He raised an eyebrow at her. “Well? What did you say when you talked to her?”
“Oh, I told her she was behaving like a child. I was kind of nasty, I guess. I said she was acting like a spoiled brat and spoiled brats belong at home with their doting parents.”
“My God, you were nasty. Jesus, honey, that was pretty low, wasn’t it?”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean? It wasn’t so bad. She was acting like a child. I just told her if she couldn’t act grown up she’d better go back to her family where she belongs. Where somebody’ll take care of her.”
“She can’t, Beth.”
“She can’t?”
“Didn’t she tell you? I mean, didn’t you know?”
“Know what?” Beth put her hamburger down, feeling suddenly sick. The incipient hangover, the passion, the overcooked beef, combined to aggravate her misery.
“They’re divorced. Happened just before she came down to school. I guess it was pretty bad. Anyway, Laura was all upset about it.” He paused. “You didn’t know this?”
Beth shook her head.
“That’s why I kept taking her out. She needed a shoulder to cry on. Poor kid. She really needed somebody. She was terribly alone. Still is, I guess. I felt sorry for her. My God, didn’t she tell you all this?”
“She didn’t tell anybody.”
“You’d think she’d’ve told you. I mean, roommates…you know.”
Beth held her head. “Oh, Charlie, I feel awful. Oh, I feel awful.”
“Honey, are you going to be sick?”
“I guess so,” she whispered.
“Yes, you are,” he said with a swift critical glance. “Come on, here we go. Can you make it to the ladies’ room?”
“I don’t know.”
He led her as fast as he could to the john. She made it just inside the door, fell to her knees and let the sickness flow out of her. Ten minutes later she came out, very pale.
“Charlie, I want to go home,” she said. “I want to go home.”
“I know. I’ll take you home. You’re going to be all right, darling, don’t worry.” He took her out to the car and drove her back to the house. She said nothing, leaning heavily against him and moaning a little now and then.
At the house he stopped and took her in his arms. “Poor little girl,” he said. “Feel any better?”
“A little.”
“Darling, that was my last exam today. How long will you be down here?”
“Day after tomorrow. Leave at noon.”
“Will I see you?”
“Charlie—Oh, darling, I—”
“Okay,” he said. “When will you be back?”
“February sixth.”
“I’ll be here the fifth. In case you come early.”
“Charlie.” She sat up a little and looked at him. “Darling, oh, I’ve been a bitch. Oh, Charlie, I’m a mess. Darling, I—”
“I love you, Beth,” he said. And he kissed her.
She clung to him for a minute and then she said, “I love you, Charlie.” It was plain and awesome honesty and it felt deliriously good.
He took her face in his hands. “Beth, take good care of yourself. Take good care of yourself, darling.”
Fifteen
Emily and Laura had a brief, bitter exchange of words. Laura precipitated it. She simply looked up from her studies and said, with no introduction, “Emmy, why did you call Charlie?” She was immediately sorry she had said it, but she was frantically worried about Beth and desperately unhappy.
Emily was startled. “Well—” she said. “She wanted to see him, Laur. It seemed as if it was the only way. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings about it.”
“How did you know she wanted to see him?”
“I could just tell, Laur.”
“Did it ever occur to you that Beth might not want to go out with him?”
“No, it never did,” said Emmy. This wasn’t the Laura Landon of last fall: passive, pleasant, unemotional.
“I don’t understand why you don’t know Beth any better than you do, Emmy. Sometimes I think you don’t know her at all,” Laura snapped.
“Laura, Beth wanted to go out with him. She didn’t have to, you know, even after I called him.”
“Well, of course she had to go out with him, after she talked to him. What could she say?”
“I don’t know, Laur. What could she say?”
Laura went suddenly cold. Her eyes dropped and she fumbled with her book. “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice.
“Why don’t you want Beth and Charlie to go out together, Laur?” Emmy’s voice was soft. If what she suspected were true, why hadn’t Beth been honest with her about it? Beth had never deliberately lied to her before about anything.
“They just—aren’t right for each other, that’s all.”
“How do you know?”
“Because 1 know Beth!” Laura flared.
“But you don’t know Charlie very well.”
Laura turned on her. “Emmy, what are you trying to say?”
Emmy, confronted with an angry challenge, was silent.
Laura rose slowly to her feet. “I’m going to bed,” she said icily, and walked stiffly to the door.
Emmy sat on the couch uncomfortably. She had no desire to stay in the room, either. It had suddenly become a sinister, unfamiliar place to her. She gathered some books together, scribbled a note to Beth and ran down the hall.
At ten thirty-five, Beth found the note on her dresser: “Laur’s in bed. I’m in Bobbie’s room. Come get me if you want me. I’ll be up late. Love, Em.”
Beth crumpled the note and tossed it into the wastebasket, and undressed. She looked at her blouse with the little rips now in place of buttons, and thought of Charlie. But all the cutting words she directed at Laura that afternoon came back to torment her.
She went to the washroom to clean up, and when she got back to the room, Laura was in it. She was standing looking out the window toward the street with her back to Beth. Beth said nothing. She put her things away and stood at her dresser for a minute, silent.
“Beth,” said Laura softly. “I was wrong.” She had learned her lesson. The only way to bring Beth back was to be gentle and yielding with her. It worked before where even the most righteous temper failed. Beth scolded her
