“Okay, Laura. You’re not mad at me. You love me,” Beth teased. She looked around Laura’s head, trying to see her face.
Laura turned it furiously away, pushing at Beth’s arms. “Don’t make fun of me! Let me go!”
“I’m not making fun of you, honey.”
“Let me go!”
“Say you’re not mad.”
“I’ve already said it.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m not mad,” said Laura between clenched teeth.
“Okay, honey.” Beth was laughing again. “Let’s kiss and make up.”
“Oh, Beth!” She was torn apart. “Beth, what a thing to say!”
“What’s wrong with it? It’s a nice thing to say.”
“Let me go! Will you let go of me!” And she gave a hard push against Beth, who suddenly freed her and left her pushing against nothing. Laura got up seething with temper and an infuriating desire to turn back and throw herself into Beth’s arms again and beg for kisses. But she dared not even look at her.
Beth sat on the edge of the bed and watched her pull her towel from the closet rack with jerky impatient movements. Laura couldn’t bear being watched.
“I thought you had to get up and have breakfast with your uncle,” she said testily. Her emotion unnerved her; she couldn’t leash it and she hated to have it show. Beth sat still on the bed, smiling at Laura’s irritation with gentle amusement.
She got up and came toward her. “Laura,” she said in a soft conciliatory tone. Laura moved swiftly toward the door but Beth reached her before she escaped, catching her upper arms. She turned her around. “Hey, Laur?” she said. It was soothing and contrite. “Let me tease you, honey. Don’t get so angry. I’m not trying to be mean…. Do you believe me, Laur?”
“I don’t know,” said Laura as coldly as she could, and she trembled again.
Beth felt it with amazement. “Laur,” she said. “Look at me, honey.”
“No.” And she stared in unhappy defiance at her towel.
“Laura, honey, listen. I liked you too, Laur. Before I met you, I liked you too.”
Laura looked up slowly, disbelieving, yearning to believe, trying to hold her anger between them for defense. But it slipped away, out of her, and she was looking up at Beth like a little girl; like Laura six years old begging for a candy heart.
“You did?” she faltered, searching Beth’s face.
“Yes. Yes, I did.” Beth was strangely excited again at the intensity in Laura’s face and for a precious second Laura saw it. She found herself suddenly on the point of declaring her love, of clasping Beth in her arms. The tension spiraled up like a rocket and she gasped, “Beth!” and so startled Beth that she caught her breath like Laura and nearly crushed her arms with the sudden tight grip of her hands.
“Oh—oh, Laura,” she said, shaking her head and trying to collect her senses. They were going too fast, they had to slow down. Her hands dropped and she turned to her dresser and picked up her comb, feeling the trembling in herself now. “We’d better get dressed,” she said.
Laura stood paralyzed, watching every motion Beth made, the confession so tight in her throat that the pressure made her giddy. «Beth, I—I—”
Beth turned away from her into the closet. “Go wash up, honey,” she said.
“Beth, please. Please, I—”
Beth straightened up suddenly and took Laura’s face in her hands and bent over her and kissed her. And then she shut her eyes tight in pure surprise at herself and her hands held hard to Laura’s shoulders for a moment. Finally she said, “Now, go. Go on…for God’s sake, Laur—scram!”
Uncle John stayed at the house for Sunday dinner. It was the traditional climax to his traditional weekend. He sat at the housemother’s table and Beth sat beside him. Laura was at a table in the back of the room. With a little prudent rubbernecking she could just see Beth, but it was risky to keep looking. And still she had to look, almost to reassure herself that Beth was still real.
They teased her about Charlie at the table. Emmy had pried the information from her that she was going to the Christmas dance with him, and when Emmy knew something the rest of the house knew about it soon after. Mary Lou Baker startled Laura at the table by saying, “Laura, it must be love!” Laura was straining to see Beth over the tops of rows of heads and her concentration gave her face a dreamy quality. She looked at Mary Lou with a startled expression until somebody said, “We hear youVe got a date for the Christmas dance!”
“Oh,” Laura breathed in relief. From then on she was glad to play along with them. She needed a man just then as insurance against a dozen ills. Charlie stood for Laura-likes-men, men-like-Laura, everything-is-right-with-Laura-so-look-no-further.
When the girls across the table from her moved their heads apart, and the girls at the next table were nodding just so, she could see just enough to know that Beth wasn’t looking at her. She was talking to someone, or laughing, or busy with her food, and Laura felt isolated and forsaken, envious of everyone at Beth’s table. But between courses, when Uncle John was busy singing a song with the others, she glanced once more toward Beth’s table and their eyes met and Beth gave her an almost imperceptible smile before she looked away.
Laura caught it and held tight to it, the secret recognition in it, and she felt a sudden shock deep in her abdomen—so strong, so strange, so sweet that it invaded all of her before she understood it or could resist. She refused her dessert; she sat tortured in her place, yearning for the interminable meal to be over, for Uncle John to go home and leave Beth to her. She would have given anything to be rid of Emily.
She dared not look back at Beth. The curious feeling flared at the mere thought of her. The sight
