SWF Seeks Same (13 page)

She fell into the habit of walking every day, and every day brought Sam’s return that much closer. He’d phoned and told her the conference would be longer than originally planned, and to expect him when she saw him.

Surprisingly, money was no worry. Hedra had been assigned a lucrative job filling in for an executive secretary at a catering firm who was on extended maternity leave. It made Allie miserable at times, gave her a feeling of guilt and uselessness, knowing Hedra was paying for rent and groceries. But she told herself that when things got brighter she’d pay Hedra back and add generous interest. What she wouldn’t do—couldn’t do—was borrow from Sam.

Some days, like this morning, she couldn’t stop thinking about Sam. She had him on her mind from her first moment of wakefulness, and lay staring at the ceiling, slipping in and out of sleep.

She and Sam were in Mexico, where they’d often talked about going, and were lying on the beach in soft white sand. A huge full moon drifted lazily on the black waves, like a lost and luminous beachball. The breeze off the ocean sighed warm secrets. New York was far away. Sam said he loved her and her only, and loosened the top of her wet bathing suit. Ran his fingertips over her pulsing nipples. Then her stomach and the insides of her thighs. Parted the suit from her crotch, brushing her lightly with a knuckle.

Whispered, “Lisa …”

She awoke trembling. Her eyes were juiced with tears that threatened to flow any moment. Her legs thrashed of their own accord. She had to get up.

Out of the bed.

Walk.

Outside, in the vibrant and beautiful morning, she felt better. She cut over to Broadway and walked for block after block, taking long strides, as if trying to exhaust something accompanying her so it would eventually give up and turn back.

But whatever it was, it strode side by side with her and drew its energy from her desperation.

Finally, when a muted sun had climbed much higher in the lead-gray sky, she began wending her way home.

On the corner of West 74th and Amsterdam, a man wearing baggy Levi’s faded the exact color of the sky, and a red windbreaker with the sleeves turned up, approached her. At first she thought he was gazing beyond her, at someone else. But no, he was definitely looking at her. She glanced away but knew it hadn’t been in time. Make eye contact on a teeming Manhattan street and anything can happen.

“Hey! Allie Jones?”

She stared into his face. A short guy in his mid-thirties, with curly, sandy-colored hair and uptilted green eyes. There was something vague and a little wild about those eyes, a touch of dangerous disorientation. His flesh was freckled and ruddy, and though there was a fullness to his cheeks, his legs and the torso beneath the windbreaker were very thin, almost emaciated. The wrists protruding from the turned-up sleeves were bony and fragile. Allie knew she’d never seen him before. She said, “Sorry …

He looked scared and unsure of himself for a moment, then said, “Listen, I’m ready.” His words were slightly slurred.

“Ready?”

“You know. To do what we talked about.” He glanced around. Grinned. They were coconspirators. “What we decided at Wild Red’s. I wasn’t as shtoned as you might think. Hell, I always said I’d try anything at least once, then give it a second go-round. That’s always been my motto, you might shay.”

Confused, Allie backed away. “You and I never talked about anything.”

She might as well not have spoken. He ran a bony hand through his already ruffled hair. Something ugly and desperate moved across his face. His nostrils twitched, in that instant reminding her of a pig. “Thing is, any fuckin’ condition’s okay with me. Whatever action turnsh you on, lover, even if it’s rollin’ in shit.”

“Goddamnit, I don’t
know
you!” Allie almost screamed.

That startled the man and he shuffled away from her, studying her with his opaque green eyes. He seemed to be dazed, as if he might be drunk or on drugs and peering at her through an internal haze. “Hey, maybe I made a mistake, thought you was shomebody else.” He sprayed saliva when he talked, tattooing her face with it.

“But I
am
Allie Jones.”

Out of patience, he said, “Well, shit!” as if he’d never figure this out. He clenched a fist angrily and extended it toward her. She didn’t think people outside of comic strips actually did that. She was ready to run, but he didn’t advance. There was something hypnotic about the way he was looking at her, something twisted and intimate.

Then he seemed to relax. His fist came unclenched. He dropped his hand to his side and let it dangle, as if to say she wasn’t worth the effort of striking her.

