The relief was so deep that it turned into a laugh, soothing her and making her a little ashamed of herself. Away from Pete she could scold herself for her aversion to him. Maybe it wasn’t fair. He was just a guy, not a ghost, not a snake. He was spooky, but Marie seemed as healthy and normal as her good foods.
Beebo was disturbed by the strangeness of Pete’s manner, but she could never believe that any man would truly desire her, no matter how creepy he was. Not even a nut like Pete Pasquini. For his own reasons he was making a study of her, but beyond that he would never go. She began to feel safe and comfortable again as she rounded the corner to Jack’s street. She felt unassailable in the fortress of her flat-chested, muscular young body. It was not the stuff that male dreams are made of.
As Jack explained to her later, it was himself and others like him who had talked the Pasquinis’ shop into a financial success. Rather abruptly, Pete and Marie found themselves making money, and Pete, after an adolescence full of alley wars and hock-shop heists, found himself taking a belated interest in the dough: not the flour kind, the folding kind.
He had married Marie overseas when he was in the service and brought her back to his inheritance: the foundering grocery shop his father had left him. Undismayed, Marie set out to bear his kids and learn his mother’s recipes. By a combination of luck, sense, and skill, Marie pulled them out of the dumps.
It was still nominally Pete’s business, yet he did little more than run his wife’s errands and pocket all the money Marie would let him have. He always demanded more, but he respected her French thrift. The money she refused to give him went back into the business and made it possible for him to insist on more gradually as time went on.
This arrangement galled Pete, but he preferred it to poverty. Still, he had to get even with her. So he did it by openly sniffing up skirts around Greenwich Village. He would even flaunt a girl at Marie now and then and she, stung, would call him half a man, who played with other girls because he didn’t have what it took to keep one good woman satisfied. Or else she ignored him entirely, which enraged him.
It was not a quiet cozy family. Pete did not know or like his children very well. He got on famously with his mother, but his mother and his wife were lifelong enemies. Beebo began to learn about them as she worked near them in the shop.
Pete watched Beebo move around during the first week, making her feel clumsy as a young colt; getting in her way deliberately (she was sure) to make her dodge around him; turning up in out-of-the-way corners where she didn’t expect to see him. Her antipathy to him was lively, but fortunately she didn’t see much of him. Filling orders took less time than delivering them and she was out of the shop most of the day. In the truck she was disposed to be pleased with her job. She liked to drive. She liked to talk to people, and the customers were friendly. She even liked the chore of carrying the heavy cartons up and down all day. It pleased her to feel strong, equal to the task.
A week ago all her hopes had been crashing around her. She had retreated in disgrace from a cruel predicament. Then she found Jack Mann, a friend; a job; and some self-respect, one right after the other. She was grateful, full of the resilient optimism of youth.
Without any specific words on the subject, Beebo and Jack came to an understanding that she would live with him for a while, till she could afford a place for herself. “You’ll be better off with a roommate,” Jack advised her casually. “I’ll have to introduce you to some of my upper-class female friends.”
“Sure,” she grinned. “‘Pamela, this is my lower-class female friend, Beebo Brinker.’ And she’ll say, ‘Dahling, you’re absolutely crashing, but I can’t possibly share my apartment with those pants.’” She made Jack laugh at her. “Besides, Jackson,” Beebo added rather shyly, “I’ve already got a roommate. He only has one fault—he won’t let me pay my half of the rent.”
“I like to pay bills,” Jack said. “Gives me a sense of power.”
“Marie says you’ve got too big a heart,” Beebo told him. “And she’s right.”
“Marie’s a good girl,” he said. “How are you getting along with Peter the Wolf?”
“Fine, as long as he’s out of my sight.”
Jack grinned. “You can handle him, honey. Just keep a can of corn beef in your pocket. If he tries to lift your wallet, clobber him.”
“It’s not my wallet I’m worried about,” she said. “There’s nothing in it, anyway. It’s just that he’s always under my feet when he should be on the other side of the store.”
“I suspect it’s for Marie’s benefit,” Jack said. “Every female who comes into the store gets the once-over from Pete—provided Marie is looking. And most of the time, she is. She likes to keep score, I guess.”
“There was a girl today,” Beebo said. “She came in the shop about noon, when Marie was fixing lunch. I waited on her.” Her face became intent as she summoned the girl’s image in her mind’s eye.
“What about her?” Jack said curiously.
But Beebo, coming to herself at the sound of his voice, said, “Oh, nothing. But she was more Pete’s type … any man’s type.”
“What was she like?”
“She had long black hair,” Beebo said, as if it were very special. “People don’t let their hair grow like that any more. It was lovely. She let it hang free down her back. And her face …” She was gone again, seeing it in her imagination.
“She must have been a looker,” Jack said, frustrated by the reticence between himself and Beebo. He knew what hundreds of questions she needed to ask, what a wealth of help she would be wanting soon. But she didn’t dare start asking and because she didn’t, Jack dared not force the answers on her yet.
“She was absolutely gorgeous,” Beebo said with a certain wonderment and innocence that touched him. “I never saw such a girl in my life before.” There was a small silence. Beebo’s words hung in the air like a neon sign and reduced her abruptly to confusion. To cover up, she said, “She wasn’t a very nice girl, though. Not by your standards.”
“My standards?”
“She’s not afraid of boys,” Beebo grinned. “At least, she wasn’t afraid of Pete. But I think they knew each other from somewhere. He called her … Mona.” She spoke the name self-consciously. “It sounds old-fashioned, doesn’t it?”
“I wonder if it’s Mona Petry,” Jack said. “She has black hair, but I didn’t think it was that long. Still, I haven’t seen her for a while.”
“Who’s Mona Petry?” Beebo asked, her eyes intent on Jack.
“Old flame of Pete’s,” Jack said. “She used to come into the store a lot three or four years ago. She and Pete got quite a charge out of putting poor Marie on. Mona isn’t the charitable type. She likes to land a man who belongs to some other woman—more to spite the other woman than because she wants the man. As soon as she won Pete, she dumped him like a sack of meal. For some reason, Pete never fought back. Makes me think she really meant something to him. God knows, none of the other broads do.”
“Is she one of those man-hungry girls that can’t get enough?” Beebo said. “I forget what they’re called, but there’s a name for it.”
“The name is nymphomaniac,” Jack said. “But Mona doesn’t love men. She just plays around with them. They’re good ego builders.” He lighted a cigarette, seeing, without seeming to, the concentration on Beebo’s face. The question was there on her tongue, in her mind, but she couldn’t get it out. If Mona doesn’t