I am a woman
picked listlessly at her food. After a while Marcie fell silent, too.
When the dishes were done Marcie said, “I called Burr. Broke our date
tonight.” She looked expectantly at Laura, as if this were a significant
revelation, and she wanted a proper reaction.
But Laura only said, “Oh?” and walked into the bedroom.
Marcie followed her. “What’s the matter, Laur?” she said. And when Laura
didn’t answer, she asked, “Bad day?”
“Um-hm. Bad day.” Laura lay down on her bed, face downward, one leg
hanging over the edge, her mind wholly occupied with her father: her
hatred, her stifled love for him, her fear of him.
“Talk to me, Laura,” Marcie said, coming over to sit next to her.
“Not tonight.”
“Please. You said you would.”
“I can’t, Marcie. I can’t talk. I’m too tired.” She rolled over and
looked at her. “Don’t look like that,” she said. “I’m—I’m worried about
my job, that’s all. I’ll be all right.”
“What’s wrong with your job?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, Laura! God! Make sense!” Marcie exclaimed. But when she evoked no
response she dropped it with a sigh. “Let’s go out on the roof,” she
said, “and get some fresh air. It’s a beautiful night.”
“Looks like rain.”
“How would you know? You’re staring at the ceiling.”
“It did, earlier.”
“That’s what’s beautiful about it. Maybe there’ll be thunder. I love to
stand naked in the rain.” She glanced down slowly at Laura.
But Laura turned back on her stomach without a word. A terrible apathy
nailed her to the bed. Not even the nearness of Marcie could arouse her.
They sat quietly for a few minutes, Laura lost in herself, and Marcie
searching for a way to cheer her up. The phone rang.
“I’ll get it,” Marcie said, and got up. She walked across the room and
picked up the receiver when Laura suddenly remembered Beebo. She sat up
in a rush.
“No,” Marcie was saying, “I can’t. I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue, not
any more. I’ve had enough, that’s all. I won’t talk to you, Burr. No,
it’s not her fault, it’s nobody’s fault.” She looked at Laura stretched
out again on her bed. “That has nothing to do with it. No. Goodnight,
Burr.”
She hung up and stood for a moment motionless, watching Laura, who lay
with her face turned away, apparently relaxed. Burr was getting jealous,
impatient. He was ready to accuse anybody of anything to get Marcie’s
favor back. Their phone conversations were little more than arguments
which Marcie terminated by hanging up on him. But he wouldn’t be put off
for long.
Marcie sat down on her own bed with a book, the one she meant to ask
Laura about. She stared at the pages without reading, and wondered about
her moody roommate.
Laura was watching her wristwatch. It was two minutes fast. She lay
still, but she was alert, poised to jump. At two minutes past eight, by
her watch, the phone rang again. “It’s for me,” she told Marcie, who had
no intention of going for it. Laura came across the room and sat on
Marcie’s bed.
“Hello?” she said into the receiver.
“Hi, lover. Where are you?”
“At home,” Laura said sarcastically. “Where else?”
“You want me to come over?”
“I’ll be down in a few minutes. I was delayed.”
“Okay, but make it fast. I’ll call again at eight-thirty. And every ten
minutes after that.”
Laura hung up without a further word and turned to look at Marcie. “I
met him at work,” she said, her face flushing. “He’s been pestering me.
I don’t want to see him.” She didn’t know what she was going to do.
“Oh,” said Marcie. _Then why all the fuss?_ She looked curiously at
Laura’s pink face. Laura turned away and began to walk up and down the
room, feeling as if there were a bomb sealed in her breast, ticking,
about to go off. She knew her nails were cutting her underarms, yet she
hardly felt them. It was an expression of terrible tension in her.
Suddenly she whipped the closet door open and pulled out her coat.
Marcie, watching her, said quickly, “Where’re you going?”
“I’ll be back early,” Laura said, heading for the door, propelled by the
tight violence that was boiling inside her.
“Laura!” Marcie jumped up and followed her. “Damn it, Laur, please tell
me, I’m worried about you.”
Laura turned abruptly at the door. “I’m just going out for a little
while,” she said. “I won’t be late.” She tried to leave, but Marcie
grabbed her arms.
“You’re not fit to go anywhere, Laura. I never saw you so upset,” Marcie
said. “Except once. And you—you spent the night with Jack that time. It
was my fault. Is this my fault? Am I driving you out again?”
“No, no, nothing’s your fault.” Laura covered her face with her hand for
a minute and when Marcie’s arms went around her to comfort her, she
wept. “Please don’t let me go,” she whispered. “I mean—God!—I mean, let
me go. Let me go, Marcie.” She began to resist.
But the curiosity in Marcie had taken over. “You’re trembling all over.
Come to bed, Laur. Come on, honey, you’re in no shape to go anywhere.
Come tell me about it,” she coaxed, trying to guide Laura away from the
door. But Laura knew what was in store for her if she obeyed. She
uncovered her face to gaze for a moment at Marcie, so close to her, so
tantalizing. And that terrible storm brewing inside her made her feel as
if she might do any wild thing that her body demanded of her. She was
afraid.
“Please,” Marcie said softly. “I’ll give you a rubdown, I’m a great
masseuse. My father taught me how.” She smiled. “Please, Laur.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love him very much?”
“Yes.” Marcie frowned at her.
“And he loves you?”
“Of course.”
“You’re lucky, Marcie.”
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be, Laur. I’m not lucky. I’m just
normal. Ordinary, I mean.”
