The bar was in a basement and you walked down a flight of twisting stairs to reach it. There were booths around the walls, tables and a jukebox in the middle, and a long bar ran across the back. Laura walked halfway toward the bar with Jack before she realized that there were no other women in the place. She turned to Jack with anxiety.
“Do they want me in here?” she asked.
He smiled. “They’re not going to give you a rush, Mother. I’ll stake my life on it.”
“I didn’t think they liked women in a place like this.”
Jack guided her to a barstool. “Oh, they’re friendly enough. They know you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t gay. They figure, you leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone.”
Laura looked around her uncomfortably. “I can’t help thinking I embarrass them.”
“Maybe they embarrass you. Would you rather go over to The Cellar?”
“No…I don’t know.”
“You don’t want to run into Beebo. She’s usually out making the rounds about now. That’s why I brought you here.”
Laura smiled gratefully at him. “Thanks,” she said. “I should have seen it myself.” But she found herself so shaken by the sudden idea of Beebo loose among scores of desirable girls that she couldn’t concentrate for a minute.
Jack ordered them a drink. Then he turned to her, pushing his glasses back into place on his nose. They tended to slide down to the halfway mark. “Well?” he said, and paused. “Let’s tear Papa Landon apart.”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Laura said.
“Then why am I buying you a drink?”
She turned to snap at him and then saw he was kidding her. “Sorry, Jack,” she said. Looking at him brought back her faith in him, and she smiled a little. “I always knew he was a hard man,” she said softly, “but I never dreamed he’d go as far as this. I always thought, in spite of everything, in spite of all the bitterness and misery we’ve had together, that he must love me a little. After all, I’m all he has left…of my mother, my brother…his family. I was five when it happened, and I wish to God I could remember what he was like before. But I can’t. I like to pretend he was generous and gentle and kind. And I can remember sitting on his shoulders when we went to a Fourth of July parade. It was that same summer, before our vacation. I remember he hoisted me up and bought me a balloon and held me while the parade went by so I could see. Afterwards he walked around and talked to his friends, and he didn’t make me get down. I felt like a queen on a throne. It’s been my one good memory of him, to this day. But Mother was with us. Maybe he did it for her sake.
“I remember her better than him from those years. Sometimes I miss her terribly. She was very loving.”
“Maybe,” said Jack, “your father wouldn’t hate you so now if he hadn’t loved you so much before.”
“You give him too much credit,” she said. “After what he did to me tonight, I’ll never speak to him again. I’d kill him if I could. But I wouldn’t go near him, even for that. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my face. He has no daughter, has he? All right, God damn him, I have no father! Two can play at that game.”
“Don’t hate me for saying it,” Jack said, “but I think you still love him. I think you’ll see him again.”
She turned on him. “You’re crazy!” she said. “You don’t know anything! What makes you think such a thing?”
He shrugged. “Only that it matters so terribly to you.”
Laura finished her drink and placed the glass carefully on the bar, trying to sort out her thoughts. “If I do see him again,” she said, “it’ll be when I can tell him I’m a success. Financially. Socially. Every way. I want to tell him, ‘I have a good job, nice friends. I can get along fine in this world without you, and I’ll never need you again.’ And you know what else I’d like to say to him, Jack?”
“Yeah.” He lit a cigarette. “‘Father, I’m queer. And it’s all your fault. Shove that up your rear and live with it!’ Yeah, I know. Shock the hell out of him. I tried that on—on a close relative once.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t really know. When his face went blue I took off. I haven’t been home since. I can’t go home to find out, as a matter of fact. I’m—shall we say—not welcome.” He said this with slow sarcasm.
“Jack, I’m sorry,” she said gently, and looked at him sympathetically. It occurred to her now, when she found his own troubles paralleled her own, that he was very human and not a slick witty party boy without real feelings. He was lonely. Everybody’s lonely, she thought. Marcie for a perfect mate. Beebo for a perfect girl. Jack for an affectionate boy. Me…Poor Sarah…
That recalled Sarah to her mind. “Jack, I have a friend,” she said.
“Congratulations.”
“—named Sarah.”
“Does Beebo know?”
“And she wants a date.”
“With a girl?”
“—With a boy. She’s straight.”
“What a shame.”
“Can you help me out?”
“I can help you, Mother, but can I help Sarah?”
“You must know somebody. How about that boy who answered your phone tonight? Could he take her out?”
“If he does I’ll break his head for him,” he said and laughed softly, knocking his cigarette ashes into a scorched aluminum tray in front of him.
“Who is he, Jack?’ she asked.
“A friend. No, a lover. For the moment, anyway.”
Laura put her hand on his arm. “Don’t be so cynical,” she said.
“These things never last.” He shook his head. “Better to face it at the beginning.”
“He must see something
