by Ann Bannon
“No, she didn’t.”
“She did, darling. Anyway, how do you know she didn’t?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know. I can tell. Can’t you tell when someone has a crush on you?”
“Not always.”
“Well, I can. And Laura didn’t.”
“Well, she did, Charlie. I talked to her. We—sort of had it all out.”
“Why was this so hard to tell me?”
“It wasn’t. It’s not hard. I’m telling you.”
“The last time I saw you you couldn’t. It was so damn difficult you couldn’t even think about it.”
Beth forced herself to swallow; she was beginning to feel edgy with anxiety. “Oh, well—I hadn’t talked to Laura, then. I didn’t have a chance. I didn’t want to say anything until I talked to her.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Well? What did you say when you talked to her?”
“Oh, I told her she was behaving like a child. I was kind of nasty, I guess. I said she was acting like a spoiled brat and spoiled brats belong at home with their doting parents.”
“My God, you were nasty. Jesus, honey, that was pretty low, wasn’t it?”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean? It wasn’t so bad. She was acting like a child. I just told her if she couldn’t act grown up she’d better go back to her family where she belongs. Where somebody’ll take care of her.”
“She can’t, Beth.”
“She can’t?”
“Didn’t she tell you? I mean, didn’t you know?”
“Know what?” Beth put her hamburger down, feeling suddenly sick. The incipient hangover, the passion, the overcooked beef, combined to aggravate her misery.
“They’re divorced. Happened just before she came down to school. I guess it was pretty bad. Anyway, Laura was all upset about it.” He paused. “You didn’t know this?”
Beth shook her head.
“That’s why I kept taking her out. She needed a shoulder to cry on. Poor kid. She really needed somebody. She was terribly alone. Still is, I guess. I felt sorry for her. My God, didn’t she tell you all this?”
“She didn’t tell anybody.”
“You’d think she’d’ve told you. I mean, roommates…you know.”
Beth held her head. “Oh, Charlie, I feel awful. Oh, I feel awful.”
“Honey, are you going to be sick?”
“I guess so,” she whispered.
“Yes, you are,” he said with a swift critical glance. “Come on, here we go. Can you make it to the ladies’ room?”
“I don’t know.”
He led her as fast as he could to the john. She made it just inside the door, fell to her knees and let the sickness flow out of her. Ten minutes later she came out, very pale.
“Charlie, I want to go home,” she said. “I want to go home.”
“I know. I’ll take you home. You’re going to be all right, darling, don’t worry.” He took her out to the car and drove her back to the house. She said nothing, leaning heavily against him and moaning a little now and then.
At the house he stopped and took her in his arms. “Poor little girl,” he said. “Feel any better?”
“A little.”
“Darling, that was my last exam today. How long will you be down here?”
“Day after tomorrow. Leave at noon.”
“Will I see you?”
“Charlie—Oh, darling, I—”
“Okay,” he said. “When will you be back?”
“February sixth.”
“I’ll be here the fifth. In case you come early.”
“Charlie.” She sat up a little and looked at him. “Darling, oh, I’ve been a bitch. Oh, Charlie, I’m a mess. Darling, I—”
“I love you, Beth,” he said. And he kissed her.
She clung to him for a minute and then she said, “I love you, Charlie.” It was plain and awesome honesty and it felt deliriously good.
He took her face in his hands. “Beth, take good care of yourself. Take good care of yourself, darling.”
Fifteen
Emily and Laura had a brief, bitter exchange of words. Laura precipitated it. She simply looked up from her studies and said, with no introduction, “Emmy, why did you call Charlie?” She was immediately sorry she had said it, but she was frantically worried about Beth and desperately unhappy.
Emily was startled. “Well—” she said. “She wanted to see him, Laur. It seemed as if it was the only way. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings about it.”
“How did you know she wanted to see him?”
“I could just tell, Laur.”
“Did it ever occur to you that Beth might not want to go out with him?”
“No, it never did,” said Emmy. This wasn’t the Laura Landon of last fall: passive, pleasant, unemotional.
