Single white female

7

ALLIE slept until almost noon, then awoke to the sinking realization of what had happened. Lisa. A woman named Lisa. She felt a hollowness when she thought about Sam, and beyond that a deep resentment and anger. Love could do a quick turn to hate, sudden as a tango step, and she didn't want that. She chose not to have that kind of corrosiveness inside her. The task would be to exorcise him from her mind, a necessary knack if she wanted to continue her life.

For a few minutes she lay in bed, getting used to the new Allison Jones in her state of existence without Sam. Then she rolled her tongue around her mouth, making a face at the bad taste, and struggled out of bed.

Slightly stiff from sleeping so late, she staggered into the bathroom and brushed her teeth with the final surrender of the Crest tube. She picked up Sam's toothbrush from the porcelain holder and dropped it, along with the distorted corpse of the toothpaste tube, into the wastebasket. Then she turned on the shower and adjusted the water temperature. She stood for a long time beneath the hot needles of water, waking up all the way and working up courage to face what was left of her Saturday. Of her life.

After toweling dry, she put on black slacks and a baggy white T-shirt with SIMON AND GARFUNKLE CENTRAL PARK CONCERT lettered across the front; she'd bought it the day after she'd attended the concert several years ago, and the letters were faded. Simon, who was still hard at it, probably had a song about that. He was doing fine without Garfunkle; she could make it without Sam.

She stepped into the comfortable soft leather moccasins she wore on weekends and wandered as if lost through the apartment, pausing here and there and running her fingertips over the furniture, as if to reassure herself it was real.

Jesus, she thought, how maudlin. She walked over to the office-alcove, ripped the fan-fold paper from the computer printer, and read the classified ad she'd composed before dawn. It was simple and to the point. Effective. She'd been thinking clearly enough when she considered advertising for a roommate to share expenses.

It occurred to Allie that she might have a problem, telling potential roommates they'd have to live surreptitiously in the apartment, be coconspirators in an arrangement that fooled neighbors and management company. On the other hand, apartments in Manhattan were so expensive and difficult to obtain that most renters would find the required discretion only a minor inconvenience. It might even appeal to the more adventuresome. Beating the system was a New York way of life, a point of pride as well as a means of survival in the cruelest of cities.

She got her purse from the bedroom, folded the computer printout in quarters, and poked it in behind her wallet. Then she thought for a moment, pulled the wallet out, and counted her money. Twenty-six dollars. She thought about how much she had in the bank. Depressing. Even with the Fortune Fashions retainer, within a month she'd really be feeling the pinch. Something had to be done, and soon; if the wolf wasn't at the door, it was prowling the corridors.

Allie had slept through breakfast; she realized she was starving. Considering the scarcity of edible food in the refrigerator, she could treat herself to eating lunch out despite having to watch the flow of pennies.

She locked the apartment behind her carefully. Woman alone now. Then she disdained the elevator and took the stairs down to the lobby too fast, as if to assert her physical capability and spirit.

Breathing hard, she trudged outside and walked until she found a newsstand, where she bought three likely papers in which to place her classified ad. An obese man beside her bought a magazine with a cover illustration of a nude woman seated on a yellow bulldozer. He followed Allie half a block before falling behind her rapid pace and giving up. She glanced back and saw him standing near a wire trash basket, leafing through his magazine. Possibly he meant no harm, but New York had more weirdos per square yard than any other city.

She tucked the newspapers more firmly beneath her arm and returned to West 74th. It was a little past one when she entered Goya's.

The restaurant did a good lunch business of neighborhood regulars and tourists. She had to wait for a table, and then was ushered to a tiny booth wedged in a corner. On the table were a napkin holder, salt and pepper shakers, a Bakelite ashtray, a half-full Heinz catsup bottle, and a two-dollar tip from the last diner. Allie found herself staring at the creased bills, thinking that theft, on a larger scale than this, was a way out of her financial difficulties.

She shook that thought from her mind when the waiter arrived and stood by the booth. Stealing was stealing, a risk and a moral compromise she was unwilling to explore. The waiter said, "Something to drink?"

She looked up. It was the same guy who'd taken her order when she was here the day before, the one with the intense, familiar face, the black hair and satellite-dish ears. Homely in the way of Abe Lincoln, or dogs you wanted to take home and feed. There was something clumsy and rough-hewn about him; a long way from Sam's smoothness and grace. He laid a closed menu before her with ceremony. Like a good book he was recommending.

"I'll order now, drink and all," she said, and looked at the grease-spotted menu. It was a computer printout, she noticed. The microchip was everywhere. The waiter said, "You're Allison Jones."

She looked away from the menu, up into the homely face. Dark, earnest eyes gazed back at her, amiable despite their intensity, not devious or threatening.

He smiled and said, "I live in the apartment above yours over at the Cody Arms. I've seen you around. Got your name from the mailbox." He extended a hand and she shook it without thinking. "I'm Graham Knox."

The guy seemed friendly enough, not putting moves on her. "Glad to meet you, Graham."

