Merrill Landon. Merrill Landon. My father. My father is coming to New York. He never misses these damn things, he goes every year. Oh, God, help me. Laura rode down to work on the subway, her fists clenched in her lap, her face set like a mask to cover the torment inside.
He doesn’t know I’m here, that’s one good thing. He’ll never find me, either. How long will he be here? It must be in the papers. I missed it at breakfast.
She picked up the Times on the corner where she left the subway. She took it up to the office with her, impatient to look at it. Sarah was already there.
“Hi, gorgeous,” she said.
Laura looked up, startled. “Hi,” she said. “Who’s gorgeous?”
“You are. You must be, you’ve got a man.”
Laura stared at her blankly, her mind full of the threat of her father’s presence in the city. Finally it came to her. “Oh, you mean Jack,” she said.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Oh, yes. Yes.” Now what the hell does she mean? Why would I—Oh! I promised her a date. Laura felt suddenly sunk. All those reports to do that should have been done before. Lies to tell, at nine in the morning. Merrill Landon somewhere in New York. It was too much. The day stretched away in front of her like an endless obstacle course.
“What’d he say?” Sarah said eagerly.
“He’s working on it. Maybe this weekend.”
“Gee, that sounds great.”
Laura had to look at the paper; she had to. It gnawed at her, as she sat at her desk, sneaking through it between reports and unable to find anything. Her father’s name ran through her mind like a robot tune from a TV commercial.
It was a rushed day. Sarah didn’t take a break on days when they were behind, but nothing could have stopped Laura. She got up and almost ran to the washroom at eleven, the paper in hand. She felt herself trembling, going over the pages again and again, until she suddenly found it at the bottom of page 12. “Chi Delta Sigma, national journalism fraternity, opens its convention today at the McAlton Hotel. The convention will last until next Saturday, at which time ...” etc. There was an agenda listed, a few names—the national officers. There it was—Merrill Landon, corresponding secretary. Laura shut her eyes and groaned a little.
The day dragged. She typed until the small round keys seemed to weigh a pound apiece under her fingers, and still the reports piled up.
Laura sat hunched over her machine for a long time after the others had left for the day. She meant to work, but she never did any. She wanted to cry and she couldn’t. She wanted to move, to talk to someone, to explode, and she just sat there until the cramps in her back made her groan. She got up stiffly and put her jacket on and stood for a moment, aimless and lost. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. Marcie wouldn’t be home yet.
She rummaged idly in her pockets, pulling out some change and a shopping list. The list was from the week before and she started to drop it in the wastebasket, when she noticed something on the other side. A phone number—Watkins 9-1313. And the initials B. B. Laura crumpled it in her hand, seized with an uncontrollably pleasant shudder. Then she threw it indignantly into the wastebasket, wondering when Beebo had scribbled it out. And then she leaned over slowly and took it out of the wastebasket and shoved it furtively back into her pocket, without looking at it. She sat down abruptly in her chair and put her head down on her arms and wept.
“Father ...” she whispered. “Why did we have to hate each other? We’re all we have ... Father ...”
She got up fifteen minutes later, turned out the lights, and stole out, quiet as a thief.
She walked over to the McAlton Hotel. She had no idea what she expected to find or to do. But she went into the big softly carpeted lobby and walked, almost as if she were sleep walking, toward the desk. It was crowded and noisy, with that ineffable air of excitement that big hotels seem to generate.
Laura felt gooseflesh start up all over her. Many of these people must be conventioneers. If Merrill Landon didn’t see her one of his Chicago friends might, and the secret would be out. He would run her down if it took the whole New York City police force.
She leaned apprehensively on the marble topped counter of the desk, waiting until a clerk could serve her. He came up after a couple of minutes, looking enormously efficient and busy. “May I help you, Miss?” he demanded.
“Is a Mr. Merrill Landon staying here?” she asked.
“Just a minute, please.” He disappeared briefly and Laura looked around the lobby, her hand partially covering her face.
He might see me. I must be out of my mind to come here. But she waited none-the-less.
“He’s in 1402,” the clerk said loudly in her ear.
Laura jumped.
“Shall I call him?” asked the clerk.
“Yes, please.” She had no idea why she was doing this. She felt as if she were two people, one acting, the other watching; one compelled to act, the other shocked by the action.
“Who wants to see him, please?”
“His daughter.” She almost whispered it, and he made her repeat it. Then he buzzed off. She watched him, perhaps ten feet from her but impossible to hear, as he lifted the receiver, gave the number, waited. Then his face lighted into a business-type smile, and she saw his lips form the words, “Mr. Landon?” He went on, and she watched him, feeling almost sick with anticipation.
