Beebo took the wrapped pizza from Marie and stormed out of the kitchen. She could hear the opening blast of a real wingding behind her.
Beebo drove through a light rain that was quickly slicking down the city streets. It was Midwestern weather. Her father’s face crossed her mind, obscuring some of her revulsion against Pete. I wonder where Dad thinks I am now? she mused despondently.
She punished herself by picturing her father: a tan solid man, with the lines of worry and weather on his face, delivering a foal to its snorting, laboring mother; stooping with the burdens of alcohol and anxiety over his strange young daughter.
Beebo felt a surge of guilty love for him as she neared the address Marie had given her. She almost drove past. It was a big chilly building that looked loftily down on the summer sprinkle.
Beebo went up on the service elevator, her head full of whirling images: Paula, of the glorious red hair and sweet mouth. The big kindly father whose love had made her strong and himself weak. The people who had lately come to matter in her life in the city.
She knocked on the back door, becoming aware as she did so of strident voices within: a woman’s, bright and soprano with anger; a boy’s breaking with resentment; another woman, refereeing timidly for the first two.
“All right, all right, answer the goddamn door!” cried the soprano.
“Mother, do you have to swear like a whore?” the boy cried. “In front of delivery boys?”
“What do you care what I do with delivery boys, darling?”
Beebo recognized the celebrated voice, just as the door opened. “Are you the pizza?” asked a gray dumpling of a woman.
“No, but I have one with me,” Beebo grinned. Her voice stilled the argument momentarily. “Five bucks,” Beebo told the Dumpling, who wore a white uniform like a nurse, or nanny. Beebo waited for the money, suddenly full of springy laughter that might go off any second like a string of firecrackers.
“Five bucks?” said Venus Bogardus. “I haven’t got a damn dime.”
With a thrill of recognition, Beebo suddenly saw her. She was wearing a scarlet, silk-jersey dress. When she moved, she proved there was nothing beneath it. The hatrack story lay down and died. But Beebo was still so full of Paula that the sight of Venus Bogardus was little more than an entertainment.
Toby, the boy, turned his pockets inside out. “I gave you all my money yesterday,” he said, glum and embarrassed. To Beebo he said, “I’m sorry,” with the pathetic air of a child who is struggling to assume the responsibilities of dissipated parents. He was a good-looking boy; in his early teens, Beebo guessed, and finding life with a movie-star mother a stormy combination of high excitement and humiliation. He was not the type to take it lightly.
“Toby, don’t you have something in your piggy bank, dear?” Venus persisted, aware of Beebo now.
“You threw my piggy bank down the incinerator shaft,” he mumbled.
“I did?” She blinked at him with incredible blue eyes, encircled by long black lashes.
“A year ago,” Toby said wearily.
“God, that was careless. Was there anything in it?” Venus said.
“Two-fifty in pennies. I was saving up for a catcher’s mitt.”
“Well, that wouldn’t be enough anyway. For the pizza, I mean.”
“Excuse me—why don’t you charge it?” Beebo said. She was somewhat abashed to have walked in on a Love Queen in the midst of a common little argument.
“Do you think they’d let me?” Venus said, turning to Beebo at last, her voice melting off her tongue like buckwheat honey. Toby slammed out of the kitchen in utter disgust.
“I think so,” Beebo said, smiling.
Venus came to take the pizza from her, opening the container for a taste. “Somebody said it was ‘peerless pasta.’ Is it that bad?”
“It’s good.”
Venus put it on the breakfast table and tore off a bite. “You’re right,” she said. “Want some?”
“No thanks,” Beebo said, staring at her. Perhaps now was the time to back out and run, as Paula suggested.
“Don’t be shy,” Venus said. “Toby, come back and eat, dear,” she called through the kitchen door. “We have a guest.” Toby shuffled in while Venus explained to Beebo, still hesitating at the back door, “No cook tonight. She just quit for the hundredth time. Bring some plates, Mrs. Sack. I’ll get the milk for these growing children.”
“Miss Bogardus, I can’t possibly stay; I—” Beebo said, but Venus interrupted her, as if she hadn’t heard her, with a stream of cordial inanities.
Toby’s face colored. “Mother, will you listen?” he said in an angry hiss. “She doesn’t want to stay.”
“I know, darling. Now shut up and sit down, all of you.”
They did. It seemed to be the thing to do. But Beebo had a tingling feeling that the whole building would fold under her as soon as she touched down on the seat.
Venus opened the refrigerator and a loud smell came out. “God, look at the mess!” she cried. “I’ll bet that bitch hasn’t cleaned it for weeks.”
“If you’d come home long enough to look at it once in a while, she would have,” Toby said.
“Darling, I look at it every day, when I put the champagne in to cool.”
She joined them, passing the milk around, and badgered Beebo to eat more than Beebo wanted. Toby couldn’t stand it.
“Leave her alone, Mother!” he said, rising from his seat.
“Don’t behave like a nervous girl, Toby,” Venus reproved him breezily.
“I’m not a girl,” he said in real anguish.
“Of course not, dear. Boys wear pants and girls wear skirts. That’s how I’ve always known you were a boy.”
Beebo became abruptly conscious of her chino slacks and found it hard to keep eating naturally.
“I’m sorry,” Toby said again to Beebo. “My mother’s a little cracked. It comes from getting her own way all
