Vega’s studio was located on the second floor of a building that housed
an exclusive dress shop and a luggage and notions shop. It was an
expensive place to rent and Beth was rather surprised to see how bare it
was. There was a small reception room which was tastefully decorated,
though there was space for more chairs in it. There was a door marked
“office,” which was closed, and there was a large, nearly empty studio
room with eight or ten folding chairs, the kind you sit on at PTA
meetings.
Beth peered into the studio hesitantly, and instantly Vega materialized
from a small group of high school girls who had surrounded her while she
spoke to them. There was silence while she walked, regally lovely in
flowing velvet, both hands extended to Beth. The teens examined the
newcomer with adolescent acuteness, and Beth took their silent appraisal
uneasily.
Vega reached her. “Darling, how are you,” she said in her smooth
controlled voice, and kissed Beth on the mouth. Beth was shocked
speechless. She stared at Vega with big startled eyes.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Vega laughed, seeing her expression. “The doctor says
I’m socially acceptable. The TB has been inactive for almost two
years—really a record.”
But it wasn’t the infected lung, the possibility of catching TB, that
upset Beth. That, in fact, never occurred to her. It was the sudden
electric meeting of mouths, the impudence of it, the feel of it, the
teen-aged audience taking it all in. Beth was piqued. Vega had no
business treating her so familiarly. Still, it was impossible to make a
fuss over it, as though she were guilty of some indecent complicity with
Vega.
“How are you?” she said uncertainly.
The knot of girls began to talk and giggle again, and Vega turned to
them. “Okay, darlings, you can go now,” she said. “That’s all for this
afternoon.”
She took Beth’s arm and led her into the studio while the girls filed
past them and out, still staring. Beth began to be seriously disturbed.
Vega behaved as if they were sisters, at the very least, and at the
worst.... Beth turned to her abruptly.
“Vega, I hate to say anything, but really, I—I—” She paused,
embarrassed. Vega would surely take it the wrong way. Who but a girl
with a problem would take the kiss, the familiarity, so hard? What,
after all, was so dreadful about a kiss between two women? Even if it
was so unexpected, even if it was so direct that a trace of moisture
from Vega’s lips remained on Beth’s own.
_I’d only look like a fool to complain_, Beth thought. _She’d think I
was—queer—or something._ How she hated that word!
“Something wrong?” Vega said helpfully.
“I—well, I’m just not so sure I should do this, that’s all,” she said
lamely. “Charlie said—”
“Charlie be damned. Charlie’s as stuffy as Cleve. They make a beautiful
couple,” she shot at Beth, who was startled by the sharp emphasis.
“However....” Vega turned away, walking to one of the folding chairs to
pick up her purse and fish out a cigarette. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe you
shouldn’t try to do this.”
“_What?_” Beth exclaimed. “After all you said—”
“Oh, just for today, I mean,” Vega laughed. “I don’t feel much like
giving another lesson. I get so sick of this damn place,” she added
plaintively, and her change of expression impressed Beth. Vega looked
tired for a moment, and perhaps not as young as usual. But her face
smoothed out quickly. “You don’t really mind, do you?” she said.
“Well, I—I do a little,” Beth admitted. After what she had gone through
to get Charlie’s approval she minded a lot. But Vega intimidated her
somehow, and she hadn’t the nerve to show her irritation. “But if you’re
tired....” She paused.
“I am,” Vega said. “But I have no intention of abandoning you, my little
housewife.” She swung a plush coat over her shoulders. “I’m tired and
fed up and sick to death—not really,” she added with a brilliant smile
that did not reassure Beth at all. The edge in Vega’s usually soft and
low voice made her words sound literally true. _Tired, fed up, sick._
And those eyes, so deep and dark and full, had turned lusterless again,
as if Vega were defying her to look into them and see her secrets.
“Let’s go slumming,” she said, and the way she said it, the quick return
of life to her face, the odd excitement so tightly controlled, was
infectious.
“Where?” Beth said, intrigued.
