The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  They felt a mutual gratitude toward each other. Jack came home for the first time in his life to a warm kitchen and a charming young wife. And just the thought of Laura reminded him, with a deep fine thrill, that he was married; he was truly a man. It was worth a lifetime of homosexual adventures.

  Laura went to pains to please him, to show him that she cared and that she was working to make things right as she had promised him. And they were, all things considered, happy.

  It wasn’t until Terry’s letter came, forwarded from Jack’s old address in the Village, that Laura felt even the slightest apprehension that anything was to go wrong. And the note was postmarked San Francisco and seemed so far away that she recovered promptly from the first shock and sat in the kitchen with the rest of the mail on the table in front of her, wondering what to do.

  Laura and Jack had made a strict rule never to open each other’s mail and never to ask prying questions. But Laura hated to think of the turn it would give Jack to have this ghost from his past rise up to haunt him.

  She turned and looked out the window at the sparse snow, falling that first day of December, and played with Terry’s letter, letting it slip from corner to corner through her fingers. She burned with curiosity.

  I could just steam it open, she mused. He’d never know the difference. Damn that Terry anyway! Who does he think he is! After the hell he put Jack through, he has a lot of nerve. I’ll bet he wants some money.

  She could bear it no longer. She got up and went to the stove, where she had a kettle full of hot water left over from breakfast, and turned the heat on under it. The glued flap of the envelope surrendered to the steam in a quiet curl. Laura held the letter a moment longer before opening it, feeling very guilty. But she loved Jack and she felt a fierce desire to spare him more pain. Besides, her curiosity was smothering her. She rationalized that Jack had told her himself he had given up the gay life forever, and that included Terry. What if this set him to drinking again?

  She sat down and pulled the letter out with nervous hands. It was rather a short note, folded twice, and she opened it and read it quickly. It was not dated.

  Dear Jack. Have been out here in S.F. since September. What a crazy town. You’d love it. Have a nice apartment on Telegraph Hill with a kid I met at a party a month ago. (Not the same one you beat up the night you kicked me out.)

  God! He just has to rub it in. He’s just the kind of guy to mention such a thing, Laura thought, hot with indignation.

  Don’t know how long I’ll be out here. I sort of miss the Village. And you. Why don’t you come out for a visit? We’ve got lots of room.

  He doesn’t seem to realize it would damn near kill Jack, Laura thought. He’s hopeless. It never occurs to him that Jack would go crazy in a situation like that. Or does it?

  Laura was used to the idea of Terry as a good-natured scatterbrained boy who hurt people, mostly Jack, with monotonous regularity—largely because he didn’t think about what he was doing. Usually, this was true enough. But the rest of his letter made her wonder if he weren’t deliberately needling Jack, trying to get him to come out to the coast.

  She continued to read the tidy blue ink script.

  I do miss you, lover. I was always so unsettled before we met.

  Before, after, and during, Laura fumed.

  And now it’s worse than before. I used to feel so safe and comfortable with you, like you’d always watch out for me, no matter what. I guess that’s a selfish way to look at it, but I wish we were back together. If you by any chance want it that way too, write to me. Write to me anyway, I really want to hear from you. Love, Terry.

  He signed his name with an elaborate flourish, like a fifth-grade child drunk on the possibilities of fancy penmanship.

  Laura folded the letter and stuck it back in the envelope and wrote a brief sizzling note in answer. She said:

  Terry—Jack and I are married. You are not welcome here, now or ever. Jack asked me to write and tell you that he does not want to be bothered with any more letters from you and he will not answer any if you do write. Please leave us alone. Laura.

  It sounded sharp and cold, and she had a momentary feeling of misgiving. Terry was a nice kid, in spite of it all. Everybody liked him, even Laura. But she couldn’t risk having him torment Jack. It had to sound mean or he wouldn’t believe it. She put the note in an envelope, sealed and stamped it, and copied his San Francisco address on it. Then she burned Terry’s letter over the stove.

  When Jack came home that evening Laura’s note was in the mail and Terry’s was in ashes in the wastebasket.

  “Any mail?” he asked her.

  “Just a bill from the laundry,” she said.

  But it bothered her. It came to her at odd moments and it seemed ominous and frightening to her, like the first sign of a break-up. She had broken her promise to him, and it didn’t help much to tell herself she did it only to protect him. I’m not going to let anybody hurt what we’ve got, least of all Terry Fleming, she thought.

  The thought of having it all end between her and Jack, suddenly and cruelly, in one big drunk on Jack’s part or wild romance on hers, scared and depressed her. It mustn’t end that way. They needed each other too much. Their marriage had helped them think of each other as normal. They felt as if they knew where they were going now and life was much better.

  Laura missed women. She missed them desperately sometimes. But she was sure now, deep within herself, that the time would come when she and Jack would be secure with each other for the rest of their lives; when they would be able to trust each other without reservation and trust the strength of their union. When they reached that point, it would be safe to satisfy her desires.

  As for Jack, he was through with men forever. He had said it and she believed him. The thought that he might take a lover himself some day never occurred to her. It just wouldn’t happen. Nor had she asked him about Terry. Jack was so determinedly happy with her that she was afraid to mention Terry.

