Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [49]
3
“Come over here, sweet pea,” Amanda Hutchinson said, motioning with her hand. Her voice betrayed her southern accent, something that Julie was surprised hadn’t faded away over the years. Amanda had been born in Georgia, had moved with her family to New York when young, and somewhere in there had moved South again before moving back to Manhattan when she and Hut had been together as a couple. She sat in a cushioned chair, near the window. There were ornate scroll-like iron bars across the window, as if the institution wanted to disguise the fact that this was to keep patients from jumping, and instead, made it look like decorative art.
Julie noticed that mental illness had been kind to Amanda. She didn’t have the look of the others on the hall. She had retained her beauty—at forty—and her mane of jet black hair was shiny and neatly arranged around her shoulders. She wore a minimum of make-up, and her face was a pure white. She had the formal air of a deposed princess that Julie had remembered from a previous visit, before Livy was born. Although, back then, Amanda had been more heavily sedated, and the right meds had not quite been found for her, so she had looked haggard. Now, she positively glowed.
Julie stepped into the room. It smelled clean and fresh, with a faint pine scent lingering.
Amanda held her hand up. “Come on, I won’t bite, even though they say I do.”
Julie grinned, and went to her. Took her hand. “Hello, Amanda.”
Amanda squeezed her hand a little too tightly, and Julie felt intense heat in the palm of her hand. “Aren’t you just the picture of delicious? You got balls coming here, Mrs. Hutchinson Number Two. Big hairy balls.” She said it in a southern sing-song voice, like she was the mistress of some great plantation.
“Call me Julie. Please.”
“I like calling you Number Two Wife. I’m Wife Number One. Mother to the heir apparent. You’re just second in the harem.” She let go of Julie’s hand, finally. Julie noticed that there were faint scars on Amanda’s hands, as if a cat had scratched her up.
Amanda rubbed one hand over the other, unselfconsciously. She seemed to enjoy the attention. “Tell me, sweet thing, you have any contraband?” She said “contraband” like it had seven syllables, the honeyed southern thing growing a bit old for Julie. It felt like an act.
Julie tried to keep the slight smile plastered on her face, but it was getting difficult.
“I just mean cigarettes, dear gaw-ad,” Amanda said, “you look like you thought I was asking for cocaine or something.”
“Want me to go get you some?”
Amanda’s eyes twinkled. “He must’ve loved hearing you ask ‘How high?’ whenever he asked you to jump.” She motioned toward a wooden chair in a corner. “Pull that thing over. Just throw all the magazines off.”
After Julie scooted the chair closer to Amanda’s, she sat down and hesitated before saying, “I’m really glad you agreed to see me.”
“Why wouldn’t I? I have nothing to fear now. I’m dispatched like a Queen to the tow-uh. Look at all this,” she laughed, pointing to the TV set on the wall, and narrow bed. “I suppose I’ll be here until the day I die. I’ll be moved downstairs where the little old ladies push their walkers around and talk about how life turned out awful for them. But it’s better than being out there, out where the wild things roam.”
“You’re not in here against your will,” Julie said.
Amanda Hutchinson smiled, broadly. She looked down to Julie’s feet, then up her legs, her hips, her waist, her breasts, settling on her face. Julie remembered something that Hut had told her, about Amanda’s ambiguity. She had always thought he’d meant something to do with her indecisiveness, but now wondered if he hadn’t meant that she was bisexual. She certainly seemed to be checking her out the way crude men sometimes had in the past.
“I completely volunteered