Read Online Hide Your Eyes by Alison Gaylin - Free Book Online Page A

at his face. ‘Shit.’

    ‘Who’s she?’

    I cleared my throat. ‘I’m Yale’s friend Samantha.’

    ‘Golly,’ he said. ‘Taking the gals to meet me already.’

    ‘Sam’s my best friend.’

    ‘Not to be rude, but what an ugly bag. Not you - your purse.’

    ‘I told you, Sam.’

    ‘Magic Mirrors,’ I said.

    ‘Cute name, huh?’

    ‘Cute.’

    Yale said, ‘I hate to break it to you, Peter, but I don’t think those contacts are one of a—Sam! You kicked me!’

    ‘Sorry. It was an accident.’

    ‘I need something,’ Peter said. He reached out and took Yale’s hand in his, then slowly brought it up to his mouth. Watching my face, he ran his full lips along the length of its underside, from the base of the palm to the tip of the middle finger. ‘That’s better,’ he said.

    Yale opened his mouth and closed it again, his cheeks coloring.

    ‘I have to go to the bathroom.’ I grabbed the damp shoulder bag and headed for th C heidte rear of the restaurant on stiff, uncooperative legs.

    All the while, I felt Peter’s mirrored eyes staring at the back of my head.

     
    ‘Okay,’ I said to my reflection. ‘Okay, okay, okay.’

    I wasn’t sure how long I’d been in this giant corpuscle of a bathroom, with its red toilet, sink and light bulbs; nor how long I’d been repeating the word, but it was starting to sound foreign. ‘Okayokayokay . . .’

    I looked deep into my own pupils, maroon under the tarty lights, and thought about Peter’s eyes, how they didn’t have pupils. I thought about how, when he’d turned toward me, all I could see in them were tiny, distorted segments of my own face. When he’d mouthed Yale’s hand, I’d seen doubles of my top lip.

    They were the same eyes as the Hudson River man’s, and Peter had said his contacts were one of a kind. ‘Okayokay . . .’

    Peter had close-cropped, dark hair, a broad, smooth forehead, black eyebrows. ‘Okay.’

    What an ugly bag , he’d said, bits of orange and brown embroidery in his eyes. The bag had been everywhere with me - the construction site, the box office, Great White. Was he letting me know he’d seen it before? Was he letting me know that he’d seen it - and me - before he tracked down and seduced my best friend? Was he letting me know that he could go anywhere, be anywhere at any time, that there was nowhere for me to go, nowhere for me to hide ?

    Yale would think I was insane if he were to hear me muttering into the mirror of the world’s reddest bathroom, considering the possibility that his gorgeous new boyfriend was a murderer and stalker who had spent Valentine’s Day dumping a picnic cooler full of body parts into the Hudson.

    He would think I was insane, and I wouldn’t blame him. Peter was probably not the same man I’d seen at the river. And even if he was . . . body parts ? More likely there was something harmless in the ice chest. Something along the lines of trash, battery acid, old clothes . . .

    Why couldn’t I shake off this suspicion? Why was I afraid to leave the bathroom? Why couldn’t I imagine myself saying, ‘Hey, Peter. Didn’t I see you and a woman down by the piers?’ if there wasn’t anything wrong with Peter and a woman being down by the piers?

    I splashed cold water in my face. ‘Okay,’ I said again. The muscles at the base of my skull clenched up, my headache was starting to return. I had to eat something. Somebody knocked on the door. I clutched the edge of the sink and took a deep, trembling breath. Finally, I unlocked the door and headed back to the counter.

    ‘That’s the men’s room, you know,’ a male voice called after me.

     
    ‘Are you all right?’ Yale asked when I returned.

    ‘Yeah, why?’

    ‘We thought you fell in,’ said Peter.

    ‘I was . . . in the men’s room.’

    ‘Well, that explains it.’ Peter winked a mirrored eye at me. I could see part of my cheek in it, a wisp of my hair.

    Peter had taken my seat at the counter, and Yale