The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  “They won’t like it, Laur.”

  “I won’t ask them to like it. There’s nothing they can do about it, Beth. I’m of age, in this state anyway. Oh, Beth, you can’t ask me to stay here without you—you can’t!” She clung tightly to her. Laura was aware that Beth couldn’t resist her at that moment, and she made the most of it.

  Furious with men and intensely sympathetic for a girl, angry with herself, yet in need of reassurance, Beth turned to Laura again with all the unreasoning joy of their early romance. She said weakly, “I don’t know….”

  Laura said quickly, “Beth, darling, I wouldn’t be afraid of anything as long as you were with me.”

  Beth laughed gently at her, flattered, seeing the exaggeration and yet enjoying it too much to deny it. “I can’t do everything,” she whispered.

  “Yes you can,” said Laura positively.

  Beth looked down at her with a spellbound smile. “Laura,” she said, with her lips against Laura’s cheek, drifting over her face toward her lips. “I love you.” Laura’s arms tightened about her and brought her desire hot to the surface. Beth pulled her over to the couch and down beside her.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, completely, Laura had Beth again. Whatever the sorcery that won her, it was potent, and it lasted. A week passed and they made plans in secret to leave the house. Every night, in defiance of chance, they slept together in the room, and strangely enough, nobody noticed. Nobody barged in on them. Nobody suspected anything.

  Beth laughed at their luck. “Wouldn’t you know,” she said. “We might as well be kicked out as leave by ourselves. Might even be more honorable. But as long as we don’t give a damn we’re perfectly safe. They’d never dream of anything amiss in this room. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.”

  Laura laughed with her.

  Charlie was getting desperate. He called, and almost never spoke to Beth. When he did, she was brusque with him. He saw her at the Union, where she couldn’t escape him, and she gave him only a few cursory minutes in public. He tried to pick her up after classes and she ignored him or took refuge in the ladies’ room.

  He was aching to explain, to talk, to hold her and to restore the love and logic to his world. Every time he saw her he felt a frantic need to touch her, to force her to listen. Nothing was sensible any more. He stopped her in the hall at the Union one day and said, “Beth, this has gone far enough. For God’s sake, talk to me.”

  She eyed him coolly. “I have nothing to say to you, Charlie.”

  “Well, I’ve got something to say to you.”

  She folded her arms patiently. “All right,” she said.

  “Here?” His voice was hard.

  “This is as good as any place.”

  He studied her for a minute in silence. “Not quite, Beth,” he said finally, and walked off and left her alone. It was the first time he had done it, and he caught Beth by surprise. She stared after him for a minute and then went down the hall in the opposite direction. Charlie went off tormented and angry, wild with impatience and doubt, afraid he might never reach her, never touch her again, and the idea made him half mad.

  He went home to the empty apartment, poured himself a stiff drink, and threw himself into a chair. He fixed the wall with an angry stare while he finished the drink and poured another. And then he said to himself, Why? What the hell’s wrong with the girl? And then he said it out loud, as if he expected an answer from the listening wall: “What the hell is wrong with her?”

  He stood up, glass in hand, and began to walk slowly up and down the room. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with her,” he told himself aloud. “She doesn’t want to see you.” He turned sharply around and demanded sarcastically, “Does that mean there’s something wrong with her?” He emptied his glass and then glared balefully at the wall, filling the glass again. “Be sensible, be sensible…” he admonished himself. “Okay, we’ll be sensible,” he said. “We’ll be logical. We’ll start with her family. Anything wrong there? No, she gets along fine with them.”

  He fortified himself with a swallow. “Now,” he said. “Friends. First category: men. God, let’s see. Men.” He sat down suddenly. “Damn them,” he murmured. “God damn them all.” When she had told him about the others, he had taken it in stride. He had been full of her, warm and passionate and wildly in love. He had her in his arms, and she had made a brave and painful confession to him. It had stunned him, but he rallied. It was easy to forgive her; she loved him, she needed him, she hated the others as much as he did. But now, thinking of them, with Beth remote and icy, with the same room they had made love in cold and lonely and haunted with Bud and Emily’s sorrows as well as his own—he broke down, enraged.

