Little Stalker

by Jennifer Belle

  I couldn’t believe what I was holding in my hand. It was the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever given me. Arthur Weeman’s handkerchief. AW was stitched in the corner with blue thread. There was a small mustard stain in the corner. The time line I had just read had included that at 13, Arthur Weeman’s lifelong battle with allergies begins. I crumpled it in my hand and then brought it to my nose.

  “Don’t do that,” Isaac said, putting his hand on my arm to stop me. “He had a really bad cold.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “I know this doesn’t make up for what happened with the Quille.”

  “I really love it,” I said. “I don’t care about the Quille.”

  “You should care about the Quille,” a voice behind us said. “No publicity is bad publicity, as long as they spell your name right. I was expecting flowers all day or at least some kind of thank-you call.”

  I spun around on my olive stool to see Ivy Vohl standing there, beaming at us. “Look at you two. I’m so proud. I’m definitely on my way to Jewish heaven for setting you two up.”

  “What are you doing here?” Isaac asked.

  “Rebekah invited me, but I’m just going to join you for a few minutes,” Ivy said. “My friend Malixa is meeting me here at the bar in half an hour.”

  Ivy and Malixa. It sounded like two diseases instead of one.

  “Ivy, why did you print this?” I asked. But I suddenly didn’t feel that mad at her. She had introduced me to Isaac and he had given me Arthur Weeman’s handkerchief.

  “Oh, come on, Rebekah. It’s not like you’re exactly a bold-faced name anymore. I honestly thought you’d be thrilled. Oh, I see you’re wearing your red dress,” Ivy said. I wondered what she meant by that. She said it as if she had known me for years instead of weeks, and knew my wardrobe inside out. She said it bitterly as if I were an old actress on the Broadway stage and she had been my dresser for fifty years. She said it as if every single time she saw me, I was wearing that dress. “I’ll have a cosmopolitan, ” she told Isaac and he ordered it and paid for it like a dog. Then she grabbed my hand and announced that we were going to the ladies’ room.

  I liked Isaac so much that I didn’t even mind going to the ladies’ room with Ivy Vohl. I was suddenly flushed with this great feeling of love for her. I truly appreciated what she had done for me, setting me up with him. I tried to remember exactly why I had hated her in the first place. Her only crime had really been asking me for a blurb. Being a terrible writer didn’t necessarily make her a terrible person, I realized.

  We walked up the stairs and through a white latticed room and into the fancy bathroom. “I’m really sorry,” Ivy said.

  “It’s okay,” I said, “you can stay at the bar with your friend, and Isaac and I can go into the dining room for dinner.”

  “What are you talking about? I mean, I’m sorry I got you into this.” She made a cringing face. “This is really awkward.”

  “What’s awkward?”

  “The fact that you don’t like him. I feel so bad for him.”

  “But I do like him.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “But you’re not acting like you’re into him at all. You’re acting like you can’t stand him.”

  “I am?” I said. Was I? Did I just simply not know how to go on a date? Father O’Mally, the psychic priest, must have been right.

  “Well, I like him.”

  “I’m stunned. I really didn’t see any chemistry happening between you.”

  “Well, I better get back to Isaac,” I said.

  I left the bathroom feeling extremely confused and bristled a little as I passed the GoCARD display case. GoCARDS were free postcards that were placed outside of bathrooms in restaurants all over the country and for a few thousand dollars you could have your advertisement on them. I was always angry that my publisher hadn’t paid to have a postcard made of my book, and even though I had the fight with her about it seven years before, I still relived the whole conversation every time I walked by the GoCARDS. GoCARDS were becoming the bane of my existence. I knew a lot of people would have been happy just to have been published, but I couldn’t be completely happy without my own GoCARD. In fact, now whenever I went to a restaurant and had to use the bathroom, I just tried to hold it in.

  One of the GoCARDS caught my eye because it had a picture of a brain on it. I grabbed it and put it in my purse in case I might want to write a quick note to Arthur Weeman later asking him why women were no more than tiny reproductive engines in the time lines of men.

