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
