I am a woman
around with a start and stared at her. Beebo was wearing a dress.
A dress. And high heeled shoes. She was over six feet in the high heels.
Strangely enough she wasn’t awkward in them, either. She wasn’t
comfortable, but she could walk a straight line and keep her balance.
“Hello, Bo-peep,” she said quietly in Laura’s ear.
Laura felt a grateful response flow down to her toes from the ear.
“Hello,” she said to the mirror image and then turned to face her.
“Hello, Betty Jean.” She looked at her skirt.
Beebo gave her a wry smile. “You remembered?” she said. “Do you remember
the good things, too?”
“Yes,” said Laura, smiling back. And surprised herself. For a moment she
felt curiously receptive. She had no idea why.
Beebo gazed at her and then she put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Hello,
fellow sufferer,” she said.
“Hi, doll.” He turned around. “We’re drowning our sorrows.” He gestured
at Laura with his glass.
“So I see. Mind if I drown a few with you?”
“We’d be delighted.”
Beebo nodded at the bartender, who nodded back and fixed her a whisky
and water. Beebo was on good terms with the bartenders in all the gay
bars. They knew what she drank and they served her without being told.
Beebo leaned on the counter between Jack and Laura.
“Where’ve you been, doll?” Jack asked, waving a hand at her dress.
“Masquerade ball?”
“Party,” she said laconically, hoisting her newly arrived glass.
“Gay?”
“Straight.”
“How dull. What’s the matter with you, Beebo? You’re no fun anymore. You
wear skirts and go to straight parties. Jesus.”
Beebo grinned at him. “I have one dress, lover. I get it out once a year
and wear it. In honor of my father. He likes dames.”
“Yeah, but he’s not around to appreciate it.”
“Well, you are, Jackson. Give me a kiss.” And she took his chin in her
hand and extracted one from his reluctant mouth.
“God!” he said, and made a face. Beebo laughed. And Laura sat and
watched them and wondered what they were all doing there and why they
laughed at themselves when they were all aching inside from unspeakable
hurts. She felt vaguely jealous to think of Beebo at a party with people
she didn’t know and had never seen. Beebo surrounded by women. Laura
looked at her until Beebo returned the stare without talking, only
looking at Laura until Laura had to lower her eyes. “What’s eating you,
Bo-peep?” Beebo said, running a finger around the edge of her glass.
“Are pants really that important?” Laura said. She said it sarcastically
because she was afraid of her tears.
Beebo laughed a little. “I don’t know. How important is _that_
important?”
“Why don’t you get a decent job?”
“Oh,” said Beebo as she understood. She finished a second drink. “I’ve
got one, baby. I’m a lift jockey. Very elevating work.”
“Not funny,” Laura said. “You work all day at a lousy job like that, and
then you drink all night.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Yes. Not very much, of course. You’re not worth it. But it seems awful.
All for a pair of pants.”
Beebo laughed. “Reform me, baby.”
“I don’t have time.”
“What do you have time for?”
“Work.”
“And Marcie?”
“And Marcie.” Laura didn’t know why she said it. She knew how badly it
would hurt. But she was high, the go-to-hell feeling was still with her
from the morning. It was either hurt or be hurt; sarcasm or tears. She
looked up slowly at Beebo. At her blue eyes and her lips turned down,
with an unaccustomed trace of lipstick on them. Laura wanted to hurt
her. She couldn’t stop herself. She turned on her stool to face her.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “You’re a little girl trying to be a
little boy. And you run an elevator for the privilege. Grow up, Beebo.
You’ll never be a little boy. Or a big boy. You just haven’t got what it
takes. Not all the elevators in the world can make a boy of you. You can
wear pants till you’re blue in the face and it won’t change what’s
underneath.”
Beebo just stared at her, her face suddenly pale and frowning, in
silence. Then she turned, leaving her cigarette still lighted in a tray
on the bar, and left them without saying a word to either.
Laura and Jack sat in silence for a while after she had gone, watching
her cigarette burn itself out. Finally Jack said, “If Terry had done
that to me, Laura, I’d have strangled him.”
Laura put her head down on the bar and cried.
* * * * *
The weekend was a stalemate for Laura and Marcie. Laura was so deeply
involved in her conflicts that it was impossible to talk about them. In
two weeks Jean would be back. In a day her father would be gone. Burr
would start hounding Marcie, and Laura still didn’t know why Marcie had
let him think they were lovers. And Beebo ... Beebo ... that hurt the
worst, somehow. It was so needless, so brutal. The kind of thing Merrill
Landon had done to her when he was in a temper. Just to blow off steam,
to dissipate the mood. Only he went even farther. He would shout and
call her names, slap her, call down the wrath of his dead wife and son
on her head.
Marcie couldn’t get through to Laura, hard as she tried. She, too, began
to get moody. She launched into long self-reproaching speeches which
tortured Laura until she begged her to stop.
On Monday Laura went to the bank before she went to the office and
withdrew one hundred and ninety-two dollars. She was going to leave
herself twenty, just in case, but she left herself five instead. She had
a little at home. She could get along until the end of the week. The
rent wasn’t due and there was food in the house.
Jack came by at five and picked it up. “Come out for dinner with me,” he
said. “I seem to have come into a little money.”
“No, thanks.”
“My treat,” he said, directing his sarcasm at himself and waggling her
dollars at her.
Laura smiled faintly. “Take it,” she said. “I can’t talk to anybody
tonight.”
