Single White Female

by John Lutz

  “Sense it? Actually?”

  “Actually. And it’s not like me to be wrong, is it?”

  Hedra giggled. “I suppose not. Oh!” She suddenly unbuckled the silver belt, then reached around and unzipped the dress. As if she’d abruptly remembered her transgression and wanted to set things right, like a child seeking parental forgiveness.

  Allie sat and watched her strip to panties and bra. She really didn’t have a bad figure. Better than it appeared in the drab and poorly cut clothes she favored. “Leave on the earrings, Hedra. Maybe I’ve got another dress you’d like.”

  She turned and stared at Allie with disbelief. “You don’t mean, after this . . . ?”

  “You didn’t steal or destroy anything,” Allie reminded her.

  “I’d never purposely destroy anything of yours,” she said with all the fervor of a Girl Scout uttering a sacred oath.

  Allie got up from the bed and walked to the closet. Wire hangers whined on the steel rod as she separated her clothes and found an inexpensive beige dress. It was styled very much like the blue one Hedra was now fitting with precision back on its hanger. Less full, longer hemline, but similar. “Try this one on,” Allie said, and withdrew the beige dress from the closet with the kind of flourish she’d seen salespeople use in exclusive boutiques.

  Hedra was impressed. “You mean it?”

  “Mean it,” Allie assured her.

  Within a few minutes Hedra was wearing the beige dress, pivoting in front of the full-length mirror. Her movements were exaggerated yet controlled, almost like a dance.

  She moved away from the mirror, smiling, and slipped into her brown shoes with the medium-height heels that had been lying near the bed. Took another look in the mirror, then spun neatly in a tight two-step so the skirt billowed. “What do you think, Allie?”

  “I think it looks terrific on you.” The dress was flattering. “Better than on me.”

  “No, that could never be.”

  “You’re good for my ego, Hedra, even if you’re not very realistic.”

  “I hope I’m good for something,” she said timidly.

  My God! Allie thought. She said, “You need a drink. In fact, I need a drink.” Do I ever!

  “Now?”

  “Especially now.”

  “Okay, Allie. Let me get this off.” She contorted her arms, elbows out, to grope behind her back for the zipper.

  “No, leave the dress on. It’s yours.”

  “But I can’t afford to pay for it.”

  “I don’t want you to pay. It’s a gift.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “I’m not kidding, damn it!” Too sharp again.

  Hedra didn’t seem to know why Allie was suddenly irritated. She lowered her arms and said, “Thank you, Allie,” and almost curtsied.

  Allie said, “I’m not royalty, Hedra.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind. Let’s go. The glass coach is waiting.”

  No coach. Not even a cab. They walked through the gloomy gray afternoon to a restaurant and bar over on Broadway near West 76th. Before they entered, Allie noticed that the lighted time-and-temperature sign on the Apple Bank said it was one o’clock, but she wasn’t at all in need of lunch. The bedroom encounter with Hedra seemed to have killed her appetite. Intense emotion did that to her, be it anger or pity.

  There was piped-in music in the bar, heavy-metal rock, but it wasn’t loud. The restaurant was through a low arch; Allie could see several people seated at red-clothed tables, eating lunch.

  She and Hedra sat in the bar, at one of the small wooden tables against the wall. Allie looped her purse strap over the back of her chair, close to the wall where no one could snatch it, and looked around.

  The place was darkly paneled, with a lot of high shelves lined with fancy beer mugs. Spicy cooking scents wafted in from the adjoining restaurant. Half a dozen people were perched on stools at the long bar. About a dozen more sat at tables. Allie’s gaze drifted back to the mugs. A few of them looked like antiques. She wondered if they were worth something to collectors. The bar owner might not know, might be ignorant of such things.

  Not likely, she told herself, not in New York. Everybody but tourists seemed to know the price of everything in the city. Except for the slowly exacted price they were paying for living here.

  A tired-looking barmaid plodded over to their table. She stood poised with her order pad, waiting, looking indirectly and dispassionately at them as if she didn’t know or care if they were genuine human beings or cardboard cutouts. She finally said, “Yeah?” then took their order.

