“Let me take you home, Laura,” he said, steering her toward the door. She didn’t like the tone of his voice. “My car’s just a block away.”
Laura protested; she didn’t want anything from Charlie Ayers, not even a ride home. “Oh, please don’t bother,” she said.
“No bother.” She understood then that he intended to take her home, no matter what she said. He had made up his mind and she resented his easy authority. It made her apprehensive.
She walked along beside him in nettled silence, dragging and wishing she could give a hard shake to get his hand off her arm. They reached the car and he held the door for her while she hesitated.
“Get in,” he said pleasantly, and when still she hung back he smiled and said, “I’m not going to attack you, Laura.”
Laura blushed angrily and got into the front seat.
He watched her with a curious smile and then came around and got in and started the car. “I thought maybe you’d answer a couple of questions for me,” he said.
“In return for the ride?” she said. He must have been following me, she told herself.
He laughed. “No,” he said. “In return for the sympathy. You cried on my shoulder last fall, Laura. Now I’m going to cry on yours—figuratively,” he added when she gave him a cold stare. They pulled away from the curb.
“Well,” she said, “I don’t know if I can answer any questions, Charlie.”
“I think you can,” he said. “I hope you will.” He paused and then looked at her out of the corner of his eye, amused to see that she was staring spitefully at his long legs. She looked up hastily, sensing his gaze. “Of course you’re under no obligation,” he said.
“Oh, no.” She looked down at her hands, knowing it would be about Beth and tempted to fear Charlie again. He was impressive competition; she had almost forgotten the likes of him. But tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow! And thinking of Beth and of the things she did and said and the way she looked, Laura felt a flush of strength and certainty. Beth loved her. You can’t be in love with two people at once, and Beth loved Laura. She said so and she meant it. Laura was sure. She looked up at Charlie again. He was lighting a cigarette.
“I want to know,” he said, taking it out of his mouth and spewing smoke over the dashboard, “why Beth won’t see me.”
“Well,” Laura shrugged. “She’s been terribly upset.”
“So have I.”
“Well, Charlie, I don’t know. Emily was her best friend.”
“Does her best friend mean more to her than the man she’s in love with?”
Laura turned surprised eyes on him and then she laughed, in spite of herself. He gave her a quick inquisitive glance. “What’s so funny?” he said.
“She’s not in love with you, Charlie. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. You just—surprised me.” It was glorious to talk to him like this.
“The hell she isn’t,” he said. “She’s mad, she’s insulted, yes. Maybe she hates me, I don’t know. But I do know she’s in love with me.”
Laura smiled at his certainty, suddenly enjoying her ride.
“What’s so damn funny, Laura?” he said.
“Nothing,” she said, but it was too tempting. “Your egoism, Charlie.”
“My egoism?” He smiled a little, suddenly cautious, wondering at Laura’s change of mood.
“Charlie,” she said solicitously, with the thought of Beth in bed the night before, of Beth’s kiss in the morning, of Beth’s arms around her that afternoon, “Charlie, I didn’t mean to be rude, really. I’m sorry. I know you think a lot of Beth.”
“I love Beth, Laura.”
Laura smiled into her lap again. Charlie watched her and then pulled the car up. He had been taking the long way back to Alpha Beta. They were at the edge of the university’s experimental farm on the south campus. Charlie switched the ignition off and turned in his seat to study Laura. She glanced out the window and then questioningly at Charlie.
“I want to know what’s so damn funny about my being in love with Beth. Or Beth with me.” He looked straight at her.
Laura fought her smile down. “Nothing, Charlie. It isn’t funny. It was wrong of me. I’m sorry.” He said nothing. “I think we’d better get back to the house,” she said.
“We will. When you explain the joke.”
She couldn’t feel any alarm, somehow. She just felt delightfully secure, smug as only a successful rival can feel in the presence of the loser. She looked out the window again at the adventuring green of mid-April. “There’s no joke, Charlie,” she said.
“Then what are you laughing at?”
“I’m not. I just—I don’t know.” She ached to tell him. Half the joy of a victory is the look on the face of defeat.
“Look, Laura,” he said, leaning toward her. “I thought we were friends, you and I. Maybe I was wrong.” He watched her narrowly.
“No.” She shook her head slowly, letting him work for every word from her.
“Well, then, will you clear up the mystery for me? What’s the matter with Beth? Or me, for that matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter with you. Or her.”
Charlie lighted another cigarette from the last leg of the old one. “What’s the matter, Laura? Why don’t you want to tell me?” She frustrated him, made him feel hoodwinked; he had never thought a transparent girl like Laura could be so enigmatic. “What’s all this about my being egotistical?” He watched her. No response, except a little maddening smile. He put his arm over the back of the seat and leaned toward her. “Come on, Laura, deflate my ego,” he said cannily. “It seems to be the only way I’ll learn anything.”
Laura laughed again. “I don’t want to deflate your ego, Charlie.”
“Come on, Laura,”
