Laura saw Jack looking up at somebody with a grin and heard him say, “Hi, doll. I want you to meet my mother. Mother, look alive.” He squinted at her doubtfully. “If possible,” he added.
Laura looked up and saw a startlingly handsome face gazing down at her: black hair, pure blue eyes, a slight smile that widened a little when Laura turned her face up.
“Hello,” Beebo said. “Laura.” Her smile gave emphasis to the way she said Laura’s name.
Laura put her hands to her head dizzily. “You look just like Beth,” she murmured.
At which Beebo grinned, turning to Jack. “Three aspirins and some warm tomato juice,” she said. “First thing when she gets up. She’ll live.”
Laura watched her, fascinated, half smiling.
Beebo turned back to her and returned the smile. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a dime. She flipped it in the air and then dropped it insolently in front of Laura. “Here’s a dime, sweetheart,” she said. “Call me sometime.” And with a little grin at Jack, she turned and left them.
Laura stuck her chin out indignantly. She was not too drunk to be insulted. “Well, thanks a bunch, your majesty!” she said sarcastically to Beebo’s back. She could hear Beebo laughing but she wouldn’t turn around. She was already headed for the door.
Laura let Jack drag her to his apartment, three blocks away. He took her up a few stone steps into a long dim hall, and opened the first door on the left. He steered her to his bed and pushed her till she collapsed backwards on it. She fell asleep at once. Jack pulled her shoes off and her skirt, with total unconcern for her femininity, and got her under the covers.
Laura slept like a stone, a deep almost motionless sleep that could have lasted far into the next day. But Jack got her up at seven-thirty. She had three and a half hours’ sleep, on virtually no dinner and eight or ten stiff drinks. She felt strange new pains all over. Jack was used to excesses, though he tried to ration himself to one or two a week. He took it pretty well in stride, but Laura felt awful. Her first words when Jack shook her were, “Oh, God! What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty.”
She turned over on her stomach and put her head down on the pillow. “Where’s Marcie?”
“At home. Where else?”
“What time is it? Oh, I asked you that. My head hurts.”
“Take these, Mother,” he said, handing her some aspirin and a glass of water.
“I don’t think I can swallow.”
“That’s a chance you’ll have to take. Here we go.” He popped the pills into her mouth and gave her the water. She gulped them convulsively. “That’ll see you through till—” He looked at his watch. “—about noon. After that, take three more and a No-Doz tablet. And hit the sack tonight about six. It’s Friday. You can sleep for two days.”
“I will, too.” She rolled gingerly to a sitting position, and looked at Jack with aching eyes. “You did this to me,” she said mournfully.
“Be fair, Mother. I said I’d go whenever you wanted to. I kept asking and you kept saying no.”
She stared at him, disbelieving. “Jack, you louse. You should have dragged me out, you knew I—what’s that?” There was a dime on the bed table.
Jack grinned at her. “Beebo’s calling card,” he said.
Laura remembered it in a flash, although the rest of the evening was little more than a blur. She picked it up and threw it angrily across the room. “Give it back to her for me,” she said. “All I remember about last night is that awful girl and those awful mushrooms! God!”
Jack went out of the room laughing.
Chapter Eight
The first thing Laura did when she got to work was to call Marcie.
“Where were you?” Marcie demanded. “I was just going to call you. I was worried sick.”
“You were?” She felt a momentary relief from her headache.
“Are you all right?”
“I think so. It got so late. We were talking. I finally spent the night—” It suddenly occurred to her, as if a brick had dropped on her tender head, that she had spent the night in a man’s apartment. For the first time in her life. Never mind that it was an innocent stay, or a short one. Or that the man had no designs on her. It was the idea of the thing.
“I spent the night with Jack,” she blurted. Marcie was silent, having suspected as much, but not sure what to say. And it was then Laura realized that she had said the best possible thing. Even if it hadn’t happened it would have been the best thing to say. Marcie didn’t know either of them was gay. She only knew they were man and girl and they had spent a night together. What could sound more normal, more straight? Immoral, maybe, slightly immoral. But straight.
Marcie laughed finally.
“Is it funny?” Laura said.
“I’m sorry,” Marcie said through her giggles. “I never dreamed you and Jack would hit it off like this. He must really like you, Laur.” She sobered suddenly. “He never took much to the other girls we fixed him up with.”
Laura squirmed a little.
“But he talked you up for half an hour before you got home last night. He thinks you’re very pretty.”
Laura felt grateful to him. He must have done it to enhance her in Marcie’s eyes, even if he did disapprove of her infatuation.
“Did he say that?” she said, pleased.
“He did. And he’s right.”
Laura was taken aback. Then she said quickly, “You’re both crazy.”
“No, you are. We’re right. You never looked at yourself, you silly girl. You don’t know what you look like.”
“Do you?” It sounded stupid, but it came out in spite of her.
“Sure. I’ve looked at you when you weren’t noticing.”
When could that have been?
“I think you have a fascinating face.”
“But not pretty.”
“Lovely.”
“Marcie, listen to me, I—” She was shaky, mixed up from the hangover and