The clerk came back after a brief conversation. “Well, Miss—” he began, eyeing her closely.
“What did he say?” Laura looked at him with her stark blue eyes. Her chin trembled.
“He says he has no daughter, Miss,” the clerk drawled. He grinned. “Tough luck. Want to try someone else?”
Laura’s mouth dropped open. Her face twitched. She couldn’t answer him. She turned and ran, bumping into people, stumbling, until she found a phone booth empty in a row of booths along a far wall and she took refuge there. She buried her face in her hands and wept. “Merrill Landon, go to hell, go to hell,” she said fiercely, under her breath. “I hate you. Oh, God, how I hate you!” And she sobbed until somebody rapped on the door of the booth. She wiped her eyes hastily, knowing they were red and swollen, and turned to glare at the impatient rapper. He glared back.
Defiantly she put a dime in the phone and lifted the receiver. She called Jack.
A voice answered almost at once. A strange masculine voice. “Hello?” it said.
“Jack?” Her voice trembled.
“Just a minute.” He called, “Jack, it’s for you.”
A few seconds later Jack answered.
“Jack, it’s Laura.”
“Are you all right?”
“I have absolutely nothing to say,” she said. “I’m only calling because—because I’m in a phone booth and some fool wants to use the phone. He’s rapping on the door.”
“Mother,” he said slowly, “you have a screw loose. Now listen carefully and do what I tell you. Just go along quietly and don’t tell them anything. I’ll send my analyst over right away.”
“My father’s in town.” Her breath caught while she spoke.
“Oh! No wonder. Did you tell him to go to hell?”
“The desk clerk called his room and said his daughter wanted to see him.” She stopped to swallow the fury in her throat.
“And he told you to go to hell?”
“He said, ‘he had no daughter.’” Her voice trembled with the immensity of it.
Jack, for once, was momentarily speechless. Finally he said, “He is a bastard, Laura. By God, he is. Don’t mess with him. Come on over, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Thanks, Jack.” She broke into tears again.
“Don’t cry, Laura. Just think what satisfaction that would give the old s.o.b.”
“You’re right!” she said sharply, pulling herself up. “I won’t. I’ll be right over.”
Jack was waiting for her on the front stoop, sitting on one of the cement railings and looking up at what few stars were available between the roofs. Without a word he got up, slipped an arm around her, and turned her away from his apartment. They walked over to a small bar she hadn’t seen before called Mac’s Alley, without speaking to each other.
The bar was in a basement and you walked down a flight of twisting stairs to reach it. There were booths around the walls, tables and a juke box in the middle, and a long bar ran across the back. Laura walked halfway towards the bar with Jack before she realized that there were no other women in the place. She turned to Jack with anxiety.
“Do they want me in here?” she asked.
He smiled. “They’re not going to give you a rush, Mother. I’ll stake my life on it.”
“I didn’t think they liked women in a place like this.”
Jack guided her to a barstool. “Oh, they’re friendly enough. They know you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t gay. They figure, you leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone.”
Laura looked around her uncomfortably. “I can’t help thinking I embarrass them.”
“Maybe they embarrass you. Would you rather go over to The Cellar?”
“No ... I don’t know.”
“You don’t want to run into Beebo. She’s usually out making the rounds about now. That’s why I brought you here.”
Laura smiled gratefully at him. “Thanks,” she said. “I should have seen it myself.” But she found herself so shaken by the sudden idea of Beebo loose among scores of desirable girls that she couldn’t concentrate for a minute.
Jack ordered them a drink. Then he turned to her, pushing his glasses back into place on his nose. They tended to slide down to the halfway mark. “Well?” he said, and paused. “Let’s tear Papa Landon apart.”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Laura said.
“Then why am I buying you a drink?”
She turned to snap at him and then saw he was kidding her. “Sorry, Jack,” she said. Looking at him brought back her faith in him, and she smiled a little. “I always knew he was a hard man,” she said softly, “but I never dreamed he’d go as far as this. I always thought, in spite of everything, in spite of all the bitterness and misery we’ve had together, that he must love me a little. After all, I’m all he has left ... of my mother, my brother ... his family. I was five when it happened, and I wish to God I could remember what he was like before. But I can’t. I like to pretend he was generous and gentle and kind. And I can remember sitting on his shoulders when we went to a Fourth of July parade. It was that same summer, before our vacation. I remember he hoisted me up and bought me a balloon and held me while the parade went by so I could see. Afterwards he walked around and talked to his friends, and he didn’t make me get down. I felt like a queen on a throne. It’s been my one good memory of him, to this day. But Mother was with us. Maybe he did it for her sake.
