The Follower

by Jason Starr

  So he called her landline again, and when her voice mail answered, he had no choice but to leave another message. Shit, why hadn’t he tried her cell? Now he was stuck with nothing to do except wait for her to call back. If he called her cell now and then she came home and found the message and the missed call on her phone’s log, she’d think he was some kind of nutcase.

  He continued watching the movie. Although he’d seen Sleepless more times than he could count, he never got tired of it. The first time he’d seen it, he was sixteen. He’d rented it from the video store in Lenox and loved it so much that he spent a whole weekend watching it again and again. He couldn’t help crying during the scene at the end when Tom Hanks met Meg Ryan for the first time at the Empire State Building. It was the way he looked at her, with all his longing for her finally realized, that always got to Peter. There were other movies like that, ones he never got tired of watching. It was mainly the classic love stories from the eighties and nineties, like Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, and When Harry Met Sally, that did it for him. He liked the predictability of watching movies he’d already seen, of knowing exactly what was coming next. But it had to be a love story or a movie with romance in it. He hated violence. Seeing blood—even fake blood—was way too disturbing.

  Peter couldn’t wait to move into the new apartment and watch movies with Katie on their home theater. Maybe, for old times’ sake, he’d christen the new TV set with Sleepless in Seattle. He knew Katie would love the movie because she’d love all the things he loved. Maybe he’d even pop the question to her on top of the Empire State Building. She’d appreciate the thoughtfulness of it, and it would be a special moment she’d cherish forever.

  It must’ve been a romantic comedy marathon or something, because Till There Was You, another of Peter’s all-time favorites, came on next. Another hour went by and he realized he hadn’t eaten since a bran muffin for breakfast, so he decided to go out to have some dinner. He went across the street to a decent Japanese place he’d eaten at several times since he’d been in New York. He sat at the sushi bar and ordered the chirashi, but he was so distracted, thinking about Katie, that he could only manage a few bites. It frustrated him that he couldn’t remember everything Katie had said to him earlier. He could recall most of the conversation, but there were gaps. Next time he saw her he was going to bring a digital recorder so he could record everything to play back later. Although he was happy with most of what he thought he’d said to her, he wished he hadn’t acted so harshly when she offered to set him up with her friend. He thought he’d covered for it well afterward, but his initial reaction might have turned her off. Maybe she thought he was weird, or had a temper, and that’s why she wasn’t returning his call.

  He felt queasy, as if his stomach wasn’t handling the food. He left a twenty-dollar bill next to his plate and rushed back to the hotel across the street, just making it into the bathroom in time. Sitting there, staring at his cell phone, he wondered if it was possible that she somehow didn’t get the message. Maybe the answering system on her phone was broken, or maybe her roommate had played the message and deleted it without telling Katie. Or maybe Katie was just playing games. Some girls didn’t like calling back guys too quickly, thinking it made them seem too desperate.

  No, Katie wasn’t the game-playing type. She didn’t get the message—Peter was convinced of it. He left the bathroom and sat at the foot of the bed. After rehearsing possible conversations in his head for several minutes, he called her cell. Her voice mail picked up right away, meaning the phone was probably off. He ended the call and tried her home number.

  “Hello.”

  “Katie?” He was sweating.

  “No, it’s Susan. Katie’s not here. Can I take a message?”

  She didn’t sound at all like Katie. What was he thinking?

  “Um, no.” Shit, he hadn’t prepared for this. He’d have to wing it and he hated winging it. “This is her, um, friend, Peter. Do you know, uh, when she’ll be back?”

  “She didn’t say. I think she went to a movie or something. Can I take a message, or do you want to call back and leave one on her voice mail?”

  Peter didn’t want there to be two messages from him on her voice mail, and a voice mail and written message would be even worse.

  “Oh no, that’s okay, I’ll just talk to her later,” he said. “Thanks.”

