“Why are we friends again?” I stare out onto Howard Street, wanting the six-feet-three, 260-pound Jake Tanner to reappear. I hadn’t gotten a good look at him the other day and my image of him is fuzzy. I’ve crafted him with a Seth Rogen physique, which is comforting for me. The guys with the real hard bodies are usually the biggest jerks. In my fantasy, Jake Tanner is a sweetheart who helps old ladies across the street and talks to virtual strangers on the phone for thirty minutes or so. The fact that it isn’t entirely a fantasy makes it all the more amazing. This guy texted me, talked to me, and flirted with me, all without meeting in person. He knows I’m fucked up in the head, but still made time to chat.
How could I not tumble head over heels in lust with him? I don’t even want to stop the fall. It’s harmless to have a crush—harmless and a little exciting. The rush of blood to my fingertips, the tingle up my spine? That’s not due to fear, but excitement. I welcome those feelings. I want them.
“We aren’t merely friends. I’m your editor, and a kick-ass one at that.”
“I wish you could edit my life.” Put me in a story with a hot security guy. He falls madly in love with me despite the fact that I don’t like leaving my apartment and that the prospect of meeting new people sends me to my bed for several days.
Daphne sighs and throws the magazine aside. “Isn’t that what Terrance is for? What does your therapist have to say about all of this?”
Dr. Joshua Terrance is probably the only one who knows the full extent of my crazy. “Too much. I preferred it when I had minimal contact with him.” Minimal for me was once a month. Since I got the note, I’ve been talking to him nearly every day . . . except for yesterday, when I spent thirty minutes on the phone with Jake.
“Good thing you earn so much money selling books, or you wouldn’t be able to afford him.”
“I know.” Daphne’s sympathetic look borders on pity, so I gaze outside again, away from it and toward the direction of uptown where Tanner Security is. In different circumstances, I could leave my apartment and take the subway uptown. From there I could walk a few blocks and end up outside Tanner Securities. I’d march in wearing some saucy dress and high heels and tell the receptionist to hold all of Tanner’s calls because he was going to be too busy servicing me to help anyone else.
A tingle of excitement causes me to clench my legs tightly together. I had a few naughty dreams about Jake last night. Ones that I shove into my mental closet so I don’t get flushed and aroused while I’m sitting with Daphne.
“It’s been so long. I think I’ve forgotten what sex is like.”
“It’s good, just FYI.”
“I keep thinking about him.” I run the back of my fingers along my collarbone wondering what it would be like if they were Jake’s and not mine.
“The asshole who sent you the note?”
“No, Jake. The security guy.”
“I have no idea who he is.”
“He’s tall and has a potbelly.”
“You let him in?” She sounds shocked, and that annoys me even if it would be a giant surprise that I let someone other than Oliver and Daphne inside.
“No. He told me.”
“He told you he was tall and had a potbelly? How did you have this conversation?”
“I asked him what he looked like.”
“And did you ask him what he was wearing at the time? Are you sure this is an actual security person and not some rent-a-cop?” She looks at me as if my conversation is entirely fiction, like my books.
“Oliver hired him. And I looked him up on the Internet. He’s got a real website, but no pictures. Isn’t that weird? Like, does a person exist if there isn’t a picture of him on the Internet? It’s like the Internet version of ‘if a tree falls in the forest.’”
“Not everyone is on the Internet twenty-four/seven like you.”
“True.”
“Why do you think he has a potbelly?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. He said he weighed 260 pounds, and based on the background in his bio, he might have muscular arms and stuff, but he’s probably soft around the middle. Right? I mean, that’s like a hundred pounds more than me.”
“Oliver weighs a hundred pounds more than you and there’s not an ounce of fat on him anywhere.”
“He’s a football player. They work out every day. This guy eats donuts in his office.”
“You have made some weird assumptions.”
He needs to be average. Really average, because the only way some guy would ever be interested in me was if he had no other options. My fantasies have always been weirdly realistic. Like I never fantasized about running into Ryan Gosling at the airport and having him rub his fine form against mine, but I was guilty of inserting a few random guys from around the city into my sexier thoughts. That was back in the day when I actually got outside and could see random people on a regular basis.
And these days all I have are fantasies. I don’t, of course, imagine being in a crowded rave, but I do dream of a day when I can walk outside, go to a bookstore, see a movie.
There are a whole host of things I could be doing, like visiting the set of my book’s movie, to which I’ve been invited more than once.
But I can’t and so my life has shrunk to the four walls of my apartment, three people, and the things I can conjure in my own head.
Today and yesterday, Jake is playing a big starring role in those imaginary happenings.
It’s completely harmless—for both him and me.
Outside there is only the regular traffic. I see all these people and I know—I know—that not one of them down there would hurt me, but the minute I try to go outside, my heart seizes. I can’t breathe. I start sweating like it’s 110 degrees and I’m running wind sprints. Even getting near the front door can cause me to hyperventilate. All that Jake will ever be is a fantasy. “It’s so fucking stupid, the power our minds have over us.”
“It’s also what makes you a great writer. Your imagination is big and powerful and sometimes it’s too powerful for even you.” She sets down the magazine.