“I remember her better than him from those years. Sometimes I miss her terribly. She was very loving.”
“Maybe,” said Jack, “your father wouldn’t hate you so now if he hadn’t loved you so much before.”
“You give him too much credit,” she said. “After what he did to me tonight, I’ll never speak to him again. I’d kill him if I could. But I wouldn’t go near him, even for that. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my face. He has no daughter, has he? All right, God damn him, I have no father! Two can play at that game.”
“Don’t hate me for saying it,” Jack said, “but I think you still love him. I think you’ll see him again.”
She turned on him. “You’re crazy!” she said. “You don’t know anything! What makes you think such a thing?”
He shrugged. “Only that it matters so terribly to you.”
Laura finished her drink and placed the glass carefully on the bar, trying to sort out her thoughts. “If I do see him again,” she said, “it’ll be when I can tell him I’m a success. Financially. Socially. Every way. I want to tell him, ‘I have a good job, nice friends. I can get along fine in this world without you, and I’ll never need you again.’ And you know what else I’d like to say to him, Jack?”
“Yeah.” He lit a cigarette. “‘Father, I’m queer. And it’s all your fault. Shove that up your rear and live with it!’ Yeah, I know. Shock the hell out of him. I tried that on—on a close relative once.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t really know. When his face went blue I took off. I haven’t been home since. I can’t go home to find out, as a matter of fact. I’m—shall we say—not welcome.” He said this with slow sarcasm.
“Jack, I’m sorry,” she said gently, and looked at him sympathetically. It occurred to her now, when she found his own troubles paralleled her own, that he was very human and not a slick witty party boy without real feelings. He was lonely. Everybody’s lonely, she thought. Marcie for a perfect mate. Beebo for a perfect girl. Jack for an affectionate boy. Me ... Poor Sarah ...
That recalled Sarah to her mind. “Jack, I have a friend,” she said.
“Congratulations.”
“—named Sarah.”
“Does Beebo know?”
“And she wants a date.”
“With a girl?”
“—With a boy. She’s straight.”
“What a shame.”
“Can you help me out?”
“I can help you, Mother, but can I help Sarah?”
“You must know somebody. How about that boy who answered your phone tonight? Could he take her out?”
“If he does I’ll break his head for him,” he said and laughed softly, knocking his cigarette ashes into a scorched aluminum tray in front of him.
“Who is he, Jack?” she asked.
“A friend. No, a lover. For the moment, anyway.”
Laura put her hand on his arm. “Don’t be so cynical,” she said.
“These things never last.” He shook his head. “Better to face it at the beginning.”
“He must see something worthy in you or he never would have come to you in the first place.” She spoke awkwardly, but with sympathy.
“He sees dollar bills.” Jack smiled.
“Jack! Don’t be so hard on yourself. It hurts me.” She didn’t like to see him stick the pins in himself. It was all right when he did it to her, because it was in fun. She didn’t mind, she understood his need. But when he hurt himself he hurt in dead earnest.
“Besides, you aren’t rich,” Laura said. “If that’s all he wanted, he’d find somebody else.”
“I have a little put away,” he said. “I save it up in between affairs. When somebody irresistible comes along, I spend it like a fool. Makes a wonderful impression the first couple of weeks. Then I’m flat broke and all alone again. My chronic condition.”
It was a pathetic revelation. Laura was taken aback by it. “You shouldn’t do it, Jack,” she said.
“I can’t help it. I’ll hang on to him with anything. Anything I’ve got. Even dollar bills.”
“If all he wants is your money he’s not worth your money! Or your time, or your friendship.”
“Laura, this isn’t friendship. This is another subject entirely. Honest to God.” Laura blushed. “A man can’t buy a friend. But there’s always a little love for sale.”
“Not real love.”
He shrugged. “I don’t ask for the moon.”
Laura finished her drink. “What’s his name?” she said.
“Terry.”
“Terry what?”
“Just Terry.”
“You don’t trust me.” She said it quietly, but she was hurt.
“Terry Fleming.” He spoke the name gently and Laura saw a look on his face that changed him entirely. She studied him, surprised.
“Jack, I think you’re in love.” Once said, it sounded gauche and unfair.
But he only said, “I think so, too.”
Laura was lost. What do you do on the spot like this? “I don’t know whether to give you my congratulations or my sympathy,” she said seriously.
Jack laughed. “Both, Mother. That’s a beautiful sentiment, whatever it is. Thanks.”