  It seemed strange to Laura, however, that Beebo didn’t try to find her. She might have found them, one way or another. But there was no word from her. Laura couldn’t help wanting to know what she was doing. She didn’t feel the old, urgent, painful need for Tris, but there was a persistent want that was strong enough to make her wince now and then.

  Jack told her once, “If anything bothers you, tell me about it. Don’t sit around letting it eat you up. Better to talk about it and get it out of your system.”

  And when he saw that she was pensive he made her talk. But when he didn’t see it, she kept it to herself. There were times when Laura couldn’t share her feelings, when she just hugged them to herself and brooded.

  Several times she had nearly talked herself into going down to the Village to wander around. She wouldn’t go near her old apartment. Or Tris’s studio. Or even Lili’s apartment. She wasn’t a fool, she wouldn’t risk being caught.

  But she was tempted, sometimes almost hypnotized, by the idea.

  Chapter Eight

  IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE. They had a fine big tree, freshly green in a sea of lights and tinsel. No honeymoon, as they had hoped; the office couldn’t spare Jack. So they had a party instead.

  “I hate those damn pink trees,” Jack had said when they picked theirs out. “Or gold, or white, or whatever-the-hell color they’re making them this year. Give me a nice healthy green.”

  They celebrated at the party and Jack drank eggnog without whiskey and Laura was very pleased with him. There was a lovely girl there—unmarried and probably gay. Laura flirted with her in spite of herself.

  Jack teased her about it when they met briefly in the kitchen—he to make drinks and she to get more hors d’oeuvres from the refrigerator. “Looks like you got a live one,” he said.

  Laura blushed. “Was I too obvious?” she asked, scared.

  “No,” he said. “I just have X-ray eyes, remember?”

  “I shouldn’t—”

  “Oh, hell,” he said
with a good-natured wave of his hand. “Flirt, it’s good for you. Just don’t elope with her.” He gave her a grin and went out, holding five highballs precariously. She felt a flush of love for him, watching him.

  It was three a…m. Christmas day before they got rid of everybody. Laura threw herself in their expensive new sofa and surveyed the wreckage with a sigh.

  “I’m not even going to pick it up,” she said. “I’m not going to touch a thing till morning.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Jack said. He fixed them both a cup of coffee, settled down beside her in the rainbow glow of the Christmas tree and took her hand with a sigh of satisfaction.

  “That’s the first goddamn Christmas tree I ever had,” he said. And when she laughed he protested solemnly, “Honest. And this is the first Christmas that ever meant anything to me.” He turned his head, resting against the back of the sofa, and smiled at her….

  “You shouldn’t swear at Christmas,” Laura told him.

  He gazed at her for a while and then asked, “Are you in love with Kristi? Wasn’t that her name?”

  “Yes, it was her name. No, I’m not in love. With anybody.”

  “Me?”

  “Oh, you. That’s different.”

  She smiled a little and sipped her coffee, and then she leaned back on the sofa beside him, absorbed in the soft sparkle of the tree.

  Jack was still watching her. “Laura?” he said in an exploratory voice.

  “Hm?”

  “What would you think of adopting a child?”

  She stared at a golden pine cone, her face suddenly a cautious blank. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Have you ever thought about it?”

  “A little.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I told you. Kids scare me.”

  He bit his underlip, frowning. “I want one,” he said at last. “Would you be willing to—have one?”

  “You mean—” She swallowed. “—get pregnant?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling at her outraged face. “Oh, don’t worry, Mother. We’d do it the easy way.”

  “There is no easy way!” she fired at him. “What way?” He took a long drag on his cigarette and answered, “Artificial insemination.” She gasped, but he went on quickly, “Now before you get your dander up let me explain. I’ve thought it all out. Either we could adopt one, or—and this would be much better—we could have one. Our own. We can tell the Doc we’ve had trouble and let him try the insemination. There’s nothing to it, it doesn’t take five minutes. It doesn’t hurt. And if it worked…God! Our own kid. You wouldn’t be afraid of your own, honey.”

  There was a long pause while Laura sweated in silent alarm. Why did he bring it up tonight? Why? When they were so contented and pleased with each other, and the world was such a place of glittering enchantment.

  “Couldn’t we wait and talk about it later?” she asked.

  “Why not now?”

  “Couldn’t I have time to think about it?”

  “Sure. Think,” he said and she knew he meant, I’ll give you five minutes to make up your mind.

  “Jack, why do we have to do it right now? Why can’t we wait? We’ve only been married five months.”

  “I can’t wait very long, Mother,” he said. “I’m forty-five. I don’t want to be an old man on crutches when my kid is growing up.”

  “Maybe in the spring,” she said. The idea of becoming a mother terrified her. She had visions of herself hurting the baby, doing everything wrong; visions of her old passion coming on her and shaming them all; selfish thoughts of her beautiful, new, leisurely laziness being ruined.

  “What would I ever tell any child of mine if it caught me—with a woman?” she said awkwardly.

  “Tell it for Chrissake to knock before entering a room,” he said, and something in his voice and manner told her that he had set his heart on this long ago.

