“Oh, I don’t mean he’d kill himself. But he kept himself alive through sheer will power, to help me out of my scrapes. After I left, he was free to surrender. For all he ever knew, I ended up the doctor he hoped I’d be.” She shook her head. “Such a good man. So kind, so humanly frail. I loved him, Jack.”
“I got quite a biography of him from Jim,” Jack said. “His drinking, his poverty, his tantrums. Jim’s bitter as hell.”
“I was the cause of most of it,” Beebo said. “What happened to Jim?”
“He sent me a letter from the University of Wisconsin. He said your father didn’t have any money, but you could have any of his belongings you wanted. If he doesn’t hear from you before the end of this month he’s going to sell what he can and throw out the rest.”
“Is that all?”
“He said he was sorry for you but he never wants to lay eyes on you again.”
She laughed sourly. “I’ll bet,” she said. “That’s the nicest he’s ever put it, too. I never loved him, Jack, but he’s all the family I have, and he’s no family at all. It’s too bad…but he’s right. We’re poison together. I guess I’ll let him sell Dad’s things. I have his picture and my memories. They’re worth more to me than some worn-out furniture.”
She fell into bed soon after, lying in the familiar warmth and watching Jack move around the room. She envied the fullness and strength of his arms and chest.
When the lights were out she asked him softly, “Jack? How’s Paula Ash?”
“Pretty lonesome.”
“Do you see her at all?”
“All the time. We shore each other up.”
“What do you do together?”
“Talk about Pat and Beebo.”
Beebo smiled faintly in the dark. “Is that all? Does she hate me?”
“No, little pal.”
“Does she…love me?”
“You’ll have to ask Paula that one.”
“Jack, is she living with anybody?”
“She was. The girl with the Plaid Pajamas moved in for a while.” Beebo felt an odd melancholy that had nothing to do with her father or Venus. “Have you met her? Plaid Pajamas?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“Nobody you’d go for. Didn’t Paula tell you about her?”
“Not much.”
“Well, you’ll meet her one of these days,” he said.
That was all she could get out of him.
Beebo spent the next week resting and living quietly out of sight. She had no plans for wild revenge against Pete and Mona; only the wish to forget, to learn to live with herself again.
Venus was often in her thoughts and would be for a long time. But more and more, as the hurt faded, she found herself preoccupied with Paula. Paula, so real and so faithful; so unlike the fairy-tale princess, Venus, who had vanished inevitably into Never-Never Land. Beebo had crashed back to earth, and she wanted a real girl in her arms.
The cackling in the papers about the Bogardus-Brinker affair made life awkward for her for a while, with reporters trying to scout her down and people whispering about her wherever she went. But the talk was slowly yielding at the other end of the country to Venus’s surprising dignity. She appeared in public at Leo’s side emphasizing the duration of their life together. Both of them swore that their marriage had never been stronger, and in a way, it was true. They needed each other extremely then.
The official story was that Beebo was a young woman who had taken a job on the household staff and subsequently became a close friend of Toby’s. Nobody was aware that she was harboring a feverish crush on Venus. When the situation blew up in their faces, Venus and Leo were as startled and shocked as the rest of the movie colony. They expressed their sympathy for their unfortunate young friend and hoped she could find a happier life somewhere else.
“No one who knows me will believe that there was anything between this poor girl and myself except a friendly relationship based on her closeness to my son,” Venus was quoted. And Beebo, reading the statement, could picture Leo writing and rewriting it at the desk in his library, with a cigar fuming in his mouth and a glass of orange juice nearby.
Somehow, Leo brought it off—partly by expending huge sums on public relations and partly by exploiting Toby’s illness: he hinted broadly that unless the furor died down, the boy’s health was in danger of permanent damage.
Beebo shed a few tears over it in private. But it was, after all, as merciful towards her as Leo and Venus dared to make it. Her picture was kept out of the papers. She still had some anonymity in this biggest of all big cities.
It had been two weeks since she returned to New York; weeks spent resting and job-hunting. Beebo was tense throughout the day, for that night the second segment of Million Dollar Baby was scheduled for showing. It was the one in which Venus sang “I’m Putting My All on You”—the song Leo and Beebo had coaxed out of her that night in the recreation room.
Beebo tried all day to forget about it. But when she came home again that night without a job, Jack had to cheer her up with a cold martini. “When are you going to call Paula?” he said casually.
“Paula who?” she said with a little smile.
Jack pinched her amiably in the arm. “She wants to see you. This would be a dandy night not to watch television.”
“How do you know Paula wants to see me?”
“Well, if she hadn’t called to say so, I’d still know. I’m telepathic.”
“You’re psychopathic. What am I supposed to do, go over there and beat the daylights out of Miss Plaid Pajamas? You said they were living together.”
“Were—past tense. I don’t know what the situation is now, with you home. Anyway, pal, what’s the matter with you? Afraid of a little fight? Or isn’t Paula worth it?”
“What are you promoting it for, Jackson? Taking bets?”
“If the Pajamas