“How’s Marcie?”
“Brooding. I get on her nerves, I guess.”
“That’s only fair. She’s made a mess of yours. How’s Burr?”
“He called her. They talked for a few minutes. He asked her to see him.”
“Will she?”
“No.”
“Not yet, hm?”
“Never,” Laura said sharply. “She’s fed up with him.”
“Well, if not Burr, somebody else.” Laura covered her face with her
hands suddenly and Jack looked at her sympathetically. “Just won’t
believe me, will you, Mother! You love Marcie so sooner or later Marcie
will have to give in and love you.”
“No!” she said, looking up. “I know it’s not that simple. It’s just that
I’m convinced I have a chance. I live with her, I know her, and she was
willing to have Burr believe we were lovers.”
“She was willing to get him the hell out of her hair after a bad
quarrel,” he said. “That’s all. She just let him believe it to get rid
of him.”
“Please Jack,” she said with forced patience. “How’s Terry?” _If he’s
going to torment me, I’ll give him the same treatment_, she thought.
Jack lifted his eyebrows slightly and shrugged. “Healthy,” he said. “And
hungry. Jesus, how that kid eats. And he likes smoked oysters.”
Laura had to smile, though she didn’t feel like it. “Get him a bale of
smoked oysters,” she said, “and leave me alone for a while. Please.”
Jack gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Okay.” He started out and then turned
to ask, “How did Sarah like Jensen?”
“She said she liked him. She has a crush on Dr. Hagstrom, but she liked
Carl anyway.”
“He’s smitten. Says he’s going to call her again.”
“Good.” They smiled a little at each other. “Somebody’s doing it right,”
Laura said wistfully.
Jack laughed. “Never mind,” he said. “Someday we’ll die and go to
heaven. All the angels are queer, you know.” And he left.
* * * * *
Laura followed soon after. She knew just where she was going—the McAlton
Hotel. She would walk right in and ask for Merrill Landon and the clerk
would say he had left, the convention was over, and Laura could quit
suffering over him. He would be hundreds of miles away and she could
start to forget him.
She walked over to the hotel in a matter of minutes and went into the
lobby with a confidence she had not felt during the week her father had
been there. She was about to kill her ghost. She looked forward to great
relief.
At the desk she waited for a moment or two until a clerk could take care
of her. She recognized him from one of her previous visits but
fortunately he didn’t seem to remember her. “Yes?” he said.
“Is the Chi Delta Sigma convention over?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am it is.”
“Oh. Then I guess Merrill Landon isn’t staying here any more.”
“Oh, yes he is.”
Laura was startled. “He said a young lady might be asking for him,” the
clerk said. “He left a message.” He looked at her dubiously, unnerved by
the strange expression on her face. “Would you be his daughter, by any
chance?”
Laura shook her head numbly. The clerk brought her an envelope and Laura
opened it and read, in her father’s hand: “Laura, I will be here till
the end of the month. Come up to my room any evening after eight.” It
was not even signed. _Nice and sentimental_, she thought. _Just like
him._
“Thank you,” she told the clerk.
“Will there be any answer?” he asked.
“Yes,” Laura said. She took the pad of paper he pushed toward her and
wrote on it, “Go to hell.” Then she folded it, put it in the envelope,
sealed it, and wrote “Merrill Landon” on the front.
She shook all the way home. He was still there, still haunting her,
waiting to pounce on her and punish her. When Marcie asked her what was
the matter, Laura couldn’t tell her. It was Laura’s problem, it was
intimate and awful, and she had no wish to share it. She hardly noticed
how little she had looked at Marcie the past few days, how little she
had responded to her. And yet in the back of her mind the question
rankled: Why did Marcie let Burr believe that lie? Even for a short
while? Why hadn’t she fought it harder?
But the fact of her father’s physical presence in New York obliterated
other considerations. He was waiting for her around every corner, in
every doorway. She was even afraid to answer the phone, and afraid to
return to his hotel for fear he would have the police there waiting for
her. She didn’t know on what grounds he could arrest her, but she
believed her father could do anything violent and forceful. Her work
suffered still more at the office. And she hadn’t the interest to stay
late and make it up.
Sarah talked to her one afternoon at the end of the week. “Guess what?”
she said, to start out in a friendly vein.
“What?”
“Carl Jensen called me again. We’re going out tomorrow night.”
“How nice, Sarah. I’m glad for you.” But she spoke without enthusiasm.
“Are you?” Sarah’s voice was pointed enough to catch Laura’s attention
and warn her that something was wrong. She looked up. “Yes, of course I
am, Sarah. I’m sorry, I’m not myself lately. I—”
“You’ve been in a fog all week. Another one of those headaches?”
“No. I mean yes. I don’t know. I just don’t feel alive.” She laughed
listlessly.
Sarah sat down beside her. “Laura,” she said firmly, “you could do real
well in this job. If you wanted to. Everybody here likes you.
Everybody’s pulling for you. You’re a good typist and you’re a smart
girl. Jeanie liked you a lot, and she’ll be back here in another week.
There’ll be three of us, and things could go a lot better ... but
Laura....”
“But I haven’t worked out too well,” Laura said for her. “Is that it?”
“You haven’t worked at all sometimes. Other times you work your tail
off. That’s the trouble, Laura, you’re so erratic,” Sarah said. “You
stay late and knock yourself out one night, and then a week goes by and
you can’t do a damn thing. You drag along all day, you just don’t seem
to care.