by Ann Bannon
Beth walked straight to her and took her hand, pleased to see that her directness threw Nina offstride slightly. Nina expected to have that effect herself, mainly by fixing people with a go-to-hell stare. But Beth was not interested in Nina for Nina’s sake and it made her less susceptible to Nina’s notions of who was running the show.
They went directly up to the bar, speaking softly, feeling their ways with one another. They ordered martinis.
“How long will you be in New York?” Nina asked.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“A lot of things. You, maybe.”
Nina smiled at her martini glass. She was not a pretty girl, though her eyes were green and well shaped, and she wore her brown hair long in a soft bob. Her nose was too sharp and prominent and her mouth too small and irregular to be pretty, but she had a nice figure. Unusually nice, Beth had noticed on the way up in the elevator.
“What have I got to do with how long you stay in New York?” Nina asked, sizing her up silently. “You don’t even know me.” She spoke suggestively, with the hint of a smile on her face, as if she had only to keep leading a little and Beth would soon take a pratfall.
“I’m looking for someone,” Beth said. “I thought you might be able to help me find her.”
“Oh. Romance?”
“No,” Beth lied, speaking briefly and annoyed at Nina’s tone of voice.
“You’re not at all horsey, are you?” Nina said, changing the subject suddenly and grinning.
“Horsey?” Beth stared at her. “Should I be?”
“Frankly, yes. I got the impression from your letters.”
“It’s not the impression I meant to give.” Beth didn’t like Nina’s expression. It was too cocksure, too well acquainted with all the ins-and-outs of gay life in New York City that Beth yearned to know herself. She felt suddenly reluctant to bring Laura’s name up. Maybe later in the evening, if Nina got more congenial.
“So you’re leaving your husband, hm?” Nina said. It was part of her technique with people to startle them, embarrass them, leave them stammering.
“I didn’t say that,” Beth protested.
“You don’t need to. Your letters said enough. He isn’t here in New York, is he?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving him.”
“From the things you wrote me, I’d say you could hardly wait to ditch him.”
“I haven’t written you for a while,” Beth said in a chilly voice. “Things change.” Beth was being played with, to see if she would snap or take it in stoic silence. She was aware of this, aware that no matter how she reacted Nina wouldn’t care—just as long as there was some reaction. Nina didn’t give a damn for anything else. It was seeing people squirm, seeing them enmeshed in their own poor little problems that amused her. Beth was a good case history. And she was new and different to Nina. She would help to pass the time. She might even show up, slightly distorted, in Nina’s next novel.
Beth made up her mind to ignore it. Nothing mattered but finding Laura, and if Nina could help, Nina would have to be catered to.
They had another martini and then Nina took her out to dinner. It was a little place down in the Village, but expensive; the tourist trade had discovered it. But the food was excellent. Beth ate gladly. The lack of rest and the martinis made a bad combination, and she felt a little slap happy.
“I want to learn my way around down here,” Beth said. “I want to get to know the Village.” Just being in it gave her a tingle of hope, of excitement. The Village. The end of the rainbow. How she had wondered about this place! And Laura had lived here; Laura knew it, too. Perhaps better than Nina.
“Sure,” Nina said. “Sure you would. Just like the rest of the tourists.”
“I have a special reason.”
“What’s her name?”
Beth finished the drink beside her, distinctly nettled. “She may not even be here,” she said tightly. “I lost track of her years ago. The last I heard she was in New York.”
Nina put her head back and laughed and Beth knew, with tongue-tied resentment, that she was being laughed at again.
“So you gave up your husband and kids to come on a wild goose chase after your long lost love,” Nina said. “How romantic! That’s why you wanted to meet me, I suppose. So I could lead you to her.”
She laughed again and Beth thought with disappointment that she could never like this peculiar girl. It was apparently not possible for Nina to be friendly. You made her acquaintance and then you either knuckled under to her or else you had to drop her. One way or the other she got a good show, and that was all she wanted out of life, besides a few affairs. She didn’t need friends and she didn’t especially want them. Lovers, yes. Friends, no. Lovers kept boredom out. Friends let it in. At least, that was the way Beth sized her up.
