Beebo swallowed the last of the drink. “Yeah,” she said. “The letters.”
Laura kissed her again. Beebo submitted to it without returning the kiss. “You’re not very subtle, Bo-peep,” she said.
“I just want a stay of execution,” Laura said with a wry smile. “If we have to yell at each other, let’s save it till after dinner. Please, darling. The box won’t walk away.” And Beebo, in spite of the obviousness of it, in spite of her own better sense and Laura’s flagrant flattery, weakened.
“Are they that bad?” she asked. “The goddamn letters from Beth the Beautiful?”
“They’re just love letters. They’re old and stale and the affair is old and stale. It’s over and done with.”
“Like our affair?” And Beebo said it so simply, without the histrionics and the swearing and the noisy misery she usually showered on Laura, that Laura was touched. She put her forehead down on Beebo’s shoulder and whispered, “I don’t know, Beebo. You scare me so sometimes I swear I’ll move out of here and run like hell and never come back. Sometimes I really think you mean to kill me.”
“Sometimes I really do,” Beebo said and her voice was rough. “If I did, I’d kill myself right afterwards, darling.”
“A lot of good that would do me!” Laura exploded. But she softened when Beebo’s face went dark. “You don’t mean that, Beebo. You’d never really do it…would you?”
“I don’t know,” Beebo said, staring at her. “I’ve come close to it, baby. I’ve come close…”
“If you really love me, you couldn’t.”
“I really love you. But there are times when I don’t think I could stop myself.” Her eyes filled suddenly with tears and she looked away, at the wall. “Things that would hurt too much.”
“Like what?”
“Like finding out you were cheating on me.”
Laura shut her eyes and felt the sweat break out on her face. But I haven’t really cheated with Tris, she told herself. We never went all the way. I don’t think we ever will. “Don’t be silly,” she told Beebo. “Who is there for me to cheat on you with? Nobody.”
“Jack.”
“Jack?” Laura straightened up, astonished. “He’s a man!”
“Sure he’s a man. I know what he is.”
Laura took Beebo’s face in her hands and said, “I promise you I have never cheated with Jack or anybody else. I swear, Beebo. You think I have but I haven’t. You just make it up.”
“Do I just make it up that I love you more than you love me?”
Laura hung her head. “Let’s shout about it after dinner,” she said.
“Okay.” Unexpectedly Beebo surrendered and Laura escaped to the kitchen with an audible sigh of relief.
They ate in near-silence, Laura concentrating on her plate and Beebo concentrating on Laura. They were almost finished with the gloomy little meal when there came a ring of the doorbell and Laura, without knowing why, felt a sudden start of fear.
“Who’s that?” Beebo demanded.
“I don’t know.” Laura didn’t even want to look at her. “Probably Jack. Or your darling Lili.”
“Oh, Christ, I couldn’t stand to see either of them right now. Lili would love to hear us quarrel.”
“Let’s disappoint her, then,” Laura said and they smiled a little at each other. Laura was surprised at the strength of her relief. But when Beebo got up to ring the buzzer that opened the door below, the strange fear returned.
Far away downstairs she heard the front door open. Laura sat in uneasy silence in the kitchen, listening to the steps coming up the stairs out in the hall. She could picture Beebo leaning against the doorjamb, waiting for the knock. More than once she had begged Beebo to be cautious opening that door. She had nightmares about the hoodlums that raped Beebo coming back to try it again—and getting Laura too this time. But Beebo shrugged it off.
“They won’t be back,” she had said.
“How do you know?”
“I know,” was the cryptic answer, and that was all Laura could get out of her.
Laura found herself staring into her milk glass and whispering a prayer: Let it be Jack. Please, dear God. I need him.
The knock came. Beebo opened the door. There was a moment of silence and then the sound of a sweet feminine voice using a very dainty English. It was Tris!
Laura froze in a panic. For one frightened second she thought of climbing down the fire escape. And then she put her glass down with trembling hands and poised herself, tense with the near-hysterical force piling up inside her.
Suddenly Beebo said, “Well, I’ll be goddamned. Hey, Laura! It’s our little Indian buddy. From Peck and Peck. Come on in, sweetheart.”
“Thank you,” Tris said.
Laura held her breath. Beebo’s friendliness would last just as long as it took her to start wondering what Tris was doing there and how she found the place. Laura could have slapped Tris. She hardly dared go in the living room and face them both.
Beebo called her. “Get in here, baby. Make like a hostess, for God’s sake. How’d you find us?’ she said, her voice lowering as she turned to Tris.
“I ran into Laura at the Hobby Shop,” Tris said. “I was looking for a gift.”
“Find one?” Beebo settled down on the couch, appraising Tris’s slim smooth body with a cool and practiced eye. Laura saw the glance as she stood in the kitchen doorway. She disliked the way Tris let herself be admired.
“Hello, Laura,” Tris said, almost shyly.
“Hello, Tris.” Laura wanted Beebo to stop looking at that warm brown body, lightly sheathed in silk. Her eyes snapped angrily at Tris, and Tris saw it. “Sit down,” Laura said.
“So…,” Beebo mused, her eyes half-closed and calculating. “You discovered Laura in the Hobby Shop and got chummy, hm?”
“She told me where you live,” Tris said, turning to her with an ingratiating smile. “It’s not far from
