“If you had been like this last summer…so calm, so casual,” she whispered humbly, “I would have stayed.”
“And now that I’ve calmed down, you want me wild again, don’t you?” Beebo laughed a little, a sad, wise laugh. “Crazy, isn’t it? Ironic and crazy. And there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it, Bo-peep. Either of us…baby…She lifted Laura’s face and kissed it.
“I won’t tell you how I missed you. I won’t tell you what I went through. I wouldn’t even know how. It took a lot out of me. Too much. But you’re welcome to what’s left. If you want it.”
“I want it,” Laura said passionately. “I want you, Beebo.” She hung her head. “Unless…unless you still want Tris?”
“I never did. I never wanted anybody else. I’ve been trying to give Tris back to Milo since she walked in on me the first time,” Beebo said. “She’ll give up on me when she finds out you’re home. She won’t want to make it a threesome.”
“Home,” Laura repeated. “Oh, Beebo…”
And suddenly her arms were locked around Beebo’s neck and they were lost in kisses and thrilling, half-forgotten caresses and the warm satin touch of each other’s bodies. The pajama top Laura had pulled on so frantically slipped off with no trouble, and she stretched out on the white spread beneath the girl she had loved so much, in spite of so much, and surrendered with a groan of delight tempered with sorrow. And perhaps the beginning of understanding at last.
It was only a matter of hours the next day before Laura knew that the feeling of strangeness she felt would not wear off. It was another two days before she could bring herself to give up hope that Beebo might change, that being together again would reawaken their crazy, beautiful, love affair.
But it was two whole weeks, two very long weeks full of wondering and self-pity and struggle and doubt, before Laura could tell herself that she had made a mistake.
Beebo was drained of feeling. She was tired, tired of love and even tired of life. Perhaps time and innate toughness would revive her, but she had nothing to give Laura now. Laura realized with chagrin how little she had to give Beebo. She had never given much, always taking, taking, taking, from the older girl, who seemed to have so much to offer. It had been too easy to help herself to that wealth of love and she understood now, painfully, that she had come back to Beebo to be worshipped again.
She had turned tail and run at the moment when her problems with Jack seemed too much for her, and she had run to the one person who had adored her spectacularly in the past. She needed her ego bolstered, she needed flattery and passion and reassurance from a woman. So it had come to her as an eye-opening blow to find her tempestuous lover subdued, transformed, almost a different person.
It never was right, Laura thought, watching Beebo over the dinner table. She had to give beyond her strength and I took it all with no return. At least she was generous with herself. I was the selfish one. I always have been the selfish one. I thought the world was giving me a bum deal, but I was too selfish to see the good side. Even with Jack…Oh my God, Jack. My poor darling. With him most of all.
“What are you thinking about?” Beebo asked her, seeing her absorption.
“I—I have to go back, Beebo,” Laura said and her own words startled her. “I have to see Jack once more.” Once expressed, these feelings so long in the making made her feel like crying. She looked apprehensively at Beebo, expecting her sarcasm.
But Beebo only said, “I thought you would. Well, go on, baby. Go tell him you’re sorry, it was all a nasty misunderstanding.” She spoke mildly.
“Don’t make it sound cheap, Beebo,” Laura pleaded.
“It won’t be anything but cheap unless you go back to stay,” Beebo told her. “Otherwise there’s no point in going back at all.”
“But—but I’m going to live with you now,” Laura faltered. “I just have to see him once more. Explain to him—”
“You’re his wife. Either go home to him and grow up or don’t go back. What do you think you’d accomplish with a quickie visit, Bo-peep? Just pep him up a little? Make it all bearable? You’d be lucky if he didn’t run you out with a rifle. If you haven’t learned anything else in all this time, you must have learned that you can’t play around with love as if it were a bargain basement special. Real love isn’t a production line thing, it isn’t waiting for you in any old shop window. Haven’t you learned that yet, baby?”
Laura nodded, putting her head back against the chair and letting the soothing tears flow quietly. “I’ve learned it. But it’s so hard to live by what you learn. I needed you so much when I came back two weeks ago. But I needed you the way you used to be.” It was a difficult admission, but Beebo understood it.
“Sure,” she said gently. “Now you’ve seen me. Now you know what I couldn’t find the words to tell you. It’s over, Laura. I’ll always be here, I guess we’ll always need each other a little. Maybe we’ll see each other now and then. But there’s no point in our living together.”
Shame colored Laura’s cheeks pink and she said warmly, “I’m not a child, Beebo, and I didn’t
