Women In The Shadow. Ann Bannon
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herself with the eggs and Laura poured orange juice and opened the paper. She buried herself in it, moving just a little to let Beebo put her plate down in front of her.
Beebo sat down opposite her and ate in silence for a minute, eating very little. She lighted a cigarette after a few minutes and sipped cautiously at her hot coffee.
“Laura?” she said.
“Hm?”
“Even in the morning, with your hair up and your nose in the paper and your eyes looking everywhere but at me … I love you, Laura.” She said it slowly, composing it as she went and smiling a little at the effect. The liquor had loosened her up.
“What?” said Laura, her eyes following a story and her ears deaf.
“I have a surprise for you, Bo-peep,” Beebo tried again.
“Oh. Says here it’s going up to ninety today … A surprise?” She lowered the paper a bit to look at Beebo.
“Um-hm. I didn’t get you an anniversary present. I thought we might get you a new dress tonight. Stores are open.”
Laura was embarrassed. It still upset her to have to accept gifts from Beebo. She felt as if each one was a bid for her love, a sort of investment Beebo was making in Laura’s good will. It made her resent the gifts and resist them. And still Beebo came home with things she couldn’t afford and forced them on Laura and made her almost frantic between the need to be grateful, the pity she felt, and the exasperation that was the result of it all.
“I don’t need a dress, honey,” Laura said.
“I want you to have one.”
“God, Beebo, if I bought all the clothes you want me to have we wouldn’t have money to eat on. We’d be broke. We’d be in hock for everything we own.”
“Please, baby. All I want to do is buy you an anniversary present.”
“Beebo, I—” What could she say? I don’t want the damn dress?
“I know,” Beebo said abruptly. “I embarrass you. You don’t like to be seen in the nice stores with me. I look so damn queer. Don’t argue, Bo-peep, I know it,” she said, waving Laura’s protests to silence. “I’ll wear a skirt tonight. Okay? I look pretty good in a skirt.”
It was true that Laura was ashamed to go anywhere out of Greenwich Village with her … Beebo, nearly six feet of her, with her hair cropped short and her strange clothes and her gruff voice. And when she flirted with the clerks!
Laura had been afraid more than once that they would call the police and drag Beebo off to jail. But it had never happened. Still, there was always a first time. And if she had a couple of drinks before they went, Laura wasn’t at all sure she could handle her.
“Why don’t you let me find something for myself?” Laura asked, pleading. “I know you hate to put a skirt on. You don’t have to come. I’ll pick out something pretty.” But she knew, and so did Beebo, that unless Beebo went along Laura would buy nothing. She would come home and say, “They just didn’t have a thing.” And Beebo would have to face the fact that Laura resented her little tributes.
So she said, “No, I don’t trust your taste. Besides, I like to see you try on all the different things.”
So it was that Laura met her at Lord and Taylor’s on Fifth Avenue after work. It had to be a really good store, and Beebo had to pay more than they could afford, or she wasn’t satisfied. Laura anticipated it with dread, but at least it was better than another awful quarrel. If Beebo would just be quiet. If she would just keep her eyes—and her hands—off the cute little clerks in the dress departments. Laura always tried to find a stolid middle-aged clerk, but the shops seemed to abound in sleek young ones.
Still, Beebo, subdued perhaps by her plain black dress and by Laura’s nervous concern, kept quiet. Laura noticed a little whiskey on her breath when they met outside the store, but nothing in her behavior betrayed it.
“Do I stink?” she had asked, and when Laura wrinkled her nose Beebo took a mint out and sucked on it. “I won’t disgrace you,” she said. She was making a real effort.
They zigzagged around the Avenue, finding nothing that both looked right and could be had for less than a fortune. At Peck and Peck, near nine o’clock, Laura said, “Beebo, I’ve had it. This is positively the last place. I don’t want you to dress me like a damn princess. I’d much rather have one of those big enamelware pots—”
“Oh, goddamn the pots! Don’t talk to me of pots!” Beebo exclaimed and Laura answered, “All right, all right, all right!” in a quick irritated whisper.
She went up to the first girl she saw, determined to waste as little time as possible. “Excuse me,” she said. “Could you show me something in a twelve?”
The girl turned around and looked at her out of jade green eyes. Laura stared at her. She was black-haired and her skin was the color of three parts cream and one part coffee. In such a setting her green eyes were amazing. There was a tiny red dot between them on her brow, Indian fashion, but she was dressed in Occidental clothes. She gazed at Laura with exquisite contempt.
“Something in a twelve?” she repeated, and her voice had a careful, educated sort of pronunciation. Laura was enchanted with her, pleased just to look at her marvelous smooth face. Her skin was incredibly pure and her color luminous.
“Yes, please,” Laura said.
With a light monosyllable, unintelligible to Laura, the girl shrugged at a row of dresses. “Help yourself,” she said in clipped English. “I cannot help you.”
Laura was surprised at her effrontery. “Well, I—I would like a little help, if you don’t mind,” she said pointedly.
“Not from me. Go look at the dresses. If you see one you like, buy it.”
Laura stared at her, her dander up. “You just don’t care if I buy a dress or not, do you?” she prodded. The girl, who had begun to turn away, looked back at her in annoyance.
“Can you think of one good reason why I should?” she asked.
“You’re a clerk and I’m a customer,” Laura shot back.
“Thank you for the compliment,” she said icily. “But I am no clerk. And if I were, I wouldn’t wait on you.”
It was so royal, so precise, that Laura blushed crimson. “Oh,” she said in confusion. “Please forgive me. I—I just saw you standing there and I—”
“And you took it for granted that I must be a clerk? How flattering.” She stared at Laura for a minute and then she smiled slightly and turned away.
Laura was too interested in her just to let her fade away like that. She started after her with no idea of what to say, feeling idiotic and yet fascinated with the girl. She touched her sleeve and that lovely beige face swiveled toward her, this time plainly irritated. But before either of them could speak Beebo came toward them. She had a couple of dresses over one arm and she sauntered up with typical long strides, a cigarette drooping from one corner of her mouth. Laura saw her coming with a sinking feeling.
“I found these, Laura. Try them on,” she said, looking at the Indian girl. There was a small awkward silence. “Well?” Beebo said suddenly, smiling at the strange girl. “Friend of yours, Bo-peep?”
Laura could have slapped her. She hated that pet name. It was bad enough in private, but in public it was intolerable.
“No, I—I mistook her for a clerk,” Laura said. Her cheeks were still glowing and the girl looked from her to Beebo and back as if they were both dangerous. Laura’s hand fell from her arm and she stepped backwards, still watching them, as if she half-feared they would follow her.
“Don’t mind her,” Beebo told her, thumbing at Laura. “She thinks her best friends are clerks. She’s just being friendly.” Laura heard the