The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  “He fell,” Beebo said. “We were walking in the garden after the show. He had a seizure and fell, and his head struck a rock. He has a cut on the forehead, but—”

  “Oh, dear God!” Venus gasped, and Beebo said, “Stop the car. Damn it, Venus!”

  “But we have to get to the hospital—”

  “In one piece,” Beebo said. “I’ll drive.”

  “You’re in no shape—” Venus began, but Beebo broke in, “I’m in better shape than you are.” She made Venus slide over on the front seat while Beebo walked painfully around the car. Her wounds were the sharp residue of Leo’s wrath—but her head was clear. She started the motor, and told Venus firmly, “Toby’s going to live, and so am I.”

  Venus looked down at her sparkling knees, trying to control her weeping.

  “Look, honey, if you have any ideas about running to Toby with tears streaming down your face, and carrying on as if the end were near, so help me, I’m going to join Mrs. Sack’s team. She said that’s exactly what you’d do.”

  “She’s wrong,” Venus said. It was just enough to prick her conscience into action, and she wiped her eyes while they were still flowing.

  Neither of them said anything more about Toby or the coming storm with Leo and the papers till they reached the hospital. Venus insisted that Beebo accompany her inside, and Beebo acceded to keep her from getting frantic.

  Toby had a concussion, all right. They were making a spinal tap to determine the extent of pressure, if any, on the brain, and to relieve it surgically if necessary. It was urgent to do this as promptly as possible, to avoid brain damage.

  “The blow was pretty hard,” Dr. Pitman told them while a nurse dressed Beebo’s wounds in Toby’s room, at Venus’s request. No one dared to question Beebo about them. Venus said imperiously, “She’s hurt. Can you help her?” But her eyes were wild and her thoughts all with Toby.

  “Fortunately,” the doctor went on, while Venus bent over her son, peaked and scarcely conscious on the hospital bed, “the skull is thick and tough in the front, with heavier bone than in the back. A blow to the back, of the same force as the one Toby sustained, might have done serious damage. As it is, I’m as concerned about the blood loss as the concussion. We’re preparing a transfusion. He’ll feel a good deal stronger after that than he does now.”

  Dr. Pitman looked curiously at Venus. “I must say, Miss Bogardus, you’re taking this better than I expected.”

  “Mama?” Toby whispered, and Venus clutched one of his hands in both of hers.

  “Yes, Toby,” she said.

  “Am I going to be all right?” He looked at her. “I feel so punk.”

  “Yes, darling, you are,” she said.

  He shut his eyes, reassured, and Venus turned away to cover a sob. The doctor gave her an “I-should-have-known” look and helped her to the door.

  “You’re very tired,” he said. “Do you still have some of those yellow pills I gave you at home? All right, I want you to take one and try to rest. You can do Toby more good in the morning, when both of you are feeling better.”

  Venus tried to object, but Pitman pulled Beebo aside and said hastily, “I’ve been treating her for years. I know how she can be. If she doesn’t sleep tonight, we’ll see real fireworks, and that will set Toby back if she gets at him.”

  Beebo looked at the boy, resting now as the nurses prepared his arm for the blood transfusion, his head neatly bandaged. “Is he really going to be okay, doctor?” she said. “You convince me, and I’ll convince Venus.”

  “I think so,” Dr. Pitman said, but his concern was still plain on his face. “To be honest, there is always some risk with any head injury—especially with an epilepsy patient. He needs absolute peace and quiet and as little movement as possible, until the danger of internal hemorrhage is past…but he’s young and sturdy, and we’ll have a twenty-four-hour watch on him. I do believe, Miss Brinker, that his mother will only be in our way tonight. We’ll call immediately if there’s any change for the worse, but I don’t anticipate one now.”

  Beebo took Venus out of the hospital in stages, letting her fold up and rest on chairs in the hall on their way, till she had her in the car and could drive her home.

  Venus was forced to expend her frustrated maternal impulses on her hurt lover instead of her hurt child. She investigated and re-dressed all of Beebo’s bruises, making small noises of reproof and pity.

