Love Creeps (8 page)

There were no menus. Max had no staff. He cooked mushroom omelettes for the diners.

He unexpectedly joined Lynn and Roland at their table. Stretching out in a chair, an elbow on the table, he asked, “So, who are you people, anyway?”

“Oh, just relaxing for the weekend,” Roland answered.

Max leaned over and put his hands on both their shoulders. He said, “Children, are you lovebirds?”

“No,” Roland said.

“I can rectify that. If you would like me to.”

“Uh, we'll think about it,” Lynn said.

“I have methods and instruments that can induce the shift, in case you change your minds. So, what's your connection?” Max asked, wiggling his finger between the two of them. “Are you relatives? Blind date?”

“No,” Roland said. Lynn noticed him looking down modestly.

“Is she your secretary, your nurse?” Max asked.

Annoyed by his sexism, Lynn replied, “I'm his stalker. He kindly agreed to give me a chance.”

“Really?” Max said. “I'm a scion. I think it's good to be blunt that way.”

They just stared at him.

He went on. “My parents were friends of the Kennedys and Truman Capote. I grew up in splendor, but now work in this hellhole.”

“Why?” Lynn asked.

“Oh, because my parents and I aren't getting along. It's one of those rich-family fights. You know, the kind that happens in dynasties.”

Just then, Max was called away from the table by the other couple.

“This is the weekend from hell,” Roland said, concentrating on his food.

“What do you mean?”

Roland chose his words carefully. “I am in the company of people I can barely tolerate.”

“You mean him and me?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Do I really turn you off that much?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. She felt herself melting a little, and was suddenly reminded of the assistant manager's description of the pleasure Max got from feeling embarrassed. She felt the same way, her pores opening, a warmth invading her, her aches and pains leaving her momentarily. What else could this be but serious masochism? She knew she'd have to ask herself why she was finding rejection appealing and try to remember the last time she'd been rejected.

She said softly, “I have to confess something.”

“What?”

“I'm not a stalker. I was forcing myself to stalk you.”

“Good,” he said, clearly not believing her. “Then, we can end this weekend right now and go home.”

“No, it's not that simple. I no longer feel desire for anything or anyone, and so I picked you to practice on. I want to want you.”

He sighed and put his napkin next to his plate. He said he was going to his room to rest.

Alan was in a state of awful anxiety. Roland still hadn't called. He tried not to think about it by busying himself with the preparations for his own weekend with Lynn. He looked for his lost driver's license, because he didn't want to seem unmanly in Lynn's eyes by asking her to drive. After searching for it for twenty minutes, he figured he had more important worries. He planned the weekend in great detail. He made a list of topics of conversation. He went shopping for attractive clothes. He researched hairdressers. He went to the gym.

But it all wasn't enough. He would not deserve her if he didn't do more to make up for his deficiencies.
Go to more trouble
, he told himself, but he wasn't sure there was any more trouble available.

Later, Roland suggested to Lynn that they go for another walk. She brought along some bread to feed the squirrels. The air was pleasantly cool at five-thirty. Their voices seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet of the country.

Lynn wore a cream shirt and brown suede skirt. She was a becoming woman, Roland thought. It didn't make sense that she would be stalking him, not that he was not becoming himself, or that becoming women didn't stalk, but there was just something that didn't fit.

He said, “You were putting me on, right, when you said you were forcing yourself to stalk me?”

“I so wish I was,” Lynn said. “But no. Stalking you is an ordeal. I don't know how Alan manages to stalk me with so much energy.”

“Listen, I have no idea if what you're saying is true, but it's certainly quirky. You know, I could have liked you if we had met some other way.”

“I wish I could say the same to you, but I'm sorry, there's no manner in which we could have met that would have made me like you.” After a pause, she added, “You, or anyone, of course. I don't always add that, because it gets wordy.”

Softly, he said, “I think you should add it, even if it gets wordy.”

