Little Stalker

by Jennifer Belle

  Now I was taken aback. “My bonnet?” I asked.

  “You know, like a fluffy hat.” It was said with such force that I could feel the hat on my head bearing such heavy fruit I was practically Carmen Miranda. First Father O’Mally had said I looked like I could rip the balls right off a man, and now I was being accused of using them as accessories.

  “I don’t wear my testicle bonnet to weddings,” I said.

  “Anyway, it was good. I read it in two hours.”

  “It took me five years to write,” I said.

  Isaac looked at the Pierre. “I should really get back. This wedding’s a big deal and if I don’t get good pictures, I’ll be in a lot of trouble.”

  I suddenly wasn’t ready for the conversation to end. We were standing in one of the most beautiful spots on the face of the earth, in front of this statue, flanked by the Pierre and the Sherry-Netherland, Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany, the Plaza, and the south-east corner of Central Park. The luminous Mac apple and the scaffolding on the Plaza with its gaudy Eloise-pink sign offering suites starting at $1.5 mil. Horse-drawn carriages lined the street in front of us. The smell of manure was overwhelming, making it hard to be anywhere else but there at that moment. For a moment, I pictured Isaac tossing his gross tote bag onto the velvet seat of one of the carriages and helping me up, like Pa helping Mary when they went to the big city so Pa could attend a meeting about the Grange.

  “I love that movie theater,” I said, pointing to the Paris. Finally something nice had come out of my mouth, even if it wasn’t about him exactly. Once I had seen the movie Metropolitan at the Paris, and in the movie there was a scene that took place in front of the Paris. I was in the theater seeing the theater, and at that moment I stepped through the screen like Mia Farrow in The Purple Rose of Cairo. For some reason I really loved that.

  “Hey, do you want to come with me while I work?” Isaac asked.

  And then, as if Cinderella had gone back into the ball after midnight, dressed in rags and holding a pumpkin instead of a pumpkin-shaped Judith Leiber purse, happy to be herself and not caring about what a bunch of strangers thought of her, I followed Isaac back into the Pierre Hotel’s grand ballroom. I forgot all about Irmabelle and my father.

  When I got home I called Ivy, even though it was after one.

  “I met Isaac,” I said.

  “Ha,” she said.

  I didn’t really know what to say to that.

  “I know,” she said. “He called me. And?”

  “I like him,” I said.

  “So, you liked him?” She said it in a certain way, as if it was inconceivable that I liked him, even though she had been the one to think that I would.

  “Where are you going on your date?” She said date sarcastically for some reason.

  “The Monkey Bar,” I said. I had been impressed when Isaac had suggested the Monkey Bar. The Monkey Bar was a far cry from going to some awful sportsbar on the Upper East Side with Derek Hassler while he watched some game and actually took a fork off someone else’s table that they were just about to use because he had dropped his. What kind of person would actually reach over and take something off of somebody else’s table at a restaurant without asking? The Monkey Bar required a modicum of respect and thoughtfulness. An actual reservation and a jacket and tie, a plan. As far as I was concerned he had me at the Monkey Bar.

  “When?” Ivy said, pretending not to be at all impressed.

  “Tomorrow at eight,” I said.

  I couldn’t sleep so I sat in my gondola for a while and decided to write a letter to Arthur Weeman on loose-leaf paper I’d picked up in the SCHOOL SUPPLIES aisle of the drugstore. I drew ears and whiskers around the holes in the paper to look like foxes.

  November 18

  Dear Awful Writer,

  There’s a new boy in my Hebrew class named Isaac. He goes to Dalton and he seems quite interesting. He wears oval glasses like your’s which I find quite attractive. His interests include photography and magic which are somethings I know you were interested in when you were a kid. He does not seem like a big jerk. Yet. I met him at a Bat Mitzvah tonight and we spent the whole time together but it’s not the same as a date even though at one point we found ourselves in the same old-fashioned phone booth but that’s because we were trying scotch on the rocks. I have only been on one date but that was a whole year ago and it was to the ice skating rink in Central Park and I didn’t have an enjoyable time. You’re not jealous are you??? Don’t be. He’s no you. And he’s no Almanzo Wilder (the man Laura Ingalls married).

