“Vega, I know what I did was crazy. I know you’ve been miserable.”
“My life was wrecked, Beth.”
“I—I know—”
“You have no idea.”
“I only meant—”
“Nothing you can say means anything.”
And Beth, for the first time, thought that her life might end that very day in the face of that very gun, sitting idle and quiet in the hands of a madwoman. For it was clear that Vega blamed her whole life on Beth. All the sorrows and errors and accidents somehow had been Beth’s fault and Vega, feeling as she did, could kill her with a clear conscience. It made Beth’s flesh creep.
Death. She had never thought about it much before, except to wonder how it felt, if it felt, and to think it could never happen to her. It was as unreal as old age, as a hydrogen war, as blindness, as any tragedy that had never happened to her. How could you face death when you knew nothing about it? How could you die all unprepared like this, terrified and ugly and foolish in your underwear? Didn’t she have a right to dignity, a right to respect and to a decent end with some warning? Didn’t she have a right to a long life before that happened, a life that would end slowly and gradually and gracefully—not in one sickening crack of doom?
When would Vega pull the trigger? Beth began to watch the gun as if it were an animal with a life of its own, a third presence in the room. She couldn’t drag her eyes from it. She looked at the sleek short barrel and the small black hole at the end, wondering when it would erupt in flashing death.
Maybe the bullet will miss me, she thought, feeling the pounding of her constricted heart. Maybe she’ll just wound me. And I’ll leap at her and grab the thing before she realizes what’s happened. No, maybe it would be better to pretend I’m dead, just fall back and lie on the bed as if I’m stone dead. But what if she comes over and looks at me and sees it’s just a flesh wound? Or what if she empties the damned gun into me? She almost whimpered aloud with terror. Her fear was a thing alive, a separate living creature in that haunted room, and Vega could feel it. But her face was stony and dreadful.
Beth lay back on the bed at last. If she wants to shoot me dead she’ll have to stand up to do it now, she thought. At least that’ll give me some warning. And almost in the next instant she wondered if she wanted any warning. If it had to be, wouldn’t it be better to die abruptly and without the agony of seeing it come and being helpless to stop it?
The day ended little by little to the tune of rain and wind and the room grew dark. Small drops pattered in at the windows. Beth reached over with utmost caution and turned the light on beside the bed, and immediately cursed herself for it. It only made her a better target. But Vega would have done it herself anyway, sooner or later, and maybe the mere fact of having to move would have stirred her to fire.
Beth watched her, her mad, despairing eyes, and the horror of it was almost unbearable. “Vega, do something,” she cried, and her own voice shocked her into stillness again. “It couldn’t have been that bad,” she cried again, later, supplicating, unwittingly using the same words to Vega that Charlie had used to her.
“If you scream I’ll do it now,” Vega said, and with a sick gasp Beth clamped her mouth shut.
They sat in tortured silence for a while longer. Beth looked at her watch. It was past ten. Her stomach stirred and she knew it was empty, but there was no desire for food in her. She thought with urgent envy of the careless, casual people below her in the streets, eating in the bright, cheerful restaurants, seeing the movies and shows, crossing the streets and chatting with each other. And life, so mundane and full of anxieties, seemed achingly beautiful to her. It didn’t matter who she was, it didn’t matter where she belonged. It only mattered to keep on living, to keep life strong and safe and have a second chance at it.
“Vega,” she tried again in a raspy voice at close to midnight, “you’ll never get away with it. You know that, don’t you?”
“What makes you think I care?” Vega said. “Do you think I could possibly give a damn anymore what happens to me?”
“But your mother. And Gramp. And Cleve and Jean!” Beth said, hoping with the force of panic to hit a sensitive chord.
“I spit on them all,” Vega said. “Do you wonder why I’m not screaming, Beth?” she added in her voice that was calm with the serenity of madness. “I’ve done all my screaming, that’s why. I did it all at Cleve and Mother. And the doctors, the first few weeks I was in the hospital. There isn’t any left in me. Gramp is dead, Beth. And Mother is dying, just like all those neglected cats. Cleve doesn’t count, he never amounted to anything. I have only you now. I have your whole future in my hand, here. And it’s going to pay for my whole past.” She shook the gun back and forth. “I have your life and your death, I have infinite power over you, and nothing, not tears or begging or hypocritical love or fancy excuses, is going to save you. Nothing.”
“Then do it now!” Beth cried in a cracking voice. “Do it now!” But every inch of her was tense with prayers for mercy.
“When I’m ready,” Vega said. “When I’m good and ready.”
And so they sat on in the small pool of light in the little hotel room with the instrument of death a wall between them and an everlasting tie.
