by Warren Adler
"What are you?" Frederika asked, the contempt blatant. She had wanted to say "who," but felt better implying a less than human designation. "You've got one fucking nerve," she cried. The woman was staring at her with a fixed glazed look, and it suddenly occurred to Frederika that she might be unbalanced. She remembered her vigil, the preposterous obsessive idea of it, and she cursed herself for feeling the least iota of fear. Then why had Eddie suddenly become upset?
"Come on. Let's have it?" Frederika said, goading the woman. "Eduardo Palmero is my lover, my confidant, my friend." She became suddenly cautious. Surely, this was not a rival. But the idea, now loosed, disturbed her.
"What is he to you?" she asked, clicking her tongue.
"I can understand your arrogance," the woman said quietly. The words were subdued and controlled. She was recovering her poise. Frederika felt a certain alertness, an anticipation of something unknown, unwanted. She had been expecting the woman to burst into tears, an acknowledgment of total surrender, defeat.
"What does that mean?" she croaked. Her voice had caught, indicating the return of terror, a new fear. She wondered if the woman had sensed it. Confirmation was quick. The woman stiffened again.
"We seem to be sharing the same commodity," the woman said softly. What does she mean? Frederika thought. She rose in the bed and sat up, pulling the blanket around the upper part of her body.
"You really must be sick, you know," Frederika said. She shook her head and looked at the woman. "And I'll bet you really believe it."
"Did you think you were the only one?" the woman asked. Her voice was clear now, decisive. She had regained her poise.
"Frankly, I don't think it's any of your business," Frederika said. Did she really want to hear more? He had not told her that much about himself. But was it necessary? Considering what had passed between them? What she felt she knew about him? The mental barricades were falling now, all the careful efforts at self-protection. But surely not this woman. She was older, old. Weird. No, she decided. She is making it up, imagining it.
"Tell me," the tall woman said, her lips firm now, the edges moving upward in the direction of a smile. "What have you done for him?"
"Done?"
"What has he made you do?"
"I do nothing against my will." The words had spilled out and she knew that she had left herself vulnerable. "You are quite sad, you know," Frederika said, attempting to retrieve her advantage, but it felt hollow, and she knew that the strange woman had sensed it.
"I would do anything for him. Anything he asked." Frederika was surprised at her own militancy. And her defensiveness.
"Anything?"
"Why are you asking these things?" Frederika asked, feigning indignance.
"What is he to you?"
Silence hung in the room. Frederika felt the tension between them now, the odd sharing, and the commonality. It was hate, palpable, material, a thing that could be touched. She had never felt such an emotion, not with the same intensity that engulfed her now. The woman is physically repulsive, she decided, comparing herself, the knowledge of her own youth, to the faded woman sitting before her. She could detect the beginning of the wizening process, the body's accumulated wreckage. But she was embarrassed, because she felt Eddie slipping from her, the image of him changing rapidly, even as she sat here. She did not want to hear the woman's response. It was better that she left, that it was ended between them. We share nothing, she decided. I am having a nightmare.
"Everything," the woman answered at last, her voice strong, emphatic. "Eduardo is everything. He is my life." The words came without emotion, controlled.
"That is impossible," Frederika said. "A woman senses things about her lover." She looked at the woman again, as if to confirm her previous thoughts about her. "No, it is impossible. You are doing this purposely. It's a goddamned lie."
The tall woman shrugged. She conceded no victory and Frederika's own sense of superior knowledge was quickly draining from her, the stopper removed, water running from an unclogged sink.
"I'm just as confused as you are," the woman said.
Frederika watched her. "I could kill you," she said suddenly, the hatred filling her, overflowing. "I could kill you and it wouldn't affect me one bit. Last week I helped kill a planeload of people and it ate my heart out. But I could stick a knife in your belly right now, and it wouldn't mean a damned thing to me, not a damned thing."
It was an admission and she knew it. The thought of Eddie sharing his body with this woman disgusted her. "And what did he make you do?" she said bitterly.
"He made me do nothing," the woman said. Then hesitantly, but proudly, she said, "I gave him money."
Of course, Frederika thought. How else could she have had him? She had to pay for him. "That is obvious."
"Just as obvious as you." The woman's strength had returned now. She stood up again, rising to her full height, less stiff now but still imperious. Perhaps it was the fact of her standing over Frederika that reinforced the impression. Frederika was looking up, annoyed at the circumstances.
"He used you," Frederika said malignantly. "You should not have taken him seriously. If you gave him money, it is because he needed it for his work, his cause. If you took it seriously I feel sorry for you."
"I feel sorry for both of us," the woman said quietly.
"You needn't waste your pity on me. I am his woman."
"We are both his women."
"You?"
"Yes."
"That is absurd." It is absurd, she told herself again, but she could feel the tentativeness of her self-assurance. Who is Eddie? Are we really talking about the same man? A glimmer of hope rose, then faded as quickly as it came.
"What do you know about Eduardo?" the woman asked.
"I know what I want to know."
"Yes, I understand," the woman said. "The question is: Is it important to know? I thought so. And look where that has brought us."
