Love Creeps (15 page)

“Don't think so negatively. Here, use the tape.” They thrust the Walkman into his sweaty palms. He pressed a broken half of headphone to his ear, but he could still hear the dangerous birding chatter in his other ear. His frustration increased. His desire to see the hawk's babies was becoming intolerable.

Suddenly, there was a great commotion at the birding benches. Many of the birders exclaimed, “Soon Yi just came out on her balcony! Look! There's Soon Yi!”

The pent-up stalker threw the Walkman at his compatriots, leapt out of his chair, and ran to the birders, tripping over the leg of a tripod, almost knocking over the expensive telescope. Not wasting a moment, he grabbed someone's binoculars without bothering to remove the strap from her neck, and shouted, “I want to see the babies and Soon Yi!”

Nine

That evening, Lynn received another call from Roland. He sounded softer, contrite. He apologized for the way he had treated her, and said, “Come on now, hop on a bus and come home.”

“No.”

“Fine, but don't come crawling back in two days then!” He hung up.

Lynn attended three more days of filming. And then it was over. It was time for Alan to get back to work at the accounting firm. When Lynn made little hints that she'd be depressed without his company to fill her days, he just chuckled and didn't know what to say—he couldn't very well invite her to the office to watch him work. Little did he suspect that she probably would have accepted the invitation, so fascinated was she by his new self. Since he had not extended the invitation, she settled for secretly following him to his job and “accidentally” bumping into him when he came out for lunch. She then suggested they have lunch, but he couldn't because he had to have lunch with a client. He added, “You can walk with me there, if you want.” So they walked together, and when they arrived at the restaurant and he said good-bye to her, she said, “Well, I've got to have lunch, too. This looks like a nice place. I often come here myself. I'll just sit at another table, if you don't mind.”

He couldn't very well say no. So they both went in, he a bit puzzled, and she picking out a table with a good view of him. During lunch, she watched him while pretending to read a fashion magazine. It was hard for her to pinpoint what enchanted her so much about him. Maybe it was simply the contrast between what he had been and what he was now. She remembered having been seduced by contrast before—the contrast between Roland and the hotel manager, and contrast within the same person was even more provocative.

As for Alan, he was dismayed, not only that Lynn had come into the same restaurant, but that she was sitting there, staring at him. What was wrong with her? He wondered why he found her so puzzling, having himself engaged in her type of behavior once or twice. He recognized the symptoms. She was stalking him! It broke his heart.

He was still nice to her when she called him on the phone, knowing too well the anguish of stalkers.

As Lynn did not come crawling back in two days, nor in six, Roland called again, sounding sorrier. For the first time, she was a mystery to him.

“I miss you,” he said. “Let me come and get you. I could drive in, right now, and pick you up, and we could drive back and start things over.”

“I'm sorry, Roland, I'm not interested anymore. I'm in love with Alan.”

“What! The bastard! What has he said to you? What has he promised you?”

“Nothing. He doesn't even know I love him. Or maybe he suspects, but not because I told him. Good-bye now, Roland. Take care.” She hung up.

He called back. “You little bitch! You get your ass on a bus this second and come back, do you hear? Or I'll come and get you myself, and you don't want that!”

“Please leave me alone. Get on with your life.” She hung up.

Oh!
Indignation and outrage burned the roots of Roland's recently thinning hair.

He called back. “You were the one stalking me! You were the one humiliating yourself, degrading yourself, like a little whore, following me down the street, panting, and now you have the gall to—” She hung up on him. He slammed down the receiver and screamed. He picked up the phone with both hands and shook it, and squeezed it hard.
“Putain d'bordel de merde!”
he said. He placed the phone down and redialed her number, breathing deeply.

“Please do not hang up on me,” he said to her. “Please let me finish my sentence, that's all I ask. As I was saying, you were the one following me down the street, and now you have the gall to play Miss Hard-to-get, Miss I'm-gonna-go-and-be-a-whore-for-someone-else-now!” he screamed. “You are a fucking slut!”

