Little Stalker

by Jennifer Belle

  “Really, I’m all set,” she said. “Thank you.”

  I stood up. “Let me just check with the doctor.” I suddenly felt incredibly nervous about my father examining Ivy Vohl. I knew she wouldn’t put on the robe properly and would just be sitting there practically naked when he walked in. I wished I hadn’t come in early and that I’d just gone to get the fax and the bagel for my father the way he wanted.

  “Fine, you do that,” the girl said smugly.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked. She was staring at me.

  “You’re Rebekah Kettle, right?” she asked.

  "Yes.”

  “I’m a big fan,” she said.

  “Really?” I said, sounding very unsure. “That’s great.”

  She laughed. “You were supposed to go out for a bagel.”

  “What?” I turned around again, and happened to notice a space in the wall of charts, next to mine. Kettle—S had been removed. And at that moment I realized I had just met Sascha.

  I sat down, stunned. I didn’t know what to do to keep her from leaving.

  “My name’s Sascha. Nice to meet ya.” She put out her hand and I shook it.

  “Nice to meet you,” I mumbled.

  I tried desperately to think of something to say. So you’re Sascha of the New York Kettles. Sascha of the New York elephants. This was all wrong. Nice to meet you wasn’t what I had wanted to say. I was stopped cold, but, to use my father’s favorite expression, she was cool as a cucumber. This isn’t how I had imagined it would be. I had thought our first meeting would be planned. We would meet on elephantback in the desert somewhere, or on some national television morning show, or at my father’s untimely funeral. Not trapped and feeling like cheated-on wives. She slung herself into an Il Bisonte bag. My bag also happened to be an Il Bisonte. And she was wearing a top I recognized from a store I loved called Dosa that I had tried on but decided I was too short for. Her hand felt very dry, I realized. She had eczema. She had more of my father in her than I did. But she had green eyes, and my father and Irmabelle both had brown.

  I remembered my ex-shrink asking me to describe my perfect friend.

  I have a sister, I have a sister! I wanted to scream with joy as if she’d just been born. I wanted to pass out cigars. “Sascha,” I said, staying calm. “How did you know my name?”

  “I told you, I’m a big fan of your writing.”

  "So you recognized me from the photo on my book jacket?” I was speaking slowly, trying to piece things together. If she didn’t know I was her sister I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the one to break it to her. But wait, I thought, panicked. She would have to know. She knew my last name, and my father had been thanked in my acknowledgments.

  It should be him sitting here explaining this, I thought. But I had known and hadn’t done anything. I should have confronted him, I thought, demanded her address and phone number. “So you know about me,” I blurted out.

  She looked shocked and one eyebrow rose like mine did. “I’ve known about you for a long time. Like I said, I’m a fan.” From the way she said it I could tell she probably wasn’t a fan. “Although I noticed you don’t have a single black person in your book. You know there are some black people that live in New York.”

  More than anything, I hated when people confronted me with this, as if I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. There was a crazy black girl named Robbie Finch who was always running into me on the street and berating me for that. I didn’t want to talk to Sascha about my book. I didn’t say anything and she stared at me with a sort of hostile look on her face.

  “Look, I want you to know I only just found out about you,” I said.

  “Well, there’s been black people in New York for a long time.”

  “No, I knew about black people, I only just found out you were my sister.” The word sister made us both frown.

  “He doesn’t know you know?” she asked, losing her cool for a moment, her voice filled with betrayal. So this is what she had with him, I thought. What she had and I didn’t. A secret. A confidence. The Dad-and-Sascha-don’t-tell-Rebekah club. If he knew I knew we might all be in one club together. I’d had legitimacy but she’d had him.

  I shook my head.

  She laughed bitterly again.

  “I tried to call you but you weren’t listed,” I said. In the weeks since I’d found out about her, I’d also called Irmabelle several times and hung up, but that didn’t seem worth mentioning. I should have found her, I thought. I should have found her and gone to her.

  “You’re not listed either,” she said. I felt my stomach turn over with excitement. She had tried to call.