“Oh, okay.”

They came upon a bench and sat down. Lynn was on the lookout for squirrels.

Out of the bushes appeared a little pointy face. A raccoon. She threw bread at the raccoon, not quite far enough, in order to lure the animal closer. It worked.

“You should not feed this animal. It's vermin,” Roland said.

“I strongly disagree.” Lynn kept feeding it, bringing it closer.

“You're not even trying to like me. Why did you bother coming this weekend?”

“I am trying,” she said.

Roland used another tactic. “I'm hungry. I want to eat your bread. Please give it to me.”

“I don't have much left.”

“Will you choose to give your bread to an animal rather than to a hungry man?”

“Yes.”

Lynn continued feeding the raccoon. How much more she enjoyed taming than stalking. Perhaps the world was divided into two kinds of people: the tamers and the stalkers. She was clearly a tamer. Taming was a more evolved activity. Stalking was a more animalistic activity. Like eating. Like fucking.

“It might have rabies,” Roland said, looking at the raccoon, who was a foot from Lynn's leg. “You better be careful.”

By then the raccoon was eating out of Lynn's hand. It gave her a strange feeling of sadness that this was the level at which things could feel right and good. Roland better not move a hair and ruin this one sweet moment for her, or she would kill him.

He did not.

And the raccoon bit her.

She yanked her hand away, looking at the animal with shock as it ran into the bushes. He had bitten her out of the blue, the brute.

“Is it bleeding?” Roland asked.

“Yes.”

As they walked back to the hotel to find the manager, Roland furtively dropped a button and said, “I told you that you should have fed me the bread. I wouldn't have bitten you.”

“There has been one instance,” Max said, “in these parts, of someone catching rabies from a raccoon. The only way you can tell if someone has it is to do an autopsy. If you're not sure, you have to get six shots over the course of a month. Was the raccoon aggressive? Or strangely forward? Did it approach you without fear? Sort of like … oh, I don't know … a stalker?”

“No, not without fear. It took a while for it to eat out of my hand.”

“That's a good sign. But I still think you should see a doctor on Monday. Symptoms don't often appear before two weeks, but if you wait until they do appear, there's no treatment, you die.”

“What are the symptoms?” Roland asked.

“Irritability, headaches, fever, spasms of the throat muscles, and, eventually, convulsions and delirium. The girl who died of rabies had everything going for her. It's a very painful death. And, obviously, it's contagious.” Max looked at Lynn. “If you start acting strangely, I will have to put you down.”

“You mean kill me?” Lynn said.

“If I see no alternative.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Just don't act strangely.”

All three stared at each other for a few seconds. Abruptly, Max said to Roland, “Simon Peach called for you again. He wondered if you had gotten his first message.”

Lynn had an introspective, preoccupied look on her face during dinner. She was trying to detect rabid feelings in herself, feelings of aggressiveness. She worried that she might be salivating more than usual. And she felt strangely drawn to her knife.

She complained of these things to Roland, who tried to get her mind off them. To get one's mind off a worry, there's nothing like replacing it by another worry. So Roland talked to her about her desire for nothing and how unpleasant it must have been and must still be, and soon she was no longer complaining about strange attractions to knives.

Max had prepared them vegetable lasagna. He joined them for a few minutes, addressing Roland while looking at Lynn. “Earlier she mentioned being your stalker. I know it's probably wrong of me, but in my mind I tend to equate stalker with whore.”

Lynn and Roland looked at Max, thinking he was completely insane.

Roland came to Lynn's defense. “Lynn stalks me not because she desires me, but because she doesn't.”

“Whatever,” Max said, nodding, and looked at Lynn. “I guess the reason I equate female stalkers with whores is that I assume they're desperate to have sex. So at some point if I happen to say to you, ‘Do you want to sit on my cock?” please don't take it personally. I would say that to any female stalker who's not one of my own stalkers. Oh, and as you may have noticed, I wear a codpiece, which shouldn't frighten you. It's true I have a larger penis than most men, particularly in these parts, but it's not quite as big as the codpiece might lead you to believe.”