Stunned, Allie could only stare as he turned and walked away, weaving in and out among shifting currents of pedestrians to lose himself on the crowded sidewalk.

She dragged her fingers across her cheeks, feeling repulsive wetness, and stood staring after him, ignoring the streams of hurrying New Yorkers who were ignoring her. Several people bumped into her and walked on.

She wiped her damp fingertips on her jacket. “
I don’t know you
!” she said again.

No one acknowledged in any way that she’d spoken.

Everyone was careful not to make eye contact.

“ALL kinds of scuzzballs in New York,” Hedra said when she’d returned home from work and listened to Allie. She’d brought with her the scents of outside: exhaust fumes, tobacco smoke. “This guy must have got you mixed up with somebody who looks a lot like you, huh?”

Allie was sitting in the wing chair in the living room, legs drawn up, chin resting on her knees. She’d been in that position for hours. Her chin ached dully and there were white spots on the insides of both knees where it had dug into the flesh. She hadn’t eaten anything, and had drunk only half the Diet Pepsi Hedra brought her. She said, “No, he called me by name.”

Hedra shrugged. “That one I can’t explain.” She walked to the window and gazed outside. There was something about her walk. It wasn’t the slump-shouldered, tentative shuffle that had been Hedra’s when she’d first moved into the apartment. Yet it was oddly familiar. Disturbing. Maybe it was simply the dress; she was wearing Allie’s yellow dress—or a duplicate—with the pleated skirt. Allie’s shoes that she’d borrowed, though they had to be half a size too large. Did she wad Kleenexes in the toes?

Then it struck Allie and she shivered. It wasn’t the dress or shoes, but the way Hedra was standing with hand on hip. The lean of her body. Even the tilt of her head. Allie saw familiarity in Hedra because of her, Allie’s, own characteristics. Oh, she knew this person in front of her. A composite. A thousand flat images in countless mirrors, a thousand glances into reflecting display windows as she walked past; it was as if they’d all come to life in Hedra.

Hedra, envying Allie. Mimicking her.

Allie, understanding at last, said, “Hedra, you don’t really want to be me.”

And Hedra turned. Allie almost expected to see her own face. Hedra’s features were twisted in self-pity and guilt and fear. The breeze sifting in through the window had toyed with her hair and given her childish bangs. She seemed to shrink inside the dress, a small girl caught playing grown-up with Mommy’s clothes.

Allie was incredulous. She knew the meaning of Hedra’s reaction. “You’ve been impersonating me… !”

Hedra took two unsteady steps toward her, then stopped cold, as if she might fall down if she continued. “God, no! Nothing like that … ”

“What, then? Who was that man? Who’s been calling me?”

“I don’t know. Honest! It was because of the coat, I guess.”

“Coat?”

“When I was at a singles bar down in the Village I had on your coat—the blue one with the white collar and big white buttons. I mean, there aren’t a lot of coats like that. You must have been wearing it today when that creep came up to you on the street.”

Allie
had
been wearing the blue coat. Fascinated, she lowered her legs and placed her bare feet flat on the floor. She sat and waited for Hedra to continue, wanting to hear it but afraid of what Hedra might reveal. There was something here she didn’t understand. Something elusive and primal that skittered across the back of her mind on a thousand delicate legs and left her frightened.

“Anyway,” Hedra went on, “this real cute guy came up to me at the bar and we started to talk. Then we had a few dances. I mean, there was some real chemistry there, but I didn’t wanna lead him on too much, wanted to take it slow. I guess, tell you the truth, I was a little scared. It’s just the way I’ve always been around men. So when he asked me my name, it took me by surprise, and I didn’t wanna use my real name so I just blurted out the first one that popped into mind, and it was yours. I didn’t figure it’d hurt anything.”

“What did this guy look like?” Allie asked.

“Tall, with black hair going a little thin on top, but with a kind face and a terrific build. Really great shoulders. Like an athlete. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one.”

Not the scrawny, sandy-haired animal who’d accosted Allie. Allie said, “So who was the kink I talked to today?”

“I don’t know. Me and Brad—that was this guy’s name—were joined by some of his friends and he introduced me. It was too late to back out then; I had to keep on being Allie Jones. We went to another place, and another. More of Brad’s friends joined us. I didn’t like them, hardly any of them, especially the women. And some of the men were absolutely scary. You know, the extreme kinky kind you run into every once in a while at clubs and singles bars.”