“I'm going to hang up now.”

“Don't you dare! Don't—you—dare.”

He was silent. She hung up.

He did not call back. He drove to New York and checked into a hotel. He bought her flowers. He bought her a ring. He followed her down the street, dropping a penny.

“I'm sorry. I love you,” he said, walking next to her, holding out the little black box.

She eyed it without moving her head. “It's over, Roland. I don't want anything from you.”

“Oh, please just take this gift. Then my heart will be at ease.”

She stopped, opened the box. Inside was a diamond ring, as she had expected. She snapped the box shut, handed it back to him, and resumed walking. “Thanks. Lovely gesture. But I'm finished with you, Roland.”

Roland sniffed. Tears were running down his high cheekbones. “I love you, Lynn. I need you. I need you for now at least. I don't think I can live without you. If you're sure you don't want to spend the rest of your life with me, can't you at least wean me gradually, not so abruptly? Please. It's too cruel otherwise.”

Lynn rolled her eyes. “You are ridiculous. Why don't you look into Stalkaholics Anonymous? Alan said it was very helpful.” She hailed a cab, hopped in, and left him standing on the sidewalk with his flowers and ring.

Lynn was headed for the restaurant where she knew Alan was having dinner with his girlfriend.

When she got there she sat at a table away from theirs, and watched them.

The next day, Lynn followed Alan down the street. He went to have a massage. When he came out, forty-five minutes later, she went in and asked to be massaged by the same person who had just massaged Alan.

She asked the masseuse to massage her exactly the way she had massaged Alan with all of Alan's preferences. Lynn tried to imagine being Alan, receiving the massage.

Following Alan and being near him made Lynn feel warm and comfortable. Watching him gave her pleasure. She wondered if Alan had truly changed as much as she thought he had, or if the change had taken place in her, instead. To find out, she dragged Patricia on one of her stalking outings.

They sat at a table with a good view of Alan while he was having lunch with someone.

Lynn asked her assistant, “So, is it me or is it him? Do you see a big difference in him or not?”

Under her bushy eyebrows, Patricia gazed at Alan. “Yes,” she said, “the difference is that he's not stalking you anymore.”

“No! I'm not talking about that. Doesn't he seem … normal?”

“Yes, but why does that excite you so much? You know a lot of normal people. Or maybe you don't, actually. Maybe you've been hanging out too long in the art world. Perhaps you should frequent some bankers or lawyers or something.”

“But isn't it impressive how normal he seems now, considering how weird he was before?”

“Lynn, what are you doing with yourself, with your life?” Patricia said, leaning toward her boss emphatically, her long hair dangerously close to dipping in the olive oil. “You can't go around following this guy. What do you want from him? Do you want to date him? If so, ask him out on a date. Don't follow him.”

“I can't, he has a girlfriend.” Lynn paused. “Look at him, it's not a change in superficial things like clothes or even body weight or muscle tone or hairdo. It's a change in the core, and it radiates outward. The people I've seen him with seem to like him more. No one used to like him. Now, even his clothes like him. They embrace him in a more loving way, as if they're proud to be associated with such a great guy. Their pride is evident in the way they hang on him.”

Patricia was no longer observing Alan, but Lynn. “Why have you become obsessed with him?”

Lynn thought about it. “I guess because I assume that if someone can change that much, he must be an extraordinary person.”

Day after day, Lynn followed Alan down the street, and Roland followed her. Ray the homeless man was becoming tormented, tempted. He had noticed the change in the stalking direction, the stalking order. His curiosity twitched. He was afraid he might lose his faculties. He still wanted to resist the lure and tried to downplay the situation in his mind.
They're always enticing at first, but I shouldn't be fooled. Sure, they do things like change their stalking order, but it doesn't mean anything. They inevitably disappoint
.

The summer semester was approaching, and Alan tried to decide what classes he would take. He was drawn to a class called How to Say No Without Feeling Guilty (And Yes! to More Time). He marveled at how far he had come, because two semesters ago he considered signing up for practically the opposite class, called How to Get Anyone to Return Your Phone Call.

