Part 14 (2/2)

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.”

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