“I’m sorry, Miss Bogardus,” Beebo said, standing up and feeling like a bumpkin dripping hayseeds in front of her.
“Don’t go, Beebo, it’s a trap,” Toby said sardonically.
“Darling, what a lyrical sentiment,” Venus fired at him. “Come on, Beebo.” She turned and sailed down the hall, and Beebo felt angrily like a toy dog, expected to jump when Venus snapped her fingers.
Pat went to her and whispered, “If you feel yourself getting friendly, scream for help.”
“Big help you’d be,” Beebo said.
“Well, at least I won’t be tempted to sin,” he said. “I don’t go for peignoirs.”
“I hope you don’t go for guns, either,” she warned him in a whisper. And aloud, she said to Toby, “Don’t worry, I won’t turn traitor.”
Then, with a sense of exasperation, shame, and excitement, she followed Venus to her room.
It was a real boudoir: a luxurious old-fashioned bower, a glamorous retreat where a coveted woman makes herself irresistible in perfumed privacy, receives the gifts of rich and handsome men, and strikes them helpless with adoration. At least, that was the general idea.
The rug was white, the walls pale blue, and the dressing table wore six silk chiffon petticoats.
“Well, darling?” Venus said. “Do you like my little nest?”
Beebo began to laugh in spite of herself. “If you’ll forgive me, Miss Bogardus,” she said. “It’s one great big gorgeous cliché.”
“Of course it is,” Venus smiled. “I planned it that way to offend Leo…. You know, you sound like you’ve made it in more boudoirs than Errol Flynn.”
“Oh, no,” Beebo said, taken aback. “I’ve just read more bad novels. The sirens always have a boudoir like this.”
Venus turned around and studied her with amusement in the oval mirror above her dressing table. “Come over here and tell me why they sent that ghastly man over with the pizza, when I asked for you with spaghetti.”
Beebo stood her ground, suddenly aware that there was nothing under the “goddamn peignoir” but naked Venus. “That ghastly man owns the place,” she said. “He sent himself.”
You wouldn’t look at Venus Bogardus without admiring her form. Even in her late thirties, it was fine: the kind men hope and dream all women will have, especially their wives. She was small-waisted, full-breasted, with a firmly swelling hipline and long shapely legs; the whole package wrapped up in mathematically right proportions that hadn’t changed since Venus was a bouncing daisy of sixteen.
Venus scratched something on a piece of paper and swept across the room with it in a cloud of cologne and blue silk. “Here you are, darling,” she said. It was her autograph. “Take this to your boss and tell him I hope he gets the sauce out of his ears.”
“He’ll be overcome, I’m sure,” Beebo said, tucking it in her shirt pocket.
Venus stood a few feet from her, watching her and making up her mind to open a difficult subject. “You know, poor Toby is absolutely terrified we’re going to like each other,” she said restrainedly. “He’s quite ashamed of me.”
Beebo was far more embarrassed by Venus’s admissions than by Toby’s. Toby was still a child you could pity and help. But who could pity someone with the blinding assets of his mother? Who had enough crust to offer her any help?
“Miss Bogardus, I’m sorry about the pizza thing. I—” She hesitated, wanting only to duck out and avoid facing the new feelings taking shape inside her.
“I only threw it at him because he wasn’t you,” Venus said, and Beebo allowed herself one quick startled look at That Face. She felt perspiration under her arms and knew her face was damp, too.
“Sit down, darling, you look feverish,” Venus said. And when Beebo stuttered something about going home, Venus laughed. “Why Beebo, I think I’ve got you going,” she said. “I’ll bet I’m not the first girl who ever did that to you.” It was said in a light friendly tone intended to tease, but it made Beebo so intensely uncomfortable that she began to tremble. It became acutely clear to her that she desired that remote and laughing goddess very much; so much she suddenly lost her voice.
“You were full of beans the last time you were here,” Venus said. “Don’t be a square now. Tell me all the nice things you know about me. I promise not to take any of them seriously.”
Beebo got her voice out finally by blasting on it like an auto horn. “I only know what everybody knows,” she blurted.
“The gossip columns?” Venus said. “You can’t be so naïve that you believe that crap, darling. I’ll bet Toby’s been talking to you. Telling you stories about his wicked mama.” From the look on Beebo’s face, she concluded he had.
Beebo didn’t want to insult her. “Why should he?” she said, wishing all the while that she could open a window somewhere for fresh air.
“Oh, he thinks I’m dreadful. And of course I am. But I’m kind of sorry he realizes it already.”
Beebo saw a real regret shadow her face, and all at once it seemed possible—almost—to feel sorry for her.
“If you don’t want him to know it, you’ll have to put blinkers on him,” Beebo said quietly. “I was fourteen a few years ago. You don’t miss seeing much at that age.”
“When he was born,” Venus said, “I was much too young and ambitious to give a damn about him. Now, when he matters, I find I’ve done everything wrong…everything I’ve bothered to do for him, that is. I haven’t bothered to do very much.”
“You don’t need to tell me these things, Miss Bogardus,” Beebo said, amazed to hear Venus speak such damaging truths about herself, to see the steel surface of her go-to-hell gaiety buckle and crack.
“He likes you,” Venus said, somewhat self-conscious now. She lighted a cigarette and shrugged. “He’s such a baby. I love him awfully, but he makes me so damn mad.”
“He’s a nice kid, Miss Bogardus,” Beebo said. “Maybe
