Young

Actress

by Miss Diana Sterling

Laughter crept through the darkness unsteadily.

Beverly knew it was the kind of laughter meant to insulate his hurt ego and so she was neither angry nor hurt that he laughed. She was disappointed. "If you're going to die laughing, Laird, go right ahead," she said, "but don't die trying!"

"But RONDY, Bev," he said, "Rondy's a WOMAN. You can't possibly be in love with a woman. He lifted the last word out so that it came singly into a high crescendo of sound and Beverly was not sure whether he had uttered a statement or put a question to her.

"I thought you'd understand, Laird," she said, "I told you because I thought we were good friends."

"Friends!" He looked at her incredulous.

"Then why do you come here," she said.

He climbed the three steps up to where she was and kissed her. His mouth pressed up to hers. His face was covered with sharp little hairs and her face was covered with the sharp little ache of them. And this was all the feeling Beverly had. She closed her eyes, with the intensity of a gypsy over a crystal ball, trying to summon that spirit she had never known with the kiss of a man. After the kiss she held him close. "O, Laird, Laird," she said, feeling infinitely sorry for him: a sorrow that substituted the thing that was no longer hope.

"Marry me, Bev," he said, mistaking her cry for love.

She drew quickly away from him. He had not understood. There was so much to consider, she thought. "Let me think, Laird. Give me time. Tomorrow night. Come back tomorrow night and I may be able to answer you better then."

When he was out of sight past the hedge, she closed the door softly behind her and stood in the hallway alone. " That you, Bev?"

Yes, mom." She turned her belt so that the silver buckle was facing front, and walked into the living room. "Hi, Walt," she said, dropping her purse onto the chair he was startled out of.

"Oh, it's you," he said. "Whyn't you say something? Thought you were old lady Parker coming in for Sund'y night tea."

"Scared of her?" Beverly picked a cooky from a crazed dish on the bridge table and plunked herself into an easy chair.

"Scared hell!" he said. "You know how she is. She catches you drinking a beer and the look you get would make you think you were in the wrong house," He sat down again.

"Well?" Beverly bit hard into the cooky.

Her mother put the magazine she had been reading down. "You trying to badger us again?" Woman twenty-three years old should be working steady like everybody else 'stead of throwing snide remarks."

"Oh, mom, I didn't mean

"You didn't mean. You didn't mean! That's what's wrong with you. What

one

14