The Pillow Friend by Lisa Tuttle

Author:Lisa Tuttle [Tuttle, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Horror
ISBN: 9780553383348
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 1996-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

His telephone call woke her from a sound sleep a little before noon. Her heart jerked and jolted and began to race at the sound of his voice but she didn't know what she was feeling. He asked her to meet him for lunch, telling her nothing with his tone of voice.

They arranged to meet in a sandwich shop just around the corner from the Driskill Hotel. Walking along the street she glimpsed him through the plate-glass windows and could see, even from that distance, that he was practically quivering with a tightly controlled nervous excitement. Her stomach began to hurt. As she walked through the door and he saw her, he reached into his jacket and found a pack of cigarettes. By the time she reached his table he was lighting up.

“Um, I don't think you're allowed to smoke in here.” They were not remotely any of the words she'd imagined greeting him with, but she'd seen the tight-lipped disapproval on the face of a waitress and had to warn him.

“Oh, Christ.” He held the cigarette away and looked around for somewhere to stub it out but there were no ash-trays, just “We ask customers to kindly refrain from smoking” cards on every table. He put the cigarette between his lips and stood up, rocking the fragile table. “We'll go somewhere else.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, stumbling after him. “I wouldn't have suggested it if I'd known, but—I never saw you smoke before.”

“I meant to give it up. This trip seemed like a good opportunity, a natural break from all my old habits, but when I got up this morning, I really—where are we going? I wouldn't mind a stroll, usually, but it's raining.”

She took him to the closest place she knew that served lunch, a cavernous bar in the next block which featured jazz bands in the evenings and creole specials for lunch. It was all but deserted this Saturday afternoon, and there were ashtrays on every one of the scarred, wooden tables. Graham stared at the chalkboard menu with a pained expression.

“The seafood gumbo is good,” she said helpfully.

“All I want is something plain. All this spicy food is ruining my stomach. Don't you have ordinary cafes here? Does everything have to be ethnic?”

“We could go somewhere else.”

“No, no, this is all right. I'll have a hamburger.”

She had to translate his order for the uncomprehending waitress. “He wants a plain hamburger, nothing on it, just meat in a bun. No mustard or relish or anything like that, okay? Just a plain hamburger.”

“He wants it dry?”

“Yeah.”

Graham lit another cigarette and inhaled, his face closed and brooding. She sat and looked at him until he answered her gaze. He looked accusing. “Why did you leave me?”

“I left a note.”

“Thank you very much for that. But it didn't explain anything.”

She was aware of his pain, which itched and pricked as if it were something spiky she'd swallowed. “What was I supposed to explain? I had some stuff to do . . .

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