please. You embarrass me. I’m afraid I won’t live up to it all.”

“Oh, but you will. I’ll beat you if you don’t,” he said, laughing, and kissed her cheek. And she caught his hands and kissed them.

“You’d think we were a couple of normal people,” she said.

He sobered a little, sitting down on the floor in front of her. “They have no monopoly on happiness, Mother. We have a right to our share. We have a chance now. We can make something beautiful of it together.” He stopped and chuckled at himself. “I sound like a bad poem,” he said. “But I mean it. I have so many wonderful plans, so many hopes.” And the thought of that bright-eyed little girl he had cherished for so long danced into his head.

Laura couldn’t look at his face. She got up and went to lie on her bed.

They stayed up very late and Laura had too much champagne and Jack had too much ginger ale, and they talked endlessly and held one another’s hands tightly. And the next day they slept until four in the afternoon and got up smiling to treat Laura’s hangover and make the beds and shop for groceries together. And Jack introduced her to the butcher with, “Meet my wife. She’s a doll.”

Laura blushed crimson and the butcher laughed at them and tried to sell them some oysters. “You want kids? Buy oysters,” he advised. “Never fails. I know, I got eight.”

It was smooth and sweet the first few months; smoother than either of them had dared to hope. Laura was naturally mild and yielding; Jack, efficient and good-humored and terribly proud of her. As soon as they had enough chairs and crates collected to seat a fair number of guests, they threw a party and Jack’s office staff came to wish them well.

None of them knew he was a homosexual. Jack was a past master at deception. “You have to be if you’re going to survive in the world,” he said to her once. “It’s either that or retire into a rotten little prison with the rest of the gay people and spend your life feeling sorry for yourself. No thanks, not for me. Sex rules my nights. But by God, as far as the world knows, I’m a normal man from dawn to dusk. And there isn’t one guy in that office who’d question it.”

She admired him for it. Her own vagrant sensuality had dominated her ever since the fatal day she first recognized it, and her efforts to hide it or deny it had always backfired sooner or later. Jack filled her with determination to make herself a part of what he called “the real world,” the _straight_ world. He made it seem very desirable to her for the first time.

Jack’s office buddies brought their wives, except for two dauntless bachelors who spent the evening berating Jack for treason.

“Are they gay?” Laura asked him in a whisper. “The unmarried ones?”

“Not gay, just scared,” he said. “Winslow is, though. That one over there with the gorgeous wife. Poor guy, I don’t think he knows it. They aren’t very happy.” And he nodded at the suave young man in his early thirties with a stunning and rather bored young woman beside him. Laura looked at the girl without a trace of desire and felt a quiet little spark of triumph. The future looked bright if she could be around so lovely a woman without even a hungry glance.

The autumn months passed uneventfully, and they got used to each other, and most of their worst fears abated. Jack never wandered around the apartment naked, out of instinctive respect for Laura. He did drop his socks all over the floor and leave his dresser drawers open. But he never lost his temper. He took her out to dinner once or twice a week, and he brought her flowers and books and pretty things that caught his eye in the windows of the stores he passed.

And he loved her. It sustained Laura through her low hours of doubt and confusion. She was the weak one of the two, and they both knew it. There were times when Jack had to be strong enough for both of them; times when Laura would cling to him weeping and tell him it was all a horrible mistake and she couldn’t live without Tris, no matter how godawful it would be.

And then he didn’t argue with her. He only said, “If you have to go, go, but come back. I want you here tonight at dinner time. I want you here in the morning when I get up. There’ll be women in your life, I’m prepared for that, honey. Tris won’t be the last. But there’s only one man, and there will only be one man and don’t you ever forget it.”

He sounded so sensible and firm to her that her unrest would disappear. Now and then, when she was not in a passion for Tris, they talked about it. And she would say, “I know it’ll happen one of these days, but I won’t let it hurt us, Jack. When I can think about it like this, rationally and without fear, I know I can handle it. I won’t panic when the time comes. I’ll just accept it as quietly as I can. I won’t let it touch our marriage.”

“Good girl,” he said and squeezed her arm.

