The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  “Here, here!” exclaimed Beth. “You have to wear that again. God, Emmy, you act like you wear ’em once and throw ’em away!” And she rescued Emily’s skirt and blouse from the floor. She pulled a towel from the rack on the closet door and draped it over Emily’s shoulders, stuck her toothbrush in her hand, and propelled her firmly toward the door.

  “Shape up or ship out, gal,” she said. “You’re just too damn sexy.”

  Emily pulled herself up regally in her underwear and said, “I’m beautiful, I’m beloved, and I have a secret.”

  “Well, hot damn!” said Beth, and she laughed.

  Emily minced into the hall and turned back to announce, “And you’re all jealous.” And she left to wash up.

  “How ’bout that!” said Beth in mock awe.

  Laura looked uneasily around the room. She thought Emily had acted disgracefully and it embarrassed her to even think of it. Beth was silent for a moment and then stared at Laura thoughtfully. “Laur, honey,” she said, “you free tomorrow night?” When Laura said yes, Beth gave her a friendly smack on the rear. “Be my date,” she said. “For the movies.”

  From then on, they went to the movies regularly and Laura saw the old Garbo films, French imports, and Swedish nature films, only to be with Beth. She often turned down parties to be able to go, a practice Beth would have stopped had she known of it. But Laura kept it carefully from her. She liked everything about the movie trips too well: sitting next to Beth in the dark theater, hearing her breathe and shift and laugh or whisper to her. The first time they’d gone to the movies together, Beth had reached over and helped her out of her coat. When Laura tried to do the same for her, Beth stopped her. Tve got it, thanks,” she said. And after that they followed the same ritual, without ever referring to it.

  Then the night came when Cyrano de Bergerac was playing at the local theater. Laura and Beth had hardly been seated before Laura, saturated with the sentiment, found the tears starting down her cheeks. She could never keep them back from an affecting story. Beth saw the quiet little tears and smiled at them. It was then she reached into Laura’s lap and found her hand and took it in her own and pressed it. The shock stopped all the tears as the warmth of Beth’s hand began to spread all through Laura, strange, sweet, and inebriating. It was ten minutes before Laura dared to look at Beth. She was gazing serenely at the screen.

  They never mentioned it but after that their hands always found each other in the dark of the theater.

  Five

  It was Saturday, the day of the Varieties Show, the day Laura was to see Charlie for the second time. It was also the day that Beth’s Uncle John chose to pay his niece a visit. He had made a habit every year of getting down to see Beth for at least one weekend. He liked the Varieties and he liked the football game and he liked to have dinner at the sorority house with Beth. The girls made a fuss over him, and he would sit beaming at the head table, flattering the house mother and flirting with her charges.

  Laura was anxious to meet him, to see if he looked and acted anything like Beth. Emily told her he was a very impressive individual; he had been a colonel in the last war and he had a false leg.

  Uncle John arrived just before dinnertime and Laura watched with mixed emotions as he folded Beth in a hug. He was a big man with a red, jovial face and he shook Laura’s hand heartily and said, “Well, well, you’re Beth’s new roommate! How d’you do?”

  “Fine, thank you,” she murmured, overcome with shyness, but Uncle John didn’t notice. He was following Beth into the living room and greeting the girls he remembered from the year before.

  Laura turned to Emily and said accusingly, “He doesn’t look anything like Beth,” as if it were Emily’s fault.

  “Oh, heavens no,” said Emily. “He’s not her blood relation. His wife is. She and Beth’s mother were sisters.”

  “Oh,” said Laura, and had trouble concealing the disappointment she felt. “Does she look like Beth?”

  “Nope. Beth looks like her father. He died a long time ago. She has a picture of him around somewhere. It’s funny. You’d think she actually knew him if you ever heard her talk about him. She was two, I think, when he died.”

  After dinner they went into the living room and sat on the floor in the circle of girls talking to Beth’s uncle. He was enthroned on the couch with a pretty girl on either side of him, talking merrily in all directions at once. Beth sat in a chair across from him, watching him with a little smile. Every now and then he said, “Isn’t that so, Elizabeth?” and she would nod in agreement.

