Beebo Brinker Chronicles 4 - Journey To A Woman by Ann Bannon

how good I can be to him? How patient with the kids? If he could only share me, just a little bit, just once in a while, with ... with a woman.
    She was amazed to find herself reasoning like this: Beth, who hadn't given a conscious thought to other women for nine years; Beth, who thought she was solidly normal for so long, who even married a man on that conviction; Beth, who had turned Laura London out of her life one day many years ago with such reassuring feelings of superiority and normalcy. That Beth, that very same girl, was tearing through the night on a fool's errand at the whim of a beautiful spoiled woman who probably didn't give a damn what her personal feelings were.
    Vega: Beth saw her in her mind suddenly, whole and clear, every detail of her, as she had seen Laura in her dream some weeks before. Strangely, life was worth living for a woman like that. Problems could be solved, boredom could be faced, chores could be accomplished, if Vega could only love her. With love, with passion, with romance in her life again, Beth's children would be more bearable. She could love them again because love was being reawakened in her and there would be plenty to go around. Why couldn't Charlie see it that way, see what joy and peace his family would know if Beth were only satisfied?
    She felt a flare-up of stinging resentment at his apparent selfishness. He'd understand one of these days; he'd have to. Beth was so eager for Vega's company, so full of pleasure and trembling anticipation, that nothing could have stopped her then, not even the thought of Charlie's wrath.
    She pulled off the freeway and into the stop-and-go traffic on Hollywood Boulevard. The great avenue was a strip of brilliants pasted on the black night. It might have been past two in the morning but it was Friday night, too, and the big brassy street was humming. Lights twinkled and flashed, announcing a hundred shows, a thousand succulent and sinful beauties, a million laughs. Posh shops displayed their slick wares in a weird radiance unknown to the daytime hours.
    And the people swarmed down the walks and across the street looking urgently for fun, dressed in their courting clothes or their tourist sport shirts. They smiled at every light, every open door, every burst of commercial good humor. Beth watched them when she had to stop for lights, and they did not strike her as pathetic or lost or bored. They were having fun, they were all dressed up, and they were doing Hollywood right She even found herself envying them.
    The night clerk buzzed Vega's room for her, giving Beth a narrow-eyed examination all the while. “She says come up,” he said, leaning toward her on the counter.
    "Thanks.” Beth turned away, but he called her back.
    "Miss,” he said and smiled at her sparkling eyes. “She's been giving us a rough time tonight. We're not supposed to take stuff up after midnight. And those girls with her are pretty noisy. I wonder if you'd tell her to tone it down a little. Would you mind?” He glanced at the paper bag full of whiskey under her arm.
    "She'll tone it down,” Beth said. “You won't hear a damn thing, I guarantee."
    "Thanks,” he said, and watched her fanny as she walked away toward the elevator.
    She was full of a reckless elation, a taut and wonderful excitement that she didn't dare to analyze. She rode up in the elevator and all she thought about was Vega: the sight of her, the scent of her, the smile. Not what she would do once they were alone in that room together; not what she would say. Just a mental vision of that fine-featured face, that elegant body, too thin, almost too well kept, too pale. But oh, deliver me! So beautiful! Beth thought.
    She knocked lightly on Vega's door. The hall was rather noisy, with half-suppressed laughter and an occasional squeal floating from the adjacent rooms. Beth had just time to hope that none of the girls was sharing Vega's room when the door opened and Vega herself nearly fell into Beth's