"I didn't have any money. And I had to see you."

"Why?"

Laura put her head down on the bed on her clasped hands and began to cry. "I love you," she wept. And it was the first time since they had met that Beebo had heard her say it that way.

She got up on one elbow and leaned toward Laura. Her face was impa.s.sive, but shrewd. "Not Tris?" she said.

"Not Tris."

"Anybody else?"

"n.o.body else." Laura lifted her tearful face. "Oh, Beebo, I've done you so wrong, darling. I didn't know how bad it was. Lili told me"

"I know she did, the miserable b.i.t.c.h. G.o.d d.a.m.n her soul. The only secret she can keep is her age."

"Beebo, I'll do anything for youanythingif you'll have me back. Oh, darling, it took me months to figure out what was wrong with me. I've been so confused. And lately I've been thinking of you all the time. I don't think I ever stopped loving you, Beebo. I thought when you saw me here you'd beat the h.e.l.l out of me. If you want to ... do it ... if it'll help." She looked at her out of large frightened eyes, half expecting Beebo to jump her.

But Beebo sat up then, grasping her ankles with her hands. "No, Laura, it's too late for that. What good would that do?" She made a face, frowning. "There was a time when I would have. If you had come back last fall instead of now. I would have loved you enough then to hate you. But I've changed, Laura ... It doesn't seem to matter so much any more."

There was a shocked silence from Laura. "You mean," she ventured finally, "you don't love me any more? Oh, Beebo! Oh, Beebo! No!" She covered her mouth with both hands, pressed so tight they turned white.

Beebo looked at her curiously. "I love you, Laura," she said, but it was impersonal, detached, as if it were just another fact in her life like her job or her black hair. "I'll always love you. But I'll never love you again the way I did before you ran out on me last summer. That was too much. When it happened it was a question of either dying of it ... or living with something else, changing myself. Becoming a different person. That's what happened."

Laura, in her desperation, found the courage to touch Beebo then. She reached out for her, and Beebo unexpectedly turned to help her. She dragged Laura up on the bed with her two strong arms, and Laura gave a long groan of need and fear and grat.i.tude, all mixed up together. Beebo held her in both arms, her back pressed against the wall, watching Laura struggle to control her tears and trembling. She was kind, she was patient. And it scared Laura, who suddenly discovered that she missed the old stormy fury and pa.s.sion. Beebo seemed odd to her, and it was true that she had changed.

"Laura," she said. "I've been doing some thinking. I want to tell you something. Maybe you won't want to come back to me so much any more."

"Let me tell you something first," Laura begged. "If I don't tell you, Beebo, I haven't any right to touch you. I haven't any right to be here. Maybe I don't anyway. Darling, II'm married." Beebo gasped a little, and Laura said quickly, "To Jack."

Beebo simply gaped at her for a second and then she burst out laughing. "Good G.o.d! That's what happened!" she exclaimed. "You and Jack. Oh, G.o.d!"

"It wasn't exactlyridiculous," Laura whispered, hurt. "We loved each other." But Beebo went on laughing.

"I'm sorry, baby, but it sounds so d.a.m.ngoofy," she said.

And when she called her baby, Laura felt a small glow of warmth and hope. Maybe it wasn't hopeless; maybe things could work out. She clung to Beebo and found herself half laughing with her, and half weeping to hear Jack's name.

"Where is he now? Does he know you're here?" Beebo asked her.

"He knows," Laura said, for there could be no doubt that he did.

"Did he send you? Married life got him down?"

"No, I ran away. II hurt him. It meant so much to him to have a wife and all.... "She couldn't say any more about it; it broke her up to think of it.

Beebo sobered a little. "You have a talent for that, Laurahurting people. Sometimes I think that's your only real ability."

"I know," Laura murmured, shame-faced. "And the trouble is, I never want to. I never mean to. I'd give anything to undo it, once it's done. But I begin to feel like I'm smothering. Like I'd die of it if I can't get away."

"Is that the way I made you feel?" Beebo said. Laura hung her head. "Yes," she whispered. "I won't lie about it."

"You can't very well. I read the d.a.m.n diaryevery word of it."

Laura flushed at the thought of the thing. "Beebo, II didn't understand before how you felt. Or how I felt myself. But I know now I love you." She said it quivering with hope. But Beebo only answered, "Do you, Laura? How do you know?" There was a little smile on Beebo's face. She asked the question gently as if she were talking to a bewildered child, brushing Laura's hair from her forehead.

"Because I want so terribly to be with you," Laura said, shaking her head to emphasize her words. "I can't bear it like this, being apart from you."

"I've changed so much," Beebo said, wondering at it, "and you haven't changed at all. Have you? I think you're just tired of being a wife, honey."

