by Ann Bannon
“You were full of beans the last time you were here,” Venus said. “Don’t be a square now. Tell me all the nice things you know about me. I promise not to take any of them seriously.”
Beebo got her voice out finally by blasting on it like an auto horn. “I only know what everybody knows,” she blurted.
“The gossip columns?” Venus said. “You can’t be so naïve that you believe that crap, darling. I’ll bet Toby’s been talking to you. Telling you stories about his wicked mama.” From the look on Beebo’s face, she concluded he had.
Beebo didn’t want to insult her. “Why should he?” she said, wishing all the while that she could open a window somewhere for fresh air.
“Oh, he thinks I’m dreadful. And of course I am. But I’m kind of sorry he realizes it already.”
Beebo saw a real regret shadow her face, and all at once it seemed possible—almost—to feel sorry for her.
“If you don’t want him to know it, you’ll have to put blinkers on him,” Beebo said quietly. “I was fourteen a few years ago. You don’t miss seeing much at that age.”
“When he was born,” Venus said, “I was much too young and ambitious to give a damn about him. Now, when he matters, I find I’ve done everything wrong…everything I’ve bothered to do for him, that is. I haven’t bothered to do very much.”
“You don’t need to tell me these things, Miss Bogardus,” Beebo said, amazed to hear Venus speak such damaging truths about herself, to see the steel surface of her go-to-hell gaiety buckle and crack.
“He likes you,” Venus said, somewhat self-conscious now. She lighted a cigarette and shrugged. “He’s such a baby. I love him awfully, but he makes me so damn mad.”
“He’s a nice kid, Miss Bogardus,” Beebo said. “Maybe if you could see his side now and then….It’s so easy to ruin a kid that age.”
“I’m a nice kid, too, darling,” Venus flashed, and Beebo realized from her anger that she had spoken too bluntly. “And I’ll do whatever I damn please with Toby. That includes ruining him if I feel like it.” She sat down suddenly on a satin-topped stool, tired. “I—I ruined him anyway, and I never felt like it at all,” she said, as if too weary to repress the truth.
“I don’t want to bore you, Beebo. But I do want to know what he’s been saying about me. I know he’s been talking to you the last half hour.” She looked across the room at Beebo. “Please,” she said. Her voice was rough with fatigue.
Beebo shifted her weight and her legs felt almost boneless. “Well,” she said uneasily. “I don’t suppose it’s anything he hasn’t already said to you.” Venus looked directly at her, and Beebo wondered if it might not impress her more to hear these things from somebody other than Toby. “He loves you very much, Miss Bogardus,” she said. “But I don’t think he likes you.”
Venus merely nodded. “That’s no news,” she said. “He’s like all the other men I know.” She looked disgusted.
“He said you didn’t like men,” Beebo said.
“I beg your pardon!” Venus exclaimed. “I absolutely adore men. All but Leo, anyway.” She stood up and walked briskly back and forth for a moment, as if she intended to hear no more—at least not till her feathers settled.
“Tell me about yourself, Beebo,” she said, and again Beebo was miffed by the offhand order.
“I’d bore you to tears,” she said. “You don’t want to hear about my daddy’s cows and chickens down on the farm.”
“I think I do,” Venus said sincerely. “I never had a daddy. Or a chicken.” Beebo began to protest about leaving again and Venus waved at her impatiently. “All right, all right, but before you go, tell me the rest about Toby.”
Beebo didn’t know what to make of her. Hadn’t she heard it all from him herself? Venus glanced at her. “He’s been chattering about you since you brought that pizza over,” she explained. “He likes you. That means he’ll talk to you. He only shouts at me…. Sit down, Beebo.”
Beebo obeyed her out of growing curiosity. It seemed clear to her now that she had inadvertently become a line of communication between mother and son; that perhaps Toby did say things to Beebo he refused to mention to Venus—or at least, said them more candidly.
“There isn’t much to tell,” Beebo said, trying to squirm out of it. Venus looked very worried. “He just seems lonesome. I think it was a relief to him to spout off at me.” She smiled.
