“Emmy!” Beth said. “What’s the matter?” She threw her coat off and sank to the floor on her knees by Emily’s head. Emily turned away. “Emmy, honey,” she said, and stroked her hair. Laura watched her without expression. “Tell me what’s the matter.”
Emily tried to repress her tears. She turned to Beth and whispered sporadically, “They found us. Mary Lou and Mitch. We couldn’t stand it any longer. We had to see each other. They found us.”
Beth was astounded. “You saw Bud?” she said, squinting incredulously.
“Yes,” said Emmy in a tiny voice.
“Emmy! Where? How?” Beth felt the impending catastrophe.
“The apartment. I didn’t know. Charlie picked me up. I never thought we’d get caught.”
“Charlie? Charlie’s apartment?”
“Yes. He told Bud he could use it. Nobody was going to be there. It was just a mistake—”
“You met Bud in Charlie’s apartment?”
“Yes.” Her voice tricked and trapped and deserted her; her breath came hard and then not at all.
“Oh, Em….” Beth put her arms around her and comforted her. Laura watched them, cold and remote as a winter sky, silent as the snow. “Tell me about it.”
Emmy pulled herself up and sat gazing at the dead face of the window shade behind the desk. “Mitch wasn’t supposed to get in till five-thirty. He cut class. He had coffee with Mary Lou. They came back to the apartment to get some books. We would have left in another fifteen minutes. But they caught us. I’ll be blackballed, Beth.” She looked desperately at her.
The dinner chime sounded and Beth remembered Laura. “Run along and eat, honey,” she said.
Laura stood stolidly in place. There were times when she actively resented the childish role Beth forced on her.
“Go on,” Beth said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
Laura stayed where she was and Beth turned to Emily again. “Can I bring you a tray, Em?”
Emmy shook her head. “I can’t eat,” she said, leaning limply on Beth’s shoulder. “They’re going to kick me out, Beth.”
“How bad—I mean—what were you doing when they came in?”
“We were in bed. We were in Charlie’s bed.”
Laura shuddered with a sharp involuntary disgust.
“We were making love. Oh, Beth!” Emmy wept. “I love him so much. Is it such a terrible crime to love somebody?”
“No,” said Beth with a sting in her voice, “but it’s a terrible thing to get caught. It’s good to love, Emmy, but it’s hell to get caught. I’d just love to know,” she went on with her voice getting surer and harder, “just what the hell Mary Lou and Mitch were doing going to the apartment this afternoon? Going to do a little intimate homework, maybe? A little research…anatomical variety? We’ll never know.” She rocked Emily in her arms and Laura, seeing their bodies move together, could feel nothing but spite for Emily….
Laura held her tongue until late that night, after Emmy had gone to bed. “What will they do to her?” she asked.
“Kick her out. Jerk her pin. Disgrace her.” She spat the words out.
“Well….” Laura studied her nails. “I guess she disgraced them.”
Beth looked at her narrowly. “She fell in love, Laura. Is that so disgraceful to you?”
“I didn’t mean it that way, Beth,” Laura said softly. “I only meant she didn’t have to be so obvious about it. Everybody knew—”
“Yeah, everybody knew she loved him. That’s good enough reason to expel her, isn’t it?”
Laura sighed ill-naturedly. “She got what she deserved,” she said. “She broke every rule. She defied authority.”
“Laura,” said Beth with pointed irritation, “what do you think would happen to you if everybody knew you were in love with me? You’d get the same treatment, honey, and don’t forget it. You’d get worse.”
Laura stared at her, startled and scared.
“What’s so wonderful about rules?” Beth snapped. “Is it obeying the rules for two girls to make love to each other? Don’t you think we’re defying authority ourselves?”
“I—never thought of it that way,” Laura faltered.
“No, of course not. Maybe you never thought of it at all.”
“Beth, for heaven’s sake! Emily was caught in bed with a man with no clothes on when she wasn’t supposed to see him at all. She was—she was—making love to him—”
Beth came over to the couch and sat down beside Laura, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, a cigarette in one hand. She pulled on her cigarette and brought two jets of smoke through her nose. “We’ve made love, Laura.”
“But that’s different, Beth. That’s clean. It’s beautiful.” She grasped Beth’s arm and leaned anxiously toward her. Beth studied the tip of her cigarette.
“A man and a woman are beautiful, too. And we’ve been caught making love, Laura…you and I. Just like Bud and Emmy.”
Laura snatched her hand away as if from a flame and sat for a wounded moment, terrified. “Beth, what do you mean?” she said in a strained whisper.
Beth flicked her ashes thoughtlessly toward a tray. “Just that. We aren’t any cleaner or any more beautiful than Emily and Bud, just because we’re both women. And we were caught, too.”
“Beth!” Laura stared at her with horrified eyes. “We were never caught.”
“Yes we were, Laur. We were seen in here one night—right here in this room—kissing each other and talking about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t they ever say anything?”
“They’ don’t know. We had the good luck to get caught by Emmy.”
“Emmy?”
“Yes. Emmy. Emmy found us in here one night just before semester vacation. She heard enough to guess the story. She never told a soul except me. She never will.” Beth’s quiet, angry voice contrasted vividly with Laura’s high anxiety.
To Laura, her love had seemed as secret as it was sacred. That someone else should know; that someone else had known for months; that the someone else was Emily, and Emily would never tell, would spare them what had been inflicted on her—all these thoughts struck Laura at once and she felt
