The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  Vega was a model. She was a very tall girl, at least as tall as Beth herself, and excruciatingly thin. Throughout her twenties she had worked at modeling in Chicago and then suddenly came down deathly sick with tuberculosis, ulcers, and Beth had never known what else. Everything. It had meant the temporary finish to her working days and a long trip to the West Coast, where she went directly to the City of Hope for help. She was there for over two years.

  Vega had sacrificed a lung to her tuberculosis, a part of her stomach to her ulcer, and perhaps more of herself to other plagues. And still she was stunningly beautiful. Still she smoked two or three packs of cigarettes a day—something that struck Beth as insane but rather wonderful, as if Vega had taken a bead on Death and spat in his eye. Nobody else would have gotten away with it. Vega brushed it off, laughing. “The first thing I asked for when I came out of the anesthetic,” she said, “was a cigarette. The doctor gave me one of his. Tasted marvelous.”

  Vega had deep-set eyes, almost black, and fine handsome features, and she was witty and interesting. She was running her own model agency now on Pasadena’s fashionable South Lake Street—mostly teenage girls, with one or two older women who took the course for “self-improvement.” Or, perhaps, self-admiration.

  Beth recalled the night she had first met Vega. They waited for her, Cleve and Jean and Beth and Charlie, in a small restaurant near her studio. Vega came late. It was necessary to her sense of well-being that she arrive late wherever she went. So Charlie and Beth and the Purvises waited for her in a small booth in the Everglades, where everything was chic and expensive.

  Vega swept in at last, forty minutes late, wrapped in a red velvet cloak, and she was so striking that Beth had stared a little at her. She sat down and ordered a martini—double, dry, twist of lemon—before she greeted anybody.

  She had a lovely face but it was, like the rest of her, painfully thin, with the fine bones sharply outlined. It soon became apparent why she didn’t put on weight. Vega rarely ate anything. She drank her dinner, though they had ordered her a steak. She seemed to depend on booze for most of her calories. Cleve persuaded her to take one bite, which she did, promising to finish the rest later—but of course she never did. Charlie and Cleve finally split the meat and ate it, but the rest was wasted.

  Charlie was interested in her too. Beautiful women interest almost any man without making much of an effort.

  “What do you do here, Vega?” he asked her. “Cleve said something about modeling.”

  “I teach modeling,” she said, accepting a fourth drink daintily from the waiter. “Women are my business. Men are my pleasure,” she added, smiling languidly.

  Charlie smiled back, unaware of the silly look on his face. Beth saw it, but it didn’t alarm her. It struck her funny, and before she had time to think about it, she was laughing at him. And suddenly the fun and flavor went out of the game for him, and he turned his attention to his meal. Beth saw his embarrassment and rebuked herself.

  I should have been quiet, damn it, she thought. I should have let him have his fling. Such an innocent little fling. What’s wrong with me? But it was too late. Charlie was carefully casual with Vega the rest of the evening. It didn’t console him much, when he got home that night, to check his muscles in front of the mirror or stretch to his full six feet two. He was baffled and shamed by his wife, who laughed at even his normal masculine reactions. He was almost defeated by his inability to make Beth’s life mean something. On Vega’s birthday night they waited, as before, at the Everglades for her entrance, drinking whiskey and waters, and talking. Beth felt warm and relaxed after the first two drinks and she squeezed Charlie’s arm. It caused him some concern, instead of reassuring him, because it was unexpected.

  “Good whiskey?” he asked, nodding at her glass. That must be the source of her pleasant mood.

  “The best,” she said and smiled. “Why aren’t you nice like this all the time?” she teased clumsily.

  “I’m only nice when you’re a little tight,” he said. “The rest of the time I’m a damn bore.”

  It was so short and sad and true that it almost knocked the breath out of her. She looked at her lap, despising herself for the moment, feeling the tears collect in the front of her eyes. When she had to reach for a piece of tissue to stem the flood he murmured, “I’m sorry. God, don’t do that in here.” He had a masculine horror of scenes, especially in front of Cleve and Jean. Jean had noticed the little exchange between them and her smile—her permanent smile—wavered, but Cleve was talking to her and didn’t see.

