Lights Out (29 page)

Turn the page for a sneak preview of
Jason Starr’s latest book,

THE FOLLOWER,

coming in August 2007
from St. Martin’s Minotaur

Copyright © 2007 by Jason Starr

Katie was so beautiful, so perfect in every way, that it was hard for Peter to stop staring at her. He loved the way her legs and arms moved as she ran, and the way her pony tail bobbed back and forth against her back. She had a great back—smooth, muscular, and lightly tanned. He forced himself to look away a few times, because he didn’t want to make it too obvious, but she was just impossible to resist.

After her workout, she did some more stretches, then went over to the mats to do abs. As she did crunches on the exercise ball, he watched, loving the way her lips parted with each exhale. He was hoping she’d meant what she said about exchanging numbers and getting together sometime, that she wasn’t just being nice.

When she finished doing abs, she did some isometric-type exercises, and then came over to him at the desk.

“Good workout?” he asked.

“Yeah .. . not bad.”

Even sweaty she looked amazing, much better than in those pictures of her he’d seen on the Internet. Standing next to her he felt a spark between them, an energy that was so intense he knew she must’ve been feeling it as well. He had an impulse to screw all of his plans, to tell her straight off how he felt about her so that they could start their lives together, but he resisted it. He’d planned everything carefully and knew it would be crazy to try to rush things now.

They chatted for about five minutes about Lenox and about people they both knew—a typical what-ever-happened-to, I-wonder-where, oh-my-God-do-you-remember conversation. Then things progressed even faster than Peter had anticipated. Instead of having to ask for Katie’s number, she spontaneously wrote it on the back of a Metro Sports Club business card and said, “You have to call me so we hang out sometime.”

Peter, trying not to let his delight show, but trying not to sound too nonchalant either, said with the perfect balance, “Yeah, definitely.”

The rest of the morning, Peter was so thrilled that he was barely aware of even being at work, at his silly job, and he felt like someone else was going about his duties of handing out towels, answering phone calls, and dealing with whatever mundane questions gym members had, and he was just sitting back, observing it all. At around noon, Jimmy introduced him to a guy named Todd, who relieved Peter at the desk; then Jimmy asked Peter if he could stay late today—even though it was his first day on the job—to stand on the street and hand out flyers to passers-by. Peter knew that Jimmy was pulling a power trip, telling the new guy to do the dirty work. Jimmy was really getting to Peter. It was so painful, listening to him go on and on about the “hot chicks” at the club, acting like he was some kind of Casanova or something, when he was obviously the type of guy who couldn’t even get a girlfriend.

Normally, Peter wouldn’t have had the patience to put up with a guy like Jimmy, but today he was in such a great mood that Jimmy could’ve asked him to scrub the insides of all the toilets and he would’ve happily said yes.

Peter stood outside and handed a flyer to almost everyone who passed by, giving the BS sales pitch:—”A two-day free trial and initiation fee waived for today only,” as if prospective members weren’t always offered two free days with no initiation fee. He was so pepped up because of Katie that he managed to convince several people to walk in off the street and talk to the sales rep about a membership, and Dave, the sales rep, even managed to close a sale.

At the end of Peter’s workday, Jimmy came over to him and said, “Great going, man. I didn’t know you had sales skills.”

Peter knew he easily could have felt insulted. It was as if Jimmy was treating him like a five-year-old who’d spelled his first word—
Oh, you made a sale, Peter Weter. I’m so proud of you. You’re such a smart little boy.
But since Peter didn’t really care about this job and wasn’t even planning to keep it for more than a couple of weeks, he smiled and said, “I was just doing my job.”

“Maybe you’re wasting your time, trying to become a trainer,” Jimmy said. “Maybe I should just train you to be a membership consultant.”

Again, Peter felt like Jimmy was trying to get a dig in, but he just brushed the whole thing off, making it into a joke, going, “Yeah, maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

“Hey, was that your girlfriend you were talking to before?” “Yeah. Actually it was.”

“I’ve seen her here before. Yeah, she’s a babe all right. Well done, my man. Well done.”

Jimmy told Peter what a great job he was doing so far and how happy he was to have him on board at the gym and then he finally said, “See ya tomorrow, bright and early,” and walked away.