  “Oh, God,” he snarled through closed teeth, “send every one of those stinking bastards straight to hell.” His voice subsided to a whisper. “And as for her—as for her—” He drank a little more, and then dropped his head in his hands. “Make her love me,” he said in a broken voice. “Just make her love me.”

  After a few minutes he straightened up again and refilled his glass. “Men,” he said softly. “I know she has no other men. I’d know that right away—Mary Lou would tell Mitch and he’d sure tell me.”

  He drank. It was becoming rather difficult to pursue the logical approach. He tried to retrace his steps. “Family,” he muttered. “Friends. Men. Women.” He laughed a little and lifted his glass and then put it down again on the table. He shook his head to clear it. “God, how drunk am I?” he said, looking at the glass and then at the bottle. After a long pause he said it again, aloud but very quietly, “Women?” And then he took a long swallow. He stood up again and walked uncertainly around the room, pulling at his chin, rubbing his head, squinting with concentration. Finally he walked up to the wall and stopped, leaning against it. From months past came a hazy argument with Beth. He remembered gazing at her over the top of a diner table. He was saying, “I can tell when a person has a crush on me. Can’t you? Laura doesn’t.”

  “Well, she does,” Beth had said.

  She had said it several times, insisted on it. Charlie raised his clenched fists over his head, his whole body relying on the wall. “Laura?” he whispered, and the strength seemed to go out of him. He sagged against the wall. “If I weren’t so drunk“ he told himself sternly. He slid slowly to the floor and fell asleep where he lay.

  While Charlie got drunk that afternoon, Beth began, for the first time, to have doubts about leaving school with Laura. When she got back to the sorority house that evening she, quite unconsciously, gave herself away by saying to Laura, “I wonder if we’re doing the right thing?”

  “Beth!” Laura exclaimed. She grasped Beth’s hands and held them tight. “Of course we are. What a thing to say!”

  “I guess so, but—I don’t know. As time goes by, I begin to wonder.”

  “Beth, don’t you remember what you said? Don’t you remember what they did to Emmy? What they’d do to us if we got caught? Beth, you promised me. Oh, darling—we were going to be so happy, all to ourselves with no house rules, no deans, no men to worry about. Beth….” She pulled her hands up and pressed them to her lips and Beth watched her with a warm feeling in her chest. Laura looked up. “Beth, you promised. You said whatever happens. I said it, too. It’s like an oath. You can’t break it. Oh, Beth, my love!” She threw her arms around her.

  “Yes,” Beth whispered. “Yes. Oh, Laur, I’m just—I don’t know. I’m crazy. Don’t listen to me, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “Then we will go?”

  “Yes. We’ll go.”

  But if she could calm Laura she couldn’t do as well by herself. Laura could believe in Beth and lean on her, depend on her for everything. But Beth had no one to look to and she was suddenly responsible not just for herself but for Laura as well. It was unnerving. She hadn’t expected Laura to take to her idea with such enthusiasm; to take so seriously and so finally what began in Beth’s mind as a private emotional revolt. The thing s
eemed somehow foolhardy and stupid. And yet, when she looked into Laura’s face and saw the endless warm love in it, all hers, her reservations faded away.

  Laura said, “Beth, when will we go? Let’s go soon.” She knew if they postponed the thing much longer, Beth wouldn’t go at all. The main thing was to get Beth out of Champlain before she changed her mind. And Laura had a sure idea that Charlie was behind Beth’s doubt.

  “Did you see Charlie today?” she asked.

  Beth looked surprised. “Yes,” she said.

  Laura stroked Beth’s cheek with her finger. “He always upsets you, Beth,” she said.

  Beth kissed the finger. “He reminds me of things I’d rather forget. Laura, you’re adorable.”

  Laura smiled gratefully at her. “When shall we go?” she said, capitalizing on Beth’s mood.

  “Oh….”

  “Beth, tell me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. When do you want to go? Your eyes are such a pretty blue. Where’d you get such blue eyes, Laur?”

