Chapter Twelve
THEY HAD LUNCH THE NEXT DAY, THOUGH BETH FELT GRAY with the hangover. And somehow, over the salad and crackers, she found she couldn’t speak of Laura. It was like trying to swallow a pill that was too big for her throat. She made the usual try at it, but it reached the back of her mouth and suddenly scared her, and she choked a little and finally gave up.
But several nights later, things changed. Nina unexpectedly asked her to come to her apartment for dinner. Beth had been hoping to see where she lived, how she lived, even what she ate. Nina was her link to the gay world, and though she couldn’t quite like her she still was deeply interested in her, in the things Nina could teach her. She accepted the invitation gratefully, and was astonished, when she got there, to see that Nina had cooked the dinner—or was in process of cooking it—herself.
Nina fixed her a drink and Beth stood in the tiny living room looking at the books that banked one whole wall from floor to ceiling. It made her feel more comfortable with Nina to see that she read or, at least, had books around. Beth liked to read and when she found others who did she ordinarily cottoned to them. It helped her get over her suspicions with Nina, the shadowy feeling of being had, of being taken for a ride, that she couldn’t quite pin down.
They ate in a corner of the bedroom, a room that was even smaller than the living room and literally gorged, like an overfed animal, with a bed, a desk, and three typewriters, to say nothing of the card table from which they ate.
“Apartments up here are damn cracker boxes,” Nina said.
“If you want a good address, you pay for it.” She was in the East Seventies, just off Fifth Avenue, in a staid old building that was eminently respectable. It was like her to look down on the Village, part of her philosophy to get out of it, or, at least, to live out of it. She could never stay away fulltime.
The dinner was good, to Beth’s surprise. Nina had put candles on the table and turned out the lights, and Beth began to feel, in spite of the shivers of warning that flashed through her when Nina smiled her knowledgeable little smile, a curious intimacy. After all, they had written many letters to each other. Nina had been kind, in her off-the-cuff way. Nina was being good to her now, taking time off from the book she was working on, showing her around.
Maybe I’m taking the teasing too hard, Beth thought, as she ate.
“Lord, I’m stuffed,” she said, when Nina offered her more. They smiled at each other and there was a small pause. Nina’s was a different kind of smile. There was almost warmth in it; at least, there was an absence of the mocking twist that bothered Beth so.
Perhaps out of uncertainty, or stubbornness born of accustomed shyness, Beth refused to drop her eyes first. And Nina, her bluff called, had to keep her own eyes on Beth. And somehow—as though the two pairs of eyes, one sparkling green, the other misty violet, were magnetized—they leaned toward each other. Beth reached out without consciously directing her hand and cupped it gently behind Nina’s neck, pressing the warm brown hair beneath it and pulling Nina closer still.
In utter silence, in the calm light of candles, over the steak plates, in the night of the city, they kissed each other. And leaned away again slightly to gaze at each other. Beth was inanely surprised to see that Nina’s lipstick was smeared. And Nina smiled, the good smile, and they kissed, again. And then she suddenly rose, as if it occurred to her she was risking a true affection for Beth by playing with her, and began to clear the plates as if nothing had happened.
Beth picked up a stack of plates and followed her into the cramped kitchen. She put the slippery crockery on the little table and her arms around Nina, and a voice inside her urged, Tell her. Tell her it’s Laura you’re looking for. Tell her now, before she gets bored and you lose her.
But I can’t, Beth thought. She’d burst out laughing at me if I asked her now. It would ruin the mood, it would make her sarcastic again. And I’d hate myself for asking.
Nina slipped away from her and brought in the rest of the plates, and they did the dishes together, speaking softly of small irrelevancies, enjoying each other’s physical presence.
And still Beth hesitated, with that name on the tip of her tongue and some ineffable misgiving freezing it there.
Nina showed her an album full of snapshots she had collected, and startled her by pointing to a nice-looking crew-cut boy and saying off-handedly, “That was my husband.”
“Your husband? You never said you were married.”
“I’m not. I was. Besides, why should I tell you?” And for an instant Beth felt the wall of sarcasm rising.
“No reason,” she said. “What happened?”
Nina shrugged. “What happened with you and Charlie? It didn’t work. We divorced years ago.”
“Did you love him?”
“Hell, no. He was just a nice kid. We had fun.”
“And no
