Chapter 10

Betty stayed at Leonard’s apartment. She didn’t want to go home. It must have been two or three in the morning when the telephone rang.

Leonard didn’t expect to hear Jenny’s voice, but there she was, taunting him on the other end of the line.

He wanted to hang up before Betty got wind of the conversation, but he knew that Jenny was a troublemaker.

If he hung up on her, she just might take it in her head to come visit him.

That’s all he needed.

“What did she want?” Betty said when Leonard hung up.

He shrugged and settled down under the bed covers.

“Some cunts are just never content to leave a guy alone,” he said, still thinking of Jenny’s taunting remarks.

Betty sighed.

She turned away from him on the bed.

“Oh, go back to sleep,” Leonard said to her, “We’ll untangle this mess tomorrow.”

“I wonder if we ever will, really,” she said.

Leonard didn’t answer. He knew what she meant, and he had a vague, terrible feeling that Jenny was going to come over to make a little commotion, right now in the middle of the night.

He wasn’t wrong, either.

About a half hour later, the doorbell rang.

Betty said, “There comes number one of your harem.”

“No wise-guy remarks,” Leonard growled at her, “I don’t like this any better than you do.”

“Why didn’t you just tell her you were finished with her?”

“I did.”

Betty didn’t feel satisfied.

“Well, you better go answer the door.”

It occurred to Leonard that he could just let Jenny stand out there and ring her head off, but she probably wouldn’t stop at that. She might even go down to the super, or call the fire, or do something else crazy, just to get inside.

Leonard wondered what she wanted.

Betty said, “She probably wants to meet me. After all, I’m the witch lady, taking you away from everyone, aren’t I?”

Leonard smiled.

He put on the lamp and looked at Betty, sweet and beautiful.

“I tell you, you’re asking for trouble if I answer that doorbell.”

“Oh, go ahead. You can’t delay it much longer anyway, and I’m up to anything, believe me.”

He did believe her.

He felt that Betty was strong inside. She had a core of iron because she had been putting up with some really bad men for the past year. She had probably learned a lot about survival.

Reluctantly, Leonard pulled on a robe, tied it around his waist, and went to the door.

Jenny stood there, looking angered and trying to smile.

“Well, what is it?” Leonard snapped.

Before he could say another word, she stepped in and closed the door behind her. She turned the lock also.

“That’s nice of you,” Leonard said, his voice sour and sarcastic.

“I’ve come to meet this sweet thing that’s taking you away from everybody,” she said.

Leonard grinned.

Betty had predicted this, and she had been right.

In the bedroom, she was already putting on clothes, preparing to come out and satisfy Jenny’s curiosity.

Jenny had just about finished speaking when Betty had appeared in the doorway.

“Here I am,” Betty said.

Jenny whirled and stared at her.

The look on her face was incredulous. She didn’t believe this one.

Leonard understood what was going through Jenny’s mind.

She had suspected that he had run off with some startling, gorgeous, sophisticated starlet, and here was plain old Betty, looking beautiful as a cherub, very different from Jenny, something Jenny couldn’t really fight.

He saw Jenny’s chest heaving with frustration as she realized that she was no match for Betty’s kind of good looks.

Betty said, “Well, it’s so late at night, and here we are, the three of us so cozy. Maybe we ought to have some coffee or something. Shall I make it for Leonard?”

Leonard couldn’t believe his ears.

He nodded without saying a word.

“Am I to expect May and Janet to show up also?” he said, sourly to Jenny.

Jenny shook her head no. She stared at Betty as Betty went off into the kitchen to make the coffee.

As Leonard watched Jenny gaze after the girl, a sudden thought struck him like thunder.

He wondered if Jenny was finding Betty attractive in any way.

Could it be that amazed as she was to see Betty’s strange kind of beauty, she was also turned on by the girl?

No, he told himself. Jenny was no way a lez, it wouldn’t work.

At the same time, there was Jenny, still staring after the girl, and she seemed to be leaning toward the kitchen.

“Do you want to go in there and help her?” Leonard chuckled.

Jenny didn’t hear him, hardly. Of her own accord, she started walking toward the kitchen.

Leonard followed afterward, but at a distance, curious to see what would transpire between the two girls when they were face to face.

Alone, without him.

He hovered at a distance from the kitchen, listening. Betty spoke first.

“I bet you know where the coffee is. I don’t,” she chuckled.

Jenny said, “I know where everything is in this kitchen.”

“I’m sure you do,” Leonard replied.

Jenny went to the cupboard and took down the coffee. “Here,” she said.

She watched Betty spoon out the coffee into the percolator, an old-fashioned one that Leonard had never replaced with an electric one.

Betty turned to Jenny and reached out her hand then, and said, “Is it possible that we can be friends?”

Jenny looked at her, dumbfounded.

Betty continued to mumble.

“Why shouldn’t we? After all, we have so much in common.”

“You mean Leonard?” Jenny said, with a half-snort, half-laugh.

Betty shrugged.

“Well, Leonard is important to you, isn’t he?”

“You bet your ass he is,” Jenny said.”

“And he’s important to me, also,” Betty said. “Maybe we can figure out a way to share him.”

Jenny said, “You are a very strange broad. I can’t figure out your brains, how you’re thinking.”

“Well, it’s easy,” Betty continued, sounding calm, like some kind of super-cool broad.

Jenny said, “I’m not sure I want to hear it.”

“I tell you, I’m not cooking up anything evil or insane.”

“Okay,” Jenny said. “Spit it out.”

“I have the feeling that Leonard doesn’t want to give you up, and I know he doesn’t want to give me up. So what I would like to do is just have him part of the time and let you have him the rest.”

“You can’t mean that,” Jenny said.