There was no sex between them. Neither of them wanted it, and that was the way they planned it. Jack would make her take his arm when they went anywhere because he was proud of her. And he gave her a friendly peck when he left in the morning and when he came back at night. When she was frightened or depressed he held her and stroked her hair and talked to her the way she had always prayed her father would. And he liked to lie with his head in her lap and have her read to him before they went to bed.

But that was the limit of their physical contact. It was affectionate and gentle but utterly sexless. After the first few weeks, Laura began to like it. She had been shy at first and reluctant. But he didn’t force her, and after a while she welcomed his little gestures of love. They spelled security and reassurance to her. Suddenly it occurred to her that Jack was a man who was taking care of his woman. And she relaxed. She felt her nerves ease and her tension relax. The apartment was quiet and pretty, and Laura, who was lazy as a cat for the first time in her life, felt like a princess.

They felt a mutual gratitude toward each other. Jack came home for the first time in his life to a warm kitchen and a charming young wife. And just the thought of Laura reminded him, with a deep fine thrill, that he was married; he was truly a man. It was worth a lifetime of homosexual adventures.

Laura went to pains to please him, to show him that she cared and that she was working to make things right as she had promised him. And they were, all things considered, happy.

* * * * *

It wasn’t until Terry’s letter came, forwarded from Jack’s old address in the Village, that Laura felt even the slightest apprehension that anything was to go wrong. And the note was postmarked San Francisco and seemed so far away that she recovered promptly from the first shock and sat in the kitchen with the rest of the mail on the table in front of her, wondering what to do.

Laura and Jack had made a strict rule never to open each other’s mail and never to ask prying questions. But Laura hated to think of the turn it would give Jack to have this ghost from his past rise up to haunt him.

She turned and looked out the window at the sparse snow, falling that first day of December, and played with Terry’s letter, letting it slip from corner to corner through her fingers. She burned with curiosity.

_I could just steam it open_, she mused. _He’d never know the difference. Damn that Terry anyway! Who does he think he is! After the hell he put Jack through, he has a lot of nerve. I’ll bet he wants some money._

She could bear it no longer. She got up and went to the stove, where she had a kettle full of hot water left over from breakfast, and turned the heat on under it. The glued flap of the envelope surrendered to the steam in a quiet curl. Laura held the letter a moment longer before opening it, feeling very guilty. But she loved Jack and she felt a fierce desire to spare him more pain. Besides, her curiosity was smothering her. She rationalized that Jack had told her himself he had given up the gay life forever, and that included Terry. What if this set him to drinking again?

She sat down and pulled the letter out with nervous hands. It was rather a short note, folded twice, and she opened it and read it quickly. It was not dated.

“Dear Jack. Have been out here in S.F. since September. What a crazy
town. You’d love it. Have a nice apartment on Telegraph Hill with a
kid I met at a party a month ago. (Not the same one you beat up the
night you kicked me out.)”

_God! He just has to rub it in. He’s just the kind of guy to mention such a thing_, Laura thought, hot with indignation.

“Don’t know how long I’ll be out here. I sort of miss the Village.
And you. Why don’t you come out for a visit? We’ve got lots of
room.”

_He doesn’t seem to realize it would damn near kill Jack_, Laura thought. _He’s hopeless. It never occurs to him that Jack would go crazy in a situation like that. Or does it?_

Laura was used to the idea of Terry as a good-natured scatterbrained boy who hurt people, mostly Jack, with monotonous regularity—largely because he didn’t think about what he was doing. Usually, this was true enough. But the rest of his letter made her wonder if he weren’t deliberately needling Jack, trying to get him to come out to the coast.

She continued to read the tidy blue ink script.

“I do miss you, lover. I was always so unsettled before we met.”

_Before, after, and during_, Laura fumed.

“And now it’s worse than before. I used to feel so safe and
comfortable with you, like you’d always watch out for me, no matter
what. I guess that’s a selfish way to look at it, but I wish we were
back together. If you by any chance want it that way too, write to
me. Write to me anyway, I really want to hear from you. Love,
Terry.”

He signed his name with an elaborate flourish, like a fifth-grade child drunk on the possibilities of fancy penmanship.

