Beth squirmed uncomfortably at the idea. “I don’t want a lot of beautiful women, Nina,” she mumbled.
“What do you want?” Nina asked, and when Beth hesitated, silent for over a minute, she teased, “Me?” And then, with spite in her voice, “No. Laura. Laura she wants, after all I did for her last night.”
“I don’t know,” Beth said. “I really don’t know…now.”
“Now? You mean now that I’ve corrupted you?” Nina laughed quietly. “I’m glad I mixed you up a little. I hope you don’t find your Laura. Not for a while anyway.”
Chapter Thirteen
WHEN BETH LEFT NINA’S APARTMENT TWO DAYS LATER, SHE found a letter waiting for her in the post office box she had rented. She half expected Nina to ask her to move in before she left. But it would have inconvenienced Nina too much, with the lack of space and the long hours she had to spend at her typewriter. She didn’t want to be bothered and Beth understood, even though she was sorry not to have been asked. Nina should have known Beth would refuse, out of consideration for her. But Beth never got the chance.
The letter was from Cleve, and Beth tore it open in the elevator on the way up to her room at the Beaton. She got as far as, “Dear Beth, How do you like New York? Charlie and the kids are as ever. Not very happy but getting along. The kids like Mrs. Donahue pretty well now that they’re used to her. Charlie works like a dog—too damn hard if you ask me. Puts all of us to shame and gives me a guilt complex.”
Beth asked herself if he might not be drinking still more and neglecting his job down at the office. Of course, he was still half boss; Charlie was the other half. But she knew Charlie would be hard on him if the alcohol became more important than Ayers-Purvis Toys.
She stepped out of the elevator and went to her room, fumbling with the key in her purse and pushing the door open with her shoulder. The morning sun was coming in her windows and she sat down on the bed to finish reading the letter.
“Charlie has some big idea for a new toy,” Cleve went on. “He wants to call it ‘The Scootch.’ It’s a sort of spring, a great big thing you can crawl inside or sit on top of and bounce. It travels when you bounce on it, or you can roll down hills in it. Sounds kind of goofy probably, but the neighborhood kids go for it in a big way. So do your kids. Skipper says it’s better than a kite any day. Charlie is hoping it’ll take up where the Hula Hoop left off. If it does we’d make a fortune. He’s been working on it night and day, try to get the right materials and colors, and working up a marketing scheme for it. I haven’t seen all the plans yet. Jean and I have been away on a vacation, and I haven’t been feeling so red hot lately. But don’t worry about me. You have enough on your mind.”
It was kind and restrained, with hardly a trace of reproach. Beth lowered the letter to her lap for a minute, not quite finished with it, and stared out the window at the shaded side of the building across the street. “Not feeling so red hot.” Drunk, maybe? She hoped not. She liked Cleve too well, she owed him too much, to wish him any ill. But the thought of his mother, ravaged by liquor, and his sister, who devoted her life to it, frightened her.
“You ask about my family,” he went on in reference to one of her notes. “Mother is about as ever. Gramp still feeds his cats and vents his temper on the delivery boys or the plumber or whoever gets in the way. Vega is at Camarillo. We all thought it would be for the best—”
Camarillo! Camarillo! All the sense was suddenly shocked out of Beth. Camarillo—the state mental institution. “Oh, God!” she cried aloud, too stunned to read any further for a minute, unaware that she spoke aloud. “Oh, good God! Vega!”
“We all thought it would be for the best since the studio folded two weeks after you left. Do you remember P.K.? The girl she said she hated so much? Well, P. K. managed to spread some pretty ugly rumors about her, and that, on top of the shaky state of her finances, did the trick. The students she had left, and there was really a surprising number—they all liked her a lot—had to leave. Their parents heard about it and disapproved, and that was it.
“The doctors say she has an excellent mind and she is very reasonable most of the time, and they hope she can come home in another few months. The oddest part of it is, she copies Mother all the time. I mean, all Mother’s sicknesses. She acts as if she’s crippled, has to run to the bathroom every five minutes, even says she’s blind and can’t see a thing. The doctor says it’s almost as if she wanted old age to catch up with her and incapacitate her to punish herself for her feelings. Or maybe to stop her from having any feelings. Another angle occurred to me. If she is Mother, how can she be anything Mother disapproves of? Like gay? I don’t know—make any sense?
“Don’t worry too much about this, Beth. It’s been in the wind for many years now. I’m surprised myself it didn’t come sooner. She’ll be okay. The important thing for you is to get yourself straightened out and come home. Charlie
