“No. But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving him.”
“From the things you wrote me, I’d say you could hardly wait to ditch him.”
“I haven’t written you for a while,” Beth said in a chilly voice. “Things change.” Beth was being played with, to see if she would snap or take it in stoic silence. She was aware of this, aware that no matter how she reacted Nina wouldn’t care—just as long as there was some reaction. Nina didn’t give a damn for anything else. It was seeing people squirm, seeing them enmeshed in their own poor little problems that amused her. Beth was a good case history. And she was new and different to Nina. She would help to pass the time. She might even show up, slightly distorted, in Nina’s next novel.
Beth made up her mind to ignore it. Nothing mattered but finding Laura, and if Nina could help, Nina would have to be catered to.
They had another martini and then Nina took her out to dinner. It was a little place down in the Village, but expensive; the tourist trade had discovered it. But the food was excellent. Beth ate gladly. The lack of rest and the martinis made a bad combination, and she felt a little slap happy.
“I want to learn my way around down here,” Beth said. “I want to get to know the Village.” Just being in it gave her a tingle of hope, of excitement. The Village. The end of the rainbow. How she had wondered about this place! And Laura had lived here; Laura knew it, too. Perhaps better than Nina.
“Sure,” Nina said. “Sure you would. Just like the rest of the tourists.”
“I have a special reason.”
“What’s her name?”
Beth finished the drink beside her, distinctly nettled. “She may not even be here,” she said tightly. “I lost track of her years ago. The last I heard she was in New York.”
Nina put her head back and laughed and Beth knew, with tongue-tied resentment, that she was being laughed at again.
“So you gave up your husband and kids to come on a wild goose chase after your long lost love,” Nina said. “How romantic! That’s why you wanted to meet me, I suppose. So I could lead you to her.”
She laughed again and Beth thought with disappointment that she could never like this peculiar girl. It was apparently not possible for Nina to be friendly. You made her acquaintance and then you either knuckled under to her or else you had to drop her. One way or the other she got a good show, and that was all she wanted out of life, besides a few affairs. She didn’t need friends and she didn’t especially want them. Lovers, yes. Friends, no. Lovers kept boredom out. Friends let it in. At least, that was the way Beth sized her up.
Somehow the mere idea of exposing Laura’s name to the malicious laughter of this worldly girl who faced her over the dinner table disheartened Beth. She couldn’t do it; not just then. She looked at the writer, feeling sure that Nina would tolerate her good humoredly as long as Beth was still “new,” still good for laughs. And Nina looked back at her, always with her mocking little smile, so different from Jean Purvis’s endless good-hearted grin.
Physically Nina and Beth pleased each other. Nina took in her visitor’s long, strong limbs, well shaped and smooth, and her intense violet eyes. She was ever so slightly, even fashionably, boyish. And Nina laughed softly to herself at the idea of filling Beth full of moonshine and bull and letting her find her way out of the mess.
After dinner Nina took Beth around to some Lesbian bars. It was the first time in her life that Beth had ever been in such places. They recalled scenes from Nina’s novels to her and she asked ingenuous questions, unaware of the fact that her voice carried too far, far enough to make one or two other customers smile.
“Not much noise tonight,” Nina said, after shushing her. “Monday night,” she explained. “Always dead.”
Beth was thinking, What if Laura’s here somewhere? At least she’s been here before. Did she meet people here? Fall in love?
They took in three places. The first was another tourist trap. There was a long dark bar in front and a dining room with sketchy floor shows in the back. No show on Monday nights. But the waitresses were interesting. Beth found herself staring at them in fascination, as they lounged against the walls waiting for the sparse crowd to fill out. She even wondered if they drank orange juice in the morning like everybody else. It shocked her to realize how far out of her depth she was, how far removed from her collegiate sophistication. She wondered how obvious it was to Nina, but a glance at her revealed only the supercilious little smile.
Nina watched her closely and her scrutiny made Beth nervous. She wants me to put my foot in my mouth, Beth thought, and it made her stammer a little. But it didn’t stop her from asking questions.
Beth was surprised to see so many men sitting at the bar. “Who are they?” she asked. “Johns?” She remembered the word from one of Nina’s novels and she asked her question in a firm clear voice that made Nina duck and laugh.
“Quiet, for God’s sake, they’ll think we’re cops,” she said. “Or a couple of gaping hayseeds.”
“Well, are they?” Beth said. “Do they hang around gay girls all the time?” But she lowered her voice.
“Um-hm,” Nina said, her eyes wrinkled at the corners.
In the next place there were only women, except for the man behind the bar, and he apparently enjoyed the confidence of the girls he served. There was only a handful of young women there when Beth and Nina arrived, and Beth looked them over quickly, always with Laura’s lovely face in her mind. But Laura wasn’t there.
Nina seemed to know everybody. She