“Thanks for trying to make me feel better.”
The chair squeaks as Daphne pushes out of it to join me at the window. “Think of it this way. Two weeks ago you were telling me you couldn’t write another word. Since the note came, you’ve been writing like you were possessed.”
“Because I am a madwoman. I have the actual crazy person diagnosis.” I don’t tell her that last night I got out of bed and wrote the steamiest scene I’d ever put on the page. My readers would probably be shocked, and in the end, I probably won’t include it, but damn, had it been hot.
“You are not mad. I know Dr. Terrance doesn’t like you to use that word. Hell, I don’t like you to use that word.”
I don’t like it either, but sometimes when I take a good hard look at myself, I can’t shake that I am not right in the head. The glass feels blessedly cool against my skin. I’m somewhere along the scale between normal and not, otherwise I could step outside my apartment without wanting to puke. I need to force myself. “Daphne, would you—?”
“No!” she nearly shouts. Hurrying, she tries to explain, but there’s no explanation necessary. I know what she’s going to say and I don’t blame her. “We are not going to the elevator again. I’m sorry, Natalie, but I just can’t. That was terrible. I know you want to recover, but what’s the rush?”
“It’d just be nice to go to Barneys. Try on shoes. Maybe go eat a Shake Shack burger.” See Jake Tanner in person. Put on a sexy dress and seduce him. Have some intimate contact with a real human being for the first time in forever!
“All those things can be delivered here. Stay here. Write. Get better. Before you know it, we’ll be having lunch at David Burke’s in Bloomingdale’s.”
“I know. Isn’t New York great?” I say without enthusiasm.
After Daphne leaves, I heave the biggest sigh known to womankind and then slump down in front of the French doors that lead out onto the
balcony. The room-darkening curtains are pushed to the side. The sun’s rays burning through the glass are about the only sunshine and outdoors I get. Two weeks ago, I was able to go up to Oliver’s penthouse apartment. We had dinner with his parents, who were visiting from Ohio.
Two weeks ago, I was standing outside the subway stop. Sure, I hadn’t been able to make myself go down the stairs and into the tunnel. That was my next goal, though. I would’ve made it—no. I’m going to make it.
It’s happening. In the future. All my progress isn’t relegated to the past.
What I need is for the good doctor to write me a prescription for elevator visits, because frankly with both Oliver and Daphne telling me that I need to stay inside, I’m beginning to wonder if I am pushing too hard.
Picking up my phone, I press the second contact on my Favorites screen. Favorites is a misnomer. If I never had to see or talk to Dr. Terrance again, I would be so happy. He’s not a bad guy but he’s a visible reminder of my psychosis. If I could, I’d make a list called “Un-favorites I have to stay in contact with.” I wouldn’t have gotten to the point of being able to stand outside without his aid. Even so, every visit and phone call is just a reminder of my weakness, my mental illness.
While another person might have fired him and found a new doctor, Daphne recommended Dr. Terrance, and I’ll admit that up until two weeks ago his methods have worked.
“Hello, Natalie, how are you today?”
“Not bad, Dr. Terrance. I was wondering about getting out of the apartment.”
He tut-tuts, the clicks of his tongue against the roof of his mouth as clear through the phone line as if he is standing next to me. It’s just as annoying in person.
“And what happened the last time that you ventured out?” he asks. Psychiatrists ask questions—at least that’s what I’ve learned. If I wrote a book featuring a psychiatrist, I’d wear out my question mark key. Were you sad when your parents died? When Oliver went away to college, were you upset? Why did you move to New York? When the person called you a whore and threatened to send dogs to rape you, were you scared?
Yes, yes, because Oliver came here, yes. He always knew the answers, but wanted me to say them, as if saying the answer, acknowledging my pain, somehow lessened the sting. It hasn’t yet, but I keep going back to him because I did get better. I was improving and I’m not going to let some note from some faceless neckbeard keep me from going outside again.
“I made it to the elevator.” I project as much gaiety as possible.
“And then you felt faint, vomited, and lost consciousness. You frightened your cousin, who called me in a panic and, had you not been revived, he would have taken you to the hospital where you would likely have been admitted—at least overnight—for observation.”
Hot-cheeked, I remain silent because his recitation is terribly accurate and nothing scares me more than being admitted. The feeling of suffocation inside the white walls of the psych ward with the antiseptic smells and the constant interruptions by the nurses and aides is a million times worse than the fear that overtakes me when I try to leave my apartment.
“Natalie?” he prompts.
Natalie with a question mark. I answer with my own query. “When do you think I’ll be able to leave my apartment?”
“It all depends. I’ve written you a scrip for Tofranil and you should take four 25 mg tablets a day. With food,” he adds as an afterthought. “Stay away from triggers like visitors and leaving your apartment. Once you’ve been on the dose for seven days and your anxiety is down to manageable levels, you may call me and we’ll try the elevator together, which is how we should have done it in the first place, isn’t that right?”
I ignore that question, which probably doesn’t require a response anyway. Dr. Terrance likes to be with me for every big “breakthrough.”
“Are you saying that I shouldn’t see Oliver or Daphne?”
