Part 15 (1/2)

Long enough, Laura thought.

”I'll bet I know her. She ever come in here? Come on, tell me,” Inga said.

”I can't”

”You're silly, then. I'll clue you in on something, Laura. If you can't get her off your mind it's because you can't get her out of your heart. That sounds corny but it's true. I found out the hard way. Believe me.”

Laura shook her head. ”I never loved her,” she said positively.

”You're fooling yourself, sweetie.”

Laura looked at her, bemused. ”I'm in love with somebody else,” she said, thinking of Tris.

”Me?” Inga grinned.

”No. No, an Indian girl.”

”Indian? What's her name?”

”Tris.”

”Tris! Gee, I do know her. She comes in here a lot.”

Laura stared at her, too shocked to answer for a minute. Finally she said hoa.r.s.ely, ”Tris would never come in here. She hates gay bars. I know that for a fact.”

”Well...” Inga looked as if she knew she had put her foot in her mouth and regretted it. ”Maybe it's a different Tris.”

”What's her last name?”

”Robischon, or something. Something Frenchy. I think she made it up myself. But she's a gorgeous girl. I was really smitten when I saw her.”

Laura blanched a little and ordered another drink and drank it down fast, and Inga laid a hand on her arm. ”Gee, I'm sorry, Laura,” she said. ”Me and my big mouth. I should learn to shut up. But I'm in here all the time. I come in after work and I see just about everybody”

”I know, I know. It's okay, Inga.” She ordered another drink. ”I'd rather know than not,” she said. ”Besides, I haven't seen the girl for eight months. It'd be pretty strange if n.o.body found out about her in eight months. She's beautiful.”

”That she is. Somebody's found out, all right. A lot of people, I hear.”

”Does she come in here alone?” The whole thing seemed incredible to Laura. Tris! So aloof, so chilly, so much better than the rest of the gay crowd. Tris, who wouldn't go near Fire Island for a summer vacation because it was ”crawling with queers.” It just couldn't be. But Inga certainly wasn't describing anybody else.

”She comes with somebody else,” Inga said reluctantly. ”Look, sweetie, why don't you come over to my place and have a nightcap. We can't talk in here.”

”I'd like to know, Inga. Tell me. Who does she come in with?” Laura turned and looked at her, swiveling slowly on her stool, a little tipsy and feeling suddenly as if the situation were something of a joke.

”Oh ... a big gal. Been around the Village for years. You might know her. Beebo Blinker's her name.”

Laura sat there frozen for nearly a minute. It was a jokecolossal, cruel, hilarious. She laughed uncertainly and ordered another drink.

”I knew you were going to say that,” she told Inga. ”Isn't that the d.a.m.nedest thing? Isn't that the G.o.dd.a.m.nedest thing?” And she began to laugh again, repeating, when she could get her breath, ”I knew you were going to say that.” Inga had to slap her face to stop the shrieking, irrepressible giggles that were strangling her. Then Laura's laughter changed, in the s.p.a.ce of a breath, to tears.

Inga talked to her quietly with that odd intimacy that springs up between h.o.m.os.e.xuals in trouble, and it helped. After five or six minutes Laura wiped her eyes and drank her drink and let Inga help her out of the Cellar. A few curious eyes followed them and Laura prayed again that n.o.body she knew had seen her.

The cold air braced her a little, and she stood on the corner weaving slightly and trying to get her bearings.

”Come on,” Inga said. ”Let's get some hot coffee into you. I live just a couple of blocks from here. Come on.”

Laura let herself be led by the diminutive curly-head, but when she saw they were headed for Cordelia Street she began to get scared. ”Beebo lives near here,” she said, hanging back. ”I meanshe used to.”

”She still does,” Inga said. ”I see her now and then. I live right over there.” She pointed.

Laura brushed the girl's hand from her sleeve and turned to her. ”Thanks, Inga,” she said. ”Thanks anyway, but I think I'll...” And her eyes wandered back into Cordelia Street.

Inga followed her gaze, catching the idea. ”I wouldn't if I were you,” she said. ”You'll be real sorry the minute you get there.” When Laura didn't answer she asked, ”Tell me, which one of them is it?”

”Which one?”

”That you just can't get off your mind?”

Laura looked back up the street where she used to live and said softly, ”Beebo. It's crazy, isn't it? Beebo. And it's Tris I'm in love with.”

”Yeah,” said Inga with kindly skepticism. ”Sure ... Have some coffee with me?”

Laura leaned over on a whim and kissed her cheek. ”That's for being a woman,” she said. ”You don't know what a help it's been.”

Inga stood on the corner and watched Laura walk away from her. ”Any time you want that coffee, Laura,” she called. ”I'm in the phone book.”

Laura stood in front of the door into her old apartment building for a long while on trembling legs before she turned the k.n.o.b and walked in.

What if they're together? she wondered. They'll just grab me and wring my neck. G.o.d, all those questions Tris used to ask me about Beebo. And it never entered my lovesick head!

She crossed the little inner court to the second door, opened it, and went to the row of mailboxes to press the buzzer. She found Beebo's name, with her own crossed out beneath it but no other added. And a weird, wonderful panic grabbed her throat at the thought of Beebo.

She left the buzzer without pressing it and walked up the flight of stairs to stand in front of the door that had once been her own, with Beebo still swimming before her eyes.

She could picture her more and more clearly: wearing pants and going barefoot, tired at the end of the day and maybe a little high; a cigarette in her mouth and a towel tied around her middle while she did dishes or cleaned up the apartment; the smooth skin on her face and the handsome features that used to fire Laura's imagination and make her tingle; the tired eyes, blue and brilliant and somehow a little sick of it all ... except when they focused on Laura.

Laura remembered how it had been and a sudden flash of physical longing caught her heart and squeezed until she felt her breath come short. She stared at the door, afraid to knock and still hypnotized with curiosity. Her hand was raised, quivering, only inches from the green painted wood.

Tris will open it, she thought, and together they'll strangle me. Oddly, she didn't care. She was too tight to care. She had a vision of herself falling into their arms and succ.u.mbing without a struggle. Just letting them have her life, her mixed up, aimless, leftover life.

She knockeda quick scared rap, sharp and clear. And then stood there on one foot and the other, half panicky like a gradeschooler nearly ready to wet her pants and flee.

Footsteps. High heels. From the kitchen, Beebo's voice. ”Who the h.e.l.l could that be? After ten, isn't it?” Oh, that voice! That husky voice that used to whisper such things to me that. I can never forget.

The door swung open all at once, ushering a flood of light into the hall. Laura looked up slowly ... at Lili! The two of them stared at each other in mutual amazement for a moment. And while they stared, mute, Beebo called again, ”Who is it, Lili?”

Lili, her candybox pretty face overlaid with too much makeup, as usual, broke into a big smile. ”It's Laura!” she exclaimed. ”I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned. Laura!”

For a tense moment Laura could feel Beebo's shock across the rooms and through the walls like a physical touch. Then her courage meltedfizzled into nothing but water on a hot skillet, and she turned and ran.