“It was too unsanitary,” Pat chuckled.
“I thought you were taking your vacation,” Beebo said. Suddenly, her precarious place in this still-new city was menaced. The time to move out was coming fast.
“Vacation, hell. He quit,” Jack said. “I asked him to.”
“How come?”
“I don’t want my betrothed to work,” Jack said, pouring the champagne. It exploded into tiny fountains of fizz, and they each took a glass.
Jack lifted his. “Long life and health,” he said, and added significantly, “and love all around.”
They drank. Beebo nodded to Pat. “All I can say, Pat, is what they said to me when I left Juniper Hill: good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Beebo, you should have been a poet,” Jack said.
She finished her drink and stood up. “I guess you two want to celebrate by yourselves,” she said.
“Not at all. Have dinner with us,” Jack said.
“I think Paula’s waiting for me,” Beebo said. After an awkward pause she added, “She asked me to move in with her.”
“She doesn’t waste time, does she?” said Jack. “Do you want to?”
“I don’t know. It would give her the right to expect me to be faithful. I can’t imagine a lovelier girl. But I hardly know her. And there are so damn many girls in the world.”
“Which reminds me. How was La Bogardus?”
“If you mean the bosom, it’s authentic.”
Jack laughed. “You must have been a big hit, if you got that far.”
“No. I just have good eyes. And she’s allergic to underwear, which makes it pretty obvious.” She sat down heavily for a moment on a kitchen chair across the table from Pat.
“You look tired, honey,” Jack said concernedly.
“I haven’t had much sleep the last two nights,” she said and let them chortle at her, smiling a little.
“She’s a doll, that Paula,” Jack said. “If I were you, I’d keep a close eye on her.” He waited a moment. “You don’t have to go as far as moving in with her, though. Not if you’re not ready.”
Beebo looked up at him and reached out to squeeze his arm. “You’re too damn good to me, Jack,” she said. “I know it’s getting crowded here.”
“Nobody’s complaining!” Jack said. “Besides, if you move out, Pat will probably go, too. You’re still my biggest asset.”
Pat smiled and Beebo laughed, but there was just enough truth in it to make them all a little uncomfortable.
“If only you could get your elbow in your ear,” Pat said to her wistfully, making Jack hilarious. But despite the bantering tone, Pat had found a serious new interest in himself. He was staring and wondering at the many handsome, mannish, and somewhat authoritative girls around Greenwich Village. His crush on Beebo had the effect of opening his eyes to a new and quite fascinating possibility. But so far it was nothing to threaten his affection for Jack, and he said nothing.
Beebo lighted a cigarette, watching as Jack refilled her wine glass. “If I ask a hard question, will you boys tell me the truth?” she said at last. They nodded at her curiously in silent assent.
“When you want me to move out, will you, for God’s sake, please say so? I feel bad enough about mooching from Jack as it is.”
“Forget it,” Jack said. “Stay as long as you want to, pal.”
She sipped the drink. “It’s not that I don’t want Paula,” she said. “I just don’t want her enough to cut loose from all the rest of the women in the world yet. And I’m not earning enough to live alone.”
“You should have met her five years from now,” Jack said sagely. “You would have been ready then.”
“Maybe we can make it together after a few months,” Beebo said. She was musing guiltily about somebody else; someone who had nothing to do with Paula, and yet who affected Beebo’s decision not to go live with the pretty little redhead. Beebo had been eager to stay with Paula, eager to be asked, throughout the first night and day of their acquaintance. It would have solved so many problems, economic and emotional.
Then she got away from Paula for a few hours. She met a woman of provocative beauty who stuck in her imagination, almost without her realizing it at first, and who roused her desire for variety: Venus. When she got back to Paula, she was made to see that Paula was urgently in love with her, and it scared her. She was flattered but afraid of the responsibility. And not at all sure she could return the love in full measure.
So she dodged the decision temporarily by volunteering to take Jack’s sofa and leave the bed to the men. And for a while it worked out. Beebo spent most of her evenings with Paula—and sometimes the entire night—and Paula wisely refrained from pushing her any more on moving in.
There was a complete—and, Paula thought, ominous—silence from Mona. And another odd development was the disappearance of Pete Pasquini. For almost two weeks, nobody saw him. Marie kept saying she hoped to God he had deserted her at last. She was massively uninterested in finding him.
When he finally made a startling appearance, he touched off a howling family feud, with Marie vowing to drown him in spaghetti sauce and his mother promising to throw Marie in after him. The children lined up on the narrow stairs leading up from the kitchen and shrieked approval of the melee.
Beebo walked in on it at eight-thirty in the morning and brought a sudden stillness to the room. She stood there uncertainly with all eyes on her and finally said, “Don’t let me stop you.” Pete smiled at her.
Marie came to life, striding toward Beebo to plead her case with feminine ardor. “We find out this morning. He gets back last night, without telling nobody,” she said, waving a steaming red spoon at her husband. The coating of sauce underlined her threats to drown him.
“We’re all asleep, it’s late. The phone rings twice and