  “Come on, honey, this is a birthday party,” Charlie whispered urgently in Beth’s ear, exasperated and helpless like all men before a woman’s public tears.

  Beth pulled herself together. She would save her bad feeling for later. Now she wanted to enjoy herself, to let the liquor take over, and the muted lights and the piped music. She wanted to forget her kids, forget she was married. Charlie lighted a cigarette for her.

  “Peace pipe,” he said. And when he snapped out the match he saw Vega coming and added, relieved, “Here comes the guest of honor.” He got up as she approached the table and took her coat for her.

  “Thank you, Charlie Ayers,” Vega said with a smile. She had a habit of calling a man by his whole name, as if it made him completely special, unique, valuable—and perhaps a little bit labeled. But the men loved it. It sounded foolish when you tried to explain it to somebody else, because it was impossible to imitate Vega’s intonation, her peculiar lilting voice in its contralto register; but when she said your name, your whole name soft and low and very distinct, the whole company reacted. You were looked at, and the beautiful woman who had spoken to you was looked at, and it was a wonderful, slightly silly, but charming, ceremony.

  Vega sat down between Cleve and Beth, and the waiter, who was an old buddy of hers, came up, as soon as she had adjusted herself, with her usual order: a martini, double, dry, with a twist of lemon. The waiter went up to the bar as soon as she had thanked him for it and began mixing the next. She always took the first three or four on the run. It amazed Beth to watch her. Oddly, Vega never seemed drunk.

  Vega was all in black with a single small diamond clip at her throat and diamond earrings. On her they looked real, whether they were or not. Vega looked very very expensive, though she was quick to tell you the price of anything she was wearing. Her clothes were usually bargains picked up at sales in the better shops. Some of the shops gave her discounts, in return for which she told people she bought her clothes exclusively from them. She had this arrangement with at least five shops, all of them unaware of the others, and she lied to them all with charm and grace.

  Beth watched her with an interest that intensified as the total of highballs went up. There were two gifts in the center of the table, one from the Ayerses and one from the Purvises. Vega ignored them.

  “I’ve been teaching my girls how to walk,” she told them, “to rock and roll records. Are you familiar with Elvis Presley?”

  “Polly’s got a crush on him,” Beth said. “I think he’s godawful myself.”

  “You’re wrong,” Vega said. “He’s very useful. Especially with a gang of teenage girls. You put one of his records on and suddenly you’ve got—cooperation.” She emphasized the word and smiled. “They walk around the studio like so many duchesses—just what I want. I used to play Bing Crosby for them but all it got me was a slouch and a lot of behind-the-hands giggling. Now I play crap and suddenly they’re ladies.” She turned to Cleve. “Explain that to me, brother,” she said. “You know all about ladies.”

  Cleve ran a finger over his moustache in the wrong direction. “Simple,” he said. “You have one rule: treat a bitch like a duchess and a duchess like a bitch. Never fails.”

  “What has that got to do with Elvis Presley?”

  “You didn’t ask me about Elvis Presley.”

  “Cleve, are you drunk?” Vega said. “It’s against the family rules. You can’t be. We never get drunk,
” she explained to Beth and Charlie. “Limber, but never drunk.”

  “You’re right.” Cleve ordered another round and when the drinks came he stood up and Beth saw that he really was pretty high. “A toast,” he remarked, “to my charming sister, who is thirty-nine years old today. For the fifth time.” He glanced down at her and Vega smiled seraphically at the ceiling. “Her company is charming,” Cleve went on, while heads turned to grin at him from across the room, “her face is beautiful, her manners are perfect. Thank God I don’t have to live with her. Vega, darling, stand up and take a bow.”

  Vega stood up with a lovely smile and told him tenderly, “Go to hell.” They both sat down and drank to that while Jean laughed anxiously.

  “They’re always like that,” Jean said, “It strikes me so funny.”