  “Would you insist on having a baby, Jack?” she asked him defiantly.

  He was looking at the ceiling and he expelled a cloud of blue smoke at it and answered softly, “I want you to be happy, Laura. This marriage is for both of us.”

  There was a long silence. “I think I would hate myself if I ever got pregnant,” she said, ashamed of her vanity but clinging to it stubbornly. “God, how awful. All those aches and pains and months of looking like hell, and for what? What if the baby weren’t normal? What if I couldn’t be a good mother to it?”

  He shrugged and then he said, “All right. We’ll adopt one. That way at least we can be sure of getting a girl.”

  Laura wrung her hands together in a nervous frenzy. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Jack. And yet she could feel the dogged one-mindedness in him, feel his enormous desire.

  “A man needs a child,” he said softly. “So does a woman. That’s the whole reason for life. There is no other.” And he glanced up at her and all the Christmas lights reflected on the lenses of his glasses. “We can’t live our lives just for ourselves,” he said. “Or we live them for nothing. We die, monuments to selfishness…I want a child, Laura.”

  “Is that why you married me?” she asked with sudden sharpness, feeling as if he had cornered her.

  “I married you because I love you,” he said.

  “Then why do you keep badgering me about a child?” she demanded.

  “This is the first time I’ve mentioned it since we got married,” he reminded her gently.

  “You act as if just because you want one it’s all settled,” she said, and surprised herself by bursting into tears. He took her in his arms, abandoning his cigarette, and said, “No, honey, nothing’s settled. But think about it, Laura. Think hard.”

  They sat that way, hugging each other and watching the Christmas tree, letting the cigarette slowly burn itself out, and they didn’t mention it again. But from that moment on it was very big between them, unspoken but felt.

  Jack did not mention a child to her again for a while. But as the weeks slipped by Laura began to feel a growing dissatisfaction. She didn’t know where it came from or what it meant. At home, in the apartment, it was shapeless. Outside it took the shape of girls. When she went out for groceries or to shop or to have dinner with

  Jack, she found herself looking around hopefully, gazing a little too boldly, desiring. Jack saw it too before long, but he said nothing.

  Laura felt selfish, and she didn’t like the feeling. She blamed it on Jack. It made her want to get away from him for a bit. And soon the wish crystallized in her mind to a desire for the Village, and began to haunt her.

  She knew she ought to tell Jack she wanted to go. He would never stand in her way, as long as she was there at night to cook his meals and be a fond companion to him. As long as she let him in on it and kept it clean.

  But she was embarrassed. She didn’t want to tell him and see his disappointment and know she was so much weaker than he. So she kept it secret and let it fester inside her until it had grown, by March, to a great, irritating problem.

  Then, one fine, sunny morning in the first week of spring, the phone rang.

  It’ll be Ginny Winston, she thought. One of their neighbors. She’ll want to go shopping again. I guess we might as well, it’ll keep me out of trouble. Ginny was thirty-five, a widow, a nice girl but hopelessly man-happy.

  Laura grabbed the receiver after the fourth ring. “Hello?” she said.

  “Laura? How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks. Who’s this?”

  “Terry.”

  “Terry who?” She gasped suddenly. “Terry! Terry Fleming?”

  “Yes.” He chuckled. “Guess how I found you?”

  She hung up. She just slammed the phone down in place and stood there shaking. Then she sat down and cried; waiting for the thing to start ringing again. She had no doubt it would.

  It did. She picked it up again, and before he could say anything she told him, “I don’t care how you found us. I don’t want you around here. Don’t you come
near this place Terry, or I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do. You can’t, you mustn’t. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes,” he said, astonished. “What’s the matter?”

  “Didn’t you get my letter?” she asked him.

  “Sure. You’re married. Congratulations, I always thought It’d happen. You got a great guy there, Laura. I wish I had him.” And he laughed pleasantly.

  “Terry, you’re incredible,” she said. “I don’t want you to come near Jack. That’s final.”

  “Go on,” he laughed. “I thought I’d come over this afternoon.”

  “You can’t!” She felt as she did in nightmares when she tried to talk and no one could hear her. She felt as if all her words fell on deaf ears.

  “Sure I can. I thought we’d—”

  ”Look, Terry, I’m not going to tell him you’re in town,” she said, fighting a nerve-rasping frustration with him. “I’m just going to let it go, and I’m telling you right now that if you show up over here it’ll hurt him more than he can stand. You broke his heart and that should be enough for you. You won’t get any more of him!” She felt fiercely protective and loving, now that their life together seemed threatened. She would fight Terry every way she knew. And yet she had to admit to herself that Terry had more to fight with than she if it ever came to a showdown. That was why it was so important to keep him away.

  Jack was a very sensual man and he had been deeply in love with Terry. He still was, in spite of everything. His love for Laura was different; strong, she was sure, but could it stand up to a sudden white-hot blast of passion?

  “You sound real bitter, Laura,” Terry said reproachfully. “I thought you were sort of kidding in your letter.”

  “I’ve never been more serious, Terry. Stay away from us!” She hung up again. When she took her hand away there was a ring of wet on the black handle. She cried all day, feeling angry and helpless.