Hello Stranger, page 11
She wrinkled her nose in faux sympathy. “Not over it, then.”
“Of course not,” I said. “You methodically and viciously dismantled my life. Augusta Ross had been my best friend since second grade, but six months after you showed up, her parents were hauling her off to Seattle, never to return. You got me kicked out of school. You turned my own father against me. And all for what—so you could have our bedroom to yourself?”
I thought maybe holding her actions up to her in the mirror might evoke … something. Remorse, maybe. Regret?
Instead, Parker just said, “You forgot ‘stole your boyfriend.’ Which was why I needed the bedroom to myself.”
Whoa. She was worse than I remembered.
Parker was loving this, though. She leaned in. “Is it all still haunting you this much? I mean, I knew I won. But I didn’t know I won this epically. Sweetie, in two years, we’ll be thirty! Let it go.”
“Don’t call me sweetie” was all I could think of to say.
Remember when Dr. Nicole thought it was so perplexing that I would think that people would want to use your weaknesses against you? That there was some compelling reason to endlessly hide your vulnerabilities from the world?
Well, meet the entire reason I believed that—right here, in the flesh. Holding a cat in a coffee shop.
Hazel One called my name again.
I ignored it. Screw the latte.
“You can’t live here,” I said.
“I’m no landlord,” Parker said, “but I don’t think you can stop me.”
“Why?” I asked then.
She pretended the question made no sense. “Why what?”
I tried to bend her to my will with a don’t-mess-with-me tone of voice. “Why are you doing this, Parker?”
She gave a big shrug, and then she didn’t fight me—and I suddenly realized she’d wanted me to ask this question all along. “I heard about you and my mom hanging out,” she said, and then her voice got theatrically pouty, “and I thought, Are they having fun without me?”
“We were not having fun,” I said. “I don’t ‘have fun’ with Lucinda.”
“She paid you a visit, though,” Parker said. “At your roof-hovel.”
Hey. Only I got to call my hovel a hovel.
“Now we can all have fun together,” Parker went on—her voice shifting to menacingly perky.
“I don’t want you here,” I said, starting to feel a panic of helplessness.
“Aww, I know,” she said now—lacing her voice with fake sympathy. “This is kind of your worst nightmare, isn’t it?”
She waited, like I might confirm it.
I held still.
“But don’t worry,” Parker added then, raising her hand for another high-five attempt. “Given your whole brain-damage situation … you will literally never know I’m here.”
Eleven
PERFECT. BETWEEN JOE the Weasel and Parker, I pretty much had to dread every single elevator ride.
Another reason to never leave the rooftop.
And yet Parker wasn’t wrong. I really didn’t notice she was there. Other than that our top-floor hallway suddenly started smelling like cat pee, which had to be that creepy Sphynx cat’s fault. Maybe she worked all the time—what kind of terrible job would a person like Parker even have?
Or maybe she was moving around me all the time, unseen, like a ghost.
Either way, she was surprisingly forgettable.
The Weasel, however, was the opposite.
That red-and-white bowling jacket was as hard to miss as a stop sign. And he wore it all the time. Other people changed their clothes, their shoes, their hair. Sometimes they wore workout gear. Sometimes a suit for work. Sometimes jeans. It was normal human behavior to wear different clothes for different occasions and I applauded it. Of course, it made it almost impossible for me to know who was who, but at least the world was still lumbering along much as it always had.
Anyway. Not this guy.
He really must have loved that jacket.
I saw him in it almost every evening. Getting coffee at Bean Street from Hazel One or Two. Locking his Vespa at the bike rack. Crossing that same crosswalk where I’d almost been flattened by a VW Beetle. Doing normal things, mostly. But with a spotlight on him because of that jacket.
Just my luck.
Everybody looked the same except for the last guy I wanted to see.
Noticing him like that did, however, confirm my initial diagnosis: he was definitely some kind of epic player.
My first confirmation came when I saw him stumbling drunk down the hallway with the sexiest woman in our building. I was waiting to step into the elevator as they lumbered out, arms pretzeled around each other, after what had clearly been a wild night of drinking. She looked worse than he did, for sure, and as they lurched past me, I wondered if she might be in danger.
Had he roofied her? That was the first question that came to mind. Just how terrible was this guy? Was he just a douche, or was he a monster?
I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but I didn’t know her name.
Sue and I always just called her Busty McGee. Which sounds terrible, now that I think about it. But I’m telling you, most of her outfits were very … cleavage-forward. We weren’t noticing something she didn’t want us to notice. Actually, she’d make a great friend for me now, because she was highly recognizable, even without a face. I’d know that chest anywhere.
And I very much admired her confidence. I, who hadn’t bought new bras in so long I couldn’t even tell you how long it had been.
But look, as identifiers went, those were hers. If you needed to mention her to anyone in this building, all you had to say was “the lady with the boobs,” and you’d be set.
Not that you would say that. But you could.
Anyway, I hesitated on her name—and then I made do with “Hey.”