  Beth wanted to put a gag on her. Jean only wanted to make it seem friendly, teasing. Everybody in the Everglades had heard her husband and his sister. She wanted them all to know it wasn’t serious.

  But Beth liked to think they really hated each other, for some weird romantic reason. It gave an edge to the scene that excited her.

  They ordered their meal and Vega, as always, ordered with them. Beth wondered why she bothered. Maybe it was just to give the men an extra helping. Maybe it was to ease her conscience about her drinking. At least if she had a plate of food in front of her she could always eat; she had a choice. If she didn’t order anything her only choice would be to drink, and the people with her would take it for granted she was a lush. That would never do, even when she was with her own friends, her own family, who knew the truth anyway. It just didn’t go well with her elegant exterior, her control.

  So she ordered food, and ate one bite. It was a sort of ritual that comforted her and shut up the worriers in the party who tried to force French fries or buttered squash down her. When they had all finished she could divide her meal among the men unobtrusively.

  Beth yearned to ask Vega how old she really was, but she didn’t dare. She wondered at her own curiosity. Everything about Vega seemed valuable and interesting that evening. The glamorous clothes, the strange feud with Cleve, the dramatic entrance, the illnesses, the modeling.

  I wonder how she’d like being a suburban housewife, she mused, and almost laughed aloud. Vega, with kids. Vega doing dishes. Vega, with—God forbid—a husband! On some women all the feminine ornaments and virtues only look out of place. Those women seem complete in themselves, and so it was with Vega. Beth couldn’t imagine her, sleek and tall and with a hint of ferocity beneath her civilized veneer, being domesticated by any man. There was something icily virginal beneath her sophistication that made Beth doubt whether Vega had ever given herself to a man.

  Vega opened Beth’s birthday gift to her while the rest of them ate. “How did you know?” she said, so quietly that Beth almost missed it.

  “It’s only a book,” Beth murmured.

  “You picked it out yourself. I’ve been wanting to read it, too.”

  It was such a personal exchange, almost intimate, that Beth was taken aback. Vega treated the book like a private present from Beth—as if Charlie, who after all paid for it and wrote his name on the card with his wife’s, had nothing whatever to do with it.

  Beth found herself oddly drawn to this lovely, rather secretive woman; to the warmth of her voice and the way she spoke. Vega articulated carefully, conserving the small quota of air in her one remaining lung. And yet, her voice carried. She had turned the handicap into an asset, learning to develop and project her voice with the skill of a musician. It was pleasant to hear her talk, and she arranged her breathing so artfully that one was never aware that it was a chore, or that her very life’s breath came to her in half doses.

  At the end of the evening the three women went to the powder room together. Beth found herself impatient with Jean, wanting her out of the way.

  What for? she thought, amused at herself. And still her impatience persisted. She stood next to Vega at the mirror while Jean leaned against the wall and waited for them to finish with their makeup. Beth wanted to say something, something memorable and witty and complimentary to Vega, but her mind was too busy admiring the woman. She only stared at Vega’s large brown eyes and parted lips and puzzled over her.

  “You know,” said Vega, startling her, “you should model. You have a good figure for it.”

  Beth was nonplussed. When could Vega have studied her figure? But Vega was adept at observing people without seeming to. She had seen the restlessness in Beth, just as she had seen the ardent mouth and purple eyes and short brown curls, without apparently even looking at her. Now she turned to appraise her.

  “I speak purely as a professional,” she said, her mouth showing a humorous twist at the corners. She gazed frankly at Beth now, up and down, stem to stern. “Turn around,” she said.

  Beth said, “Vega, I could never model. I’m too old.”

  “Nobody’s too old. Except my mother, and she was born fifty years B.C. You have nice hips, Beth.”

  The remark, so casual, sent an unwelcome tremor through Beth, who tried to shrug it off. “I’m thirty,” she said. “Who wants to show their clothes on a thirty-year-old when they could show them on a teenager?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Vega said. “Me, for one.” Beth stared at her. “Oh, not my own clothes. Only a scarecrow like me can squeak into those. I mean I like the way a woman your age wears her clothes, and so do the men who hire them. They have something no teenager has.”