“Well, you look so nifty we can’t go too far astray,” Vega said, looking
at her professionally. And yet not quite professionally enough. “Do you
have your car?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll show you where my girls hang out. My teen-agers.” She spoke
of them with visible affection. “It’s a caffè espresso place—The
Griffin. It’s not far. Have you been there?”
“I’ve heard of it but I never thought I’d see it. It’s the last place in
Pasadena that would interest my adventurous husband.”
“Let’s go!” Vega spoke gaily and caught Beth’s arm. They left the studio
together, walking down the narrow flight of stairs to the street, and
Beth thought, _My God, I never even got my coat off_.
“I like your studio, Vega,” she said, because the silence between them
was becoming too full.
“Do you?” It was almost a listless response. “I’m going to redecorate
it. That’s why it looks so bare.”
Beth tried to look at Vega’s face but they had reached the foot of the
stairs and she had to pull the door open for her instead. Vega would not
release her arm, even through the clumsy maneuver of getting out the
door, and Beth was peeved to find her clinging to her still as they
walked down the street toward the car. She was grateful when they
reached it for the semi-privacy it afforded.
“Where to?” she said, starting the motor.
* * * * *
The Griffin was dark and dank, jammed with very young, very convivial
people very sure of themselves. In a corner an incredibly dirty minstrel
twanged on a cracked guitar and sang what passed for old-English
ballads. There were beards aplenty on the males and pants aplenty on the
girls. Only a few females, Vega and Beth among them, wore skirts. And
there was coffee of all kinds but no liquor. Not even beer.
“Coffee—that’s all you can get in here,” Vega said. So they ordered
Turkish coffee and drank it while Vega told her about the place. “It’s
just an old private house,” she said. “The kids have redone it all
themselves.”
“They did a godawful job,” Beth commented and immediately sensed,
without being told, that she had injured Vega, who seemed actually
rather proud of the place.
“Yes, I guess they did,” she admitted. Vega looked around, her eyes
bright and probing, wafting smiles at the familiar faces and studying
the strange ones. Beth saw her nervous pleasure, her fascination, quite
plainly in her face. So it startled her to see that same lovely face
cloud over abruptly, with angry wrinkles spoiling the purity of her
brow. Vega glanced at Beth and realized her emotions were showing.
Rather diffidently she nodded at a tableful of girls about ten feet from
them.
“See those girls?” she said. There were five of them, all in tight
pants, all rather dramatically made up, with the exception of one who
wore no makeup at all. Her hair was trimmed very short and she had a
cigarette tilting from the corner of her mouth. Beth’s gaze rested on
her with interest. She looked tough, a little disillusioned. Her blonde
hair was unkempt but her eyes were piercing and restless and her face
made you look twice. It wasn’t ugly, just different. Quite boyish.
“They’re disgusting,” Vega said. “I can’t bear to look at them.”
Beth saw her hand trembling and she looked at her in astonishment. “For
God’s sake, why?” she said. “They’re just kids. They look pretty much
like the others in here. What’s so awful about them?”
“That one with the cigarette—she ought to be in jail,” Vega said
vehemently.
“Do you know her?” Beth said, glancing back at the tough arresting face.
Vega’s heat amused and scared her a little. Vega was so frail. How mad
could you get before you hurt yourself, with only one lung, a fraction
of a stomach, and a bodyful of other infirmities?
“I don’t know her personally,” Vega said, stabbing out her cigarette,
“but I know enough about her to put her in jail ten times over.”
“Why don’t you, then?” Beth asked.
Vega looked away, confused. Finally she turned back to Beth and pulled
her close so she could whisper. “That lousy bitch is gay. I mean, a
Lesbian. She hurt one of my girls. Really, I could kill her.”
“Hurt one of your girls?” Beth could only gape at her. What did she
mean? She sounded tense, a little frantic.
“One of my students. She made a pass at her,” Vega fumed.
“Well, that couldn’t have hurt very much,” Beth said and smiled. “That’s
not so bad, is it?” She looked curiously at the girl.