  Ivy Vohl followed after me. “I’m going to call my friend Malixa and tell her we’ll be in the dining room.”

  “We have a reservation for two,” I said.

  “The place is empty. I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

  “I don’t know, Ivy. I mean, we are on our first official date. I think Isaac and I should be alone.”

  “I think it will be a lot less awkward if I go with you. It’ll seem less like a first date and more like just friends hanging out.”

  “I don’t mind it seeming like a first date.”

  “Trust me, it will take the pressure off.”

  When we got back to the bar, Ivy went straight to the maître d’ and changed our table to a table for four.

  “Ivy wants to have dinner with us,” I warned Isaac.

  “Well, you invited her,” he said. “But that’ll be great.” And before I could say anything, Ivy was wildly waving to us that our table was ready and Isaac jumped up and followed her into the dining room. Reluctantly, I slid into the banquette next to her.

  “I like your outfit,” Isaac said to Ivy. “It’s very dramatic.”

  “Thanks!” Ivy said, looking at me. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse with little chiffon wings on her shoulder, even though it was cold out.

  I couldn’t believe that Isaac could actually like Ivy Vohl, even as a work acquaintance. It made me sure our relationship didn’t have a chance. The foundation of a relationship was not sex or love, as some people mistakenly believed, but hate. It was very important that both people in the relationship hated the same people. I knew I couldn’t be happy unless I could freely vent my hatred for Ivy Vohl as soon as she left the room. Unless Isaac started hating Ivy pretty damn fast, he and I were doomed.

  I had to find a way to tell Isaac that I hadn’t invited Ivy Vohl on our date, and I was just about to simply state it right there at the table, when it occurred to me that I could write him a note on the GoCARD with the picture of the brain on it. I pulled it out of my bag and fumbled around until I found a pen, and then without even looking down while I was writing, I wrote, Can we figure out a way to be alone? She invited HERSELF here.

  The couple at the next table got up, abandoning their tray of petits fours.

  I saw Ivy Vohl eyeing them. “Guy-Antoine would love those,” she said. “Guy-Antoine’s my boyfriend,” she said to me, even though I hadn’t asked. “He’s a sculptor and he’s at Yaddo now for two months.” Yaddo was an artist colony in Saratoga Springs that was famous for everybody sleeping with everybody else. Sculptors slept with writers who slept with filmmakers who slept with performance artists who slept with dancers who slept with themselves. It was like an orgy, but you had to fill out an application, send a sample of your work, and get prestigious letters of recommendation to participate. “Can you freeze those?” Ivy said, pointing to the tiny macaroons, caramels, meringues, and tartlets.

  “I’m sure they’ll bring us some at the end of the meal,” Isaac said.

  “I’m Jewish. I hate to see waste like that,” Ivy said. She might hate to see waste like that, but she certainly didn’t mind throwing her food up in the toilet as soon as she had eaten it, I was pretty sure.

  I had no idea how I could pass my note to Isaac without Ivy seeing. But then Ivy reached over to the other table and stole the petits fours, sliding the contents of the tray onto a white cloth napkin
and then wrapping them into a bunting and stuffing it into her skinny little evening bag, and I just quickly handed the GoCARD to Isaac.

  A waiter stood over our table watching Ivy try to zip her overstuffed bag, trying to make room for the petits fours among the condoms. “Do you mind if we keep this here at the restaurant?” the waiter asked, grabbing the empty silver tray from her lap.

  “I know a great guy I could set you up with,” I said to Ivy, remembering how Derek Hassler had often done disgusting things like that.

  “I’m pretty serious with Guy-Antoine,” Ivy said. “He’s definitely in the Ivy League.”

  I ignored Ivy’s repulsive joke. Isaac was still looking at the front of the GoCARD, the picture of the brain, and hadn’t bothered to turn it over yet.

  “What’s that?” Ivy asked.

  "It’s a GoCARD,” Isaac said.

  "Did they do a GoCARD for your book?” Ivy asked me.

