She lay on the beach with Tris, the day after they arrived, and luxuriated in the sun. Tris had lathered herself lovingly with rich sun cream and was sitting under a huge beach umbrella that she had erected with the help of a young man they discovered while they looked for a place to lie down. He was not very subtle about his admiration, which he confined to Tris. And Laura was not very pleased to see her prance for him. But she said nothing.

"You'll burn to a crisp, Laura," Tris warned her.

"I put some stuff on," Laura said lazily, wiggling a little and feeling the hot rays toast the backs of her legs.

"Not enough for one so fair," Tris maintained. "Such fair skin you have." And Laura heard the yearning in her voice, "If mine were that light I would never expose it like you do. I'd do everything to keep it as light as I could. Even bleach it. They say b.u.t.termilk works wonders."

Laura looked up at her through eyes squinted against the sun.

"Your skin is beautiful, Tris."

"Oh, not like yours," Tris said, embarra.s.sed.

"How can you say that? You're the prettiest color I ever saw."

"And you're a dirty hypocrite!" Tris snapped.

Laura started at her, dumbfounded, for some seconds, before she answered softly, "No, I mean it." She was afraid to say more. "You think I only say it to flatter you, don't you?" she asked finally. "I won't say it, then. I'd rather you turned your temper on yourself than on me."

After an elaborately casual pause, full of much smoothing lotion and gazing around, Tris said, "Do you really like my color?" The little-girl pleading in her voice touched Laura.

"If I say yes, you call me a liar. If I say no you call me a bigot."

"Say yes."

"Yes." And Laura smiled at her and Tris smiled back and gave Laura the feeling of false but sweet security.

Tris said, "Did you ever notice, when we lie on the bed together, how we look?"

Laura finished, "Yes, I noticed." She looked at Tris in surprise. It wasn't like her to mention such things. "Me so white and you so brown. It looks like poetry, Tris. Like music, if you could see music. Your body looks so warm and mine looks so cool. And inside, we're just the other way around. Isn't it funny? I'm the one who's always on fire. And you're the ice-berg." She laughed a little. "Maybe I can melt you," she said.

'Better not. The brown comes off," Tris said cynically, but her strange thought excited Laura.

"G.o.d, what a queer idea!" Laura said. "You'd have to touch me everywhere then, every corner of me, till we were both the same color. Then you'd be almost white and I'd be all tan and we'd be the same." She looked at Tris with her squinty eyes that sparkled in the glancing sun. And Tris, struck herself by the strangeness of it, murmured, "I never thought of it that way."

Laura hoped Tris would look at it that way for the rest of the vacation.

CHAPTER 7.

JACK WALKED INTO HIS APARTMENT at five-thirty in the afternoon, tired and thirsty but dolefully sober. He was a stubborn man and he had dedicated all his resistance to fighting liquor. He meant to head for the kitchen and consume a pint of cider and fix himself some dinner. Since Laura had left five days ago he had not had much appet.i.te. He did not admit that she would ever come back or that he had lost a battle. It was only a temporary setback. But it rocked him a little and it hurt him a lot.

He came wearily down the hall, stuck his key belligerently into the lock and kicked his front door open. He dumped a paper bag full of light bulbs, cigarettes, and Scotch tape on a chair, switched on a light and started toward his kitchen. It came as a distinct shock to find Laura sitting on his sofa.

He stared at her. She had her legs up, crossed, on the c.o.c.ktail table, and her head back, gazing at the ceiling. She knew he was there, of course; she heard him come in. She turned and looked at him finally, and something in her face dispelled his melancholy. He felt elated. But he checked it carefully. He slipped his coat off without a word, dropped in on the chair with his package, and walked over to her, standing in front of her with his hands in his pockets. "Run out of suntan lotion?" he said. "No. But you're out of whiskey."

"I gave it to Beebo. Traded it for your clothes."

"Take the clothes back and get the whiskey."

"Later," he said, and smiled. Then he added, "Was it bad?"

