LITMIR.BIZ

      When Jack came home with a brown bag full of groceries, she was smoking quietly and reading the paper in his kitchen.

      “How are you?” he said, smiling.

      “Fine.”

      “I don’t believe it.”

      “Well, I’m clean, and you can believe that. I took a bath.”

      “On you it looks good,” he said, putting food away.

      Beebo shook her head a little. “I was just thinking … you’re about the only friend I have, Jack. I’ve been kicking myself all day for not thanking you. I mean, you listened to me for hours. You’ve been damn nice about my problems.”

      “That’s my style,” he said, but he was flattered. “Besides, us frustrated doctors have to stick together. It’s nice to come home to a welcoming committee that thinks I’m the greatest guy in the world.”

      “You must have a lot of friends down here,” she said, curious about him. Beebo had done all the talking since they met. But who was Jack Mann, the guy who did all the listening? Just a good-hearted young man in a strange town who gave her a drink and a bed, and was about to give her some dinner.

      “Oh, plenty of friends,” he said, lighting the oven.

      “You made me feel safe and—and human last night, Jack. If that doesn’t sound too silly.”

      “Did you think you weren’t?” He put the ready-cooked food in the stove to warm.

      “I’m grateful. I wanted you to know.”

      “Marry me and prove it,” he said.

      She looked at him with her mouth open, astonished. “You’re kidding!” she said.

      “Nope. I always wanted a dozen kids.”

      Beebo began to laugh. “I’d make a lousy mother, I’m afraid,” she said.

      “You’d make a dandy mother, honey. Nice girls always like kids.”

      “Is that why you want to get married? Just to have kids?”

      “When I was in the Navy, I was always the sucker who put on the whiskers and passed out the popsicles on Christmas Day in the Islands. Hot? Mamma mia! I nearly passed out myself. Melted almost as fast as the goo I was giving away. But I loved those kids.”

      “Then why aren’t you married? Why don’t you have some kids of your own?” she prodded. It seemed peculiar to her that so affable a man, especially one who liked children, should be single.

      “Beebo, my ravishing love, why don’t you get married and have some kids?” he countered, disconcerting her.

      “A woman has to do the having,” she said. “All a man has to do is get her pregnant.”

      “All,” Jack repeated, rolling his eyes.

      “Besides, I don’t want to get married,” she added, her eyes veiled and troubled.

      “Hell, everybody gets married,” Jack said, watching her closely. Maybe she would open up a bit now and talk about what really mattered.

      “Everybody but you,” she said.

      He hunched his shoulders and grinned. “Touché,” he said. Then he opened the oven door to squint at the bubbling ravioli, and drew it out with a potholder, spooning it onto their plates.

      They sat down at the table and Jack told her, “This is the greatest Italian food you’ll ever eat. Pasquini on Thompson Street makes it up.” He glanced up and found Beebo studying him. “What’s the matter? Don’t like pasta?”

      “Jack, have you ever been in love?” she said.

      Jack smiled and swallowed a forkful of food before he answered. She was asking him, as circuitously as possible, to tell her about life. She didn’t want him to guess it, but that was what she wanted.

      “I fall in love twice a year,” he said. “Once in the fall and once in the spring. In the fall the kids come back to school, a few blocks from here. There are plenty of newcomers waiting to be loved the wrong way in September. They call me Wrong Way Mann.” He glanced up at her, but instead of taking the hint, she was puzzled by it.

      “I didn’t know there was a wrong way,” she said earnestly.

      “In love, as in everything else,” he said. “I just—well. Let’s say I have a talent for goofing things up.” He wondered if he ought to be frank with her about himself. It might relieve her, might make it possible for her to talk about herself then. But, looking at her face again, he decided against it. The whole subject scared her still. She wanted to learn and yet she feared that what she learned might be ugly, or more frightening than her ignorance.

      He would have to go slowly with her, teach her gently what she was, and teach her not to hate the word for it: Lesbian. Such a soft word, mellifluous on the tongue; such a stab in the heart to someone very young, unsure, and afraid.

      “And in the spring?” she was asking. “You fall in love then, too?”

      “That’s just the weather, I guess. I fall in love with everybody in the spring. The butcher, the baker, the candlestickmaker.” He smiled at her face. She was amused and startled by the male catalog, and afraid to let her amusement show. Jack took her off the hook. “Good, hm?” He nodded at the food.

      Beebo took a bite without answering. “What’s it like to live down here? I mean—” She cleared her throat. “In the Village?”

      “Just one mad passionate fling after another,” he said. “Try the cheese.” He passed it to her.

      “With the butcher and the baker?” she said humorously and made him laugh.

      At last he said, “Well, honey, it’s like everyplace else. You eat three squares a day, you sleep eight hours a night, you work and earn money and obey the laws … well, most of the laws. The only difference between here and Juniper Hill is, we stay open all night.”

      She laughed. And suddenly she said, “You know, this is good,” and began to eat with an appetite.

      “So’s the salad.” He pushed the bowl toward her. “Now you tell me something, Little Girl Lost,” he said. “Were you ever in love?”

      She looked down at her plate, uncomfortably self-conscious.

      “Oh, come on,” he teased. “I’m not going to blackmail you.”

      “Not real love,” she said. “Puppy love, I guess.”

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