The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  “I won’t tell you how I missed you. I won’t tell you what I went through. I wouldn’t even know how. It took a lot out of me. Too much. But you’re welcome to what’s left. If you want it.”

  “I want it,” Laura said passionately. “I want you, Beebo.” She hung her head. “Unless…unless you still want Tris?”

  “I never did. I never wanted anybody else. I’ve been trying to give Tris back to Milo since she walked in on me the first time,” Beebo said. “She’ll give up on me when she finds out you’re home. She won’t want to make it a threesome.”

  “Home,” Laura repeated. “Oh, Beebo…”

  And suddenly her arms were locked around Beebo’s neck and they were lost in kisses and thrilling, half-forgotten caresses and the warm satin touch of each other’s bodies. The pajama top Laura had pulled on so frantically slipped off with no trouble, and she stretched out on the white spread beneath the girl she had loved so much, in spite of so much, and surrendered with a groan of delight tempered with sorrow. And perhaps the beginning of understanding at last.

  It was only a matter of hours the next day before Laura knew that the feeling of strangeness she felt would not wear off. It was another two days before she could bring herself to give up hope that Beebo might change, that being together again would reawaken their crazy, beautiful, love affair.

  But it was two whole weeks, two very long weeks full of wondering and self-pity and struggle and doubt, before Laura could tell herself that she had made a mistake.

  Beebo was drained of feeling. She was tired, tired of love and even tired of life. Perhaps time and innate toughness would revive her, but she had nothing to give Laura now. Laura realized with chagrin how little she had to give Beebo. She had never given much, always taking, taking, taking, from the older girl, who seemed to have so much to offer. It had been too easy to help herself to that wealth of love and she understood now, painfully, that she had come back to Beebo to be worshipped again.

  She had turned tail and run at the moment when her problems with Jack seemed too much for her, and she had run to the one person who had adored her spectacularly in the past. She needed her ego bolstered, she needed flattery and passion and reassurance from a woman. So it had come to her as an eye-opening blow to find her tempestuous lover subdued, transformed, almost a different person.

  It never was right, Laura thought, watching Beebo over the dinner table. She had to give beyond her strength and I took it all with no return. At least she was generous with herself. I was the selfish one. I always have been the selfish one. I thought the world was giving me a bum deal, but I was too selfish to see the good side. Even with Jack…Oh my God, Jack. My poor darling. With him most of all.

  “What are you thinking about?” Beebo asked her, seeing her absorption.

  “I—I have to go back, Beebo,” Laura said and her own words startled her. “I have to see Jack once more.” Once expressed, these feelings so long in the making made her feel like crying. She looked apprehensively at Beebo, expecting her sarcasm.

  But Beebo only said, “I thought you would. Well, go on, baby. Go tell him you’re sorry, it was all a nasty misunderstanding.” She spoke mildly.

  “Don’t make it sound cheap, Beebo,” Laura pleaded.

  “It won’t be anything but cheap unless you go back to stay,” Beebo told her. “Otherwise there’s no point in going back at all.”

  “But—but I’m going to live with you now,” Laura faltered. “I just have to see him once more. Explain to him—”

  “You’re his wife. Either go home to him and grow up or don’t go back. What do you think you’d accomplish with a quickie visit, Bo-peep? Just pep him up a little? Make it all bearable? You’d be lucky if he didn’t run you out with a rifle. If you haven’t learned anything else in all this time, you must have learned that you can’t play around with love as if it were a bargain basement special. Real love isn’t a production line thing, it isn’t waiting for you in any old shop window. Haven’t you learned that yet, baby?”

  Laura nodded, putting her head back against the chair and letting the soothing tears flow quietly. “I’ve learned it. But it’s so hard to live by what you learn. I needed you so much when I came back two weeks ago. But I needed you the way you used to be.” It was a difficult admission, but Beebo understood it.