Laura folded the letter and stuck it back in the envelope and wrote a brief sizzling note in answer. She said:

“Terry—Jack and I are married. You are not welcome here, now or
ever. Jack asked me to write and tell you that he does not want to
be bothered with any more letters from you and he will not answer
any if you do write. Please leave us alone. Laura.”

It sounded sharp and cold, and she had a momentary feeling of misgiving. Terry was a nice kid, in spite of it all. Everybody liked him, even Laura. But she couldn’t risk having him torment Jack. It had to sound mean or he wouldn’t believe it. She put the note in an envelope, sealed and stamped it, and copied his San Francisco address on it. Then she burned Terry’s letter over the stove.

When Jack came home that evening Laura’s note was in the mail and Terry’s was in ashes in the wastebasket.

“Any mail?” he asked her.

“Just a bill from the laundry,” she said.

But it bothered her. It came to her at odd moments and it seemed ominous and frightening to her, like the first sign of a break-up. She had broken her promise to him, and it didn’t help much to tell herself she did it only to protect him. _I’m not going to let anybody hurt what we’ve got, least of all Terry Fleming_, she thought.

The thought of having it all end between her and Jack, suddenly and cruelly, in one big drunk on Jack’s part or wild romance on hers, scared and depressed her. It mustn’t end that way. They needed each other too much. Their marriage had helped them think of each other as normal. They felt as if they knew where they were going now and life was much better.

Laura missed women. She missed them desperately sometimes. But she was sure now, deep within herself, that the time would come when she and Jack would be secure with each other for the rest of their lives; when they would be able to trust each other without reservation and trust the strength of their union. When they reached that point, it would be safe to satisfy her desires.

As for Jack, he was through with men forever. He had said it and she believed him. The thought that he might take a lover himself some day never occurred to her. It just wouldn’t happen. Nor had she asked him about Terry. Jack was so determinedly happy with her that she was afraid to mention Terry.

It seemed strange to Laura, however, that Beebo didn’t try to find her. She might have found them, one way or another. But there was no word from her. Laura couldn’t help wanting to know what she was doing. She didn’t feel the old, urgent, painful need for Tris, but there was a persistent want that was strong enough to make her wince now and then.

Jack told her once, “If anything bothers you, tell me about it. Don’t sit around letting it eat you up. Better to talk about it and get it out of your system.”

And when he saw that she was pensive he made her talk. But when he didn’t see it, she kept it to herself. There were times when Laura couldn’t share her feelings, when she just hugged them to herself and brooded.

Several times she had nearly talked herself into going down to the Village to wander around. She wouldn’t go near her old apartment. Or Tris’s studio. Or even Lili’s apartment. She wasn’t a fool, she wouldn’t risk being caught.

But she was tempted, sometimes almost hypnotized, by the idea.

8

It was Christmas Eve. They had a fine big tree, freshly green in a sea of lights and tinsel. No honeymoon, as they had hoped; the office couldn’t spare Jack. So they had a party instead.

“I hate those damn pink trees,” Jack had said when they picked theirs out. “Or gold, or white, or whatever-the-hell color they’re making them this year. Give me a nice healthy green.”

They celebrated at the party and Jack drank eggnog without whiskey and Laura was very pleased with him. There was a lovely girl there—unmarried and probably gay. Laura flirted with her in spite of herself.

Jack teased her about it when they met briefly in the kitchen—he to make drinks and she to get more hors d’oeuvres from the refrigerator. “Looks like you got a live one,” he said.

Laura blushed. “Was I too obvious?” she asked, scared.

“No,” he said. “I just have X-ray eyes, remember?”

“I shouldn’t—”

“Oh, hell,” he said with a good-natured wave of his hand. “Flirt, it’s good for you. Just don’t elope with her.” He gave her a grin and went out, holding five highballs precariously. She felt a flush of love for him, watching him.

It was three a.m. Christmas day before they got rid of everybody. Laura threw herself in their expensive new sofa and surveyed the wreckage with a sigh.

“I’m not even going to pick it up,” she said. “I’m not going to touch a thing till morning.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jack said. He fixed them both a cup of coffee, settled down beside her in the rainbow glow of the Christmas tree and took her hand with a sigh of satisfaction.

