“I never cared much for the other girls,” Venus said circuitously. “Only for you.”
“Well, that ought to ingratiate me with Leo for good,” Beebo said.
“Leo’s afraid for my career. I guess that’s the only thing we agree on. My ‘normal’ affairs have scandalized enough people as it is. A gay love—if it got out—would finish me, Beebo.” She looked at her apologetically. “It’s hard for me to fight Leo. He—sort of—owns me. Economically, I mean, like he owns this house.”
“Do you really hate him, Venus?”
Venus picked at a nonexistent thread on her skirt. “I guess he’s a kindly man at heart. I think I’ve ruined his temperament.” She put her arms around Beebo as they lounged on her private sun porch. “Beebo, are you sorry you’re gay? Are you bitter about it?”
“Yes,” Beebo said, and Venus frowned. “All day long, when you go off to the studio, I’m sorry as hell. At night, I get down on my knees and give thanks.”
“There must have been bad times before I came along.”
Beebo surfaced from a kiss on Venus’s golden shoulder. “When I was younger, I used to look out my bedroom window on summer nights,” she said, “and the brightest star in the sky was Venus. I wanted to reach out and take it in my hand. Put it in a box and make it mine forever.”
Venus chuckled. “I’m not in a box yet, thank God. And I’m a lot handier than that dreadful planet.”
Beebo settled closer to her and said with comfortable intimacy, “I want to share so many things with you, Venus. I want to see you sparkling at parties…take you shopping…watch you at rehearsals…”
“You can’t,” Venus said, putting a finger on Beebo’s nose. Beebo brushed it off, protesting. “There won’t be time, for one thing,” Venus explained. “Not while we’re filming. And besides, Leo won’t let you. You’re too young, you’re too noticeable, and you’re too—well, female. I’ll have all I can do to keep him from putting you in a box.”
“Well, of all the goddamn nonsense!” Beebo said, clouding up. “I just want to drive you places and wait. Watch you from a distance. I’m willing to be a servant, Venus, but not a dog on a leash.”
“Darling, use your head. What if we were seen together, and it was common knowledge you lived here and went everywhere with me and—oh, Beebo, don’t look so crushed. I don’t like it either.”
“You don’t want me around where you have to look at me all the time,” Beebo sulked.
“Darling, I can’t look at you enough!” Venus said, half-amused and half-concerned at the outburst. “You’re the handsomest thing I ever saw.”
“Is that what I am? A thing?” Beebo said, swinging her legs to the ground. She was surprised at herself for being pettish. But the moment she questioned herself about it, her thoughts flew to Paula. Paula would never talk to me this way.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Venus said.
“You don’t want your things following you around in public.”
“Beebo!” Venus cried, hurt. “I love you!” Her words made Beebo turn back and take Venus in her arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said, realizing all at once that Venus was crying.
“I adore you,” Venus wept. “I feel so free with you. Able to do the things that used to terrify me. Able to think about them without shame. I never let go like this with anybody in my life, Beebo.” She clung to her. “Darling, don’t shout at me for the things we can’t have. Be glad with me for the things we can. I’m trying to look at the world more charitably, Beebo—for you and for Toby. You try to look at me that way. Don’t just love me, understand me. I need it so.” She wiped her tears on Beebo’s shirt and glanced up at her.
“You know something silly? I want to dress up for you. I want to sit and hear you talk. I don’t care whether I say a word. I want to be a real actress, not an obedient puppet. I even want to mother my son. When you tell me to do a thing, I fret for the chance to try.”
Beebo stared at her, amazed at this oddly touching admission. “I even got a bunch of pamphlets from the Department of Agriculture,” Venus said, “on how to raise chickens and wean calves.”
Beebo succumbed to laughter. “All you had to do was ask me,” she said.
“I’ll show them to you,” Venus offered, trying to get up, but Beebo pulled her down again, her fit of pique soothed away.
“I’ll take your word for it,” she said. “Besides, I’ve got you half undressed. What would the servants say?”
“They’d say Venus is in love,” Venus answered, letting Beebo hold her. “And they’d be right.”
Beebo made love to her with a new tenderness. And yet, again, when they fell asleep, she dreamed restlessly of Paula Ash.
Venus began to spend all the daylight hours, and some of the night, with the production staff of Million Dollar Baby. Leo returned from San Francisco, but Beebo would not have known it if Toby hadn’t pointed it out.
They had been all day riding Leo’s horses in the boulder meadow surrounding the Bogardus estate, and when they got in, Toby announced, “Leo’s back.”
“How do you know?” Beebo asked, suddenly on her guard.
“Orange juice glass,” Toby said, pointing to a brandy snifter with an orange puddle at the bottom, sitting on an end table. “That’s all Leo ever drinks. He says we’ve got orange trees in the yard and the juice is free. He likes things that are free. Besides, he’s always on a health kick. Right now it’s citric acid. When he’s home there’s always a mess of sticky glasses around.”
“He’s not going to like seeing me around,” Beebo said glumly.
“Why not?” Toby looked at her curiously. “The stables are cleaned up for the first time in a year. And Mom is getting so