  Allie had two martinis. Hedra drank a Tab, then a martini. She seemed to enjoy the olive more than the drink. A matched pair of guys in gray business suits interrupted their loud conversation about the Jets long enough to size up the two women. One of the men had bad teeth and appeared drunk. Allie looked away before Hedra did. She saw in the mirror that the other man winked at Hedra.

  Swiveling in her chair to face Allie, Hedra said, “No thanks.”

  “They didn’t offer,” Allie said.

  “They would if we gave them encouragement.”

  “Most likely.”

  Football talk began again. Louder. Then the subject was changed abruptly to the stock market. Probably to impress anyone who might overhear. Be a bear, said the guy with crooked teeth. The one who’d winked at Hedra was bullish on more than America.

  Hedra glanced again in the men’s direction. “Couple of creeps.”

  “Maybe not,” Allie said. “You never know.”

  “Nobody knows for sure about anything,” the philosopher Hedra said.

  That was the truth. When they got back to the Cody Arms, Sam had just come out and was jogging down the steps.

  11

  Sam saw Allie and Hedra and took the last few steps slowly, then came to a complete halt outside the Cody Arms and stood still, like a wind-up toy that had run down. He was wearing gray sweatpants, a blue pullover shirt, and his maroon Avia jogging shoes. He needed a haircut badly. Allie thought he might have lost a few pounds. Not in a healthy way, but as if he’d been sick. She stifled a thrust of concern for him, watching his eyes dart from her to Hedra and then back.

  He said, “I was out for a run, and I thought it might as well be in this direction so I could see you.”

  Allie said, “About what?”

  He frowned. “Is that where we are? It has to be about something?”

  “ ’Fraid so, Sam.”

  He stared at Hedra until silence began to build on itself and someone had to speak.

  Finally Allie said, “This is Hedra Carlson. Hedra, Sam Rawson.”

  Allie saw him give Hedra a quick up-and-down glance, show mild surprise as he recognized the beige dress. She’d worn it one weekend they’d spent in the Catskills; he’d removed it from her in a way she couldn’t forget. Sam shook Hedra’s hand gently. “You an old friend of Allie’s?”

  Ill at ease, Hedra said, “Not so old. I mean, we haven’t been friends all that long. But we’re friends.”

  Sam showed his amiable smile. “Wait a minute! We met the other day when I came by the apartment to see Allie. You were visiting. Waiting for her inside. Remember?”

  “Sure. Now I do.”

  He adjusted an elastic sweatband on his right wrist. It was blue and white, lettered YANKEES. “I told you my name, but you forgot to introduce yourself.”

  “I’m, uh, sorry.”

  “Anyway,” he said, “I think it’s great Allie’s got a close friend like you. Wear each other’s clothes, that sorta thing. New York’s not the kinda place where you usually have somebody close.”

  Allie’d heard enough. “Sam, we’re in kind of a hurry.”

  “Oh?”

  “I thought you were out jogging.”

  “On my way to run in the park, actually. So I thought I’d drop by. But you weren’t home. You are now.”

  “Not quite, Sam, but I’d like to be. Nice see
ing you.”

  She moved around him and started up the steps.

  Suddenly he had her elbow in a firm grip. Desperation flowed like electricity through him into her. “Allie, listen, please!”

  Hedra said, “I’ll just run on upstairs.”

  Sam said, “Pleasure meeting you, Hedra. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”

  Allie yanked her elbow free, sending a jolt of pain up her crazy bone. She wasn’t the crazy one here. “I’m going with her, Sam.”

  He shuffled in a half-circle and blocked her way. There was an agonized look on his face. “Allie, I only wanna talk.”

  “And I don’t.” But she knew she did. Goddamnit, she did! “Wait for me, Hedra.”

  Hedra was standing at the top of the steps, a confused expression on her face. In the beige dress and high heels, her legs looked very shapely from the sidewalk. Sam stared at her for a moment, as if he were seeing Allie in the dress. His teeth were clenched and his breath hissed like steam escaping under great pressure. Allie could smell liquor on his breath. Had he seen them in the bar? Beaten them back to the Cody and set up this scene?

