“Mary Lou wants to see you,” Laura said unexpectedly.
“Oh, honey, not now. Not now.”
“You’d better go, Beth. She might come looking for you.”
“Laura, I don’t want to leave you. I want to talk to you. I—”
“You’d better go.”
Beth was surprised at her firmness. She squeezed Laura’s hands and then lifted them up impulsively and kissed them. “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried to Mary Lou’s room and found her still up. It would never have occurred to Mary Lou to question anything Beth did. Emmy’s most casual behavior was subject to suspicion, but Beth’s most suspicious behavior was just casual. To Mary Lou, anyway. She trusted her.
“Oh, hi!” she said. “I was just going down to your room. Guess what?”
Beth was in no mood for games. She tried to smile a little. “What?”
“Mitch Grogan called me.”
It stirred a little interest. “Oh, that’s great. Going to see him?”
“Yes, this weekend. Say, Beth? Is Laura all right?”
That rang the alarm bell. “Yes. Why?”
“She just seemed upset. About your date, I guess.”
“Oh, no—”
“I guess she still likes Charlie.”
“Oh!” She rubbed a distraught hand through her hair. It was an out; not the best, but the only one. “Yes, I—God, I feel terrible about it. I—”
“I understand,” said Mary Lou. “Actually,” she added confidentially, and confidence with her was a luxury, just as friends were a luxury, “I’m sort of glad it happened. You need somebody, Beth. I’ve thought that for a long time. It’s a shame about Laura, but she’ll find somebody.”
Beth had to get back; her nervousness was likely to betray her. “I’m going to talk to her about it,” she said. “I think it’ll be all right.” She turned and almost ran back to the room.
Laura was waiting for her on the couch. Beth went over to her, sat down and searched her face, and then took her in her arms and held her for a long time. Laura submitted docilely, letting Beth cradle and comfort her. As for Beth, every part of Laura that she could see and feel tore her heart; the quiet acceptance was harder for her than an out-and-out tantrum would have been. She touched Laura’s face with her hand and felt her wet cheeks and said in a broken voice, “Oh, Laur, honey.” It was all she could say for a minute.
“Beth, Beth, that’s all right. Please—”
Beth got hold of herself. The immediate hurt in her arms loomed larger just then than the remembered pleasure of the evening. She hated herself for being false to this sweet trusting girl who loved her so completely. She was suddenly appalled with her own cruelty, her own bad faith. She should have told Laura long ago how she really felt and now it was too late. She must pay now; make it up to Laura, somehow heal the hurt.
“Laura,” she said. “Laura, honey, get mad at me, or something. I can’t stand it like this. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
Laura made herself keep calm by an immense effort of will. “Beth, don’t try to explain. I’d rather not hear…. I love you, Beth.” She looked up at her and Beth bent down to kiss her, and Laura knew she had said the right things. No desperate anger would have brought Beth so close and made her so contrite.
The gentler Laura was, the more Beth’s conscience hurt her, the more viciously her deception bit into it. “Oh, Laura, Laura, I don’t know what to say. Forgive me, forgive me. I’d do anything to make it up to you.”
“There’s nothing to make up, Beth. Is there? I mean, you just went out with a boy, that’s all. Well, I’ve been going out with boys too, all year. I’m as guilty as you are.”
It was almost more than Beth could take. She had a brief horrible vision of Laura learning the whole truth and she stiffened against it, suddenly furious with Charlie for attracting her as he did. In an access of remorse she said, “Laura—Laura, I won’t go out with him again, if you don’t want me to.” It was so easy to say, so magically comforting.
Laura was too powerfully tempted to refuse. She answered, looking up at Beth with a hopefully happy face that contradicted her cautious words, “Beth, I wouldn’t ask you to do that. You know I wouldn’t.”
“You want me to. I can tell by your face.” She took the slim face in her hands and it seemed so anxious and so trusting that she said, “All right. All right, Laur.” She embraced her and looked into a dark corner of the wall and thought, Oh God, give me strength. I can’t hurt her any more, I just can’t. It took a woman, it took Laura, to teach me how to feel. I owe her my love. I owe it to her. She shut her eyes tight against Charlie and found him strong and clear in her mind.
And then Laura said, “Beth, darling!” and hugged her passionately and Beth thought, This is enough. This has got to be enough.
“Laura,” she said softly. They fell back on the couch together and Beth let her have her way, tired though she was. A long while later she fell asleep, exhausted and unhappy, plagued by febrile dreams of first Charlie and then Laura and then Charlie again, wondering what Charlie would think when she refused to see him, wondering if she had the guts to stick by Laura. She hardly dared to think of Charlie, for she no sooner reviled him roundly in her head than her body gave him an unconditional pardon.
Laura lay still beside her, worried at her fitful turns but clinging obstinately to Beth’s promise. She had a frightening premonition that Beth would resent her bondage, but at least she couldn’t break it: she had
