Laura realized then that he didn’t put a shot of booze in his coffee. “You’re still on the wagon!” she said.
He swirled his coffee reflectively. “I remember,” he said, “when Terry was giving me the works a few months back. I nearly drank myself to extinction. Beebo’s not above trying it herself.”
“Oh, God, that was awful!” Laura said, remembering Terry.
Terry had been enough to drive a strong man mad. If he had been nasty about it Jack could have stood it better. He could have preserved his self-respect and he might have had the strength to kick Terry out sooner than he did. But Terry was nice. He was delightful and cooperative. He was unfaithful, he was taking every cent Jack made as Jack made it, and he was hardly ever home.
But Jack was in love with him; angrily in love with the wrong person, sticking to a doomed attachment as if every new shock and every unexpected pain only strengthened his need for the boy.
Jack knew it was hopeless. He knew it was draining his strength and making a coward of him. In his mind the whole sad farce of the thing was perfectly clear. But he acted on his emotions in spite of himself, and as long as Terry loved him he couldn’t let him go.
Curiously enough, Terry did love him. Jack was home base to him; Jack was security. Jack paid the bills and bolstered him when he was low, and no matter how rough and rotten the rest of the world might get, good old Jack was always there, always the same.
But the end had to come. There was never enough money, there was never enough understanding, there was never enough of the right kind of love. It took just one sharp explosion of acid resentment one night, when Jack caught Terry cheating after two years of bitter suspicions, to blow them apart. It was almost too painful to think about afterwards.
It was over now, of course. Terry was gone. But the ache for him and the loneliness, even the desire to be tormented remained.
“You never heard from Terry, did you?” Laura asked.
“No. He took his things and left and I haven’t heard from him since. Makes me think he must have left New York.”
“Do you still want him?” She asked it not to hurt him but because she knew he had to say it now and then or die of it.
“Of course I want him,” he said briefly. “Drink your coffee. Your patient is howling for attention.”
Chapter Five
THREE WEEKS, Laura wrote in her diary, sitting in the living room while Beebo slept. Three weeks of this, and if it goes on much longer I’ll end up hating her. I felt so sorry for her at first. It was such a cruel thing and it hurt her terribly. But she’s well now—I know she is. She’s lying around getting fat and drinking like a fish and not working. If she doesn’t get back to work soon I’ll lose my mind. And she’ll lose her job for sure. They’ve been calling all week.
Laura hadn’t minded being a nurse at first. She tended Beebo gently and made her rest and, being unsure herself and hounded by her patient to forget it, she never did call a doctor. But Beebo seemed to come out of it fast. Physically the scars healed quickly. At the end of a week she was up and around. She hadn’t had a drink since the day it happened, and she talked about going back to work the next Monday.
But then Laura came home late one evening and she found Beebo drunk.
“Where the hell have you been?” Beebo shouted at her when Laura came in and found her in the kitchen. “I’m sick and miserable, I’ve just been through hell, and you can’t even come home from work to make my dinner for me.”
Confronted with such a bombardment of nonsense, Laura wouldn’t even answer her. She undressed and took a shower, but Beebo followed her into the bathroom and went right on yelling. Laura had pulled the shower curtain but Beebo opened it and watched her bathe.
“Laura,” she said, “where were you?” No answer. “Tell me. Tell me, damn it!” It was an order.
“Ask me like a civilized human being, then,” Laura said, turning around to rinse her soapy back.
“I’ll ask you any way I goddamn please. I have a right to know.”
Laura turned the water off and eyed her coldly. “I had dinner with Jack,” she said. “He dropped in after work.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Call him.” She stepped out of her bath, cool and dripping and haughty as a princess, and Beebo burned for her.
“I don’t believe a word he says. He always lies for you. No matter what I ask him he’s always got an answer. I used to like the guy, but Jesus, it’s gotten so I can’t trust him anymore. He’s always on your side.”
Laura wrapped herself in a towel and began to rub herself, but Beebo suddenly put her whiskey down and clasped her in a bear hug.
“Laura, darling, I felt so rotten today. And I looked forward so much to having you home. It’s so quiet and lonesome around here all day without Nix. I nearly go mad. Baby, I know I’ve taken up a lot of your time, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t ask those bastards to rape me.”
Laura relaxed slightly in the embrace, since she couldn’t squirm out of it. “You felt better today, not worse, Beebo. You told me so this morning.”
“That was this morning. I got worse this afternoon,” she said petulantly.
“You got worse at exactly five-thirty when I was fifteen minutes late.”
“Where were you?”
“With Jack. Beebo, you’ve been drinking. You promised me you wouldn’t.”
“If you’d been home I wouldn’t have to!” Beebo released her abruptly, picked up the whiskey glass with a swoop of her hand, and defiantly finished what was in
