bathroom.
She didn’t bother eating breakfast, opting instead for a cup of instant coffee, and it was an effort to spoon the dark granules into a cup of water heated in the microwave.
As she settled into the sofa to hold her cup with both hands and sip at the hot coffee, she was surprised to hear a knock at the door.
Even more surprised when she’d trudged to the door, opened it, and found the hall empty.
Then she glanced down and saw on the mat a long-stemmed flower on a folded sheet of white tissue paper. She stooped and picked it up. It was a dark orchid with petals the consistency of flesh. A small white card was Scotch-taped to the paper. In black felt-tip pen it read, “Thanks, Sweet Buns. Until next time.”
Allie touched the thick, fleshlike petals and revulsion welled up in her. She flung the orchid on the hall floor. Then she backed into the apartment and slammed and locked the door.
Chapter 25
ALLIE didn’t leave the apartment for days. She ignored her temporary job at the camera store. The Iranian brothers must have called, she was sure, but she didn’t bother answering her phone. By now they’d probably replaced her and not thought much about it. People did strange things in New York. People came and went for their own reasons, and life continued its raucous, zigzagging slide toward eternity.
She didn’t call Sergeant Kennedy about the orchid and note she’d found by her door; the thought of more contact with the police repelled her. She wanted only to escape from unpleasant reality.
It scared her finally, the possibility that she was withdrawing completely from everything human, so she began to go out and take long walks, for the exercise, she told herself. But she knew it was really for the tenuous contact with people. In one way the press of Manhattan’s humanity made her feel less alien, but in another it made her feel more lonely. Often she had the sensation she was invisible. Locked inside herself and invisible.
During one afternoon walk, on impulse, she stopped in at Goya’s for lunch. It would help to talk to Graham; he at least thought she was real. She sat at her usual table. The restaurant was crowded with a mixture of neighborhood people, office workers on their lunch hours, and a few tourists who’d stopped to eat after wandering around the Upper West Side. The mingled, spicy scent of a kitchen going full tilt added to appetites. A grayish haze from the smoking section hovered close to the high ceiling, swirling ever so gently with the lazy rhythm of the two large and slowly rotating paddle fans. Goya’s employees in black slacks and red shirts glided swiftly and efficiently among the tables, holding trays level above their heads and out of harm’s way; the nonchalant balancing act of waiters and waitresses everywhere.
Allie expected Graham to appear any second, dodging tables and diners with his lanky sideways shuffle, wearing his lopsided grin and exchanging comments with regular customers. Her glance kept darting reflexively to the kitchen’s swinging doors, like a reformed smoker’s hand edging toward an empty pocket.
But a tall girl with wet-look red lipstick and dark hair in a frazzled French braid took Allie’s order. The plastic tag pinned crookedly to her blouse said her name was Lucy. She was tentative and seemed new to the job.
“Is Graham Knox working today?” Allie asked.
“I don’t think so,” the girl said. “I mean, I just started and don’t know everybody yet, but the guy I think is Graham isn’t in today.”
Allie thanked her and watched her walk away.
Since Goya’s was crowded, about twenty minutes passed before Allie’s food arrived. Lucy smiled with only her glossy lips and said she was real sorry about the delay. As she placed the white plate on the table, Allie noticed her fingernails were long and painted to match her lipstick. About half the bright red nail polish had been chipped or chewed away.
Allie fell into a somber mood as she sat munching her pastrami-on-rye and sipping Diet Pepsi. A different waitress, this one middle-aged with hair going to gray, asked if she wanted her glass refilled, but Allie declined. She left immediately after finishing her sandwich.
For a long time she walked the crowded, noisy streets of the city, until her feet were sore and the spring was gone from her legs. Around her, steam rose from the sidewalk grates; the monster breathing. She sat for a while on a bench in Riverside Park before smelling rain in the air and starting for home.
The phone was ringing when she let herself into the apartment. She hadn’t been using her answering machine because she dreaded having to deal with the kind of messages that might be left, so the phone kept ringing. She ignored it.
The ringing continued as she slipped off her blue blazer and draped it over the sofa arm. She sat down in the wing chair and stared at the ringing phone. She didn’t move.
Finally it stopped ringing.
Allie walked into the kitchen and got a glass of water, then sat again in the wing chair and stared at the dusk closing in outside the window. The noise of the city was beginning to lessen with the advent of night and the threat of rain.
The phone began ringing again. Shrill and insistent.
It rang twenty-one times before it stopped. Someone wanted very much to talk to Allie.
Whoever it was, they kept calling back. Finally, on the third ring of the fifth call, she lifted the receiver and held it to her ear.
Hedra’s voice said, “I know you’re there, Allie.”
“Yes, I’m here,” Allie said. She wasn’t even curious about why Hedra had called. Nothing about Hedra could surprise her now.
“Sam’s going to be mine forever,” Hedra said. “I’ve seen to that.” Her voice sounded odd, flatter than usual yet with an undercurrent of excitement.
Allie almost laughed. “Don’t try to tell me the relationship has only just been consummated.”
“I wouldn’t tell you that,” Hedra said. “Anyway, I never liked that word ‘consummated’ when it was used to