But Vega was displeased. “I don’t imagine you approve of that sort of
thing?” she said primly, and Beth, once again, was lost, surprised at
the changes in her.
“I wouldn’t send her to jail for it,” Beth said.
Vega stared at her for a minute and then she stood up. “Let’s go,” she
said. “If I’d known she was in here I wouldn’t have come.” She was so
upset, so obviously nervous, that Beth followed her out without a
protest. They walked to the car, neither one speaking.
“Take me home, will you, Beth?” Vega said when they got in, and lapsed
into gloomy silence. Beth began to see what Charlie meant by strange.
Moody and restless. In fact, Vega’s mood had changed so radically that
the bones seemed to have shifted under her skin. Her face looked taut
and tired and much older now. She slumped as if weakened by her angry
outburst.
At last Beth asked softly, “Why do you go in there, Vega, if it bothers
you so?”
“I didn’t expect _her_.”
“What did you expect?”
“My girls, of course. They’re in there all the time.”
And Beth could hear, in the way Vega said “_my_ girls,” how much her
students meant to her, how much she needed their youth around her, their
pretty faces, their respect. “I like to let them see me in there once in
a while,” she added, trying for a casual sound in her voice. “Gives them
the idea that I’m not a square. You understand. You see—I mean, well,
they mean a lot to me,” she went on, and there was a thread of tense
emotion in her voice now. “Everything, really. They’re all I have,
really, I—” And unexpectedly she began to cry. Beth was both concerned
and dismayed. She reached a hesitant hand toward Vega to comfort her,
controlling the car with the other.
“It’s all right, Vega, don’t cry,” she said. “Do I turn here?”
Vega looked up and nodded.
They turned down the new street and Beth ventured softly, “You have your
mother and grandfather, Vega. And Cleve. Your family. You aren’t alone.
And you have friends.”
“My family is worthless! Worse than worthless. They hang like stones
around my neck,” Vega said and the bitterness helped her overcome her
tears.
“I’m sorry. I should keep my mouth shut,” Beth said.
“And I haven’t any friends,” Vega cried angrily. “Just my girls. They’re
sweet to me, you know, they bring me things—” and abruptly, as if
ashamed, she broke off. “I’d like you for a friend, Beth,” she said. “I
really would. I liked you right away. I’ve never been much good at
making friends with women, and for some reason I get the feeling that
you’re the same way. It makes me feel closer to you. Am I right?” She
paused, waiting for an answer.
Beth was alarmed by her behavior, afraid to aggravate her, and yet she
felt it served her as warning not to get too close to Vega. The older
woman was lovely, quick and charming. But Charlie was right—she was
strange. Beth had a premonition of that wild fury with the world that
displayed itself against the Lesbian and against Vega’s family turning
on herself someday. But she couldn’t delay answering. You offer your
friendship gladly, without deliberation, or you don’t offer it at all.
“I’d like to be friends with you, Vega,” she said, but it sounded hollow
to her.
To Vega it sounded beautiful. “I’m glad,” she said, and Beth felt that
the mood had passed. Vega put a hand on her arm and left it there until
they reached her house.
“Come in for a cocktail,” she said. She was telling Beth, not asking
her, and Beth was unable to refuse. “There’s just one thing,” Vega
cautioned as they walked up the driveway to the small bungalow. “Mother
can’t drink anything. But _anything_. Really. It would kill her. She’s
an absolute wreck. You’ll love her, of course, but she _is_ a mess. I
sometimes think she just keeps on living to remind me of the powers of
alcohol.”
Beth blanched slightly at this, but Vega laughed at her own remarks.
“Anyway, Mother drank like a fish for twenty-three years and suddenly
she went all to hell inside. Liver, bladder, God knows what-all. The
doctor tried to explain it to me, but all I know is she aches all over
and she has to make forty trips to the bathroom every day.”
The little crudity brought Beth up short. It was so homely, so out of
place on Vega’s patrician lips. But Vega was full of contradictions;
they were, perhaps, her only consistency.
