by Ann Bannon
“No, honey.” Her voice was very soft. “Should I be?”
“I don’t know. You sort of—acted as if you were.”
“No, baby, I’m not unhappy.” She frowned in the dark.
“Sometimes—sometimes I think I don’t know you at all, Beth.”
Beth said nothing. It was true.
“I know about the little things, but—I don’t know anything about what makes you the way you are. I’m afraid I never will.”
Beth squeezed her gently. “Maybe I’m not worth it. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” She sounded urgent. “We won’t always be together like this, Beth.”
“Nothing lasts forever.”
And Laura fell silent, as silent as her tears. Beth held her, unknowing; wondering sleepily at Charlie’s invulnerable composure. She was startled out of near sleep when Laura said, some while later, “What do you really think of Charlie?”
“Mmmm… he’s conceited.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I don’t know. He’s a nice guy, I guess. I don’t know…”
Laura felt her uncertainty as a worse threat than her positive admiration would have been. Under the spell of possible threats she snuggled closer to Beth, feeling, like a pain, the fragile sweetness of every moment with her. She thought briefly of Charlie, and she swore to herself, He won’t have her! I’ll fight for her!
“All right, baby?” Beth murmured.
“No!” Laura whispered. “No, Beth, I love you. Darling, I love you.” Her sudden intensity brought Beth back to life. Laura had her way. She vented her passion with bouquets of kisses and her arms full of all the magnificent softness of Beth’s body. Beth gasped in a thrill of surprise and then it was just Beth and Laura again, so immersed in each other that no wayward uninvited thoughts could threaten them.
It was the last time they were together before Christmas; the last time for several weeks.
Christmas. Laura went home to Lake Forest, Charlie went home to New York, and Beth went off to Florida to be with her Aunt Elsa and Uncle John.
There was little for Laura to do but visit one parent and then the other, and do school assignments. The holidays were a dreary parenthesis in her romance. She wanted to write to Beth every day but Beth forbade it.
“It would look too obvious,” she said. “Just send a couple of notes, honey.”
Her notes were rather more like chapters from a book, but at least there were only three of them. Beth’s answers were short but affectionate in a noncommittal sort of way; Laura knew them by heart.
She spoke to her parents so many times of Beth that her mother exclaimed, “Aren’t you lucky to have such a nice girl for a roommate!” And she was thankful that her daughter was under the guidance of someone so “sensible” about boys. Laura had told her that Beth spent most of her energies on study and the Student Union.
Mr. Landon muttered, “She sounds like a damn puritan. A girl like that ends up an old maid nine times out of ten. I wouldn’t take everything she says as the Gospel, Laura.”
And Laura laughed to herself to think that her lovely, warm, passionate Beth could be so easily camouflaged without benefit of a single fib.
Beth, on the beach, sunned herself and studied and thought of Laura. She thought of other things, in her solitude, and all the other things, strangely enough, were Charlie. Her mind was vague, her thoughts indefinite; there was just a cloudy image of Charlie in her head. It could be dissipated like a cloud, but like a cloud it always re-formed and hung about to threaten a storm.
It came to her at odd moments, bothersome and wonderful and completely exasperating. Once, in a restaurant booth, Uncle John leaned past her to reach for the salt shaker, putting his hand on her knee as he did so. It couldn’t have been a more innocuous gesture on his part and he was somewhat startled to hear his niece gasp audibly at his touch. The warmth and pressure of his hand in just that spot on her leg brought Charlie back to her with a shock; Charlie in the smoky booth in Maxie’s basement, pressing against her, laughing, telling her nonsense, and feeling her leg with an experienced hand. She felt a sudden irritation at the thought of him, as she had so many times before; and as usual, she didn’t quite understand it. Before the first week of vacation was up she was impatient to get back to school again.