“Hey!” I called, catching up to them. “Are you okay?”
Leaning against the Weasel, she stopped, turned in my direction, and said, “He’s got me.”
At that, Joe un-paused them and they continued on toward her apartment door. Should I stop them? Should I call the police? What would I even say? A fat-shaming jerk is taking a very sexy neighbor of mine back to her apartment—and he might be up to no good?
That wasn’t a 911 call. People got up to no good all the time.
In the end, all I could think to do was shout after them: “Make good choices!”
They kept going—no acknowledgment.
“Be sure to respect each other’s humanity!”
Not even a glance backward.
Then, “Don’t make me hear about this in the elevator in the morning!” As they disappeared into her apartment and left me standing there.
After that, I started noticing Joe coming out of Ms. McGee’s apartment more often. Which made me think they’d started dating. But get this: There were two other single women on our floor—not counting Parker, who I would never count, on principle—and I saw him coming out of their apartments, too, often late at night. The glasses, the floppy hair—and always that bowling jacket. Unmistakable.
What was he doing in all these women’s apartments?
Something about it just bothered me.
Here I was, chastely facing all kinds of recovery and obstacles and time pressures … and there he was, just having his way with the entire building.
I was frantically trying to relearn how to paint. I was staying up late and getting up early and painting back over canvases. I was falling asleep at my own worktable, leaving paint and brushes out to dry and get ruined.
I was hustling like crazy all the damn time—and this guy Joe was just … getting lucky?
I didn’t have time to obsess over what this dude was up to. And yet I was doing it anyway.
“I think he’s a gigolo,” I said to Sue one night, FaceTiming while we both did our dishes. “I see him going in and out of women’s apartments all the time.”
“Multiple women?” Sue asked.
“Multiple women,” I confirmed.
“Then he’s not a gigolo,” Sue declared. “Gigolos are typically kept by one older woman for eye candy and sexual favors.”
I paused, like, Huh. “Why do you know that?”
“If it’s multiple women,” Sue went on, proud to be helpful, “he’s more likely a male prostitute.”
I considered it. “Well, he must be very good. The penthouse apartments in this building aren’t cheap.”
“Maybe that’s what the videos are for. Maybe he’s extorting them so he can live in luxury.”
I sighed. Maybe. “Anything’s possible. People are so terrible.”
“It’s a shame, though. He’s so cute.”
“Is he cute?” I asked.
“You don’t think he’s cute?”
“Sue, I can’t see his face.”
Sue smacked her forehead. “Forgot again.”
“Why can’t you remember this?”
“Let me be your eyes for you. He’s super handsome. That floppy hair. The hipster glasses. Plump lips. Stellar jawline. And he’s very symmetrical.”
She knew that would get me. I always gave extra points for symmetrical. Too many years of art classes.
“And,” Sue went on, “he’s got my favorite kind of teeth. Perfect but not perfect.”
“Like a rabbit.”
“He doesn’t look like a rabbit. I’m telling you, he’s attractive. And he’s got a kind of bad-boy energy. You know—’cause he rides that Vespa.”
“I’m not sure a Vespa creates bad-boy energy.”
“Vespa … Harley Hog … whatever. The point is, he’s good looking.”
“I guess he’d have to be—if he’s thriving as a high-class prostitute.”
“He could just be a playboy, though,” Sue said next, thinking about it.
This was high praise from Sue. “You think he’s a playboy?”
“I mean, who knows? I’m just saying he could just be handsome as a hobby.”
That was true. “Joe the man-whore,” I said, trying on the idea for size.
“I don’t like that word,” Sue said, picking up her phone to pause our FaceTime and research it. She loved looking things up midconversation. “There’s got to be a better word.”
“Joe the libertine?” I offered.
But she’d found a good website now. “How about seducer?”
“Not harsh enough.”
“Player?”
“Too complimentary.”
“If we were in England, we could call him a shag bandit.”
I thought about that.
“Ooh, here’s an archaic one,” Sue said. “Mutton monger.”
But I shook my head with a shiver. “That’s the worst one so far.”
“How about just keep it simple and go with a classic? Womanizer.”
I nodded. Don’t overthink it. “Joe the Womanizer.”
“I like it,” Sue said.
And with that, it was settled. Joe of the bowling jacket was sleeping with half the women in my building, mocking them in elevators the next day, and possibly extorting them for money.
What other explanation could there be?
* * *
DR. NICOLE, HOWEVER, did not agree. “Please don’t call the cops on that poor man,” she responded after I spent a whole session telling her all about it.
“The evidence is pretty damning,” I said.
“What evidence? There’s no evidence. You’re talking about one overheard phone call and a few sightings in the hallway—sightings where you mostly darted into the shadows so he wouldn’t see you watching him.”
I shrugged. “I know what I know. A lot of things don’t add up.”
“Yes. But that’s not him. That’s you.”
“I’m not the person who filmed a sleeping woman in my bed and then made fun of her.”
“But you are the person who just had brain surgery.”