Somehow the mere idea of exposing Laura’s name to the malicious laughter of this worldly girl who faced her over the dinner table disheartened Beth. She couldn’t do it; not just then. She looked at the writer, feeling sure that Nina would tolerate her good humoredly as long as Beth was still “new,” still good for laughs. And Nina looked back at her, always with her mocking little smile, so different from Jean Purvis’s endless good-hearted grin.
Physically Nina and Beth pleased each other. Nina took in her visitor’s long, strong limbs, well shaped and smooth, and her intense violet eyes. She was ever so slightly, even fashionably, boyish. And Nina laughed softly to herself at the idea of filling Beth full of moonshine and bull and letting her find her way out of the mess.
After dinner Nina took Beth around to some Lesbian bars. It was the first time in her life that Beth had ever been in such places. They recalled scenes from Nina’s novels to her and she asked ingenuous questions, unaware of the fact that her voice carried too far, far enough to make one or two other customers smile.
“Not much noise tonight,” Nina said, after shushing her. “Monday night,” she explained. “Always dead.”
Beth was thinking, What if Laura’s here somewhere? At least she’s been here before. Did she meet people here? Fall in love?
They took in three places. The first was another tourist trap. There was a long dark bar in front and a dining room with sketchy floor shows in the back. No show on Monday nights. But the waitresses were interesting. Beth found herself staring at them in fascination, as they lounged against the walls waiting for the sparse crowd to fill out. She even wondered if they drank orange juice in the morning like everybody else. It shocked her to realize how far out of her depth she was, how far removed from her collegiate sophistication. She wondered how obvious it was to Nina, but a glance at her revealed only the supercilious little smile.
Nina watched her closely and her scrutiny made Beth nervous. She wants me to put my foot in my mouth, Beth thought, and it made her stammer a little. But it didn’t stop her from asking questions.
Beth was surprised to see so many men sitting at the bar. “Who are they?” she asked. “Johns?” She remembered the word from one of Nina’s novels and she asked her question in a firm clear voice that made Nina duck and laugh.
“Quiet, for God’s sake, they’ll think we’re cops,” she said. “Or a couple of gaping hayseeds.”
“Well, are they?” Beth said. “Do they hang around gay girls all the time?” But she lowered her voice.
“Um-hm,” Nina said, her eyes wrinkled at the corners.
In the next place there were only women, except for the man behind the bar, and he apparently enjoyed the confidence of the girls he served. There was only a handful of young women there when Beth and Nina arrived, and Beth looked them over quickly, always with Laura’s lovely face in her mind. But Laura wasn’t there.
Nina seemed to know everybody. She was getting more gregarious as she had more drinks. Not loud at all, just bold; bold in the way she looked at people, in the things she said.
“So you want to go back to your husband,” she needled Beth.
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“You don’t say much, do you?” Nina laughed. “What’d you get married for in the first place if you’re gay?” she said. “Think it would cure you?”
“I didn’t know I was gay,” Beth said.
“You seemed to in your letters.”
“They were easier to write that way.”
Nina laughed at her and called one of the waitresses over. “This is Billie,” she said to Beth, and the girl sat down and talked with them. She was extremely pretty; very small and dainty-looking, but with cropped hair and a decidedly aggressive swing in her walk. She spoke softly, however, almost timidly, and left the bulk of the conversation to Beth and Nina.
“Beth is looking for her long lost love,” Nina said, pleased to see the consternation her announcement created in Beth. “What’s her name again?” She glanced at Beth.
“Maybe she comes in here,” Billie said helpfully. “I know them all.”
“I doubt it,” Beth said.
“Come on, her name,” Nina demanded.
“She’s not here,” Beth said, feeling cornered and stubborn. She hated the phrase “long lost love,” so lightly, even sarcastically, spoken.