Venus sighed. “He’s a bewildering little devil,” she said, “but I guess he’s the only human being I’ve ever loved. Or ever will love. I loathed him when I was carrying him. I thought he’d ruin my waist. I scarcely looked at him till he was nine or ten. Mrs. Sack brought him up. He grumbles about her, but there are times when I’d give anything if he’d grumble about me the same way…times when I actually hate that woman!” Beebo watched her blow her nose on a tissue on the dressing table and realized with a twinge that she was crying.
“He calls her ‘the old bag,’” Beebo said kindly.
“And I’m ‘the old bitch,’” Venus said. Her voice was unsteady. “I should never have let him slip away from me. But he scared me, to tell the truth. Not just that he was a baby, and I resented him and didn’t know where to begin caring for him. But he…he had convulsions and things. Terrifying things that absolutely paralyzed me. And Mrs. Sack was so efficient and reassuring. Oh, hell, it’s no excuse. But it seemed like one then.”
“Convulsions?” Beebo repeated, surprised.
“Yes. He has epilepsy. The grand mal kind. Big stuff.” There was a shocked silence and Venus added sharply, “Well, it’s not a one-way pass to the bughouse.”
“No, no. I know,” Beebo replied. “I—I’m just so sorry.”
“Well, I’m sorry, too,” Venus said, and she had control of herself now. The tears had stopped. “Most of the time he’s perfectly normal—whatever that is for boys of fourteen. But every so often, when he’s especially tired or nervous, he gets these…seizures. He gets rigid as a post.” She faced Beebo. “Have you ever seen it?” she said.
Beebo shook her head. “But I’ve heard about such things. It’s like a muscle spasm, isn’t it?”
Venus’s eyes drifted away, seeing it in her mind. “He shoots up from a chair like a jack-in-the-box, and falls straight and stiff as a pole. His saliva foams. We have to be careful that he doesn’t swallow his tongue.” She took a breath. “It’s frightening to see your own child like that…. Well, then he goes to sleep, a stone-dead sleep, and when he wakes up he usually can’t even remember it. He just wants to be quiet for a while, by himself. Read books and stare out the window, sometimes for a couple of days.”
“What do you do for it?” Beebo said. “Is there anything?”
“There are treatments,” Venus said. “Shock therapy, chemotherapy. He hates it but it helps. He hates to talk to me about it. Mrs. Sack always rescued him while I ran screaming from the room. He thinks it makes him repulsive to me. I’ve tried and tried to explain—I’m just a coward!—but he’s so jittery about it now, I don’t dare bring it up.”
Beebo sat looking at her linked fingers, young enough to wonder why the fair and fortunate of this world are afflicted with sorrows as humbling and frustrating as those of the poor. Venus, whom men feared and worshipped, women feared and disliked, and children simply feared; Venus, herself afraid.
“Toby said some hard things about you, Miss Bogardus,” she said at last, “but he also said he loved you, and you don’t get that kind of mush out of fourteen-year-old boys unless they mean it.”
“I wish he’d say it to me!” Venus cried. “I love him so terribly, but all I do is drive him nuts. I can’t talk to him and he clams up with me.” She came and put a perfumed hand on Beebo’s shoulder. “He hasn’t made a new friend in years,” she said. Her hand was tight and warm and busy, twisting Beebo’s cotton shirt. “I haven’t made much sense, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m trying to be honest and I’m not used to it.” She gave a clumsy little laugh. “He seems so impressed w
ith you. That was half the reason I wanted you to come back. I thought if you could draw him out somehow…. Did he say anything else?”
Beebo was worried about that expensive and beautiful hand on her shoulder. About that “half the reason I wanted you back”—what was the other half? About Toby’s opinion of his mother’s beaux?
Venus guessed the last part. “My admirers?” she said. “I know he can’t stand them. Neither can I.”
“He thinks you’re too fond of…” Beebo stopped and cleared her throat.
“Don’t get scared off all of a sudden,” Venus pleaded. “I couldn’t take it. I’m too fond of what?”
“Money. And yourself.”
“He’s wrong,” Venus said, frowning. “I know it looks that way. And I do like money. But myself I hate. I hate, hate, hate!” Her voice broke and her hand held tight to Beebo’s shoulder, steadying her. “Money and my career. That’s all I have in the world. That’s why I hang on so hard to them both.”