  By the way, I think the Good Doctor is having an affair and from what I can tell my mother is completely clueless about it. I think he’s doing it with his nurse. She’s tall and beautiful with blue eyes and he started making quiches and bringing them to the office on Fridays. I think he is going to take her to New Orleans for a medical convention. It’s such a cliché. I wonder if my father will marry her and have another family and forget us. This seems like a lot for me to handle right now with the short story contest coming up. I have to go now because I drank two glasses of champange (but not much scotch on the rocks).

  Goodnight. And . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!

  Your,

  Thalia

  I folded the letter into a square and put it in a lavender envelope.

  Although I tried not to, I pulled my own book off the shelf and started reading it through Isaac’s eyes. I couldn’t help myself. I always did it when someone I liked told me they had read it.

  “I just don’t want to see you anymore,” he said, smiling, gathering his crutches next to him on the bed.

  In bed, with my eyes closed, I could still see his flash going off under my eyelids. An impression had been burned on my retinas.

  I woke up the next morning unbelievably excited that it was Sunday and I didn’t have to go to my father’s office. The only urine I would have to see for the whole day would be my own. I would spend the day with Mrs. Williams and hopefully Arthur Weeman, and the evening with Isaac Myman. I felt like I was dating two men and seeing them both in the same day.

  I showered, dressed, and took my Parlodel. It wasn’t making me as sick as it used to. Then I packed a bag with my date clothes, the next day’s clothes, and threw in the bottle of Parlodel, not because I intended to sleep at Isaac’s apartment but because I might want to stay at Mrs. Williams’. On my way out, I grabbed an Arthur Weeman biography and the week’s worth of mail from my mailbox and headed toward the subway.

  At Astor Place, I picked up the Sunday Quille. I couldn’t wait to see if Isaac’s photos of the wedding were in the paper. Standing on the street, with my big bag on my shoulder, I awkwardly opened the paper and turned the pages until I got to Ivy Vohl’s gossip column, “In the Buff.”

  They were in it all right. There on the page was a big picture of me scowling into the camera, with the caption: Uninvited guest, author Rebekah Kettle dressed in white, crashes the joyous occasion.

  That was it. I was through with Isaac Myman.

  Not only was he a manipulator and a liar, he was a terrible photographer. I had never had a worse picture taken of me in my entire life.

  I was much too vulnerable to take the subway so I hailed a cab and sat in the backseat angrily flipping through my mail.

  I opened a letter that had been forwarded by my agent.

  Dear Ms. Kettle,

  I just wanted to write to tell you how much I enjoyed your book. In fact, I read it in two days. As a dental hygienist, I noticed how many references there are in your novel to dentists and teeth, twelve to be exact! They are: 1. It looked like one of his teeth was rotting in his mouth.

  2. I stood over him like a dental hygienist.

  3. Because of my father I had thought the tooth fairy was cheap, and warned my friends to keep their teeth, not prostitute them for a quarter.

  1. I used Mentadent, which tasted very faintly of sperm.

  2. [The dog] was completely covered in black spots, including his
tongue and gums.

  3. I used his toothbrush.

  4. Jack-o-lantern skyline.

  5. As painful to watch as a child teething.

  6. I brushed my teeth.

  7. The commercial where the good-looking man opens his mouth and has bright yellow teeth.

  8. The scar on his knee looked like teeth marks.

  9. No one in New York went to the dentist more than once every five years because it was too expensive and usually meant going to the Upper East Side.

  Could you write back and tell me why you have such an interest in dental hygiene? I edit the Dental Hygienists Association Newsletter and I would like to print your response in the next issue. I’d also like a brief explanation of why you used each of the above references and if you are including teeth in your next novel. Thanks again for the terrific read.