  “A woman my age?” Beth repeated dolefully.

  Vega laughed. “You still look like a college girl, Beth. You aren’t, of course, let’s face it. But you look it.”

  Beth gave her a wry grin. “I don’t know the first thing about modeling, Vega,” she said.

  “I’ll teach you.”

  Beth was secretly pleased, very pleased. But she wasn’t thinking of the makeup tricks, or the poise she might acquire. She was thinking, in spite of herself, of the pleasure of spending some time in Vega’s company. She had never been able to bring herself to form a lot of friendships with women. It was not possible for her to be friendly with them, curiously enough, just as it is rarely possible for a man to be friendly with women. Beth had known Jean Purvis for years now and knew her well, but they were still only acquaintances, not friends. And Jean, though she regretted it, understood this, and had given up long ago trying to pull Beth closer to her.

  “I don’t know if I could afford it—” Beth began, but Vega interrupted her.

  “It’s free, darling,” she said, with an injured air, and Beth, transfixed, felt the “darling” echo through her head with a dangerous delight. She hardly heard Vega add, “Charlie won’t mind. You have a housewife pallor, anyway. You need to get out. Come on down next week and we’ll make you over. Not that you need much remodeling.” Vega glanced again at Beth’s trim torso and smiled. Beth smiled back and there was a single brief electric pause before Vega said quickly, “Everyone all set? Let’s go.” And turned to leave.

  The three of them filed out, Beth so close behind Vega that she stumbled against her once.

  Chapter Four

  BETH, RIDING NEXT TO CHARLIE ON THE WAY UP TO SIERRA Bella, put her head back and pondered Vega’s offer with a smile.

  “What’s up, honey?” Charlie said, seeing her expression in the red glow of a stoplight.

  “Nothing.”

  She wouldn’t tell me to save her own skin, he thought resentfully, and a wave of hatred for her secretiveness, her airs, came over him. He tried to swallow it down. He didn’t want to ruin another evening, and this one held promises. Just a few, but still, a few. She had been receptive, pleasant with him, at the Everglades.

  “Have fun?” he said, starting the car up again as the light changed.

  “Um-hm.” How can I tell him so he won’t say no? she wondered. For she felt instinctively that he would object to her desire. It seemed to Beth that all the things she truly wanted to do, he didn’t wa
nt her to do. Travel—“You can’t leave me!” Work—“Your place is at home with the kids.” Hire a nurse—“You’re their mother!” Get a little tight—“Beth, you’re turning into a damn souse.”

  She thought he was staid, stuffy; he thought she was wild, or would be if he didn’t keep a tight rein on her.

  They undressed quietly by the light of one dresser lamp, and Charlie, watching the clothes slip off her scented flesh, revealing the fluent curves of her back and breasts, felt his body flush all over. He was overcome with tenderness, with a desire for wordless communication.

  Just be gentle with me, yield to me this one night, he thought, trying to press the idea into her head with the sheer force of wishing. He would never have spoken such a wish; it would have aroused her contempt, or worse, her amusement.

  Beth pulled open the wardrobe door, reaching around the corner for her nightie. But he pulled her arm away. “You don’t need it,” he said. “Not tonight.”

  She let herself be held, submitting quietly to his kisses. When he seemed all warm and loving and tractable she whispered, “Charlie, I’m going to study modeling with Vega. Starting next week.”

  He only half heard. “Let’s not talk. Let’s not spoil it,” he said.

  But she felt that if he didn’t acquiesce now, in the mood he was in, he never would. “If you don’t say yes I’m going to do it anyway,” she whispered into his ear.

  “Do what?” he murmured, pulling her closer.

  “And we’ll have one hell of a fight over it.”

  “We’re not going to fight, darling,” he told her with the confidence of his passion. “Never again. We’re just going make love twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Where? The toy factory? That’s where you spend most your time.” Her sarcasm cut through his euphoria and the words registered harshly in his ears. He shut his eyes tight, shifting his weight a little. “Not tonight, Beth,” he begged her. “Please, not tonight.”