The Revelation of Beatrice Darby Page 4

  “Forget it. Getting out of bed in the morning gets me in hot water with that battle-ax. Look, do me a favor, huh? Help Mrs. Dugan in the children’s section the rest of the day, okay?”

  “Sure.” Beatrice took the sword to her heart like a Spartan. The last thing she wanted to do was get Miss Gill fired.

  *

  After work, Beatrice retreated to the sanctuary of her bedroom. She dug out her flowery lavender diary stashed behind novels by Edith Wharton and the Brontë sisters, intending to channel her nervous, ecstatic energy into words. Dear Diary, she wrote, I am in love with Miss Gill…

  It was exhilarating to actually express her feelings, to allow her desires to occupy a space outside her imagination. But after she saw the words in her neat cursive handwriting, her pencil refused to continue. There it was, in Dixon-Ticonderoga gray. She was in love with another girl.

  She gazed out her bedroom window at a couple of sparrows flitting around in the courtyard dirt. As the little birds flapped their wings and nudged each other like they were in love, she imagined they were both females. If they were, who would object?

  Quentin’s sharp rap on her door jolted her from her speculation. She flipped the diary closed and stuffed it under her pillow.

  “Come in,” she mumbled.

  “Bob said you didn’t return his call. What’s wrong? Didn’t you like him?”

  Beatrice scrambled for words, surprised by the inquiry. “Oh, sure, I liked him fine.”

  “Then why not go to dinner with him, just the two of you?”

  “Quent, I’m leaving for college soon. I wouldn’t want the poor guy to fall head over heels in love with me, and then I’ll have to leave him.” Confident in her quick response, she grinned.

  He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”

  “Gee, thanks,” she fired back. “If I’m such a dog, why would you want to fix me up with your friend in the first place?”

  “He’s not that good a friend.”

  “Can you please leave my room? It’s starting to smell funny in here.”

  “You’ve got a whole month of summer left. Can’t you just go out with the guy? He’s a poor, lonely schlub who, for some crazy reason, thinks you’re a real beauty.” He mimed a vomit face.

  “I wouldn’t trust his taste if he’s friends with you.”

  “So can I tell him you’ll go to dinner with him?”

  Quentin’s serious tone unnerved her. She thought for sure she’d evaded the topic. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re passing up a free dinner with a nice guy. Sometimes I wonder about you, Bea.”

  Beatrice could feel the blood draining from her face. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” he said, flinging his hands up in surrender. “I figured since you’re always moping around here, alone every weekend, you’d like to get out of the apartment and go on a date once in a while.”

  “I don’t need you playing matchmaker for me, Quent. It’s humiliating.”

  “Humiliating? You really are nuttier than squirrel turd.”

  “What’s the big deal? I just don’t want to go out with him again.”

  “Why not? Did he make a move on you or something?”

  “No,” Beatrice shouted, her cool finally slipping through her hot fingers. “If you must know, I didn’t feel any magic with him, okay? A girl needs to feel that magic.”

  “All right, fine,” he snapped. “Suit yourself. But I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”

  “I’ll know when I find it.”

  After Quentin left, Beatrice crumpled onto her pillow, relieved to have survived the inquisition. But she couldn’t help contemplating whether she should go out with Bob again as a cover. What if there was something about him she’d missed? She desperately wanted to believe in the possibility, until thoughts of Miss Gill snuck into what was becoming their permanent place in her mind.

  *

  Beatrice hadn’t had a good weekend. The oppressive humidity made her lethargic, especially after doing the extra housework her mother couldn’t do thanks to another nervous spell. She even declined a Saturday-afternoon trip to Savin Rock for ice cream with Robert Carlin and his girlfriend, Maria, who was always shooting her the stink eye whenever Robert’s back was turned.

  Monday at work was even worse. Miss Gill had called in sick, leaving Beatrice to suffer the day in sheer boredom completing tasks that required little or no thought. She was amazed at how exciting her library job had seemed until she had to work a day there without Miss Gill. By afternoon, her angst had given way to full-blown shame and guilt. What if Miss Gill had quit because of the kiss? What if Mrs. Draper had seen them and fired her?

