SWF Seeks Same

by John Lutz

  He filed the complaint form and trudged after Hector.

  Chapter 18

  ALLIE walked home from the precinct house unsure of how she felt. Around her the wet pavement had a mirrorlike effect. The rain had become a cool, persistent mist that found its way down the back of her collar. She moved through it as if it were the atmosphere of dreams, unconcerned about getting wet or catching cold. The tires of passing cabs shiiished. Windshield wipers thunk, thunked.

  Though she felt better after having told Sergeant Kennedy about the phone calls and missing credit cards, she was sure the police couldn’t help. Reporting a crime was a long way from seeing that crime solved. Kennedy himself had as much as said that. He seemed to see the city as a festering, vile creation out of control. The good guys were overwhelmed.

  When finally she reached the apartment, she found Hedra concerned about her. “For Pete’s sake, Allie, what are you doing out wandering around in the rain?”

  “I went to the police station.”

  “You walked?”

  “Took the subway there, but I decided to walk back.”

  “The doctor’ll be your next stop.” There was a mothering quality to Hedra’s voice; a different Hedra, with Allie in trouble.

  She hurried across the living room and helped Allie shrug out of the blue raincoat. After shaking the coat so that hundreds of drops of water caught the light and glittered like scattered diamonds, she hung it in the hall closet, well away from the other coats. Hedra had always liked the blue raincoat and took special care of it, though she hadn’t bought one like it, probably because the coat was four years old and the style was no longer in the stores.

  “I told them about the obscene phone calls and the stolen credit cards,” Allie said.

  “I gathered that. Why don’t you get out of those wet shoes and sit down. I’ll fix you a cup of hot chocolate.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think I want anything.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous; you’ll catch pneumonia or worse.” She rested a hand on Allie’s shoulder and pushed and guided her to the sofa, like the stern guardian of a recalcitrant child.

  Allie let herself be pushed. She was tired, she missed Sam, and a cup of hot chocolate would taste good and damn the calories.

  While Hedra was clattering around in the kitchen, Allie sat and stared at the rain that was falling hard again and reflecting distorted light as it flowed down the windows. It was a perilous world out there beyond the glass. She’d been blind, preoccupied since she’d come to the city, and hadn’t realized how very hostile and dangerous it was.

  Hedra was back with the cup of hot chocolate for Allie and one for herself. She sat down next to her on the sofa. The steady patter of the rain made the apartment seem smaller, cozier. “So what’d the cops say?”

  “They were nice, but not very helpful.”

  “They’re busy,” Hedra said. “Too much crime in this city. Too much evil.”

  “That’s more or less the impression I got. Obscene phone calls, stolen credit cards—these things happen every hour, so they don’t get excited about them. They concentrate on more important crimes. Until the person who got the phone call becomes one of the important crimes.”

  “Don’t worry so,” Hedra said. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you.” She sipped at her chocolate. She’d put marshmallows in both cups. Thoughtful. “By the way, Allie, I hope you don’t care about me wearing your sweatshirt.” She used her thumb and forefinger to stretch the gray material of the FORDHAM shirt she was wearing. Allie had bought it at a street bazaar two years ago. “I looked through my closet and didn’t have much to lounge around in. I’ll wash it for you when I’m done with it, I promise.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Allie said. She took a long, painful swallow of the scalding chocolate, burning the roof of her mouth. Lowered the cup and wiped melted marshmallow off her upper lip, leaving her hand sticky. She looked up at Hedra. “I opened your closet door, Hedra. I saw how you bought so many clothes exactly like mine.”

  Hedra’s lower lip quaked.

  Allie said, “Don’t do that, Hedra, please. Both of us can’t be basket cases.”

  “You mad?” Hedra asked.

  “Not exactly mad. Puzzled.”

  “Well,” Hedra said, “I saw how good your clothes looked on you, and I figured if they only looked half as good on me, it’d be an improvement.”

  Allie sighed. She didn’t feel like coping with this unabashed admiration, not right now. “Don’t buy any more duplicates, Hedra. Borrow whatever you want from my closet.”

  Hedra beamed as if she’d been pronounced royalty. “Thanks! And you’re welcome to borrow anything in my closet.” Her expression sagged. “‘Course, you’re not likely to wanna wear any of my stuff.”

  Concerned, mothering Hedra was gone; deferential Hedra was back. Allie didn’t know what to say. She finally mumbled, “Lucky we’re about the same size.”

  “Lucky,” Hedra agreed. “Want some cold milk in that chocolate to cool it down?”

  “No, thanks,” Allie told her. “I’ll wait for it to cool. Then I think I’ll rest awhile.”

  “Sure, rest’ll make everything seem better.”

  Allie seldom went out of the apartment during the next week. Sam phoned several times and sensed her despondency. He tried to cheer her up, told her he loved her and would be back soon. After talking to him she usually felt better, for a while. The few acquaintances who called her soon caught on that she wanted to be left alone. Oily Billy Stothers, probably on the make with Sam out of town, called several times, but he stopped when she made it plain that she preferred loneliness to his company.

  And she couldn’t help it; she found herself wondering about Sam, so far from her arms. Was that part of the reason for her depression? The Lisa factor?

  She was alone most of the time. Hedra went out every day to a temporary office job. She had to dress well for it, she’d said, and usually left the apartment wearing a duplicate of something of Allie’s. Allie sometimes lent her clothes. She didn’t care; she had no place to wear her nice clothes now. The ads she’d placed in the classified columns brought her no business, and the resumés she’d sent around garnered no replies. Work was scarce for computer programmers; colleges were churning them out by the thousands. And she was sure Mike Mayfair, his male vanity bruised, had spread stories about her so that prospective clients would be scared away. She should hate Mayfair, but that required effort. The acidity of hate was in her, but not the energy.

  Sometimes she thought she was becoming a hermit, not going out, not concerned about her appearance, not taking care of herself. What made one a recluse by definition? Leaving shelter only once a week? Twice? Did recluses have roommates? From time to time she wondered if she might be lapsing into a clinical depression. Endorphins in decline.

  After watching a Donahue program on agoraphobia, and seeing a woman interviewed who for years had been terrified to leave her apartment, Allie became frightened. She’d never been the type to pull the walls in around herself, yet that was what she was doing. What was happening to her? Come back, Sam!

  She put on her old Nikes, struggled into her jacket, and immediately went out. Breathed deeply. Walked for miles.

  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 wa
kefulness, 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.

  Chapter 19

  “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.”