“So maybe she comes in other times,” said Billie, innocently unaware that Beth and Nina were sparring with each other.
“Bring us another drink, will you, Billie?” Nina said, still staring Beth down. As soon as the girl had left their table she leaned over and said confidentially to Beth, as if making it up to her a little, “Do you like her?”
“I don’t know her,” Beth said warily.
“She likes you,” Nina said. “She’s been cruising you like mad since we came in.”
“Cruising me?”
“Looking you over, sizing you up.”
Beth didn’t believe her. Nina only wanted a rise out of her.
“She wants to be a boy,” Nina said. “She boards with a family on Bleecker Street. She thinks they think she’s a boy. She always wears pants.”
“She had on a skirt tonight.”
“That’s because she has to wear one in here. City ordinance. No women in bars in pants. But she won’t wear the skirt to work. She carries it in a paper bag and changes in the john.”
“She’s crazy if she thinks she can pass for a boy,” Beth said seriously. “She can’t be over five-feet-three. And she’s so pretty. Her features are very feminine.”
And again Nina laughed at her. And again Beth realized she was being made a fool of. Was any of it true? Was Billie so blind as to think she could transform herself into a boy with a pair of pants? Or was Nina showing her at least part of the truth, a sad, even pitiful, intensely interesting little corner of life, cut from the Village pattern?
At the last bar there were other men, but they never seemed to join the girls at the tables. They rather intrigued Beth, who wondered why they spent all their free time sitting quietly on bar stools watching the flirtations, the loves, the dancing and socializing of these women they could never touch. Some of them seemed to know the girls and were greeted affectionately with a nickname or a slap on the back. But they never presumed to follow a girl or to talk before they were spoken to. It was their solitary pleasure simply to watch, and now and then to be permitted a few words, a little sharing of this odd way of life
Beth observed one who seemed particularly pathetic. He was overweight by quite a bit, balding and with blue pockets under his eyes, and he looked not only sad but outright bored—something none of the others did. She wondered why he bothered to come by at all if it depressed him so. His face stuck in her mind later and she pitied him. This third and last place they were in had a larger clientele than the others, probably because it was eleven o’clock by the time they got there.
Beth was absorbed by it. She wanted to wander all night around the Village, look into all the windows and share all the secrets. Behind some curtain, in some doorway or shop window, she might find Laura.
But when she stood up suddenly to go to the ladies’ room she realized with a start that she was drunk. Quite drunk. Nina had been telling her to quit for some time.
“You don’t want to be hungover tomorrow,” she said. But it was so condescending, so solicitous for the “country cousin,” that Beth had defiantly ordered another. And another. She knew now, gripping the table with both hands, that Nina was right, aggravating though her attitude was. Beth should have stopped early in the evening.
Nina appraised her skillfully. “You’re going to feel like hell in the morning,” she said. “Too bad. I was going to take you out for lunch, too. One of my favorite places.”
“I’ll make it,” Beth said. She would feel rotten, all right—that was a cinch. But she’d go. She had to learn her way around here somehow, and doing it with Nina, however embarrassing or even upsetting, seemed safer than going it alone.
They drove home in a taxi, and Beth was disconcerted to find that the warmth and closeness of Nina’s body in the rear seat pleased her. Nina said nothing and that made it easier to enjoy her. When she opened her mouth it threw Beth on her guard automatically and destroyed the sensual pleasure.
Beth left her with a queer feeling of dislike and desire that disturbed her sleep, tired as she was. She couldn’t fathom Nina and the only thing she thought it was safe to count on was that Nina was playing the game only for herself. She had no special favors to grant Beth Ayers, and when Beth ceased to interest her, that would be the end. Kaput. End of guided tour through the Village, and end of information, such as it was. Beth thought fuzzily that she had better ask Nina about Laura, whether Nina laughed at the idea or not, before Nina got it into her head to drop her. For, strangely, on this first night of their acquaintance, she felt the break coming. It was inevitable with a girl like Nina. Things never last, things aren’t meant to last. That would be her way of seeing it. So why not break it off as soon as it bores you? And Nina’s philosophy, Beth was soon to learn on her own, was typical of many a weary Greenwich Villager. It was not the attitude that comes with sophistication, but the attitude of boredom and disappointment.