He seemed unable to talk about it and Laura finally returned to Sarah. “Is there somebody in the office you could get for Sarah?” she asked. She described her to him. “She’s not pretty, but she’s just a swell girl.”
“I know, there are a million of ’em,” he sighed. “I wish to God I were straight. I’d marry her, poor kid.” Laura stared at him, then smiled. “I guess I can arrange something,” he said. “Do we have to double with them?”
“She expects it. I hate to ask.”
“Okay, okay. It won’t kill me. But dinner only. And I’ll be in a hurry.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
“I’d better find a tame one for her,” he mused and then laughed a little. “Whatever that means. Jesus, the poor girl has probably dreamed all her life of a good thorough raping. But I can’t assume the responsibility. Maybe Jensen can go. I’ll call you in the morning on it.”
“Thanks. She’d be so happy.” Laura finished a second drink. Jack was two up on her. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, wanting to tell him about the change that had come over Marcie but afraid of his sarcasm. Finally she said, in the characteristic blunt way that disguised her uncertainty, “Jack, Marcie is different. Something’s happening to her. I—I’m scared.” She could go no further. She looked away from him.
Jack chuckled. “Well, what’s she doing, filching undies from Macy’s basement?”
“She doesn’t want to see Burr any more.”
Jack frowned slightly. “She’s finally coming to her senses? That was a screwy match to begin with. Burr wants to worship one gal. Marcie wants to raise a little hell with every other man she sees.”
“She wants to be like me. That’s what she said. She wants to read books. Spend more time at home. She wants me to help her.”
“Help her what?”
Laura frowned. “I don’t know what. She says she’s sick of herself and she wants to be a better person.”
Jack bit his underlip reflectively. “I know what you’re thinking. And you’re wrong. She’s not turning gay.”
“I didn’t say that.” Laura turned to him indignantly.
“You don’t have to. You’re thinking it so hard I can hear the wheels going around in your head.” He looked at her. “Once and for all, Laura, she’s not gay. Maybe she’s got room in her somewhere for a little curiosity. Maybe living with you really has made her dissatisfied with herself. If so, so much the better. But she’s not mooning for you every night.”
“She acted so funny, Jack. Like—like she enjoyed having me near her. Like she wanted me to touch her. I mean, comfort her. You know.”
“The more you want her to enjoy it, the more it’ll seem like she does.”
“I’m not making up stories,” Laura said with some heat.
“No, Mother, I know. I believe you. I’m just telling you a fact. I’ve known Marcie for a couple of years. From the time she and Burr started dating right through their divorce. She’s capable of—let’s say—wondering. Like the night she wanted to touch tongues.” Laura shivered involuntarily. “Once in a while she gets a kick out of a fling in the Village. Maybe she just wants to see how far you’ll go. Maybe she’s egging you on, Laura. Did you ever think of that? Just to see what the hell you’ll do?”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Laura said positively, somewhat shocked. “Never.”
Jack gave a little snort. “Okay, maybe not. But she’s not about to fall for you. Not now or ever.”
“She meant it when she talked to me last night. She was sincere.”
“Sure she meant it. She’s on a book kick. She’s obviously very impressed with you. It shows when she talks about you. Temporarily, you’re somebody to imitate, somebody to admire.”
“Temporarily?”
“Don’t fall into a trap.” He put a hand on her knee.
“It’s no trap! She’s too innocent to set me a trap.”
“Innocent?” He laughed. “Don’t count on it. Besides, you’re too innocent to avoid one. Right now you have a lot to learn.”
Laura glared at him. “I’m not stupid.”
“No, you’re not. You’re very bright, honey. You’re just uninformed. If you want to learn, go scout up Beebo and take the Grand Tour of the Village.”
“I could no more fall for her than I could fall for—for—”
“For me?” He laughed.
She smiled suddenly and laughed with him. “Oh,” she said with a wave of her hand, “You’re taken.”
“Mother, that’s a beautiful one-line definition of my dilemma. My analyst could use you.”
“Are you being analyzed?” she asked.
“Aren’t we all?”
“Answer me!”
“I did. Let’s go. I hate to keep people waiting.”
“Who’s waiting?”
“My friend, Mr. Fleming.”
She slipped off the barstool, pulling her jacket on. “I’d like to meet him.”
“If it lasts another couple of weeks, I guess it’d be safe.” He took her arm and steered her through the crowd. They stared at her but it didn’t disconcert her so much now that she had had a drink or two.
“Where’s your adoring roommate tonight?” Jack said as they went up the stairs.
“Having dinner downtown.”