“You have Toby,” Beebo ventured, wishing she dared to look up at Venus’s face, knowing it was kinder not to.
“Toby isn’t mine,” Venus whispered bitterly. “He just lives here. He won’t let himself be loved. I gave birth to him, but Mrs. Sack is his mother.” She was weeping again.
Beebo reached up and touched her hand, her eyes still down. The whole mess was so sad and ugly; sadder still for having been preventable. Beebo was moved and hurt by Venus’s words because she was moved by Toby: his loneliness, his hopeful trust in her, and now the revelation of his illness.
“You’ve reached him, Beebo,” Venus said. “He wants to be friends with you. You could help me.” She came around the divan and sat down next to Beebo. The swift drum-bump of her heart was visible under the gauzy blue silk and it made Beebo want to touch her there; hold her and say something wise and therapeutic. But she hadn’t the wisdom to manage her own life yet, let alone someone else’s.
“I don’t know much about love, Miss Bogardus,” she said shyly. “I just know if you love somebody, he can’t stop you. All you have to do is keep loving him till he believes in it, I guess.”
“That’s not enough, or he’d be happy,” Venus said.
“Maybe if you did things with him,” Beebo said. “My dad used to spend a lot of time with me. We walked, we talked things over, we played chess.”
“I don’t know the black from the white,” Venus said miserably.
“Toby’s pretty big on guns right now.”
“I don’t even know which end the bullet’s supposed to come out,” Venus said. But after a pause full of self-examination she added, “But I guess I could learn…guns. God.”
“It might make all the difference,” Beebo said.
“Will you come back and see him?” Venus said. “That would help.”
“Sure,” Beebo said, but she looked away. Venus had touched her arm again. “He could drive around with me while I make the deliveries tomorrow. Would he like that?”
“He’d probably die of joy. Anything with a motor in it sends him into rhapsodies.”
Beebo stood up, her own heart beating so fast now that she felt near suffocating. “It’s getting late,” she said. Venus followed her to the door.
“He might resent it if I start sticking my nose into his guns all of a sudden,” she mused.
“Not if you’re really interested,” Beebo said. “He won’t hold it against you, Venus…beautiful Venus.” It was an unpremeditated explosion of admiration. Beebo clamped her mouth shut suddenly, mortified.
But Venus was restored by the slip to good humor. She laughed, and this time it was a pretty sound, a charming answer to a compliment.
“Maybe Toby will turn out all right,” Venus said. “You’re bound to be a good influence.”
Beebo smiled in embarrassment. “He’ll probably disgrace you by turning into a model citizen,” she said.
“I hope he does.” Venus walked the rest of the short distance between them and put her hands on Beebo’s shoulders. She looked very solemn and a bit surprised at herself. “Thanks,” she said.
“For nothing.” Beebo shook her head. She had a wild impulse to pull Venus’s hands off and run.
“Beebo,” Venus said thoughtfully. “Do you want to kiss me?”
In the electrified pause that followed, Beebo heard Toby’s voice echoing in her ears: “Not that way. She’s not sick.” It pounded through her like a pulse and she knew the answer was obvious to Venus. She reached down and touched Venus’s waist. “Yes,” she murmured. Venus seemed reassured, almost pleased. She was on home ground again. She lifted her face and gave Beebo her lovely mouth.
It was an astonishing kiss, long and warm. And after it they stood with their arms around each other a while, faces averted. Beebo didn’t realize how hard her embrace was until Venus began to giggle. “Darling, you’re crushing me,” she said. Beebo released her and backed off hastily, mumbling apologies.
“Here,” Venus said, handing her a hanky. “Take the lipstick off, or Toby will think I’ve perverted you and come after me with one of those damn guns.” She watched Beebo dab at her chin ineffectually, and then did it for her. Beebo stood still and let her work, watching her face intently. It was classically beautiful still, though lacking the pearly perfection of a twenty-year-old’s. But the bone structure beneath was superb. Beebo admired her ardently. “Think of all the poor girls who have to go homely in the world to make one Venus Bogardus,” she said.
