Impersonal Attractions

by Sarah Shankman

  One of these days she was going to have to call the station and find out the name of that tune.

  She passed Petrini’s Market a block from home. What was she going to make Tom for dinner tomorrow night?

  Chicken? She’d done that too recently.

  Angie’s mother’s spaghetti sauce? Maybe he wouldn’t like it as well as his own mom’s. Anyway, she’d need to start it tonight and it was much too late.

  She stopped the car in her driveway and got out to unlock and open the garage door.

  Maybe a rack of lamb. She hadn’t done that in ages. With lots of garlic and French rosemary.

  She flipped on the light switch beside the garage door and climbed back in the car.

  Lamb and broiled tomatoes with fresh basil. Could she find basil this time of year?

  She parked Agatha in her spot in the back of the garage and locked her. She’d like to think she could trust her new radio and tape player to the people she shared a garage with, but common sense told her she couldn’t be too careful.

  Rice? No, buttered noodles. Or roasted potatoes. That would be good. And a green salad.

  She pulled the garage door down by its rope on the inside. It crashed with a satisfying ka-boom on the concrete floor. She was getting so strong in exercise class. One hand!

  Maybe fresh asparagus if she could find it. She’d look for it along with the basil. It would be worth calling around for.

  She turned and walked toward the door to the lobby, keys in hand.

  And for dessert…apples and cheese would be fine. Maybe a Stilton, a double Gloucester. Or even a Gorgonzola.

  Suddenly the garage went black.

  Profoundly black. It was like the elevator ride when Tom had turned off the light.

  The bulb must have blown, she thought. But there were several. Would they all have gone at once? She’d have to find the other switch, the one beside the lobby door. Now how far ahead of her was it? She couldn’t see a thing.

  Eddie Simms had closed his eyes against the garage light when he’d slipped in after her and crouched behind the first car. Eyes squeezed tight, he’d listened to her park, to her footsteps as she approached the garage door and as she’d walked away. Then he counted to five, reached up, and doused the light. He’d planned it carefully, knew how many steps it would take her. Now he must be quick.

  He opened his eyes. Just as he’d planned. He had cat’s eyes, and in the dark she was blind.

  *

  Goddamn Tony, she said to herself. Why couldn’t he replace the light bulbs once in a while? Before they blew.

  She groped toward the door, bumped into a car, dropped a book.

  But what was that sound? The falling book, or was that something else? Before she had time to finish the thought Eddie Simms crooked his left arm around her neck.

  “Gotcha,” he rasped into her ear.

  Her blood stopped. In her mind’s eye she saw it, dark red, like a pool of Cabernet, deep and still in a wide-mouthed glass.

  Her fear thrummed like a wave across the tension of the ruby-red liquid and then skittered away as it hit the edges.

  Visions flashed in milliseconds on the screen inside her head. She saw her ex-husband Bert lifting the back of a pickup truck out of the mud on a lonely back road, his back straining with the force born of necessity.

  Herself, one cold night in Atlanta, carrying a friend who had slit her wrists over a love turned sour into the college infirmary at midnight. Carrying her as easily as if she were a bag of groceries.

  Then steel replaced the blood in her veins, coiled steel. But she’d have to be patient, to wait until the right time to unleash it. While she waited, time crawled, the black creeping in. The dark of the grave.

  “Yes, bitch, I’ve got you now,” he whispered in her ear. His voice was the one that desperate men use in the middle of the night on the telephone, to terrify women they can’t see. The voice that arouses women from a deep sleep they’re afraid to return to.

  Eddie tightened his hold on her neck, flexing his biceps. If there had been any light, he could have seen the blue lettering of his tattoos jump above the coiling muscles. He liked that.

  The muscles in his groin quickened too. He felt himself jump up against her hips. Not as high as he’d have liked. He had heard her heels tapping against the concrete floor. She was taller than he’d expected. But he’d get her down soon. Down where he wanted her. It was just a matter of time.

  He smelled the perfume radiating off the warm neck he cradled in the crook of his arm. And her hair, those masses of blonde hair fresh with shampoo, enveloped him, billowing into his face, creeping into his open mouth as his breathing grew faster, harder.