“That’s the first goddam Christmas tree I ever had,” he said. And when she laughed he protested solemnly, “Honest. And this is the first Christmas that ever meant anything to me.” He turned his head, resting against the back of the sofa, and smiled at her....

“You shouldn’t swear at Christmas,” Laura told him.

He gazed at her for a while and then asked, “Are you in love with Kristi? Wasn’t that her name?”

“Yes, it was her name. No, I’m not in love. With anybody.”

“Me?”

“Oh, you. That’s different.”

She smiled a little and sipped her coffee, and then she leaned back on the sofa beside him, absorbed in the soft sparkle of the tree.

Jack was still watching her. “Laura?” he said in an exploratory voice.

“Hm?”

“What would you think of adopting a child?”

She stared at a golden pine cone, her face suddenly a cautious blank. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“A little.”

“What did you think?”

“I told you. Kids scare me.”

He bit his underlip, frowning. “I want one,” he said at last. “Would you be willing to—_have_ one?”

“You mean—” She swallowed. “—get pregnant?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling at her outraged face. “Oh, don’t worry, Mother. We’d do it the easy way.”

“There is no easy way!” she fired at him. “What way?”

He took a long drag on his cigarette and answered, “Artificial insemination.” She gasped, but he went on quickly, “Now before you get your dander up let me explain. I’ve thought it all out. Either we could adopt one, or—and this would be much better—we could _have_ one. Our own. We can tell the Doc we’ve had trouble and let him try the insemination. There’s nothing to it, it doesn’t take five minutes. It doesn’t hurt. And if it worked ... God! Our own kid. You wouldn’t be afraid of your own, honey.”

There was a long pause while Laura sweated in silent alarm. Why did he bring it up tonight? Why? When they were so contented and pleased with each other, and the world was such a place of glittering enchantment.

“Couldn’t we wait and talk about it later?” she asked.

“Why not now?”

“Couldn’t I have time to think about it?”

“Sure. Think,” he said and she knew he meant, _I’ll give you five minutes to make up your mind_.

“Jack, why do we have to do it right now? Why can’t we wait? We’ve only been married five months.”

“I can’t wait very long, Mother,” he said. “I’m forty-five. I don’t want to be an old man on crutches when my kid is growing up.”

“Maybe in the spring,” she said. The idea of becoming a mother terrified her. She had visions of herself hurting the baby, doing everything wrong; visions of her old passion coming on her and shaming them all; selfish thoughts of her beautiful, new, leisurely laziness being ruined.

“What would I ever tell any child of mine if it caught me—with a woman?” she said awkwardly.

“Tell it for Chrissake to knock before entering a room,” he said, and something in his voice and manner told her that he had set his heart on this long ago.

“Would you _insist_ on having a baby, Jack?” she asked him defiantly.

He was looking at the ceiling and he expelled a cloud of blue smoke at it and answered softly, “I want you to be happy, Laura. This marriage is for both of us.”

There was a long silence. “I think I would hate myself if I ever got pregnant,” she said, ashamed of her vanity but clinging to it stubbornly. “God, how awful. All those aches and pains and months of looking like hell, and for what? What if the baby weren’t normal? What if I couldn’t be a good mother to it?”

He shrugged and then he said, “All right. We’ll adopt one. That way at least we can be sure of getting a girl.”

Laura wrung her hands together in a nervous frenzy. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Jack. And yet she could feel the dogged one-mindedness in him, feel his enormous desire.

“A man needs a child,” he said softly. “So does a woman. That’s the whole reason for life. There is no other.” And he glanced up at her and all the Christmas lights reflected on the lenses of his glasses. “We can’t live our lives just for ourselves,” he said. “Or we live them for nothing. We die, monuments to selfishness.... I want a child, Laura.”

“Is that why you married me?” she asked with sudden sharpness, feeling as if he had cornered her.

“I married you because I love you,” he said.

“Then why do you keep badgering me about a child?” she demanded.

“This is the first time I’ve mentioned it since we got married,” he reminded her gently.

