Beebo Brinker Chronicles 4 - Journey To A Woman (32 page)

"If what isn't true?"

Beth walked slowly to the breakfast table and sat down opposite Laura, fingering her coffee cup cautiously. “I wonder if I didn't need to find you in order to define myself. It's wiped away a lot of my delusions about myself—just knowing what your delusions about me used to be. It's taught me a lot, too. More what I am not, and can't be, than what I am. But even so, that helps."

"You've been through a lot of hell to find what you were looking for, Beth,” Laura said. “If I helped in any way, I'm glad."

"So am I.” Beth smiled at her warmly and finally took a sip of fragrant coffee. She felt much better, though she couldn't have said why. She should have been thoroughly ashamed of her deceptions. But she felt more hopeful than shamed, closer to happiness than despair.

"I want to thank you for the crystal candlesticks,” Laura told her. “I keep forgetting. They're lovely."

"I got them the same day I saw Charlie's Scootch in the toy window. Lord, I was so afraid to come and see you. So excited. It seems like a million years ago already, and it's been only a week or two."

Laura studied her over the rim of her cup. Her eyes were smiling. “Do you still think you're in love with me, Beth?” she asked.

Beth shook her head, feeling a little sheepish. “I've been in love with my daydreams. My past. My hopes. Everything but reality. I never knew you, Laura, until now. I guess I never was in love with you—the real you. I was in love with what I thought you were."

"With what you thought I could do for you,” Laura grinned. “And I tried so hard to live up to it, years ago. I tried so hard to be what you thought I was, for fear of losing you. God, I loved you, Beth."

They gazed at each other quietly for a moment.

"Loved? Past tense? “It's all over, then?” Beth said, almost wistfully. You aren't loved like that very often in one lifetime, she thought. It was a wrench, even now, to see it end.

"All over but the good part,” Laura said. “The part about being friends. Only the pain and the romance are missing, and we've both had too much of them. Feels good, doesn't it? To have somebody who knows everything about you, and still be able to love them. To get rid of the damned misunderstandings."

"Yes,” Beth murmured. “It feels good.” Impulsively she reached across the table and grasped Laura's hands. “I don't need you now, Laura. I'm not desperate any more. I can make it on my own. And I have you to thank for opening my eyes."

"I wasn't very nice about it,” Laura said.

"You couldn't afford to be. I wouldn't have seen the truth if you'd been nice about it. You did it right.” And in a spasm of gratitude she pulled Laura's hands up to her lips and covered them with kisses. “Thanks,” she whispered. “Thanks, Laura darling."

The phone rang and startled them both into a laughing fit. Laura got up and answered it from a small table around the corner in the dining room. “Yes,” she said. “Hi. No, she's here. That's what I said.” And she swung around to smile at Beth who returned the look, mystified. “Do you want to talk?” She held the phone out, chuckling.

Beth was seized with alarm. She half-rose from her chair. “It's not Charlie, is it? Does he know where you are?"

Laura shook her head. “It's Beebo."

Surprised and pleased, Beth took the receiver from Laura and answered. A sudden fluttery feeling grabbed at her stomach and she felt curiously like a teen-ager talking to her prom date.

"How are you,” Beebo said. “It's all over, I see by the papers. I would have called you or come down to see you, but I was afraid there was already too much going on. They would have done a double-take if I'd showed up. Might have kept you over a day just to explain me."

Beth laughed with her. “Thanks, Beebo,” she said. “I don't know why I called you from jail. I just thought you'd understand.” She knew very well why she'd called Beebo, and she was trying too hard to keep their talk casual, the way she had when she'd fallen in love once or twice before in her life. She recognized the symptom with a shock.

"I'm flattered,” Beebo said and she wasn't kidding. “Well, what's next? Where do you go from here? Back to Charlie?"

"No We talked it all out when he came to get me. I'm going to stay in New York a while, I guess. Maybe I can find a job."

Laura took the phone back and asked Beebo over. Beth felt a sweet shiver of anticipation at the idea of seeing her once more. All at once it was important that her hair be combed right, her lipstick smooth.

WHEN SHE CAME SHE had coffee with them—they were on their third cups—and she listened quietly while Beth explained, what she had been through with Vega—and what Vega had been through with her, for she didn't spare herself or her faults.

She felt a slow, lovely enchantment going through her at the sight of Beebo; just the sight of her tired, handsome face pleased her oddly in a new and special way. She could not even fib to herself that it was simple gratitude any more. It was too strong for that.

When Beebo asked her later if she could take her home Beth agreed without thinking. But suddenly she had to admit, “I don't really know where I'm going. I don't have a home."

"Back to the hotel?” Beebo said.

"I guess so."

"That's no place for you at a time like this,” Beebo told her. “Come home with me. It's not luxurious but it's a hell of a lot friendlier."

"Thank you,” Beth said quietly, without even arguing. “I'd like to."

They said goodbye to Laura with promises to call her soon and went down together in the elevator. “It's funny,” Beth said. “I was coming up in this same elevator a couple of hours ago and wondering how I'd feel when I went down again. Scared and ashamed, or just glad it was all over."

"Which is it?” Beebo said, leaning against the wall of the elevator and looking down at her.

"Neither,” Beth admitted, smiling.

"What, then?"

"I guess it's closest to ... a sort of happiness,” she confessed shyly. “Or hopefulness, maybe."

Beebo touched her face gently with her hand, a gesture she had used once before and that delighted Beth. “You've been through enough to whip anybody,” Beebo said. “I don't know if it'll help to think of this, but you know, a lot of strange things have been done in the name of love. In the search for love. And for the love of women. Crazy, silly, unreasonable things, some of them. You've just made a journey across the continent to find yourself. But the real journey was into your own heart. Isn't that so?"

Beth nodded as the sliding doors opened, and they walked into the lobby. Beebo pulled her aside and talked to her. “Let me finish,” she said. “I want you to understand this. For the love of women I've made a fool of myself, just like most of the men I know. And a lot of the girls. I've suffered like an idiot. At least what you suffered had purpose and reason to it. You've learned from it. I'll tell you one thing,” she added with twinkling eyes, “the silliest goddamn thing I ever did was fall for a girl I hated for years."

"Who was that?” Beth said.

"You."

Beth dropped her gaze and a warm thrill suffused her. She could feel her face turning pink and she didn't mind at all. Perhaps it was real or perhaps it was all a dream. She didn't know or care. All she knew was that Beebo was offering her a chance at happiness and she asked only that chance. It might work out, it might not. But she had life and youth and even courage now, and looking into Beebo's fine, worn face she felt a solid reassurance. Beebo's eyes promised shelter, they promised love, they promised that glorious undeserved chance at contentment that Beth had no right to expect from fate. But there it was.

Beebo's strong hands held her shoulders. “I understand, baby,” she said softly. “I understand. If that makes any difference to you."

"It does. All the difference in the world."

They walked out of the lobby together, hand in hand.