The Delilah Complex

Thirty-Four

I pulled on my black suede coat and left the building. Downstairs, I wasn’t sure what direction to take.

Nina and I had never fought like that. She’d never walked out on me. She was the only woman I’d known for my whole life. I looked back at the building and could see that her office light was still on.

Should I go back? If I did, what would I say? That I didn’t want her to be upset? That I hated fighting with her? I could tell her how anxious her suddenly impersonal tone of voice made me feel. But none of those things would matter if I couldn’t also tell her that she was right and that I was not going to tell the police anything.

And I wasn’t ready to tell her that.

I thought about calling Simon on his cell phone, but even continuing to discuss what Nina had done and how she had reacted seemed to be a transgression. This wasn’t purely professional. It was personal. I had friends outside of the institute, but it would be a breach of professional conduct to talk to them, because to explain it I would have had to explain too much about the Scarlet Society and the photographs.

I was still standing on the corner, waiting for the light to change, still trying to figure out what to do. Running down my options. Leaving out the most obvious one.

Well, I could go home. But to an empty house where I’d just sit and brood. Dulcie was with Mitch. Joint custody might be the best thing for my daughter, but I missed her when she wasn’t home. My ex-husband’s connection to the New York City independent film community was, at this point in my daughter’s life, a constant attraction. And in the last few months the custody leaned in Mitch’s favor.

I could go to a movie. No, I probably wouldn’t even notice what I was watching.

The light changed and I crossed the street. The sky above was gray and crowded with storm clouds. There was a nor’easter blowing in and the leaves on the street swirled in fast circles. The shorter days and the cooler air had not crept up on us but rushed in. It had just been summer, hadn’t it? Without making any conscious decision as to why, I turned left and started walking downtown. I’d gotten to Sixty-second when it started raining. I didn’t have an umbrella and I didn’t want to ruin my coat.

Looking at the street sign, I tried to figure out what to do. Barney’s department store was only half a block away. At least I could buy an umbrella there.

I ran there and rushed in, brushing the water off my coat. The store was open until eight. I could look around and then buy the umbrella if it was still raining. Strolling past the glass cases, I stared down at glittering baubles. Oneof-a-kind pieces rested on velvet, price tags hidden, waiting for someone to try them on.

I headed to the escalator. The umbrella could wait.

I knew just where I was going. The fourth floor. Shoes. That was something that would keep my mind from obsessing about Nina.

They were chocolate-brown suede pumps. High heels. I reached out and touched them. So soft and smooth, my finger left a slight impression. I knew that they were impractical. That I’d wind up buying clothes to go with the shoes since my wardrobe was made up of entirely too much black, but I’d like to get a brown suit. Something that was snug around my waist. That opened a little bit lower at the neck than I would wear to work.

A saleswoman interrupted my daydream to ask if she could help, and I gave her my shoe size, sat down, slipped off my flats and waited, watching the other women who were doing the same thing I was.

What were they shopping away? Fights with husbands, problems at work? Sons who weren’t doing well at school? Daughters who were on diets that left their hair lank and stringy?

How many of us here really needed these shoes? Or the chocolate-brown suit I had in my mind. We dress ourselves and redress ourselves, obsess over how we can make ourselves look better, fool ourselves that there is nothing wrong with spending money as a reward for the things that are wrong in our lives.

The saleswoman arrived with the open shoebox, and despite myself, I felt a little jolt of adrenaline as she held the right shoe out for me to slip my foot into.

I stood up and walked the few feet to the mirror. My legs weren’t bad and the shoes made them look better. I hadn’t worn heels for years, until one of my clients recently inspired me to start again. What I had discovered when buying high heels and lingerie again was that I enjoyed shopping for lovely things. I wanted to look better. Oh, come on-I wanted to look sexier. To pass by a window on the street and see in its reflection a man taking a second look at me.

I handed the woman my charge card and waited for her to ring up the purchase.

The women in the Scarlet Society had not given up what I’d given up. They pursued sexual thrills despite a society that didn’t offer an easy way for them to do that. They got what they wanted in business and they wanted to get it sexually, too. Was there anything wrong with that?

Shopping bag in hand, I walked away from the shoes and began looking at the clothes on the rest of the floor. I wanted to see if there were any chocolate-brown suits.

Nope. Nothing on four.

I went up another escalator and started browsing through the racks on five.

When I saw the brown velvet dress, I knew exactly why I wanted it and where I was going to wear it. To Dulcie’s Broadway opening. With the shoes.

It had stopped raining by the time I left the store. The doorman glanced at my two shopping bags and asked me if I wanted a taxi. I nodded, waiting while he stepped out into the street, held up his hand and hailed one for me.

I fished a dollar out of my bag and handed it to him as he opened the door. Then, making sure I was settled in, he closed it.

I knew what the odor was in the first ten seconds. The driver had been smoking a cigar in the cab before picking me up.

“Sorry,” I said. “Can you pull over? I’m sorry but I can’t stand the cigar smell.”

Cursing, he did. I let myself out of the cab. We’d only gone ten feet.

“Whatsa matter, lady, you crazy?” he called after me.

As I stepped up on the curb I thought about it. Whatsa matter, lady, you crazy? Such a throwaway phrase. So simple to say. No, I wasn’t crazy. I knew what the word really meant. I had seen crazy people. I had seen people go crazy. My mother. My patients. In June, I’d seen a man go crazy and murder a series of prostitutes because he thought he could save them. Five women had died.

And there was someone else out there who was crazy. Kidnapping men, killing them and taking their photographs.

I always wondered how the courts could declare that anyone who had taken someone else’s life was legally sane. It had to be an insane act to take a life that was not yours.