“I don’t understand why you don’t know Beth any better than you do, Emmy. Sometimes I think you don’t know her at all,” Laura snapped.
“Laura, Beth wanted to go out with him. She didn’t have to, you know, even after I called him.”
“Well, of course she had to go out with him, after she talked to him. What could she say?”
“I don’t know, Laur. What could she say?”
Laura went suddenly cold. Her eyes dropped and she fumbled with her book. “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice.
“Why don’t you want Beth and Charlie to go out together, Laur?” Emmy’s voice was soft. If what she suspected were true, why hadn’t Beth been honest with her about it? Beth had never deliberately lied to her before about anything.
“They just—aren’t right for each other, that’s all.”
“How do you know?”
“Because 1 know Beth!” Laura flared.
“But you don’t know Charlie very well.”
Laura turned on her. “Emmy, what are you trying to say?”
Emmy, confronted with an angry challenge, was silent.
Laura rose slowly to her feet. “I’m going to bed,” she said icily, and walked stiffly to the door.
Emmy sat on the couch uncomfortably. She had no desire to stay in the room, either. It had suddenly become a sinister, unfamiliar place to her. She gathered some books together, scribbled a note to Beth and ran down the hall.
At ten thirty-five, Beth found the note on her dresser: “Laur’s in bed. I’m in Bobbie’s room. Come get me if you want me. I’ll be up late. Love, Em.”
Beth crumpled the note and tossed it into the wastebasket, and undressed. She looked at her blouse with the little rips now in place of buttons, and thought of Charlie. But all the cutting words she directed at Laura that afternoon came back to torment her.
She went to the washroom to clean up, and when she got back to the room, Laura was in it. She was standing looking out the window toward the street with her back to Beth. Beth said nothing. She put her things away and stood at her dresser for a minute, silent.
“Beth,” said Laura softly. “I was wrong.” She had learned her lesson. The only way to bring Beth back was to be gentle and yielding with her. It worked before where even the most righteous temper failed. Beth scolded her for being a child, but Laura knew she liked her best that way. Laura was willing to play the game—any game—if it meant keeping Beth.
“If you need Charlie, I guess you should have him,” Laura said. She didn’t turn around; she spoke to the windowpanes.
Beth regarded her back. “Laura, I was hateful to you. I was unforgivable.”
“Let’s not talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. You’re forgiven, Beth.”
Beth put her arms around her and her head down against Laura’s. “Laura,” she whispered.
“I understand. At least, I’ll try to understand.”
“Laura…I need you, honey.” I can’t just drop you, so hard, so suddenly. And besides, you’re so sweet…so sweet to hold. Not good like Charlie, but…I wonder if I could have you both.
Laura turned around and put her arms around Beth and
looked up at her. “Beth,” she said humbly. “Will we be together—just once in a while?”
“Yes, honey.” Beth kissed her forehead. “Yes, we will.” Behind them Emmy pushed the door open. Beth had forgotten to close it all the way and it didn’t make a sound. Emmy stood staring.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” Laura whispered. “It’s all right, then. I’ll be all right, if I can have that.”
“Of course you can, baby. Oh Laur, I hurt you so.”
“You could never hurt me too much, Beth. You can never teach me by hurting me. I just come back for more. I guess I’ll never learn. I love you too much. I love you so much.”
They kissed each other’s lips and Beth liked the velvety softness of Laura’s mouth. She could command Laura the way Charlie commanded her. But the authority fulfilled and invigorated Charlie; it only amused Beth and left her empty.
Emmy stood watching them, transfixed and soundless, while Beth rocked Laura gently in her arms and whispered, “We’ll work it out, honey. Don’t worry.” And then Emmy pulled the door to very quietly, and without letting it catch, and left. She walked down the hall shivering nervously, wondering what to do. She stared unseeing at the bulletin board in the hall with her head full of the strange scene she had just witnessed and the details of it so vivid that she could think of nothing else.