  During dinner, as she pushed her macaroni and beans around in her bowl, she made a brave decision.

  “Beatrice, your brother is talking to you.”

  “What?”

  “I said what did you do this weekend?” Quentin asked.

  “Not much and you know that, Quent. You live here.”

  He shook his head in mock disappointment. “Another lonely summer weekend when you could’ve been out with Bob.”

  Beatrice ignored him and brooded into her supper dish.

  “Oh, Quentin, leave your sister alone. If she doesn’t like him, she doesn’t like him.”

  Beatrice glanced up at her mother, surprised by the unusual show of solidarity.

  Her mother clutched her hand. “She’s no fool. She’s got her heart set on a college boy, don’t you, darling?”

  Beatrice smirked at her brother. “Yeah, one not on the six-year plan.”

  Quentin flung a heel of Italian bread at her.

  “Now that’s enough, both of you,” their mother said. “Bea, you know your brother has to work to put himself through school. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a full scholarship.”

  “Luck had nothing to do with my scholarship,” Beatrice said, taking her dish to the sink. “I earned it.”

  “Oh, of course you did, dear,” her mother replied absently. “Quentin got a raise. Did you know that? Five cents an hour.”

  “Well, bully for him. Let me know when you’re both done, and I’ll come back to do the dishes.”

  Beatrice shuffled down the hall to her bedroom, disappointment weighing her feet down like an anchor. If her father were still alive, he wouldn’t have let the conversation jump to Quentin’s pay raise so quickly. In fact, he’d still be bragging to his buddies at the bar about his daughter earning the scholarship for near-perfect honors and two essay-writing awards.

  *

  By eight p.m., Beatrice had nearly worn a path in the throw rug in her bedroom working up the nerve to sneak out of the apartment and down to D’Addorio’s restaurant. Quentin was at the bowling alley for the night with his summer league, and her mother would fall sound asleep on the couch before long. Still, scaling down the fire escape with the hopes of sneaking into a secret nightclub was a risky proposition for anyone, let alone the good little Catholic, Beatrice Darby.

  As she pedaled Quentin’s bicycle up Chapel Street heading to D’Addorio’s, her mind raced with unsettling thoughts. What if someone witnessed her going in? What would she find once inside? Was Sister Madeline, her old catechism teacher, right? Was God really always watching? Suddenly, her mother’s judgmental sneer flashed like the headlights of the DeSoto that nearly ran her into a sewer grate. What would her mother do if she found out where she was heading? She couldn’t bear to think about it. After all, a family’s dignity means everything.

  “Did you hear me, Bea?” her mother’s voice shrilled in her head. “A family’s dignity means everything,” she’d said as she tamed Beatrice’s uncooperative hair with spit fingers and a fine-tooth comb last June.

  Beatrice recalled wriggling in her dress on their building’s stoop. “I don’t understand why we have to go to Cousin Gretchen’s wedding if we can’t afford it.”

  “Oh, we can afford it,” her mother replied
. She then raked the comb through her own graying hair. “We’ll eat beans every night for a year if we have to, but I’m not going to be shamed by having to decline the invitation. Shame is a terrible thing to bring to your family, Bea. I hope you never forget that.” Her eyes flared with intensity. “And in a few years, you’re going to marry a wealthy college boy, and it’s going to be the biggest affair this family’s ever seen. That’ll show your snobby Darby aunts what’s what.”

  Beatrice forced her mother’s image from her head as she pedaled around the corner onto York Street, skidding worn rubber tires to a stop at the restaurant’s basement entrance. She propped the bike against the wall and froze in a moment of panicked indecision. She had to make a move—whatever awaited her in the club couldn’t possibly be any worse than what was in store if she was spotted outside. She bounded down the steps, feeling to make sure her chestnut locks were still neatly hanging over her shoulders. As she pushed open the heavy metal door, the throb of Elvis’s “Heartbreak Hotel” thundered out in a wave of smoky heat.

  “You lost, kid?” A woman’s voice snarled, but the face from which it emanated looked like Beatrice’s Uncle Eddie after a long shift at New Haven Clock Company.

  “I’m meeting a friend,” she said, shrunken by the bouncer’s imposing figure.