  Isaac turned the card over and read my note. It looked like he read it a couple of times, but the expression on his face didn’t change.

  “Can I see it?” Ivy asked.

  She reached over the table and tried to grab the card out of Isaac’s hands but he pulled it away from her. She reached over and grabbed at it again and this time was able to catch on to a small corner of the card. She wouldn’t let go. Finally Isaac wrested it away from her and folded it in half. Ivy got up, slipped her pocketbook over her shoulder and walked behind Isaac. “I’m going to smoke a cigarette,” she said. Then she grabbed at the GoCARD one more time, and got it. She read the note out loud. “Can we figure out a way to be alone? She invited HERSELF here.” Ivy looked furious. “What, are you in the seventh grade?”

  “I’m sorry, Ivy, it’s just that we’re on a date,” I said.

  “A date I set you up on,” she said. “If you didn’t want me to be here, you could have just said something.” She opened her bag and slammed a twenty-dollar bill down on the table. “This should cover my drink,” she said and stormed off.

  “That was awful,” Isaac said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “That really wasn’t very nice of you, Rebekah,” he said. He seemed upset.

  “She’s the one who wasn’t nice,” I said.

  “I just felt sort of bad for her. She’s a really good person.”

  “I don’t like her,” I said, putting it on the line. This relationship was over.

  “You should give her a chance,” he said, smiling at me.

  “I hate her,” I challenged.

  The waiter came over and we ordered. “I’ll have another martini,” I said.

  “I like Ivy Vohl,” Isaac said.

  It was the least romantic first-date conversation I had ever had.

  We ate our meal arguing about Ivy Vohl.

  He continued to defend her as we walked all the way home to my apartment from the Monkey Bar.

  I remembered a time when I was in a play at Bennington, and I was in love with the lead actor. At the cast party, I was talking to him and another girl who was in the play came over to talk to him too. After a while he turned to me and said that he and this other girl had been waiting to have sex until after the play was over and would I mind leaving them alone.

  And I remembered another time when I was at a bar with a friend of mine and a man had been looking at me all night and then approached us and we both stood up and he shook his head at me and said, “No, not you, her.”

  I was starting to get that old Johnny Johnson feeling. Johnny Johnson was a boy Laura Ingalls was in love with, but he only liked Mary. This time, I really wanted to be the girl who was chosen.

  As we got closer to my building, it started to rain. I didn’t know if I should invite him up or not. I liked him, I just didn’t like her.

  “Shit, it’s raining,” Isaac said. “My glasses are getting all fogged up.”

  I remembered my first date with Derek Hassler. He had taken me to the MTV Awards and when we kissed in front of the fountain at Lincoln Center, it started to rain and he said, “Darlin’, this rain looks really good on you.” I thought that, except for the “Darlin’,” it was the greatest thing I had ever heard. Now I suddenly thought that “Shit, it’s raining, and my glasses are getting all fogged up” was the greatest thing I had ever heard.

  While he ran into a deli to get a napkin to wipe off his glasses, I decided I should definitely invite him up.

  He seemed a little surprised by the gondola.

  “I guess the handkerchief isn’t too impressive with all of this,” he said.

  “That’s not true!” I said. “It’s the only thing of his that I own. These are all just props.”

  After a big argument about whether this was technically our first date, or if the wedding at the Pierre was our first date and this was our second, I finally said he could sleep in my bed as long as we didn’t have sex. After we had sex I wondered what had made me want to move so quickly. I waited for him to get up and leave but he didn’t.

  “So let’s see,” he said, smiling. “How much like your character are you? I wonder what you were thinking about before I ‘collapsed on top of you.’ ”

  “I was thinking about lotsa things.”

  “She said, smiling.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Okay, like what? What were you thinking about?” he asked.

  “There’s a wolf all alone in the tundra,” I said. The chances of a lone female finding him are near impossible.

  “Not anymore,” he said, gripping on to me. “Ivy said you were a little on the crazy side.”