After a little while she heard soft voices down the hall. She turned around and saw Beth and Laura coming toward her.
“Beth?” she said, with a humane impulse to warn them of her presence.
Beth looked up. “Oh, Emmy,” she said. “I thought you were in Bobbie’s room.”
Emmy hesitated, feeling strangely uncomfortable, and Laura started up the stairs to bed.
“What, Em?” said Beth. She glanced quickly at Laura. “Go on up, Laur,” she whispered. “See you in the morning.” She looked back at Emmy and Emmy found she couldn’t say it; she couldn’t ask.
“How’s Charlie?” she said.
Beth relaxed then and gave her a radiant smile. “Wonderful,” she said. “I’m in love.” And she went upstairs to bed, leaving Emmy confounded. She knew she would have to talk to Beth about Laura, she couldn’t keep the things she had seen and heard locked inside of her. But she would wait, she decided, until the next night. Then Beth and she would be alone for the first time in months—Laura would have left for her semester vacation. So Emmy kept her peace for almost twenty-four hours and then discovered, when the time came for her to speak, that she didn’t know how to broach the subject.
She looked at Beth with a sort of new timidity and said, dismayed to find her voice raspy, “Beth?”
“Hm?”
“Beth—”
Beth looked at her. “Why, Emmy, whatever is the matter? You look as if you—” She stopped, wondering. “Emmy, what’s the matter?”
“Well—well, I—Beth?” She walked over to her, as if it were too difficult to send her words across the room, and took a deep breath. “Is Laura in love with you?” she asked finally.
“Oh,” said Beth, and her face went very pale. She put her head down for a moment and said, “Oh, Emmy….”
“I know she is. I heard her say it last night. I had to tell you.”
“Oh, Em.”
“Beth, I won’t tell. I won’t ever ever tell. I promise.” Emmy held her shoulders and watched her anxiously. Beth couldn’t talk. “Do you love her, too?”
Beth lifted her head. “Emmy—come sit on the couch. Listen to me.”
They sat down together and Beth tried to explain what had happened to her, and she tried to be honest. Emmy listened without saying a word, watching Beth’s face intently. Finally Beth looked up at her and said, “You see, Emmy? Why it’s been so hard? Now I’m in love with Charlie. Really in love. But I can’t hurt Laura any more. I just can’t. I can only wait till it wears off. Till she grows out of it and forgets about me, without my having to hurt her.”
“Wouldn’t it hurt her less just to tell her you don’t want to do it any more?”
Beth played nervously with a cigarette. “Yes, I guess it would. But—you see—that’s not it, exactly. I’m not in love with her. That’s what I ought to tell her. But—”
“You mean you—still want her?” It was as weird and wondrous to Emmy as sorcery would have been.
“Yes,” said Beth. She looked at Emmy with a worried frown. “Em, you must think I’m terrible.”
“Oh, Beth, I don’t think you’re terrible at all.” She leaned toward her sympathetically. “I couldn’t think you were terrible—we’re friends, Beth. I just—I just don’t get it, that’s all. Why do you want a girl when you could have a man? I mean, why does a girl want a girl? Ever? I mean—well—” She laughed a little. “What is there to want?”
“Oh, Emmy, I don’t know how to tell you. I was just—we were both lonely. We just happened to be lonely at the same time in the same place, that’s all. It was too easy. It was so good to have somebody to hold, to talk to…sort of play with and play at making love.”
“But Laura isn’t playing. She is in love. I heard her say so.”
“Oh, she thinks she is. She’s just so young, she doesn’t know. These things never last.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, Em, when you go to a girl’s boarding school, you just know. It happens all the time. You grow out of it. It doesn’t last. It’s just part of growing up. Didn’t you ever have a crush on a girl?”
Emmy searched her memory. “No,” she said doubtfully. “I don’t think so. Oh, once when I was about twelve, I guess…. No, I don’t think that was really a crush….” She looked at Beth.
“Well, maybe not.”
“Anyway, there were always so many boys around and they were so much more fun. Well, I mean—” She hunched her shoulders.
