“I’m having a drink for the hell of it,” Laura said briefly. “If it bothers you, go away. You weren’t invited, anyway.”
“Don’t tell me you’re drinking just because you like the taste.”
“I don’t mind it.”
“You’re unlucky in love, then. Or you just found out you’re gay and you can’t take it. That it?”
Laura pursed her lips angrily. “I’m not in love. I never was.”
“You mean love is filth and all that crap? Love is dirty?”
“I didn’t say that!” Laura turned on her.
Beebo shrugged. “You’re a big girl, lover. You said it yourself. Big girls know all about love. So don’t lie to me.”
“I didn’t ask you to bother me, Beebo. I don’t want to talk to you. Now scram!”
“There she stands at the bar, drinking whisky because it tastes good,” Beebo drawled, gazing toward the ceiling and letting the smoke from a cigarette drift from her mouth. “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”
“Twenty,” Laura snapped.
“Excuse me, twenty. Your innocence is getting tedious, lover.” She smiled.
“Beebo, I don’t like you,” Laura said. “I don’t like the way you dress or the way you talk or the way you wear your hair. I don’t like the things you say and the money you throw around. I don’t want your dimes and I don’t want you. I hope that’s plain because I don’t know how to make it any plainer.” Her voice broke as she talked and toward the end she felt her own crazy tears coming up again. Beebo saw them before they spilled over and they changed her. They touched her. She ignored the hard words Laura spoke, for she knew enough to know they meant nothing.
“Tell me, baby,” she said gently. “Tell me all about it. Tell me you hate me if it’ll help.”
For a moment Laura sat there, not trusting her, not wanting to risk a word with her, letting the stray tears roll over her cheeks without even brushing them away. Then she straightened up and swept them off her face with her long slim fingers, turning away from Beebo. “I can’t tell you, or anybody.”
Beebo shrugged. “All right. Have it your way.” She dinched her cigarette and leaned on the bar again, her face close to Laura’s. “Try, baby,” she said softly. “Try to tell me.”
“It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous. We’re complete strangers.”
“We aren’t strangers.” She put an arm around Laura and squeezed her a little. Laura was embarrassed and grateful at the same time. It felt good, so good. Beebo sighed at her silence. “I’m a bitch, you’re right about that,” she admitted. “But I didn’t want to be. It’s an attitude. You develop it after a while, like a turtle grows a shell. You need it. Pretty soon you live it, you don’t know any other way.”
Laura finished her drink without answering. She put it down on the bar and looked for the bartender. She wouldn’t care what Beebo said, she wouldn’t look at her, she wouldn’t answer her. She didn’t dare.
“You don’t need to tell me about it,” Beebo went on. “Because I already know. I’ve lived through it, too. You fall in love. You’re young, inexperienced. What the hell, maybe you’re a virgin, even. You fall, up to your ears, and there’s nobody to talk to, nobody to lean on. You’re all alone with that great big miserable feeling and she’s driving you out of your mind. Every time you look at her, every time you’re near her. Finally you give in to it—and she’s straight.” She said the last word with such acid sharpness that Laura jumped. “End of story,” Beebo added. “End of soap opera. Beginning of soap opera. That’s all the Village is, honey, just one crazy little soap opera after another, like Jack says. All tangled up with each other, one piled on top of the next, ad infinitum. Mary loves Jane loves Joan loves Jean loves Beebo loves Laura.” She stopped and grinned at Laura.
“Doesn’t mean a thing,” she said. “It goes on forever. Where one stops another begins.” She looked around The Cellar with Laura following her gaze. “I know most of the girls in here,” she said. “I’ve probably slept with half of them. I’ve lived with half of the half I’ve slept with. I’ve loved half of the half I’ve lived with. What does it all come to?”
She turned to Laura, who was caught with her fascinated face very close to Beebo’s. She started to back away but Beebo’s arm around her waist tightened and kept her close. “You know something, baby? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You don’t like me, and that doesn’t matter. Someday maybe you’ll love me, and that won’t matter either. Because it won’t last. Not down here. Not anywhere in the world, if you’re gay. You’ll never find peace, you’ll never find Love. With a capital L.”
She took a drag on her cigarette and let it flow out of her nostrils. “L for Love,” she said, looking into space. “L for Laura.” She turned and smiled at her, a little sadly. “L for Lust and L for the L of it. L for Lesbian. L for Let’s—let’s,” she said, and blew smoke softly into Laura’s ear. Laura was startled to feel the strength of the feeling inside her.
It’s the whisky, she thought. It’s because I’m tired. It’s because I want Marcie so much. No, that doesn’t make sense. She caught the bartender’s eye and he fixed her another drink.
Beebo’s arm pressed her again. “Let’s,” she said. “How about it?” She was smiling, not pushy, not demanding, just asking. As if it didn’t really matter whether Laura said yes or no.
“Where did you get that ridiculous name?” Laura hedged.
“My family.”
“They named you Beebo?”
“They named me Betty Jean,” she said, smiling. “Which is even worse.”
“It’s a pretty name.”
“It’s a lousy name. Even Mother couldn’t stand it. And she could stand damn near anything. But they had to call me something. So
