The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  Beebo dodged around squads of empty orange-juice glasses for several days with the eerie feeling that the ghost who emptied them would come cackling out of the rafters at her before long.

  The night they finally met, Beebo had been living under Leo’s roof for over two weeks, using his hospitality without ever having seen or spoken to him.

  She was sitting in the huge recreation room with Venus and Toby, watching TV and listening to Venus tell about the casting problems, wardrobe, scripts she had read.

  Beebo commented quietly, “It takes up your whole life, doesn’t it?”

  Venus looked at her anxiously. “You’re lonesome during the day, aren’t you, darling?” She threw a guarded glance at Toby, but he spoke without taking his eyes off the TV screen: “What do you mean, lonesome, Mom? She’s busy all day. Besides, I get home from school at four, and I’m better company than you are.”

  Venus smiled and reached out to hug him. She startled herself as much as Toby, but he endured the embrace with less embarrassment than he would have felt the month before in New York.

  “When is that PTA thing at school?” Venus said. “I want to go with you, Toby.” Toby. His name. The first time in memory she had called him that when she wasn’t in a rage. Beebo saw the smile in his eyes.

  “You can go if you promise not to call anybody ‘darling’ or wear a knit dress,” he said.

  Venus gasped and Beebo laughed at him, looking behind his back at Venus. “All right, darling, I promise,” Venus said wryly. “If you promise not to ditch me this year, and tell lies to your friends about how I do the dishes every night, like all the other mothers.”

  Toby smiled without looking at her, and it was a bargain. Beebo felt her own satisfaction at this bashful honesty between mother and son. And then Venus surprised her by saying, “Beebo, I’m going to get you a car. It isn’t fair to make you shovel manure all day.”

  “What would I do with a car?” Beebo said, mystified at the sudden generosity.

  “You could ferry Toby around. Pick up the groceries for Miss Pinch. Maybe we’ll get something to eat that isn’t poisonous for a change.”

  “Miss Pinch doesn’t use poison,” said a gravelly voice. “Just too much paprika. It’s her Hungarian heritage.”

  Beebo turned around with a start to see, at long last, Leo Bogardus coming down the wide steps to join them.

  “Well, darling, you should know,” Venus said. “You and Miss Pinch have such a beautiful thing together.”

  Leo strode across the room, a solid, rather squarely built man; gray hair and gray suit; neat and natty and silver-eyed behind his black French-framed glasses. He was about Beebo’s height and attractive without being handsome.

  Beebo stood up to greet him, somewhat subdued. “Mr. Bogardus? I’m Beebo,” she said and held out her hand.

  Leo put a just-drained orange-juice glass on a table. “I know,” he said. “I hope you’ll be comfortable with us for as long as you stay, Beebo.” He shook her hand briefly.

  Beebo wasn’t sure if he meant to be sarcastic or not. She let her hand drop awkwardly and sat down again as Bogardus settled in a chair, trying to size him up. His face was clean-lined and his manner decisive. She imagined him quick to anger, stubborn, and hard to handle when he was mad.

  “You’re picking them younger every year, Venus,” Leo said five minutes later, without once having looked at Beebo in the meantime.

  Venus grimaced a warning at him over Toby’s head to shut up. Leo nodded wearily.

  “I don’t pick them, darling; they pick me,” she said in a pointed whisper.

  To Beebo’s discomfiture, Leo gazed straight at her then and laughed with a honk of mirth. Moments later he got up and left as abruptly as he came, and Beebo spoke not another word to him for several more days. She had just begun to hope she wouldn’t have to at all. It would have suited her, not because she disliked him—she didn’t. Considering her position in his house, he was more than decent. But he scared her. He was no ghost, but he was still the unknown quantity.

  Fortunately, the next few times they saw each other there was only time for small talk, and no more.

  Venus got her the car before the end of the week—a silver sport coupé—and Beebo and Toby cruised around Hollywood and the coastal communities when he got home from school in the afternoons.