  He ended the call and threw his cell phone onto an armchair and watched it bounce onto the rug. What the hell was he thinking, calling her? Now her roommate would tell her that some guy named Peter called but didn’t leave a message and then, when Katie listened to her voice mail, she’d either think it was strange that he’d called twice, or she might think that there was no urgent reason to call back because he’d said he’d “talk to her later.” Peter slapped the top of his head a few times, then realized what he was doing and stopped. He had to come up with a plan, some way out of this. He couldn’t take not hearing from her today, or even tomorrow. He had to hear her voice, talk to her, at least see her.

  He opened a drawer, took out his Yankees cap and cheap sunglasses, and went down to the street and hailed a cab. He knew he might regret this, but he didn’t care.

  He had the driver drop him off on Second and Ninetieth, a few blocks from Katie’s apartment. He walked up the avenue toward her block, looking around to make sure she wasn’t nearby. It pissed him off that he had to do all this sneaking around crap again. After he’d “met her” at the health club, he thought he was done with all that. He thought they could have a normal relationship from then on, be like any other two people falling in love. But he knew he had to wear the disguise tonight. He was planning to wait across the street from her apartment, to watch her when she came home from the movie. He couldn’t actually say anything to her, though, or let her see him, because he knew she wouldn’t believe that he had just run into her by accident on a side street where there wasn’t much pedestrian traffic.

  He found a good spot, near a parked SUV, directly across the street from her apartment. He’d be able to see her perfectly, and if she saw him he could duck and hide behind the car.

  It was past ten o’clock. After waiting a while longer, Peter started to wonder if it was possible he’d missed her, if she’d already returned from the movie and gone into her apartment. It had taken him about twenty minutes to get from his hotel room to where he stood now, and it was very possible that she had come home while he was on his way over. But there was no way he was leaving now. He’d rather stay where he was all night just for the chance of seeing her than go back to the hotel and have to sit there, waiting for the goddamn phone to ring.

  He waited another hour or so. He had to pee badly and was about to go between an SUV and another car when he saw Katie walking up the block on the opposite side of the street. He was so excited to see her that he almost shouted her name and he didn’t notice right away that she was with that guy again, the frat boy.

  Peter was shocked. He didn’t understand how, after she had met him, she could want to be with anyone else. He was especially surprised to see her with Frat Boy again. He knew she was an intelligent, sensible girl and he would have expected her to have better judgment than to go out with a guy who had absolutely no respect for her, who had treated her like dirt.

  He slipped behind the SUV for better cover, and then he peered out slightly and watched them stop in front of her building. If they went inside, he didn’t know what he’d do. Maybe he’d go after them and try to stop them somehow. Who knows? Maybe he’d even fight the guy. Girls always loved that, when guys fought over them, and Peter knew he could whip the skinny frat boy, especially if he took him by surprise.

  But they weren’t going inside—not yet anyway. They were talking, and although Peter couldn’t hear what they were saying, they seemed to be having a serious conversation, probably about the state of their relationship. Frat Boy was doing most of the talking, using a lot of hand gestures to help plead his case, as Katie stood there with her
arms crossed, looking unconvinced. Peter had read a lot of books on body language and knew that excessive hand gestures were a telltale sign of insincerity, and he hoped that, if Katie didn’t know this, too, she at least sensed it and wouldn’t fall for his crap.

  But then Katie’s arms relaxed at her sides and she smiled a few times at whatever Frat Boy was saying to her. He was so phony, such a bullshit artist. Couldn’t she see it?

  Then Peter read her lips as she said good night and backed away a couple of steps toward her building’s doors. Maybe she’d blow him off after all, but no, Frat Boy followed her and she stopped. They talked for another minute or so and she seemed into the conversation, smiling, and even laughing once, and when he reached out to hold her hand, she let him. All of it was making Peter nauseous. Then they kissed good night. It wasn’t a peck good night on the cheek. It was a real kiss, a long kiss—it seemed practically endless. Peter felt acid rising through his throat, stinging his tonsils.