  Sincerely,

  Phyllis Smiley (my real name!), Sarasota, FL

  I looked down at the letter in disbelief. This is what I got for being a writer: any idiot could write me a letter or put a picture of me in the Quille. I felt like both my book and my mouth had been raped. I swore if I ever wrote another book I’d be careful not to mention anything to do with teeth. I’d go over the book with a fine-toothed comb to be certain it was as toothless as a hag.

  When I got to Mrs. Williams’ apartment I rushed to the kitchen window but Arthur Weeman wasn’t there. I was so angry at Isaac that I couldn’t do anything but sit on the sectional.

  Mrs. Williams turned on the Discovery Channel. A documentary about wolves had just begun and I begged her to change the channel but she became stubborn and refused.

  The documentary tracked a pack of wolves in some kind of terrible snowy tundra. I knew I shouldn’t watch it, my old shrink had made me promise not to watch programs like that anymore, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop.

  Just as I was about to force myself to get up and leave the room, one of the wolves was rejected by the pack. At night, in their den, he went to play with the alpha female and she turned her back on him. He tried again, rolling on his back in front of her, but again she said no. He was forced to leave, making his survival near impossible. He stood alone in the snow and howled and howled, hoping a lone female would hear him. Meeting a lone female wolf and starting a pack of his own was his only chance for survival. If he didn’t meet a lone female, he would perish.

  I would have done anything to save that wolf. I would have lain down before him and let him devour me if he could live another day. I would have sacrificed myself if he could use me as an offering, drag me through the snow to the alpha female.

  I couldn’t stop crying. Mrs. Williams, I noticed, was crying too.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “I lost my dog,” she said. “He’s out there somewhere all alone.”

  “It’s not your dog, it’s a wolf on the television,” I cried. She was even crazier than I was.

  “My puppy,” she cried. “My pup-py.”

  Finally I went into the kitchen and called my old shrink.

  "Hi it’s Rebekah,” I said to her answering machine. “I just saw a wolf. . . . Wolves . . .” I was crying too hard to speak. I just sobbed into her machine and then hung up.

  I lay on the cot in Mrs. Williams’ maid’s room and imagined the wolf lying on his side facing me, his long nose on my pillow. He would press his nose into my skull because that’s where my brain tumor was, and wolves were like dogs and knew when there was something wrong with you.

  I was so worn-out that I fell asleep, and when I woke up I realized I was supposed to meet Isaac in an hour at the Monkey Bar, and I hadn’t actually called him to cancel. He could just sit there waiting for me all night. Why had he done this, I wondered, humiliate me like that in the Quille? Of course I had no intention of going, but then I couldn’t stop thinking about that wolf howling alone in the tundra. A female wolf was his only hope for survival. Except for the fact that he carried a tote bag, maybe Isaac was a little like that wolf, I thought, running in a pack of paparazzi and answering to the alpha female, Ivy Vohl.

  And then I thought that if I didn’t show up he would tell Ivy and she would know I had been upset by the item which was obviously what she wanted. I should go on the date, I decided, if for no other reason than to tell him off.

  I got ready by taking two Excedrin Tension Headache tablets and my brain-tumor medicine in case I got too drunk on the date and forgot to take it before I went to bed. I soaked my feet in the water foot spa I had found in Mrs. Williams’ linen closet. Sitting on the sectional with my feet soaking in swirling water, I realized that I was like a ninety-year-old woman getting ready for a date. Most girls put on sexy lingerie and maybe took a couple of amphetamines, but I took brain-tumor medication and soaked my dogs.

  I had read somewhere that the best way to prepare for a date was to watch CNN and brush up on current events so you could seem intelligent, not watch the Discovery Channel and pass out from crying. To take my mind off the wolf, I sat down for a few minutes and read a time line of Arthur Weeman’s life in the old biography I had brought with me. It only went up to age fifty, the age he made the movie Take My Life, Please. On the day I was born, he married Shirley Mazurski. He was thirty-five.