  Toby kept on talking, confiding in her, and she began to see how much he respected and liked Leo; how strongly he sided with his step-father in any argument between Leo and Venus; what a source of strength Leo was to him. Here was no dirty dog like the rest of the boys. Here was a man to admire and emulate, and Toby did. Leo was good for him, and Beebo was glad they had each other.

  Beebo felt conspicuous, even though they rarely stopped the car or got out. She was afraid somebody would recognize Toby, and she hated to be stared at, with her short hair and slacks and casual cotton shirts. Skirts looked wrong on her and men’s pants looked fake.

  She looked the best in riding wear: a formal tight-waisted jacket and white stock, hard velvet cap, smooth leather boots, jodhpurs. The kind of clothes she used to wear at shows around Juniper Hill, when she won ribbons for jumping other people’s horses. She had a lithe elegance that the riding clothes dramatized.

  But you can’t walk into Schwab’s drugstore in formal riding clothes. At least not if you have orders to make yourself invisible. Beebo began to feel hemmed in. The only safe place in the county of Los Angeles was the Bogardus estate, and even there she worried about guests and servants.

  Miss Pinch disapproved sniffily of her, but she’d probably hold her tongue for Leo’s sake. Mrs. Sack was as plump and amiable as a currant bun, and about as perceptive. The others were a shadowy and obsequious crew whom Beebo rarely saw, yet she distrusted them all.

  In the evenings, when she was alone, Beebo started writing to Paula and Jack. They were short letters at first, though the ones to Jack were longer and franker. To Paula, she described the flash of October across the southern California landscape; the whipped-cream weather, the purple hills, the flowers.

  To Jack she said, “Venus is wonderful. She’s working so hard I hardly ever see her, though. But she says she’d spend every minute with me if she could. Nobody else exists but me. It’s funny—that looks so made-up on paper. But she really said it, and I believe her.

  “I almost never see Leo, either. When I run into him, I ask about his diet and he asks me about the horses. I think he’s a good man—good for Toby—but I’d hate like hell to have him mad at me.

  “I guess the one thing I don’t like about it here is being alone so much. Even Toby’s gone till late in the day. What a nice kid he is, underneath the shell. He wants to be somebody in his own right, and I’ll bet he makes it.

  “How is that doll you room with? Please write and tell me everything about Paula. Best—Beebo.”

  There was no trouble between Leo and Beebo until the day she and Toby picked Venus up at the studio in Television City. They knew she was coming home early to prepare for a party, and they talked one another into it like a pair of school boys ditching class for a day to have a ball. It seemed quite innocuous, and yet rather worldly and exciting when they discussed it, tooling around in the silver car.

  But when they actually arrived in that principality of a parking lot, they were rather abashed.

  “What if she doesn’t see us?” Toby said.

  “That’d probably be all for the best,” Beebo said.

  But Venus saw them plain and clear when she emerged from the building, surrounded by aides and admirers. She walked briskly to the car, surprising the crowd, which began to straggle after her, opened the door, and pulled Toby out by his collar.

  “Darling,” she said smoothly, “I want you to meet Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Klein. Boys, will you introduce him around for me?” She smiled at one of the men, who quickly obliged her.

  Venus thrust her head into the car. “Beebo, what the hell!” she hissed.

  “I’m s
orry—we thought it would be fun,” Beebo faltered.

  “You thought—” Venus shut her eyes a minute and swallowed her temper. “Oh, balls. I’m not going to get mad at you. I can’t, I’m too much in love with you. But oh! you fool, Leo can. I hope to God he doesn’t hear about it.” She withdrew, collared Toby again, and popped him into the front seat, sitting down beside him to wave and smile at the group of people so charmingly that no one but herself was likely to be noticed as they pulled away.

  The sponsors for Million Dollar Baby were openhanded, despite long rehearsal hours and high rents and salaries, because they figured that with Venus in the show, it had to be a smash. So Leo, anxious to live up to their expectations, worked her unremittingly day and night throughout October.

  Venus not only had to act, she had to dance and sing. The big number for the second show, then in production, was “I’m Putting My All on You.”

  “I never sang before in my life!” Venus yelled at Leo.

  “Marilyn Monroe can do it,” he said softly, infuriating her.

