Single white female

15

HE looked like a computer-game figure weaving through a maze. Allie watched Graham Knox's slender body maneuver among the crowded tables at Goya's as he brought her the hamburger and Diet Pepsi. Though he actually moved gracefully, there was that inherent and somehow appealing awkwardness about him that seemed to stem more from the tentative, intense expression he habitually wore than from physical motion. He always seemed preoccupied and puzzled by some inner conflict.

"You're busy tonight," she said as he placed her order on the table. The charred-beef scent of the hamburger wafted up to her. She wasn't sure if it made her feel hungrier or slightly ill.

"And you have something on your mind."

Allie was amazed. "How'd you know?"

Graham gave his canine-like lopsided smile and wiped his hands on the small white towel tucked in his belt. "I'm sort of a student of human nature. Gotta be, in my profession." A Beatles song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," began blasting from the speakers. The decibel level of conversation in the restaurant rose to challenge it. The result was a maelstrom of noise. Graham leaned down close to her, his mouth near her ear. "You need to talk, Allie?" She felt his warm breath, like the life-breath of a lover.

"You shared your good news," she said, "I thought I might share my bad-tempered with some good news, though."

"The bad news isn't too bad, I hope." He glanced at his watch, one of those with a moon phase dial on it to make it more complicated. "It's just past seven o'clock. The rush is almost over, and I can get off around eight. Wanna combine talking with walking?" He made it sound like a trick of coordination.

Allie thought a walk was a good idea; the noise might not abate in the usually quiet Goya's. And it was a beautiful late September night, warm and clear. "I'll eat slow," she told him.

"I can sneak you some dessert, on the house. Give you an excuse to hold down the table. Unless you're on a diet." She smiled sadly. "No, I'm not in a dieting mood."

Graham touched her shoulder in sympathy; she noticed his fingers were long and tapered. He retreated through the melee of noise and laughter, toward the swinging doors to the kitchen, his lanky frame swaying among the tables with practiced precision and efficiency. From behind, he appeared not at all awkward or tentative. Someone in a far corner called to him. He waved a hand to confirm that he'd heard. Somebody somewhere turned down the volume of the canned music. The Beatles were finished with "Lucy" and were singing now about "Sergeant Pepper."

Allie blocked out the voices around her, the laughter and the clinking of glasses and flatware. She gnawed on her hamburger and listened to the music. John Lennon. Christ! How could anyone shoot John Lennon?

Graham had brought her a scoop of vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries over it. Allie was often amazed by how available fresh produce was in the concrete world of New York. Fresh flowers, too. As if there were a garden on every cloud-high roof.

After dessert and coffee she felt better. Her guilt at eating so many calories was assuaged by the fact that the strawberries and ice cream were free. She suspected even Richard Simmons would accept free dessert in a restaurant. He would if he saw those strawberries, anyway, and his appetite was heightened by other unfulfilled yearnings.

Now she and Graham were walking west on 74th Street, toward Riverside Park. There was a light breeze blowing in off the Hudson. The night was cool and, despite the exhaust fumes, the air smelled remarkably fresh for Manhattan. The sidewalks were crowded with people who seemed to be dawdling, enjoying the unseasonably fair weather; even traffic seemed to be moving slower, car windows cranked down, drivers' elbows jutting out in vehicle after vehicle as if an amalgamation of flesh and metal formed each machine.

Graham walked on the street side, slowly so Allie could keep pace, and listened intently with his head bowed as she told him about Sam.

"There's something doubly good when somebody you love is out of your life, then reenters it."

"Second time around and all that," Graham said. He didn't sound happy about what Allie had told him. "Sounds as if you really love this Sam." "I don't seem to have much choice, Graham."

"Sure, I understand. Lucky Sam. He smart enough to know he's lucky?" "I think so." "You'd better know it."

She couldn't help remembering Lisa. "That's not an easy thing to know for sure."

"Yeah. Well, that's the human condition. What keeps people like me from ever running out of material to write about. Anyway, tell me the bad news you wanted off your chest. If I sound more eager to hear it, don't blame me."

She told him about Mayfair and losing the Fortune Fashions assignment. Then she told him about the obscene phone calls in which her name was used. "You tell Sam about any of this?" '7ust some of the phone calls." "Why not about Mayfair?"

"I'm afraid of what he might do. Men like Mayfair are everywhere; Sam getting embroiled in a fight or a lawsuit wouldn't change society-or get the account back."

"I suppose not. It's the phone calls that are really bothering you, right?" "You know me like a good friend, Graham."

"That's because I am a good friend." They stopped and stood on the corner of West 74th and West End Avenue. "Didn't you say your full name's in the phone book?" Graham asked. The breeze riffled his dark hair, mussing the wings over his protruding ears. Allie nodded.

