by Ann Bannon
Laura laughed again. “I don’t want to deflate your ego, Charlie.”
“Come on, Laura,” he insisted. “Don’t I have a right to know?”
“Well,” said Laura, savoring each word, “it’s just that Beth isn’t in love with you, Charlie. She was never in love with you.” She gave him a sympathetic look. “That’s all. I’m sorry.”
He knew better. “Yes, she is,” he said. Laura shook her head with a smile. “How do you know she isn’t?” he said. She looked at her lap and finally Charlie sat forward and knocked some ashes out the window and said some words he had only thought of once before, vaguely, when he was very drunk. “She’s in love with you, I suppose,” he said with a taste of sarcasm in his voice.
Laura looked up at him and smiled. It was intoxicating. Charlie gazed thoughtfully out the windshield, waiting for her denial, not taking his own words seriously until the silence forced him to review them. And suddenly, with painful lucidity, the light came; the sense and reasons fell deafeningly into place.
Laura watched him minutely; saw the tiniest line between his eyes grow and deepen; saw the hand with the cigarette start for his lips and drop slowly back to the steering wheel; saw his lips part a little and his eyes widen. And then he turned and stared at her and she looked full into his face and smiled. He stared, and all Beth’s little mysteries and refusals and anxieties and half-finished sentences smiled back at him. Laura never said a word; she just smiled serenely at him.
Charlie shut his eyes for a moment, wishing he were stone drunk, and then looked unwillingly at her again, and then at the floor. Laura watched him hungrily, remembering every second, every detail of him, every sound.
Finally he said in a husky voice “Laura—is it true? Is it possible?” He looked at her. “Beth?”
Laura didn’t answer him. Her lips parted a little as if she meant to, but she didn’t. Then she succumbed to temptation. “Is what true?” she said softly.
“Is Beth—is she—” It was hard for him to say, and Laura enjoyed his difficulty. She felt like patting his arm and saying the question for him and then answering it lightly, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Charlie breathed deep. “Is Beth—in love with you, Laura?”
Laura looked down for a moment and her smile widened. And then her eyes came up slowly to his face. Charlie took her shoulders and shook her.
“Answer me!” he commanded. “Answer me, Laura! Is she?”
Her shoulders hurt from the grip of his hard hands and she saw the ripple of movement in his cheeks as his jaw clenched. Laura let her head fall back a little and she smiled gently at him and said, very slowly and luxuriously, “Yes.”
They gazed at each other for what seemed a very long time—a tortuous time for Charlie and an exultant one for Laura. And then he let her go suddenly and turned back to the wheel and put his arms across it with his head down on his arms. Laura hoped he would cry. For a few minutes they sat in utter silence, with only April noises to disturb them.
Laura put her head back on the seat and gloated over the handsome broad-shouldered boy beside her, thinking how charming he was, how pleasant, how cock-sure. She let herself feel sorry for him, and her pity threatened to exhilarate her uncontrollably. This was her irresistible rival, a desirable man. And Laura, a plain girl, had vanquished him. She smiled again.
At length, Charlie straightened up. “I could never have believed it,” he said quietly. “I thought of everything, but some things you just don’t believe.”
He started the car without looking at her, without saying anything more. They pulled back onto the road and headed for the sorority house. Laura watched him, but his face was set and blank; not the least tremor, not the palest line betrayed the tumult inside him. She said nothing, respecting his unuttered wish for silence.
Five minutes later they pulled up in front of the house. Charlie stopped the car and turned to look at her. She gathered up her books and opened the door, and then she looked back at him; she couldn’t help herself.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he answered. His voice was deep and quiet. She admired his control.
She got out and went up the walk to the front door and opened it and went into the house, knowing that he was sitting in the car watching her, never moving. When she was inside she rushed up the stairs to the first landing and pushed the heavy drapes carefully aside to peek out and see him start the car up and move down the street. He was driving in the direction of Maxie’s. He’s going to get drunk, Laura thought jubilantly, he’s going to get drunk because he can’t take it!
Charlie’s first thought was to go to Maxie’s and drink himself insensible. But he dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came to him. This time he needed a clear mind, uncluttered with alcoholic confusion. He turned the car around and drove slowly in the opposite direction. He was thinking, concentrating intensely in an effort to keep his emotions at bay. “A clear mind,” he thought over and over. It occurred to him to go to the library. He hadn’t any specific idea why. The library was a temple of learning, of wisdom. He would go there and soak it up. He would find a good sensible book and discover what made Beth and Laura want each other. He would understand.
But he no sooner parked his car by the library and started walking toward the big building than he knew how futile it was. He would be unable to read a single line of print. He paused uncertainly on the steps, looking into the great dark hall beyond the doors, and then he turned around. He didn’t know what to do.
He sat down finally in the shade of a statue and leaned against the base. Above him drooped a lush woman in rough stone, rich with female curves. Some feet away a sister statue straddled her pedestal with muscular thighs. Charlie glared at the two women of rock, so warmly shaped that he never passed them without wanting to reach out and touch them. He knew them today for their cold, hard, unknowable selves.
