SWF Seeks Same

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.

Allie’s attention snagged on something else, though. There were three cardboard shoeboxes on the closet shelf. She told herself that one of them might hold a collapsible umbrella, but she knew she really was simply curious about what the boxes contained.

She got them down from the shelf one by one and opened them, moving slowly and methodically, listening; she knew it wasn’t unusual for Hedra to come home unexpectedly any time of day or night.

The first box contained only a few pieces of inexpensive jewelry. It looked familiar to Allie, and she realized the pieces were near or exact duplicates of jewelry she herself owned. Some of it, she was sure, was her jewelry, such as the gold chain Sam had given her for her last birthday. It had a very distinctive link pattern; Allie was sure Hedra wouldn’t have been able to find a duplicate.

The second box held nothing but folded tissue paper, and beneath it some old newspaper clippings. Allie glanced at the top clipping. It was a recipe for blueberry cobbler. That struck her as odd; she hadn’t figured Hedra for someone who liked to spend time in the kitchen. The clipping slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor. When she picked it up she noticed that on the back of the recipe was a grisly news item about the discovery of a dismembered murder victim.

When she opened the third box, Allie stood staring at what was inside.

A blond wig. Exactly the shade of her hair. She gingerly drew it from the box and held it up. Then she moved over so she was in front of the mirror. She raised the wig slightly so it was at the level of her head. The wig was tangled and needed to be combed out, but it was cut precisely in the style in which she wore her hair. Something about seeing it reflected next to her own hair made her shiver.

She sat down on the edge of the mattress. She glanced at Hedra’s dresser. The cosmetics lined before the mirror were almost exact duplicates of those on Allie’s dresser. Lying near an eyebrow pencil that was her shade were either Allie’s purple-tinted sunglasses or glasses just like them.

“Jesus!” Allie said softly. Her own voice startled her.

She got up, reached for the end shoebox, and placed the wig inside. She stared at the mass of blond hair again. Looking at it caused something icy to wriggle up her spine. It was so much like a part of her image in the mirror, like a part of her. This was too much, too much!

Then Allie saw the time on the clock radio that was like hers. Nine-fifteen. She had to hurry if she was going to be on time for her interview.

She looked again at the wig in the box and put the lid on gently, as if there were a fragile creature inside that she feared injuring. Then she placed the box next to the other two again on the shelf, in precisely the position it had been in when she’d first discovered it.

Disregarding the rain, she hurried from the Cody Arms and managed to hail a cab at the corner.

As she stepped over an oily dark puddle to enter the cab, she decided it was time to ask Hedra to move out of the apartment.

Sam could move back in. He was due back from L.A. on the red-eye flight, which had probably already landed, and he wasn’t working today. He’d cab in from LaGuardia and soon be in his room at the Atherton. When she finished with her interview, she’d go to the hotel and talk to him.

Chapter 21

ALLIE walked away from the interview without any special feeling that the job was hers. They would call and let her know, Mrs. Quinette, an assistant administrator, had told her. Don’t call us. Allie figured the odds were long that she’d be given a chance, especially after they checked her references and came across whatever poison Mike Mayfair had spread. There was no hiding in the world of computers. But at least she’d tried, taken some control of her life again. It was a partial revival of the spirit. A start.

As was her decision to tell Hedra she must move out.

The rain had stopped and patterns of sunlight lay in stark planes and angles on the buildings. Allie felt so good she rode the subway beyond Times Square and walked several blocks to the Atherton to see Sam.

Sam stood before the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door and adjusted his sport coat so it hung evenly on his thin frame. Posing at a slight angle, he glanced quickly at himself, as if he might catch his reflection by surprise with a button undone or a shoelace untied. No chance. He’d been surprised too often lately not to be on guard, surprised even by himself and his emotions.

He turned from the mirror and looked around the new, smaller suite he’d been given at the Atherton. It was hardly more than a large room with an anteroom and extra closet. But the paint was fresh, the gray carpet was new, and it was an inside, quiet room away from the street. The only sound now was that of a TV or radio, constant patter seeping faintly through the old thick wall from the next room. It sounded like a game show, but the voices