Three Women by March Hastings Page B

to be speaking to a baby.
    "You go to the movies and have a good time. Have you enough money?"
    "I have a dollar left from what you gave me. It only costs sixty-five cents."
    Instinctively Byrne's hand went to her pocket.
    "No, don't give me any more. I might lose it." The face puckered its lips. Byrne leaned over and kissed them. Greta made a happy childlike sound. Then she turned and strolled away.
    Byrne closed the door and leaned heavily against it. She took one cigarette from her pocket and lit it slowly. Paula saw anger working itself outward, growing stiffly into the lips, flaming bright in the slanting eyes. "So that's it," Byrne said. She clutched one hand around the matchbook. Knuckles bulged whitely. Her anger didn't stab at Paula, it curled around herself and choked her blood into red spots on her cheeks. "That's Greta, my dear. Or what's left of her." She came across the room and stood very close to Paula. She stared full into the girl's face but did not focus on her. It unnerved Paula to be looked at so hard and yet not seen. "You were jealous of competition. A healthy young thing like you was jealous of that."
    Paula struggled to make some sound, to make Byrne feel her presence. "Yes, I was jealous," she hit back. "And I'm still jealous of the past I can't fight. It's not fair for something like Greta to be my competition." She jabbed her pencil at the paper and ripped a dark line furiously down the page. "How can I fight a nightmare? Why must you live with it? Drag everything that's good in you down into a senseless misery?"
    "Why, indeed?" Byrne echoed. 'It's so simple for you to make up rules on how to live and be happy. I should chuck Greta into a sanitarium and forget she ever existed. Forget those years we innocently lived together. Wouldn't it be convenient for you if I could say it wasn't my fault, my cowardice that sent Greta away."
    "Whatever you did," Paula urged softly, "was not cowardly."
    Byrne snorted and turned over a new page of Paula's book. "Let's drop it," she said. "I haven't the stomach."
    But Paula flung the pencil aside and pulled Byrne down with her to the couch. "I don't care what you did. You aren't responsible for Greta's mind." She put her arms around Byrne's waist and pressed her cheek to her chest "But you are responsible for mine because you're torturing me. I act like a big shot but I don't know what I'm doing, really. Last night if you had let me, I wouldn't even have known..." her voice trailed away.
    "You're smarter than you realize," Byrne muttered. She put her lips to the girl's hair and Paula felt the warm breath on her scalp.
    "If I were smart, I would have you," she answered, "all to myself with nothing to stop us from being happy." The closeness of Byrne weakened her. She craved the lips and the flesh of her body. Good sense disappeared and she buried her mouth in the woman's neck.
    "If you stay with me, you will never know any happiness." Byrne's tone was bitter with self-hatred.
    "I love you. You can't stop me from loving you." She clung to Byrne and moved her head down to the opening of her shirt.
    "No, I can't stop you," Byrne whispered, her voice vibrant with growing passion. "But I can destroy you.”
    Paula laughed into the warm flesh. "I'm not Greta," she murmured, so you can't. "I'm Paula."
    "Yes. Paula," she said curiously, as though aware for the first time of this new person in her arms.
    But Paula was not content to remain like this, contact only half complete on the couch. She wanted Byrne to take her into the bedroom. Yet how could they go in there? The remains, the echoes of Greta would mock them.
    If only we could leave this place, Paula thought. Go far, far away where no past could interfere. If only for a weekend she could have Byrne all to herself.
    "Paula," Byrne said. "I want you to do something for me."
    "Anything. You know that."
    "Then listen carefully and don't question what I say." She held the girl tightly and Paula felt the buckle pressing