Allie kept her distance. “She said on the phone she thinks you’re married. Talks as if you lied to her, led her to believe she was the only one in your life. The way you’ve been lying to me.”
“The point is, it doesn’t matter a gnat’s ass to me what she thinks.”
“Sure, I can believe that.”
“Oh, c’mon, Allie. You’re mad right now, not thinking straight. Not putting this in perspective. And I don’t blame you. But it was a one-time affair of the glands, not the heart. And it’s over, I swear it! It meant no more than a shared dance that can never happen again.”
“Lisa would disagree with you, I bet.”
“Maybe. But so what? I only care what you think, Allie. That’s all that’s important to me in this crazy world. Honestly. You believe me, don’t you?”
“No.”
He made a sound almost like a moan. “I don’t know what I can do about that. I only wish I could do something to make you see the facts. The Lisa thing just sort of happened and then ran its course and no longer matters. Please, Allie, accept that as the truth, because it is.”
“You’re not denying it, only repeating that it doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t like lying to you. Never did. I admitted I slept with Lisa Calhoun. If you need to hear it again, I’ll admit it again. I can’t see why you don’t realize the rest of what I’m saying’s true.”
“I don’t need to hear it, Sam. Not anymore.”
“Well, yeah, I guess not. Allie?”
She knew his wheedling, little-boy voice. Right now it sickened her. Sam was about to ask her forgiveness. She couldn’t handle that. She reached out an arm and hurriedly switched off the lamp.
“That’s better, Allie.” He’d assumed she wanted to go back to sleep, that their discussion was over at least until morning.
She said, “Get out, Sam.”
“What?”
“Out. Now.”
“Hey, I know it’s your place, but it’s midnight.” He switched on the lamp on his side of the bed, then glared at her so she could see he was furious. He hadn’t expected this, his look said. Didn’t deserve it. She was being damned unreasonable, and all because of some insignificant one-night stand that had come to light. “Where do you expect me to go at this hour?”
“Find a hotel. Come back tomorrow for your things. Or the next day. Or don’t come back at all. I don’t care, Sam, not anymore.”
He appeared puzzled for a while. Injured. Then he tried a smile. It was male mastery time. But he was acting out of desperation and she knew it. “I don’t believe you,” he said, like a line from a movie, as if the script was on his side and their destiny was in the last reel.
She wasn’t sure if she believed herself, but she looked away from him. “Get out.”
Sam clutched her arm and she slapped his hand away. She was startled by how loud a sound it made.
He stood up, naked, his maleness wilted between his legs. He located his jockey shorts and danced into them, yanking them tight. You’ll hurt yourself that way, Sam. He found his pants.
She turned away from him, watching his madly writhing shadow on the wall as he stormed around, wrestling angrily into his clothes. A button clattered on the floor, bouncing and rolling.
Then the shadow was still. He’d worn himself out; she could hear his deep and rapid breathing, like right after sex.
Calmly, he said, “All right, Allie. I’ll send for the rest of my stuff.”
Allie felt something pointed and sharp swell in her throat; she was afraid if she tried to answer him she might sob. She lay very still, listening to the night sounds of the city, to Sam’s ragged breathing.
She heard him leave the bedroom. Heard the thump of his rubber heels as he crossed the apartment to the door. The metallic snick and rattle of the locks being worked on the door to the hall.
The door slammed.
Allie lost it. She pressed her face deep into her pillow and sobbed.
At four-thirty A.M. she gave up on trying to sleep and climbed out of bed. She switched on the lamp and put on her white terry-cloth robe.
She padded barefoot into the living room and to the alcove where she had her desk and IBM-clone computer. It felt good, settling down before the computer; this was a world she knew, a dance whose steps were no mystery. She flipped the computer switch and booted the system.
At first she’d considered working on the Fortune Fashions job, but she realized this wasn’t the time for that. In the green glare of the monitor screen, she sat idly toying with the keyboard, trying to relax her whirling mind. Computers and Allie were compatible. Right now, she envied them. Computers thought, in their basic way, but they didn’t feel. Allie didn’t want to feel. She wanted to see herself from a distance, so she could analyze and convert emotion to cold fact. An IBM clone—that’s what she wanted to be.
She keyed in her household budget program and looked over the figures. Made a few calculations and studied the results on the screen.
The computer played fair with her and gave her the hard truth. Without Sam, if she wanted to stay in the Cody Arms and pay her bills, she’d need help, even with the Fortune Fashions account.
There was a way to obtain the right kind of roommate, she knew. She’d considered it before Sam had moved in with her.
Allie keyed in the word-processor program. She typed “Wanted, roommate to share apt. W.70s,” then her phone number.
Tomorrow she’d look at the classified pages of some newspapers and decide where she might place the ad. She wanted to do this right; didn’t want to attract the wrong kind of people. She’d read the ads in some of the underground papers. Desperate singles, divorcées, shutins, and gays. People looking for sex partners who shared their particular perversions. There was a loneliness there, a sadness she didn’t want to touch her.
She spent the next half-hour composing and printing out rental application forms.
She couldn’t leave the computer; it was like a friend she could rely on, one that wouldn’t deceive, or switch allegiance. There was comfort in predictability.
When the windows were beginning to brighten with the dawn, she switched off the computer, went back to bed, and finally slept.
Chapter 7
ALLIE slept until almost noon, then awoke to the sinking realization of what had happened. Lisa. A woman named Lisa. She felt a hollowness when she thought about Sam, and beyond that a deep resentment and anger. Love could do a quick turn to hate, sudden as a tango step, and she didn’t want that. She chose not to have that kind of corrosiveness inside her. The task would be to exorcise him from her mind, a necessary knack if she wanted to continue her life.
For a few minutes she lay in bed, getting used to the new Allison Jones in her state of existence without Sam. Then she rolled her tongue around her mouth, making a face at the bad taste, and struggled out of bed.
Slightly stiff from sleeping so late, she staggered into the bathroom and brushed her teeth with the final surrender of the Crest tube. She picked up Sam’s toothbrush from the porcelain holder and dropped it, along with the distorted corpse of the toothpaste tube, into the wastebasket. Then she turned on the shower and adjusted the water temperature. She stood for a long time beneath the hot needles of water, waking up all the way and working up courage to face what was left of her Saturday. Of her life.
After toweling dry, she put on black slacks and a baggy white T-shirt with SIMON AND GARFUNKLE CENTRAL PARK CONCERT lettered across the front; she’d bought it the day after she’d attended the concert several years ago, and the letters were faded. Simon, who was still hard at it, probably had a song about that. He was doing fine without Garfunkle; she could make it without Sam.