  Uncle John was a large man in many ways, fat, generous, and well-heeled. He hadn’t any idea of what sort of a girl his niece was underneath her pleasant exterior. All her life she had been a bright little girl and pretty, so he simply ignored her spells of melancholy and her love of books. He gave her plenty of spending money, kept her in nice clothes and nice schools, and saw her at dinner and on weekends. He didn’t interfere with her private life and feelings; they simply didn’t matter to him that much. She was charmingly grateful for his care so he was fond of her and had arranged for her to have an independent income on her twenty-first birthday.

  Laura cringed when he began to tease Beth. “We’re going to have to lock up her books until she gets herself a man,” he said, and roared amiably at his niece.

  Beth grinned at him. “He’s scared to death I’ll wind up an old maid,” she told Laura, “and he’ll never get me off his hands.”

  “Now, now, honey, you know that’s not true,” he chuckled.

  Laura sat there almost hating Uncle John and his calm assumption that Beth wanted to get married. Couldn’t he see how fine and pure she was? Her face a blank and her thoughts miles away, Laura didn’t hear her buzz and it wasn’t until one of the girls nudged her and whispered something that she remembered she was supposed to meet Charlie that evening.

  He looked even more attractive than she remembered and he said, “Well, Miss Landon, you look very pretty this evening.”

  Laura tried to feel a spark of feminine interest in him, but she couldn’t. She liked him, that was all. He took her arm and led her out to the car. In it was a young man sitting alone. Charlie pointed to him and said, “This is my roommate, Mitch Grogan, Laura. We have an apartment—”

  “So called—” said Mitch.

  “—over on Daniel. Couple of blocks from campus.”

  “Compensations of old age,” said Mitch. “You don’t have to live in university-approved housing. As a matter of fact, I don’t suppose we could get anybody to approve of our housing, Charlie.”

  “What’s the matter with it?” said Laura.

  The two boys laughed. “Everything,” said Charlie. “You name it, if it’s bad we got it—bad pipes, bad wiring, bad landlady, bad everything. But we can give a hell of a beer party in the front room.”

  “And we keep our own hours,” Mitch added.

  “How old do you have to be to get an apartment?” said Laura conversationally. They were driving toward the auditorium where the Varieties Show was scheduled to get underway.

  “Real old,” said Charlie. “God, twenty-two, at least. Would you believe it, Laura, Mitch is damn near twenty-five.”

  “Really?” said Laura, turning to look at Mitch in the front seat beside her.

  Charlie laughed at her seriousness. “He’s going to die a bachelor,” he told her confidentially. “I just let him tag along with me for kicks. Otherwise he forgets what women look like.”

  Laura looked at Mitch again and he didn’t seem in the least disturbed over Charlie’s prediction.

  “See?” said Charlie with a grin. “God, they could put him right in the middle of a harem and he’d ignore every damn female until he got his homework done.”

  Trouble finding a parking space stopped all conversation until they were inside the auditorium. From then on, Laura made no effort to try to listen to Charlie and Mitch over the wild shouts of laughter. She searched the huge audience for Beth and Uncle Jo
hn, but couldn’t see them. When the Varieties were over Laura tried to scan every face she could see of the huge crowd streaming out of the auditorium, but Beth was nowhere in sight. Depressed and silent, Laura walked with Charlie and Mitch to Maxie’s.

  Maxie’s was already jammed when they got there and the Dixie Six was in action, as usual.

  “My God, when did Bud Nielsen start playing with them?” said Charlie.

  “Where?” said Mitch. “Oh, yeah!”

  Laura looked up, and there was Bud with his long gold horn glinting through the smoke, standing in the fore of the little bandstand that stood in the rear of the room.

  “Do you know him?” she asked Charlie.

  “Yeah, I know him. Fraternity brother. Good musician.”

  “My roommate dates him,” said Laura.

  “Beth dates this character?” Charlie looked at her in surprise.

  “Oh, no! My other roommate—Emily.”

