“No, I guess you didn’t. Guess you wonder what I mean, though, about being hospitalized and all.”
Allie sat quietly, waiting, knowing Hedra felt compelled to tell her about this. Allie had been wounded and brought down to earth. The weak could safely confide in the weak.
“I was just a kid,” Hedra said, “and a car hit me when I was on my bike. It tossed me twenty feet and injured my spine. The doctors couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong; injured backs can be like that. Anyway, I was in the hospital for a while, and they had me on this drug and that drug for pain. They were doing that to a lot of people in those days if they couldn’t diagnose what was wrong; I even saw a TV documentary on it once. Well, eventually the pain just went away by itself, but I was in the habit of taking drugs when I felt bad. I still do it, but it’s not as if I’m hooked or anything. There are millions of people like me, using drugs the way I do sometimes, to help them over the rough spots.”
“I suppose there are,” Allie said. “But it’s a habit I never fell into. Where was your family when all this was going on?”
Hedra stepped out of the light and Allie was shocked by the dismay and rage on her face. “My family situation was never good. I try not to think much about those people, after the way they let me down. Heck, the way the brain can block out bad stuff, I hardly even remember them. Except for my father’s hands, and the things he did with them. That’s the way I see him now, just a pair of big powerful hands with dirt under the nails. I can’t even picture my mother at all.”
Her mood passed abruptly, as if a dark cloud blown across her mind had dissipated. Her mental sky was clear and blue again. She smiled. “Oh, well, it’s all in the past. Doesn’t matter anymore. It’s today that matters. And tomorrow. Don’t you think?”
Allie nodded. The end of the month would matter, when the rent had to be mailed to Haller-Davis. She said, “When you don’t have any remaining family, like I don’t, sometimes you think even bad family’s better than nobody at all.”
“Oh, you’re so wrong, Allie.”
“Maybe. I guess it depends on the seriousness of the problem.”
The phone jangled and she jumped at the noise. Lord, she was wired. Tempted to gulp down that pill.
“Easy,” Hedra said, “I’ll get it.”
She crossed the room and lifted the receiver. Said, “Hello. No, but she’s right here. Just a minute.” She held the receiver out for Allie. “For you.” She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Maybe it’s that Mr. Mayfair calling to apologize.”
“He’s not the type,” Allie said, hoping Hedra was right. She got up from the sofa and padded in her stockinged feet to the phone, pressed the receiver to her ear, and said hello.
A male voice said, “Allie, I’m gonna tie you to the bed and whip your ass till you come. Make you eat shit with a rough wooden spoon. Listen, bitch, I’m gonna …”
The voice faded to silence as Allie lowered the receiver in her trembling hand. Let it drop the final few inches to clatter into the cradle. Her breathing was ragged, her throat tight.
She tried to remember the voice of whoever had made the other obscene calls. She couldn’t know for sure if this caller was the same man.
“Who was it?” Hedra asked.
“A crank call.”
“You okay?”
“Sure.” She turned around and faked a smile that didn’t fool Hedra, then felt it go brittle on her face.
“Oh! That kinda call, huh? Think it was that Mayfair jerk?”
Despite her loathing for the man, Allie was unable to imagine him making such a call. “No, not his style.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Hedra said. “Remember, the creep asked for you by name.”
That was what Allie couldn’t forget.
Hedra walked over to the window, her hands jammed deep in the pockets of Allie’s coat as if she were cold.
Staring outside, she hunched her shoulders and shook her head. She said, “It takes all kinds, Allie. And they don’t wear indentifying labels.”
Chapter 15
HE looked like a computer-game figure weaving through a maze. Allie watched Graham Knox’s slender body maneuver among the crowded tables at Goya’s as he brought her the hamburger and Diet Pepsi. Though he actually moved gracefully, there was that inherent and somehow appealing awkwardness about him that seemed to stem more from the tentative, intense expression he habitually wore than from physical motion. He always seemed preoccupied and puzzled by some inner conflict.
“You’re busy tonight,” she said as he placed her order on the table. The charred-beef scent of the hamburger wafted up to her. She wasn’t sure if it made her feel hungrier or slightly ill.
“And you have something on your mind.”
Allie was amazed. “How’d you know?”
Graham gave his canine-like lopsided smile and wiped his hands on the small white towel tucked in his belt. “I’m sort of a student of human nature. Gotta be, in my profession.” A Beatles song, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” began blasting from the speakers. The decibel level of conversation in the restaurant rose to challenge it. The result was a maelstrom of noise. Graham leaned down close to her, his mouth near her ear. “You need to talk, Allie?” She felt his warm breath, like the life-breath of a lover.
“You shared your good news,” she said, “I thought I might share my bad—tempered with some good news, though.”
“The bad news isn’t too bad, I hope.” He glanced at his watch, one of those with a moon phase dial on it to make it more complicated. “It’s just past seven o’clock. The rush is almost over, and I can get off around eight. Wanna combine talking with walking?” He made it sound like a trick of coordination.
Allie thought a walk was a good idea; the noise might not abate in the usually quiet Goya’s. And it was a beautiful late September night, warm and clear. “I’ll eat slow,” she told him.
“I can sneak you some dessert, on the house. Give you an excuse to hold down the table. Unless you’re on a diet.”
She smiled sadly. “No, I’m not in a dieting mood.”
Graham touched her shoulder in sympathy; she noticed his fingers were long and tapered. He retreated through the melee of noise and laughter, toward the swinging doors to the kitchen, his lanky frame swaying among the tables with practiced precision and efficiency. From behind, he appeared not at all awkward or tentative. Someone in a far corner called to him. He waved a hand to confirm that he’d heard. Somebody somewhere turned down the volume of the canned music. The Beatles were finished with “Lucy” and were singing now about “Sergeant Pepper.”
Allie blocked out the voices around her, the laughter and the clinking of glasses and flatware. She gnawed on her hamburger and listened to the music. John Lennon. Christ! How could anyone shoot John Lennon?
Graham had brought her a scoop of vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries over it. Allie was often amazed by how available fresh produce was in the concrete world of New York. Fresh flowers, too. As if there were a garden on every cloud-high roof.
After dessert and coffee she felt better. Her guilt at eating so many calories was assuaged by the fact that the strawberries and ice cream were free. She suspected even Richard Simmons would accept free dessert in a restaurant. He would if he saw those strawberries, anyway, and his appetite was heightened by other unfulfilled yearnings.
Now she and Graham were walking west on 74th Street, toward Riverside Park. There was a light breeze blowing in off the Hudson. The night was cool and, despite the exhaust fumes, the air smelled remarkably fresh for Manhattan. The sidewalks were crowded with people who seemed to be dawdling, enjoying the unseasonably fair weather; even traffic seemed to be moving slower, car windows cranked down, drivers’ elbows jutting out in vehicle after vehicle as if an amalgamation of flesh and metal formed each machine.