Love Creeps: A Novel Read online

  And he said, “Well, I do have a natural quirk. I lightly stone women with beautiful little rocks. Why can’t you accept that’s my natural quirk?”

  “You are crazed,” Ray said to him with concern.

  “So I’m romantically doomed because I don’t have any hidden quirks, is that it?” He was having this conversation with them from jail, where he was being kept overnight after having finally been arrested for throwing stones.

  Lynn brought her soulmate, Jim, to art openings and dinners and parties. When people asked him what he did, Lynn didn’t mind that he was a florist and that he said so. She was proud, in fact. He was so obviously charming and intelligent that being a florist only added appeal in her judgment. And her judgment was excellent.

  Ray, Lynn, and Alan found a couple of nicknames for Roland’s girlfriend, Victoria. One of them was “the Translator,” because, as Lynn put it, “She translates this French asshole into a nice person.” They also nicknamed her “the Picker-Upper.”

  The Translator saw what was great about Roland and enabled other people to see it, too. If Roland did or said something that seemed unappealing, she’d be able to explain why it was actually appealing, or she’d simply rephrase his obnoxious statement in a manner that made it convincingly pleasant. She never opposed. She skewed.

  Roland often said about her, “She gets me.” He loved himself for loving her. A guy like him should normally never be evolved enough to be attracted to her, nor be attractive to her. She was smart. She was strong. She did not wear makeup. And she even had a touch of masculinity about her. She was a banker. He was intoxicated.

  Alan gave up acquiring fake quirks. He tried to forget about romance and decided to redirect his attention toward small domestic matters, like cleaning his apartment and finally getting rid of his white easy chair. He put it out on the sidewalk for the garbage people to take during their next round. It was not an easy thing to do, emotionally. Since he had always identified with his chair, he almost felt as if he were putting himself out with the trash, throwing himself away. Sometimes a small sadness can distract us from a large sadness more effectively than a small joy can.

  Hoping to distract himself from the small sadness, he went grocery shopping. On his way back, he saw a taxi parked near his white easy chair, and its driver was hauling his chair into the trunk with the help of a pretty girl. The girl was taking his chair. She found it desirable. Alan stood there with his plastic bags full of toilet paper and frozen dinners, looking at the spectacle. The girl was slapping dust off her hands. She turned and saw him. She held his gaze. She did not exactly smile, but had a pleasant expression nevertheless. And then she ducked into the cab, which drove off.

  Alan wasn’t sure what hit him. Or rather, he felt as if something had almost hit him but had missed. He had just been handed, by fate, an opportunity to experience one of those magical romantic moments, and he had let it slip by. He could have approached the girl and told her she was holding his chair. Even if it hadn’t been his chair, it would have been a good line. But since it was his chair, it was an excellent line. That’s my chair. You like my chair. You are taking my chair. No one else wants or likes my chair. But you do. We have the same taste in chairs.

  He went up to his apartment. He slammed the front door, went straight to his couch, and sat there, with his plastic bags, staring at the empty space that used to contain his white easy chair. He buried his face in his hands.

  He should have told her that was his chair. Maybe she would have admired his taste.

  A few days later, Roland and his soulmate the Translator, Victoria, were having dinner with Lynn, Alan, and Ray. Lynn’s soulmate hadn’t been free to join them, but was planning to meet up with them afterward.

  Midway through the meal, Lynn was noticing how happy Roland seemed. A series of thought connections made her ask him if he’d ever gotten his refill. They’d all been meaning to ask him—especially Ray, with his curiosity disorder—but kept forgetting.

  Roland was speechless, stunned that Lynn knew about his cyanide. Then he realized she didn’t know. He recalled telling them in the ocean that he wished he’d gotten a refill, to ease his oceanic suffering. That’s all he’d said—a refill—without specifying of what or in what, without mentioning cyanide or his locket.

  He sighed with relief. “Yes, I did. But I’ve lost interest in that now.” He paused, wanting to appear as though he were changing topics. “Oh, by the way, look!” He opened his locket. Inside was a picture of Victoria.