Charlie, in New York, occupied himself with parties and people, but his head was full of Beth. In the past, whenever he found himself thinking too much about one particular girl, he’d deliberately ignore her and take out dozens of others, another one each night, and soon enough he’d be free of his infatuation. So it was with understandable confusion that he discovered that Beth could not be driven from his thoughts in this fashion. It annoyed him, but after four or five days he accepted the situation and quite simply gave up and thought only of Beth.
He knew her special kind of beauty appealed strongly to him, and she pleased him with her teasing, her talk, even her tantalizing independence. But he had found these qualities in other girls and never been so hopelessly fascinated with them. No, there was a unique delight in being with Beth, a curious essence in her that he couldn’t put his finger on, couldn’t explain. It was as if she were holding something of herself back, as if there were some secret unsounded depth in her that no one had ever touched. Charlie made up his mind then and there to touch her; to reach for her and find her as she really was, and hold and keep her.
The days dragged for all three of them. Laura crossed them off on a little pocket calendar she carried in her wallet on the other side of a picture of Beth. The picture was a reproduction of her yearbook portrait and although Laura knew every plane and shadow of it, she took it out frequently to study it.
Ten
Laura came back to school in a sweat of excitement. But when she burst into the room the one who turned to greet her was Emily.
“Where’s Beth?” Laura demanded. She forgot to say hello to Emmy.
“Hi, Laur. Nice vacation?”
“Oh—yes, thanks. Where’s Beth?”
“We just got a wire from her. She’s not coming in till tomorrow. Bad flying weather, or something.”
“Oh.” It was a shocking disappointment.
Emily stared at her curiously. “She’ll be back tomorrow, Laur,” she said in a comforting voice that Laura was alarmed to have inspired.
“Oh. Oh, I know.” Laura laughed nervously to cover her chagrin. “I—I just had something to tell her.” She tried to make it sound casual. She had to have something innocent to be disappointed about.
“Oh, what!” said Emily, who loved secrets.
“Oh, nothing,” said Laura. She turned away in confusion, suddenly afraid.
“Is it a secret?” said Emily. She was kneeling on the couch and smiling at Laura like a little girl with three guesses to spend. There was nothing malicious in her curiosity.
“Well, I—I don’t know.” Laura felt rather desperate.
“Can I guess?”
“Oh, Emmy!” she said in a sharp, angry voice. She stopped and caught her breath, and then turned to see how much damage she had done. Emily was looking at her, stung and astonished. Of all people, Laura was the last she would have expected a temper from.
“I’m sorry, Emmy,” said Laura, and she was—sorry and scared. “I didn’t mean to—say anything. I’m awfully sorry.
“Well…that’s all right, Laura.” Emily frowned curiously at her.
Laura undressed in a state of smoldering resentment, angry with Emily, furious with herself, and irritated with Beth for being a day late. Never mind what the flying conditions were; she should have been there.
Beth came the next morning. It was so good to look at her, to see the color of her and feel the substance, that Laura temporarily forgot her troubles and forgave her. Beth gave her a warm hug and said, “Miss me?” and laughed at Laura’s bright eyes before she could answer. Laura was admiring her tan; she had turned a lovely gold-brown from the Florida sun and in her dark face her violet eyes loo
ked almost luminous.
It took Emily only until that evening to wreak havoc. She didn’t mean to; she never meant to. She thought there must be some sort of joke between Beth and Laura and she wanted to tease.
The three of them were settled quietly about the room when Emmy snapped her book shut and said, “Hey, Beth, what’s this big secret between you and Laura?” She smiled at her.
Beth looked up suddenly with a long silent gasp of alarm. Emily didn’t see Laura start in her chair. She was looking at Beth. Beth turned to Laura for an explanation but Laura was too frightened to say a word.
“What secret?” said Beth.
“Laura said you had a secret.”
“She did?” Beth looked back at Laura with troubled eyes.
“Emily, I did not!” said Laura angrily, finding her tongue suddenly in this crisis. For the second time she had lost her temper at Emily. “I didn’t say anything of the kind!” She had to shout at Emmy; she was afraid to look at Beth.