As they paused, they were approached abruptly by a slight shadow of a
man in worn corduroys and a jaunty deer-hunting cap. His arms were full
of cats and his eyes full of mischief. What cats couldn’t find room in
his arms sat on his shoulders.
“Gramp!” Vega exclaimed. “You scared me to death.” She relieved him of
two cats, the ones that were having the most trouble hanging on. “This
is Beth Ayers,” she told him. “Beth—my grandfather.”
“How do you do, Mr. —?” Beth began clumsily, holding out a hand to him.
“Gramp. Just call me Gramp.” He ignored her hand. Even with two of the
cats transferred to Vega’s arms he was still too loaded to let go and
pursue the normal courtesies. “My best friends,” he grinned, nodding at
the soft animals.
“Your _only_ friends,” Vega amended. “The only ones he trusts, anyway,”
she told Beth. “We were just going in for a cocktail, Gramp. I was
telling Beth about Mother.”
“_What_ about her?” His eyes snapped with good humored suspicion.
“Just what a mess she is.”
“Well, forewarned is forearmed,” he said to Beth. “She’s really quite
harmless.”
“Except for her tongue,” Vega said softly.
The three of them headed for the front door again. “Fortunately she’s
much nicer than she looks,” Gramp explained. “She likes to laze around
in nothing but an old beat-up bathrobe. Saves pulling down her pants all
the time. You see, she has to take a—”
“I know, I know, Vega told me,” Beth said quickly. Why did they take
such a delight in exposing all the ugly comical little family weaknesses
to her? Did it make them easier to bear? Or were they punishing
themselves for something? Beth stopped where she was.
“What’s the matter?” Vega and Gramp asked with one voice, pausing and
looking back at her.
“Vega, your mother doesn’t want any visitors,” Beth said. “She’s
_sick_.”
“Sure she’s sick. We’re all sick. It’s part of the family charm,” Gramp
said. “Come on in and join the fun.”
“You’ll see what I’m going to look like in another ten or twelve years,
according to Mother,” Vega said.
“The last thing she’d want is visitors,” Beth tried once more, but Vega
shushed her with a laugh.
“Bull,” Gramp commented. “Hester’s sick and proud of it. She likes to
show it off. She gave up appearances years ago. Actually takes pride in
being a wreck. She’s delightful. You’ll love her. Even the cats enjoy
her company.”
And Beth, reluctant, bashful, but overwhelmed with curiosity to see what
Vega would “look like in ten years,” followed them in.
“Don’t mention liquor,” Vega hissed just before she pushed the front
door open. “_Remember._”
Beth’s first impression was that the house was stiflingly hot; and the
second, jampacked with rickety furniture. Vega flitted around the room
lighting lamps and dissipating the gloom, and Beth suddenly became aware
of an old woman sitting in a corner who appeared to be broken into
several pieces. She wore a gray, once-pink dressing gown; she had been
listening to a speaking record until she heard Vega and Beth enter. Vega
kissed her head briefly in salutation.
“Mother, this is Beth Ayers,” Vega said. “I told you about her. Mother’s
blind as a bat,” she said cheerfully to Beth, who advanced to take the
old lady’s outstretched hand. “I forgot to tell you that.”
“But not much else, hey?” her mother said, holding out a hand. “How do
you do, my dear?”
Beth murmured something to her, grasping her hot hand gingerly. And then
Vega said, with a wink at Beth, “Let’s all have a Coke. Mother, you
game?”
“Are you kidding?” Mrs. Purvis said. “It’ll have to be Seven-Up, though.
Gramp busted the plumber one with the last Coke. There’s still fizz all
over the john.” And she cackled with pleasure. Gramp, unperturbed, was
arranging himself in a harem of cats on the couch. Beth stared at Mrs.
Purvis, repelled and fascinated and amused.
_Vega in ten years?_ Utterly incredible! Never.
“What the hell did you do that for, Gramp?” Vega called from the
kitchen. “The plumber hurt one of the cats?”
“No, they disagreed about the plunger,” her mother answered, cutting
Gramp off. “Gramp said the head was German rubber and the plumber said
they don’t make rubber in Germany. So Gramp pickled him in fizz.”