“You act as if just because _you_ want one it’s all settled,” she said, and surprised herself by bursting into tears. He took her in his arms, abandoning his cigarette, and said, “No, honey, nothing’s settled. But think about it, Laura. Think hard.”

They sat that way, hugging each other and watching the Christmas tree, letting the cigarette slowly burn itself out, and they didn’t mention it again. But from that moment on it was very big between them, unspoken but felt.

* * * * *

Jack did not mention a child to her again for a while. But as the weeks slipped by Laura began to feel a growing dissatisfaction. She didn’t know where it came from or what it meant. At home, in the apartment, it was shapeless. Outside it took the shape of girls. When she went out for groceries or to shop or to have dinner with Jack, she found herself looking around hopefully, gazing a little too boldly, desiring. Jack saw it too before long, but he said nothing.

Laura felt selfish, and she didn’t like the feeling. She blamed it on Jack. It made her want to get away from him for a bit. And soon the wish crystallized in her mind to a desire for the Village, and began to haunt her.

She knew she ought to tell Jack she wanted to go. He would never stand in her way, as long as she was there at night to cook his meals and be a fond companion to him. As long as she let him in on it and kept it clean.

But she was embarrassed. She didn’t want to tell him and see his disappointment and know she was so much weaker than he. So she kept it secret and let it fester inside her until it had grown, by March, to a great, irritating problem.

Then, one fine, sunny morning in the first week of spring, the phone rang.

_It’ll be Ginny Winston_, she thought. One of their neighbors. _She’ll want to go shopping again. I guess we might as well, it’ll keep me out of trouble._ Ginny was thirty-five, a widow, a nice girl but hopelessly man-happy.

Laura grabbed the receiver after the fourth ring. “Hello?” she said.

“Laura? How are you?”

“Fine, thanks. Who’s this?”

“Terry.”

“Terry who?” She gasped suddenly. “Terry! Terry Fleming?”

“Yes.” He chuckled. “Guess how I found you?”

She hung up. She just slammed the phone down in place and stood there shaking. Then she sat down and cried, waiting for the thing to start ringing again. She had no doubt it would.

It did. She picked it up again, and before he could say anything she told him, “I don’t care how you found us. I don’t want you around here. Don’t you come near this place Terry, or I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do. You can’t, you mustn’t. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” he said, astonished. “What’s the matter?”

“Didn’t you get my letter?” she asked him.

“Sure. You’re married. Congratulations, I always thought it’d happen. You got a great guy there, Laur. I wish I had him.” And he laughed pleasantly.

“Terry, you’re incredible,” she said. “I don’t want you to come near Jack. That’s final.”

“Go on,” he laughed. “I thought I’d come over this afternoon.”

“You can’t!” She felt as she did in nightmares when she tried to talk and no one could hear her. She felt as if all her words fell on deaf ears.

“Sure I can. I thought we’d—”

“Look, Terry, I’m not going to tell him you’re in town,” she said, fighting a nerve-rasping frustration with him. “I’m just going to let it go, and I’m telling you right now that if you show up over here it’ll hurt him more than he can stand. You broke his heart and that should be enough for you. You won’t get any more of him!” She felt fiercely protective and loving, now that their life together seemed threatened. She would fight Terry every way she knew. And yet she had to admit to herself that Terry had more to fight with than she if it ever came to a showdown. That was why it was so important to keep him away.

Jack was a very sensual man and he had been deeply in love with Terry. He still was, in spite of everything. His love for Laura was different; strong, she was sure, but could it stand up to a sudden white-hot blast of passion?

“You sound real bitter, Laura,” Terry said reproachfully. “I thought you were sort of kidding in your letter.”

“I’ve never been more serious, Terry. Stay away from us!” She hung up again. When she took her hand away there was a ring of wet on the black handle. She cried all day, feeling angry and helpless.

Jack got home at five, but she told him nothing. She was gentle and solicitous with him in a way he had missed for a couple of months. She read to him and she chatted with him, and underneath it all was a tremulous fear of disaster that made her feel a great tenderness for him. He seemed vulnerable to her. If she betrayed him she would embitter him more than she was able to imagine. The thought was terrifying.

