She looked at Laura and there was a deep regret in her eyes. “And she gets up with the God-damnedest sort of dignity and walks across the room and says ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for you. Now go away. Don’t talk, don’t try to explain, I don’t want to hear. It makes me sick. Just go away, and I won’t tell our friends. You don’t need to worry. Just so I never see you again.’ It makes you heartsick, baby. You get so sick inside. You give yourself the heaves. All you want in God’s world is to get the hell out of your own skin and be normal. Fade into the crowd like a normal nobody.” She crushed her cigarette out, grinding it into the ashtray with her thumb till the paper burst and the brown tobacco spilled out.
Laura felt closer to her. All the insults of the day faded in her mind. She walked over to her, her pressed dress over one shoulder. “Beebo,” she said softly.
But Beebo wasn’t ready to let herself be touched. “Just remember one thing,” she said. “Too many Marcies in your life, and you commit suicide. That’s what it is to be gay, Laura. Gay.” Laura stepped back a little shocked. “Sometimes all it takes is one,” Beebo said.
“No,” Laura whispered. “Oh, no.”
“Okay, baby, go find out for yourself. I can’t stop you, Jack can’t stop you.” Beebo’s eyes were brilliant with bitterness, with the hard knowledge of her own experience. “Go play with your little blonde. You’ll find out soon enough she has claws. And teeth. And when you get to playing the wrong games with her, she’ll use them.”
“Never!” Laura said. “Even if she’s straight she won’t hurt me. She’s not that kind.”
“She doesn’t have to hurt you, idiot. Can’t I get that through your head? All she has to do is say ‘no thanks.’ Kindly. Sympathetically. Hell! If you want her bad enough, you’ll die of it. I know, Laura, I know!” And she took Laura’s shoulders and shook her head until Laura felt like sobbing. Beebo released her suddenly and they stood in silence, unable to talk, heavy with feeling, trembling.
Finally Beebo said quietly, “Go on, baby. Go home and get it over with. You’ve been warned.” All the fight seemed gone out of her.
When Laura left, Beebo came to the door with Nix at her heels. She was unsmiling. “Come back, baby,” she said. “To stay. Or don’t come back at all.” And when Laura turned away without answering she called after her, “I mean it!”
Chapter Twelve
Laura entered the penthouse and walked slowly back to the bedroom. It was hard to imagine Marcie’s mood. Marcie looked up from her bed, her hair in pincurls. She was a relief to Laura’s eyes after the stormy, ranting handsomeness of Beebo. Marcie looked beautiful, even with tin clips in her hair. But she looked cool, too; ready for a fight.
Laura slipped her jacket off without a word, thinking of the loud quarrels she and Beth used to have. And how they resolved them with love. A little curl of excitement twisted around her innards.
“Well?” Marcie said sharply. “Did he throw you down in the street?”
Laura was startled, offended. Marcie had no right to say such a thing. “What do you mean?” she said.
“Your dress,” Marcie said, nodding at it.
Laura looked down at it. Beebo had dragged it over the bathroom floor and the dirt, together with a hasty pressing job, made her look like she’d been through a scuffle. “Marcie,” she said, trying to control her voice, and not sure when she started talking what she was going to say, “Marcie, I didn’t sleep with Jack.”
Marcie turned her eyes down to the book she was holding and her expression said, Tell me another one. “With who, then?” she said.
Laura pressed her lips together and sat down on Marcie’s bed. I won’t yell at her, she told herself. I can’t take the chance. I’d say the truth, I’d blurt it out by mistake.
“Marcie, I just ended up down in the Village.”
“Did you wander around all night?”
“No. No.” She looked down at the floor. “Well, I—”
“You what?” Marcie looked at her.
“Marcie, I didn’t spend the night with Jack.” Her voice begged for understanding.
“Jack has friends.”
Even in her mounting irritation Laura sensed jealousy and it thrilled her. “Yes, Jack has friends. And they aren’t all men.”
“Don’t tell me you spent the night with a girl. Ha! That’s even better. You just hang around with anybody who’s handy, don’t you.”
“You aren’t very choosy yourself, Marcie.”
“Only with Burr!” Marcie flashed angrily. “I only sleep with Burr. And I was married to him. Besides, I haven’t let him touch me for weeks. You’ve never been married, not to Jack or anybody else.”
“And I’ve never slept with Jack or anybody else.”
“I don’t believe you!”
Laura stood up and looked down at her. “You don’t have to, Marcie,” she said. “What the hell do you care who I sleep with? Or why? Are you guardian of my morals? Yours aren’t perfect, you know. I haven’t slept with Jack, for your information. Not once. But if I had, what would it matter? You thought it was all a good joke at first.”
Marcie’s face began to color. She put her book down and looked diffidently at Laura, who was standing by her dresser taking off her clothes. Marcie ran her fingers over her lips, as if warning herself to shut up, and Laura thought to herself, Just like me. Just like me when Beth used to taunt me. I wanted her so. And I was so afraid.
“I didn’t know it would get so serious, at first. With Jack,” Marcie said, her attitude softening. “I feel like it’s my fault, what you’re doing, and I—I feel real bad about it. I’m scared. Maybe you’ll get into trouble, maybe you’ll blame me then. You get