  “Oh,” he chuckled. “I didn’t think Cullison would go for this guy,” and he nodded at Bud.

  Cullison, Laura thought in irritation. Her name is Beth. Elizabeth.

  “God, it’s crowded. Do you see a place?” Charlie said, squinting through the smoky pink gloom.

  Laura became suddenly aware of someone saying her name and she turned around a couple of times, straining through the half-light at the myriad faces.

  “Laura!” It was Beth. Laura saw her laughing and struggling through the crowd and her first wild impulse was to blindfold Charlie. But it was too late for that. She looked up at him and he was staring at Beth with a smile on his face. Laura was too upset to see that Mitch was smiling, too.

  Beth was worth staring at. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were very bright, as if she had a romantic fever of some sort. Actually, she simply had too much beer in her, and it was making her laugh. The boys in the crowd were squeezing and pushing her and Laura was suddenly furious to see that she was enjoying it.

  Beth reached a hand toward Laura and Charlie took it quickly and pulled her past the last few people that separated them. He pulled hard and she fell against him, laughing and off balance. He caught her around the waist to steady her and when she was quite steady he held her still as if he were afraid she might lose her balance again, or as if he hoped she would.

  Mitch and Laura watched this artful maneuver together, Mitch with a mild twinge of envy and Laura with raging jealousy. She almost swore at Charlie in her anger. Furious tears gathered in her eyes and her whole body was rigid with emotion. She hated Charlie for holding Beth, she hated Beth for letting herself be held, she hated the two of them for just being near each other. She was afraid to see them together; they had spoken too well of each other.

  “My God, I thought I’d never make contact,” Beth was saying. “We’re over there.” She gestured vaguely behind her, still leaning on Charlie. “Emmy talked us into it. Uncle John is getting a lecture on jazz. Bud’s playing. Did you see him?”

  “We saw him,” said Charlie.

  Beth looked up into his face for the first time. “Hi,” she said. “You must be Charlie.” She leaned closer and studied him. “Yes, you are. I’d remember that face anywhere. I’m Beth Cullison.”

  “Yes, I know.” He laughed, holding her a little tighter.

  Laura could hardly contain herself. “And this is Mitch Grogan,” she said in a sharp, impatient voice.

  “Hi, Mitch.” Beth leaned away from Charlie to take his hand. Then she said, “Come on back and sit with us. We’ve got loads of room.” She looked up at Charlie again.

  “Sure,” he said, releasing her slowly. “Think you can make it?” He grinned.

  Beth took a few steps away from him and then turned back and said with an air of injured dignity, “Certainly.”

  Mitch and Charlie laughed at her, and then Charlie took Laura’s arm—he failed to notice how stiff and unwilling it was—and followed Beth back to the booth. Beth introduced the boys. Emily smiled beautifully at them.

  “Well, now,” boomed Uncle John over the racket, “you children can sit together over here and I’ll sit next to Emmy. She’s a trombone widow tonight.” And he laughed at himself, getting up and moving over to Emily’s side.

  Beth slid into the seat he had left and Laura nearly followed her in an effort to keep Charlie away.

  “Whoa, my dear,” said Uncle John, catching her sleeve. “Let the gentleman in the middle.” She was furiously embarrassed.

  Charlie sat between Beth and Laura, and Mitch settled next to Uncle John where he could gaze undisturbed across the table at Beth. He wasn’t the only interested party. Laura kept an anxious eye on her, and every time Charlie leaned over Beth to smile or say something Laura crawled with irritation. The loud music prevented her from hearing what they said to one another.

  As for Beth, sitting next to Charlie and crowded tight against the wall, she was surprised by the size of him. His eyes were dark and his grin was wonderful and she began to feel inside her an almost forgotten excitement. It was too strong to fight and too sweet to ignore. She didn’t do anything about it; she just let it happen, and when after a while she felt his hand on her knee she let it stay there and smiled imperturbably across the booth at Uncle John.

