“I’ve been waiting for something like this all my life,” she said grimly. Beebo was astonished to see how firm and fearless she was; not at all the comfortable muffin she seemed when all was well with her boy. “We’ve had some bad falls before, but not like this.”
“Is the doctor coming?” Beebo asked.
“Yes, in ten minutes.” She knelt by Toby, washing the wound while Beebo watched.
“Shall I call Venus?” Beebo said.
“No,” said Mrs. Sack emphatically. “She’s worse than nothing in a crisis. She goes all to pieces. It doesn’t help Toby and it certainly doesn’t help the doctor.”
Beebo thought, I should be grateful she’s here—she knows just what to do. And yet she was distressed to think that Venus should be playing goddess at a party while her son lay hurt and bleeding—and no one was making a move to tell her.
“She has to be told, Mrs. Sack,” Beebo said.
“Go and tell her, if you must,” Mrs. Sack said. “She can meet us at the hospital. At least over there they can give her a sedative.”
Beebo stood uncertainly by the phone, trying to picture herself walking in on the fancy party in her bloody slacks; infinitely preferring to call.
Mrs. Sack looked around. “Beebo, this boy is more my child than hers—she says so herself,” she said unexpectedly. “All his life he’s come to me when he was hurt, and I’m the one who knows how to care for him. Not her. It’s my job. My life.” She was as proud and strong in her words as a soldier bristling with defense.
To Beebo, staring at her, it became clear that Venus didn’t just give Toby up. Toby was deftly taken from her by this plump, kind-hearted woman who never had a child of her own, but was obviously made to mother one. She believed Toby was truly her child because Venus had forfeited her right to him, even the right to be there to comfort him and patch his wounds.
“Mrs. Bogardus could have had him when he was born,” Mrs. Sack went on, ministering to Toby. “But she practically threw him at me. And I was overjoyed to have a little son to raise and love. She can’t walk in here like a queen and demand him back, just because he cuts himself and scares her.”
Beebo went over and patted Mrs. Sack’s shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “Nobody’s criticizing you, Mrs. Sack. But Venus is his mother, no matter how much you’ve done for him or how much you love him.”
“If you call that woman,” Mrs. Sack said, turning around and standing up to italicize her words, “I will not be responsible for the condition of this boy. Beebo, you’re a nice youngster and you’re his friend. It’ll be bad enough for Venus to see him at the hospital, but if she comes racing in here shrieking bloody murder, she’s likely to make Toby believe it. Do you want a sick boy or a dead one on your conscience?”
Beebo ran a distraught hand through her hair. “But Mrs. Sack, I can’t go get her.”
“Nonsense. Just change your clothes and drive over. It should take you about half an hour, and by that time the doctor will be with us and Toby will be at the hospital.”
“But the papers…” Beebo muttered.
“I don’t read the papers, Beebo. But I’m quite sure they’ll forgive you for getting the mother of a sick boy from a party.” She had turned back to Toby. “It’s an emergency and there’s no one else to go.”
“What about Rod—her secretary?”
“He doesn’t drive. And besides, he overdramatizes everything. He’d really fix Mrs. Bogardus.” Mrs. Sack didn’t seem to care whether Beebo ever got there. But Beebo knew Venus had to be told at once. Venus herself had admitted to hysterical behavior in the face of Toby’s attacks. Perhaps the only way then was to pick her up and drive her to the hospital, as Mrs. Sack suggested.
Beebo put on some clean clothes in her room, and as she ran down the stairs again, headed for her car, she heard the newly arrived doctor saying on the phone, “Yes, a concussion. Get an ambulance over here.” He looked up and saw Beebo.
“Are you Miss Brinker? Get his mother, will you? Tell her not to worry—I don’t want two patients on my hands tonight. Better not say much about the wound. Just tell her it’s a bump. We’re hospitalizing him till the risk of hemorrhage is passed.”
“Yes, sir,” Beebo said, and ran out to the garage.
She left her car directly in front of the main entrance to the house where the party was, and went in.
“Excuse me, this is a private party—” said a doorman, but Beebo, with that peculiar air of authority that came to rescue her from various crises, interrupted him calmly.
“Where’s Miss Bogardus?” she said, scanning the living room. “It’s an emergency.”
The butler, who read the gossip columns like everyone else, gazed at her with new interest. “I believe she’s occupied,” he said with a venal smile. Beebo gave him a twenty-dollar bill, too worried even to begrudge it.
“You’ll find her in the back gardens. Out the French doors,” he said, gesturing toward them.
Beebo strode through the champagne-stained living room. Many a famous face glanced at her, and a columnist whispered to his scribe to take notes.
She slipped through the heavy shadows bordering the spotlighted garden. Venus was at the farthest corner. Beebo simply looked for the heaviest concentration of men. In the center, slim and straight in her coruscating sequins, stood Venus Bogardus: a silver exclamation point in the purple dark.
Too much shivaree had followed Beebo out of the house for Venus to be unaware of it. Leo alerted her at almost the exact moment her eyes fell on her lover. There was a half-second of undressed fury visible in her eyes, flashing brighter than her dazzling