  “Sure,” she said gently. “Now you’ve seen me. Now you know what I couldn’t find the words to tell you. It’s over, Laura. I’ll always be here, I guess we’ll always need each other a little. Maybe we’ll see each other now and then. But there’s no point in our living together.”

  Shame colored Laura’s cheeks pink and she said warmly, “I’m not a child, Beebo, and I didn’t come back here just to run off and leave you again. I gave up too much to come back.”

  “Yes, baby, I think you did. You gave up too much. It wasn’t worth the price, and you see that now. Admit it. Don’t be a stubborn idiot.”

  Laura was appalled at the apathy in her voice. “What would you do if I insisted on staying with you?” she asked.

  Beebo shrugged. “I’d let you stay, of course. I haven’t the ambition to kick you out. Besides, I love you still, in my way. I meant it when I said it.”

  Laura stood up, unable to look at her anymore. “I’m going back to the apartment, and I’m going to talk to Jack,” she said. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “I doubt it.” Beebo did not even leave her chair. She lighted a cigarette slowly, watching Laura’s back.

  Finally Laura turned around and faced her. “Please, Beebo, don’t talk to me as if nothing in the world mattered anymore. I can’t stand it, I can’t stand to think I did it to you.”

  “Jack still matters, baby. Don’t do it to him, too.”

  Laura went and got her coat and purse from the bedroom, and then she looked into the kitchen. Beebo sat with her back to the door, still smoking thoughtfully. “I’m leaving,” Laura told her. “I should be back around nine.”

  “Sure, sweetheart. Tell old Jack I said hello.”

  “I will.” Laura looked at her dark curly head, not sure if the frosting on her curls came from the kitchen light above or from the first gray hairs. She walked over to Beebo and kissed her cheek, leaning over her chair from behind. Beebo smiled though she did not turn her head.

  And then Laura walked out, knowing somehow, deep within herself, that it was for the last time.

  Chapter Eleven

  LAURA APPROACHED the apartment building with her legs trembling. It was all she could do to keep from turning around and running. It was hard to imagine what she might find. She left Jack a desperate man, and her absence for two weeks would not have made things any easier for him.

  She stopped at the front door to marshal her strength, and the chain link fence at the end of the street caught her eye. She marveled that she had been able to climb it the night she ran away. It looked almost insurmountable now with the long shadows creeping along the ground beneath it. She touched one of the cuts on her arm, still healing, and wondered where her shabby guide with his friendly dime was now. All unaware, he had taught her a valuable lesson about herself and turned a spotlight on the lies until even Laura had been forced to see them and confess the truth. She loved Jack too much to hurt him, and she had come back now to heal him if she could.

  That thought gave her the most strength as she pushed open the lacquer-red front door with its brass knocker. If he didn’t need me so desperately, I couldn’t do this, she told herself. And if I didn’t love him so much, I couldn’t do it, either. She pushed the button for the elevator and felt a thrill of shame and fear that almost made her sick. And then, out of habit, she glanced at her mailbox. It was so full that it could not be locked and the door hung open. Laura went to it and pulled the bundle of mail out with a sudden premonition.

  The box had not been emptied for days, perhaps weeks; perhaps not since the night she ran away.

  Is Jack—is he gone, then? she wondered. For a second
her weakness and humiliation overwhelmed her and she hoped he was. She hoped she would never have to face him. For she dreaded what she had done to this man who loved her, in his own odd way, more than he loved, or ever had loved, anyone else on earth.

  And then, suddenly, she whispered aloud, “No! Oh, no! He’s got to be here!”

  She took the elevator to the third floor in a frenzy of impatience and crossed the carpeted hall to her apartment door swiftly. Like the mailbox, the door was unlocked, and that gave her hope. He wouldn’t go out and leave it open for any stranger to wander into. It wasn’t like him.

  Silent and tremulous, Laura entered the living room. “Jack?” she said softly, knowing already there would be no answer. “Jack? Be here. Darling, please be here,” she murmured. Slowly and fearfully she entered each room, saying his name as she did so, and silently, each room revealed nothing but his absence. Never had a home seemed so empty.