  *

  Where had she heard that voice before? It pinged around the edges of her memory, a pixilated phantom, diving like a mosquito in heavy summer air, drunk on her blood. But just out of reach. She couldn’t quite find it with the fingers of her mind to slap it down.

  *

  His right hand grasped her skirt and inched it upward. What soft thighs the teacher lady had. Smooth, like the silky slip twisting around them. Twisting up, up, and then, as she strained, trying to push away, he felt the whipcords beneath their downy surface. Long, strong legs he’d love to feel around his body. Well…maybe he could. Maybe he could get her to do that, with a little persuasion pointed at her throat.

  *

  She felt him against her hips. She thought of Tom, Harry, David, Mario, Bert, but could visualize none of their faces. Faceless lovers, taking her in love from behind. Her mind floated, her heart disconnected when there was no face to stroke and love.

  And this, this stranger in the dark, thrusting himself against her. Faceless as the man on a crowded bus who had once hunched and pushed against her and left his nameless, fatherless children wet against the back of her skirt.

  *

  Her flesh was warm, soft, smooth as he shoved his fingers inside the elastic of her panties.

  He felt her tears sliding down her cheeks and splashing on his arm crooked beneath her chin.

  “Don’t cry, Miss Tannenbaum,” he whispered. “If you’re a good little girl I won’t hurt you.”

  *

  That voice. If she could only place that voice. And a smell, the smell of his breath. It was peculiar, but recent, vaguely familiar.

  The smell reminded her of something old. Something from her past.

  And yet, something to do with Tom. No, Tom didn’t smell like this. Was Tom there when she smelled it…did he say something about…

  Yes! She had it. The smell in her apartment. This was it, the same smell, like tobacco, but sweetish, slightly sickly, strange.

  It reminded her of New Orleans. Sitting in the Café Du Monde drinking café au lait, eating beignets. Jackson Square across the street. Pigeons squawking, wheeling, whirring. But not the smell of pigeons.

  She was losing it. New Orleans faded. Everything was fading, dimming. No more pictures in her head. Her mind was almost as black inside as the garage, black and out of focus.

  “That’s right,” the voice whispered. “Just relax. Be a good little girl and lean back against me.”

  It was so tempting. To just let go. She felt so tired, limp. She had kitten bones.

  She felt herself sliding. Slipping farther and farther down, but just before the dark horizon in her head met the pitch black of the garage, an alarm somewhere in her gut sounded.

  He’ll KILL a good little girl! it rang.

  *

  He loosened his hold on her neck as he felt her relax and grabbed her by the shoulders to help her slide down onto the concrete floor. Down, baby, down, yes, I’ll take good care of you.

  *

  “NO!” she screamed and every muscle and tendon in her body recoiled. She flailed wildly into the darkness and stomped her right heel into the arch of his foot, puncturing it, snapping a small bone.

  “You bitch!” he shouted and lunged for her with both hands.

  *


  He couldn’t see what he had grabbed. Clothes tore beneath his hands as she jerked away. And then she was coming back toward him. Something rushing toward him in the darkness like a bat.

  Sharp, hot pain ripped at his face, jabbed at his cheeks, tore his nose. The pain jingled as it bit into him. It was the jingle-jingle, like small bells, of her keys.

  He hit her, he didn’t know where, but he felt softness and then bone and heard her fall. Good. That was where he wanted her. Down.

  There was blood in his mouth. She had hurt him. None of them had ever hurt him before. None. Except Missy. And that was different.

  He’d show her. He’d take back his promise not to hurt her. She hadn’t been a good little girl.

  Why did he think she would be…why did he think she’d give him anything?

  He had something to give her though. Eddie reached toward his right hip.

  *

  If she could just reach the door and get the key in. Maybe she could. Maybe she could reach the light. So she could watch him? Why would she want to do that?

  Her right foot wasn’t working. Maybe the bones popping hadn’t been his. The foot didn’t hurt though. Nothing hurt. Not even when he slammed her in the chest. She couldn’t feel a thing.

