“No. They say, ‘Give me money.’ I say, ‘Give me answers.’ I beg you to give me an answer. It’ll keep me warm tonight.”
“But I don’t really know.”
“And I don’t really believe you. Have a nice evening.”
Ray watched her walk away, disappointed that she hadn’t enlightened him. He really wanted to know why the elegant gallery owner was going around every day following a tan, unsmiling man while she herself was being followed by a man who managed to appear clownish despite wearing black; quite a feat, in Ray’s opinion. The three of them often gave him money, one after the other, as they passed him by. He’d seen them before in the neighborhood, but had never paid close attention to them until recently, when they’d begun following each other. He diagnosed them as nuts. Displays of this kind were not easy for him, considering the fact that he used to be a psychologist whose practice had been ruined by his unfortunate ECD, or Excessive Curiosity Disorder. Curiosity about the slightest peculiarities in human behavior. The opposite of those therapists who fell asleep while their patients spoke, Ray was too interested in the soap opera of their stories. The suspense was both thrilling and intolerable for him. He called most of his patients at home many times a day, to ask for updates on their situations. Once, he had a patient whose boyfriend had stormed out after a fight, and she was waiting for him to call. Ray phoned her every hour asking if her boyfriend had made up with her yet. His obsessive behavior destroyed his practice, not to mention the sanity of his patients.
Two weeks after Judy had advised Lynn to take up addiction, Lynn and Patricia were shocked to hear from a mutual acquaintance that Judy had been hit by a truck. She was fine, with nothing but bruises. She had been kept at the hospital overnight for observation after the accident and was now home recovering.
“It must be all the drugs,” Lynn said.
Lynn knew she had to take her stalking more seriously. She began writing notes to Mr. Dupont. They were not as good as the notes her own stalker sent her. He wrote things like, “Your concentration blows me away. It is blinding. I love the way you stare at my gifts. I have many other gifts you haven’t seen. One in particular. It yearns for you.” It was disgusting. Why couldn’t she come up with something like that in her own stalking? Instead, she wrote things like, “You intrigue me. I hope you don’t mind my following you. I hope you are flattered by the attention I give you.” Another one she wrote was, “You look really intelligent and good. I mean ‘good’ as in ‘attractive,’ of course, for how should I know if you are good or not? For that matter, how should I know if you are intelligent, but you might be. And that’s good enough for me.”
She was bad at writing notes, and on top of that, she had stalker’s block. She felt she had exhausted all the obvious statements. She was amazed that her own stalker was able to come up with fresh ideas all the time.
So, out of frustration, she began copying her stalker’s notes and sending them to Mr. Dupont. She sent the ones that said things like, “I watch you all the time. Even when I’m somewhere else, I watch you in my mind,” and, “To my little pooky bear. I pook you.” What did that mean? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she couldn’t have thought of it herself.
Eventually, she got tired of even the transcribing process, and decided to save time by simply covering up her stalker’s signature with Wite-Out and signing “Your fan” over it, before sending the notes on to Mr. Dupont.
Riding the elevator up to the courts, Alan looked at his new racquetball partner and broke the silence with, “Nice locket.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s inside?”
“It’s personal.”
They played for the first time. Lynn’s stalking victim won. Not a bad player, Alan thought, for a Frenchman.
After their game, Alan suggested to Roland Dupont that they go to the juice bar for a smoothie. Roland hesitated, then accepted the invitation. They ordered their drinks, Banana Lipgloss and Blueberry Beach Sand, and sat at a table.
Alan complimented Roland on his game. The Frenchman returned the compliment.
They engaged in some small talk. It turned out Roland had only recently moved to the neighborhood.
“How do you like it?” Alan said.
Roland fingered his locket and looked at Alan without answering right away. “I don’t think I like it very much, actually.”
“Really? Why not?”
“It’s the people,” he said. “The people are creepy here. Much more than where I lived uptown.”
Alan’s heart was beating fast at how easy it was. The progress was rapid. “Creepy how?”
“There’s a woman, for example, who’s been following me.”
“Oh. Do you know her?”
“No.”
“Why do you think she’s following you?”
“I have no idea. I guess she’s just a stalker, or something. And she’s been sending me notes. Stupid, weird notes.” He produced an exhausted chuckle.
Roland Dupont spoke well for a Frenchman. This annoyed Alan. “What do the notes say?”
“In one note she calls me a teddy bear, or pooky bear, or something like that. I can’t really remember.”
Alan was silent. Was Lynn using his wording? Or was “pooky bear” very typical, universal wording among stalkers? Alan was perplexed. “What else does she say in her notes?” he asked.
“Oh, let me think …” Roland stared down at the table while tapping it with his fingers. “She wrote something like, ‘Seeing you makes me happy every morning.’ And she follows me. And she’ll sit across from me during lunch when I’m with a client.”
“A client? What do you do?”
“I’m a lawyer. And you?”
“Accountant.”
Roland nodded. After a moment of silence, he said, “You know, in France, stalking doesn’t even exist. There isn’t a word for it in French. I was trying to tell my family on the phone that this woman is a stalker, and I realized a French translation of the word does not exist.”
“That’s probably because in France stalking is such a normal part of everyday life that they don’t need a special word for it. They probably call it living.” Alan chuckled.
Roland seemed taken aback. “It’s really horrible to be stalked. It’s one of the worst crimes.”
Now Alan was taken aback. “Really? I don’t mean to belittle your experience, but it strikes me as one of the mildest crimes.”
“How can you think that?”
Alan stirred his smoothie, stared at Roland’s locket meaningfully. “I mean, I’m sure at some point in your life you must have been very interested in someone, unrequitedly, and engaged in similar behavior vis-à-vis this person.”
“You mean stalking someone?”
“If you want to call it that, sure.”
“No. Have you?”
“Naturally. Who hasn’t?”
“Well, you’re very open-minded,” Roland said, “very forgiving, I guess. Of yourself. But then again, I doubt you’ve seriously stalked anyone.”
“Your doubt is unfounded.”
Had Roland been the type who ever laughed, he would have laughed. He rarely found anything amusing, and even when he did, such as now, he never felt comfortable laughing. Even a smile looked odd on him, as if the particular facial muscles that created his smile were nonexistent, and he had to resort to using a combination of surrounding muscles, such as the muscles of his neck, forehead, eyes, nose, and ears to produce one. It came out differently each time.
“You’ve actually been a stalker?” Roland asked.
“I wouldn’t call it that, no, but you probably would.”
Alan didn’t want this man to call him a stalker. It was racist, or something. Hate language. The nice word was “admirer.” Calling him a stalker was like calling someone who refuses to risk his life “a coward,” instead of “smart.” Or like calling a promiscuous woman a slut instead or liberated or sensual.