“He deserved it. He was wrong,” Gramp said mildly.
Beth smiled uneasily at them all, slipping out of her coat and feeling
the sweat already trickling down her front. _God, it must be a hundred
degrees in here_, she thought. _How does Vega stand it?_
Vega came out of the kitchen, apparently standing it very well, with
some glasses on a tray and a bottle of Seven-Up. She poured it for her
mother and handed Beth a glass with two inches of whiskey and an ice
cube in the bottom. Gramp got the same and settled back into the cats
with a conspiratorial sigh.
“Tell us what you did today, Mother,” Vega said, while Beth made signs
to her that she wanted some water in her drink. Vega took the glass back
to the kitchen while Mrs. Purvis answered.
“Listened to a book,” she said.
“A good one?”
“Good book, but a lousy reader. They cut out all the good stuff anyway.
I guess they figure we poor blind bastards will die of frustration if we
hear the good parts.” She chuckled. “With me it’s all a matter of
nostalgia, anyway,” she added. “How old are you, Beth, my dear?”
“Thirty,” Beth said, taking her glass again from Vega.
“On the nose? Any kids?”
“Two,” Beth said. “Boy and girl.”
“Ideal,” said Mrs. Purvis. “Just like the Purvis clan. You know,” she
said, leaning toward Beth, “what a harmonious family we are.” There was
a mischievous leer in her smile.
“I’m sure you are,” Beth said politely.
Mrs. Purvis roared amiably. “Everything we ever did was immoral,
illegal, and habit forming,” she said. “Until Cleve turned straight and
earned an honest living,” she added darkly.
“God, Mother, you make us sound like a pack of criminals,” Vega
protested.
“We’re all characters. But not a queer one in the bunch.” Mrs. Purvis
took a three ounce swallow of Seven-Up. “Too bad you never knew my
husband,” she said to Beth. “A charmer.”
“Daddy was a doctor,” Vega said, and Beth noticed, uncomfortably, that
she was working on a second drink of straight whiskey.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Purvis energetically. “Specialized in tonsils. Once a
week he went down to his office—Monday mornings, usually—and sliced out
eighteen or twenty pairs. That was all. Never did another thing and
never lost a patient. Made a pile too, all on tonsils. Kept us quite
comfortably for years. It’s a shame he wasn’t around to carve Vega up
when the time came.”
“My tonsils are the _only_ things they didn’t cut out, Mother,” Vega
reminded her.
“Well, it was a good life,” Mrs. Purvis said. “Lots of leisure time,
lots of money for booze and the rest of life’s necessities. Of course, I
drink tamer stuff these days. How’s your Seven-Up, girls?”
“Oh, it’s delicious,” Beth said quickly, but something in the old lady’s
face told her that Vega’s silent boozing didn’t escape her mother.
Whiskey didn’t _sound_ any different from Seven-Up, but it _smelled_
different.
“I hope you split them up fairly, Vega,” Mrs. Purvis said. “There were
only two.” She smiled inwardly at herself, slyly.
“There were three, Mother. One in the back of the shelf. You missed it,”
Vega lied promptly, with perfect ease.
“Oh.” Her disappointment seemed to remind Mrs. Purvis that it was time
for another of her incessant trips to the bathroom, and she heaved
unsteadily to her feet.
“Can I help you?” Beth exclaimed, half rising, but Mrs. Purvis waved her
down.
“Hell no, dear,” she said. “This is one thing I can still do by myself,
thank God. When I can’t make it to the john any more I’m going to lie
down with the damn cats in the back yard and die.”
“If they’ll have you,” Gramp murmured.
“Besides, she needs the exercise,” Vega said. “It’s the only walking she
does, really.”
“I get more exercise than you, my dear daughter,” said her mother from
the door. “You just sit around on your can all day and tell other people
how to walk. You should try it some time. Every twenty minutes. Never
gives the circulation time to get sluggish. There are many advantages to
being old and diseased, as you will soon discover,” she said, chortling
with expectation at Vega. “Not the least of them are virtue and
exercise.”