“Mother, you need a change,” he said when they had finished dinner.

“I do?”

“Leave the dishes and scram.”

She felt a little spark of fear. “Are you kicking me out?” she asked.

“I sure as hell am, you doll,” he said. “Get thee hence.”

“Where?” His laughter relieved her.

“The Village. Where else?” And when she stared at him, wordless, he added, “You need it, honey. You’re nervous as a cat. Go on, have a ball.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I’ll give you three minutes to get out of here,” he said with a glance at his watch.

Laura hesitated for a few seconds until he looked at her over the top of the paper again and then she ran, heels ringing staccato on the polished wood floor of the hall, and got her coat and purse. On the way out she stooped to kiss his cheek.

“Jack, I adore you,” she whispered, to which he only smiled. At the door she turned and said, “I’ll be home early.”

“No curfew,” he said solemnly.

Laura went first to the Cellar, a favorite hangout in Greenwich Village. The tourists had begun to stop there by this time, but the gay crowd outnumbered them still and it wasn’t primarily a trap. The prices were reasonable and the decor smoky.

Laura settled at the bar with a sigh of sheer pleasure. All she wanted to do was sit there quietly and look at them ... those lovely girls, dozens of them, with ripe lips and rounded hips in tight pants or smooth skirts. And the big ones, the butches, who acted like men and expected to be treated as such. They were the ones who excited Laura the most, when it came right down to it. Women, women ... she loved them all, especially the big girls with the firm strides and the cigarettes in their mouths.... She realized with chagrin that she was thinking of Beebo.

_God, what if she’s here?_ she thought with a wonderful scare running up her spine. She looked around, but Beebo was nowhere in sight.

_I wonder if she has a job, poor darling. I wonder if Lili’s still supporting her. I wonder if she’s still drinking so much ... if she thinks of me at all.... Oh, what’s the matter with me? What do I care? She nearly drove me crazy!_

She thought of Tris suddenly, of that marvelous fragrant tan skin. In fact she indulged in an orgy of suggestive thoughts that would have driven her crazy cooped up at home. But here, surrounded with people who felt and thought much as she did, it was all right. It was safe somehow. She could even spend the evening flirting with somebody, if anybody caught her eye, and it would come to no harm. Just a night’s outing. Nothing more.

_Tris ... Tris ... she would never show up in a place like this. She’d shun it like the plague. All the same it would be nice. So nice._

But the harder Laura concentrated on Tris the more insistently Beebo obsessed her. Laura shrugged her off and ordered another drink. She laughed a little to herself and said, _But I don’t love her at all any more._ And she turned to talk to the girl beside her.

The girl was very charming: small and curly-headed and pretty, and she laughed a lot. And soon Laura was laughing with her and learned that Inga was her name. But that face, that damned face of Beebo’s, strong and handsome and hard with too much living, kept looking at her through the haze of Inga’s cigarette.

“Did you ever have somebody plague your thoughts, Inga?” she asked her abruptly. “Somebody you’d nearly forgotten and weren’t in love with any more, and never really were in love with?”

“What’s her name?” Inga asked sympathetically.

“Oh, nobody you’d know.” She was fairly sure Inga _would_ know, if she frequented the Cellar. If she’d hung around the Village long enough she’d know most of the characters by sight, if not personally. Beebo was one of the characters. And she had been around here for fourteen years. “How long have you lived down here?” Laura asked the girl.

“Two years next month.”

_Long enough_, Laura thought.

“I’ll bet I know her. She ever come in here? Come on, tell me,” Inga said.

“I can’t.”

“You’re silly, then. I’ll clue you in on something, Laura. If you can’t get her off your mind it’s because you can’t get her out of your heart. That sounds corny but it’s true. I found out the hard way. Believe me.”

Laura shook her head. “I never loved her,” she said positively.

“You’re fooling yourself, sweetie.”

Laura looked at her, bemused. “I’m in love with somebody else,” she said, thinking of Tris.

“Me?” Inga grinned.

“No. No, an Indian girl.”

“Indian? What’s her name?”

“Tris.”

“Tris! Gee, I _do_ know her. She comes in here a lot.”

