“No. I’ll tell you if I do.”
At the Beaton she checked at the desk for a note from Merrill Landon. Or her family, she thought suddenly, with rancor. There was no reason why they couldn’t write to her now if they wanted to. They certainly knew where she was.
But there was nothing, nothing but the curious stares of the clerk and the elevator boy. Beth didn’t know if they were for her or Beebo, or both. For Beebo cut rather a startling figure, even in her own milieu in the Village. Uptown, where everybody looked or tried to look perfectly conventional and ordinary, she was painfully obvious. Beth guessed that she didn’t often come uptown, if only to spare herself embarrassment. There wasn’t much Beebo could do about her looks, and rather than hide them she had finally surrendered to nature and even exaggerated them. It was a question which would have made her stand out the more—trying to hide her looks or playing them up. At least playing them up didn’t expose her to the condescending pity that hiding them would have.
Beebo went with Beth up to her room. “It’s a miracle I still have the key,” Beth said, opening her purse. “And a little money. I thought people were supposed to rob you in the big city.”
“They are,” Beebo said as Beth pushed the door open. “Keep trying, they will.”
Beth hesitated a moment before going in, feeling her heart give a tight squeeze and half expecting Charlie’s handsome disillusioned face to rise up from the chair or the bed and stare at the two women with a look of evil suspicion confirmed. But the room was empty.
“Will you come in?” Beth asked, turning to Beebo, but Beebo shook her head.
“You rest, baby,” she said. “You don’t need me. You’re beat. It shows all over you. I’ll call you later, maybe tonight.”
“Thanks,” Beth said, “for coming home with me. I was so afraid he’d be here.”
“I don’t know what I could have done if he was,” Beebo grinned. “Except get the hell out and let the sparks fly. He probably will show up, by the way, if your detective is worth his pay.”
“I know. But I’m glad it’s not now,” Beth said. “I couldn’t face anything just now.”
“Okay, baby, get some sleep,” Beebo said and turned to go.
“You will call, won’t you?” Beth called after her, and immediately wished she had kept her mouth shut. It made her sound so eager.
“Yes, I’ll call.” Beebo smiled, and then Beth shut the door after her, leaning on it until she heard the elevator stop, open, and start up again, carrying Beebo down with it.
For the first time since she had met Beebo, it caused her real pain to leave her. Beebo seemed like a protection to her, a gentle strength and a certainty to lean on. Was it only because Beebo was good to her? Patient with her? Was it because she knew so much about the strange and special world of Lesbianism and was willing to share her knowledge without making it painful for Beth? Or was it something compelling, something ineffably attractive in Beebo herself?
I’m just grateful to her, that’s all, Beth tried to tell herself. She saved me from a lot of extra suffering. She’s been good and generous. But then, why is it—why—? Why did she tremble when Beebo touched her? It was not the quake of fear but rather the lovely shivering of pleasure. Beebo stirred her physically. At first Beebo had appealed to Beth’s mind, her need for help and understanding. And then, subtly and softly, like an enveloping cloud, the appeal had broadened and deepened, assumed an erotic glow.
Now, at last, thinking of her and afraid to think of her, wanting her and afraid to want her, Beth found herself absorbed in this unique, rather frightening, rather wonderful human being.
Coming back to reality, Beth turned and pulled down the bed, taking off her shoes and dress and tossing them carelessly into the chair beside the bed. Then she opened both windows partway, letting in a breeze and a few drops of rain. She lay down, half falling because it felt so good to let go, and she lay with her eyes open for a little while, fixed on the ceiling but seeing Beebo. She did not try to puzzle out the glow she felt. Instead she simply relaxed and let herself be drawn to this odd human being who was like no one else she had ever seen or known.
Her limbs began to feel warm and soft, and gradually, in spite of herself, her eyes closed. They fluttered open once or twice but shut again almost immediately. Her thoughts reached that state of confusion and haphazardness that resembles dreams, and she was very near to sleep when the door opened.
Which door? Beth never afterward was sure. The closet door and the door to the hall were the only two in the room, and she could not recall whether she had locked the hall door after Beebo or not.
It seemed to her, later, when she tried to reconstruct it all in her mind, that it must have been the closet door, that Beth and Beebo had surprised Vega when they first entered the room and she had taken refuge in the closet, like a spy in a bad thriller, and waited until everything was quiet again.
Beth opened her eyes at the small sound of the door squeaking and looked about a little, unalarmed. There was still a breeze in the room from the two half-open windows. It could have moved the door. But it hadn’t. She realized, with a sudden horrified shudder of fear, that she was not alone. And when she raised herself up partway on the bed she saw Vega standing at the foot of it.
“Just stay there, don’t get up,” Vega said, and her words, the look of her, her tragic eyes, terrified Beth. “Who was