"Very bad," Laura said and for a moment they both feared she would start crying. But she didn't. "Want to tell me?"

"Jack," she said with an ironic little smile. "You'll have to write a book about me someday. I tell you everything."

He grinned. "I'll leave that to somebody else. But I'm saving my notes, just in case." He sat down beside her. "Well, it could only be one of three things, seeing that she's gay," he said. "She's a wh.o.r.e."

"No."

"A junkie."

"No."

"or she's married."

"She's married."

He lighted a cigarette with a long sigh, his eyes bright on her.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"I didn't. But it had to be something that would shock you. And you seem pretty d.a.m.n nervous about the idea of gay people being married." He paused and she had to drop her glance. "Does she hate him?" he asked returning to Tris.

"Most of the time. G.o.d, Jack, I need a drink."

"Steady, Mother. My neighbor always has a supply. I'll fix you up." He came back in less than three minutes with a bottle of sparkling burgundy.

"Ugh!" Laura said. But she took it gratefully.

"Now," he said, settling down on the c.o.c.ktail table with a cup of instant coffee, "begin at the beginning."

Laura rubbed her forehead and then sipped the p.r.i.c.kly drink. "It started ... beautifully," she said. "Like a dream. It was all hot sand and cool water and kisses. We held hands in the movie, we sat up till all hours in front of the fireplace with a bottle of Riesling and sang, and danced. We traded secrets and we made plans. We made a boat trip to the point"

"Did you make love?"

"You just can't wait, can you?" she said, half teasing, half irritated.

"My future may depend on it," he said and shrugged.

There was a long reflective pause and finally Laura said, sadly, "Yes. We made love. Only once."

"And that was the end?"

"It wasn't that simple. You see, shewell, she flirted. She flirted with men until I thought I couldn't stand it. Till I wanted to flirt myself to get even, if only I weren't so d.a.m.n awkward with men. She's not. She's a genius with them. She didn't give a d.a.m.n if they were married to not. She had them all proposing to her.

"After the first couple of days it got intolerable. She had been making me sleep on one bed and she took the other. And after she turned the lights out she made a ruleno bed-hopping."

"And you obeyed her little rule?"

"I had to, Jack," she defended herself. "We had a sort of agreement before we left the Village ... It was supposed to be up to her to choose the time and place."

'That's the lousiest agreement you ever made, Mother," he commented.

"No. She's sick, you see. Really. She thinks she's straight. And if you hint she's not, she gets terrified. Almost hysterical. She can't accept it."

"Why do you always fall for these well adjusted ladies?" he asked.

"Beth was well adjusted."

"Beth is dead. As far as you're concerned." Laura glared at him while he smiled slightly, lighting another cigarette from the one he was finishing. "So Tris is a queer queer," he said. "And she flirts with the opposite s.e.x. Very subversive. So what came next?"

"Well, they followed us home"

"Who?"

"Men!" she flashed peevishly. "They followed us at the beach, in the bars, in the stores. They followed Tris, I should say. I was cold as h.e.l.l with him. I tried to keep quiet about it, but after three days of it I blew up. We had a miserable quarrel, and I was ready to pack up and leave right then. But she relented suddenly. I don't know why. I think she really likes me, Jack. Anyway, she got drunk. Just enough so that she wouldn't have to watch what I did to her ... or hear what I said to her ... or care too much..."

"That's pretty drunk," Jack said. He knew from the way she spoke that it had hurt her to make love like that, wanting so much herself, and herself so unwanted. "I know, Laura honey, I know the feeling," he said and the words comforted her.

"Jack, I hope I always love you this much," she said softly.

He looked up from his coffee cup with a little smile. "So do I," he said. And they looked at each other without speaking for a minute before she went on.

"Well," she said, "it was torture. I didn't want it any more than she did, if it had to be so cold and sad, and at the same time I had to have her. I was on fire for her. I have to give her credit, Jack, she tried. But it didn't mean anything to her."

