The Boy Next Door
Page 26
Oh, dear. I just got a very angry e-mail from John. It appears that he’s found out about the letter I wrote. He was quite put out about it, and warned me on no uncertain terms to stay out of his love life. He added that I should tell you the same.
I suggest we move on to Plan B at once.
Mim
To: Sebastian Leandro
From: Max Friedlander
Subject: I know there’s probably
no point in asking, but you haven’t found any work for me lately, have you?
Max
To: Max Friedlander
From: Sebastian Leandro
Subject: Look
I could live without this attitude of yours. I have presented you with plenty of assignments, none of which you have chosen to take. I can’t help it if you won’t take less than two thousand a day, have a prejudice against unnatural fibers, or even refuse to consider shooting fashions for teens.
My job is to find you work, and I have found you work. YOU are the one who’s turning it down.
Max, you are just going to have to face the fact that you must lower your rates. Your work is good, but you’re no Annie Leibovitz. Photographers who are every bit as talented as you are are charging way less. That’s just the way it goes. Things change…either move with the times or get left behind.
When you drop out and spend untold months in Florida with last year’s It Girl, you get left behind. I hate to say I told you so, but, well, I told you so.
Sebastian
To: Sebastian Leandro
From: Max Friedlander
Subject: Yeah, well,
you know what? I don’t need you, or your cheesy Sears portrait studio assignments. I am an artist, and as such, am taking my services elsewhere. You can consider my contract with your agency terminated as of this moment.
Max Friedlander
To: Mel Fuller
From: Max Friedlander
Subject: My aunt
I know you’ve visited my aunt since she’s been in the hospital. What are the visiting hours there?
Max Friedlander
To: Nadine Wilcock
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: Max Friedlander
Nadine! Remember when I told you that I thought I knew who attacked Mrs. Friedlander? Well, I sort of started thinking it might have been Max. I mean, Vivica says he was at his aunt’s apartment one night right before they left for Key West, and that had to be close to when Mrs. Friedlander was struck, although of course I can’t get her to pin down the exact date.
And now Max wants to know the visiting hours at his aunt’s hospital. The visiting hours, Nadine. He’s never visited her before now….
And that’s because he could never figure out how he was going to finish her off before. But he knows now, because I told him! Remember? I told him about Sunny von Bülow and how Claus injected her with an insulin overdose, and how he should have done it between the toes where no one would notice a needle-mark….
Yes! I actually said that! I mean, you know how I read mysteries, and I was just talking, you know. I didn’t think he was actually going to take one of Tweedledum’s syringes and some insulin and go visit his poor comatose aunt in her hospital room and KILL HER!!!
Nadine, what should I do??? Do you think I should call the police? I never actually believed Max would do something as heinous as try to kill his own aunt—I mean, I was going to write a story about it and give it to George, to show him I can do hard news, but I never actually thought, I mean, I didn’t really believe…
But Nadine, I do now, I really believe he’s going to try to kill her!!! What should I do???
Mel
To: Mel Fuller
From: Nadine Wilcock
Subject: Max Friedlander
Mel. Honey. Calm down.
Max Friedlander is not going to kill his aunt. All right?
You are letting the stress of your breakup with John and the whole suspension thing get the better of you. Max Friedlander is not going to inject his aunt with her cat’s insulin. Okay? People don’t do things like that. Well, they do in the movies, and in books and things, but not in real life. I think you’ve seen Shadow of a Doubt one too many times.
Just take a deep breath and think about it. Why would Max do something like that? I mean, really, Mel. He is a big loser, it’s true. He treated Vivica—not to mention you—very badly. But that doesn’t make him a murderer. A big stupid jerk, but not a murderer.
All right? Now if you want to take a little walk with me outside the building, get a little fresh air to clear your head, I’d be happy to go with you. I heard there’s a sale over at Banana Republic. We could go look at some nice silk sweater sets, if you want.
But please do not call the police to report that Max Friedlander is contemplating killing his aunt. You will only be wasting their time and your own.
Nad
To: Vivica@sophisticates.com
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: Max
Vivica, please. I am begging you. Can you remember anything, anything at all, that might help pinpoint what night it was you and Max were at my building? It could be a matter of life and death.
Mel
To: Mel Fuller
From: Vivica@sophisticates.com
Subject: WOW
IT SURE IS IMPORTANT TO YOU TO KNOW WHAT NIGHT MAX AND I WERE AT HIS AUNT’S, HUH? DID YOUR DRY CLEANER LOSE A SWEATER OF YOURS THAT DAY OR SOMETHING? I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS.
I REALLY WISH I COULD REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS EXACTLY, SO I COULD HELP YOU.
OH, WAIT. I KNOW THERE WAS SOME KIND OF PLAYOFF GAME, BECAUSE ALL THE CARS THAT WENT BY WHILE I WAS WAITING IN THE CAR, THEY HAD THE GAME ON. AND WE WERE LOSING, SO EVERYBODY WAS REALLY MAD.
