“If you need Charlie, I guess you should have him,” Laura said. She didn’t turn around; she spoke to the windowpanes.
Beth regarded her back. “Laura, I was hateful to you. I was unforgivable.”
“Let’s not talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. You’re forgiven, Beth.”
Beth put her arms around her and her head down against Laura’s. “Laura,” she whispered.
“I understand. At least, I’ll try to understand.”
“Laura…I need you, honey.” I can’t just drop you, so hard, so suddenly. And besides, you’re so sweet…so sweet to hold. Not good like Charlie, but…I wonder if I could have you both.
Laura turned around and put her arms around Beth and looked up at her. “Beth,” she said humbly. “Will we be together—just once in a while?”
“Yes, honey.” Beth kissed her forehead. “Yes, we will.” Behind them Emmy pushed the door open. Beth had forgotten to close it all the way and it didn’t make a sound. Emmy stood staring.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” Laura whispered. “It’s all right, then. I’ll be all right, if I can have that.”
“Of course you can, baby. Oh Laur, I hurt you so.”
“You could never hurt me too much, Beth. You can never teach me by hurting me. I just come back for more. I guess I’ll never learn. I love you too much. I love you so much.”
They kissed each other’s lips and Beth liked the velvety softness of Laura’s mouth. She could command Laura the way Charlie commanded her. But the authority fulfilled and invigorated Charlie; it only amused Beth and left her empty.
Emmy stood watching them, transfixed and soundless, while Beth rocked Laura gently in her arms and whispered, “We’ll work it out, honey. Don’t worry.” And then Emmy pulled the door to very quietly, and without letting it catch, and left. She walked down the hall shivering nervously, wondering what to do. She stared unseeing at the bulletin board in the hall with her head full of the strange scene she had just witnessed and the details of it so vivid that she could think of nothing else.
After a little while she heard soft voices down the hall. She turned around and saw Beth and Laura coming toward her.
“Beth?” she said, with a humane impulse to warn them of her presence.
Beth looked up. “Oh, Emmy,” she said. “I thought you were in Bobbie’s room.”
Emmy hesitated, feeling strangely uncomfortable, and Laura started up the stairs to bed.
“What, Em?” said Beth. She glanced quickly at Laura. “Go on up, Laur,” she whispered. “See you in the morning.” She looked back at Emmy and Emmy found she couldn’t say it; she couldn’t ask.
“How’s Charlie?” she said.
Beth relaxed then and gave her a radiant smile. “Wonderful,” she said. “I’m in love.” And she went upstairs to bed, leaving Emmy confounded. She knew she would have to talk to Beth about Laura, she couldn’t keep the things she had seen and heard locked inside of her. But she would wait, she decided, until the next night. Then Beth and she would be alone for the first time in months—Laura would have left for her semester vacation. So Emmy kept her peace for almost twenty-four hours and then discovered, when the time came for her to speak, that she didn’t know how to broach the subject.
She looked at Beth with a sort of new timidity and said, dismayed to find her voice raspy, “Beth?”
“Hm?”
“Beth—”
Beth looked at her. “Why, Emmy, whatever is the matter? You look as if you—” She stopped, wondering. “Emmy, what’s the matter?”
“Well—well, I—Beth?” She walked over to her, as if it were too difficult to send her words across the room, and took a deep breath. “Is Laura in love with you?” she asked finally.
“Oh,” said Beth, and her face went very pale. She put her head down for a moment and said, “Oh, Emmy….”
“I know she is. I heard her say it last night. I had to tell you.”
“Oh, Em.”
“Beth, I won’t tell. I won’t ever ever tell. I promise.” Emmy held her shoulders and watched her anxiously. Beth couldn’t talk. “Do you love her, too?”
Beth lifted her head. “Emmy—come sit on the couch. Listen to me.”
They sat down together and Beth tried to explain what had happened to her, and she tried to be honest. Emmy listened without saying a word, watching Beth’s face intently. Finally Beth looked up at her and said, “You see, Emmy? Why it’s been so hard? Now I’m in love with Charlie. Really in love. But I can’t hurt Laura any more. I just can’t. I can only wait till it wears off. Till she grows out of it and forgets about me, without my having to hurt her.”
“Wouldn’t it hurt her less just to tell her you don’t want to do it any more?”
Beth played nervously with a cigarette. “Yes, I guess it would. But—you see—that’s not it, exactly. I’m not in love with her. That’s what I ought to tell her. But—”
“You mean you—still want her?” It was as weird and wondrous to Emmy as sorcery would have been.
“Yes,” said Beth. She looked at Emmy with a worried frown. “Em, you must think I’m terrible.”
“Oh, Beth, I don’t think you’re terrible at all.” She leaned toward her sympathetically. “I couldn’t think you were terrible—we’re friends, Beth. I just—I just don’t get it, that’s all. Why do you want a girl when you could have a man? I mean, why does a girl want a girl? Ever? I mean—well—” She laughed a little. “What is there to want?”
“Oh, Emmy, I don’t know how to tell you. I was just—we were both lonely. We just happened to be lonely at the same time in the same place, that’s all. It was too easy. It was so good to have somebody to hold, to talk to…sort of play with and play at making love.”
“But Laura