Peter was glad he would be quitting soon because he didn’t know how much longer he could stomach working for Jimmy.

At around two P.M., Peter left the health club. Automatically he started toward Katie’s apartment, where he’d been hanging out a lot every day for the past few weeks—in a disguise of a Yankees cap and mirrored sunglasses—but then he reminded himself that there was no reason to watch her anymore and, although he really wanted to see her again, going there could be a big mistake. If she spotted him it would ruin everything and there was no reason to risk that when things were going so well.

Instead, he walked down Third a couple of blocks, then cut over to Lexington and hailed a cab. He had the urge to call Katie from his cell and arrange a time to meet up, but he stopped himself. He knew that getting a girl was just like getting a job— attitude was everything. If he came off as desperate, impulsive, overzealous, it would turn her off and he’d take a major step backward. He had to stay cool, keep telling her what she wanted to hear. Every girl has a fantasy of their perfect guy. The trick was to transform yourself, to become the fantasy.

From observing Katie when she was a teenager and from watching her lately, Peter had figured out a lot about her. He knew that she was a good dresser and cared about her appearance. He also knew that she was very close with her father, and that she was looking for a strong, conservative, good-looking guy to protect her. At the ice-cream parlor in Lenox, she used to talk about her father a lot and Peter used to see her with Mr. Porter all over—at the supermarket, playing tennis, at the beach at Laurel Lake. Sometimes he’d see her walking down one of the side streets in Lenox, holding hands with her dad, or sitting with her arm around his shoulders at the movie theater at the Berkshire Mall.

From watching her in Manhattan, Peter had figured out that not much about her had changed. She wasn’t ultra high-maintenance, but she liked to take care of herself—going to the nail salon on Third Avenue once a week, getting her hair cut and highlighted at Amor de Hair on Madison Avenue, shopping at Bloomingdale’s, J. Crew, and xAnn Taylor LOFT, and of course working out at the Metro Sports Club, which cost her seventy-four dollars a month. He knew that with the money she was making at her entry-level job there was no way she could afford this type of lifestyle and that her father, Dick Porter, was probably helping to support her. He was probably paying her rent and perhaps giving her additional money. Peter also got the sense, by Katie’s mannerisms, such as the way she twirled her hair self-consciously and occasionally glanced in mirrors in a dissatisfied way, that she was insecure, that despite everything she had, she still felt like something was missing. Whenever she arrived at her apartment building alone, after going out with her friends, or when she came home from work, she’d look around nervously, obviously afraid that someone was going to try to follow her into the vestibule. Peter couldn’t help thinking of her as a baby deer, alone in the dark, dangerous woods of Manhattan, desperate for a strong, secure guy, a father figure, to come along and protect her.

Peter knew that he could be that guy, that rock. All he had to do was play up to her fantasy, give her what she wanted. He was five years older than her, which already gave him a big leg up; girls who idolized their fathers were always attracted to older guys. She wanted a guy who was secure, mature, who could take care of her, make her feel safe, like she used to feel safe when she was daddy’s little girl. She was probably used to dating guys in their early twenties who went on and on about themselves and treated her like crap, but what she really wanted was a more mature guy who cared about her, who
listened.
As for appearances, she seemed to be attracted to guys who had the same general fea-304

tures as her father. When she was walking along the street, or sitting at a restaurant or a coffee bar, or that time last Saturday night, when she went out with her friends to that bar in Chelsea, she seemed to notice the clean-cut, conservative-looking guys. When Peter came to New York, his hair was long, almost down to his shoulders, and he had a scraggly beard. But before he inter-viewed for the job at the gym he got a close-cropped, military-style do and trimmed his beard to a goatee. Afterward, when he looked in the mirror, he was surprised and delighted by how much he resembled Katie’s dad, Dick Porter.

When Peter said hi to Katie at the gym he knew right away that his makeover had been successful. He could tell by the way she kept smiling and blushing that she was attracted to him. Because he knew she was insecure and would respond well to compliments, he made sure to tell her, in a very sincere way, how beautiful she looked. That scored a lot of points for him and he knew he’d also won her over big-time by hanging on her every word, being genuinely interested in what she had to say.