“You can talk to them on the phone, but no in-person contact.”
“How am I supposed to eat?”
“Order in and have the food deposited outside your door as you usually do. You are still comfortable with the doormen delivering your goods, correct?”
I drop my head into my hands. Seven days of forced solitude? Well, Daphne would say to look at the bright side and think of all the writing I’ll get done. “Yeah, I’m okay with the doormen. Does it have to be Tofranil? I feel like a zombie on that.”
“You and Prozac have never gotten along, Natalie, or have you forgotten?”
“No.” Prozac makes me violently ill.
“Good. Take the Tofranil and let’s get ready to face the elevator together, hmm?”
Suitably chastened, I reply, “Right.”
“Oh, and Natalie, think about my proposition again, will you? I think it would be a wonderful service for the community.”
“Sure.”
Never happening in a million years, Dr. Terrance, I silently vow.
Hanging up, I stretch out on the floor and press one hand against the glass. Dr. Terrance wants to write a book about my experience. He says when I recover it will be a triumphant story of recovery and provide hope to other sufferers of extreme anxiety.
I don’t believe him, but partly because I don’t want it to be true. If it is true then repeatedly turning down his offer is super selfish of me because I should want to help other people, but it would mean laying my entire life bare; I had enough of the fishbowl three years ago when someone leaked that I was Natalie Beck. The unhappy trolls, who’d discovered that their favorite game had been written by a woman and not a man, made it their mission to uncover every piece of dirt in my past—who I’d slept with and how many times was of greatest interest. They read my innocuous tweets about cats and movies. Looked me up on message boards. They discovered my Facebook page and proceeded to comb over every status update as if they were the Watergate reporters.
Thankfully my connection to Oliver was never revealed. It was apparent early on in Oliver’s high school career that he was someone special. To prevent me from suffering abuse from nosy people on the Internet as he became more famous, we hid our connection. It was easier to do that now when we lived in the same building. Most of the people here were very private for one reason or another, and Oliver’s visits to my apartment or mine to his have never been remarked on publicly.
After my identity was revealed, he wanted to blast everyone who hurt me, go on talk shows and the like, but I begged him not to. I knew it would only make it worse. He’d been coming off a terrible season and his social media accounts were filled with hostility too. It would have been gasoline on a fire.
No, there won’t ever be a book written about me—at least not without my permission.
I roll to my side and stare out the bottom of the glass door. It’s all academic anyway. There’s no triumphant recovery. Not yet.
And after the note?
Maybe not ever.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JAKE
“Glad you could make it,” Ian says with sourness as I slip into my courtside seat.
“Work,” I answer. I’d spent the afternoon running down possible leads in Natalie’s case. Oliver provided me a list of her former coworkers, people they thought could have been behind the subway attack, and her ex-boyfriends—only one actually lives in New York City; the other two were from her hometown in Indiana. I put an investigator on the one who lives in Brooklyn. “How long has he been like this?” I ask Kaga, who is seated next to Ian. Their long legs are stretched perilously close to the out-of-bounds line. Anyone who thinks Asians are short hasn’t met Kaga, who tops me by an inch.
“Since the opening tip-off,” Kaga replies with a roll of his coal-black eyes.
We both turn to look at Ian, who apparently came from the office since he’s still wearing his suit. His collar is unbuttoned and his undoubtedly very expensive silk tie is hanging halfway out of his pocket. He invited us out tonight to witness the shellacking of the Knicks by the Atlanta Hawk
s. He flips us off but doesn’t take his eyes off the court.
The Knicks haven’t been good since Willis Reed¸ and I suppose it’s a measure of Ian’s steadfastness that he still pays good money for this type of torture. And if there’s anyone who has money to burn, it’d be him.
Ian Kerr is a billionaire. When he plays poker, there are only a few people in the world who can afford to sit with him. I’m not one of them. I only have a few million to my name, and unlike Ian, who transformed himself from a street rat who ran small cons on the Atlantic City boardwalk, my paltry millions are inherited from my grandfather. The Tanners have a long history of modest wealth based on the founding branch having manufactured and sold gunpowder during the Civil War—a decent work ethic interrupted by a few spendthrifts means our money has lasted but hasn’t grown.
Besides, a seven-figure net worth in the city is nearly a dime a dozen. One in twenty New Yorkers can lay claim to that.
“Watching the home team lose makes me thirsty,” I declare and hold up my arm to signal the beer hostess.
Kaga’s lip curls. “How can you drink that piss water?”
“Don’t have much choice here.”
Kaga’s one of those men whose fortune rivals Ian’s. His large Japanese conglomerate distributes everything from domestic beverages to some of the best brandy known to man. Kaga’s making inroads in the international real estate community as well. Soon half of New York will be owned by Kerr and the other half by Kaga. Since both pay me a lot of money to do investigative and security work for them, I’m completely fine with their impending takeover. Could be worse.
It was Ian’s and my mutual interest in cars that led to our first meeting at a Long Island body shop that worked on foreign sports cars. I was getting my tires rotated on my Audi A8, one of my few extravagances, and he was eying a custom remake of a 1970s McLaren F1, which cost about as much as an apartment on the Upper East Side.
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