My heart was pounding. She called herself stupid, but I was the one who felt like an idiot. I should have anticipated the possibility that she would meet Julie. I don’t know how I could have controlled that encounter; nevertheless, I ought to have made an attempt. In retrospect, it would have been more sensible to aim Halley at someone other than Edgar. But Edgar was the ideal lure; he represented a more powerful male than Stick — in the dynamic of Minotaur he was the Holy Spirit.
“Well …?” she demanded into my silence.
So the crisis had come — and not of my making, thus I was not only unprepared, I didn’t know for sure which illusion had been dissolved. “Where should we meet?”
“You want to come here?” she asked.
“No,” I said. No matter how much damage had been done, her home must remain the exclusive location of our incest rituals, unpolluted by reality.
“It’s a nice day. Why don’t we walk in the park?”
“Okay,” she said in mild tone. The background chord of triumph was unmistakable, however. “I need an hour to take a bath,” she said and laughed, a laugh that frightened me. It resonated with a strange combination of delight and despair.
“I’ll meet you outside your building.” It was too early to phone Julie. Besides, how would talking to her help? Assuming Halley had gained my cousin’s complete confidence — and knowing my charming little narcissist, I had to assume that — what could she have learned the she didn’t already know in some form or other? The answer: that Julie and I had had a love affair. And perhaps some details about the clinic. But probably nothing about Diane and me — unless Julie had heard through family gossip. Before Aunt Sadie died, during happier times for Diane and me, she knew we were more than colleagues. I didn’t think Julie had been in close touch with Sadie, but Sadie might have told Aunt Ceil, who … By the time I reached Halley’s building, although clouds had covered what seemed to be a promising morning for New York, they had lifted for me. I could guess now what Halley must be feeling. My surmise didn’t relax me about the outcome, but at least I was prepared.
Halley emerged from her building wearing black jeans and an oversized workshirt with the sleeves rolled above her elbows. Accompanying the clouds was a cool wet breeze blowing off the park. She peered up and said, “It’s going to rain.”
“Let’s risk it,” I said and turned.
She came up beside me. Her raven hair had been dried and combed into a thick mane that reached halfway down the blue shirt. She had a light pink shade of lipstick on. Her already dark skin was a deeper shade thanks to the West Coast. She didn’t say anything while we walked to the corner, crossed to the park, walking along its border toward an entrance.
“Well?” I said. “Why did you call me a liar?”
“I’m a fool, but you’re sick.” She brushed her high forehead with a hand as if hair had fallen across it. None had. She twisted my way, slowing, almost walking backwards. “I still can’t figure out what you think you’re doing. I guess I’m stupid too.”
I stopped, backed up to the park’s stone wall, and leaned against it. The sky was heavy with clouds. The cars on Central Park West passed in a hurry, as if racing to be home before the storm. “Did you sleep with Edgar?”
“None of your business,” she answered.
I smiled. “How was it?”
Halley’s beautiful mouth hung open. She looked away, peering at the swaying trees. I felt a drop of rain on my head. She returned her eyes to me and they were slightly crossed. “That’s what you were trying to do? Fuck me up so I couldn’t have sex?”
I beamed at her. “And could you?”
She stepped up to me, almost touching, and snapped, “He couldn’t keep his hands off me. He loved it.”
By now I was grinning. I seemed to struggle in order not to laugh as I asked, “And how was it for you?”
For the second time since I’d known her, I saw tears fill her eyes. “I did it for you. I played that sick game for you.”
Still grinning, I shook my head from side to side. “I didn’t lie to you, Halley. I told you — it isn’t my fantasy, it’s yours.”
She shut her eyes and stamped a foot, shouting, “Just tell me the truth!”
“What truth?” I whispered. Another drop fell on my head. The gray pavement behind her was spotted by rain.
“Did your loudmouth cousin—” she started to say, talking at the ground. She inhaled and looked up at me. She hadn’t been able to control the tears. Her eyes continued to fill. She arched up on tiptoe and pressed her lips on mine. My elbows were resting on the stone wall. She put her arms around my chest and hugged my stiff body. She tried to push her tongue through my sealed mouth. Failing to break through, she broke off and said, “Kiss me back!”
I shook my head grimly from side to side. There was hardly any gray pavement left. Dark spots of rain had blackened the sidewalk.
“Is she telling the truth?” Halley complained, her mouth trembling. “Did you live with her—?”
She stopped because I was nodding.
“And with that other woman — at your clinic?”
I nodded.
“Are you going back to her? Is that why you’re working there?”
I nodded and asked her wounded face, “You couldn’t feel anything while he fucked you. Is that it?”
She put her hands on my waist — my arms were still resting on the wall, refusing to give her anything. She said softly, “I’m going to say something to you and I mean it. I really mean it.” So far, the rain wasn’t falling hard enough through the leaves of a tall maple over our heads for much to penetrate. A drop hit her forehead and trailed down her sagging cheek. She shut her eyes and swallowed. “I love you,” she said, as if she were praying.
I said nothing.
She opened her eyes. They weren’t crossed or red. They were clear and innocent.
With a clatter the rain came hard and fast, rattling through the leaves and wetting us. “I don’t love you,” I said.
She pulled at me with her small hands. “You’re lying.”
“You were just research for my book,” I explained.
“I’ll get him to marry me,” she pleaded, the shape of her hair dissolving in the rain. “And then that’s it — we’re finished.”
I nodded.
“No more phone calls. No more hearing everything about me,” she said, her face shiny from the water.
“No more,” she said in a little girl’s voice.
“It’s over anyway, Halley. There never was anything to end.”
Her drenched face contorted. She slid up my chest, eyes shut, her lips parting to take mine. I felt her fingers grab at my groin. She didn’t kiss me. She screamed, “She said you love to fuck!”
She didn’t have a hold on anything vital, just the hump of fabric on my jeans’ zipper. Nevertheless, I couldn’t control my instinctive reaction. I pushed her. She staggered. But her fingers kept their grip on the bunch of material at my groin. She shouted into the noise of battered leaves, “She said you’re a real hot Latin—”
I didn’t hear the rest, because when I pried her hand off my jeans, she spun away and the words were lost on the wind and rain. I backed off, toward the avenue.
Halley was in a crouch by the stone wall, the oversized workshirt glued to her shoulders, hair drowned. Her hands were out, fingers arched into claws, and she yelled, “I’ll cut it off!”
I turned and walked away fast. I didn’t hear an attempt to follow. I doubt I could have through the storm. I kept my eyes forward until I reached the IND subway entrance and then looked back. No Halley.