  They murmured with appreciation.

  “What was in there before? You never did show us,” Alan said.

  “None of your business.” Roland snapped his locket shut.

  “Yes, your interest is much appreciated,” translated Victoria, “but men who treat love wonderfully seriously aren’t always ready to reveal the inside of their locket.”

  Later in the meal, they touched lightly on their ocean experience. Victoria already knew the story from Roland.

  Ray asked them if they all still regretted having committed their semisuicide.

  They all nodded.

  Ray said with frustration, “How can you guys continue to regret it, when in fact you have to admit it gave you one of your greatest pleasures in life?”

  Roland scowled. “Which was what?”

  “Coming out of the water,” Ray said.

  “What kind of freak would come up with such ideas?” Roland said.

  “It’s true, only mad geniuses come up with this sort of stuff,” Victoria reworded.

  “Thank you,” said Ray, charmed.

  “Victoria is incredible,” Alan said to Roland. “She not only picks up your droppings but wipes up your messes. You definitely don’t deserve her. I don’t know how you got so lucky. I’ll never be that lucky. I was almost lucky, the other day. For a second, I had a chance to meet this amazing girl in a very romantic way in the street, but I didn’t grab the opportunity, and now it’s lost.”

  “You’ll get other chances,” Lynn said.

  “Not like this one. This felt … unique.” Alan shook his head. “Things aren’t going so well for me right now. And it doesn’t help that I’ve spent all my money on precious and semiprecious stones.”

  Roland said, “No one understands better than I the urge to leave a little something behind. But Alan, I left paper clips, buttons, and pennies, not diamonds, sapphires, and opals!”

  Alan shrugged. “I’m less cheap.”

  “Better cheap than whine about it afterward,” Roland snapped.

  “Yes,” elucidated Victoria, “one of the disadvantages of being a supergenerous person like you, Alan, is that if your gifts happen not to be appreciated, your suffering and loss are greater.”

  “And plus, you didn’t have to leave the precious stones behind!” Roland said to Alan.

  “I didn’t have someone to pick up after me like you do, Roland.”

  No one spoke.

  Alan finally added, “Oh, I don’t even care about being broke. I don’t know why I mentioned it. I’m just sorry I let that unique romantic opportunity slip through my fingers.”

  “I’m sure it was unique,” Ray said. “But each one is unique.”

  “Perhaps,” said Alan. “But this one felt more unique.”

  The days were passing monotonously for Alan. He was depressed and lonely. It didn’t help that removing his chair had left a hole in his living room, a void which Pancake, Bugsy, Toto, and Fuzz-fuzz were only partly able to fill. Alan had trouble getting used to that hole. It kept reminding him of the special opportunity he had failed to grab. He decided he would buy a new chair, another white chair, to plug up the hole and help him stop thinking of the girl he could have met. But he wasn’t sure the new chair would do much good, because in his heart, he’d know it was not the same chair.

  He told himself he’d pull through this bad period. The pets were a help. And he was forcing himself to go out more, meet new people. He would turn his life around. He
had done it before; he believed he could do it again. There was a new beading class he had his eye on and was keen on taking. If he never found an ideal mate, or even a vaguely adequate mate, he could still be happy. If he worked at building a rich and fulfilling life for himself, happiness would come eventually, even if a soulmate didn’t.

  One late afternoon, his doorman buzzed him. “There’s a woman down here who wants to see you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “She says you don’t know her, but that she has something for you.”

  He took the elevator down, not wanting to let any strange woman into his apartment.

  In the lobby stood the pretty girl who had taken his chair.

  Approaching her, he said, softly, “You have my white elephant.”

  She smiled, looking puzzled. “No, your driver’s license. It was in the cushions of your chair. I wasn’t sure how long ago you lost it and if you had already gotten a new one. I didn’t know if I should even bother giving it back to you.”

  “Yes, you should. They card me incessantly.”