“Well, gee, Laur, don’t get mad,” said Emmy. “I’m not trying to start anything. What the heck is this, anyway?” She looked at Beth. “She said she had something to tell you, that’s all. She was so let down when you weren’t here last night that I asked her what was the matter and she wouldn’t tell me. She just said she had something to tell you. Gee, I didn’t mean to start anything. I thought it was a joke.”
Beth pulled herself together fast. She had to in the face of Emily’s sudden suspicion. “You didn’t start anything, Emmy,” she said calmly. “You don’t mind if I tell her, do you, Laur?”
Laura, who would have followed her naked into hell, shook her head in bewilderment.
“It was just a family thing, Em. Laura wanted to transfer out of journalism school. It all depended on what her father said. Sort of a difficult situation. Her parents didn’t agree. I guess Mr. Landon finally decided against it. Right, Laur?”
“Yes.” She stared in grateful surprise at Beth, with a sort of perverse pleasure in seeing her father rescue his daughter’s Lesbian love affair. It was as good a thing as ever he did for her.
“One of those family things,” Beth said. “Not so much a secret, Emmy, as just—sort of—awkward.”
Emily was suddenly contrite. She never disbelieved Beth; she never had reason to. “Oh, Laur, I’m sorry!” she said. She looked anxiously at her, wanting to restore a sunny atmosphere.
Laura promptly absolved her, glad to have it over, to have got out of it so well. Emily took the thing at nearly face value, thanks to Beth. Laura was shaken hard and fast into the realization of the pressing need for tact and caution and highly refined hypocrisy.
Mitch called Beth, and ran headlong into the bruising fact that Beth didn’t want to go out with him again. She gave him a charm ing runaround; he couldn’t even get mad at her. But she said no, and it rankled in Mitch.
Charlie got out of the way and let him call first. It was the only way to keep peace. Besides, they were friends, they had an agreement, they even had a lease to bind them. But he intended to call and he said so, and there wasn’t much Mitch could do about it, being Mitch. He didn’t think he was in love with Beth any more, but he thought he might have been if he had had the chance.
Charlie came in and found him sitting by the phone. Mitch waved at it. “She’s busy all week,” he said with a sort of comic sarcasm. “Try for Friday night. She hesitated a little over that one.”
“Mitch—” Charlie felt awkward.
“Go on, go on. We had an agreement.”
He called. Beth was rarely called on a house phone. Anyone with anything to say to her knew her private number.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hello, Beth, this is Charlie.” He didn’t believe in guessing games.
“Well, Charlie!” she exclaimed, strangely startled.
“I have a problem. I thought maybe you could help me out.”
It was somehow possible to tell that he was smiling.
“Well, I don’t know.” She grinned back at him. “What is it?”
“Classics. An elective. Don’t know how I got hooked. Anyway, I’m in trouble. I mean, I may very well flunk out.”
Beth laughed at him. “Oh, that’s a shame!” she said.
He ignored her. “Laura says you know something about the classics.”
“Oh, she did?”
“Thought you might be willing to brief me. I wouldn’t take much of your time. You’re up at the Union every day, aren’t you?”
“Yes—”
“I know you’re busy—”
“Oh, I am—”
“But you must have a few free minutes.”
“Well, sometimes, but—”
“Any time would do.”
She realized that every answer she gave him was affirmative. “Charlie, I just don’t know. I never know what to expect up there. My time isn’t my own.”
“Aren’t you the president of the Student Union?”
“Yes, but—” Another affirmative.
“Well, hell, honey, make time. Just half an hour would do it. How about the Pine Lounge this afternoon? Say about three-thirty?”
“Charlie, I can’t.” She thought of Laura. “I just can’t.”
“Sure you can, Beth. Oh look, honey—I know you don’t owe me anything, that’s not the point. I just thought maybe you’d be willing to help me out. My God, 1 can’t even tell you anything about Socrates! That’s how bad it is.”
Beth laughed.