  “Ivy Vohl said I was crazy? I’m not the crazy one.”

  My phone rang and I let the machine pick up, which was a really stupid thing to do if you were in bed with a man for the first time. My old shrink’s voice floated through the room. “Hello, Rebekah, I wouldn’t normally call someone back after midnight but it sounded like the television program about the wolves triggered a full-blown anxiety attack. And I am concerned. Please call me back tomorrow so we can talk about resuming your treatment. As you might recall, this has happened before with the whales and the elephant burial ground and the pets of nine eleven.” She had the most soothing voice imaginable. She hung up.

  “Full-blown anxiety attack? Who was that?” Isaac asked.

  “Just a friend of mine,” I said. “I might go to the pound and get a dog tomorrow.”

  He nuzzled his nose into my eye. “I’ll be your dog,” he said.

  “You’re already Ivy’s dog,” I said.

  “I’ll be both your dogs,” he said, smiling.

  In the morning, I couldn’t stop sneezing. "I warned you,” Isaac said.

  I sneezed.

  “You caught Arthur Weeman’s cold.”

  Except for the fact that my throat felt sore, I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait for Isaac to leave so I could write Arthur Weeman a letter about our cold.

  “I’d stay and chicken soup you all up but I have to go to Florida today. I’m spending Thanksgiving with my mother.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. It was important that a man love his mother.

  “No, it’s not. I’m dreading every second of it.”

  “Oh.”

  “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

  “My mother cooks,” I said. “I’m going to go to her B & B in Woodstock. It’s her busiest weekend so she can’t come here.” Thanksgiving was that Thursday and I was looking forward to it.

  “Will you still be here when I get back from the tundra?”

  “Florida’s not exactly the tundra.”

  “Believe me, my mother’s cold enough to make it feel like the tundra. I’ll be home on Friday,” he said.

  First-date sex wasn’t a very big deal, but second and third date sex was. My old shrink had told me that all men will have sex with anyone once, and most men will have sex with anyone twice, but if a man has sex with you three times, it means he probably likes you. I had no choice but to wait and see what ha
ppened. There was still the chance that he could evaporate. But no matter what happened, I had Arthur Weeman’s cold, and that at least was something.

  11.

  At 33, she spends Thanksgiving in the Galápagos Islands with her daughter

  The morning before Thanksgiving, my L.A. agent, Randi Apple, called during Little House to say that she had good news and bad news. I could see her sitting at her desk, talking into her headset, her diamond ring sparkling under the skylight, waving her yoga arms all around. The good news was the producer who had optioned my book had finally gotten a director attached. It looked like it was going to be made. The bad news was the producer was rewriting the script herself and wanted to meet with me the next day. The meeting was going to take place in her hotel room, which meant there wouldn’t even be a meal involved and she’d probably be in her pajamas, high as a kite.

  "On Thanksgiving?” I said. My book had been in turnaround for seven years.

  “You don’t mind, do you, Rebekah? It really looks like it’s happening. They have some possible actresses . . .” Randi Apple said. “. . . lett Johansson.” There was a long stretch of static. “. . . I’m in my car.” So she wasn’t at her desk, but I was sure, her diamond ring was still sparkling with the BMW’s top down.

  When I got to work, I told my father my great news about my movie deal.

  “You’re kidding,” he said. He seemed genuinely impressed. “That’s why they called you Rookie of the Year.” This was a jab referring to the fact that when my book came out a big magazine had put me in their year-end issue, calling me “Best Rookie Novelist. ” My father had promptly showed me a book he had of baseball statistics. He opened it to a page listing all the Rookies of the Year. Statistics showed that not one single Rookie of the Year ever went on to be a success.

  “Don’t get your hopes up about the movie,” my father said. “Things are very tough in Hollywood.”

  He spoke with complete authority as if he had been in the film business his whole life, having worked his way up from key grip to executive producer. As if there were Oscars and Emmys on his desk instead of little elephant statues and polished rocks. As if we were on the Warner Brothers lot at that moment and not his office on the Upper East Side.