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.”