I—you see—it’s farm country,” she stammered. “They let kids out early for spring planting.”
“Jesus, honey, they gave that up in the last century.”
“Not the little towns,” she said, suddenly on guard.
Jack looked at his shoes, unwilling to distress her. “Your dad’s a farmer, then?” he said.
“No, a vet.” She was proud of it. “An animal doctor.”
“Oh. What was he planting in the middle of May—chickens?”
Beebo clamped her jaws together. He could see the muscles knot under her skin. “If they let the farmer’s kids out early, they have to let the vet’s kids out, too,” she said, trying to be calm. “Everyone at the same time.”
“Okay, don’t get mad,” he said and offered her a cigarette. She took it after a pause that verged on a sulk, but insisted on lighting it for herself. It evidently bothered her to let him perform the small masculine courtesies for her, as if they were an encroachment on her independence.
“So what did they teach you in high school? Typing? Shorthand?” Jack said. “What can you do?”
Beebo blew smoke through her nose and finally gave him a woeful smile. “I can castrate a hog,” she said. “I can deliver a calf. I can jump a horse and I can run like hell.” She made a small sardonic laugh deep in her throat. “God knows they need me in New York City.”
Jack patted her shoulder. “You’ll go straight to the top, honey,” he said. “But not here. Out west somewhere.”
“It has to be here, even if I have to dig ditches,” she said, and the wry amusement had left her. “I’m not going home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Wisconsin. A little farming town west of Milwaukee. Juniper Hill.”
“Lots of cheese, beer, and German burghers?” he said.
“Lots of mean-minded puritans,” she said bitterly. “Lots of hard hearts and empty heads. For me … lots of heartache and not much more.”
“Why?” he said gently.
She looked away, pouring some more schnapps for herself. Jack was glad she had a small glass.
“Why did you ditch Juniper Hill, Beebo?” he persisted.
“I—just got into some trouble and ran away. Old story.”
“And your parents disowned you?”
“No. I only have my father—my mother died years ago. My father wanted me to stay. But I’d had it.”
Jack saw her chin tremble and he got up and brought her a box of tissues. “Hell, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m too nosy. I thought it might help to talk it out a little.”
“It might,” she conceded, “but not now.” She sat rigidly, trying to check her emotion. Jack admired her dignity. After a moment she added, “My father—is a damn good man. He loves me and he tries to understand me. He’s the only one who does.”
“You mean the only one in Juniper Hill,” Jack said. “I’m doing my damnedest to understand you too, Beebo.”
She relented a little from her stiff reserve and said, “I don’t know why you should, but—thanks.”
“There must be other people in your life who tried to help, honey,” he said. “Friends, sisters, brothers—”
“One brother,” she said acidly. “Everything I ever did was inside-out, ass-backwards, and dead wrong as far as Jim was concerned. I humiliated him and he hated me for it. Oh, I was no dreamboat. I know that. I deserved a wallop now and then. But not when I was down.”
“That’s the way things go between brothers and sisters,” Jack said. “They’re supposed to fight.”
“You don’t understand the reason.”
“Explain it to me, then.” Jack saw the tremor in her hand when she ditched her cigarette. He let her finish another glassful of schnapps, hoping it might relax her. Then he said, “Tell me the real reason why you left Juniper Hill.”
She answered at last in a dull voice, as if it didn’t matter any more who knew the truth. “I was kicked out of school.”
Jack studied her, perplexed. He would have been gently amused if she hadn’t seemed so stricken by it all. “Well, honey, it only happens to the best and the worst,” he said. “The worst get canned for being too stupid and the best for being too smart. They damn near kicked me out once.… I was one of the best.” He grinned.
“Best, worst, or—or different,” Beebo said. “I was different. I mean, I just didn’t fit in. I wasn’t like the rest. They didn’t want me around. I guess they felt threatened, as if I were a nudist or a vegetarian, or something. People don’t like you to be different. It scares them. They think maybe some of it will rub off on them, and they can’t imagine anything worse.”
“Than becoming a vegetarian?” he said and downed the rest of his beer to drown a chuckle. He set the glass on the floor by the leg of his chair. “Are you a vegetarian, Beebo?” She shook her head. “A nudist?”
“I’m just trying to make you understand,” she said, almost pleading, and there was a real beacon of fear shining through her troubled eyes.
Jack reached out his hand and held it toward her until she gave him one of hers. “Are you afraid to tell me, Beebo?” he said. “Are you ashamed of something? Something you did? Something you are?”
She reclaimed her hand and pulled a piece of tissue from her bag, trying to keep her back straight, her head high. But she folded suddenly around a sob, bending over to hold herself, comfort herself. Jack took her shoulders in his firm hands and said, “Whatever it is, you’ll lick it, honey. I’ll help you if you’ll let me. I’m an old hand at this sort of thing. I’ve been saving people from themselves for years. Sort of a sidewalk Dorothy Dix. I don’t know why, exactly. It just makes me feel good. I like to see somebody I like, learn to like himself. You’re a big, clean, healthy girl, Beebo. You’re handsome as hell. You’re bright and sensitive. I like you, and I’m pretty particular.”
She murmured inarticulately into her hands, trying to thank him, but he shushed her.
“Why don’t you like yourself?” he asked.
After a moment she stopped crying and wiped her face. She threw Jack a quick cautious look, wondering how much of her story she could risk with him. Perversely enough, his very kindness and patience scared her off. She was afraid that the truth would sicken him, alienate him from her. And at this forlorn low point in her life, she needed his friendship more than a bed or a cigarette or even food.
Jack caught something of the conflict going on within her. “Tell me what you can,” he said.
“My dad is a veterinarian,” she began in her low voice. “Everybody in Juniper Hill loved him. Till he started—drinking too much. But