Laura stared at her. The emotion in her simmered dangerously near the
top. With a sudden swift movement, Laura kissed Marcie’s cheek lightly,
leaving the wet of her tears on Marcie’s face, and then whispered, “So
lucky ... so lucky ...” Then she turned and ran down the stairs to the
elevator.
Marcie sat down on a living room chair and put her head in her hands and
tried to think. Laura’s strange behaviour made her tickle inside. She
felt close to the storm that had barely brushed past her, and yet she
remained untouched. There was only the wet on her cheek as a token, and
she brushed it off, inexplicably embarrassed.
* * * * *
Laura made the taxi driver take her past the McAlton. She counted to the
fourteenth floor, as nearly as she could figure it, and stared at the
golden blocks of windows, and wondered which ones opened into 1402. And
if Merrill Landon was in his room.
She walked in quickly when she reached The Cellar, with no hesitation,
and made for the bar. It was a little past eight-thirty by her watch.
She hoped anxiously that Beebo hadn’t called Marcie again. She saw her
at the far end of the bar talking to two very pretty young girls. They
looked like teenagers. Laura was dismayed at the flash of jealousy that
went through her. She walked right up to Beebo, without being seen,
until she stood next to her. She took a seat beside her, watching Beebo
while she talked, until one of the teens nudged her and nodded curiously
at Laura. Beebo turned and broke into a smile.
“Well, Bo-peep,” she said. “Didn’t hear you come in. How are you?”
“Am I interrupting something?” Laura looked away.
Beebo laughed. “Not a thing. This is Josie. And this is Bella. Laura.”
She leaned back on her stool so they could all see each other.
The younger girls made effusive greetings, the better to exhibit
luscious smiles, but Laura only said, “Hello,” to them briefly. Beebo
laughed again, and leaned closer to her.
“Jealous, baby?” she said.
“I owe you one drink,” Laura snapped. “What do you want?”
“Whisky and water.”
Laura nodded at the bartender.
“Is that all you came for, Bo-peep?”
“Don’t talk like that, Beebo, you make me sick.” Laura still wouldn’t
look at her.
“I didn’t last time.”
“Yes you did. I hope you’ve bought your friends there one of Dutton’s
cartoons. It’s the quickest way to get rid of them I know.”
“Why didn’t it work with you?” Beebo laughed softly in Laura’s ear. “You
came home with me that night, if you recall.”
Laura turned angrily away from her. “What happened was in spite of the
God damn juvenile cartoon, not because of it. I nearly walked out when
he gave it to me.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I should have.”
The bartender came up and Laura started to order. She wanted to buy
Beebo the drink and have one quick one herself, and then get out. Go
home. Forget she had come. But before she could give an order, Beebo
said, “Come home with me, Laura.”
“No.”
“Come on.” Beebo spun her slowly around on the barstool with one arm.
Laura looked reluctantly at her for the first time since she had been
noticed. Beebo smiled down at her, her short black hair and wide brow
making her face more boyish even than Laura remembered. She was
remarkably handsome. Laura was deeply ashamed of what she was feeling,
sitting there on the barstool, letting herself be influenced by this
girl she tried so hard to despise.
“Why don’t you invite Bella?” she said.
“She’s busy.”
Laura’s cheeks went hot with fury, and she shook Beebo’s arm off and
started to get up, to walk past her, to get out. But Beebo caught her,
laughing deep in her throat, thoroughly amused. “By Jesus, you _are_
jealous!” she said. “Sorry, baby, I had to know. Come on, let’s go.”
Laura, who was pulling against her, suddenly found herself going in the
same direction as Beebo, heading for the door, all her resistance
dissipated.
“Beebo, I didn’t come here for that! I came to keep you from calling
Marcie. To pay you back that drink.”
“I want you to owe me that drink all the rest of your life, Bo-peep.”
Laura gasped. Then she walked hurriedly ahead of Beebo, trying to get
far enough ahead to escape. In the faces around the tables she spotted
the slim little blonde who had approached her before about Beebo. She
was laughing and the sudden humiliation that filled Laura sent her
running up the steps to the street. But Beebo was close behind her, and
Laura felt her arms come around her from behind, and Beebo’s lips on her
neck, and her own knees going shaky.
“No, no, oh Beebo, please! Not here, not here _please_.”
“Laura, darling.” Beebo kissed her again. “Not here is right. Come on.”
She put an arm around her and led her away as she had before, and
suddenly, strangely, Laura felt like running. She felt like running with
all her strength until they reached Beebo’s apartment. For there was no
doubt about it any longer, that was where they were going.
She wanted her arms around Beebo, their hot bare bodies pressed together
as before. Almost without realizing it she began to speed up and then to
run. Instantly Beebo was after her, then beside her, laughing that pagan
laugh of hers. She caught a handful of Laura’s streaming hair, silver in
the street light, and pulled her to a stop, whirling her around. In
almost the same gesture she swept her into a dark doorway and kissed
her, still laughing.
“You’re wonderful,” she said in a rough whisper. “You’re nuts. I love
you.”
“No no no no no,” Laura moaned, but she returned Beebo’s kisses
passionately. It was Beebo who had to quit suddenly.
“Oh, God, Laura, stop. Stop!” she said. “We can’t come in the streets.
Come on, baby.” She dragged her on for another two blocks. Laura walked
as if she were drunk. She had no liquor in her, but she was not sober.
Not at all. She felt punchy. She half ran, half skipped, to keep up with
Beebo’s stride. For the last two blocks they ran as fast as they could
go. Beebo led her into Cordelia Street, and through the green door into
the court.