Jack was a very sensual man and he had been deeply in love with Terry. He still was, in spite of everything. His love for Laura was different; strong, she was sure, but could it stand up to a sudden white-hot blast of passion?
“You sound real bitter, Laura,” Terry said reproachfully. “I thought you were sort of kidding in your letter.”
“I’ve never been more serious, Terry. Stay away from us!” She hung up again. When she took her hand away there was a ring of wet on the black handle. She cried all day, feeling angry and helpless.
Jack got home at five, but she told him nothing. She was gentle and solicitous with him in a way he had missed for a couple of months. She read to him and she chatted with him, and underneath it all was a tremulous fear of disaster that made her feel a great tenderness for him. He seemed vulnerable to her. If she betrayed him she would embitter him more than she was able to imagine. The thought was terrifying.
“Mother, you need a change,” he said when they had finished dinner.
“I do?”
“Leave the dishes and scram.”
She felt a little spark of fear. “Are you kicking me out?’ she asked.
“I sure as hell am, you doll,” he said. “Get thee hence.”
“Where?” His laughter relieved her.
‘The Village. Where else?” And when she stared at him, wordless, he added, “You need it, honey. You’re nervous as a cat. Go on, have a ball.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I’ll give you three minutes to get out of here,” he said with a glance at his watch.
Laura hesitated for a few seconds until he looked at her over the top of the paper again and then she ran, heels ringing staccato on the polished wood floor of the hall, and got her coat and purse. On the way out she stooped to kiss his cheek.
“Jack, I adore you,” she whispered, to which he only smiled. At the door she turned and said, “I’ll be home early.”
“No curfew,” he said solemnly.
Laura went first to the Cellar, a favorite hangout in Greenwich Village. The tourists had begun to stop there by this time, but the gay crowd outnumbered them still and it wasn’t primarily a trap. The prices were reasonable and the decor smoky.
Laura settled at the bar with a sigh of sheer pleasure. All she wanted to do was sit there quietly and look at them…those lovely girls, dozens of them, with ripe lips and rounded hips in tight pants or smooth skirts. And the big ones, the butches, who acted like men and expected to be treated as such. They were the ones who excited Laura the most, when it came right down to it. Women, women…she loved them all, especially the big girls with the firm strides and the cigarettes in their mouths…She realized with chagrin that she was thinking of Beebo.
God, what if she’s here? she thought with a wonderful scare running up her spine. She looked around, but Beebo was nowhere in sight.
I wonder if she has a job, poor darling. I wonder if Lili’s still supporting her. I wonder if she’s still drinking so much…if she thinks of me at all…Oh what’s the matter with me? What do I care? She nearly drove me crazy!
She thought of Tris suddenly, of that marvelous fragrant tan skin. In fact she indulged in an orgy of suggestive thoughts that would have driven her crazy cooped up at home. But here, surrounded with people who felt and thought much as she did, it was all right. It was safe somehow. She could even spend the evening flirting with somebody, if anybody caught her eye, and it would come to no harm. Just a night’s outing. Nothing more.
Tris…Tris…she would never show up in a place like this. She’d shun it like the plague. All the same it would be nice. So nice.
But the harder Laura concentrated on Tris the more insistently Beebo obsessed her. Laura shrugged her off and ordered another drink. She laughed a little to herself and said, But I don’t love her at all anymore. And she turned to talk to the girl beside her.
The girl was very charming: small and curly-headed and pretty, and she laughed a lot. And soon Laura was laughing with her and learned that Inga was her name. But that face, that damned face of Beebo’s, strong and handsome and hard with too much living, kept looking at her through the haze of Inga’s cigarette.
“Did you ever have somebody plague your thoughts, Inga?” she asked her abruptly. “Somebody you’d nearly forgotten and weren’t in love with anymore, and never really were in love with?”
“What’s her name?” Inga asked sympathetically.
“Oh, nobody you’d know.” She was fairly sure Inga would know, if she frequented the Cellar. If she’d hung around the Village long enough she’d know most of the characters by sight, if not personally. Beebo was one of the characters. And she had been around here for fourteen years. “How long have you lived down here?” Laura asked the girl.
“Two years next month.”
Long enough, Laura thought.
“I’ll bet I know her. She ever come in here? Come on, tell me,” Inga said.
“I can’t,”
“You’re silly, then. I’ll clue you in on something, Laura. If you can’t get her off your mind it’s because you can’t get
