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 teenagers.” 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