Venus smiled. “I don’t think it works that way, darling,” she said. “Besides, a face is a temporary thing. After a while you find it doesn’t work the same old spell any more.” She spoke soberly. “Then you have to depend on what’s behind it…if anything. Know who told me that?”
Beebo shook her head.
“Leo. My louse of a spouse,” Venus said, blinking. “He told me that when I was seventeen, and I didn’t believe him. I do now.” She stepped back and transformed the mood with a smile. “There, you look completely innocent.”
“Thank you,” Beebo said.
“What for? The mop-up? Or the kiss?”
Beebo swallowed. “Both,” she said.
“Do you have to go, Beebo? Really?” Venus swirled away a few steps, making Beebo want to dash after her. But she stood resolutely with her hand on the door, still too unnerved to know how to behave. “Another heavy date?” Venus asked.
“You might say,” Beebo said.
“Tell me the truth,” Venus said, looking at Beebo over her shoulder. “Was it an ‘old friend’ last time? Or was it a girl?”
Beebo looked up at her slowly, her hand so hot and damp it slipped on the knob. “A girl,” she said finally.
Venus took this shattering intelligence with serenity. “I thought so,” she said. “I warn you, darling, I’m going to order spaghetti all week. You’d better teach her to play solitaire.”
Beebo bridled at the teasing certainty of Venus’s attitude. “Then Pasquini will have to make the deliveries,” she said flatly.
“All I can do is invite you,” Venus said. “I can’t make you come.”
The double meaning was not lost on Beebo. “I don’t think it would be the best approach to Toby if you and I got involved,” she said edgily. She was seeing more than Toby, however; she was seeing Paula. Gentle, sympathetic, pretty Paula, so in love with her. Paula for whom she felt such affection and desire. Paula, who told her to run from Milady Bogardus. She wanted to be safe in Paula’s arms, not here in this silk-lined trap where so many lovers were so neatly netted.
Beebo was deeply suspicious of Venus, anyway. What could such a woman want but transient amusement? Was she gay at all, or just bored and curious?
“Toby is the only human being I’ll ever love.” Venus said it. It would be madness for Beebo to fall in love with her, knowing that. But she had already learned from Paula that falling in love is not a deliberate act at all. Sometimes the only way to fight it is to do as Paula said: run.
“I wish
you’d stay a while,” Venus said.
Beebo gazed steadily at her, and then she opened the door and strode out.
The boys looked up from the living-room TV, Toby catching Beebo with worried eyes and wondering what humiliations Venus had invented for her. But the sight of his beautiful mother swishing after Beebo with her face screwed into a scowl consoled him and his heart rose. He wanted Beebo to teach him nonchalance; teach him to laugh and take Venus less seriously, before Venus scared her off.
“Are you going already?” Toby said.
“How would you like to drive the route with me tomorrow, Toby?” Beebo asked with a smile.
Toby threw his mother an uncertain glance, but she said, “Go on, darling. Learn something about the mysterious pasta business.”
Toby grinned at her. He hadn’t smiled at her in so long that Venus merely gazed at him with her mouth open, unable to answer until he had turned back to Beebo.
“I’ll pick you up after lunch,” Beebo said. “Come on, Pat.”
“Just a moment,” Venus said. She caught Pat and put her arms around him, boarding him like an empress her barge, and kissed him soundly on the mouth. “There, darling,” she said alluringly. “Don’t wash your mouth for days. Everybody will die of envy.”
Pat touched his lips and said a startled, “Thank you.”
“Mother, that’s repulsive,” Tony muttered.
“Just wait a year, dear, and it will all come crystal clear,” Venus told him.
Beebo took Pat by the arm and propelled him into the kitchen. She was dismayed at the effort of will it took to leave Venus behind.
“What a spectacular female,” Pat said, scrambling through the door with her. “If I weren’t already in love with you, I’d fall for her.”
“And Jack would be best man,” Beebo quipped.
“You know, something tells me I could fall for a girl,” he said, hoping Beebo would pay attention.
But she only said, “Well, fall outside, will you?” She was afraid if she didn’t get out fast, inertia would set in. The back door latch eluded her skittery fingers.