  Never had her own voice awed and saddened her so.

  She had been through all the rooms a couple of times, halfheartedly picking up a thing or two and looking with frightened eyes into the dark corners, before she spotted the note. It was rolled into the top of a whisky bottle, one of several sitting on the kitchen table. She picked it up with trembling fingers and read:

  Laura darling. I’m with Terry. I guess you’ve gone back to Beebo. Maybe that’s fate, but I still think we could have made a go of it. You’re my wife, Laura—that’s the difference between life and death to me, even now. If you ever read these words, remember, I love you, Mrs. Mann. And remember it too if you ever want to come home. Jack.

  Laura wept silently, her throat and chest painfully tight with it, crushing the letter against her neck.

  She walked dazedly into the living room, still holding the letter, and stared around through her tears. She thought of Beebo and the warm, slightly worn rooms she lived in and the worn-out love she had left. And she thought of Jack. There had been none of his usual piercing sarcasm in the note. Nothing but gentleness, nothing but love.

  After a long moment Laura pulled herself together. She sank down on the sofa by the table and picked up the mail. She felt weak, and she shuffled listlessly through the pile of bills and ads and notes and papers. Near the end she almost passed up one with Dr. Belden’s name in the return address spot. His name registered suddenly in her mind, and she tore his letter open with hands newly sprung to life.

  She read only the first half of the first sentence:

  Dear Mrs. Mann. I am delighted to inform you that next November, if all goes well, you and Mr. Mann will be parents, and…

  She fainted.

  When Laura awoke she was lying on the couch with her head back and her mouth open and uncomfortably dry. Carefully she lifted her head on a stiff neck, turning it gingerly, and sat up straight. On the floor at her feet was the doctor’s letter. She picked it up and found her hands shaking so that she had to grab at it three times before she caught it between her fingers.

  For some moments she sat there, her cornflower eyes enormous with shock. Finally she whispered, “I’m going to have a child. Me.” A first hysterical thought of abortion flew through her mind, but she dismissed it almost before it formed.

  “I’m going to be a woman. I have eight months to get ready and I’ve got to be ready when it comes. I’ve got to love it and take care of it.”

  Cautiously she stood up, and unsteadily walked toward the bedroom, one hand warm across her stomach. “Now that I know, it’s not so bad,” she said, speaking aloud as if to reassure herself. “I don’t resent it so much anymore. Strange…I’m not afraid of it. I don’t know why, exactly. Yes, I guess I do…It’s Jack’s. It’s a part of him. It’s a way to make it up to him for what I’ve done.”

  She reached her bed and raised her eyes to the windows, and the darkness and sparkle of the city outside. It looked very beautiful. Jack was out there somewhere. He had to be; he couldn’t have gone away, not this soon. His note sounded too much as if he were going to look for her, as if he knew he and Terry couldn’t last, and he would have to search her out and make her try again.

  Laura swept some pajamas and shoes off her bed and sat down with a curious feeling of elation and exhaustion. She stretched out, still fully dressed, and gazed at the ceiling.

  I’ll find him, she thought. Terry was staying at the Bell Towers. I heard him say so. Somebody’ll know where they are. She felt very tired and she was surprised to find that she was crying again. There seemed to be no reason for it, except that she was having a baby. And it belonged to Jack too, and that made her smile through the tears.

  A little later, when she dimly realized she was falling asleep, she thought of Beebo, and the thought twisted in her heart like a pain and almost brought her awake again. But it was over for Beebo now. Her life lay in another direction. Laura had to save Jack, and somehow, in the saving of him, would come her own life and strength. She knew it now, and it gave her the first peace she had known in all the years since she had first realized that she was a Lesbian.

  Only the lightest rustle of air awakened her. She opened her eyes. It was still deep night; the room was dark except for the small bedlamp she had switched on when she lay down. And yet she was wide awake, and she knew he was there.

