“Why did you marry him?”
“I loved him.”
“Do you still?”
“I don’t know. Yes, in a way. I hate him too, though. There were times when I think I could have killed him.”
“How do you know it won’t be like that with Laura?” Beebo asked. “How do you know you weren’t cut out to be a loner? Bisexual, maybe. Or the kind who can only love from a distance, no matter which sex, no matter how much passion?”
And Beth had to turn away from Beebo’s brilliant, absorbing eyes, too troubled by her ideas to face her squarely. To change Beebo’s train of thought she asked, “Why doesn’t Nina like you?”
“I jilted her once. A few years ago. And I don’t read her books. And, I suppose, she didn’t want me to waltz off with you tonight. Sort of lets the air out of her balloon.”
Beth smiled silently into her near-empty coffee cup. “Beebo,” she said. “Will you tell me where Jack and Laura live?”
“Made up your mind?” Beebo said.
“Yes.”
“You’re going to see her?”
“Yes.”
“In spite of all the pitfalls?”
“I’d walk through hell to see her,” Beth whispered.
Unexpectedly Beebo reached over, putting a hand on each of Beth’s shoulders and pulling her back so that she leaned against the couch between Beebo’s knees. The hands were strong and firm as a boy’s, disconcerting in the warm grip. Beth could feel Beebo looking down on the top of her head and she wished she could see her face.
“Okay, honey,” she heard Beebo say. “I’ll call them tell them you’re coming.”
“Oh, God, no!” Beth cried. “No, Beebo. Please. I don’t want her to know in advance. I want to surprise her. If she knows she’ll change things, she’ll clean the house, she’ll fix a big dinner, she’ll have something fixed to say to me that won’t be genuine. It just won’t be the same. Please, let me surprise her.”
“She won’t thank me for that,” Beebo quipped. “But if that’s the way you want it.”
“That’s the way.”
“Okay, okay,” Beebo sighed. “They’re up at 528 North Lexington. Eighth floor. His name is J. F. Mann. And Beth—just for the record—she’s interested in somebody right now. I don’t know how seriously.”
“Okay. It’s okay. That’s something I expected,” Beth said. She turned her head to Beebo’s leg and kissed it fervently, impulsively. “Thank you,” she said, and experienced a strange, unexpected flash of pleasure at her own boldness, at Beebo’s nearness and warmth.
She stayed the rest of the night, sleeping in spite of her excitement. Beebo gave her the bed and slept on the couch in the living room. She had gone out by the time Beth got up the next morning, but there was a note for her to help herself to some breakfast and to keep in touch with Beebo. Beth scribbled down her room number and phone at the Beaton on Beebo’s telephone pad and drank some orange juice. Her mouth was dry with excitement and she found it hard to eat, but she made herself take something. At the same time she riffled through the pages of Beebo’s telephone directory. And there it was. There it had been all along, but without Beebo’s help she wouldn’t have found it. “J. F. Mann,” and the address. Beth tore another sheet of paper off the phone pad and made a note of the number, slipping it into her purse.
Before she left she cleaned up her dishes and the ones Beebo had left, including the coffee cup and the whiskey glass from the night before. She made the bed, thinking as she did it that Laura must have slept in this bed too, once. After that she straightened up the living room. It wasn’t the same as keeping house for Charlie. She actually enjoyed the tasks, enjoyed the feeling that Beebo would come home to a clean house and a tidy kitchen, and it would be due to Beth’s care.
She took a long look at the rooms before she closed the front door after herself, and she had the feeling that sooner or later, someday, she would be back. She hoped so. She liked Beebo, she had learned from her, and it hadn’t been the sharp, painful sort of lesson Nina Spicer taught. But just as effective. Perhaps more so.
Chapter Sixteen
BETH WALKED OVER TO SEVENTH AVENUE TO GET A TAXI. SHE walked with a light, swinging step, feeling a small new joy in her heart that almost amounted to hope for a happy ending to it all—the mess and bewilderment and misery of the past few months.
As she walked she noticed a short balding man ahead of her with a noticeable aura of ennui about him, standing buggy-eyed and uninterested before a window full of leather-work. He looked familiar, though she was sure she didn’t know anybody in the city outside of Nina and Beebo.
Still…Maybe I saw him at one of the bars, she thought, vaguely disturbed by his face yet unable to recall it. She walked briskly past him as if she had not noticed him at all. He probably lives down here. He probably goes bar hopping at night. I’ve seen him in a bar, that’s all. But it piqued her not to remember where.
She had the taxi driver let her off at Fifth Avenue and 38th Street, near the public library. She wanted to buy something, some little house gift for Jack and Laura that would make her appearance less awkward, give them all something to say. For half an hour she wandered from store to store, north and south, trying to find the appropriate thing, ignoring Merrill Landon’s strictures about budgeting her money. It had to be something really nice or it just wouldn’t do.
She stopped to look into the toy window at F. A. O. Schwartz, thinking suddenly of Polly and Skipper and wondering if she could send them something without upsetting them. In the middle of the window, prominently displayed, was a big, gaudy, orange giant