“Why don’t you go over to The Cellar? Let Beebo tell you some fairy stories. She’s got a million of ’em.”
“I couldn’t take Beebo tonight.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll walk you to the subway.”
“No, don’t bother. I know you want to get home. Thanks a lot, Jack. I don’t know why you’re so good to me.”
“My interest is purely academic. Your innocence amazes me.”
“You make me feel like a hayseed,” she said.
He laughed. “Okay, Hayseed. I’ll call you in the morning on what’s-her-name.”
“Sarah.”
“Sarah. See you.” And he turned and walked off.
Laura walked toward the subway but she knew she wasn’t going home. She knew she would walk right past it and she did. She walked for four blocks, seething with a renewed fury at Merrill Landon. Her hot hand was cramped around the slip of paper with Beebo’s number on it, in the pocket of her jacket....
I’ll pay her back. I’ll just give her the money I owe her, have one drink, and go home. She looked at her watch—a little past nine. For a moment she stood at the head of the stairs looking down at the double doors that opened into The Cellar, feeling her heart bound nervously. She never seemed able to walk into this place confidently. There was always a moment of fear and reluctance. But the need to be with her own kind quickly overpowered it.
She walked in, heading for the bar, ignoring the curious stares that greeted her. She stood at the end of the bar and when the bartender came up he recognized her.
“Hi,” he said. “What’ll it be?”
“Whisky and water, please,” she said. She looked around the place, up and down the bar, around the tables, but she didn’t see Beebo. She drank half her drink, and then walked back to the ladies’ room, looking into the rear of The Cellar, but Beebo wasn’t there. In extreme irritation she walked back to the bar, wondering whether to crush her pride and ask the bartender where Beebo was, or let it go. She finished her drink and decided if she had come this far she might as well go the whole way.
“Where’s Beebo tonight?” she asked the bartender the next time he got near. “I owe her some money,” she explained compulsively. He smiled.
“Oh, she’s been and gone already,” he said. “She’s probably over at The Colophon. She likes it over there. No boys.” He grinned.
“Thanks,” said Laura, slipping off her seat at the bar and heading for the door. She was embarrassed enough without asking him where The Colophon was. She didn’t want to advertise her “innocence.”
Near the door a slim pretty girl, who had kept an eye on her at the bar, approached her. The girl wore her hair in a short soft curly cut. She was blonde and feminine. Laura let herself be approached simply by returning the girl’s gaze as she came near her. She stopped when the girl spoke.
“Excuse me,” the girl said. “We noticed you were all alone. My friends and me. Like to have a drink with us?” She nodded toward a table where three other girls were sitting, watching them. One of them, sitting alone on one side of the table, stared coldly at Laura.
Laura was flattered. But the feelings in her were too personal, too rough, to dissipate with strangers. “Thanks,” she said. “I’d like to, but I’m looking for somebody. I’m in a hurry.”
“Who’re you looking for? Maybe we can help you out,” said the girl, stopping Laura as she started to move away.
Laura realized the girl was interested in her, and it made her turn back once more. “Oh,” she said with a little shrug, “you wouldn’t know her.”
“Somebody might. We’re over here a lot. What’s her name?”
Laura was dead certain they’d know Beebo, who came over here all the time. The last thing she wanted was to have everybody run up and tell Beebo that Laura had been looking for her. The bartender would no doubt tell her. That was bad enough.
“What’s her name?” the girl prompted, and then smiled. “Don’t want to tell?”
Laura blushed and backed away from her. “I just owe her some money. I thought she’d be down here tonight.”
“Who?” the girl goaded her, with a pretty smile.
“Beebo Brinker.” Laura didn’t mean to say it. Yet saying it was better than trying to hide it and getting laughed at. They could always ask the bartender who she was looking for after she left, and she would look even worse. They would take her stammering reluctance for infatuation. She said the name as casually as she could.
“Oh, Beebo!” The girl laughed. “She left half an hour ago. She’s over at the Colophon. She said this place was dead tonight. I guess if she’d known you were coming she would have waited—hm?” She smiled.
“I guess,” said Laura briefly. She stared at the girl. It occurred to her that she saw a slight resemblance to Beth in her face. Then she turned and walked out.
The slim girl walked back to her table. Her partner said peevishly, “Maybe that’ll teach you you’re not irresistible.”
“Oh, shut up,” the slim girl said quietly. “She’s Beebo Brinker’s girl.”
“Beebo’s girl, hell. Beebo’s got a dozen girls. She can really pick ’em though, I’ll say that much. I should get one like that.” And she made a face at the slim one by her side.