  This was all wrong. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go at all. In all the hours he’d spent, working out scenarios in his head, rehearsing lines, he hadn’t even contemplated this possibility. They were supposed to be kissing right now, not them. They were supposed to be in love already, starting the rest of their lives together. He didn’t know how things had gotten so screwed up so quickly.

  Finally the kiss ended. Peter read Katie’s lips, Call me, and heard Frat Boy say, “I definitely will.” Then Katie went into the vestibule of her building. Frat Boy remained standing there, watching her, and after Katie opened the inner door, she turned back to look at him. He made a gesture with his hand of sipping a drink from a glass—probably some inside joke between them because it made her laugh—and then she waved goodbye and went upstairs.

  Peter remained behind the SUV, watching Frat Boy walk up the block toward Second Avenue. It took a while for Peter to get hold of himself. He couldn’t believe that Katie was still with that loser and he wasn’t exactly sure how to handle it. He knew he had to adjust his plan, the same way a general needs to adjust his army’s tactics after a sneak attack by the enemy. The problem was he didn’t know what adjustments to make because he hadn’t even contemplated the possibility of failure.

  He went across the street, into the vestibule of her building. Her name wasn’t posted, but the buzzer of Apartment 10 had a label S. Roberts above it. He remembered Katie’s roommate saying her name was Susan, so Peter figured that this was the right apartment. He knew if he buzzed right now, Katie probably wouldn’t even ask who it was. She’d think it was Frat Boy and let him right up. When she opened her door and saw him there instead, she’d be surprised. But then they’d sit down and he’d explain everything, lay it all on the table. He’d tell her that he was in love with her and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Then she’d start to cry and admit that she was in love with him, too. Then the music would swell up and they’d kiss.

  Although Peter knew he could win her over tonight very easily, he decided to do the smart thing and play it safe. In all love stories, things work out, the hero gets the girl in the end—it was guaranteed. The competition—if you could call it that—from Frat Boy was actually a good thing. Compared to that slimeball, Peter knew he would come off as an even better catch. Besides, there’s always “the other guy” who seems right for the girl, who seems like he might get her, but who really has no chance at all. The other guy is just a plot device, an obstacle, and in the end his only purpose is to make the victory for the hero even sweeter.

  ELEVEN

  Another Monday morning, another day Katie didn’t want to get out of bed. After hitting the snooze button three times she finally dragged herself into the shower. A cup of coffee with Splenda barely had any effect. She felt like she could crawl back under the covers and sleep till noon.

  She had some good days, when the city didn’t seem so bad—maybe when she was having a nice day in the park or was out with her friends—but, all in all, life in New York was burning her out big-time. She was sick of the grind, of the same routine day after miserable day, of always being exhausted and stressed out. It seemed like she worried and obsessed all the time these days, and she never used to be that way. Once in a while, she’d catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror and wonder, God, is that what I really look like?

  She never would’ve believed New York could do this to her. When she was growing up in Massachusetts, she used to dream about living in the city someday. Yeah, Lenox was beautiful, with all the mountains and trees and lakes and everything, but it was boring as hell, especially at night. There were no bars or clubs to go to—even the nearest city, Pittsfield, was dead at night. The most exciting event of the year was on Fourth of July weekend, when Peter, Paul, and Mary, or some other old-fart band, played at Tanglewood. Movies and TV shows set in New York always made big-city life seem hip and exciting, and she wanted to be like one of the Friends, and hang out at coffee bars with cool, interesting people. When she was in college, she and her friends took day trips into the city sometimes, to go shopping or to have lunch; she always had a great time and she decided she’d move to Manhattan the first opportunity she got. When she graduated last May, a friend told her about how this girl Susan, who’d gone to Brown, was renting an apartment on the Upper East Side and was looking for a roommate, and Katie jumped at the chance. After she got her first job, as an assistant at Hamilton & Forster, a financial PR agency, she was looking forward to living out her dream.

