Hedra used a finger to tuck a strand of cold cheese into her mouth. “I’m sure this is gonna work out, Allie.” Her voice was soft and carefully modulated. It suggested the same apprehension as her eyes. Had she ever in her life really been sure of anything?
Allie the practical said, “You going to work today?”
Hedra giggled, her hand covering her mouth, for a moment looking like sixteen-year-old concealing braces. Surprising Allie. “You sound like my mother.”
Her mother! Jesus, loosen up, Allie told herself. Back away and breathe. She smiled. “Yeah, I guess I do. Sorry. I was just making conversation, not checking up on you. Hey, for all I care, you can stay out all night for the prom.”
“I’m way past those years,” Hedra said. “Never was much of a dancer anyway. Do you dance?”
“I used to,” Allie said, remembering nights out with Sam. “I love to dance.”
“I never actually went to a prom. Did you?”
“Twice. Back in Illinois. In a green world I barely remember.”
“Musta been nice.”
“No, not really. A little nerd named Pinky tried to rape me in the backseat of a ‘sixty-five Chevy.”
For a second Hedra seemed shocked. Then she said, “Well, those things happen.”
“I guess. It wasn’t really much of an attempt. Not the sort of thing you go to the police about.”
“Oh, you should have reported him.”
Allie laughed. “Then half the girls at the prom should have signed complaints against their dates. I mean, there’s attempted rape and then there’s attempted rape.”
“I can’t see much difference.”
Allie took a bite of toast. Swallowed. Now who should lighten up? Next they’d be discussing the social ramifications of date rape. “Well, maybe you’re right, but it was the consequence of teenage hormones, and a long time ago.”
Hedra shot a frantic glance at the wall clock, as if suddenly remembering there was such a thing as measurable time. “Golly, almost eight-thirty. I am working today. Gonna be a receptionist for a while at a place over on Fifth Avenue. I better shower and dress.” She stood up and placed her dishes in the sink, carefully not clinking them too hard against the porcelain. “You are done with the bathroom, aren’t you?”
“Sure. All yours.”
“I’ll do my dishes when I get home,” Hedra said. “Yours, too, if you want.”
“I’ll take care of them this time,” Allie said. “I’m coming home around noon to do some computer work.”
“I won’t be here … home till this evening.” Hedra yanked the sash of her robe tight around her thin waist and carefully tied it in a bow, though she was on her way to the shower.
She paused in the kitchen doorway and turned to look at Allie. “I think this is gonna work out just great, you and me. No, I don’t just think it, I’m positive of it!” She was like an enthused ingénue in a movie.
Allie put down her half-eaten crescent of toast and started to agree, but Hedra was already gone. Deferential ghost of a girl, wanting to be somewhere else.
She has a real problem with her shyness, Allie thought. A shame, because she wouldn’t be nearly as unattractive as she seemed to believe, if she’d learn to dress effectively and use makeup to advantage.
But maybe she fancied herself the intellectual type. Those boxes she’d had brought in might have been stuffed with books. Or maybe, looking and acting as she did, she attracted the sort of men she liked. Who knew about men? Joan Collins? Madonna?
Not Allie.
Goddamn you, Sam!
Hedra was humming what sounded like a hymn in the shower when Allie left to meet Mayfair.
Chapter 9
HEDRA said, “I envy you, Allie. I mean, your looks, your clothes, guys always calling and leaving messages on your answering machine.”
“My answering machine?”
Hedra looked away from Allie’s gaze. “I can’t help hearing you check for messages now and then. I’m sorry, Allie, I don’t mean to be nosy.”
In the two weeks since Hedra had moved in, this was one of the few evenings they were spending together in the apartment. It was storming outside, and the wind was slamming sheets of rain against the window, rattling the panes. Hedra was sitting in the small wing chair next to a lamp. She’d been reading a mystery novel, something with “death” in the title, while Allie was slumped on the sofa, idly watching the “MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour.” Hedra traded paperbacks at a second-hand bookshop, she said. She had a small and ever-changing collection of dogeared mysteries lined up on her bedroom windowsill. The fear on her pale young face prompted a pang of pity in Allie.
“Listen, I know you’re not nosy,” Allie said. “Two people in the same apartment, we’re gonna know something about each other’s lives. No way around it. I suppose we’ll have to trust one another. And what’s this about my social life? You’ve been out with someone at least five times in the past two weeks.” Which was not only true but a conservative estimate. Each time, Hedra had gotten dressed up, even combed her mousy brown hair to fall below her shoulders, and left to meet her date before dinner. She’d explained to Allie that this way he wouldn’t attract the neighbors’ suspicions by picking her up at the apartment. Allie appreciated her discretion, though she didn’t think it necessary to carry it to that extreme. What was this guy going to do, hop out of a limo with a bouquet of roses in each hand?
Wind and rain crashed at the window, as if determined to get inside. Gentle Jim Lehrer was lobbing kindly, probing questions at an Alabama prosecuting attorney who thought an island penal colony should be established off the U.S coast to incarcerate hardcore criminals. Lehrer was making comparisons to Devil’s Island while the prosecuting attorney was talking about a land east of Eden.
Hedra settled back in her chair and closed the novel. She fidgeted with it so violently Allie thought the lurid cover might tear. “Truth is, Allie, I haven’t really been going out on dates. I got a job working nights, typing reports at a company over near Lincoln Center.”
Huh? The girl could surprise. “Then how come you lied to me?”
Hedra dropped the novel; she jerked when it thumped on the floor, but she didn’t bother to pick it up. “I was jealous of you, I guess. The way you’re so assertive and active and all. I didn’t want you to think I was some wallflower wimp, so when I took the temporary night job, I decided to tell you I was going out to meet a man instead of a typewriter.”
“There was no reason to lie,” Allie assured her. “I don’t consider you any kind of wimp, Hedra. And your private life’s none of my business.”
Hedra blushed; it was obvious even in the yellow lamplight. The wind drummed rain against the window. Sounded as if the storm had claws and was clambering to get in. “There’s another reason I said I was meeting a man. I didn’t want you to think … you know.”
Allie didn’t know. Not at first. Then she laughed. “I never doubted your sexual preference, Hedra, or I wouldn’t have chosen you for a roommate.”
Squirming in her chair, Hedra said, “It’s just that I have trouble meeting men, while you seem to have trouble holding them off. Oh, I mean, I can see why. You have such confidence and style and all.”