  “Let’s go Friday.”

  “This Friday?”

  “Yes.” She watched her hopefully, with parted lips. Beth kissed them.

  “Isn’t that kind of soon?”

  “We have to, Beth. It’s now or never,” she added truthfully.

  Beth kissed the corner of Laura’s mouth. “Is it?” she murmured.

  “Yes. Beth, answer me.”

  “Kiss me.” Beth’s eyes were bright, teasing.

  Laura obeyed her. “Now, answer me,” she demanded.

  “Answer you what?”

  Laura smiled. “Say yes, Beth. Say yes, darling.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Just yes. Never mind what. Say it.” She kissed her hard.

  “Yes,” Beth whispered, smiling. “Yes, yes, yes….”

  That was Monday night. Laura spent the next few days worrying about Charlie. She was afraid of any further contact between Charlie and Beth, though it seemed inevitable, the way Charlie was trying to see her. She wanted to prevent him from talking to Beth before he could do any real damage, before Friday came and Beth was safely on the train. But she didn’t know what to do about it, how to go about it. Unexpectedly, Charlie solved her problem before the week was out.

  Nineteen

  Beth and Laura told their friends simply that they were going home for the weekend, a normal thing, especially in spring, for most of the girls to do.

  By Thursday afternoon Laura was irrepressibly happy. Her only difficulty lay in trying to keep her excitement from showing. It was wonderful to escape from classes and campus and meetings and people, into her room and Beth’s arms; wonderful to free her feelings and see how strong and deep and solid they were; best of all to know that after tomorrow Beth would be hers, irrevocably committed.

  Beth, as the time grew closer, began to worry in earnest, but Laura’s drive and devotion seemed to pull her inexorably toward the train on Friday. She was sure she loved Laura, but not so sure she didn’t love Charlie. She wavered, she wondered, she weighed a thousand things in her mind: freedom against her college degree, a tormented conscience against the sweet warmth of Laura, and all the countless little details that trailed in the wake of either decision.

  She tried to keep her mental seesawing from Laura; it would only hurt and confuse her. She felt that Laura had to be protected like a child. She had failed to see that every time she treated Laura to a little adult honesty, Laura responded like an adult. She didn’t want to see. Laura was her baby.

  By Thursday, Beth had an almost oriental fatalism about leaving for New York. There was nothing she could do to stem the tide of Laura’s enthusiasm, no way she had any control over the situation any more.

  That afternoon, Laura went over to Campus Town after class to get some last-minute supplies. She walked into the university drugstore and got some toothpaste—one for Beth, she was always running out—and some emery boards. She was standing at the counter waiting for her change when she heard Charlie next to her say, “Hello, Laura.”

  She looked up with a start. “Hi, Charlie,” she said. He smiled down at her while she faltered, a little confused. She had the distinct feeling that he had followed her.

  “Your change, miss,” said the clerk, dangling a bored hand over the counter.

  “Oh, thank you.” Laura took it and Charlie simultaneously pulled her books out of her arms and held them while she put the money in her wallet. She stuffed the money away and reached quickly for her books, but he held them out of reach.

  “Let me take you home, Laura,” he said, steering her toward the door. She didn’t like the tone of his voice. “My car’s just a block away.”

  Laura protested; she didn’t want anything from Charlie Ayers, not even a ride home. “Oh, please don’t bother,” she said.

  “No bother.” She understood then that he intended to take her home, no matter what she said. He had made up his mind and she resented his easy authority. It made her apprehensive.

  She walked along beside him in nettled silence, dragging and wishing she could give a hard shake to get his hand off her arm. They reached the car and he held the door for her while she hesitated.

  “Get in,” he said pleasantly, and when still she hung back he smiled and said, “I’m not going to attack you, Laura.”

  Laura blushed angrily and got into the front seat.

  He watched her with a curious smile and then came around and got in and started the car. “I thought maybe you’d answer a couple of questions for me,” he said.

  “In return for the ride?” she said. He must have been following me, she told herself.