Laura stared at her, too shocked to answer for a minute. Finally she said hoarsely, “Tris would never come in here. She hates gay bars. I know that for a fact.”

“Well....” Inga looked as if she knew she had put her foot in her mouth and regretted it. “Maybe it’s a different Tris.”

“What’s her last name?”

“Robischon, or something. Something Frenchy. I think she made it up myself. But she’s a gorgeous girl. I was really smitten when I saw her.”

Laura blanched a little and ordered another drink and drank it down fast, and Inga laid a hand on her arm. “Gee, I’m sorry, Laura,” she said. “Me and my big mouth. I should learn to shut up. But I’m in here all the time. I come in after work and I see just about everybody—”

“I know, I know. It’s okay, Inga.” She ordered another drink. “I’d rather know than not,” she said. “Besides, I haven’t seen the girl for eight months. It’d be pretty strange if nobody found out about her in eight months. She’s beautiful.”

“That she is. Somebody’s found out, all right. A lot of people, I hear.”

“Does she come in here alone?” The whole thing seemed incredible to Laura. Tris! So aloof, so chilly, so much better than the rest of the gay crowd. Tris, who wouldn’t go near Fire Island for a summer vacation because it was “crawling with queers.” It just couldn’t be. But Inga certainly wasn’t describing anybody else.

“She comes with somebody else,” Inga said reluctantly. “Look, sweetie, why don’t you come over to my place and have a nightcap. We can’t talk in here.”

“I’d like to know, Inga. Tell me. Who does she come in with?” Laura turned and looked at her, swiveling slowly on her stool, a little tipsy and feeling suddenly as if the situation were something of a joke.

“Oh ... a big gal. Been around the Village for years. You might know her. Beebo Brinker’s her name.”

Laura sat there frozen for nearly a minute. It _was_ a joke—colossal, cruel, hilarious. She laughed uncertainly and ordered another drink.

“I knew you were going to say that,” she told Inga. “Isn’t that the damnedest thing? Isn’t that the goddamnedest thing?” And she began to laugh again, repeating, when she could get her breath, “I knew you were going to say that.” Inga had to slap her face to stop the shrieking, irrepressible giggles that were strangling her. Then Laura’s laughter changed, in the space of a breath, to tears.

Inga talked to her quietly with that odd intimacy that springs up between homosexuals in trouble, and it helped. After five or six minutes Laura wiped her eyes and drank her drink and let Inga help her out of the Cellar. A few curious eyes followed them and Laura prayed again that nobody she knew had seen her.

The cold air braced her a little, and she stood on the corner weaving slightly and trying to get her bearings.

“Come on,” Inga said. “Let’s get some hot coffee into you. I live just a couple of blocks from here. Come on.”

Laura let herself be led by the diminutive curly-head, but when she saw they were headed for Cordelia Street she began to get scared. “Beebo lives near here,” she said, hanging back. “I mean—she used to.”

“She still does,” Inga said. “I see her now and then. I live right over there.” She pointed.

Laura brushed the girl’s hand from her sleeve and turned to her. “Thanks, Inga,” she said. “Thanks anyway, but I think I’ll....” And her eyes wandered back into Cordelia Street.

Inga followed her gaze, catching the idea. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” she said. “You’ll be real sorry the minute you get there.” When Laura didn’t answer she asked, “Tell me, which one of them is it?”

“Which one?”

“That you just can’t get off your mind?”

Laura looked back up the street where she used to live and said softly, “Beebo. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Beebo. And it’s Tris I’m in love with.”

“Yeah,” said Inga with kindly skepticism. “Sure.... Have some coffee with me?”

Laura leaned over on a whim and kissed her cheek. “That’s for being a woman,” she said. “You don’t know what a help it’s been.”

Inga stood on the corner and watched Laura walk away from her. “Any time you want that coffee, Laura,” she called. “I’m in the phone book.”

* * * * *

Laura stood in front of the door into her old apartment building for a long while on trembling legs before she turned the knob and walked in.

