She lay in the dark and cried. She lay close and warm in her husband’s
arms while their breath slowed to normal and their hearts quieted
together and she wept silently at his sigh of relief. She had learned to
cry without making a sound. It had taken a while but she had had plenty
of opportunities to learn. If he caught her crying there was always a
terrible scene. He started out by questioning her love and ended by
questioning his own manhood.
“Goddamn it, Beth!” he had cried to her once, when they had been married
only two months, “if I’m doing it wrong, _tell_ me! How do I know what
you want me to do if you don’t tell me? A woman isn’t like a man. I
can’t tell if it’s any good for you or not.”
He was blaming her for his own faults of love, she thought, and, stung,
she snapped back, “What am I supposed to do, give you a play-by-play
analysis? Can’t you figure it out for yourself, Charlie? You did well
enough before we were married.”
“So did you, before we were married,” he flung at her. He got out of
bed, lighted a cigarette in the dark, and sat down on the floor. They
could not afford chairs yet, and he didn’t want to share the bed with
her for a few minutes. Not until the anger wore off.
“Beth, you’ve got it just backwards,” he said. “Most girls can’t enjoy
it until they’re married. Their consciences hurt, or something. They’re
afraid they’ll get pregnant. But not you. Not Backwards Beth. The minute
we get married it’s no fun any more. Does love have to be immoral or
illegal before you can enjoy it, honey?”
Insulted, she turned her back to him and pulled the covers over her
disappointed body. She was afraid to think of what he had just said. It
had too much the shape of truth and she had had to work very hard to
forget it completely. Charlie finished his cigarette and climbed
gingerly back into his place in bed, more chilled by his wife’s behavior
than the night vapors.
It had been nine years since the first such quarrel. There had been
others, but Beth had learned fast to hide the tears of frustration. True
to her contrary nature, there were times when she loved Charlie—if love
can be an on-again, off-again affair. And sometimes, when she didn’t
expect it, desire sneaked up on her and made the moments in his arms
unbearably lovely, the way they had been in college. But that was only
sometimes, and sometimes was not enough.
On this night, like so many others, she got up after he had fallen back
to sleep and went into the bathroom and washed herself. It comforted her
obscurely to tidy herself up this way. And when she went back to bed,
she dreamed. Beth dreamed often and vividly.
But tonight it wasn’t a dream like any other. She dreamed of Laura. Just
Laura, sitting on the studio couch of the room they had shared in
college, looking at Beth and smiling. Laura with her long light hair and
periwinkle eyes. Laura, who didn’t know herself until Beth discovered
her. Laura, who loved her and who had disappeared from her life like
frost from a spring lawn, and who never came back.
That was all. Beth spoke her name, trying to make her answer and explain
herself, but Laura only sat and smiled. Beth repeated the name until
suddenly she wakened and pressed a hand over her mouth. Had she spoken
aloud? But Charlie slumbered undisturbed and she relaxed again, leaning
back on her pillow and staring at the dark ceiling.
_I haven’t even thought of her for months_, she pondered. _How strange.
It’s been years since I dreamed of her. I’d half forgotten. I wonder how
she is ... where she is. In Chicago with her father, I suppose. He
always ruled her life like a tyrant. She wouldn’t have married, of
course._
In the morning she told Charlie, “I dreamed of Laura last night.”
“Oh?” He looked up from the financial page of the paper. He spoke
casually enough, although he stiffened inwardly. Charlie remembered
Laura, too. A man does not easily forget a rival and for a few months,
many years ago, when they were all in college, that was what Laura had
been. A strange cool girl she was, with a capacity for violent love that
Beth had almost accidentally roused. It had only lasted a short
while—the space of a semester—and for Beth it had not seemed serious,
for she was falling in love with Charlie at the time, and Charlie won
her handily. That was when Laura had disappeared.
Beth and Charlie had talked it over, had even tried to help Laura. There
was little about the curious affair that Charlie didn’t know; little
that he couldn’t forgive. And, it should be added, little about it that
he understood.
When he and Beth married he was confident that she would forget it, and
to a large extent she had. At first, anyway. She liked men, she was
married to one. She had children now and a stable home. Most important
in Charlie’s eyes, she had _him_. And besides, she was a sensible girl.
When Laura dropped out of Beth’s life physically, Charlie had faith that
she would drop out emotionally as well.
Beth had rarely mentioned Laura over the years, and now, when she spoke
of her dream at the breakfast table, it was the first time Charlie had
even thought of Laura in over two years. So he was startled, but he
didn’t want it to show.
“What was the dream?” he asked.
“Not much. Just Laura, sitting there.”
“Where?”
“That room we had on the third floor at the Alpha Beta house.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. Polly, damn it, don’t wipe your fingers on your dress!” Her
four-year-old daughter grabbed a paper napkin guiltily.
“Don’t swear at the kids, honey,” Charlie said mildly.
“Don’t scold me in front of them,” she said.
He sighed, feeling a quick hot frustration, a sensation that was much
too common for comfort these days, and picked up the paper again. “What
else about Laura?” he said.
“Nothing else. Silly dream.”
But it haunted her. And Charlie had a feeling there was more to it than
she told him. He kept his eyes on the paper another five minutes and
then rose from the table. “Got to get going,” he said. He kissed his two
children goodbye and then came around the table behind Beth.
“’Bye, honey,” he said into her ear, and blew into it gently.
“Have a good day,” she said absently.
He wished gloomily that she would see him to the door.
“Daddy, when you get home will you make me a kite?” Skipper said
suddenly. He was five, just a year older than his sister, and he looked
very much like Beth.
“Sure,” Charlie said, still looking at the short dark curls on the back
of his wife’s head. He stroked her neck with his finger.
“Yay!” Skipper cried.
Beth squirmed slightly, irritated by Charlie’s wordless loneliness and a
little ashamed of herself. Charlie left her finally and went toward the
front door, slipping into his suit coat as he went. Beth felt his gaze
on her and glanced up suddenly with a little line of annoyance between
her eyes.
“Something wrong?” she said.
“No. What are you doing today?”
“I’m flying to Paris,” she said sarcastically. “What else? Want to
come?”
“Sure.” He grinned and she softened a little. He was handsome, in a
lopsided way, with his big grin and his fine eyes. The kids set up a
clamor. “Can I come too? Can I come too, Mommy?”
And when Charlie went out the door he heard her shout at them in that
voice that scared him, that voice with the edge of hysteria in it, “Oh,
for God’s sake! Oh, shut up! Honest to God, you kids are driving me
insane!”
And he knew she would slam something down on the table to underline her
words—a jam jar or a piece of tableware, anything handy.
He drove off to work with a worried face.