  He laughed. “No,” he said. “In return for the sympathy. You cried on my shoulder last fall, Laura. Now I’m going to cry on yours—figuratively,” he added when she gave him a cold stare. They pulled away from the curb.

  “Well,” she said, “I don’t know if I can answer any questions, Charlie.”

  “I think you can,” he said. “I hope you will.” He paused and then looked at her out of the corner of his eye, amused to see that she was staring spitefully at his long legs. She looked up hastily, sensing his gaze. “Of course you’re under no obligation,” he said.

  “Oh, no.” She looked down at her hands, knowing it would be about Beth and tempted to fear Charlie again. He was impressive competition; she had almost forgotten the likes of him. But tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow! And thinking of Beth and of the things she did and said and the way she looked, Laura felt a flush of strength and certainty. Beth loved her. You can’t be in love with two people at once, and Beth loved Laura. She said so and she meant it. Laura was sure. She looked up at Charlie again. He was lighting a cigarette.

  “I want to know,” he said, taking it out of his mouth and spewing smoke over the dashboard, “why Beth won’t see me.”

  “Well,” Laura shrugged. “She’s been terribly upset.”

  “So have I.”

  “Well, Charlie, I don’t know. Emily was her best friend.”

  “Does her best friend mean more to her than the man she’s in love with?”

  Laura turned surprised eyes on him and then she laughed, in spite of herself. He gave her a quick inquisitive glance. “What’s so funny?” he said.

  “She’s not in love with you, Charlie. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. You just—surprised me.” It was glorious to talk to him like this.

  “The hell she isn’t,” he said. “She’s mad, she’s insulted, yes. Maybe she hates me, I don’t know. But I do know she’s in love with me.”

  Laura smiled at his certainty, suddenly enjoying her ride.

  “What’s so damn funny, Laura?” he said.

  “Nothing,” she said, but it was too tempting. “Your egoism, Charlie.”

  “My egoism?” He smiled a little, suddenly cautious, wondering at Laura’s change of mood.

  “Charlie,” she said solicitously, with the thought of Beth in bed the night before, of Beth’s kiss in the mo
rning, of Beth’s arms around her that afternoon, “Charlie, I didn’t mean to be rude, really. I’m sorry. I know you think a lot of Beth.”

  “I love Beth, Laura.”

  Laura smiled into her lap again. Charlie watched her and then pulled the car up. He had been taking the long way back to Alpha Beta. They were at the edge of the university’s experimental farm on the south campus. Charlie switched the ignition off and turned in his seat to study Laura. She glanced out the window and then questioningly at Charlie.

  “I want to know what’s so damn funny about my being in love with Beth. Or Beth with me.” He looked straight at her.

  Laura fought her smile down. “Nothing, Charlie. It isn’t funny. It was wrong of me. I’m sorry.” He said nothing. “I think we’d better get back to the house,” she said.

  “We will. When you explain the joke.”

  She couldn’t feel any alarm, somehow. She just felt delightfully secure, smug as only a successful rival can feel in the presence of the loser. She looked out the window again at the adventuring green of mid-April. “There’s no joke, Charlie,” she said.

  “Then what are you laughing at?”

  “I’m not. I just—I don’t know.” She ached to tell him. Half the joy of a victory is the look on the face of defeat.

  “Look, Laura,” he said, leaning toward her. “I thought we were friends, you and I. Maybe I was wrong.” He watched her narrowly.

  “No.” She shook her head slowly, letting him work for every word from her.

  “Well, then, will you clear up the mystery for me? What’s the matter with Beth? Or me, for that matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter with you. Or her.”

  Charlie lighted another cigarette from the last leg of the old one. “What’s the matter, Laura? Why don’t you want to tell me?” She frustrated him, made him feel hoodwinked; he had never thought a transparent girl like Laura could be so enigmatic. “What’s all this about my being egotistical?” He watched her. No response, except a little maddening smile. He put his arm over the back of the seat and leaned toward her. “Come on, Laura, deflate my ego,” he said cannily. “It seems to be the only way I’ll learn anything.”