"Then I wouldn't worry so much about the phone calls. Just some pervert who chose you because he spotted the complete listing in the directory and knew he could shake up a woman by using her first name. It's probably not as personal as you think. Or as you feel it is. You'd be surprised at the number of obscene phone calls made every day in this city. Every hour."

"What bothers me," Allie said, "is that my address is in the directory along with my number. This sicko-if it is only one man-knows where to find me."

"Yeah. Well, I can see where that makes you uneasy, and that's exactly what a bastard like your caller wants you to worry about. But believe me, the kind of nut who phones women and makes sexual references almost always does it because he's too intimidated to confront them face to face. These are usually the last people who'd show up at your door and try something." "'Almost always,' huh? 'Usually'?" "Those words apply to virtually everything, Allie." True enough. But she didn't agree with him out loud. "Whay'd Sam say about the phone calls?" he asked.

"Pretty much what you said. He doesn't think they're anything to worry about. That's what most men would say; they don't feel the vulnerability in that kind of situation."

"Can't help that," Graham said. "We're not afraid of mice, either."

They began walking down West End. A raggedy man wearing incredibly wrinkled, oversized gray pants, and a green wool blanket draped over bare chest and shoulders, approached them and in an almost unintelligible mumble asked if they had any spare change. The breeze carried his odor of stale perspiration and urine. Graham shook his head no and said, "Sorry." Allie wondered how it would feel to be rejected that way by an indifferent world. To live on the streets of a city as cruel as Manhattan. Delusion might be essential to deflect the pain.

She watched the beggar veer toward a well-dressed couple waiting to cross the intersection. Trying to muster pity but feeling only fear, she said, "It must be a bitch, having to exist like that, struggling to survive through each day."

Graham said, "It is, but he asked the wrong people for money. You're out of work, and I've only been paid the first half of the advance on my play."

"We don't have to justify not giving a beggar money," Allie said, a bit surprised at the vehemence in her voice."Yes, I'm afraid we do."

At a newspaper and magazine kiosk, Allie paused to buy a Village Voice. She enjoyed reading the weekly paper, and it also contained help-wanted ads, maybe for computer programmers.

She abruptly yanked the Voice out from beneath the rock that was weighting it down on the stack of papers, and handed over a dollar bill for the paper to the grizzled old woman inside the kiosk, but after taking a step and starting to shove her wallet back into her purse, she stopped, realizing something was wrong. She squeezed the wallet with probing fingers.

Opening it, she checked the plastic card and photo holders. She pried apart the leather compartments, her movements quicker and less controlled. "They're gone!" she cried. Graham was staring at her, puzzled. "What's gone?" "My Visa and MasterCard." "You sure?"

She examined the wallet again, more slowly and carefully. "Positive. And something else is missing. My expired Illinois driver's license."

"Expired, is it? Good. Somebody might be surprised if they try to use it to cash a check. You sure this stuff was in your wallet at the restaurant?"

"Not absolutely sure. It might have been gone and I didn't notice. The wallet felt different to me just now, not as bulky. I haven't charged anything in over a week. Shit! The cards might have been gone for days!"

"Don't panic, Allie, you can only be held responsible for fifty dollars on each card, even if the thief uses them to travel to Europe. It's a law." "I know. Still…"

"And they've probably only been gone a short time, or you'd have missed them earlier."

Allie didn't answer, trying to remember how the wallet had felt in Goya's when she'd gotten out money to pay for dinner. She hadn't actually taken the wallet out of her purse, letting it rest inside so it and the folding money would stay out of sight below table level. Couldn't be too careful.

"Better get on the phone," Graham said, "and report the cards missing. They'll cut credit on them and issue you some new plastic with different numbers." "I don't understand how I lost them."

"You probably didn't lose them. Credit cards are stolen every day."

Every day. Like obscene phone calls to single women. "But no one's had the opportunity."

"Haven't they? Thieves can be damned clever. And no woman guards her purse every minute she's out." "I suppose you're right."

"Maybe the creep who stole your credit cards and driver's license is the same guy who phoned you. Maybe that's how he settled on you to pester. If so, it'll lose its thrill after a while and he'll stop." "You sound sure of that."

"I told you, I'm a student of human nature. But if it'll make you feel better, maybe you should go to the police. Report the obscene calls and the stolen cards and license. Might not help, but it can't hurt."

"I'll think about it," Allie said. "Meanwhile, I'd better notify somebody about the missing cards. Whoever stole them might be off on a shopping spree right now. Buying one of everything at Bloomingdale's." "I've gotta admit, that sounds like fun." She responded with morose silence.

"Maybe they're only lost, not stolen," Graham said to comfort her. "That wouldn't be so bad."

Allie thought inanely that nothing could be worse than being lost; she'd been lost for a while and knew.

She tucked the folded Voice under her arm, clutched her purse tightly, and she and Graham began walking at a fast pace back toward West 74th. Their heels clopped out a relentless rhythm on the hard concrete. The night no longer seemed friendly.