“Are you saying I’m mentally defective?”
“I’m saying you’re in an adjustment period.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Go easy on poor Joe. And go easy on yourself. You can’t entirely trust yourself right now. Your senses are out of whack. Your brain has a lot going on.”
“No argument there.”
“You’re going to make mistakes for a while until you adjust.”
“What kinds of mistakes?”
“Things like not recognizing your sister—”
“Stepsister,” I corrected.
“And not knowing familiar voices. And falling in love at first sight with your veterinarian.”
“I don’t think we can call meeting the love of my life a mistake, but okay.”
But I wondered.
Was Dr. Nicole right? Could I not trust myself?
It was a strange thought. Who on earth could you trust if not yourself?
“Be patient with yourself,” she kept saying.
What did that even mean?
Everybody kept telling me to wait, let the edema resolve, get some rest, see what happened. But I didn’t have that kind of time. I had to get my portrait painted for the show. I couldn’t just watch my whole life fall apart and not try to do something about it.
Then she glanced at her watch, so I glanced at my phone. We had two minutes left in the session. Time to wrap it up. “The point is,” Dr. Nicole said, “you’re still adjusting. You have to allow for confirmation bias.”
“What’s confirmation bias?”
Dr. Nicole paused for a good definition. “It means that we tend to think what we think we’re going to think.”
I added all those words up. “So … if you expect to think a thing is true, you’re more likely to think it’s true?”
“Exactly,” she said, looking pleased. “Basically we tend to decide on what the world is and who people are and how things are—and then we look for evidence that supports what we’ve already decided. And we ignore everything that doesn’t fit.”
“That doesn’t sound like me,” I said.
“Everybody does it,” Dr. Nicole said with a shrug. “It’s a normal human foible. But you’re doing it a little extra right now.”
“I am?”
She nodded. “Because your senses are off. It’s harder for you to collect solid information about the world around you. And because you’ve experienced trauma, you’re on high alert for danger.”
No argument there.
“So,” I said. “If I think everything is terrible, then everything will be terrible?”
She nodded, like, Bingo.
“But I do think everything is terrible.”
“In the wake of a difficult time,” Dr. Nicole said then, sounding more than ever like the calm voice of reason, “as you try to readjust to a new normal—”
“I don’t want a new normal!” I interrupted. “I want the old normal.”
“The trick,” Dr. Nicole continued, not letting me throw her off, “is to look for the good stuff.”
“Fine,” I said, thinking about it. “I’ll try.” Then I added, “And I won’t call the cops on the Weasel. Yet.”
“And maybe stop calling him the Weasel.”
“But he is a weasel.”
“You’ll definitely keep thinking that if you keep thinking that.”
I sighed. Another gotcha moment. “Confirmation bias?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“That’s my girl,” she said.
Twelve
DID THE GREAT Dr. Oliver Addison, veterinarian sex god, work a miracle and restore my geriatric bestie to perfect canine health?
Kind of. Mostly.
Though he did warn me that Peanut would be “a little tired” for a week or two.
Sure enough, on the day Peanut came home from the clinic, all he wanted was to curl up under the bed and nap.
But I wanted to hang out. I’d missed him.
I’d missed him so much, apparently, that all I wanted to do was lie on my tummy, half under the bed myself, watching him sleep and reassuring myself he was okay.
Look for good things, Dr. Nicole had said.
Peanut being home is definitely a good thing, I thought as I watched him.
But there was another good thing under that bed—one I’d forgotten about until I pushed it aside to get a better view of Peanut.
A box I’d kept for years, with my mother’s roller skates inside.
I hadn’t seen them in ages, but I decided to pull the box out and open it up.
My mom loved to roller-skate. The two of us used to skate up and down our block, listening to Top 40 on her little portable radio, and singing along, and waving to the neighbors. My mom could skate backward, do the moonwalk, spin around on one foot, and do the grapevine. Plus a million other things. She used to pull me with a rope behind her and call it water skiing. It was our favorite thing to do on weekends.
She had her own skates—white leather with pink pom-poms on the toes. And she’d bought me a matching pair when I was little. This was the nineties, and most of the world had shifted to Rollerblades. But not my mom.
After she died, I inherited them.
By inherited, I mean, I took them out of her closet before Lucinda donated everything to Goodwill.
I never wore them. After I lost her, I never roller-skated again. And my kid-sized skates got lost somewhere along the way, like things do.
Wherever I went, though, I kept my mom’s skates close—in that box under my bed. Not to wear. Just to have. Just because holding on to them felt like holding on to a piece of her. Just because, even though I never even looked at them, if I could save one thing in a fire—besides Peanut, of course—I wouldn’t even think about it.
One hundred percent those skates.
I wondered if they would fit me now. What size had my mom’s feet been? It bugged me that I didn’t know.
And I didn’t have anyone to ask. I could almost hear my father saying, What the hell kind of question is that?
And then, as soon as that thought popped into my head, I was on my way to find out.