In the end he signed up for map-reading, swimming, and beading.

Alan went to the first class of his map-reading course in high spirits. He arrived at 6:45
P.M.,
fifteen minutes early. To his horror, Lynn followed him into the classroom. She sat two chairs away, and he stared at her in amazement.

“You can't take this class,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because this is my class.”

“But you're sharing it with these other people,” she said, motioning toward the seated students.

“You're not interested in this class,” Alan said.

“Yes I am.”

At that moment, Roland entered the classroom and sat between them.

Alan and Lynn looked at him, horrified. Alan said, “You guys should not take this class. It's very bad for you.”

“Why?” they both asked.

“You don't even know what class this is, do you?”

“No, what class is it?” Roland asked, suddenly alarmed.

“It's called Lost in Space: Map-reading for the Geographically Bewildered.”

Roland laughed and blushed on Alan's behalf. His laugh, this time, came out as a long “Nnnn” sound, with only a little bit of jiggling and wavering to indicate it was a laugh. “I see what you mean. We might die of boredom or embarrassment.”

“No. You guys are stalkers. Not even in recovery, like me. This class is just going to stimulate your stalking urges even more.” Alan was trying to speak in a low voice, which a quick look at the other students assured him was not low enough. They were glancing at each other with curious expressions on their faces.

“Why would it stimulate our stalking urges?” Lynn asked, like a rapt student.

“Because this class has to do with space, geography, destination, traveling, which are all elements of stalking. Not to mention the element of following. Following a map.”

Roland was midway through an eye roll when the teacher walked in, saying loudly, “What is a map? A map is an overview of something. It allows you to see things in perspective. Don't you wish everything in life were as easy as following a map?”

“No,” Alan said. “I wish following a map was as easy as everything else in life, or I wouldn't be in this class.” There were some chuckles.

“I want each of you to tell us about a time when you were lost. If you cannot recall a time when you were lost, I want you out of this class.”

When it was Alan's turn to speak, he said, “It's hard for me to recall a time when I was not lost. I've been lost my whole life. I'm a recovered stalker, you see, and most stalkers become stalkers because of what psychologists call an ‘attachment disorder,' stemming from the childhood absence of a caring and consistent parent or guardian, usually in the first six years of life. But that wasn't the case with me. What caused me to become a stalker was my poor sense of direction. The first time I was lost, as a young child, was traumatizing. It was in Central Park, and I finally just started following someone, hoping she knew where she was going and that her knowledge would rub off on me. Well, it didn't, but it introduced me to the sick pleasure of following. Ironically, having a poor sense of direction is very inconvenient for a stalker, because it makes it hard for him to find his way home.”

The teacher raised his eyebrows and turned his attention to Roland. “What about you?”

Roland decided to call the teacher's bluff. “I've never been lost.”

“Think harder,” the teacher said. “I'm sure there was a time when you were lost. Otherwise, I want you out of this class.”

“Well,” Roland said, softly dropping a paper clip under his desk, “I don't know if it counts, but I'm lost now. I'm lost as to what I'm doing in this class.”

The teacher stared hard at Roland and suddenly turned away, saying, “Yeah, it counts.” He paused. “Now, let's talk about the map-reading personality, people who have an easy time reading maps versus those who don't, and what it means. As one may suspect, people who have a hard time reading maps are often more creative.”

Alan realized he must be the exception to that rule.

“And the ones who are good at reading maps,” resumed the teacher, looking at Roland and Lynn, “are often more analytical, more orderly, more anal, everything you would expect.”

“Less loved?” Alan asked.

“No, not less loved,” the teacher said.

“More loved?” Roland asked.

“No, I wouldn't say that either,” the teacher said. He then opened a small suitcase and took out various maps. He placed them on his desk one by one, saying, “I've brought a lot of maps. Here's a map of a department store. And this is one of your psyche. And this one helps you find your way around in life. This little green map helps you find out what you really want.”