“All right,” Leo said. “We’re adults, and we aren’t going to scream at each other. Let me talk first if you please. Beebo, are you all right?”
His board-meeting tone, typical though it was of him, offended her more than an explosion of fury would have. “Relax, Leo, you won’t have to pay any more doctor bills,” she said. She was pleased to see that she had given him a shiner.
“I’ve been to the hospital. I was there all night. I can understand your concern at the party, Beebo. But let me remind you that this house is full of telephones, any one of which would have got a call through to Venus.”
“Leo, Mrs. Sack told me Venus would—”
“But you preferred to repay my kindness to you by shaming me in public.”
“The doctor said it, too: Venus would get hysterical if she heard over the phone that Toby was hurt and had to be hospitalized.”
“You know it’s true, Leo,” Venus said softly.
“I didn’t go there to shame you, Leo,” Beebo said. “It’s bad enough being holed up in this fort like a prisoner of war, but not so bad I’d do that to you. I just want you to believe one thing: I was really scared about Toby, and I never thought of anything but getting you and Venus to him as fast as I could.”
Leo finished his glass of juice while she talked. “I believe you,” he said. “I also believe you could have sent somebody else and spared us what we’re about to go through—all of us. I’ve been tolerant about Venus’s lovers in the past because they were vital to her existence. But none of them ever treated me like a sucker.”
“Beebo has always treated you respectfully, Leo,” Venus interrupted heatedly. “It isn’t you she’s rebelling against; it’s the way we’ve made her live.”
“What other way is there? Did she think she’d be your escort at parties? Meet all your friends? I think I’ve had to put up with a hell of a lot more than Beebo has. All the worry of this queer situation has been on my shoulders. Christ, I never could understand why a woman would want anything to do with another woman that way, anyway. And if she did, why love a woman who does everything possible to make herself look like a boy? Why not love a real woman? Or a real man? If you want a lover in pants, Venus, I’m available. I have been for years, and I still love you, though God alone knows why.
“If you want to love a female, don’t run after a mistake of Nature like Beebo Brinker.”
“Leo, that’s brutal!” Venus cried. “Beebo can’t help how she was born. Good God, do you think any human being would deliberately choose to live with a problem like this? Leo, there are homosexuals in this world—I’m one myself—emotional strays of one kind or another, who at least have the comfort and privacy of an inconspicuous body to live in. The shelter of a normal sex on one side of the fence or the other.”
“Are you trying to stir my pity for her?” Leo said.
“I don’t want your lousy pity!” Beebo said.
“I’m trying to make you see how it feels,” Venus said urgently. “Leo, what if you’d been raised as a boy and learned to be a man, and had to do it all inside a female body? What if you had all your masculine feelings incarcerated under a pair of breasts? What would you do with yourself? How could you live? Who would be your lover?”
Leo nodded, answering slowly. “That’s what I’m saying: it’s not an easy life, nor a desirable one, no matter where Beebo lives it. And I know she didn’t pick it out. But whether you two like it or not, she is a freak. And I am sorry for her. Now, Venus—do you want me to sit by and watch that kid wreck the career I’ve spent twenty years of my life to build? Yours, my dear—all yours!”
“I don’t want it!” Venus shouted stridently, wanting to hurt and frighten Leo.
But Beebo was recalling Leo’s words: “If you ever mean more to her than her career, I’ll lose her. I won’t let that happen. I’ll fight you—I’m warning you, Beebo.” When she thought of leaving Venus, she meant to leave a path open behind her for an occasional meeting, a correspondence, a night together now and then when Venus was in New York. But Leo was about to sabotage even that small hope. She looked at him and caught her own thoughts in his eyes.
“That shellacking I gave you was only the opening round, Beebo. Unless you’re ready and willing right now to walk out of here and never come back. Never call, never write, never speak to Venus or see her again. Never.”
“Leo, I love this girl!” Venus said. “If you insist on kicking her out of my home, you can kick me out with her.” It was not what she had thought she would say when the time came. She felt a sort of amazed pride in her foolish bravery.
Beebo, too, was overcome with gratitude, yet wondering at the same time what recriminations Venus would vent on her as the weeks and months went by, if they did leave together. Where would they go, with Venus as notorious as she was? The thought of running away with her—of being tied to her for life—alarmed Beebo in spite of herself.
Leo walked to his wife and spoke straight in her face. “Fine,” he said. “Go with her, Venus. Never mind losing your money, your name…and your son. Not to mention me. The things that have sustained you all these years. Ditch them all.
“What for? For your bargain, here: Beebo. She’ll love and protect you better than I can, no doubt. You’re thirty-eight years old and you won’t have that face