The traffic was stop-and-go in the East Sixties and it probably would have been faster for Peter to get out and walk. But then he had another thought—maybe he should just go for it and tell the driver to make a left at the next corner and head back uptown. Peter imagined going to Katie’s building and buzzing her apartment. She’d wonder how he knew where she lived, but he could cover for it easily—tell her that he’d gotten her address from the health club’s database. She’d invite him up and, since she’d just gotten out of the shower, her hair would be wet. She’d be wearing baggy sweats and a long, man’s T-shirt, and would look great with no makeup. Although he’d never seen the inside of her apartment, he pictured the whole place being pink and very girly, like a teenager’s room. And it would smell flowery, like potpourri, or the perfume she was wearing at the gym today. She’d look warm and cuddly and he’d want to give her a big, long hug. He’d look into her eyes, showing her how caring he was, and say, “I figured, Why wait? Let’s go for that coffee right now.” He’d have to deliver that line carefully, so he wouldn’t sound too pushy or over-anxious, but he was sure he could pull it off. Then they’d go out to a dimly lit coffee bar and sit next to each other on a fluffy couch and talk and laugh and look into each other’s eyes for hours. As long as he said the right things, treated her the way she wanted to be treated, she’d start to fall in love with him, and then they’d start seeing each other all the time, become inseparable, and when the time was right, he’d propose, giving her the Tiffany two-karat diamond engagement ring, and it would be the happiest day of their lives.

Passing Fifty-ninth Street the traffic thinned and the cab started moving at a steadier pace and Peter decided to hold off on going over there. It would be better to just relax, to let things take their course. Although he knew he could go over to her place and everything could work out perfectly, there was no reason to rush things. He’d stick to the plan and call her tomorrow night and suggest that they meet for coffee the following day—Monday.

He had taken out the business card with her number on it and now he stared at the handwriting. It was very neat and controlled; every letter in “Katie” and every digit in her number was easily readable. This was another sign that she was into him. If she didn’t like him or didn’t care if he called her, she would’ve scrib-bled her number; obviously she wanted to make sure there was no way for him to dial a wrong number and not be able to get in touch.

Zoning out, thinking of things to say to her on the phone when he called her and when they went out for coffee, he didn’t hear what the driver had asked him.

“What?”

“What side?” the driver asked, annoyed. “Right or left?”

“Oh, left,” Peter said, “across the street.”

The cab pulled in front of the Ramada Inn on Lexington and Thirtieth. Peter gave the driver a twenty, which was nearly double the fare, and told him to keep the change. The driver seemed surprised and suddenly cheerful and told Peter to have a great day.

Hector, the young Puerto Rican guy, was working at the hotel’s front desk. When he saw Peter he cupped a hand over the mouth piece of the phone and said, “Yo, Peter, I gotta talk to you. Hold up one sec.”

“Sure,” Peter said.

Peter knew what Hector wanted to talk about. Peter had been giving him advice on how to break up with his current girlfriend so he could get back with his ex. It was a sticky situation because the two girls lived in the same building in the Bronx and Hector didn’t want his ex to know that he had been dating the other girl. Peter’s advice was for Hector to be honest with the girl he wanted to break up with because when it came right down to it people always appreciated honesty.

Hector hung up and said to Peter, “Yo, you’re a genius, man.” “It worked?” Peter asked.

“Hell yeah, man. I mean, I wasn’t gonna do it. I went over to Jessica’s place last night and I was, like, I gotta be crazy doin’ this. She gonna be freakin’, know what I’m sayin’? I gotta lie to her, make up somethin’. Then I was like, Naw, maybe Peter’s right. So I tried. I mean, I did everything you said I should do, man, said everything you said I should say. I was lookin’ into her eyes, being nice and sweet and all that shit, and I just told her, was like we gotta break up ‘cause I’m in love with Lucy and that’s just the way it is. I didn’t say it like
that,
but that’s kinda like what I was sayin’, you know, and she was like, ‘Yeah, you wanna break up. That’s cool. I just want you to be happy, I wanna be friends.’ I’m serious, yo, that’s what it was like.”