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.”
“Had you been taking pills?”
“No, no, not pills or any other kinda dope. ’Cept for liquor. And only mixed drinks, that’s all. But a crowd like that, maybe somebody put something in one of my drinks. Maybe somebody’d doctored the drinks of the girl who started dancing topless. She wasn’t acting quite normal. Her eyes were funny. I dunno, bunch of sickos get together that way …”
Allie described the man who’d approached her on Amsterdam and West 74th, then she asked Hedra if he’d been one of the group of Brad’s friends.
“Yeah, I think so. I remember him because he was so thin, and he had this nasty kinda leer and kooky eyes. He kept looking at me like he could see through my clothes.”
My clothes, Allie thought. But what difference did that make? “Remember his name?”
“Carl something, I think. I’m not sure. It’s hazy.” Hedra suddenly looked horrified. “Allie, you do believe me, don’t you?”
Allie wanted to believe, and did believe at least enough to feel the relief of having some explanation about her encounter with the pervert on the street corner, who for Christ’s sake had known her name. It was easier to believe than to doubt, and what Allie was hearing was damning enough, so there was no reason for Hedra to lie. Besides, Hedra had this Calvinistic compulsion to confess, to purify herself. Truth in her would work to the surface like a splinter in a festering wound. Allie was so tired, so worn down. God, all she wanted to do now was sleep, secure in her understanding of what had happened.
Softly, she said, “Of course I believe you.”
Hedra approached and laid her trembling hand on Allie’s shoulder. No, not Hedra trembling. Allie realized she was trembling; Hedra’s hand was steady. Hedra, wearing a sapphire ring given to Allie by an old boyfriend in college. “I’ll stay away from that place and those kinda people, Allie.”
“I know you will.”
“There’ll be no more encounters like today, no more nasty phone calls. Not if I can help it.”
“Why, that’s right,” Allie said. “That explains the obscene phone calls, too.”
“Sure it does.” Hedra’s hand caressed and petted. “Everything’s gonna turn out okay, Allie, believe me. We’ll go out for breakfast tomorrow morning before I leave for work. At that deli down the street. All right?”
Hedra comforting Allie, calling the shots.
“All right,” Allie heard herself say. Through her weariness she realized that things weren’t the same. An important balance had shifted.
Somehow, inexorably, Allie had become weaker and it was Hedra who’d come to dominate their relationship. Mimicking Allie. Dressing like her. Sometimes even wearing Allie’s clothes. Becoming Allie Jones. A strong Allie Jones.
Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, Allie had often heard. But this was, in some strange way, more than mere imitation. It made her think of that old science-fiction movie The Body Snatchers.
Allie didn’t care. Not right now. Maybe in the morning.
Maybe.
Now, tonight, she was tired and wanted only the sweet oblivion of sleep. The bliss of total surrender.
Hedra said, “I think you should go to your room and lie down, Allie.”
Allie went.
Chapter 20
ALLIE slept deeply until the next morning. The dock radio blared and yanked her awake at eight o’clock. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones blasting about spending just another night with somebody. Somehow the volume of the radio had been turned up. The Stones might as well have been wailing and gyrating right alongside the bed, Mick jackknifed at the waist to lean insolently over Allie and scream in her ear.
Allie suddenly remembered one of the few responses to the resumés she’d sent out. She had an appointment for a job interview this morning. Not a very promising appointment, but nonetheless a straw to grasp.
She scooted over, reached out, and slapped the plastic button on the side of the clock radio. In the buzzing silence that followed, she lay motionless and let herself gradually wake up.
Her mind reached complete wakefulness before her body. Did she really want to get dressed and be interviewed for a job she most likely wouldn’t get? Of course she did, she tried to convince herself. After all, wasn’t that the reason she’d sent out resumés? Her legs were ignoring this internal debate; they felt too heavy and comfortable to move. The rectangle of sunlight lying over them seemed to have the warmth and solidity of a lead-lined blanket. Another fifteen minutes of rest won’t matter, urged a deep, persistent part of her brain.
Her mind drifted, went blank.
An explosion of sound caused her body to levitate off the mattress.
But almost immediately her pounding heartbeat slowed. She’d pressed the snooze button by mistake and the Stones were back in the bedroom. That got her up in a hurry and she switched off the clock radio. She was a Stones fan, but she wanted no truck with them at eight A.M.
She noticed a sheet of yellow paper, a Post-it, stuck to the top of the radio. At first she thought it was her own handwriting, a reminder she’d left for herself. Then she squinted and read:
Sorry, I didn’t have time for breakfast—had to leave for work.0 Decided you needed sleep anyway.
Love,
Hedra
Allie peeled the note off the radio, wadded it, and tossed it aside. She’d allowed herself plenty of time to make her ten o’clock appointment. After taking a shower, then blow-drying and combing her hair, she stood in front of her closet and chose a subdued blue skirt, navy-blue high heels, and a white blouse to wear for the interview.
When she was dressed, she glanced out the window at the gray morning and saw that it was raining. Not heavily, but with a gloomy regularity that suggested it might rain for the next twenty years, and certainly it was coming down hard enough to make a wreck of her hair. She clattered to the entry hall in her high heels and checked to see if there was an umbrella there.
No umbrella. And her blue coat she’d intended to wear—the one Hedra favored—was gone.
Maybe coat and umbrella were in Hedra’s closet.
Allie went to Hedra’s bedroom door and knocked lightly, to be sure the unpredictable Hedra hadn’t returned.
No sound. No sign of life inside.
She eased the door open and saw that the bed was made. Its white spread was smooth and pristine as layered icing on a great rectangular cake. She turned away, walked down the hall, and peered again into the living room.
She noticed that the lamp near the sofa was glowing feebly in the morning light. Had Hedra left before daybreak, or had she simply forgotten the lamp last night? Maybe she’d stayed up all night, hadn’t slept. Well, she was a big girl, and what she did with her time was none of Allie’s business.
Allie still didn’t want her hairdo destroyed.
She tap-tap-tapped on her high heels back into Hedra’s bedroom and stared at the smooth expanse of bedspread. She’d never seen a bed that looked so unslept in, as if it were a display in a department store window.
Allie opened Hedra’s closet door and there were the familiar clothes that Hedra, and not Allie, had worn lately. A sachet gave the closet a fresh scent of sun and flowers despite the rain outside.
The blue coat wasn’t there. Neither was an umbrella.