Frederika imagined she could feel the woman shifting gears, searching for a new path through this underbrush of confusion. She is seeking sisterhood with me, she thought, resisting it. I will not be part of it, she vowed. She wants to use me to share him. The insight bemused her. Never!
"It has brought us nowhere," Frederika said. "It is all in your head. Perhaps you have been used. But then, Eddie is involved in dangerous work. It is important work." She hesitated, aiming the barb. She wanted it to stick deeply into the woman's flesh. "You had no right to go beyond." Beyond what? Her mind filled with a grotesque image of Eddie and this woman in copulation, a quivering greedy woman with hanging, aging skin, and Eddie, eyes tight, pressed against her ugliness, offering his beautiful body on the altar of sacrifice. But the image lacked integrity. The woman before her was thin, the skin on her face tight, her movements lithe. Her hands bespoke a certain elegance, long graceful fingers gloved in incredibly white alabaster skin. Her neck was not crenellated. The age was around the eyes, sad with wisdom.
"You had no right," Frederika repeated. Despite her revulsion, she felt the beginnings of being drawn toward the woman. It is not possible, she told herself again, her anger mounting to a new threshold, then sputtering. She felt a wave of nausea roll over her. Then her body began to shake with chills. She huddled in the blanket.
"I think he has betrayed us both," the tall woman said. Was she gaining an advantage over her? He was using her, Frederika insisted to herself. It could not be the same with her. It could not be.
"You're a goddamned liar!" Frederika shouted.
"A liar?"
"He used you for your money."
"And you," the woman shot back. "What did he use you for?"
"I would die for him," Frederika said, her voice hollow. She heard it echo in the room. "I killed for him," she said quietly, her anger spending rapidly as she tasted the dregs of defeat.
"You see. We are both his victims."
"Victims?"
"What else would you call it?"
"I would do
it again," Frederika hissed. "How can you know what is between us?" She pounded a fist suddenly into her thigh. "Can't you understand that all you were was a casual fuck? What did it matter to him?"
The tall woman remained calm, in control now, watching her coolly. It was Frederika who was faltering and disoriented.
"At least I had no illusions," the woman said proudly. "He moved me. Like I have never been moved before. That was all that mattered."
"Then why did you want more?"
"It was a fatal error," the tall woman agreed. "I know that now. But it is too late. I should have been satisfied with my share and shut away any other possibilities."
"You screwed up everything," Frederika said. She wondered where Eddie had gone, could understand his agitation now.
"He said he would be back," Frederika said. She felt the chill of evaporating tears on her cheek. They must have come without her knowing, tears of pain. "And he knew you were watching him."
"He knew?"
"I told him. I have been observing you for days. I thought you were"--she swallowed deeply--"the enemy. An agent."
"Believe me. I would rather I was as well." The woman sat down again. "I'm sorry. I really am sorry."
"Who are you?" Frederika asked. The tall woman smiled thinly, but the warmth was visible.
"I am Penny McCarthy." She shrugged. "Anne."
"Anne?"
"He calls me Anne. It is my middle name."
"I'm Frederika Millspaugh." The tears came now, cascading without shame. "Pleased to meet you," she said. She had wanted to be sarcastic, but it had not come out that way. Slivers of light came through the blinds now. The sun was rising. It would be a bright day.
They sat in silence for a long time. Automobiles honked as the traffic rolled past, the beginning of the rush hour. An occasional shout pierced the din, a child's voice.
"So what happens now?" Frederika asked. The onset of morning seemed to symbolize a change in her entire world. It will never be the same again, she thought.
"I've been thinking about that myself." The light removed the shadows from the woman's face, except for the deep blue hollows below her eyes. In the brighter light the woman's eyes were green, incredibly green. Frederika found herself searching for positive qualities in the woman, justification.
"I think he's gone to find you," Frederika said, remembering. "He will want to be certain."
"I saw him leave. But I'm sure he didn't see me."
"What happens when he discovers you're not where you're supposed to be?"
"I have no idea."
The urge for questioning seemed odd. But Frederika did not want the woman to leave. There was more to know, more information required, if she was to survive this. What she really wanted to ask, she dared not. Could she possibly ask another woman how she felt, what she felt? It would be unbearable.
"So he lived with you," Frederika said, deliberately oblique, hoping to catch the woman off-guard.
"No."
"No?"
The woman looked around the room. Compulsively, she rose and opened a closet door. We are two jungle cats, circling each other, Frederika thought, the image embarrassing in its accuracy. Had Eddie reduced them to that?
"See. He didn't live with me either."
"All right, then. Where did he live? Where did he go?"
The knowledge came to them both at the same time, Frederika was sure. There was a sisterhood between them, born of shared humiliation.
"I don't know," she said.
"Is it possible there are others?" Anne asked. The inquiry seemed childlike, naive.
Frederika blanched, since she, too, had been thinking the same thought.
"He wasn't, after all, just hatched from an egg, full grown." She did not try to hide her sarcasm, but it was directed at herself as well.
"Others?" she asked.
"It is not impossible."
She looked at the woman, sure now of the truth, aware of the image that must be in both their minds, the slender body, the power of its sexuality, the electricity of what it could convey.
