swung an arm up on the seat behind her, his knees jutting toward her legs, and now and then when she missed a direction he would grab the wheel and start the turn for her. She disliked his closeness extremely, and throughout the day she was aware of his eyes on her face and body. It almost made her feel as if she had a figure, for the first time in her life, and the idea shocked her.
Beebo had broad shoulders and hardly a hint of a bosom. No man had ever looked at her appreciatively before, not even Jack Mann, who obviously liked her and enjoyed her company. She was not sure whether Pete admired her or was merely interested because she was so different from other girls.
He can’t possibly like me, she thought. Not the way men like women. The notion was so preposterous that it made her smile and reassured her. Till Pete noticed the smile and said, “What’s so funny, kid?” He looked too eager to know and she brushed it off. He let it go, but watched her more attentively, making her squirm a little.
It was a relief to climb down from the truck that afternoon—and a blow to feel the heavy clap of a masculine hand on her shoulder. “You did real good, Beebo,” Pete said, and the hand lay there until she spun away from him and walked inside to meet his wife.
Marie Pasquini was twenty-six, the overweight and overworked mother of five little Pasquinis. She did most of the cooking while Pete’s mother tended her kids, and the two women fell into several pan-rattling arguments per day. Beebo could hear the soprano squeals of young children upstairs in the apartment above the store, and a periodic disciplinary squawk from Grandma Pasquini.
Marie greeted Beebo with a big smile, revealing the shadow of the pretty face concealed beneath the fat.
“Your accent is French, isn’t it?” Beebo said.
“You got it,” Marie beamed. “Smart girl.” She moved about the kitchen while they got acquainted, eating, working, and talking incessantly. Pete slouched against the kitchen door chewing a wooden matchstick and watching Beebo.
Marie worked hard and she ate hard and she was going all to hips. But she was friendly and cheerful, and Beebo liked her.
“That’s a good boy, that Jack,” Marie said. “He comes in here two, three times a week, buys my food. Tells his friends, ‘Eat Pasquini’s stuff,’ and by God, they eat.”
“He gave me some last night,” Beebo said. “It’s good.”
“You bet.” Marie stirred her sauce and glanced at Beebo. “You live with him now?”
“Well—temporarily,” Beebo said, taken aback both by the question and by Pete’s silent laughter.
“About time he got a girl,” Marie said briskly. “Even one in pants.” And she glanced humorously at Beebo’s tan chinos.
Beebo colored up. “Well, it’s not quite like that,” she protested.
“Oh, don’t tell me,” Marie said, holding up two spattered hands. “A boy and a girl … well …!” and she gave a Gallic chuckle.
“What you want to do, embarrass the kid?” Pete demanded suddenly with mock anger. “She don’t sleep with no lousy fag.”
“Shut that big mouth, Pete,” Marie said sharply, without bothering to look at him. “She don’t want to hear dirty talk, neither.”
Beebo was burning to ask what a fag was, but she didn’t dare. She could hear in her imagination the cackling it would provoke from Pete.
Marie stirred in silence for a moment. “I never saw a boy put up with so much,” she said finally. “He got people in and out, in and out, every damn day, eating him out of house and home.” Beebo squirmed guiltily. “His only trouble, he got too big a heart. Don’t never take advantage of him like the others, Beebo.”
“What others?”
“You don’t know?” Marie looked at her, puzzled.
“Well, I’ve only known Jack a little while. I mean—”
“Oh.” Marie nodded sagely. “Well, he got too many fair-weather friends. Know they can have whatever he got they want. So they take. And he lets them. Can’t stand to see people go without. He’s a good boy. Too good.”
“He ain’t all that good, Marie,” Pete drawled, grinning at Beebo. “You just like him because he comes in here and gives you that swishy talk about what a good-looking dame you are. All that proves is, he got bad eyes. Now, Beebo here might have trouble with him, you never know. If I was her, I wouldn’t climb in his bed.”
“Pete, you got a mind even dirtier than your mouth,” Marie said. “Get out of my kitchen, I don’t want the food dirtied up too. Out, salaud!”
Beebo was amused by her accent, comically mismated with the ungrammatical English she had learned from Pete.
Marie threw a potlid at her husband. “See?” Pete shrugged at Beebo, catching the lid. “I try to say a few words and what do I get? Pots and pans. And she wonders why I go out at night.”
“Out!” Marie stamped her foot and he left them, disappearing bizarrely like a wraith into the gloom of the darkened store. After nearly a full minute had elapsed Beebo became aware with a silent start that the fingers of his left hand were curled around the door frame: five orphaned earthworms searching for the dirt.
Beebo stared at them with something very near loathing. She wondered if she was supposed to see them, and if he thought they would please her for some obscure reason. Or was he hiding, thinking the fingers out of sight? No, he knew damn well she could see them, and would. They were his gesture of invitation, unheard and unseen by his wife.
Beebo began to sweat with alarm and revulsion. She chatted determinedly with Marie for almost fifteen minutes before those five pale fingers retreated from their post. Maybe it was supposed to be a gag, Beebo told herself. She didn’t want to mention it to Marie. It would make her look a fool, perhaps even hysterical, if the whole thing was only a joke.
That’s what it is, Beebo told herself firmly. That’s what it has to be. She stood up and thanked Marie, accepting a bag of hot fresh-cooked chicken to take home for dinner, and walked through the front of the shop. She held herself together tightly, and if she had seen the least movement, heard the least whisper, she would have lashed out in abrupt terror. She had the uncanny feeling that Pete was somewhere waiting with those loathsome hands. But she couldn’t see him, she didn’t hear him, and she reached the door and the outside with a gasp of relief.
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.