_What if they’re together?_ she wondered. _They’ll just grab me and wring my neck. God, all those questions Tris used to ask me about Beebo. And it never entered my love-sick head!_

She crossed the little inner court to the second door, opened it, and went to the row of mailboxes to press the buzzer. She found Beebo’s name, with her own crossed out beneath it but no other added. And a weird, wonderful panic grabbed her throat at the thought of Beebo.

She left the buzzer without pressing it and walked up the flight of stairs to stand in front of the door that had once been her own, with Beebo still swimming before her eyes.

She could picture her more and more clearly: wearing pants and going barefoot, tired at the end of the day and maybe a little high; a cigarette in her mouth and a towel tied around her middle while she did dishes or cleaned up the apartment; the smooth skin on her face and the handsome features that used to fire Laura’s imagination and make her tingle; the tired eyes, blue and brilliant and somehow a little sick of it all ... except when they focused on Laura.

Laura remembered how it had been and a sudden flash of physical longing caught her heart and squeezed until she felt her breath come short. She stared at the door, afraid to knock and still hypnotized with curiosity. Her hand was raised, quivering, only inches from the green painted wood.

_Tris will open it_, she thought, _and together they’ll strangle me_. Oddly, she didn’t care. She was too tight to care. She had a vision of herself falling into their arms and succumbing without a struggle. Just letting them have her life, her mixed-up, aimless, leftover life.

She knocked—a quick scared rap, sharp and clear. And then stood there on one foot and the other, half panicky like a grade-schooler nearly ready to wet her pants and flee.

Footsteps. High heels. From the kitchen, Beebo’s voice. “Who the hell could that be? After ten, isn’t it?” _Oh, that voice! That husky voice that used to whisper such things to me that I can never forget._

The door swung open all at once, ushering a flood of light into the hall. Laura looked up slowly ... at Lili! The two of them stared at each other in mutual amazement for a moment. And while they stared, mute, Beebo called again, “Who is it, Lili?”

Lili, her candy-box pretty face overlaid with too much makeup, as usual, broke into a big smile. “It’s Laura!” she exclaimed. “I’ll be goddamned. _Laura!_”

For a tense moment Laura could feel Beebo’s shock across the rooms and through the walls like a physical touch. Then her courage melted—fizzled into nothing like water on a hot skillet, and she turned and ran.

She heard Beebo at the door, before she got out into the court, saying, “Let her go, Lili. If she thinks I’m going to chase her twice—” And that was all Laura got of it. It shot through her heart like a bullet.

Laura reached the door to the street, tore it open, and rushed out. But once there, with the door shut behind her and no sound of pursuing footsteps, she collapsed against the wall and wept. Between sobs, when she could get her breath, she listened ... listened ... for the running feet that would mean Beebo had changed her mind. Laura had to believe, at least for a minute, that Beebo would come after her. Because it was all tied up in her mind with Beebo loving her. If Beebo loved her she’d chase her. It was that simple. And it didn’t matter a damn what Laura might have done to Beebo in the past, or how she might have hurt her.

_Tris!_ she thought. _I’ve got to see her!_ She said this to herself very urgently, but curiously, at the same time, she felt no desire to go and find the lovely tormented dancer. She told herself it would be all fight and misery. But in her heart of hearts she knew that real love would brave that misery now, being so close and so starved for passion.

She stood there for fully fifteen minutes before she was able to pull herself together and walk to Seventh Avenue. She went straight home in a cab.

Laura walked slowly up the stairs to her apartment. It was after eleven now, and Jack would be in bed. She had had too much to drink, but she was sober, a tired, bewildered sort of sobriety that made her want to lie down and weep and rest.

In the morning she would tell it all to Jack. Wonderful Jack. He would coax her back to living, coax her with his wit and his compassion and his incredible patience with her. And she would lie in a welter of dejection and let him work on her until she felt like lifting her head from the pillow and raising the shade from the window and going on with life. It was one of the things she loved him for and needed him for the most—this ability to revive her when she was so low that only death was lower.

Tonight was perhaps not quite that bad. But it was bad enough to have exhausted her. And Tris and Beebo! That had been the cruelest blow; the one she should have foreseen clear as a beacon in a black sea. She shoved a trembling key into the lock and walked into the apartment.