  “Thanks for braving that party, darling,” Venus told her. “I’d have died of self-contempt if you hadn’t let me know.”

  “Toby would have been all right.”

  “Maybe. But I wouldn’t. It would have killed me to let Mrs. Sack do it all again. Especially now when Toby and I are getting so close.”

  “Where do you suppose Leo is?” Beebo said, touching a cut with careful fingers.

  “I’ll be damned if I know. Or care,” Venus said harshly. “I thought for sure he’d be here, waiting to skin both of us alive. He’ll be around sooner or later, you can bet on that.” She sighed, leaving Beebo to turn on the radio by her bed. “I wish they had let me stay with Toby,” she said. “I’m ashamed that they couldn’t.”

  “You can see him first thing in the morning,” Beebo comforted her.

  Venus unzipped her sequins and dropped them in a starry heap on a chair. Fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of dress and she treated it like a dishcloth. There was nothing underneath it but her shoes, which she kicked off.

  Beebo put a hand gently on Venus’s neck, massaging it a little. “Maybe this is a poor time to bring it up,” she said softly. “But we have to talk, Venus. I—I love you, but I can’t stand living this way, honey. I realized something in front of those people at the party: I was on trial. My life, my love for you, my self. I can never love you openly, like a human being. They don’t give me credit for being human.”

  “Beebo!” Venus said, looking at her with a shocked face. “Don’t say such ugly things. You’re talking about the girl I adore.”

  Beebo looked away. “I’m not the kind of person I want to be, Venus. Not the kind I want you to love. I’d rather die than hurt you, but I feel as if I’m dying anyway…of shame and…well, doubt about us. I want to love you somehow without it torturing us both. And I can’t.”

  “I know,” Venus said, and Beebo sensed their mutual hopelessness. She embraced her and Venus began to cry. “When I saw him beating you tonight, I could have killed him,” she said, her voice rusty with tears. “It took all the meanness out of me. I just wanted to console you. Beebo, whatever happens to us, always believe that I loved you—I love you.”

  “I promise,” Beebo said, but the past tense gave her a premonition of what was coming. “What do you mean, whatever happens?”

  “I mean, the papers, and the rest of it. I have to deny everything, Beebo. I have to pretend you’re nothing to me. Oh, darling, understand why!” It was a declaration of love that struck Beebo’s heart.

  “I understand,” Beebo said, and thought she did. But she didn’t get quite all of it. For Venus was saying goodbye to her. Beebo didn’t know that this loveliest night they would spend together would be the last. She had thought all along that when the end came, she would pick her own time and day to go; not that the whole thing would be out of her control.

  Venus said nothing, did nothing, to spoil the night. She was silent about Toby, even though her heart contracted at the thought of him, and she ached to be beside him. She spoke only words of love to Beebo.

  Beebo, surprised at Venus’s ardor, gave in at first to humor her, and finally found herself forgetting even the bruises and cuts on her body.

  The night was mild and the stars were sprinkled thick as spilled soapflakes across the sky. Venus pushed aside the sliding door to her patio, and they danced out there a while on a rug of cool grass, moving with the music and the air and the three o’clock mocking bird, arch-deep in the tickling soft grass.

  Beebo felt as if she could have held and loved her fabulous lady f
orever. When she leaned down to kiss Venus’s face, her cheek was wet.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, darling,” Venus assured her. “I’m just a sentimental idiot. Say you love me and I’ll recover.”

  “I love you,” Beebo said. “I love you, Venus.” And to her surprise, her mind was with Paula Ash for a moment. It staggered her a little. Venus stopped dancing and looked up at her in the moonlight. “Do you? Really?” she asked. It wasn’t just a woman’s endless need to be told over and over. It was the knowledge that she wouldn’t hear it again after this night had passed.

  Venus loved her enough to hope that when she sent her away in the morning—for she would have to—Beebo’s wounds would heal and she would be able to think back on their love without the regret that rots so many sweet memories.

  “Beebo, promise me one last thing, darling, and then I’ll shut up.”

  Beebo squeezed her, turning her tenderly to the rhythm of a waltz. “I’ll promise you that moon on a platter if you want it.”