  *

  Eddie quickly unsnapped the Buck knife scabbard. He’d had years of practice. He could open the scabbard, draw out his knife, and flip it open in a long, smooth motion, a single stroke that took only one second.

  And there it was, Missy Annie, he grinned. Coming at you.

  Eddie couldn’t see her. But he could hear her breathing. He stabbed into the dark at the sound.

  Her scream told him he’d hit home. Quick. Again. Again.

  She rolled, and his knife rasped against concrete. But he knew she was still right there. She was screaming.

  *

  Suddenly there was a sound behind them, the sound of rolling metal. And headlights. The garage door had opened, and then a car door opened and closed. A click, and the overhead lights flashed on.

  “Go ahead and park it, Frank, I’ll get the door.” Angie’s Bronx accent sounded to Annie like the voice of an angel.

  Annie looked down at her arm where the knife had pierced. The wound didn’t look very deep, wasn’t bleeding too badly. But her right ankle was bent at a very strange angle.

  *

  “Frank, oh my God, Annie!” Angie was screaming.

  She was trying to tell Angie that she was okay.

  Then Frank’s hands were gathering her gently to him, his strong arms lifting her up off the cold, wet concrete floor.

  *

  Later, in the hospital, she wasn’t able to tell Sean what the man had looked like. She had never seen his face.

  Angie and Frank had only seen a blur as he’d flown past them out the open garage door into the dark night.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Annie doubted that the Queen of England had ever had a more royal convalescence. If she had ever entertained any claim to the title of Jewish American Princess, this was the time to call for her crown. She was only afraid that by the time her ankle and arm healed her teeth would have fallen out, because Sam and Tom and Sean seemed to be using her housebound recuperation as an excuse for the Great Chocolate Tour.

  Every day more of it came, delivered in person or by special messenger.

  There was a one-pound block of Kron’s dark chocolate with macadamia nuts, packaged in pink tissue paper and a shiny purple bag. Accompanying it was a sterling-silver knife. In a large basket came chocolate and raspberry tartlets, themselves miniature baskets. A Grand Marnier cake from Cocolat, the bakery she passed every day on the way to exercise class, though not these days. A chocolate hazelnut torte. A regular bake-off of chocolate chip cookies: from the Oakville Market, Mrs. Field’s, David’s. A chocolate macaroon in the shape, almost, of her own nose from the Polk Street shop Unknown Jerome’s. Chocolate almond fudge ice cream. From Tassajara, the Buddhist bakery, came a very holy chocolate macaroon.

  The only thing they hadn’t sent her was a can of Black Magic—Hershey’s chocolate syrup—which High Times, the drug magazine for connoisseurs, had once rated the equivalent of Grade AAA Colombian for the chocoholic.

  Sam had also sent her an extra-large brown T-shirt that she wore as a bed jacket. It read GIVE ME CHOCOLATE OR GIVE ME DEATH.

  She could laugh about it now from the safety of her bed, surrounded by sweet love.

  In addition to the gifts and the chocolate, the flow of visitors never stopped. Tom sent Western Onion with a singing telegram of show tunes, along with a pizza. From her class, Cornell brought a pint of Jack Daniel’s to tuck under her pillow “for sipping” and Eve Gold appeared with what looked like the entire contents of a New York deli.

  Hoyt and Emmett arrived with a stack of fashion and design magazines, the National Enquirer, People, and a new Dick Francis mystery. Quynh came every day, carrying a wicker basket with beautifully arranged tidbits from Quan’s kitchen, or a single perfect orchid.

  Tom struggled in one evening with a gigantic rubber tree for her bedroom. She wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, but it was a sweet idea. Sam bought into the Peruvian lily and dahlia market as heavily as if she were investing in a new commodity. Sean sent her a hot-pink azalea that looked like it might break into song if she came near it.

  She was becoming fairly adept with crutches, considering the fact that her left arm wasn’t fully operational. But the knife wound hadn’t required a sling. She could maneuver with some difficulty, take herself to the bathroom, make coffee, but in the week since the attack she’d not ventured outside. It was just too much trouble. Besides, with all the help from her friends it was awfully comfortable at home.