OH, AND THERE WAS NO DOORMAN. IT WAS WEIRD, BECAUSE MAX JUST WALKED RIGHT IN, AND NOBODY STOPPED HIM. BUT WHILE HE WAS GONE THIS CHINESE FOOD DELIVERY MAN CAME, AND HE LOOKED ALL AROUND THE LOBBY FOR THE DOORMAN, SO HE COULD CALL UP TO THE PEOPLE HE WAS DELIVERING TO AND TELL THEM HE WAS COMING.
THE REASON I NOTICED WAS BECAUSE THE CHINESE FOOD DELIVERY MAN WAS WEARING ACID-WASHED JEANS, WHICH ARE SO TOTALLY EIGHTIES, BUT I GUESS IF YOU ARE AN IMMIGRANT YOU WOULDN’T KNOW THAT. AND I WAS THINKING WE SHOULD REALLY START SOME KIND OF EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR THE IMMIGRANTS SO THEY WOULD KNOW WHAT TO WEAR, SO AS NOT TO STAND OUT SO MUCH. KNOW WHAT I MEAN? LIKE, YOU KNOW HOW CHRISTIE AND NAOMI AND CINDY STARTED THE FASHION CAFÉ? I WAS THINKING I COULD START, LIKE, A FASHION SCHOOL, FOR PEOPLE WHO COME TO NEW YORK FROM CHINA AND HAITI AND THE MIDWEST AND STUFF.
ANYWAY, FINALLY MR. ACID-WASHED JEANS FOUND HIM—THE DOORMAN, I MEAN—AND GOT BUZZED UP. THEN THE DOORMAN WENT AWAY AGAIN, AND RIGHT THEN MAX CAME DOWN, AND THE TWO OF US LEFT.
DOES THAT HELP?
VIVICA
To: Max Friedlander
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: Your aunt
Dear Mr. Friedlander,
Your aunt is in the intensive care unit, which means she can’t have visitors. Ever. In fact, they get mad if you even ask if you can visit people who are in the ICU. Because people who are in the ICU are in very, very unstable condition, and the slightest germ from the outside world might make them worse. So not only are there no visitors allowed, but the room is constantly monitored for movement with motion detectors, so even if you tried to sneak in there, you would get caught right away.
So, I wouldn’t even try to go visit your aunt. Sorry. But I bet if you sent a card, they’d show it to her when she wakes up.
Mel Fuller
To: M
el Fuller
From: Max Friedlander
Subject: My aunt
I just thought you might be interested to know that I found out from her physician that my aunt was moved out of the ICU a month ago. She is now in a private room. She is, of course, still in a coma, but she can be visited any day between four and seven o’clock.
Her prognosis, I’m sorry to say, is not good.
Max Friedlander
To: Mel Fuller
From: Stacy Trent
Subject: John
Dear Ms. Fuller,
You don’t know me, but you do know my brother-in-law, John. I am sorry to write to you this way, seeing as how we’ve never actually been introduced, but I couldn’t sit still and watch what was happening between you and John without saying something.
Melissa—I hope you don’t mind if I call you Melissa; I feel like I know you, from all the talking John’s done about you—I know that what John and his friend Max did was very, very wrong. I was completely shocked when I heard about it. In fact, I urged him to tell you the truth from the very beginning.
But he was afraid you’d be so mad at him, you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him…a fear that unfortunately proved well founded. And so he chose instead to wait for that “perfect moment” to tell you.
Except that, as you or I could have told him, there is no perfect moment to hear that the person you have fallen in love with has misrepresented himself in some way.
I am not saying that you do not have ample reason to be furiously angry with John. And I absolutely adored the creative manner in which you got back at him. But don’t you think he has suffered long enough?
Because he is suffering, very badly. Why, when he came by the other night to see the baby—I just had my third, a boy we named John after my twin daughters’ favorite uncle (see? He’s well liked by children, which means he can’t be all bad)—he looked quite dreadful. I swear he’s lost at least ten pounds.
I know how maddening men can be (do I ever—I’ve been married to John’s older brother Jason for a decade), but I also remember from my single days how truly hard it is to find a good one…and that’s what John is, despite what you might think, based on his behavior toward you so far.
Won’t you please give him a second chance? He really is crazy about you—and I can prove it. I’d like to offer you John’s own words, in e-mails he has sent to me over the course of the past few months. Perhaps, after reading them, you will come to the same conclusion I did: that the two of you have managed to find something very few of us in this world are lucky enough to discover: a soulmate.
>So what do you want to know?
>
>Did she believe I was Max Friedlander? I am sorry to say that she did.
>
>Did I play the part of Max Friedlander to perfection? I guess I must have, or she wouldn’t have believed I was he.
>
>Do I feel like a grade-A heel for doing it? Yes. Self-flagellation.
>A for me.
>
>The worst part is…well, I already told you the worst part. She thinks I’m Max Friedlander. Max Friedlander, the ingrate who doesn’t even seem to care that someone coldcocked his eighty-year-old aunt.
>
>Melissa cares, though.