For a long time he sat on the library steps between the stone sisters, and after a while it became possible to think. Just a little at first. It was one thing to reconcile himself to Beth’s mistakes of the past; mistakes that were over and done with, mistakes that were above all normal. But it was quite another to accept her strange transgression with Laura.
Charlie thought back over the year. He knew he had satisfied Beth, he knew she wanted him. He had not been putting up a front when he told Laura that Beth loved him. Beth did love him. That could only mean one thing: that her feelings for Laura were not true love, not the kind of love she had for him.
He began to breathe a little more freely. Beth was an iconoclast, he knew that. She was an experimenter. And her failures, her frigidity with men might have pushed her to make this most extraordinary experiment of all: to look for release with a woman. Coming at it from that angle it wasn’t quite so shocking—and it gave him hope. If Laura was an experiment for Beth, she wasn’t a permanent thing. She represented a phase Beth had to go through.
Charlie smacked his fist into his palm. He stood up and slapped the nearest stone woman on the rump. He had made up his mind. Beth needed someone to guide her, to talk to her and straighten her out. She needed someone to love, with real love. He would see to it that she got it.
Twenty
Beth was pensive that evening, but Laura was so gay that she had trouble concentrating on her misgivings. Laura was learning from her how to tease, and she could rouse and delight Beth very skillfully now. She rarely missed an opportunity to do it. Beth sat on the couch with a book in her hands, and Laura came up to her and pulled it out.
“What’s that?” she said, glancing at it as she sat beside Beth.
“James.”
“What’s it for?”
“Class tomorrow.”
“Class doesn’t matter any more.” Laura said. “Nothing matters any more but you and me. You have to study me now, Beth.”
Beth laughed and caressed her, but her doubts grew stronger, nevertheless. She might have revolted against th
e plan, begged Laura to wait till the school year was up, if a letter hadn’t come the next day from Emmy.
There had been several; Beth answered them all and they had been brave and hopeful. But this one was forsaken and bitter for the first time. Emmy hadn’t seen Bud for two weeks, her parents were needling her, she couldn’t find a job. She said:
“Beth, whatever happens, don’t ever let yourself get into a mess like this, ever. Everybody knows what happened—it’s so hard to face them all.
“I’d always thought men would give you a fair shake if you were honest with them. But now I’m beginning to wonder. I haven’t heard from Bud for two weeks—not a word. And I’ve written every day. I’d call, but I’m afraid I’d embarrass him—make him mad, or something.”
Make Bud mad! What’s Bud done to deserve any consideration?
“Besides, I have some unwelcome news for him. He may have to marry me, whether he wants to or not.”
Beth crumpled the letter harshly in her hand, too angry and vengeful even for tears.
Laura came into the room, back from her last class. She was breathless and happy and she threw her arms around Beth and said, “Oh, Beth, I can’t wait!”
Beth hugged her. She felt good, the weather was good, the idea was good, the time was right. Emmy was right, there was no good in men.
They planned to meet at the station at four-thirty. The train pulled out at five-fifteen; they’d have time for a sandwich, plenty of time to get good seats.
A lot of trunks went home in April full of winter clothes. Theirs had left with a bunch of others, unnoticed. Beth simply left most of the room furnishings. They were hers and she didn’t care about them.
“I’m rich, Laura,” she said gaily. “I’m twenty-one and I’ve got my own money now, and no one can take it away from me, not even Uncle John. I’m free.” And it was wonderful.
Beth had an afternoon class, and as Laura didn’t, they planned to go down to the station separately and meet there.
Beth got out of her last class at three and headed for the Union. Her conscience troubled her; she was leaving a big job in a big mess. She went up to her office and tried to straighten things out.
“Leaving us?” someone called out, eyeing her little traveling bag.
She was startled for a minute. “No,” she said. “I mean—home for the weekend.”
“Lucky girl. Wish I could take a weekend off.”
She laughed nervously and went to work. It was after four when she stopped. She tidied up her desk with an unsettling sense of finality, pulled her jacket on, took her bag firmly by the handle, and walked out of her office, through the Student Activities room and into the spacious hall, heading for the elevator.
Charlie stood up from a bench by the stair well. Tve been waiting for you,” he said.
She stood frozen for a minute, and then she started briskly for the elevator. “I haven’t got time, Charlie.”
“Well, make time,” he said. He caught her arms and took her bag from her. “Going someplace?”
“Yes. Let me go.”
“Not this time, Beth. Where’re you going?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“All right,” he said. An elevator stopped and the doors opened and people spilled out. “I’m going to talk to you, Beth, whether you like it or not,” Charlie said. People looked at them curiously. “I’m going to talk to you right here and now, in front of anybody and everybody—unless you’d care to give me a little privacy.”
“Charlie, don’t be a fool,” she said sharply. “Give me my bag.”
“Beth, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time.”
People stopped and watched them.
“All right, Charlie,” she said in a brittle voice. She went to the door of a conference room, looked in and found it empty. “We can use this,” she said. “But make it snappy.”
He followed her in, shutting the door behind him. “Beth, where are you going?” he said seriously, indicating the bag.
Beth sighed impatiently. “I’m going home for the weekend. With Laura. On the five-fifteen.” She looked significantly at her watch.