  The woman bore down on her with a look of suspicion. “Yeah? Who?”

  “Miss Gi…I mean, Abby Gill.”

  The bouncer scrutinized her from head to toe. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” Beatrice lied.

  She slowly extended her arm and allowed Beatrice passage. More the size of a few storerooms crammed together than a nightclub, Pixie’s, as it was known, was intimate, to say the least. Beatrice trudged through the sweaty crowd, bumping shoulders in the fog of cigarette smoke, swallowing from the sour odor of spilt beer on the sticky cement floor. Her heart pounded through her cousin’s hand-me-down angora sweater as she observed the variety of female revelers talking, dancing, laughing—even kissing.

  She stopped cold in the middle of the gyrating masses at the vision of Miss Gill blowing smoke ringlets at the corner of the bar, laughing with her friends. She started when a lanky woman draped in black, her hair pulled severely back, crashed into her as she forged her way through the congested dance floor.

  “Hello, baby girl,” the woman said.

  Beatrice backed away from the woman’s tart alcohol breath.

  “Where ya running off to so soon, baby?” The woman held out her hand to Beatrice for a dance.

  “No, no, I’m sorry,” Beatrice said. “I’m here to see my—”

  “Sorry. She’s with us,” Miss Gill said, and pulled Beatrice to safety.

  “That’s a real shame,” the woman said with a lustful grin.

  “Bea, what are you doing here?” Miss Gill asked as she led her by the arm toward the spot she occupied at the bar with her friends. “You gotta be eighteen to get in here, hon.”

  “I am. Well, I will be in two months.”

  Miss Gill chewed her lip as she scanned the club. “Bartender, how about a special brew for my friend here?”

  The bartender slid an icy bottle of Coca-Cola down the bar into Beatrice’s hand and regarded Miss Gill with a sharp head tilt toward the door.

  She nodded knowingly and then addressed Beatrice. “Did you sneak out of your house to come here?”

  Beatrice nodded and grinned.

  “Well, here’s to the rebel without a cause,” said Miss Gill’s friend, Donna, a Montgomery Clift look-alike with a pack of cigarettes rolled in her T-shirt sleeve and a pompadour slicked high with hair grease. “Drink up, kid,” she said, surveying Beatrice from head to toe. “It’ll take the edge off.”

  As Beatrice guzzled the cola, she saw Miss Gill glare at Donna. The bubbles tickled her nose, and she stifled a giant belch, praying Miss Gill didn’t notice. Her eyes felt as big as bicycle wheels as she marveled at her surroundings. A movie poster of Kim Novak in Picnic, larger than anything she’d drooled over in Modern Screen, hung invitingly over the jukebox, and she tried not to gape at the dazzling spectacle of women in such intimate situations.

  “I never imagined places like this existed,” she said.

  “It’s not exactly like they can advertise,” Miss Gill’s friend Peggy said, adjusting her pointy cat-eye glasses that were sliding down her pointy nose. “And it’s really bad for business when kids sneak in.”

  Miss Gill placed a protective hand on Beatrice’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Peg. She’s gonna leave right after she finishes her Coke. Right, Bea?”

  Beatrice promised with a solemn nod.

  “She’s right, kid,” Donna added. “You want to get this placed closed down?”

  “Take it easy, Donna, and don’t call her that,” Miss Gill said softly. “I said she’s only staying for this one drink.”

  “Make sure when you go, you’re not seen coming out of here,” Peggy said. “Nobody wants to end up like your gym teacher.”

  “Miss Helmond?” Beatrice asked. “What about her? She moved to Albuquerque to take care of her mother.”

  The trio of ladies chuckled, although none of them seemed amused.

  “Yeah, sure,” said Donna. “She moved to Albuquerque all right, after the principal hauled her into his office and threatened to publicly disgrace her and strip her of her pension if she didn’t.”

  Beatrice crinkled her eyebrows as she tried to process the information. “Why? For being in here?”

  “All you have to do is know the wrong cop, and pretty soon the whole world knows your business,” Peggy said.

  “Everyone loves the taste of a juicy rumor,” Miss Gill said, “but take a look around, Bea. We’re not the freaks of nature they say we are.”