“All right, Hester, get the hell in the bathroom before you lose it,”
Gramp snapped impatiently, and Beth saw Vega’s temper rising too. Beth
didn’t know whether she was amused or repelled by the whole scene: the
ugly crumbling old woman, the way Vega lived, the wise-cracking with the
hint of violence under the humor. She didn’t understand why she said yes
when Vega fixed her another drink, then another. And Vega drank two for
her every one.
Beth began to forget, or rather to get accustomed to, the hothouse
atmosphere. She unbuttoned her blouse at the top and pushed the dark
hair off her perspiring forehead, and talked and laughed with Vega and
Mrs. Purvis. They were both a little daffy, she decided, but in a
macabre sort of way they were fun. And Vega was so beautiful ... so
beautiful. Beth saw her now with slightly fuzzy outlines. Vega became
animated in a careful sort of way, even laughing aloud, which was an
effort for her. Every little while she would disappear with their empty
glasses and come back with a couple of inches of liquor in them. Mrs.
Purvis had long since finished her Seven-Up.
“No, thanks,” Beth said finally, laughing in spite of herself when Vega
offered her another. “I can’t, really, I’m driving.”
Vega raised an alarmed finger to her lips, and Mrs. Purvis said, “That
crap will kill you, dear. It’s the bubbles—they’re poison, I swear.
Whiskey is much better for you, believe me.” And Beth thought her
sagging old face looked crafty and pleased with itself—or was it just
the effort of trying to figure the two young women out?
Beth rose to go, throwing her coat over her shoulders.
“Oh, wait!” Vega pleaded. “Wait a little while. I’ll make some dinner
for us.” She put a hand on Beth’s arm and this time it didn’t bother
Beth at all. Or rather, the bothersome sensation was welcome; it was all
pleasure. They smiled at each other and Beth felt herself on the verge
of giving in. She felt at the same time a warmth in Vega that she hadn’t
suspected.
“Stay and have some dinner with us, Beth,” Mrs. Purvis said genially.
“Vega’s a lousy cook unless she has company to fix for. The damn pussies
eat better than we do.”
“They’re healthier, too,” Gramp interposed.
Beth looked at her watch. It was past six o’clock, which struck her
funny. “I can’t, thanks,” she said. “My kids, my husband—”
“Can’t he cook?” exclaimed Mrs. Purvis. “Hell, I used to make the doctor
sling his own hash three or four times a week. And we were sublimely
happy.”
_But what happened?_ Beth wondered. _Your family split up and went all
to hell. Everyone but Cleve, and even Cleve drinks too much. Charlie
gripes about it._
“Charlie can boil water,” she said, “but that’s all. It’s past
dinnertime now.” She adjusted her coat and headed for the door.
Vega scooped up a couple of mewing cats from the couch and followed her,
balancing her drink precariously at the same time.
“Tell her to stay for dinner, Gramp,” Mrs. Purvis said.
“Canned cat food. The finest,” he offered with a grin.
But Beth suddenly felt the need to escape, and Vega, seeing it, took her
hand and led her outdoors. “That’s enough, you two,” she called back to
her family. “Don’t scare her off!”
Beth turned and looked at Vega one last time before she left. She felt
giddy and silly and she was aware that there was a smile on her face, a
smile that wouldn’t go away. “Thanks, Vega,” she said.
“You know, you don’t need modeling lessons, Beth,” Vega said slowly, as
if it were something they had a tacit understanding about. “I like the
way you walk. It’s not quite right for modeling—too free swinging—but I
wouldn’t change it for anything, even if I could. It would ruin you—the
lovely effect you make.”
Beth stammered at her, unable to answer coherently, only aware that she
was deeply flattered.
“Tell Charlie you had a first-rate lesson,” Vega went on. “Tell him you
walked three miles back and forth in a straight line and you learned how
to treat your hair with olive oil. Tell him anything, only come back on
Friday.”
Beth, smiling and mystified and pleased, said softly, “I will.”