  Aside from the day they were married, and the day they divorced, there was no other mention of his three wives. His time line went on without them. Same with the time line of Paul Revere. Aside from the day they married and the day they died and the days they bore him a total of sixteen children, there was no mention of the women in Paul Revere’s life.

  I realized that while men easily fit women in and out of their time lines, I needed a man for my time line to begin. Arthur Weeman’s time line said things like: At 41, he throws a New Year’s Eve party—Woody Allen, Johnny Carson, and Arthur Miller are in attendance. But it didn’t say: At 41, he and Alice Marlow throw a party. It mentioned an important trip he took to Venice but left out that it was his honeymoon trip with Candace Ann. He was a tree, and Shirley, Alice, and Candace merely squirrels or robins or—he would probably say—woodpeckers, making a brief appearance.

  I was nothing like a man, when it came to my own time line. Men bounded up their time lines like mountain climbers on Everest, not caring if their Sherpas fell behind. But my time line was the staircase in a tenement building and I clutched to the banister, watching every little step I took.

  As I rubbed orange lotion into my feet that smelled like Creamsicles, I thought of how jealous I was of men. I put on my first-date dress, taking it out of the dry cleaner’s plastic with the picture of the covered wagon on it. I grabbed my copy of the Quille and left.

  10.

  At 33, her book is advertised on GoCARDS in bathrooms all over New York, L.A., and the Hamptons

  When I got to the Monkey Bar, Isaac was already ordering a drink. I walked over to him and thrust the "In the Buff” column in his face. "What the hell is this?” I asked.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said. “I gave Ivy the proofs but I put an X through the ones she couldn’t use, and she used this one anyway. I called her when I saw it, but she said it wasn’t her fault. The art director insisted.” He was wearing his Arthur Weeman glasses. He pushed them up on his long straight nose with his middle finger, so it looked like he was giving me the finger again.

  "I can’t believe you let this happen,” I said, still sounding angry.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It wasn’t my fault. Please let me buy you a drink.”

  I angrily ordered a martini because I was starving and I wanted the olives, hopefully three big ones. The barstools had put me in the mood for them, they were round and covered in green velvet to look like olives, with red velvet circles on top for pimentos.

  “A martini?” he said. “You sound like my grandfather. What are you, eighty years old?”

  “This is a martini bar,” I said, even though it wasn’t. “After what you did to me I shouldn’t even be here,” I said, thru
sting the paper at him again. “You should have protected me. You should have made sure Ivy didn’t get those pictures.”

  “I told you it wasn’t Ivy’s fault. She doesn’t choose the pictures. ”

  “Oh, really?” I said. “And what about the caption. Who do you think wrote the caption?”

  “Well, she did, but it’s her job. It sells papers. Look, Rebekah, I’m sorry. I really didn’t think it would happen. I had a great time with you last night and couldn’t wait to see you. And I brought you a present.”

  "A present?” I asked, warily. A present was usually a bad thing on a first date. Once I went on a first date with a man who presented me with a single wineglass. He said it was the glass he would break on our wedding day. And once I went out with a man who gave me an enormous sunflower that I had to carry around all night like a staff.

  “Here,” Isaac said. “I hope you like it.”

  He handed me a man’s white handkerchief that had clearly been well-used. It was stiff and glued together in spots. It looked more like the forensic evidence in a murder trial than a gift you might get on a date. It made the wineglass and the sunflower look good.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “It’s a handkerchief,” he said.

  “A handkerchief,” I said. It was a subtle line with men. You had to show them you were grateful for little things but not give them the impression that it was okay to be cheap all the time. “I’m sure once I wash and disinfect it, it will be great,” I said. I was holding it away from me between my thumb and forefinger and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it now. I really didn’t want to put it in my purse.

  “It’s Arthur Weeman’s,” he said. “After I put you in a cab at the Pierre last night I stopped by the Carnegie Deli because I got a lead that he was having a late dinner there. He goes there sometimes, you know.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “He left it on his chair. I knew how much you liked him so I picked it up when he went to the men’s room. Look, it has his initials on it.”