“Beebo, I don’t like you,” Laura said. “I don’t like the way you dress or the way you talk or the way you wear your hair. I don’t like the things you say and the money you throw around. I don’t want your dimes and I don’t want you. I hope that’s plain because I don’t know how to make it any plainer.” Her voice broke as she talked and toward the end she felt her own crazy tears coming up again. Beebo saw them before they spilled over and they changed her. They touched her. She ignored the hard words Laura spoke for she knew enough to know they meant nothing. “Tell me, baby,” she said gently. “Tell me all about it. Tell me you hate me if it’ll help.” For a moment Laura sat there, not trusting her, not wanting to risk a word with her, letting the stray tears roll over her cheeks without even brushing them away. Then she straightened up and swept them off her face with her long slim fingers, turning away from Beebo. “I can’t tell you, or anybody.” Beebo shrugged. “All right. Have it your way.” She dinched her cigarette and leaned on the bar again, her face close to Laura’s. “Try, baby,” she said softly. “Try to tell me.” “It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous. We’re complete strangers.” “We aren’t strangers.” She put an arm around Laura and squeezed her a little. Laura was embarrassed and grateful at the same time. It felt good, so good. Beebo sighed at her silence. “I’m a bitch, you’re right about that,” she admitted. “But I didn’t want to be. It’s an attitude. You develop it after a while, like a turtle grows a shell. You need it. Pretty soon you live it, you don’t know any other way.” Laura finished her drink without answering. She put it down on the bar and looked for the bartender. She wouldn’t care what Beebo said, she wouldn’t look at her, she wouldn’t answer her. She didn’t dare. “You don’t need to tell me about it,” Beebo went on. “Because I already know. I’ve lived through it, too. You fall in love. You’re young, inexperienced. What the hell, maybe you’re a virgin, even. You fall, up to your ears, and there’s nobody to talk to, nobody to lean on. You’re all alone with that great big miserable feeling and she’s driving you out of your mind. Every time you look at her, every time you’re near her. Finally you give in to it—and she’s straight.” She said the last word with such acid sharpness that Laura jumped. “End of story,” Beebo added. “End of soap opera. Beginning of soap opera. That’s all the Village is, honey, just one crazy little soap opera after another, like Jack says. All tangled up with each other, one piled on top of the next, ad infinitum. Mary loves Jane loves Joan loves Jean loves Beebo loves Laura.” She stopped and grinned at Laura.