  “Leo, I can’t sing!” she cried, trying to explain fundamentals to him as if he were retarded.

  “Well, don’t,” Beebo said, surprising both of them. She was watching the scene in the Bogardus rec room. Leo threw her an irritated look, and Beebo explained quickly, “Talk the song. Whisper and wiggle like Marlene Dietrich. Venus, Leo’s right. You have to live up to the title. Million Dollar Baby. God, you ought to be able to do anything for that price, including grand opera.”

  Leo laughed, a clattering jangle of a sound, while Venus salved her wounds in prim silence, peeved at Beebo for backing up her husband.

  “Now, you see?” Leo told her, waving at Beebo. “That’s it. Beebo can see it. Why can’t you? I tell you the same damn thing and you squawk at me like a fishwife. Okay, I’m not young and handsome, but I’m smart. That’s how you got where we are today. You do this right, and you’ll get more than that million.”

  Beebo watched him with interest as he directed Venus. He was electrically alive, cunning in the way he teased and bullied and loved the song out of her. Beebo could almost feel the tune, the words, Venus herself, coming to life. Leo was a good seat-of-the-pants psychologist.

  After several run-throughs he turned to Beebo. “You’re helping,” he said laconically. “She sings better for you than for me. I show her what to do. You make her feel it.” He scratched his head, then let his shirt-sleeved arms drop. “That’s okay, as long as she doesn’t lose it at the studio,” he decided. “Maybe we’ll let you watch some other scenes at home, Beebo.”

  Beebo grinned. It was a relief to participate at last in the paramount sphere of Venus’s life.

  “It helps to have her in love again,” Leo observed candidly. “Makes her much more responsive.”

  “Don’t talk about me as if I were a machine,” Venus flashed at him. “And don’t laugh at me. I know how silly you think it is. I know Beebo’s too young.”

  Leo sat down on a leather-topped bar stool. “You’re happy, Beebo?” he asked.

  Beebo nodded, wondering where he was going.

  “It’s rough, isn’t it? Venus isn’t home much these days. And you have nothing to do but goof around in that car.”

  “I get along,” Beebo said cautiously. “Are you against the car, Leo?”

  “No, just the taxi service.” There was a deadly pause, and Leo’s face folded into a heavy frown. Beebo was lost for a moment, till Venus sighed and lighted a cigarette with angry movements. “Who squealed?” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Leo said crisply. “I don’t like the idea of you two ladies consorting in public.”

  “Leo, don’t pull that solemn face on me,” Venus said. “She and Toby came together. They picked me up at work. Nobody saw her face—”

  “Nobody had to,” Leo said, taking a drag on his cigarette.

  “Look, Leo, let’s not fight over it,” Beebo said. “Be reasonable. Things are working out all right. I’m discreet and I swear I’ll never—”

  “I know, you’ll never do anything to hurt darling Venus,” Leo said acidly. His eyes narrowed, and he began to pace the room. When either of the women tried to speak he silenced them with a gesture.

  Finally Venus said, “That poor kid never goes anywhere. She deserves—”

  “She deserves to torpedo your career, just to alleviate her ennui?”

  “Well, damn it, Leo, if you turn her out, I’m going with her. I happen to be in love with Beebo and I don’t give a damn what you think of it.”

  “Venus, go upstairs,” Leo said. He lighted a cigar—a concession to his mental distress. When Venus objected he said, “Will you please go?” as if she were a naughty child. He was almost fatherly with her. “I can’t talk to Beebo with such a distraction as you around.” He made her hope he and Beebo would understand each other. She left slowly, telling Beebo not to believe a word Leo said.

  Leo stopped his pacing and sat down to face Beebo. “There’s too much at stake, Beebo,” he said at once. “I can’t tolerate even small slip-ups. Venus is silly, but that’s no excuse for you. You’re a sensible kid.”

