SWF Seeks Same

“You leave first,” she said.

He nodded, then opened the door to the hall and glanced in both directions. He blew her a kiss and stepped outside and closed the door, all in one nimble, graceful motion.

Allie counted to fifty, listening to the humming silence of the apartment, then followed.

By the time she reached the lobby, he was nowhere in sight.

A shipment of Nikon accessories hadn’t arrived at the camera shop that morning as scheduled, and the shop’s owners, two implacable brothers of Iranian descent, gave Allie the afternoon off rather than pay her for doing drone work.

The weather was glorious, so she walked up to Central Park, past the lineup of bored and patient horses waiting to pull tourists in carriages along the congested streets. She entered the park and sat in quiet coolness on a hard concrete bench near the lake. Beyond the trees she could see the reach of skyscrapers, the newer ones with squared-off tops that seemed to flatten against the sky, the older ones piercing the blue like needles, or curving gracefully in Art Deco elegance. A trio of young men pedaled past on the new, thick-tired bicycles known as mountain bikes. Chains clinked against metal guards, and gears ticked and whirred in the quiet afternoon. On the grassy slope near the lake, a man and a woman lay on a blanket with their heads close together, talking. The woman had red hair and was rather stout. The man looked younger and was wearing a white shirt and red tie. A business type, like Sam. Every once in a while the woman would laugh and grab the tie and flick it in his face. The musical sound of her laughter floated on the bright, clear air. Allie watched them for a while, thinking about Sam and the way the fragments of their shattered lives had so seamlessly fit back together.

The breeze picked up and carried exhaust fumes from nearby Central Park South into the park, reminding Allie that she’d been sitting for almost an hour and her world waited just beyond the trees.

She surrendered the park to pigeons, dope dealers, the homeless, cyclists, joggers, and lovers, and got up and walked back to the street. Vital and diverse New York, she decided, maybe wasn’t such a heartless place after all.

If she and Sam were frugal, money should be no problem. She rode a subway instead of a cab back to West 74th. As she walked past Goya’s toward the Cody Arms, she peered in the window but didn’t see Graham Knox.

When she entered the apartment, the living room window was open and a cool breeze was sluicing through. Allie didn’t remember leaving the window raised but was glad that she had. She slipped off her high-heeled shoes, sat down in the wing chair, and massaged her feet. Concrete against flesh, separated only by a thin slice of leather, could take its toll. She was getting a blister on the bottom of her left big toe. A bandage wouldn’t be a bad idea.

She stood up and padded barefoot toward the bathroom, limping slightly and carrying her shoes.

She was five feet from her closed bedroom door when she heard a noise. A soft creaking sound. Then another.

Another.

A rhythm old as time.

Her heart expanded painfully in her chest. Her throat tried to close, and she was having difficulty breathing.

Silently, she edged forward.

She heard a soft, regular moaning. What she’d known in the back of her mind leaped like something uncaged to the front. She stepped forward and pushed open the door.

They were on the still-made bed, both of them nude. Hedra was straddling Sam, her hands propped on her hips. Only Allie didn’t know at first that it was Hedra.

It was the wig. Hedra was wearing the blond Allie wig.

She and Sam were both perspiring and Hedra was grinning down at him with an intense expression though her eyes were half-closed. So preoccupied were they that they didn’t notice Allie at first.

Then Hedra sensed something. She stopped grinning, stopped the rising and falling contortions of her glistening body, and turned toward her.

A needle of fear penetrated Allie’s shock and rage. Hedra stared insolently at her as if Allie didn’t belong there. As if Allie were trespassing in her own apartment.

Sam had seen Allie now and was staring at her dumbstruck with his mouth hanging open.

Hedra glanced down at him, then back at Allie. She was grinning again. She said, “Oh, hi, Allie.”

When they were both gone, Allie sat paralyzed on the sofa. The breeze crept in through the open window and rippled coolly around her bare feet like chilled water. Hedra and Sam. Sam and Hedra. Oh, Jesus! She knew she shouldn’t be surprised. Some far corner of her consciousness had known but hadn’t admitted the possibility that her lover and former roommate were deceiving her. If Hedra—sick, conspiring Hedra—envied everything else about Allie, why wouldn’t she want Sam? It was logical, insofar as logic could be applied to Hedra, but Allie simply hadn’t wanted to believe it.

This … abomination, this unfairness, was sinking in, altering her world forever. The hum of traffic from outside grew louder and became a continuous roar, blotting out all rational thought. A beast devouring her mind.

Hedra had everything she wanted from Allie now. The rape and destruction were complete.

Oh, hi, Allie.

Allie dug her fingertips into her temples, harder and harder, wishing she could penetrate her skull and her mind and rip from them like raw matter the pain of what had happened to her.

The telephone rang.

She sat listened to it for a long time, then lifted the receiver and touched the hard, cool plastic to her ear. She