“Please,” he said, and she could tell again that he was smiling. “I’d really appreciate it, Beth.”
She would tell Laura as soon as she got back to the room. There would be no cause for jealousy or suspicion. What’s more practical and less romantic than a history lesson?
“Beth?”
She just liked to be with him. He was fun, he was different, he wasn’t afraid of her. It wouldn’t amount to anything.
“Hey, Beth—you there?”
“Yes. I—”
“Good,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Thanks a lot, honey. See you at three-thirty. Okay?”
No breath of ulterior motives. “Okay, Charlie.”
Back in the room she told Laura, “It’s for a Classics final. I guess he’s having trouble with it.”
“He likes you, Beth.” Laura knew it right away.
“Not that way.” She laughed. “Men like Charlie don’t like girls like Beth. I’m supposed to be a real bookworm, you know. I guess I’m just a change of pace for him.”
“Well, girls like Laura don’t like girls like Beth, either. Until they fall in love with them.”
“Oh, baby!” Beth laughed and pulled the troubled face up and kissed it. “I swear I’ll tell you every word he says. And all you’ll hear is a half-hour monologue on Greek philosophers.”
With Laura watching her carefully, Beth only ran a comb through her hair before she left for the Pine Lounge. She had wanted to put on some cologne, change her sweater, freshen her lipstick—but she knew that would cause too great an eruption. She left the room with a great show of casualness and arrived at the Lounge a little early. She sat at a table with a notebook before her, day-dreaming. She looked up and let her gaze wander out the window, where it rested motionless on nothing and criticized Charlie’s face. She sat like that for almost ten minutes until suddenly a strong hand gripped her neck and she put her head back with a jerk, electrified. She laughed in spite of herself, hunching her shoulders and squirming to be free. Charlie held her firm, grinning down at her.
She said, “Charlie, don’t!” still laughing, and then she realized that he wouldn’t let her go until she stopped struggling. She froze.
He released her, tossing his books on the table in front of her.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Are you?” She was surprised.
“Um-hm.” He took his coat off, pulled up a chair, and sat down.
“Charlie, you’ve been drinking beer,” she said, pulling away fro
m him as if his breath might intoxicate her, and grinning.
“Brethren,” he said piously, “I repent.”
Beth laughed at him. “Okay,” she said. “What is it you want to know? As if you were in any condition to learn.”
“I’m forced to agree,” he said. “Let’s adjourn. There’s a jam session at Maxie’s this afternoon.”
“I thought you were flunking out of Classics.”
“Oh, I am.”
“Well, maybe you’d better do something about it.”
“That’s your job, honey.” He pulled out a mimeographed list of names and places and questions and handed it to her. “Explain this damn thing to me, will you?” he said.
“All of it?”
“Well—the Peloponnesian War. I can’t get the damn thing straight.”
Beth gave him a skeptical smile and then she took the list from him. “Okay,” she said. She bent over the paper and began to talk.
Charlie studied her hair and the line of her cheek, his head resting in his hand.
“You see, Sparta was up here,” she said, and he didn’t answer. “Do you see?” She looked up and saw him gazing at her.
“Mm,” he said thoughtfully and let his hand come down. He leaned forward on his arms and looked down at the paper. “See what?”
“Charlie, are you listening to me?”
“You won’t believe this, but I am. I don’t know as I’m remembering any of it, though. Let’s go over to Maxie’s, honey.”
“And let you flunk out of Classics?”
“And let me flunk out of Classics.”
“I couldn’t, Charlie, even if I wanted to. Sorry.”
“Do you want to?”
She smiled a little, wondering why he had put it that way. “I can’t,” she said.
“That’s not what I asked you, honey.”
“I have work to do.”
“So do I. So does everybody. Don’t you ever play, Beth?”
“Charlie, I can’t go.”
“Half an hour?”
She laughed helplessly. “Ohhh,” she groaned, flattered, and gave him a deploring look. “No!”
“Half an hour it is,” he said. “Where’s your coat?”