“Oh, Vega,” Beth said. “Vega, I’m so sorry. Forgive me. I wish you could
hear me, I wish I could undo what I did to you. Please Vega, get well.”
Just telling it to the walls was better than keeping it all inside and
getting sick on it. Even at that there was a sick feeling in her stomach
and it didn’t go away for a long while.
* * * * *
For three days she stayed in her hotel room. Not the lure of seeing Nina
or even the search for Laura Landon that had propelled her this far
could stir her. She simply lay on her bed and tried to disentangle her
thoughts. Now and then she had some food sent up.
She told herself that nothing that had happened was her _fault_,
exactly. It was fate, it was an accident, it was foul luck. But one
single person couldn’t have caused it all. The Purvises were wrong to
drink so much, Charlie was wrong to be so bad-tempered, Uncle John was
wrong to be so inquisitive. Laura was wrong to have walked out of her
life nine years ago. Everybody was wrong but Beth, who was only an
innocent girl trying to find herself. She had to see it that way or get
sick on herself.
* * * * *
She had been in New York for over a week but she hadn’t found Laura.
There was Nina—an unexpected discovery—but Nina wasn’t what she came
for. It was time, and overtime, to find Laura.
Beth thought about these things as she rode up Fifth Avenue in a bus.
She was on her way to Nina’s apartment just off Fifth, near the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, sitting wedged between two ample women with
their arms full of bundles, and silently cursing the humid warmth of the
late July day.
It was early afternoon. Nina would still be sleeping but Beth wouldn’t
disturb her. Being away from her for several days had generated a number
of feelings in Beth, all of them at odds. She had to get back and try
herself against Nina again. She had to know for sure what she already
suspected: that her desire for Nina was mostly a desire for physical
love, a desire that required only a pretty body and a certain skill in
using it.
Still, and most important, she wanted to find Laura. She had only been
down to the Village once, but she would make Nina take her again.
Tonight. If Nina didn’t know any Lauras there must be plenty of people
down there who did. It was a Saturday night this time and things would
surely be busy. Maybe Laura herself.... But it both frightened and
excited her too much to think about it, to visualize that actual meeting
that would come, had to come, some day, when she and Laura would be face
to face again, when they would search for the right words, the right
gestures, to show their love. It would all be so clumsy at first and
then so beautiful, and Beth ached to have it happen. Soon.
Across from her on the bus sat a small heavy man suffering so visibly
from the heat that Beth almost smiled to herself. He looked enough worse
than the rest to make Beth almost feel cooler. He was balding, with
shadows of weariness under his eyes and a hopelessly rumpled seersucker
suit, and he reminded her sharply of one of the “Johns” she had seen
with Nina the night they had met and gone bar hopping in the Village.
_Forlorn and hot and friendless_, she thought. _He’s probably on his way
home to a wife he can’t stand. He’s probably mired in a life that bores
the hell out of him. But he hasn’t the guts to get out of it._
She pitied him, for it seemed to her then that escaping from a life you
didn’t like was a matter of courage. She had that courage and she was
trying to be proud of it. She didn’t dare to wonder if she had the
_right_ to leave her life and everyone in it. Or if the dumpy little man
across the aisle had that right. She only saw his dissatisfaction and
she scorned him for enduring it. Everything that touched her now she saw
in terms of her own problem.
The rest of her thoughts were of Nina as she approached her apartment.
They had had three days together, three strange long days and nights
when Nina didn’t write anything on her new book or call anyone or even
go anywhere. They had simply lain around, not bothering to make up the
beds or dress themselves. They had made love and talked and when they
got hungry Nina ordered sandwiches from a nearby delicatessen and that
was what they lived on.
Nina had made her keep her voice down for fear her neighbors would hear
them. “I don’t know what they’d think,” she said. “I can’t afford to
have them thinking _anything_. I had enough trouble finding this
apartment and I don’t want any nosey cops coming around answering
complaints. It’s not the same as the Village. You can do things there
you wouldn’t try uptown.”
Beth had stared at her. “I’m not making any noise,” she said.