"No," Frederika said. "It is not impossible." The words were emphatic but without conviction. Despite her reluctance, there was a relationship growing between her and this woman. "You spoiled the whole damned thing," she said quietly to the tall woman, who nodded.
"I know."
"And now?"
"I wish it were possible to begin again at square one."
"And where is that?"
"I wish I knew," the tall woman replied.
"It's the place we were before you tried to get more than you were entitled to." Would she really settle for that? Frederika thought. She had blotted out all other possibilities in Eddie's life. Could she abide his consorting with the two of them?
"I could never adjust to it," she decided, the thought articulate. She could sense that the tall woman had understood. "Can you understand that..." She paused. "...Anne?" Was she being patronizing? Or taking advantage of Anne's age. There was more than twenty years between them. She was, obviously, even older than Eddie. At that age, she thought, pride might be thwarted. One could accept demeaning.
"Nor me," Anne said. Frederika was not really surprised at her reaction. This woman was not going to accept half a loaf. Nor she. Perhaps it would be better to ignore the possibilities of choice at this point. It was, after all, Eddie's choice. But would they submit to that kind of slave auction? I would, Frederika thought. It would be bearable if I could have him forever. But nothing is forever, she reasoned, confused now by the sudden onslaught of possibilities.
"Do you really think there are others?" Frederika asked. "Like us?" She could suspect the answer to that question.
"I have no doubt about it," Anne said. "Not now."
"But how can we be sure?"
"We'll find out."
Frederika felt in league with the woman now, conspiratorial. Despite her resistance, they were moving toward sisterhood, a thought which she detested. How can I be allied with that woman? I will share nothing with her, she thought. She has no right to know what went on between Eddie and me. What is going on?
"We can at least check his whereabouts, between us," Frederika said.
"Yes, that. And we can do what I've done."
"Follow him?"
"Yes."
"Or we could confront him," Frederika said. But, considering the circumstances, we could hardly expect his cooperation, she thought. She could see that Anne had also rejected the idea.
"Between us. If we are clever. If we are careful ... we could track him," Anne said.
Frederika felt squeamish. It seemed a violation of Eddie's privacy. But he has violated us, she thought, anger rising again, this time directed at Eddie. He has betrayed us both. The bastard! So she could also hate him.
"Yes," she said, her sense of purpose tangible now. "I can do that." Yet her resolve was not quite unencumbered. "And what happens when we do find out ... discover?"
Anne shrugged, expelling a sigh. "I don't know," she said quietly. "It may not seem as important then as it does now."
They exchanged telephone numbers. When Frederika handed hers to Anne, for a brief millisecond, their eyes met. Anne's green eyes seemed like two blazing searchlights probing her. Could it have been the same, Frederika wondered, the intensity, the joy, the pleasure, the sense of wholeness.
Anne stood at the door, hesitating. Then she turned. "Has he ever mentioned Miranda?" she asked.
Frederika thought, searching her mind.
"No." She waited for a response.
"It was said suddenly. I don't think he realized."
"Another woman? Like us?"
"Another woman yes," Anne said quietly. "But not like us. NO! Not like us." She turned again and let herself out.
Frederika lay in her bed for hours after Anne had left, wallowing in a bottomless void. For years she had felt nothing, was certain that she had died, and then with Eddie she had felt everything. Was she on the verge of deat
h again? The brightness was fading in the room when the telephone's ring shocked her into full awareness. Reaching for it, she wondered if it might be Eddie and she began to compose herself. She had assumed there had been a silent understanding between them. Say nothing. Don't let on.
"He was here." It was Anne's voice. Frederika felt her own resentment. Had they made love? The image was too unbearable to continue and it broke in her mind into a thousand pieces.
"Are you there?" Anne asked, her voice unhurried. Frederika pictured the tall woman in the trench coat, hovering over her.
"Yes."
"I admitted that I followed him. He questioned me. I did not tell him that we have met, nor does he suspect that I know. He is assuming that I think he lives there."
"And he said nothing to clear up the matter?"
"No."
"Did he wonder where you've been?"
"I told him I walked the streets."
"Did he believe that?"
"I don't know. But he is suspicious." She paused. "He made me promise that I would not try to find out more about him. Not now."
"And then?"
"I doubt if any of my explanations satisfied him. I think he will now be more cautious than ever. More secretive." Is she confiding everything, Frederika wondered.
"He was with you all day?" Frederika asked cautiously. The pause that followed telescoped the answer.
"Yes."
What was it like, she wanted to ask.
"I wish I could say I was revolted," Anne whispered finally.
"Nothing was changed?"
From my bed to hers, Frederika thought, her heart pounding, punishing herself with the cutting edge of her own humiliation. Was my body smell still lingering on his skin? Were my juices still visible, tastable? The idea of it was a mortification. We must punish him for this, she vowed, touching the nub of a beginning terror. Her question to Anne remained unanswered. So there is still a delicacy between us, she thought, gathering her malice.
"And where is he now?"
"There is no way of knowing. I thought I might follow him, but he is too suspicious now, very guarded. It would not be easy." There was a pause again. "When do you expect him to come to you?"