  “Promise me you’ll remember this night as long as you live. Everything about it. The stars inches over our heads, and the music, and the grass, and…” The famous voice broke and she cried again.

  Beebo picked her up and sat with her on a bamboo garden chair. “Darling, what’s the matter?” she demanded.

  “Oh, Toby and—the damn gossipists. I don’t know. It’ll never be the same for us, Beebo.”

  Beebo, full of apprehensions, had no comfort to offer her now, except to hold her tight. Then Venus slipped from her arms to the feathery grass and Beebo followed her down, and there were no more questions or tears or promises. Nothing but beautiful oblivion till the trespassing sun announced the morning.

  Beebo awoke, a head-to-toe bouquet of blue bruises from the jolting Leo had given her. But it hardly bothered her. Venus had loved her so warmly all night that she was half-ready to hope they could work out some sort of compromise; half-ready to give in to more months of demoralizing secrecy, if it could be like that every night.

  Venus called the hospital the moment she awakened, and they reassured her that Toby was no worse; in fact, seemed better.

  She hung up, looking as blue as before her call. “Now we have to face Leo,” she said.

  “He won’t eat you alive, honey,” Beebo said.

  Venus paled suddenly. “Look!” she said, pointing at her dresser. Beebo saw the telltale glass, still coated with orange juice. “He’s already been in looking for trouble.” Venus stole a glance at Beebo, so young and handsome, so vulnerable to the worst ostracism society could offer; and her heart swelled. I can’t hurt her, she thought in anguish.

  I’ve had twenty years of adulation and I’ve got more money than I’ll ever use. She began to wonder if she had the guts to go with Beebo after all. What the hell, I’ve never loved anybody like this before. Am I afraid to stick to the one person who knows how to make me happy?

  It gave her the courage to try, at least, to defend Beebo against her formidable and stubborn husband.

  While she was preoccupied with these thoughts the bedroom door opened. Beebo was just pulling her shoes on, sitting on the edge of the bed in her clothes of the night before. She stiffened, expecting Leo, but it was the corresponding secretary again. “Another telegram,” he said to her. “For you.”

  “Thanks, Rod.” Beebo got up to take it and was about to open it when she heard him say, “Good morning, Mr. Bogardus,” and there was Leo. He dismissed Rod with a wave of his hand and Beebo stepped aside wordlessly to let him enter the bedroom. He had a lighted cigar—a bad sign—and another glass of orange juice in his hand. Beebo thrust the telegram in her pocket and followed him in, shutting the door.

  “All right,” Leo said. “We’re adults, and we aren’t going to scream at each other. Let me talk first if you please. Beebo, are you all right?”

  His board-meeting tone, typical though it was of him, offended her more than an explosion of fury would have. “Relax, Leo, you won’t have to pay any more doctor bills,” she said. She was pleased to see that she had given him a shiner.

  “I’ve been to the hospital. I was there all night. I can understand your concern at the party, Beebo. But let me remind you that this house is full of telephones, any one of which would have got a call through to Venus.”

  “Leo, Mrs. Sack told me Venus would—”

  “But you preferred to repay my kindness to you by shaming me in public.”

  “The doctor said it, too: Venus would get hysterical if she heard over the phone that Toby was hurt and had to be hospitalized.”

  “You know it’s true, Leo,” Venus said softly.

  “I didn’t go there to shame you, Leo,” Beebo said. “It’s bad enough being holed up in this fort like a prisoner of war, but not so bad I’d do that to you. I just want you to believe one thing: I was really scared about Toby, and I never thought of anything but getting you and Venus to him as fast as I could.”

  Leo finished his glass of juice while she talked. “I believe you,” he said. “I also believe you could have sent somebody else and spared us what we’re about to go through—all of us. I’ve been tolerant about Venus’s lovers in the past because they were vital to her existence. But none of them ever treated me like a sucker.”

  “Beebo has always treated you respectfully, Leo,” Venus interrupted heatedly. “It isn’t you she’s rebelling against; it’s the way we’ve made her live.”