  But she was not as calm as she looked. The pressure of the warm firm hand on her leg exhilarated her and confused her at the same time. It had always taken Beth a while to react to a man; there were some she had never reacted to at all, in spite of the fact that she had allowed them to touch more than a knee. But from the moment Charlie’s arm had circled her waist she had felt an almost electric delight in him, in his touch and his presence. She almost resented it; she had tried so hard to give her affection to men she thought were worthy of it. But Charlie had done absolutely nothing to deserve it except touch her once or twice and talk to her a little. And that light touch, that low voice combined to thrill her strangely and bother her until she began to wonder if there was something wrong with her…or for the first time, something right.

  Charlie’s hand tightened on her leg and moved up a little while he talked to her. And then it moved up a little more, as if he were asking questions with it that had nothing to do with the words he spoke. Beth sat quietly letting him do as he pleased, too bewildered, too secretly pleased to stop him. She found that his touch made her shy; and the farther his hand traveled the harder it was for her to meet his eyes. But when she did she saw a promise in them.

  Laura could see nothing but she suspected everything and she sat beside them, angry and tormented. Her sharp nails crept up her arms and threatened to come down them cuttingly. She was so tense toward the end of the evening that she almost gave a little shriek when Uncle John finally said, “Well, we’d better be on our horses, children.” She wanted to get up and bolt.

  They went their separate ways home and Laura was greatly relieved to get some distance between Beth and Charlie. She was silent in the car, still nettled, trying to think of a way to make Beth sorry for being nice to Charlie, to make her apologize for Laura didn’t know what. Her jealousy rode herd on her, goaded her unmercifully.

  Mitch asked her a couple of questions about Beth and she hardly heard them or knew how she answered. Mitch was no threat, he didn’t count; he hadn’t sat too close to Beth and claimed all her attention and smiled at her and made her laugh.

  There seemed to be only one solution, only one way to make Beth feel guilty, to make her stay away from Charlie, and that was for Laura to pretend that she really liked him. Laura made her mind up and set her chin in determination.

  They reached the house and Charlie took her up the walk. Mitch leaned out of the car and called, “Hey, tell your roomie hello for me,” and Laura ignored him. Charlie just laughed at him; Mitch admired all sorts of girls but he rarely had the guts to ask them out.

  At the door Laura turned and faced Charlie, and began to talk before he said a word. “Charlie, we’re having a Christmas party—a dance—two weeks from today. An afternoon dance. W
ould you—would you be able to come?”

  Charlie was trapped. There were always excuses for evening parties but what the hell was there to do in the afternoon that was more important than a dance? And he had only seconds to think of something. He saw the little tremor in Laura’s lips, her timidity and distress. There was a letter at home on his desk from his father that read, “Glad you met the Landon girl. Just heard about her family—too bad. Give her a good time if you can. Probably needs some cheering up.” Still he hesitated. And then suddenly Laura came so near to tears that he said swiftly, “Why—I’d like to, Laura. Thanks.”

  His reticence stung and humiliated her, but at least he had said yes, and it was worth it to keep him and Beth apart. He smiled at her to make it up a little and gave her arm a friendly press. “I’ll call you,” he said. And Laura had to dash into the house without answering him before she lost the last of her composure.

  Six

  Laura went heavily up the stairs and into the room. Beth was in her pajamas. She looked up at Laura with a smile as innocent as if she had spent the whole evening playing checkers with a maiden aunt. Laura stood staring at her, her face drawn and pale, and Beth’s smile changed to a frown of concern.

  “Hi, honey,” she said. “You look pretty glum.”

  “I’m tired,” said Laura briefly, and turned away to hang her coat up. She was too proud, too hurt to tell Beth what the trouble was—and she was too afraid.

  Beth watched her for a moment in silence, and then she said, “What’s the matter, Laur?”

  “Nothing!” Laura snapped. She got ready for bed in resolute silence; Beth couldn’t get a word out of her.

  When Laura came back from the bathroom she found the studio couch opened out and made up like a bed. Beth was stretched out across it with her eyes closed and one arm lying across her forehead. Laura felt a sudden creeping shyness with her.