“Well, don’t.”
Beth thought back on this, bemused. Nina had dodged any commitments to
her. She was lavish with compliments, telling Beth how pretty she was,
how delectable her body was, how Charlie probably didn’t appreciate her.
But she never had a word to say about how much she really liked Beth,
how often she wanted to see her, what her presence meant to her. Beth
was in the dark. All she knew was that Nina thought she was pretty and
had handled her life like a fool.
* * * * *
Beth wasn’t prepared for what she found when she walked into Nina’s
apartment ten minutes after her bus ride and found Nina in bed with a
girl of eighteen. The girl was still asleep but she woke up hard when
Nina sat up in bed and said, “Who the hell told _you_ to come over? At
_this_ hour?” Her eyes were narrow with anger and Beth recoiled,
shocked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll leave.”
But before she could turn around and get the door closed behind her Nina
said, “No. You’re here now. So stay.”
Beth looked at her doubtfully and at the sleepy-eyed and rather scared
girl beside her. “I don’t think that’s the best idea,” she said, but
Nina’s anger had passed as quickly as it had come. Suddenly she saw the
possibilities of the situation: Beth’s embarrassment, the charming
consternation of Franny, the girl in bed with her, and herself, Nina,
mistress of their feelings. What a scene! It was worth playing out.
“Make yourself some coffee,” she told Beth. “We were just getting up.”
And Beth could tell by the sudden change in Nina’s voice, by the look on
her face, that she was playing with her two guests.
“I didn’t expect this, Nina,” she said frostily. “I have no claim on
you, I realize, but I didn’t expect _this_.”
“Oh, come off it, Madame Queen. What _did_ you expect?” Nina asked,
smiling at Beth’s white-faced annoyance. “I don’t wear a chastity belt,
you know.”
Franny, the teen-ager, got up abruptly, sitting down again in
humiliation as she remembered her nakedness, and then covering herself
with a blanket and going into the bathroom. Beth collapsed in an
armchair and preserved a chilly silence while Nina dressed herself,
smiling all the while, wondering whose temper would blow first.
Franny came out of the bathroom a few minutes later with her clothes on.
She walked over to Beth and spoke, facing her. “I didn’t know I was
muscling in on anything,” she said. “This just happened, almost by
accident. We weren’t even going to sleep together. I feel as bad about
it as you do, believe me.” And she gave Nina a dirty glance but it only
made Nina laugh.
“Thanks,” Beth told her softly, surprised at the dignity the girl had
mustered. “But never mind. I didn’t come for that, anyway.”
“For what, then?” Nina said cheerfully, going into the kitchen.
“I want to go back to the Village tonight, Nina. I want to see the
places we missed last time.”
“There are quite a few,” Nina said ironically. “Couple of dozen, at
least.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to see them all.”
“Laura, hm? Got Laura on the brain,” Nina said. She was fixing some
frozen orange juice.
“Yes,” Beth said simply.
“Well,” Nina grinned. “I didn’t make such a big impression on you after
all. Did I?”
“Let’s forget it,” Beth said. The whole episode made her feel mildly
nauseated. The sight of Nina no longer aroused desire in her—just regret
and a powerful longing for Laura. She wasn’t sure exactly what caused
it—the other girl in Nina’s bed, the fact that Nina held Beth’s regard
so cheaply, or Nina’s selfish and peculiar pleasure in running people.
“I have to find Laura,” Beth said in a flat, positive voice. “Will you
help me?”
“Sure,” Nina said airily. “We’ll do the town tonight. Franny, want to
come along?”
Beth expected a pointed “No” from the girl, but she said, “Yes, I’ll
come,” instead. Beth looked up to find that Franny was gazing at her,
not Nina. Nina saw it too, and was not so amused. For what reason Beth
never clearly fathomed, Nina dressed as nearly like Beth as her wardrobe
would permit—same color dress, same style of shoes, similar white bag.
Was it to show Beth that Nina could wear the same things and look better
in them? Was it because she thought Franny was admiring Beth’s clothes?
Beth stared at her curiously but Nina gave no hints away.