“I know, I know. It never happens to some people. And it does to others. That’s all.”
“Beth, how do you know it won’t last with Laura? I mean, some people never grow out of childish things, if this is a childish thing. How do you know?”
“Oh, because Laur’s a sensible girl. She’s sentimental, and she’s—well, she’s just timid. She hasn’t known enough men. She’s afraid of them. When she gets over that she’ll be all right.” She had to be all right.
“Well, I guess you ought to know. But some people go through all their lives queer. Oh, I don’t mean you, Beth! I guess that’s not a very nice word.”
“Oh, it’s just a word. What’s in a word?”
“Besides, you’re in love with a man.”
“Yes, 1 am. Oh, I am, Emmy, I am!”
“Well, how can you love two people at once, Beth?”
“I can’t. That’s the whole trouble. I’m in love only with Charlie. But don’t you see, Em—Laura can’t be in love with me forever. I mean, a schoolgirl crush just doesn’t last that long. I know, I’ve had them. You get over them. She’ll get used to the idea of dating—of having me date, too—and pretty soon she’ll begin to forget about it. And nobody gets hurt. Do you see?”
“Yeah. If it works.”
“Emmy, you mustn’t worry. Now that she understands about Charlie, there won’t be any more trouble. That was the whole trouble before.”
“Does she understand about him?”
“Oh, yes.” Beth crushed the cigarette out in a bean-bottomed ashtray.
“Does she know you love him?”
“She knows I need him, Em.” Emmy frowned at her. “Oh, Em, believe me, I know what I’m doing.” She spoke heartily, in order to convince herself. “There won’t be any more trouble now. We all understand each other. Everything’s going to be all right. Really.”
“Does Charlie understand about Laura?”
“Oh, no!” said Beth, and the idea shocked her. “He’ll never know.”
“I hope not,” Emmy said. “Well, okay, Beth, I trust you.” She had never seen Beth in a situation she couldn’t handle.
Beth was right, for a while. She and Charlie w
ere happy, Laura seemed to be happy, and even Mitch seemed to have deserted his books for a gay social life. He’d called Mary Lou and they were seeing a great deal of each other. Even Bud had settled down to a steady routine. He’d given Emmy his fraternity pin, which was in the nature of a minor miracle. Bud had managed to elude every other girl he’d known and leave them unscathed, his pin still firmly attached to his old tennis sweater. But Emmy had won and she was triumphant. She was teased, however.
As Beth put it to Laura, “That’s just the first plateau. She’s trying for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar ring.” Laura laughed and Beth went on. “She’ll never make it. Not with that guy. She’d better switch categories pronto.”
Mary Lou said hopefully, “Maybe she’ll calm down now and stop panting over him in public.”
And so the month went by, peaceful on the surface, but boiling dangerously just below the surface.
The first week in March brought sorority initiation. Laura became a full-fledged Alpha Beta with a pin like Beth’s. And she and Beth shared a sentimental bond that Charlie couldn’t break.
It eased Laura to think about it on dreary weekends when Beth and Emmy were out with Charlie and Bud and she sat at home alone and studied, for she wasn’t going out very much any more. She wouldn’t have at all, except when Beth insisted on it, and then she accepted a blind date only to keep peace.
“You’ve got to go out once in a while, Laur. My God, you dated every week last fall. It’d look just too damn strange if you suddenly quit for no reason.”
So she sighed and did as Beth told her. The nicest part of the weekend was at closing hours when Beth came in and Emmy went to bed. Emmy usually went off discreetly and it struck Laura as simple good luck. Beth never told her that Emmy knew.
Once, Laura asked, “Emmy doesn’t suspect anything, does she? I mean, I was pretty temperamental a couple of times. Do you think she suspected?”
And Beth laughed and mussed up her hair and said, “Laur, honey, you worry about all the wrong things.” And Laura, as always, took her cue from Beth. Beth wasn’t worried, so there was nothing to worry about. Beth didn’t think they were doing anything wrong, so they weren’t.
