Scene From: THE STORY OF BEEBO BRINKER:

Beebo, a character who figures prominently in three of my previous novels, appears in this one at the start of her career, as a youngster of eighteen. She is newly arrived in New York's Greenwich Village, where she has been rescued from the streets by a man who is to become a lifelong friend and mentor: Jack Mann.

Beebo is restless and rootless. She has run away from her home: a little farm town in Wisconsin. She's naive as only a country girl can be: virginal and unsophisticated. But she is unusually mature in many ways; partly because of the ostracism she has endured over her odd physical appearance, partly because of family problems that have forced her to grow up in a hot-house hurry.

Wherever she goes she is noticed, even in the Village: stared at, flirted with, baited. At the point where this scene takes place she has just dazzled a gay bar full of skeptics with the sort of tongue-in-cheek bravado that seems to come naturally to her. She has made a date with a stunning brunet named Mona, and is waiting for her outside the apartment of one of Mona's friends: Paula.

Mona is an hour overdue, and Beebo is not so innocent as to not realize she is being stood up. Though her practical experience with women is limited, she has a commanding way with them that subdued headstrong Mona in the space of a dance. So it is galling to her to find herself being jilted when she thought she was on the verge of discovering some of the mysteries that occur between two women sensually attracted to each other.

ANN BANNON

one

14