Chapter Twelve
THEY HAD LUNCH THE NEXT DAY, THOUGH BETH FELT GRAY with the hangover. And somehow, over the salad and crackers, she found she couldn’t speak of Laura. It was like trying to swallow a pill that was too big for her throat. She made the usual try at it, but it reached the back of her mouth and suddenly scared her, and she choked a little and finally gave up.
But several nights later, things changed. Nina unexpectedly asked her to come to her apartment for dinner. Beth had been hoping to see where she lived, how she lived, even what she ate. Nina was her link to the gay world, and though she couldn’t quite like her she still was deeply interested in her, in the things Nina could teach her. She accepted the invitation gratefully, and was astonished, when she got there, to see that Nina had cooked the dinner—or was in process of cooking it—herself.
Nina fixed her a drink and Beth stood in the tiny living room looking at the books that banked one whole wall from floor to ceiling. It made her feel more comfortable with Nina to see that she read or, at least, had books around. Beth liked to read and when she found others who did she ordinarily cottoned to them. It helped her get over her suspicions with Nina, the shadowy feeling of being had, of being taken for a ride, that she couldn’t quite pin down.
They ate in a corner of the bedroom, a room that was even smaller than the living room and literally gorged, like an overfed animal, with a bed, a desk, and three typewriters, to say nothing of the card table from which they ate.
“Apartments up here are damn cracker boxes,” Nina said.
“If you want a good address, you pay for it.” She was in the East Seventies, just off Fifth Avenue, in a staid old building that was eminently respectable. It was like her to look down on the Village, part of her philosophy to get out of it, or, at least, to live out of it. She could never stay away fulltime.
The dinner was good, to Bet
h’s surprise. Nina had put candles on the table and turned out the lights, and Beth began to feel, in spite of the shivers of warning that flashed through her when Nina smiled her knowledgeable little smile, a curious intimacy. After all, they had written many letters to each other. Nina had been kind, in her off-the-cuff way. Nina was being good to her now, taking time off from the book she was working on, showing her around.
Maybe I’m taking the teasing too hard, Beth thought, as she ate.
“Lord, I’m stuffed,” she said, when Nina offered her more. They smiled at each other and there was a small pause. Nina’s was a different kind of smile. There was almost warmth in it; at least, there was an absence of the mocking twist that bothered Beth so.
Perhaps out of uncertainty, or stubbornness born of accustomed shyness, Beth refused to drop her eyes first. And Nina, her bluff called, had to keep her own eyes on Beth. And somehow—as though the two pairs of eyes, one sparkling green, the other misty violet, were magnetized—they leaned toward each other. Beth reached out without consciously directing her hand and cupped it gently behind Nina’s neck, pressing the warm brown hair beneath it and pulling Nina closer still.
In utter silence, in the calm light of candles, over the steak plates, in the night of the city, they kissed each other. And leaned away again slightly to gaze at each other. Beth was inanely surprised to see that Nina’s lipstick was smeared. And Nina smiled, the good smile, and they kissed, again. And then she suddenly rose, as if it occurred to her she was risking a true affection for Beth by playing with her, and began to clear the plates as if nothing had happened.
Beth picked up a stack of plates and followed her into the cramped kitchen. She put the slippery crockery on the little table and her arms around Nina, and a voice inside her urged, Tell her. Tell her it’s Laura you’re looking for. Tell her now, before she gets bored and you lose her.
But I can’t, Beth thought. She’d burst out laughing at me if I asked her now. It would ruin the mood, it would make her sarcastic again. And I’d hate myself for asking.