  “You have green eyes,” I said.

  “From Nana.” I had to think for a second. Nana was what I called my grandmother, my father’s mother. She had green eyes. I couldn’t believe Nana was both of ours. I couldn’t conceive of anyone else calling her Nana.

  “She’s dead,” I said.

  “I never met her.”

  Sascha had gotten her green eyes while I had gotten her freakishly short stature. When you go to your father’s office, you don’t expect his patient to have your grandmother’s eyes. At some point I had stood up, and now I sat back down. I wished I had gone for the fax and the bagel.

  “Can I ask you a strange question?” I said, suddenly remembering my conversation with my father about his “childhood” dog. “Did you have a dog named Agatha?”

  “Yes, she died of distemper. Why?” She seemed irritated. I hadn’t imagined she’d be such a bitch. Who the hell wanted this bitch for a sister? I was starting to understand why people always told me how lucky I was to be an only child. “My mother wants her things. Do you mind if I take them for her?”

  I pushed myself slightly away from the desk and put my arms up in the air in what was meant to be a be-my-guest gesture but ended up looking like I thought I was getting mugged. She went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet that had all the bags shoved in it and started filling a few with Irmabelle’s doctor and nurse mouse dolls, and candy canister, stuffed animals, and plaques. I felt like I was losing my best friend.

  “How did you find out about me?” I asked.

  “I’ve always known about you. I knew what camp you went to and what you wanted for your birthday. When you got a TV in your room I wanted a TV in my room. I knew about your abortion and how you had to miss school.”

  I thought of Y.G. twirling in the playground.

  I suddenly felt sick, like I was going to throw up. Sascha had known about me, and I was forced to sit there in a state of shock. “Why didn’t I know about you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, ask him,” she said, pointing to my father’s closed door. “At first I think it was to protect your mother. But then I think he was just scared. Everyone’s scared of Rebekah. When I was a kid I used to watch that show Wonder Woman and I always thought that was you. I told my friends that Lynda Carter was my older sister. I figured that’s why we couldn’t tell people I was your sister, because you were Wonder Woman.”

  I thought of a photograph I had of myself in high school. I am sitting on my bed, slightly over five feet tall, and well over one hundred and seventy pounds. On the wall behind me is a giant French movie poster of Adopting Alice, and there is quite a contrast between the lovely Alice and myself, my face as round and puffy as a Portuguese sweet bread, my black hair coarse and winged. Oh, how I longed to be Alice. Oh, how far I was from being Wonder Woman.

  I felt like jumping up and spinning around and around, my gold-banded wrists crossed in front of my creamy corseted breasts, karate-chopping my father’s door open and strangling him with my magic lasso. But all I could do was propel myself into a tiny half-spin in Irmabelle’s rolling desk chair. How dare my father be afraid of me! I was lovable. Even in that photo, looking like a public service announcement for teenage suicide, I looked like a girl who deserved to be loved.

  “I wish I had known about you. I would have loved to have had a sister,” I
said, choking up slightly.

  “Dad didn’t want us to say anything.”

  I couldn’t believe that word “Dad” coming out of her mouth like that. I wondered what happened behind my father’s closed door. I wondered if she came every morning while I was innocently watching Little House. What the hell did they have to talk about for so long in there, I thought, when he and I couldn’t come up with two words to say to each other?

  “We could decide to be sisters now,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said. “What should we do first—have a tea party or play Barbies?”

  I laughed and stood up. “We could hug,” I said. I had meant to match her sarcastic tone, but it had somehow come out like a plea and then in a flash her arms were around me, hugging me, squeezing the air out of me. The shock of it brought tears to my eyes and I held her, trying not to fall back in Irmabelle’s chair. She was sobbing, her face buried in my neck, her hair like black lamb’s wool against my eye and cheek. I didn’t know what else to do but hang on to her.

  “Shit,” she said.

  “It’s okay.”

  When she finally broke away from me I still felt the wet impression of her face on my neck.