  “My mother says homosexuality is a mental illness,” Beatrice said. “That people shouldn’t hate queers. They should feel sorry for them.”

  The ladies exchanged smirks.

  Donna hiked up her jeans. “I think I speak for these three queers when I say even though it isn’t easy living this lifestyle, I’d rather be who I am than marry some poor, unsuspecting bastard and make us both miserable.”

  Peggy and Donna clinked their drink glasses against Miss Gill’s.

  “Speaking of juicy rumors,” Peggy said, “shouldn’t we get this one out of here before someone blabs?”

  Miss Gill nodded gravely and looked toward Donna and Beatrice.

  Beatrice watched their eyes, desperate to stay in their company longer. “So is this the only place people like us can go to socialize?”

  “People like us.” Donna snorted. “You mean dykes? Lesbians? If you’re gonna be one, you ought to at least be able to say the word.”

  Donna’s laugh made Beatrice feel silly. Worse than that, the few times Beatrice had heard those words, they’d been spewed with mocking hatred.

  “Pipe down, Don. She’s an ingénue,” Peggy drawled, patting the back of her head to verify her bun wasn’t unraveling.

  “This is our only place for now,” Miss Gill said. “Until some group of uptight grannies or suits or bible thumpers nag the City Council to shut us down.” She cupped her hand around the corner of her mouth. “We’re lucky the mob runs D’Addorio’s. They don’t care what your lifestyle is as long as they get their cut of the booze profits.”

  Intrigued, Beatrice leaned closer. “But don’t you get scared someone’s going to hurt you, or start a scandal about you?” she asked, wearing her naïveté like a gaudy brooch.

  “It’s like this,” Peggy began. “Ever read Passing, by Nella Larsen?”

  Beatrice shook her head.

  “Well, you ought to.” Peggy jiggled the ice in her screwdriver. “See, Clare Kendry is this mulatto woman who realizes she can escape poverty and discrimination by acting like she’s white. A ‘beat ’em at their own game’ kind of thing. It’s the same deal with us. As long as they don’t know you’re a lesbian, they can’t hurt you or scandalize you. You just pass for s
traight. Make believe you’re interested in boys but never let one catch you.”

  Beatrice frowned. “That seems like a lot of work.”

  “So is having to find a new job or apartment every time someone gets wind of your secret lifestyle.”

  “Betty Helmond found that out the hard way, poor toad.” Miss Gill bowed her head as if observing a moment of silence for a fallen sister.

  Beatrice grew pensive over this “passing” business. But it sure beat the alternative. “I’ve gotta go the ladies’ room,” she said as she drank the last sip of her cola.

  Under the flickering light, she stared at her distorted image in the filmy mirror. How strange that she felt so safe within the walls of this strange new world, like none of the ugliness of the real world could touch her. She smoothed down her fuzzy sweater and ran a wet finger across her front teeth before walking out into the dark hallway, where she bumped into Miss Gill coming in.

  “Oh, Bea,” she said, obviously a bit tipsy from a collection of 7 and 7s. “It’s getting late. You better vamoose now. I’ll walk you out.”

  Smitten by Miss Gill’s eyes, the color of maple leaves dying in autumn, glowing under the fire-exit sign, Beatrice kissed her familiar, succulent lips. This time Miss Gill didn’t recoil. She kissed her back—gently at first, then with passion.

  Peggy’s and Donna’s chorus of “Oooohs” from behind them jolted Miss Gill into backing off.

  “Bea, you shouldn’t do that,” Miss Gill said, lacking all conviction. Her eyes sparkled as she licked the moisture from her lips.

  “You only said I shouldn’t do it at work,” Beatrice said, almost in a childlike whine.

  “Abby, you dirty devil,” Donna said, elbowing her arm.

  “It was only a peck, and frankly, you caught me by surprise,” Miss Gill said.

  Beatrice’s eyes watered. “You think I’m some dumb kid, don’t you?”

  “No, Bea, of course I don’t.”

  “Or that I’m ugly.”

  “No, no, honey. I mean, look at you. Gorgeous hair, contagious smile. You’re a lovely girl, but you’re still a girl.”