"It's a lonesome job," Jack said. "And it's never worth it"

"I cried all night," Laura said. "Afterwards ... I just got in my own bed and cried. And she was awake all night too, but she didn't come to me or try to comfort me. I think she was embarra.s.sed. I think she just wished she'd never gotten mixed up with me.

"The next nightaround dinner timeher husband arrived. I don't know whether she got sick of me or just scared and called him, or if they got their dates scrambled and he came too soon. You see, it turned out she had planned to meet him out there all along, after I left. But maybe I got to be too much for her and she told him to come and chase me out ... I don't know. There wasn't time to go into the fine points. But I think myself she needed a man just then, to make herself feel normal. And protected."

"What was he like?"

"A nice guy. He really is. I know I soundTris would sayhypocritical. But I liked him. I understood right away, the minute I saw him, an awful lot of things about Tris."

"How?"

Laura paused, gazing seriously at Jack. At last she explained, "He's a Negro. And so is she. Only he's much darker than Tris. Very handsome, but he'd never pa.s.s as an Indian. And right away he humiliated her, without meaning to." She smiled sadly. "She's from New York, Jack. She was born right here and her name is Patsy Robinson. She's only seventeen but they've been married two years. She makes him keep out of sight because she thinks he'd be a drag on her career. That's why she tells everybody she's Indian, toobecause she wants to get ahead and she thinks it makes it easier."

Jack shook his head. "I feel for her," he said.

"And I weep for her," Laura said. "You should have seen her, Jack. She was wild when Milo talked about her fake Indian past. I think it made him pretty d.a.m.n mad. That, and all the flirting, and having to live apart. And her gay and him straight! Lord, what a mess. He's in love with her; she's his wife. And she denies him, and hides him."

Laura stopped talking then for a little while, sipping the burgundy and staring at her feet. "I took the bus back," she said at last. "She screamed at me to leave. Milo apologized for her. That poor guy."

"Do you still think you love her?" Jack asked.

"I don't know." She sighed. "She fascinates me. I feel sick about it, about the way things happened. If I thought I could stand it I'd go back to her. But I know I couldn't. What is love, anyway, Jack?"

"'If you have to ask you never get to know,'" he quoted. "More?" He reached for her gla.s.s and she relinquished it with an unsteady hand. She felt completely lost, completely frustrated.

"What's Beebo doing?" she asked.

He picked up the bottle and poured some more wine into her gla.s.s. "All kinds of things," he said. "She got fired, of course. Hadn't showed up for weeks."

"Of course," Laura repeated, bowing her head.

"She's shacking up with Lili at the moment."

"Ohhh," Laura groaned, and it made her feel dismal to think of it. She felt a spasm of possessiveness for Beebo. "Lili is a terrible influence on her," she said irritably.

"So are you." He handed her her drink. "The worst."

"Not that bad."

"Life with you," he reminded her, "d.a.m.n near killed the girl."

"And me," Laura replied. "Did she leave the apartment?"

"No, she gets over there from time to time."

"I wonder how she pays the rent."

"It isn't due yet," he said. "Besides, I imagine Lili can help out."

Laura shut her eyes suddenly, overwhelmed with a maddening tenderness for Beebo. "I hate her!" she said emphatically to Jack. And he, with his uncanny ear for emotion, didn't like the emphasis.

After a slight pause he said, "I got her a dog. Another dachshund pup."

"That was nice of you," she said to him in the tone mothers use when someone has done a kindly favor for their children.

"Beebo didn't think so. She didn't know whether to kiss it or throw it at me," he said. "She finally kissed it. But the poor thing died two days later ... yesterday, it was."

"It died?"

"Yes." He looked at her sharply. "I think she ... shall we sayput it to sleep?"

"Oh, Jack!" she breathed, shocked. "Why? Did it remind her of Nix?"

"I don't know. It didn't cheer her up, that's for d.a.m.n sure."

Laura sat there for a while, letting him fill her gla.s.s a couple of times and listening to the FM radio and trying not to feel sorry for Beebo. "She doesn't really need me any more, Jack," she told him.