“Well, don’t.”
Beth thought back on this, bemused. Nina had dodged any commitments to her. She was lavish with compliments, telling Beth how pretty she was, how delectable her body was, how Charlie probably didn’t appreciate her. But she never had a word to say about how much she really liked Beth, how often she wanted to see her, what her presence meant to her. Beth was in the dark. All she knew was that Nina thought she was pretty and had handled her life like a fool.
Beth wasn’t prepared for what she found when she walked into Nina’s apartment ten minutes after her bus ride and found Nina in bed with a girl of eighteen. The girl was still asleep but she woke up hard when Nina sat up in bed and said, “Who the hell told you to come over? At this hour?” Her eyes were narrow with anger and Beth recoiled, shocked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll leave.”
But before she could turn around and get the door closed behind her Nina said, “No. You’re here now. So stay.”
Beth looked at her doubtfully and at the sleepy-eyed and rather scared girl beside her. “I don’t think that’s the best idea,” she said, but Nina’s anger had passed as quickly as it had come. Suddenly she saw the possibilities of the situation: Beth’s embarrassment, the charming consternation of Franny, the girl in bed with her, and herself, Nina, mistress of their feelings. What a scene! It was worth playing out.
“Make yourself some coffee,” she told Beth. “We were just getting up.”
And Beth could tell by the sudden change in Nina’s voice, by the look on her face, that she was playing with her two guests.
“I didn’t expect this, Nina,” she said frostily. “I have no claim on you, I realize, but I didn’t expect this.”
“Oh, come off it, Madame Queen. What did you expect?” Nina asked, smiling at Beth’s white-faced annoyance. “I don’t wear a chastity belt, you know.”
Franny, the teenager, got up abruptly, sitting down again in humiliation as she remembered her nakedness, and then covering herself with a blanket and going into the bathroom. Beth collapsed in an armchair and preserved a chilly silence while Nina dressed herself, smiling all the while, wondering whose temper would blow first.
Franny came out of the bathroom a few minutes later with her clothes on. She walked over to Beth and spoke, facing her. “I didn’t know I was muscling in on anything,” she said. “This just happened, almost by accident. We weren’t even going to sleep together. I feel as bad about it as you do, believe me. And she gave Nina a dirty glance but it only made Nina laugh.
“Thanks,” Beth told her softly, surprised at the dignity the girl had mustered. “But never mind. I didn’t come for that anyway.”
“For what, then?” Nina said cheerfully, going into the kitchen.
“I want to go back to the Village tonight, Nina. I want to see the places we missed last time.”
“There are quite a few,” Nina said ironically. “Couple of dozen, at least.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to see them all.”
“Laura, hm? Got Laura on the brain,” Nina said. She was fixing some frozen orange juice.
“Yes,” Beth said simply.
“Well,” Nina grinned. “I didn’t make such a big impression on you after all. Did I?”
“Let’s forget it,” Beth said. The whole episode made her feel mildly nauseated. The sight of Nina no longer aroused desire in her—just regret and a powerful longing for Laura. She wasn’t sure exactly what caused it—the other girl in Nina’s bed, the fact that Nina held Beth’s regard so cheaply, or Nina’s selfish and peculiar pleasure in running people.
“I have to find Laura,” Beth said in a flat, positive voice. “Will you help me?”
“Sure,” Nina said airily. “We’ll do the town tonight. Franny, want to come along?”
Beth expected a pointed “No” from the girl, but she said, “Yes, I’ll come,” instead. Beth looked up to find that Franny was gazing at her, not Nina. Nina saw it too, and was not so amused. For what reason Beth never clearly fathomed, Nina dressed as nearly like Beth as her wardrobe would permit—same color dress, same style of shoes, similar white bag. Was it to show Beth that Nina could wear the same things and look better in them? Was it because she thought Franny was admiring Beth’s clothes? Beth stared at her curiously but Nina gave no hints away.
Chapter Fourteen
IN NINA’S PHRASE, THEY DID THE TOWN THAT NIGHT. BETH drank very little at first, but as the evening wore on the little mounted up and she realized, sometime shortly after midnight, how tight she was. She was quite fascinated, as she had been before, with the people she saw. Many of them knew Nina and came over to talk to her. There was one pretty, rather boyish girl at the bar whom Nina had never seen before who caught her eye, and Nina kept calling her “Farley,” after a movie star she resembled, until Beth in embarrassment asked her to quit.
The rest of the time Nina needled Franny. Beth was glad it wasn’t herself that night. She thought she couldn’t have taken it. She would have lost her temper in one big spectacular blast and that would have been the end. She would have had to walk out on Nina and maybe on her chances of finding Laura.
For Nina asked everyone, all her friends, if they knew any Lauras. And some of them did, but none of them knew Laura Landon.
“It’s going to be all over the Village that there’s a great search on,” Nina said. “Maybe that’ll help you.”
“Thanks, Nina.”
Toward two a.m. Nina succeeded in getting Franny on a crying jag and Beth told her indignantly to stop torturing the girl. But Nina laughed and said, into Franny’s face, “She’s enjoying it.” Whereupon Franny got up and ran into the ladies’ room and didn’t return for a half hour.
Beth had nothing to say to