  *

  No one gave candy or flowers to Eddie Simms as he recuperated from his wounds, deep lacerations in his face and neck, severe bruises on his right foot. The attendant at the clinic where he had his cuts stitched had sighed wearily when he explained he’d been in a fight with his old lady. She’d heard it all a million times before and was not dispensing cookies, tea, or sympathy.

  The guys at work just gave him crap.

  “Ran into a filly you couldn’t handle, huh, Simms? Wouldn’t mind tangling with a woman with a little spunk. Hope I’d look better than you, though.”

  *

  In the emergency room where the ambulance had first taken her, Annie had undergone the standard attack-victim examination. Smears and scrapings were taken, and her clothes secured in plastic bags for the police.

  The next day Sean had gone over and over the details with her. But she had little to tell him. The episode had transpired in total darkness. It had taken about four minutes. He’d grabbed her, choked her, fondled her, hit her, stabbed her, and then he was gone. There was a smell that reminded her of New Orleans and a voice that was familiar but that she couldn’t place.

  Sean wasn’t pressing her for more, though he pounced on the voice. But once he’d pushed it as far as he could and still nothing surfaced, he said, “Let it go. Don’t worry at it. It’ll just come, maybe in a dream.”

  “God, I hope not. No nightmares, please.”

  “I wish you nothing but the best.”

  Dear Sean. He was the gentlest cop in the world. He should have been a doctor with his wonderful bedside manner.

  “If it doesn’t float up, we could try hypnosis. It frequently does the trick.”

  “Great. Maybe it could cure my smoking habit at the same time.”

  Sean laughed. “We’ll see. In the meantime, rest, relax, and we’ll work on what we’ve got.”

  *

  Eddie didn’t know how long he was going to have to wait this time. Now, as he watched, the traffic in and out of her apartment was heavier than ever. But he knew where she was—all the time. He’d made sure of that as they struggled in the dark and he’d hurt her.

  But she’d hurt him too.

  After she’d promised to be nice to him.

  That�
�s how it always was. Bitches. Missy. Miss Anne with her nose so high in the air you’d think her shit didn’t stink. Well, they’d just see about that.

  *

  Tom called her every day at noon.

  “Hi, darling, how many buildings did you build today?”

  “Only six so far. All I’ve had time for this morning. And how’s your day going? How’s your ankle?”

  “I’ve done six miles and two hundred push-ups. Quynh’s here, with Hudson. A school holiday. She brought me a yummy lunch from Quan.”

  “Great. Now what have you really been doing?”

  “Really I’ve been reading the book you sent me, Delta of Venus. Such naughty stuff. What are you trying to do to a poor crippled lady?”

  “Is your mouth broken?” he asked.

  “My dear.”

  “By the way,” he continued, “did you get the other package I sent you? It should be there by now.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Nothing’s come today.”

  As if on cue, the downstairs buzzer sounded.

  “Oh, wait, babe. That must be it now. Quynh, Quynh,” she called. But Quynh was in the bathroom. Hudson stared at her with big, owlish, golden eyes. “Why don’t you get the door, worthless,” she asked him.

  Annie put the phone down on her bed and slid to the foot of it, where her crutches were propped against a chair, which she used to pull herself up. In a small miracle of juggling she half crouched, her right leg stuck straight out in front of her, grabbed the crutches and quickly threw them under her arms before she fell on her face.

  “I’ll be right there,” Quynh called.

  “It’s okay, darling. I’ve got it.” She crept toward the buzzer, which sounded again. “Coming, coming,” she muttered.

  “Annie Tannenbaum?” the voice asked, tinny through the speaker system.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Flowers,” he answered. “I’ll bring them right up.”

  “Great. I’m on the fifth floor.” She pushed the button marked DOOR, buzzing him in.

  “I know where you are,” he said to himself as he opened the door and walked into the lobby carrying the long white box.

  *

  “Who is it, Auntie Annie?” Quynh asked as she came out of the bathroom pulling down her Michael Jackson sweat shirt.