Charlie looked at her in alarm, suddenly alerted. “With Laura?” he said.
Beth turned her back on him. “Yes, with Laura. Now, what is it you’re so anxious to tell me?”
Charlie knew he might lose her, then; really lose her. The bag looked ominous, sitting quietly on the long polished conference table. He leaned against the wall, watching Beth pace up the other side of the table, wondering if he could flush the truth out of her with a scare. “Why don’t you take her to New York?” he said.
Beth stood absolutely still. The click of her heels died abruptly and she was tense as a guy wire, motionless. He hit home—her back told him so. Finally she turned and looked at him.
“What do you mean?” she said, and her voice was very soft.
He straightened up. “If you’re in love with her, go live with her.” His eyes were relentless.
Beth gazed at him with a stricken frown on her face, and suddenly she hurried toward the door. Charlie stepped in front of it, and she stopped, unwilling to touch him. She turned her back to him again.
“Is that all you have to say to me, Charlie?”
“No,” he said. “Do you love her, Beth?”
“What are you trying to prove, Charlie?”
“What are you trying to hide, Beth?”
“Nothing!” she flared.
“Then be honest with me. Do you love her?”
She paused, looking anxiously for an answer. “What makes you think I love her?”
“Answer me, damn it!” he said.
She said, in a haggard, scarcely audible voice, “I don’t know… I don’t know.” And then she turned angry eyes on him. “How did you know?”
“I figured it out. Look, Beth—all I want is a chance to talk to you. I’m not going to strong-arm you into anything; I’m not going to beat you over the head. You ought to know that by this time. I didn’t expect to find you running away, but—”
“I’m not running away. Damn it, Charlie, I’m running into more problems than I’m running away from. I’m not a coward.”
“Listen to me, Beth,” he said, and his eyes were intense and his voice was soft. “Just listen to me for a minute. And remember, no matter what I say, no matter what you feel, I love you.”
That silenced her. For a minute he regarded her quietly and then he said, “Grow up, Beth. I don’t know how much there is to this thing between you and Laura, honey, but it’s all off balance, I’ll tell you that. It’s cockeyed because Laura’s in love with you and you aren’t in love with Laura.”
“I am!”
“A minute ago you didn’t know.” Her eyes fell, and she rubbed them in confusion. “And what’s more,” he went on in his firm voice, “she doesn’t know you’re in love with me. She doesn’t know you ever were.”
“I’m not.”
He ignored her. “This is child stuff, Beth, this thing between you and Laura. You’re deceiving yourself, denying yourself. You’re a woman, honey—a grown woman. An intelligent, beautiful girl with a good life ahead of you. And that life has a man in it and kids and a college degree. Maybe it can’t be that way for Laura. But it’s got to be that way for you.”
“I want something more than that.” Her voice was contemptuous.
“Then you’ll find it. But not by running away. And certainly not by running away with a girl, and a girl you don’t love, at that.”
“Charlie, damn it—”
“You can’t run away, Beth.” His voice, his gestures, were urgent. “My God, you’ve read the books. What do they all say—every damn one? They say running away won’t help, it won’t solve the problem. You can’t run away from the problem, you have to stand pat and face it. Look, darling,” he said, “you aren’t in love with Laura. Laura’s in love with you, yes, but—my God, don’t you see what you’re doing? You�
��re using her as an excuse. You’re sorry for her, you want to take care of her as if she were a little girl, without thinking what harm that’s doing her. You’re sorry for Emmy, you’re sorry for yourself. You’re mad at the whole God-damned world and me in particular because there are rules that you don’t like, and when somebody breaks the rules somebody gets hurt.
“Don’t you see how young that is? It’s kid stuff, honey. That’s the kind of thing you did back in grade school when the world was a big mystery and rules didn’t seem to make any sense. You couldn’t fight them, you couldn’t make sense of them, so you either kicked and screamed or you ran away.”
“Charlie,” she whispered, and he could hear the tears in her voice, “I can’t hurt Laura. I can’t hurt her. Not now. It’s too late.”
“Beth….” He came up behind her and took her shoulders in his hands, bending his head down close to hers. “Jesus, Beth, don’t you see how much greater the harm would be if you let her go along thinking you love her—let her leave school and home and everything she knows for you—and then let her find out some day that you don’t really love her? That you never loved her? That you’ve only been playing with her, using her for your own self-assurance, lying to her all along?”
“Oh, Charlie.” Her shoulders trembled. “You make it sound so terrible.”
“It is terrible, darling. But it hasn’t happened yet.” He felt the first twinge of hope. He was right; she was frightened. The premise he had gambled on was true. She loved him, not Laura; it remained only to convince her of this herself.
“It would hurt her so awfully if I—if I—”
“Not like it will a few months from now. Or a year. Then it could hurt so much that she’d never recover. Beth, my love….” He put his arms around her. “Running away now won’t help Emmy either. It won’t undo the wrong. It won’t make Laura happy. And think what it’s going to do to you. Face it, honey, look ahead. Think, not just of Laura or Emmy or me, but of yourself. What will this do to your life? Beth,” he said, turning her around and lifting her chin.