  “I’m going to tell him it’s all out in the open now,” I said.

  “No, don’t tell Dad,” she pleaded, visibly shaken. “Please don’t tell.”

  My father’s door swung open and we both froze. I stood up ready to confront him, but it was Ivy Vohl who came bounding out into the reception area.

  “Rebekah, your father is so great,” she said. She adjusted her top. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were with a patient.”

  “She’s not a patient,” I said, instantly regretting saying anything.

  “Oh?” Ivy asked.

  The three of us stood awkwardly in the tiny space. It was clear Ivy was waiting for some kind of introduction. I looked at Sascha for some kind of guidance as to how she wanted me to handle this. Ivy was the last person I would want knowing something like this and I tried to communicate with Sascha telepathically.

  “Ivy,” I said, “this is Sascha. Sascha, this is Ivy.”

  “Hi,” Ivy said to Sascha.

  Sascha just looked at me. She was still trembling. I smiled at her but her expression shifted. She looked hurt. “Alright, I’m gonna get out of here,” she said, her voice dripping with disgust. She grabbed her plastic bags filled with Irmabelle’s things and started to leave.

  “Wait, Sister.” I had said “Sister” when I meant to say Sascha. “Sascha’s my sister,” I heard myself say to Ivy.

  Ivy let out a shriek of laughter. “What did you call her?” she asked.

  “My sister,” I said, looking her right in the eyes.

  “Rebekah,” Ivy said jovially, “that’s so seventies. Do you realize you’re being mildly racially insulting? African-Americans don’t all go around calling each other ‘sistah’ and ‘brothah’ anymore.”

  Sascha’s eyes dulled and her face became soft and brown like mud. “I think what Rebekah means is that we’re like sisters,” Sascha said, heading toward the door again.

  “Sascha, wait, don’t go,” I said. But she was gone.

  “Wow, you really offended her,” Ivy said.

  “No, I didn’t,” I said.

  “I swear, women are so touchy. That’s why I don’t have a single female friend,” Ivy said.

  Yeah, I thought, because women are touchy.

  “Let me get your file so I know what to charge you for today,” I said.

  Ivy looked surprised that there would be a charge, as if I’d invited her home to a family dinner and handed her a check after dessert. The word “charge” sent an electric shock through her. “Can you bill me? I totally forgot to bring my checkbook.”

  “Sure,” I said, glad to speed her exit up as much as possible.

  When she left, I sat at Irmabelle’s empty desk with my head in my hands. All I could think about was Sascha and how I could see her again. The desk was so bare and cold without Irmabelle’s trinkets. They didn’t make a Precious Moments doll for this occasion. And if they did, Sascha would have taken it with her.

  For the rest of the day, I avoided my father, obeying Sascha’s wishes not to tell. He didn’t seem to suspect anything had happened, and he never even bothered to ask for the fax he’d used as an excuse to get me out of the office, or the bagel.

  I left early and sat on a bench in Central Park for a while under the freezing white winter sun. It was something I almost never did in any weather, because I usually had no desire to see people biking and pushing baby carriages, or, worse than that, reading.

  One summer I’d been in a jealous frenzy over a certain book I’d noticed everyone reading. I saw people reading it in the park and on the subway, and even walking down the street, they were so absorbed. The book had a distinctive blue jacket but I could never catch the title, and then finally I discovered that this huge literary sensation I’d been sick with jealousy over, was called Nuevo York. I’d been jealous of a guidebook.

  I thought about writing a letter to Arthur.

  Dear Awful Writer, Sometimes I think my sister Lucy is my only

  friend in the world!

  But my heart wasn’t in it. I couldn’t think about him right now when I had a real sister to worry about. I had a sister. Sister. The strangest word I had ever known. I felt rich, in love really. I liked her. I loved her. She was mine.

  I walked quickly until I was almost running, suddenly excited to tell Isaac all about her.

  19.