  But, pretty much from the start, New York had been a disappointment. Her job sucked, definitely not worth all the stress, and she wasn’t crazy about any of the people she worked with. Most of them were from New Jersey or Long Island and she felt like she couldn’t connect. A few friends of hers from college lived in the city, but she didn’t see them as much as she would’ve liked because they were busy at their jobs. The times she went out, she had fun, and she met a few guys, but no one she really liked or who really liked her. She wound up spending most of her nights alone, which was unusual for her because she’d always been a very social person. Making things worse, it had been a hot, miserable summer in New York, and all her friends had weekend shares at houses in the Hamptons. She couldn’t afford her own share and didn’t want to ask her parents for any more money. A couple of weekends, she went out as a guest, but she felt like she was freeloading and she didn’t have such a great time anyway—the people out there had way too much attitude. So she spent most of the summer by herself, having some good days—shopping, hanging out in the park, going to movies—but most of the time she felt lonely and depressed in the sweltering, half-deserted city.

  In the fall, her friends were in town more often and the weather improved, but her rut continued. Her job wasn’t getting any better, and whenever she went out she seemed to attract the world’s biggest assholes. If she was at a bar and noticed a cute guy, she’d do everything she could to let him know she was interested—making a lot of eye contact, smiling, even winking at this guy one time when she had a little too much to drink. But at the end of the night only the assholes wanted her number, and because her social calendar wasn’t exactly filled, she usually gave it to them.

  She finished doing her hair and makeup and then got dressed, putting on the gray pin-striped pants suit she’d bought last week. It had looked so good on her in the store, but now she felt like it made her look dumpy. She tried on a couple of other outfits but didn’t like them, either. Searching her closet, she couldn’t find anything else decent to wear. All of her work clothes that she liked were dirty, and she’d been putting off getting them cleaned because she couldn’t afford the ridiculous dry-cleaning prices in Manhattan—like, eight dollars to clean a fucking skirt; were they serious? She tried on another outfit, hated it, and started to cry. This had been happening a lot lately—little things that she used to brush off and barely think about overwhelmed her. She’d had a meltdown at a store recently when she found out they didn’t have a jacket in her size, and th
e other day when she got her hair highlighted and didn’t like the way it came out, she had a brat fit. It seemed like anytime something minor went wrong, she was suddenly on the verge of tears.

  Realizing that if she procrastinated any longer she’d be late for work, she put on the navy-pants-with-navy-jacket outfit that she’d worn on Friday, figuring she’d just have to hope no one noticed.

  Although her commute only took about twenty minutes door to door, it always drained her. As she headed toward the Eighty-sixth Street station, she was already dreading having to pack into the subway, like she was a fucking cow or something. Then, realizing that she was taking the same route to the subway that she took every morning, she said, “No, I’m not a fucking cow, I’m a fucking rat.” She realized she’d spoken out loud when some guy passing by gave her a look like, Wow, that chick’s nuts, and she wondered if she was. You live in New York long enough, you start to lose it. Whenever she walked around on the Upper West Side, on Broadway, she witnessed the city’s effect firsthand. It seemed like every other person—especially the ones over sixty—was mentally ill, or searching garbage cans, or walking around mumbling to themselves about socialism or whatever. But Katie had no idea that it could happen so fast, that she could start going crazy in just five months.

  In the subway station, she made her way through the crowd to the stairwell and went down halfway so she could watch for an express train on the lower level and a local train on the upper. The local came first so she had to rush upstairs with the other commuters who’d been waiting at the halfway point, and when the doors opened she had to force her way inside, with the other people who had been waiting, five or six deep, on the platform. When Katie reached the door, there was no more room in the car. The last person in, a guy in his forties, had backed his way in and was standing facing the platform, holding his briefcase in front of him as if somebody was shooting at him and he was trying to block the bullets. Katie heard the beeping sound, indicating the doors were about to close, but then the doors kept closing partway and reopening because somebody was blocking the doorway. Katie glanced at her watch: 8:41. She had plenty of time to get to work if she got on this train; but if she didn’t and another train didn’t come right away, she’d be a few minutes late. Today was the Monday morning staff meeting and she’d been late last Monday and didn’t want to hear it from her boss again.