“It all depends. I’ve written you a scrip for Tofranil and you should take four 25 mg tablets a day. With food,” he adds as an afterthought. “Stay away from triggers like visitors and leaving your apartment. Once you’ve been on the dose for seven days and your anxiety is down to manageable levels, you may call me and we’ll try the elevator together, which is how we should have done it in the first place, isn’t that right?”
I ignore that question, which probably doesn’t require a response anyway. Dr. Terrance likes to be with me for every big “breakthrough.”
“Are you saying that I shouldn’t see Oliver or Daphne?”
“You can talk to them on the phone, but no in-person contact.”
“How am I supposed to eat?”
“Order in and have the food deposited outside your door as you usually do. You are still comfortable with the doormen delivering your goods, correct?”
I drop my head into my hands. Seven days of forced solitude? Well, Daphne would say to look at the bright side and think of all the writing I’ll get done. “Yeah, I’m okay with the doormen. Does it have to be Tofranil? I feel like a zombie on that.”
“You and Prozac have never gotten along, Natalie, or have you forgotten?”
“No.” Prozac makes me violently ill.
“Good. Take the Tofranil and let’s get ready to face the elevator together, hmm?”
Suitably chastened, I reply, “Right.”
“Oh, and Natalie, think about my proposition again, will you? I think it would be a wonderful service for the community.”
“Sure.”
Never happening in a million years, Dr. Terrance, I silently vow.
Hanging up, I stretch out on the floor and press one hand against the glass. Dr. Terrance wants to write a book about my experience. He says when I recover it will be a triumphant story of recovery and provide hope to other sufferers of extreme anxiety.
I don’t believe him, but partly because I don’t want it to be true. If it is true then repeatedly turning down his offer is super selfish of me because I should want to help other people, but it would mean laying my entire life bare; I had enough of the fishbowl three years ago when someone leaked that I was Natalie Beck. The unhappy trolls, who’d discovered that their favorite game had been written by a woman and not a man, made it their mission to uncover every piece of dirt in my past—who I’d slept with and how many times was of greatest interest. They read my innocuous tweets about cats and movies. Looked me up on message boards. They discovered my Facebook page and proceeded to comb over every status update as if they were the Watergate reporters.
Thankfully my connection to Oliver was never revealed. It was apparent early on in Oliver’s high school career that he was someone special. To prevent me from suffering abuse from nosy people on the Internet as he became more famous, we hid our connection. It was easier to do that now when we lived in the same building. Most of the people here were very private for one reason or another, and Oliver’s visits to my apartment or mine to his have never been remarked on publicly.
After my identity was revealed, he wanted to blast everyone who hurt me, go on talk shows and the like, but I begged him not to. I knew it would only make it worse. He’d been coming off a terrible season and his social media accounts were filled with hostility too. It would have been gasoline on a fire.
No, there won’t ever be a book written about me—at least not without my permission.
I roll to my side and stare out the bottom of the glass door. It’s all academic anyway. There’s no triumphant recovery. Not yet.
And after the note?
Maybe not ever.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JAKE
“Glad you could make it,” Ian says with sourness as I slip into my courtside seat.
“Work,” I answer. I’d spent the afternoon running down possible leads in Natalie’s case. Oliver provided me a list of her former coworkers, people they thought could have been behind the subway attack, and her ex-boyfriends—only one actually lives in New York City; the other two were from her hometown in Indiana. I put an investigator on the one who lives in Brooklyn. “How long has he been like this?” I ask Kaga, who is seated next to Ian. Their long legs are stretched perilously close to the out-of-bounds line. Anyone who thinks Asians are short hasn’t met Kaga, who tops me by an inch.
“Since the opening tip-off,” Kaga replies with a roll of his coal-black eyes.
We both turn to look at Ian, who apparently came from the office since he’s still wearing his suit. His collar is unbuttoned and his undoubtedly very expensive silk tie is hanging halfway out of his pocket. He invited us out tonight to witness the shellacking of the Knicks by the Atlanta Hawks. He flips us off but doesn’t take his eyes off the court.
The Knicks haven’t been good since Willis Reed¸ and I suppose it’s a measure of Ian’s steadfastness that he still pays good money for this type of torture. And if there’s anyone who has money to burn, it’d be him.
Ian Kerr is a billionaire. When he plays poker, there are only a few people in the world who can afford to sit with him. I’m not one of them. I only have a few million to my name, and unlike Ian, who transformed himself from a street rat who ran small cons on the Atlantic City boardwalk, my paltry millions are inherited from my grandfather. The Tanners have a long history of modest wealth based on the founding branch having manufactured and sold gunpowder during the Civil War—a decent work ethic interrupted by a few spendthrifts means our money has lasted but hasn’t grown.
Besides, a seven-figure net worth in the city is nearly a dime a dozen. One in twenty New Yorkers can lay claim to that.
“Watching the home team lose makes me thirsty,” I declare and hold up my arm to signal the beer hostess.
Kaga’s lip curls. “How can you drink that piss water?”
“Don’t have much choice here.”
Kaga’s one of those men whose fortune rivals Ian’s. His large Japanese conglomerate distributes everything from domestic beverages to some of the best brandy known to man. Kaga’s making inroads in the international real estate community as well. Soon half of New York will be owned by Kerr and the other half by Kaga. Since both pay me a lot of money to do investigative and security work for them, I’m completely fine with their impending takeover. Could be worse.
It was Ian’s and my mutual interest in cars that led to our first meeting at a Long Island body shop that worked on foreign sports cars. I was getting my tires rotated on my Audi A8, one of my few extravagances, and he was eying a custom remake of a 1970s McLaren F1, which cost about as much as an apartment on the Upper East Side.
When he found out what I did for a living, he had me investigate a couple of principals in a company he’d wanted to take over. It worked out well, and after that the acquaintance grew into a sort of friendship. Through him I met Kaga, who’d done a few deals with Ian, and I’d connected with these men, despite our varied backgrounds.
Kaga and I had watched with bemusement as Ian fell hard for Tiny, just a year earlier. He’d seen her on the sidewalk and told me she was the one.
The one to what? I’d asked.
She’s going to either remake me or break me, he’d answered.