“Is this some sort of show you put on to entertain your guests?” Roland asked.

“Now I'm offended.”

“You're
offended!”

Max nodded. No one spoke, so Max got up, and said, “It's okay, I'll get over it.” He walked away.

Lynn wondered if her annoyance at Max was a sign of rabies or if a normal, healthy, nonrabid woman could have become equally annoyed.

Later, she mused to Roland, “Does the madness take hold of you suddenly or gradually? I mean, do you have time to realize what's happening?”

After dinner, they said good night and retired to their separate rooms. Roland dialed Alan, who picked up instantly.

“You didn't call me!” Alan wailed, his voice tinged with hysteria.

“I'm sorry, I was thinking about it all day,” Roland said.

“Have you been unattractive?” Alan asked.

“I think so.”

“Did you wear that hideous shirt you showed me?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh, please wear it. Have you been offensive?”

“Uh, I think so.”

“Like what? What did you say?”

“Um, well, when we took a walk, I criticized her for running after a hare. I told her to repress her stalking instincts.”

“Ah! That's good. She ran after a hare? That's cute!”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean, ‘Yeah'?”

“I'm just agreeing with you.”

“You are?”

“Yes. What are you getting at?”

“You're agreeing with me that Lynn is cute to run after a hare.”

“I guess I was, but I misspoke. I don't really think it's cute. It was just an automatic response.”

“You don't really think it's cute. That's still more positive than how you felt about her before. You found her repulsive, before.”

“You're being nitpicky.”

“Are you falling for her?”

“No!” Roland said, emphatically and indignantly, which made Alan feel better.

“I wish I was in your shoes, man. I wish I was with her right now,” Alan said.

They hung up, and Roland went to bed.

All through breakfast, Roland seemed sullen. Lynn didn't inquire about it. She had her own preoccupations. At the end of the meal Roland suddenly broke the silence with, “I'll help you to like me. We can both work toward that goal. Tell me what to do, I'll do it. What do you like in guys?”

Lynn turned her gaze out the dining room window. After a few seconds, she said, “I think we should hang out with the hotel manager.”

“Max? Why?”

“Because you seem more appealing to me when he's nearby.”

Roland frowned. “You mean by comparison?”

“Yes. You're enhanced by him.” She said this because it was partly true, but also because she didn't want Roland to know the main quality that made him more appealing was his distaste for her.

They found Max and invited him to have tea and a snack with them in the sitting room. He made the tea, brought it to them with cookies, and seemed glad for their company. They were about to ask him questions in order to bring out his repulsiveness, but when they heard the words that came out of his mouth, they knew it would not be necessary.

Turning to Lynn, he said, “I don't think you'll ever see a woman who's properly fucked going around stalking anyone. Which leads me to my next thought, which might be advantageous to the both of us. You could service the men who stay at this hotel, and they would pay a moderate fee, which we would split. It's not a bad deal for you, since you wouldn't be getting just money, but sex, for free. The men wouldn't have to know that they were servicing you. Well, think about it.” He turned to Roland and said, “I'm sure that with a little urging she'll accommodate any man in the hotel. Just a gentle prodding and poking.”

Lynn glanced at Roland. He did seem improved by comparison. They smiled at each other with complicity. His smile looked like a squint.

The tea came to an end, and Roland believed he and Lynn had obtained what they had sought: Roland's increased attractiveness in Lynn's eyes. They quietly climbed the stairs to Lynn's room with this treasure. They were about to settle down and examine it, when Lynn broke the news to him that it was not there. It had, she said, vanished as soon as the manager had left their presence.

Roland was distressed. There had to be another solution. “What if we had a photograph of the manager, which you could glance at repeatedly while you and I talked?”