  “But Leo, such a little thing—”

  “Nothing is little, Beebo,” he said. “Let’s be frank with each other. It worries me enough that you’re so young. At least her other lovers were nearer her own age. But to have you a girl…” He puffed rapidly on the cigar. “I won’t disguise the fact that I find you rather…well, unsympathetic. I think most normal men would. Partly from masculine resentment, I guess. A natural revulsion for women who parade as poor imitations of men, but—”

  “You liked me well enough when you got home and found Venus acting like a lovable human being,” Beebo interrupted him heatedly. “I’m the same person now as then. I just happened to pick her up in a parking lot and drive her home.”

  “The guy who told me about it,” Leo said thoughtfully, “said Venus was picked up by a good-looking boy. A friend of Toby’s he supposed. Of course, you were hard to see inside the car. But Venus had told him, when she saw you pull up, that you were one of the servants. So he was a little surprised to see her jump in the front seat with you…and you didn’t have a uniform on, either. He was giving me the old elbow-in-the-ribs-treatment.” He blew cigar smoke at the ceiling without looking at her.

  Beebo cleared her throat. “It was so innocent,” she said.

  “Nothing is innocent,” Leo said flatly. “Especially a classy young butch on the make.”

  “Damn it, Leo!” she said. “I’m clean, I’m healthy, I’ve worked hard all my life. And so help me God, I’m not ashamed of being what I can’t help being. That’s the road to madness.” Her cheeks were crimson.

  “Well said, Beebo,” he acknowledged calmly. “You’re right—but so am I. You might as well face up to the world’s opinion. I speak for the ordinary prejudiced guy, too busy to learn tolerance, too uninformed to give a damn. We are in the majority. I admire your guts but not your person. As for the intolerance, it’s mostly emotional and illogical. I can’t help it and neither can most men. I apologize. I warn you that it’s there. I add: it’s beside the point.

  “What I think of you is less important than what the people in Venus’s world think. I don’t care what you say, somebody in this world besides the Bogardus family knows you’re living here and laying my wife. It’s no secret from the servants, you know.”

  Beebo caught her breath and Leo looked at her piercingly. “I’ve heard them laughing about it,” he said. “And our servants bat the breeze with the other stars’ servants. They know more guff about us—what we eat, when we pee, who our lovers are—than all the gossip columnists rolled into one and stashed behind the keyhole. All I can say is, I pay them and most of them like me. Not Venus, not you. But me. I hope they respect my privacy, but I know human nature. Sooner or later they’ll blab.”

  Beebo rubbed a hand over her eyes, angry and frightened. “Well, if it’s so bad, why the hell did Venus b
ring me out here? She must have known how it would be.”

  “Venus isn’t very big for denying herself what she wants,” Leo said. “Besides, there’s a lot to be said in your favor. Venus is more stable. She means it when she says she loves you. I believe that, Beebo, and I hope you do. Her love is a unique gift, and I tell you honestly that I envy you it. It has transformed her.”

  Beebo was flattered and surprised to hear this coming from Leo. She felt suddenly sorry for him. He seemed gray all over, from his damp shirt to his strained face.

  “I struggled for years to win her love…my God, just to win her attention. I finally decided there was no love in her, not even for poor Toby. You proved me wrong, and in a way I’m grateful to you. Venus will never be an easy woman to live with, but she’s improved measurably with you, and I think some of it will last long after you’ve left us.”

  “Left you?” Beebo opened her mouth to protest but was bulldozed by his rush of words.

  “Her tantrums now are kid stuff compared to the blasts we used to get. Now, I get a sort of half-assed cooperation. Toby gets some affection. The servants get some peace. And that’s a lot when you’re starting from zero.”

  Beebo was taken aback by it.

  “I thank you for that, Beebo. I thank you for being discreet most of the time, when it’s boring and humiliating. But I have to look at the other side of the coin. Venus has survived some potentially filthy scandals because she has the smartest director and press agent in the world: me. But it took all I’ve got and more to keep them out of the papers. Sometimes the only way was to jump in front of her and take the crap meant for Venus on my own kisser, just to keep her clean. I’d do it again if I had to, but I don’t want to do it for you. If it gets out she’s sleeping with a girl, we’re dead. All of us.

  “Venus makes a touching speech about walking out of here with you if anything goes wrong, but she won’t, Beebo. Don’t kid yourself. Don’t get hurt worse than you have to be when the end comes.”