Jack teased her about it when they met briefly in the kitchenhe 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, h.e.l.l," 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 highb.a.l.l.s 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 G.o.ddam 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 tohave 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, orand this would be much betterwe 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 ... G.o.d! 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 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 pa.s.sion 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 mewith 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. "G.o.d, how awful. All those aches and pains and months of looking like h.e.l.l, 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 hi, 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 gla.s.ses. "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 embarra.s.sed. 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. "h.e.l.lo?" she said.

"Laura? How are you?"

"Fine, thanks. Who's this?"

Terry."

"Terry who?" She gasped suddenly.

"Terry! Terry Fleming." He chuckled. "Guess how I found you?"

She hung up. She just slammed the phone down in place and stood mere 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 any thing 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'llI 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 pa.s.sion?

"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.

Jack got home at five, but she told him nothing. She was gentle and solicitous with him in a way he had missed for a couple of months. She read to him and she chatted with him, and underneath it all was a tremulous fear of disaster that made her feel a great tenderness for him. He seemed vulnerable to her. If she betrayed him she would embitter him more than she was able to imagine. The thought was terrifying.

"Mother, you need a change," he said when they had finished dinner.

"I do?"

"Leave the dishes and scram."

She felt a little spark of fear. "Are you lacking me out?" she asked.

"I sure as h.e.l.l am, you doll," he said. "Get thee hence."

"Where?" His laughter relieved her.

"The Village. Where else?" And when she stared at him, wordless, he added, "You need it, honey. You're nervous as a cat. Go on, have a ball"

"You're kidding!"

"I'll give you three minutes to get out of here," he said with a glance at his watch, Laura hesitated for a few seconds until he looked at her over the top of the paper again and then she ran, heels ringing staccato on the polished wood floor of the hall, and got her coat and purse. On the way out she stooped to kiss his cheek.

"Jack, I adore you," she whispered, to which he only smiled. At the door she turned and said, "I'll be home early."

"No curfew," he said solemnly.

Laura went first to the Cellar, a favorite hangout in Greenwich Village. The tourists had begun to stop there by this time, but the gay crowd outnumbered them still and it wasn't primarily a trap. The prices were reasonable and the decor smoky.

Laura settled at the bar with a sigh of sheer pleasure. All she wanted to do was sit there quietly and look at them ... those lovely girls, dozens of them, with ripe lips and rounded hips in tight pants or smooth skirts. And the big ones, the butches, who acted like men and expected to be treated as such. They were the ones who excited Laura the most, when it came right down to it. Women, women ... she loved them all, especially the big girls with the firm strides and the cigarettes in their mouths.... She realised with chagrin that she was thinking of Beebo.

G.o.d, what if she's here? she thought with a wonderful scare running up her spine. She looked around, but Beebo was nowhere in sight.

I wonder if she has a job, poor darling. I wonder if Lili's still supporting her. I wonder if she's still drinking so much ... if she thinks of me at all ... Oh, what's the matter, with me? What do I care? She nearly drove me crazy!

She thought of Tris suddenly, of that marvelous fragrant tan skin. In fact she indulged in an orgy of suggestive thoughts that would have driven her crazy cooped up at home. But here, surrounded with people who felt and thought much as she did, it was all right. It was safe somehow. She could even spend the evening flirting with somebody, if anybody caught her eye, and it would come to no harm. Just a night's outing. Nothing more.

Tris ... Tris ... she would never show up in a place like this. She'd shun it like the plague. All the same it would be nice. So nice.

But the harder Laura concentrated on Tris the more insistently Beebo obsessed her. Laura shrugged her off and ordered another drink. She laughed a little to herself and said, But I don't love her at all any more. And she turned to talk to the girl beside her.

The girl was very charming: small and curly-headed and pretty, and she laughed a lot. And soon Laura was laughing with her and learned that Inga was her name. But that face, that d.a.m.ned face of Beebo's, strong and handsome and hard with too much living, kept looking at her through the haze of Inga's cigarette.

"Did you ever have somebody plague your thoughts, Inga?" she asked her abruptly. "Somebody you'd nearly forgotten and weren't in love with any more, and never really were in love with?"

"What's her name?" Inga asked sympathetically.

"Oh, n.o.body you'd know." She was fairly sure Inga would know, if she frequented the Cellar. If she'd hung around the Village long enough she'd know most of the characters by sight, if not personally. Beebo was one of the characters. And she had been around here for fourteen years. "How long have you lived down here?" Laura asked the girl.

"Two years next month."