He said, "The double burger and the house salad are good."

"I'll have them, then, with fries and a large Diet Pepsi. I'm hungry today."

He scribbled her order in his note pad and scooped up the tip from the table in the almost unnoticeable manner of waiters everywhere. He smiled his lopsided smile and said, "Back soon."

And he was. Goya's kitchen must have cooks falling all over themselves.

He placed her food on the table and straightened up, dangling the empty tray in his right hand. "We're neighbors, Allie, so anything you need, you let me know."

Oh-oh, where was this going? She gave him her passionless, appraising stare. The same one she'd given the obese man with the sex magazine when their gazes met. Turn it off, buddy, whatever you're thinking.

"Not that kind of anything," he assured her, smiling. He had long, skinny fingers that played nervously with the edge of the round tray. His nails were gnawed to the quick. "Don't get me wrong."

Okay, so he wasn't interested in her that way. Now she wondered, was he gay? She mentally jabbed herself for being so egotistical and unfair. Any man who wasn't interested in going to bed with her on first meeting wasn't necessarily gay. And there was something about this man she instinctively liked, but in the same platonic fashion in which he seemed to see her. "Okay, Graham, thanks for the offer. And if you ever need a thumbtack, knock on my door."

"Not many people at the Cody would say that. Most of us don't even know each other and don't want to meet."

"New York," Allie said, dousing her French fries with catsup. New York, like a disease. "Most big cities, I'm afraid." "Maybe, but it's special here."

"Could be it is. Well, I better get moving-orders are piling up. Come in sometime when we're not busy and we'll talk."

She nodded, holding the catsup bottle still, and watched him smile and back away, moving among the tables toward the serving counter.

Did he want something? Or was he simply as he'd presented himself? Was she being cynical? Everyone didn't have an act, an ulterior motive and an angle, even in New York. She had her choice now: she could stop coming into Goya's, or she could become a friend, or at least an acquaintance, of Graham Knox.

She sampled the salad with the house dressing, and bit into the double burger. Graham was right, they were both delicious. And among the cheaper items on the menu. She decided what the hell, she could use a casual friend who didn't clutter up her life with complications. Allie sensed that was all Graham wanted to be to her, someone she could talk to, and someone who'd listen if he felt compelled to talk. She almost laughed out loud at herself, thinking she could trust her instincts about people. She and Lisa.

Allie wolfed down the rest of the salad and hamburger, then ate what was left of her fries more slowly.

Afterward she ordered another Diet Pepsi and sat sipping it through a straw while most of the lunchtime crowd drifted outside. A vintage Beatles tune, "Strawberry Fields Forever," came over the sound system. Softly. People came here to eat, not listen to music. It was one of Allie's favorite Beatles numbers, so she leaned back, closed her eyes, and let it play over her mind. And she was thinking of Sam, trying not to cry.

When Stevie Wonder took over, she opened her tear-clouded eyes and saw that Graham was staring curiously at her from the other side of the restaurant, like a confused terrier.

Allie nodded to him and he looked away. Not ill at ease, but as if he didn't want to cause her embarrassment.

She slid her cool glass to the side and examined the classified columns of the newspapers she'd bought, laying each one flat on the table› not caring about the spreading damp spots from puddles left by her glass.

She decided to call her ad into the Times. The other ads in their 'Apartments to Share' column seemed respectable enough-not placed by creeps or swingers trying to make contact. Abbreviations abounded in the small print: Single white female was, in the lexicon of the classified columns, 'SWF.' Also being sought to share 'Apt W Pvt Rm' were 'Yng Prof'l Fern,' 'GWM,' 'SBF,' and 'SBM prof nSmkr.' Allie took these to mean 'Young professional female; gay white male; single black female; and single black male professional, nonsmoker.'

She decided to make the wording of her ad more economical and change it to read "SWF seeks same."

Graham took the order of a middle-aged couple who'd just entered the restaurant, then walked over to Allie. For the first time she noticed that he had an oddly bouncy sort of walk, jaunty, with a lot of spring in his knees. A tall Groucho Marx. He used his sawed-off penal as a pointer. "Refill on the Pepsi?" "No, thanks, I'm going in a minute."

He tucked the pencil behind his ear, then thumbed through the torn-off order slips stuck into the cover of his note pad. He laid Allie's check on the table with practiced precision, as if dealing her a card face up. "You can pay the cashier up by the door. See you next time, Allie."

"Right." She watched him bustle away, the busy waiter, showing her he wasn't the sort to get smarmy and make a pest of himself.

Allie chewed on the crushed ice in her glass for a while, thinking about how life could change so drastically and unexpectedly. A phone call in the night, and the center of her universe had shifted. A simple phone call, and a relentless momentum had taken hold. Everyone's fate was so precariously balanced, even if people didn't seem to know it.

She paid for her lunch and left a tip, nodding to Graham Knox as she pushed open the door to the street. In the bright sunlight outside the restaurant she stood still for a few minutes, as if trying to decide which direction to take.

Then she walked back to her apartment and phoned in the ad.