  At 33, a former sweetheart comes crawling back

  March 27

  Dear Awf,

  Just a quick note to say that you may not know this but you and I have actually kissed. Of course it was at Madam Tussaud’s and you were made out of wax but I think it was good for both of us. I was very careful not to knock your glasses off. I know you always like to wear them but I might have stolen them if the security guard wasn’t staring at me. It was very polite of you not to use any tongue. I wonder if kissing you in real life is like kissing a giant chapstick. Write back soon and let me know.

  By the way, I did not win the short story competiton. I came in second. In case you’re wondering my story was called “Werner Apple’s Brain”. It’s about an almost thirteen year old girl who writes letters to the most famous filmmaker in the world, and in the end they meet (by accident) at the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park. Robert McKee doesn’t believe in Deus ex Machina but I think it can sometimes be very fantastic.

  A girl named Eve who’s father is a math teacher here won. I find it a little suspicious. Her story took place in a deli in Little Italy and had a lot of descriptions of salami and people going in and out. I think I should have had more descriptions. I am very disappointed. But at least I have you.

  Yours with no talent,

  Thalia

  March 28

  Dear A.W.,

  I won after all! It turned out the girl who won plagerized almost her whole story from some famous writer. Our teacher, Mr. Goff, said that something had been gnawing at him, how the description of the Italian deli was so accurate and then he questioned her and she got caught. I have always been terrified of plagiarism since I read the autobiography of Helen Keller in Second grade. So I am the supreme winner. You should be thrilled that I dain to write you letters now that I am an award winning writer.

  Love,

  Thalia the Great

  I stepped outside Mrs. Williams’ apartment door, dropped the letters down the old fashioned glass mail chute, and watched them fall. The elevator door opened and I turned with curiosity because there were two other apartments on our floor and I hadn’t met the neighbors.

  An old Jewish man came teetering out. He wore baggy, old-man elastic-waisted denim jeans, a denim shirt, and a silver and turquoise bolo tie around his neck. He was in his eighties, or maybe nineties.

  “Where’s that whore?” he asked. He rattled a plastic Duane Reade bag he
was holding.

  His voice was thin but determined, and he asked it like he really wanted me to answer. “I don’t know,” I said. I backed up toward Mrs. Williams’ open door.

  “Is she in there? Is this where the men line up to make love to her?” He pointed to the wall so convincingly, I almost saw a line of men standing there, but there was really just a narrow, white marble-topped occasional table with a glass fishbowl on it filled with potpourri.

  "I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I walked into the apartment and tried to close the door, but he pushed it open. I got scared. I imagined him pulling a gun out of his big pants or his Duane Reade bag and shooting me.

  “So, you work for her. What, you bring her the men? Or you just want to get in on the bonanza?”

  "I bring her the pizza,” I said. I stood in the doorway blocking him.

  “Whore, I’m home!” he screamed. “I’m coming into the bedroom now!” He started stamping his cowboy boots on the marble floor, escalating the noise to make it sound like his footsteps were getting closer.

  “Howard, what are you doing here?” Mrs. Williams said, coming out of the dining room.

  “Hello, whore.”

  “Howard, how did you get out of Croftville?”

  “I’m going to use the bathroom.” He pulled a four pack of Charmin toilet paper out of the Duane Reade bag. “I brought my own.” He went into the master bathroom.

  “That’s my husband,” Mrs. Williams said. “He has dementia.” What a couple, I thought. “He thinks I’m having sex with the doorman and the doorman is using up all our toilet paper.” It was strangely romantic. “I told him the doorman’s a young boy. I should call the home.”

  I followed her into the kitchen and while she called Croftville, I went to the window and looked for Arthur Weeman but a shadow passed by his window just as I got there. I had just missed him. If it hadn’t been for Howard, I would have had a full-fledged sighting. Then I thought it might not be him, it could be a cleaning lady or someone, because whoever it was had moved so quickly and he usually plodded slowly and contemplatively around his kitchen. I stood waiting expectantly to see if his cleaning lady would be like the ones in his movies, nice clichéd middle-aged ladies in a gray uniform.