  No, she decided, it was possible but unlikely.

  It began to rain then, slanting under the entrance canopy. Not hard, but steadily enough so another few minutes of standing outside and they’d all be soaked. Windshield wipers on passing cars started their metronome action. Some of them had their headlights on, wary yellow eyes lessening the chance of collision in the lowering gloom. The wet street became opaque glass, reflecting the late-afternoon traffic in muted colors.

  A trickle of rainwater broke from Sam’s hair and ran down his forehead. Finally he stood aside and gave Allie room to go up the steps. She moved past, barely brushing his arm.

  She took each step with deliberation, keeping the sway of her hips to a minimum, knowing he was watching. Behind her, the swish of tires on wet pavement was like harsh and secret whispering. Hedra reached out a firm hand as if to help her achieve the final push of a climb up a mountain. And maybe that’s what it was—climbing up out of Sam’s influence. Maybe.

  She grasped Hedra’s hand, squeezed it as if to say “Thank you,” and pushed ahead of her, through the door into the cool, dry lobby. Sanctuary.

  “We’ll talk later, Allie!” Sam called up the steps.

  She didn’t answer. A raindrop clung to her eyelash; she brushed it away impatiently with the back of her hand.

  As they were rising in the elevator, Hedra said, “An awkward situation, but you handled it fine, Allie.”

  Fine? Allie interpreted it differently. “Did I?”

  “I mean, you seemed so calm. So in control. More so than I coulda been; that’s for sure.”

  “Didn’t seem that way to me, Hedra. I wasn’t so calm on the inside.”

  “That doesn’t matter. You’re here, and you and Sam aren’t having the conversation he was demanding. You didn’t let yourself get bullied. That’s the important thing.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Allie said. “The important thing is that now Sam’s sure we’re living together.”

  “Huh? How could he be? He only saw me in the apartment that one time, and he supposed I was a friend waiting for you to get home.”

  “Don’t believe what he says.”

  “But what could he prove?”

  “I don’t mean he could prove anything,” Allie said. “But he doesn’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he wanted, he could notify Haller-Davis I have a roommate and get us both evicted.”

  “Would they believe him?”

  “They’d send someone to look over the apartment, and they’d see there are two people living there. No way you can conceal that from somebody looking for it.”

  “What if we didn’t let them in?”

  “They’d sneak in with a passkey. Then they’d serve an eviction notice, and it’d be up to me to prove I was living alone. They’d know I couldn’t do that.” Allie wasn’t sure that was exactly how the eviction would go, but she was sure Haller-Davis could and would force her out.

  She remembered how Sam had noticed the beige dress, how he’d said he recognized Hedra from when she’d answered the knock on the apartment door. He was letting Allie know that he knew: Hedra was her secret roommate. She didn’t like that at all. There was no way to predict what might happen; divorces, from affairs as well as marriages, could take unexpected bitter turns.

  The elevator arrived on their floor and the doors rumbled open, admitting a press of warm air from the hall.

  A vision of the countless street people she passed every day invaded Allie’s mind. The ones the rest of the human race avoided thinking about, even avoided seeing, with a convenient selective blindness. She might become one of them. Sam had it in his power to do that to her. A Svengali in jogging shoes. That was what really ate at her, the knowledge that he could do it.

  Absurd! she told herself. I’m self-supporting and every bit as capable as Sam. My life’s in my own hands.

  Hedra stopped halfway down the hall and stared incredulously at Allie. “Sam wouldn’t really turn you in to the management company, would he?”

  “I don’t know,” Allie said. “A month ago I wouldn’t have thought so, but he’s full of surprises. All men seem to be full of surprises.”

  “Not to me.”

  Allie smiled. “I know what you mean, Hedra.”

  But she didn’t.

  In the apartment, the phone rang and Allie absently answered it, still thinking about Sam.

  “Allie?” A man’s voice. Not Sam’s.

  “Yes?” There was only silence on the line. “Hello?”

  A steady buzzing erupted in her ear. Whoever was on the other end of the connection had hung up.

