At five-thirty in the morning? she said to herself, and smiled wryly at the dawn.
Beth drove home in the morning, dropping Vega off first and seeing her go with a sigh of relief. She was ashamed of her feeling of resentment and to cover it up in her conscience she berated Vega. Jesus, I wanted to make love to a woman, not a carved-up scarecrow! she cried to herself, and her own hard words dismayed her. Her attitude toward Vega was fast becoming one of bitter disappointment. She had been betrayed and she was near to loathing the object of her betrayal, so great had been her hopes and her needs.
At home in her empty house she put her head down and cried. They were tears of fury, tears of frustration, but not tears of despair. Not now. Her temper was too high and the blaze in her too hot.
For an hour or more she stamped around the house, picking up objects aimlessly and smacking them down again, kicking chairs and doors, and thinking. She walked out into the yard and pulled up a few flowers just because it felt good to ruin something. And then she went back into the house and threw herself down on her bed and slept.
She dreamed of Laura.
Just Laura, sitting on the studio couch in the sorority room they had shared, gazing at her. But though she didn’t move, though she didn’t speak, she was vibrantly alive this time. Beth could smell the remembered heady scent of her hair, and when she approached her and held out her hand she could feel Laura’s breath upon it. She spoke to her, just her name. And Laura smiled, ever so faintly, over the gulf of years and the famous “well of loneliness.”
Chapter Eight
BETH WENT THROUGH A PERIOD OF NEARLY TWO MONTHS, AS spring edged into summer, of emotional upheaval and torment that were all the harder to bear for being secret. There was no one to talk to, no one to explain to, no one to confide in. Charlie would never understand. His reaction would surely be one of anger and contempt for her. Her exclusive behavior, her moods, had already come close to damning her in his eyes. And Vega.
Oh, God! Beth thought with acute irritation. Vega was rapidly becoming a stone around her neck. She pestered her on the phone two or three times a day. She begged Beth to spend more time with her, and Beth, who was speedily growing sick and sorry about the whole affair, tried every machination to get out of it. But then came threats. Vega would sob over the phone, and her lovely voice, tangled in the gasps for air that plagued her when she was excited, would moan, “You love me. You said so. If you love me come to me, Beth. My God, I’m out of my mind I want you so much.”
And Beth found herself yearning for the days when she and Vega were hardly more than acquaintances; even the days when she wanted Vega and couldn’t have her were better than these when an unhappy and jealous Vega tried to force herself on her.
“I have to take Skipper to a birthday party,” she would say. Or, “I can’t, Vega, I’m bowling this morning.”
“Oh, hell!” Vega spat. “You gave that up weeks ago. Jean told me. She said you just called up and quit and she thinks you don’t like her anymore. She called me to cry on my shoulder.” Her voice was hard with jealous suspicions and Beth was obliged to concoct ridiculous fibs for her. Anything to keep her at arms’ length.
But she couldn’t keep her there always. There were meetings, awful exhausting affairs. Beth approached them with a dread that included an element of physical revulsion she found it hard to hide. Vega, who was sharp-eyed in spite of her infatuation, could see that Beth’s response to her was only slight and that her thoughts were always with something or someone else. But she had fallen for Beth and there was no backing out. It was almost a fanatical attachment. Their relations became more and more trying, more strained, with Vega weeping pathetic angry tears and Beth snapping at her with wild impatience. They had really trapped each other and there seemed to be no way out.
Vega’s most desperate fear was that one day Beth would simply refuse to see her at all. “I’d kill you if you did that to me,” she told Beth once, thinking that by mentioning it before it had a chance to happen she might miraculously stave it off.
But Beth offered her no consolation, not even an answer. She knew quite well that soon it would come to a parting; that she had only delayed the break out of shame, cowardice, and a desire to lessen the pain for Vega.
Vega would often call her when Charlie was at home and Beth would be forced to talk quietly to her, to agree to her plans, just to avoid a revealing argument in front of Charlie. Beth upbraided her royally for it when they met
“Good God, Vega, I can’t let Charlie know what’s going on,” Beth shouted at her. “That is, if he doesn’t know already. Do you want me to stop seeing you altogether? He’d insist, you know.”
“Beth, if you’d call me once in a while instead of forcing me to call you. Just once in a while. If you’d act like you cared—”
“Vega, don’t throw a lot of sentimental pap at me.”
“Is that what you call it?” Vega sprang to her feet, her face white. “Is that what you call my love for you? This affair was all your idea, Beth, in case you’ve forgotten. You insisted. I surrendered. And now you’re obligated to me. I swear to God