  “What other way is there? Did she think she’d be your escort at parties? Meet all your friends? I think I’ve had to put up with a hell of a lot more than Beebo has. All the worry of this queer situation has been on my shoulders. Christ, I never could understand why a woman would want anything to do with another woman that way, anyway. And if she did, why love a woman who does everything possible to make herself look like a boy? Why not love a real woman? Or a real man? If you want a lover in pants, Venus, I’m available. I have been for years, and I still love you, though God alone knows why.

  “If you want to love a female, don’t run after a mistake of Nature like Beebo Brinker.”

  “Leo, that’s brutal!” Venus cried. “Beebo can’t help how she was born. Good God, do you think any human being would deliberately choose to live with a problem like this? Leo, there are homosexuals in this world—I’m one myself—emotional strays of one kind or another, who at least have the comfort and privacy of an inconspicuous body to live in. The shelter of a normal sex on one side of the fence or the other.”

  “Are you trying to stir my pity for her?” Leo said.

  “I don’t want your lousy pity!” Beebo said.

  “I’m trying to make you see how it feels,” Venus said urgently. “Leo, what if you’d been raised as a boy and learned to be a man, and had to do it all inside a female body? What if you had all your masculine feelings incarcerated under a pair of breasts? What would you do with yourself? How could you live? Who would be your lover?”

  Leo nodded, answering slowly. “That’s what I’m saying: it’s not an easy life, nor a desirable one, no matter where Beebo lives it. And I know she didn’t pick it out. But whether you two like it or not, she is a freak. And I am sorry for her. Now, Venus—do you want me to sit by and watch that kid wreck the career I’ve spent twenty years of my life to build? Yours, my dear—all yours!”

  “I don’t want it!” Venus shouted stridently, wanting to hurt and frighten Leo.

  But Beebo was recalling Leo’s words: “If you ever mean more to her than her career, I’ll lose her. I won’t let that happen. I’ll fight you—I’m warning you, Beebo.” When she thought of leaving Venus, she meant to leave a path open behind her for an occasional meeting, a correspondence, a night together now and then when Venus was in New York. But Leo was about to sabotage even that small hope. She looked at him and caught her own thoughts in his eyes.

  “That shellacking I gave you was only the opening round, Beebo. Unless you’re ready and willing right now to walk out of here and never come back. Never c
all, never write, never speak to Venus or see her again. Never.”

  “Leo, I love this girl!” Venus said. “If you insist on kicking her out of my home, you can kick me out with her.” It was not what she had thought she would say when the time came. She felt a sort of amazed pride in her foolish bravery.

  Beebo, too, was overcome with gratitude, yet wondering at the same time what recriminations Venus would vent on her as the weeks and months went by, if they did leave together. Where would they go, with Venus as notorious as she was? The thought of running away with her—of being tied to her for life—alarmed Beebo in spite of herself.

  Leo walked to his wife and spoke straight in her face. “Fine,” he said. “Go with her, Venus. Never mind losing your money, your name…and your son. Not to mention me. The things that have sustained you all these years. Ditch them all.

  “What for? For your bargain, here: Beebo. She’ll love and protect you better than I can, no doubt. You’re thirty-eight years old and you won’t have that face of yours so damn much longer. If you quit now, it’ll go to hell in a hurry. By the time Beebo’s twenty-eight, you’ll be nudging fifty. Probably a grandmother with a face full of charming crow’s feet. Every night you and Beebo will sit by the TV and watch old Bogardus movies on the late late show.”

  Beebo and Venus stared at him.

  “You won’t have your face or your fortune or your home, or me to fight your battles, or Toby to love and respect you at last. You won’t have Toby at all, for that matter. Do this, Venus, and you’ve lost him forever. No state board in its right mind would give custody of a child to an infamous Lesbian who’d surround him with scandal and expose him to homosexual obscenities—even if the child himself wanted to be with her, which he damn well would not.

  “And what do you trade Toby for? A big, overgrown, penniless butch with no job and no prospects for one, who’ll dump you the minute that face and body begin to sag.”

  “You bastard!” Beebo shot at him, appalled.

  “Shut up, Beebo,” he said coolly. “Do you have a job?”