  She laughed, handed him his license.

  Looking down thoughtfully, he murmured, mostly to himself, “Sometimes, when you lose something, you find something more precious.” Suddenly worried he had sounded corny, he said, “I lost my chair, but I found my precious driver’s license.” He looked up at her. “Listen, I’d love to get occasional reports on my chair. Can I give you my number?”

  She laughed. “Sure. I’ll just give you my card.” She took a business card out of her handbag. “I’ll write my home number on it. I don’t always do that, because I’ve had problems with stalkers.”

  Flustered and off-balance, Alan chuckled. While she wrote her number on her card, he tried to think of what a normal, healthy, average man would answer.

  Finally, he said, “Don’t worry, I gave up stalking long ago.”

  She looked at him with a startled air and laughed.

  They had dinner and drinks twice that week. He was carded each time and showed his driver’s license.

  Soon, he got to see his chair again. He got to sit in it. And do other wonderful things in it. And see his soulmate sitting in it. And see her sitting on him sitting in it. And him on her, in it. And him in her. And them in it.

  THE END

  (for the faint of heart, do not read further)

  Seventeen

  “I met the girl of my dreams, my soulmate,” Alan told Lynn, Roland, and Ray.

  “Tell us,” Ray said.

  “I don’t know how to put it, in order to do it justice.”

  “Just blurt it out any which way,” Lynn said.

  “Very well. I was lost. And she returned me to myself.”

  “Nice,” said Roland. “Could you be a little more concrete? We were concrete.”

  “She found me in the folds of what I had discarded.”

  “A little less poetic, please. More specific?”

  “Just like your soulmate, Roland, she returned to me what I had lost.”

  Ray, Roland, Lynn, and even Patricia were eager to meet Alan’s new girlfriend, Ruth. So they decided to have another dinner. “For a change,” Lynn insisted on arranging a catered dinner at her gallery.

  When the others arrived, they noticed Lynn’s walls were bare again. Tactfully, no one commented on it.

  They sat at a round table that was bull’s-eyed by a magnificent bouquet of creamy roses brought by Lynn’s florist soulmate. He was seated next to her, and Roland’s translator soulmate was seated next to him. While they waited for Alan’s to arrive, they asked him various questions about her, including what she did for a living.

  “I don’t know,” Alan said.

  “Didn’t you ask her?”

  “Yes, I did, but she’s being evasive. That’s the one thing that bugs me about her. She’s hiding her profession from me.”

  “Ah, yes, that must be bothersome,” Ray said.

  “Actually, I’d be grateful if one of you could get it out of her during this meal.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t have a profession. Maybe she doesn’t work,” Ray said.

  “Yes, she does,” Alan said. “She’s often mentioning having to go to work or being exhausted from work. But she seems to work at irregular times.”

  “Does she like your rat?” Roland asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That could be a clue.”

  “To what?”

  “Her profession. You once said that women who have guns are likely to like rats. So what other types of women are likely to like rats? Perhaps women in gutsy, gritty professions. Maybe she’s a cop, like Lynn’s mom. Or a garbage collector, like Lynn’s dad.”

  The Translator turned to Lynn and said, “That’s what your parents do? That’s so cool.”

  At that moment, Alan’s girlfriend Ruth arrived.

  Everyone at the table, except Alan, was stunned.

  Finally, Lynn said softly, “Alan, she’s practically a supermodel.”

  “I know, she’s very pretty.” Alan smiled fondly, stroking Ruth’s arm.

  They all lowered their eyes, embarrassed.

  Ruth kissed him on the lips and said, “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Alan, she’s not hiding her profession from you,” Roland said, through clenched teeth.

  Alan looked at him indignantly. “First of all I told you about that in confidence, and second of all, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “She’s just not telling. She’s not hiding it. She couldn’t hide it if she wanted to,” Ray said.

  “Alan, literally, she’s practically a supermodel. She’s a very famous model, practically a supermodel,” Lynn said.

  Alan still seemed to take this as some sort of compliment.