  Laura turned and saw him standing in the doorway to the bedroom, disheveled, his hands in his pockets, his round horn rims sliding down his nose. She came up suddenly on her elbow, so fast that her head swam a little.

  They looked at each other in silence for a minute; first startled, then embarrassed.

  “Jack?” Laura said timidly, the way she had whispered it to the empty rooms earlier in the evening. And again her own voice awed her into silence.

  He straightened and walked slowly toward her bed. At the foot, he stopped, his hands still in his pockets, his tie loosened, his shirt a little gray. His face was serious and tense, as if he were quite ready to believe she was a mirage.

  At last he spoke to her softly. “I’ve been coming back every night. I was hoping…I thought you might…” He stopped, shutting his eyes for a minute as if to search for composure.

  Laura sprang up to her knees on the bed and put her arms around him. “I’m here,” she cried. “I’m home, I love you, I won’t leave again, Jack.”

  But he loosened her arms gently. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I’m afraid to.”

  “Believe me,” she exclaimed passionately. “Jack darling, please believe me.”

  “We were going to leave for San Francisco Thursday,” he said, still slightly incredulous. “Terry and I. I promised him, if you didn’t come back.”

  “When did he ever keep a promise to you?”

  “I love him, Laura,” he reminded her.

  That stopped her for a minute. She bowed her head and cast about desperately for something to say, something to convince him forevermore, as she herself was now convinced, that it was their only hope to make this marriage work.

  “Jack, I’d have gone anywhere in the world to find you,” she said, unable to look at him while she talked for fear the sight of his face would make her cry again. “I’ve had to hurt so many people—too many—to learn my lessons. And I was hurt as badly as the others. I’ve made mistakes, ugly ones, and I’ve been selfish and silly. But I’ve been trying, I have, Jack! And I’ve been learning. I—I—love you.” She looked up at him now and for the very first time, in all their long acquaintance, she felt a pleasant flush in her cheeks at the sight of him. Him…a man. She felt flustered suddenly, unable to go on speaking.

  Jack saw it too after a moment, disbelieving it at first and then accepting it slowly, with wonderment. “Laura,” he said. “Do you still believe we’re just a couple of scared kids? Do you still believe we’re running away from the world by marrying each other? Do you think we’re going to spend our whole lives running after a love that doesn’t exist?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “You’re still my wife,” he said softly,
and put his arms around her now, at last, and made her tingle with awkward new feelings and unbearable tenderness. “Do you want to live with me again? As my wife?”

  “Yes, Jack.” It wasn’t the passionate unreasoning yes she had flung at Beebo in desperation two weeks ago. It was quiet and intensely felt. It was a recognized necessity, but a beautiful one.

  “For how long?” he asked skeptically.

  “I’m your wife,” she repeated gently to him. “I’ll stay with you now.” There was a new sound, a new tone in her voice that caught in his heart. As for Laura she was once more bewildered by an unexpected tide of emotion that made it impossible for her to look at him. “Say yes, Jack,” she whispered. “Say it’s all right. Please, before I start crying again.”

  He took her head in his hands and kissed her forehead and said, “It’s all right. It’s all right honey,” and suddenly they clung hard to each other and Laura began to sob with relief and joy. She could hardly articulate, trying to spill her lovely secret to him. “Jack, Jack, it worked. We’re going to have a baby! Darling, we’re going to have a baby!”

  She felt his arms tighten till she lost her breath and when she looked up at him this time, with her face blotched and her eyes red and her lips curved into a smile, he found himself crying happily with her.

  When he could talk, he murmured into her neck, “I saw the letter in the box. It came two days after you left. The damn thing terrified me. I swear, Laura, I couldn’t open it, I couldn’t even touch it. I wouldn’t even look at the damn mailbox. I was hoping so much it would be true—and so damn afraid if it was you wouldn’t come back. That I’d lost you and you might have to have it alone and you wouldn’t want it or love it—”

  “Oh, stop,” she begged. “Jack, darling, stop.”

  And they fell back on the bed together, crying and laughing and touching each other’s faces.