  12

  At Fortune Fashions, Mayfair sat at his wide desk, before his IBM computer, and went through the routine taught to him by Allie Jones. His fingers pecked at the gray keys with dexterity now, sure of themselves. She’d done an excellent job of setting up the programs. Inventory, payroll, graphics for sales and manufacturing projections, all reduced to relatively simple commands. She was about fifty percent through the project, she’d told Mayfair. Which meant it was time for him to do what he’d intended from the first moment he’d seen Allie Jones. And why not? You were vice president of a company like this, certain perks were implied.

  Allie had too much time invested to give up the Fortune Fashions account now, and she stood to lose too much money. Without a doubt she’d be vulnerable to pressure. And she’d recently broken up with whatever guy had been balling her; Sam something, he thought she’d called him. So Mayfair figured she was ripe enough to fall. Ah, timing was so important in life.

  Not that he’d explain the facts to her in such crude terms. He was too practiced for that. But in varied and subtle ways, Mayfair would let her know that now he had enough knowledge to call some other programmer in to finish what Allie had started. Even his secretary Elaine must be getting proficient with a computer by now. The basic software systems were online, so no problem there. Allie had gotten a small amount of money upfront. Gradually, over a week or so, he’d make it clear that if she wanted to finish the Fortune Fashions job and see her big payday, he, Mayfair, was part of the arrangement. It wasn’t so unusual; she’d probably done some job-related screwing before. Part of landing accounts, he was sure, a piece of the deal from the beginning, or there wouldn’t have been a deal. An attractive woman didn’t need a computer to figure that one out. Let’s face it, software was software.

  The door to the anteroom swung open, allowing traffic noises from the street ten stories below to infiltrate Mayfair’s plush and virtually soundproof office. The thick carpet and drapes, the flocked wallpaper and deeply upholstered furniture, seemed even to absorb sound produced from within the office.

  Elaine, tall and gaunt as a model, dressed in a Fashion Fortunes fall outfit, swished in and gave a perfunctory nod to Mayfair. They had run through
a hot and frantic affair five years ago, but they seldom talked about it now. At the time, Elaine had known sleeping with him was a prerequisite for employment. Somewhat the same dilemma that would now face Allie.

  Elaine had been married then, but so what? That shouldn’t have caused such a problem. He hadn’t asked her to go off on a guilt spree and spill her guts to her husband, who went crazy and came looking for Mayfair at home. At fucking home with the wife and kids, no less. Jesus, what a scene? What a night!

  Mayfair had forgiven Elaine for that error in judgment, and even helped to find her an apartment to begin the single life she still led. So it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to the bitch. She was having a ball now, dating different guys all the time, accepting gifts from them. Not a hooker, though. A secretary. Mayfair almost smiled.

  The scene with Elaine’s husband had hastened his own inevitable divorce. His wife Janice and the kids were living in Buffalo now. Everybody seemed better off. Mayfair was certainly happier. He supposed that indirectly he could thank Elaine for that.

  He leaned back in his padded swivel chair and studied her as she bent over a lower file drawer. She still had the wasp waist and trim ass, the nice legs.

  Elaine straightened up and smoothed her skirt. Her calf muscle bulged as she swiveled a foot back into one of her high-heeled shoes that had worked halfway off. Sexy. She was holding the file folder she’d been seeking.

  She turned around and aimed her heavily made-up eyes at him. “Allie Jones coming in today?”

  “She’s scheduled,” Mayfair said. Allie was tutoring Elaine in the use of the computer. Elaine was in the fold and would stay there. Mayfair would point this out to Allie to let her know the company’s need for her expertise had decreased. In fact, she herself wasn’t actually essential at this juncture. But he’d hint that there was no problem; she might increase her value in other ways.

  About ten o’clock Allie and Elaine would isolate themselves in a corner of the anteroom, Elaine at her new computer while Allie sat next to her in the red and brown Danish chair pulled over from where it was usually angled against the wall. Patiently, professionally, Allie would explain to her what she was doing right, what she was doing wrong. Tutor and student got along well; both were bright and adaptable people.