Allie knew, from her early days in Manhattan. She never wanted to revisit that scene. But now, thanks to Hedra, it had left its dim and boozy confines and visited her on a sunny street, bringing with it its own sleeziness and darkness.

“Anyway,” Hedra said, “we went to this one guy’s apartment and drank and talked, and one of the geeky women suggested group sex. Just got up and took off her blouse, danced around, and said something about us all doing some dope and having some
real
fun.”

“And what’d you do?”

“Well, for God’s sake, Allie, I got outa there! Soon as I saw that, I was history.”

“What about Brad?”

Hedra frowned and bit her lip. “He stayed.” Anger reddened her cheeks, brought out pinched white patches around her nose and the corners of her lips. “I never want to see him again, Allie! No matter what he does. He’s not anything like he pretended to be.”

Wolves in sheep’s clothing, Allie thought, monsters in people’s flesh. Terror shot through her. “It might have been more than coincidence that I was approached by that weirdo so close to the Cody. Did you tell any of these people your—my address?”

“I didn’t think so, but I might have. I don’t remember a lot of that night clearly; I was … I’d drunk more’n I should have.”

“Had you been taking pills?”

“No, no, not pills or any other kinda dope. ’Cept for liquor. And only mixed drinks, that’s all. But a crowd like that, maybe somebody put something in one of my drinks. Maybe somebody’d doctored the drinks of the girl who started dancing topless. She wasn’t acting quite normal. Her eyes were funny. I dunno, bunch of sickos get together that way …”

Allie described the man who’d approached her on Amsterdam and West 74th, then she asked Hedra if he’d been one of the group of Brad’s friends.

“Yeah, I think so. I remember him because he was so thin, and he had this nasty kinda leer and kooky eyes. He kept looking at me like he could see through my clothes.”

My
clothes, Allie thought. But what difference did that make? “Remember his name?”

“Carl something, I think. I’m not sure. It’s hazy.” Hedra suddenly looked horrified. “Allie, you do believe me, don’t you?”

Allie wanted to believe, and did believe at least enough to feel the relief of having some explanation about her encounter with the pervert on the street corner, who for Christ’s sake had known her name. It was easier to believe than to doubt, and what Allie was hearing was damning enough, so there was no reason for Hedra to lie. Besides, Hedra had this Calvinistic compulsion to confess, to purify herself. Truth in her would work to the surface like a splinter in a festering wound. Allie was so tired, so worn down. God, all she wanted to do now was sleep, secure in her understanding of what had happened.

Softly, she said, “Of course I believe you.”

Hedra approached and laid her trembling hand on Allie’s shoulder. No, not Hedra trembling. Allie realized
she
was trembling; Hedra’s hand was steady. Hedra, wearing a sapphire ring given to Allie by an old boyfriend in college. “I’ll stay away from that place and those kinda people, Allie.”

“I know you will.”

“There’ll be no more encounters like today, no more nasty phone calls. Not if I can help it.”

“Why, that’s right,” Allie said. “That explains the obscene phone calls, too.”

“Sure it does.” Hedra’s hand caressed and petted. “Everything’s gonna turn out okay, Allie, believe me. We’ll go out for breakfast tomorrow morning before I leave for work. At that deli down the street. All right?”

Hedra comforting Allie, calling the shots.

“All right,” Allie heard herself say. Through her weariness she realized that things weren’t the same. An important balance had shifted.

Somehow, inexorably, Allie had become weaker and it was Hedra who’d come to dominate their relationship. Mimicking Allie. Dressing like her. Sometimes even wearing Allie’s clothes.
Becoming
Allie Jones. A strong Allie Jones.

Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, Allie had often heard. But this was, in some strange way, more than mere imitation. It made her think of that old science-fiction movie
The Body Snatchers
.

Allie didn’t care. Not right now. Maybe in the morning.

Maybe.

Now, tonight, she was tired and wanted only the sweet oblivion of sleep. The bliss of total surrender.

Hedra said, “I think you should go to your room and lie down, Allie.”

Allie went.