"No. I love Jack. But it's different. I don't need him like I need you."

"How about Jack? Doesn't he need you?"

Laura covered her face again with her hands to stifle the sudden sobs. "A lot, I'm afraid. I'd be better off dead, Beebo, I swear I would. I've caused so much heart ache. And most of all to myself. I'm no good to anybody. I wish to G.o.d you'd get that big knife and do to me what you did to Nix. I wish you'd beat me the way you beat yourself"

"Laura! G.o.d, spare me!" And for a second the latent fire in her flared and gave Laura a curious thrill.

"I thought you would," Laura cried. "I was prepared for anything, even that, when I came here. I still can't believe youI mean, you seem so funny. I thought you'd hurt me, and you're so calm, so quiet"

Beebo shook her head, looking at Laura with her disillusioned eyes. "I won't hurt you, baby," she said.

"You said once you'd kill me," Laura said wildly, as if she were asking for it, as if it would be proof of Beebo's huge need for her.

"I know. I meant it then, too. I was nearly crazy. But things have changed, Laura. I don't throw my threats around so easily any more. There was a time when I could have done it, but no more. No more. Stop crying, baby. Stop, honey." She began to stroke Laura's long hair.

Laura looked up at her through pink eyes, her chest heaving in Beebo's warm embrace, and they gazed at each other for some time before Beebo told her, kindly, trying to ease it for her, "I said I loved you, Laura. But it's not the same for me, now. I don't love you the way I used to. I couldn't and go on living."

"You were my whole life for two years. I thought I couldn't exist without you. I thought it would be better to kill you and but with you than go on without you. So what did I do?" She smiled in contempt for herself. And pity. A bitter smile. "I chickened out. I slaughtered a poor innocent pup instead. In the fury I should have saved for you. And what did it prove? Nothing. How did it help? It didn't. It was a wasted gesture, Laura. A stupid, senseless thing."

"But you see, I was out of my mind in love with you at the time. Now all the madness has gone out of me, Laura. There's not much fire left." And she bent suddenly to touch Laura's brow with her lips. Laura felt the sweet touch flow through her to her toes and she nestled close against Beebo, weeping at her words. "It's not wild and wonderful and tormenting any more."

"How did it happen?" Laura begged her, cruelly disappointed. "Maybe it'll change." She felt almost betrayed, as if she were in the arms of a stranger.

"No. I wouldn't want it to change, now. It happened because if it hadn't I would have died, Laura. I was so sick, so lost without you, that I would have gone to pieces. I'd have used the d.a.m.n cleaver on myself."

"Oh!" Laura breathed, horrified.

"I changed to save my life ... and my sanity. It took all my strength, but I did it. And strangely enough, it was a relief. I felt as if I'd laid down a killing burden." She looked down at Laura, pulling her so tight that they could feel one another's hearts beating, and Laura, her eyes shut, was saying to herself, "No, no, no..."

"I love you still, baby," Beebo told her. "I know I should be proud and angry with you. I should kick you out or beat you up or both. But if I did it wouldn't mean anything. It would only hurt, like I hurt Nix, for no purpose. I know Lili and the rest of them will b.i.t.c.h at me for taking you back"

"Oh, will you, Beebo? Darling, darling, will you?"

"If you want it that way.... "She stopped, looking into Laura's tearbright eyes.

"I want it that way," Laura gasped.

But at the same time she had to realize that this was not her Beebo any more; that things had changed irreparably and forever between them; that the love they had left now was only good and tender, not the exalted, shivering pa.s.sions of the past. It had to be so, because Beebo could never have forgiven her, let alone taken her back, otherwise. And it's my faultall my fault. It's the price I have to pay to get her back, Laura told herself.

"If you had been like this last summer ... so calm, so casual," she whispered humbly, "I would have stayed."

"And now that I've calmed down, you want me wild again, don't you?" Beebo laughed a little, a sad, wise laugh. "Crazy, isn't it? Ironic and crazy. And there's not a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing we can do about it, Bo-peep. Either of us ... baby.... "She lifted Laura's face and kissed it.

"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 pa.s.sionately. "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 pa.s.sion and rea.s.surance 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 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 b.u.m deal, but I was too selfish to see the good side. Even with Jack ... Oh my G.o.d, Jack. My poor darling. With him most of all.

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

"II 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"

"Butbut 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 well always need each other a little. Maybe well 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 comeback."

"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 any more. "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 any more. 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 h.e.l.lo."

"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 11.

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 marvelled 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 bra.s.s 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 b.u.t.ton 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 Jackis 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 softy, 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, half-heartedly 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, Laurathat'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 wornout love she had left. And she thought of Jack. There had been none of his usual piercing sarcasm in the note. Nothing but genuineness, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Miss 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.