>
>That’s her name. The redhead. Melissa. People call her Mel. That’s what she told me. “People call me Mel.” She moved to the city right after college, which makes her about twenty-seven years old, since she’s lived here for five years. Originally, she’s from Lansing, Illinois. Have you ever heard of Lansing, Illinois? I’ve heard of Lansing, Michigan, but not Lansing, Illinois. She says it’s a small town where you can walk down Main Street and everyone goes, “Oh, hi, Mel.”
>
>Just like that. “Oh, hi, Mel.”
>
>She showed me where Max’s aunt keeps the dog and cat food. She told me where to buy more, in case I ran out. She told me what Paco’s favorite walks were. She showed me how to lure a cat named, and I kid you not, Mr. Peepers, out from underneath the bed.
>
>She asked me about my work for the Save the Children fund. She asked me about my trip to Ethiopia. She asked me if I’d been to visit my aunt in the hospital, and if it had upset me very much, seeing her with all those tubes coming out of her. She patted me on the arm and told me not to worry, that if anyone could come out of a coma, it was my aunt Helen.
>And I stood there and grinned like an idiot and pretended I was Max Friedlander.
>
>I’ve met this completely terrific girl. I mean completely terrific, Stace: She likes tornadoes and the blues, beer, and anything to do with serial killers. She eats up celebrity gossip with as much enthusiasm as she attacks a plate of moo shu pork, wears shoes with heels that are way too high and looks fabulous in them—but manages to look just as fabulous in Keds and a pair of sweat-pants.
>
>And she’s nice. I mean, really, truly, genuinely kind. In a city where no one knows his neighbors, she not only knows hers, but actually cares about them. And she lives in Manhattan. Manhattan, where people routinely step over the homeless in an effort to get into their favorite restaurants. As far as Mel seems to be concerned, she never left Lansing, Illinois, population 13,000. Broadway might as well be Main Street.
>
>I’ve met this completely terrific girl….
>
>And I can’t even tell her my real name.
>
>No, she thinks I’m Max Friedlander.
>
>I know what you’re going to say. I know exactly what you’re going to say, Stace.
>
>And the answer is no, I can’t. Maybe if I’d never lied to her about it in the first place. Maybe if right from the first moment I met her I’d said, “Listen, I am not Max. Max couldn’t make it. He feels really bad about what happened to his aunt, so he sent me in his place.”
>
>But I didn’t, all right? I blew it. I blew it from the very beginning.
>
>And now it’s too late to tell her the truth, because anything else I ever try to tell her, she’ll think I’m lying about that, too. Maybe she won’t admit it. But in the back of her mind, it will always be there. “Maybe he’s lying about this, too.”
>
>Don’t try to tell me she won’t, either, Stace.
>
>So there you have it. My hellish life, in a nutshell. Got any advice? Any sage words of womanly wisdom to throw my way?
>
>No, I didn’t think so. I am perfectly aware of the fact that I’ve dug this grave myself. I guess I have no choice but to lie down in it.
>
>What do you want me to say, anyway? That she’s exactly what I’ve been looking for in a woman all this time, but never dared hope I’d find? That she’s my soulmate, my kismet, my cosmic destiny? That I’m counting the minutes until I can see her again?
>
>Fine. There. I’ve said it.
I found this particular bit most interesting:
>I bought her a ring. An engagement ring.
>
>And no, this isn’t like the time in Vegas. I have not been perpetually drunk for the past three months. I genuinely believe that this woman, out of all the women I have ever known, is the one with whom I want to spend the rest of my life.
>
>I was going to tell her the truth, and then propose, in Vermont.
>
>Now she won’t answer my phone calls, open her door, or reply to my e-mails.
>
>My life is over.
Well, there you have it. I hope you won’t discuss what you have just read with John. He would never speak to me again if he found out I had shared all this with you.
But I had to. I really had to. Be
cause I think it’s important for you to know…well, how much he loves you.
That’s all.
Sincerely,
Stacy Trent
To: Nadine Wilcock
From: Dolly Vargas
Subject: Mel
Darling, do you have any idea why Mel is weeping in the ladies’? It’s extremely annoying. I was trying to show the new fax boy how cozy it can be for two in the handicapped-accessible stall, but her incessant sobs completely killed the mood.
XXXOOO
Dolly
To: Dolly Vargas
From: Nadine Wilcock
Subject: Mel
I don’t know why she’s crying. She won’t tell me. She’s barely speaking to me since I shot down her theory that Max Friedlander is trying to kill his aunt.
But I’m not the only one. Apparently, no one will believe her. Not even Aaron.
I have to admit, I’m worried. It’s like Mel’s taken this whole thing with John and turned it around so that it’s all about Max and his attempts at aunty-cide.
Maybe we should call somebody down in Human Resources. I mean, maybe she’s cracking up.
What do you think?
Nad
To: John Trent
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: Max Friedlander
Dear John,
I forgive you.
Now we’ve got a real problem: I think Max Friedlander is going to try to kill his aunt! I think he tried to do it once before, but loused it up. We’ve got to stop him. Can you come over right away?
Mel
To: Nadine Wilcock
From: George Sanchez
Subject: Where the hell is