  Lynn shook her head and vigorously started flipping through an Elle magazine she had in her bag.

  “Her face is on billboards. I passed one on my way here,” Roland said.

  Patricia nodded and said to Ruth, “Sorry we’re talking about you as if you’re not here.”

  “It’s okay. I understand,” said Ruth, looking amused and sheepish.

  “There!” Lynn exclaimed, and handed Alan the Elle magazine opened to a page with a photograph of Ruth modeling a brown pantsuit.

  Patricia leaned toward Lynn and whispered to her, “That reminds me, this morning you got rejected by the Ford Modeling Agency.”

  “Oh,” said Lynn. “That reminds me, I meant to tell you, I think I’m ready for us to stop sending applications to clubs who’d never have me as a member.”

  “Are you sure?” Patricia asked.

  “Yes, I’d like to give normal life a try. I can always go back to madness later, if sanity doesn’t keep me stable.”

  Alan scrutinized the photo a long time. He turned to his girlfriend and softly asked, “Why are you with me?”

  “It’s no big deal,” she said, taking a seat. “Lots of great people are not observant.”

  “That’s not what he meant,” said Roland’s Translator, who was also capable of translating other people. “What he meant was, since you’re a model, why are you with him. You could have any man, et cetera. He doesn’t find himself attractive, et cetera.”

  “Thanks,” Alan muttered.

  “What can I say? You do it for me,” Ruth said. “You’re to my taste. And to be honest, I have been drawn to your type in the past. My friends think I have perverse taste in men and furniture. Not that liking you or your chair are acts of perversion. Now I’m sounding insensitive.”

  “I think your friends are right,” Alan said. “You are perverse. I’m lucky.”

  “And you, my friend, are shallow,” Roland said to Alan. “I never realized you were so superficial, running after models.”

  “But I didn’t know she was a near supermodel!” Alan exclaimed, indignantly.

  “First of all, do I really believe that, and second of all, so what? It still shows that looks are the main thing you value in women.”

  Ruth
looked a little grim.

  Victoria said, “Oh, I completely agree, and that is so wise and good of you, Alan, because until you’ve been with someone a very long time and given that person a chance to reveal her innermost self, it would be premature and unfair to judge her on anything but her looks.”

  “Speaking of looks,” said Jim, pointing to the gallery window, “who are those men giving us weird looks?”

  They all turned and stared at the window. Three men were indeed standing outside Lynn’s gallery, their foreheads pressed to the glass, looking in.

  “Oh, they’re just some stalkers I’ve got,” said Ruth. “Alan, I hope you don’t mind that I come with a little bit of baggage. They’re creeps, but harmless.”

  “Lynn used to have a stalker, too,” Patricia said.

  Ruth nodded to Lynn sympathetically.

  Roland said to Alan, “You should relish every minute of your relationship, buddy, because I’m sure you’re aware that your days as the boyfriend of a near supermodel are numbered.”

  “What has gotten into you, Roland?” Lynn said. “Finding your soulmate has made you nastier than ever.”

  Ruth was pleasantly surprised that Alan and his friends were taking her stalkers so much in stride.

  Victoria said, “You misunderstand him, Lynn. What Roland says is true. Having low expectations is always best. This way, when things turn out great, Alan will be pleasantly surprised.”

  “Speaking of low expectations,” Roland said, turning to Lynn’s soulmate. “Jim, haven’t you ever had any higher ambitions than being a florist?”

  “Because if you haven’t,” elaborated Victoria, “it’s really impressive to be so unmaterialistic and genuine. That’s a very rare quality nowadays.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t claim to be completely unmaterialistic,” Jim said. “I did get an MBA after college, and I did work in business for a couple of years, but I kept thinking I’d be happier living more simply. I love plants and nature, but I love people and the city too much to leave. I know it may not seem exciting to everyone, but I don’t need a lot of money, and I’m very happy with the choice I’ve made. Particularly because it led me to Lynn.” He squeezed her hand.