Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

“I guess so.”

“So what is it?”

“I can’t tell anyone. That’s part of the rules.”

“What rules?”

“They’re from my childhood,” Lynn said, her head in her hands.

“I’m not surprised, it does sound rather childish.”

“It’s not childish, it’s romantic.”

“And what if no one ever utters your secret name?”

“Then I’ll have boyfriends, maybe even a life partner or a husband, but not a man of my dreams.”

“How sad.”

“It may be sad, but that’s the way it is.”

“Your stalkers are still there,” Ray the homeless man whispered to Roland, who was passing.

After accepting Lynn’s coins, Ray tried to exercise his influence on her. “Do volunteer work, make new friends, learn an instrument, catch up on your reading.”

He took Alan’s money as well, and said, “Drink eight glasses of water a day. Wear sunblock. Endanger your life to gain perspective.”

Lynn thought about the offer. Hoping that spending a few days with a man might revive her desire more effectively than following him down the street, she finally agreed to the deal, as long as she could do the weekend with Roland before the one with Alan. She wanted to get ready for maximum revulsion. The men accepted the order.

Lynn decided to go to Bloomingdale’s to buy some cologne for Roland, cologne that she hoped would make her desire him.

In the perfume department, she approached a man behind a counter and asked him for the most widely proven men’s cologne. He reached for a bottle. It annoyed her immeasurably that he didn’t ask her what she meant by “widely proven.” Clearly, he just wanted to sell her anything.

She sniffed the top of the open bottle. “And this will do what I want it to?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, looking in the other direction, clearly bored.

“How do you know what I want it to do?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter what you want it to do, specifically. It makes all your dreams come true. And his, too.”

“What if mine and his are not the same? What if they are mutually exclusive?”

“Then it finds a way to make them coexist without problems.”

“Can I get my money back if it doesn’t work?”

“If you haven’t opened the package and you still have the receipt, yes.”

“How can I test it out if I don’t open the fucking package?”

“Excuse me?”

“How can I know if this perfume will make my dreams and his coexist without problems if I don’t open the package?”

“You must have faith. If you open the package and it doesn’t work, that means you didn’t have faith, and your money’s gone. But if you have faith, it will work.”

Lynn felt a momentary twinge of desire. It was the desire to kill the sales assistant, so it didn’t count.

Instead, she bought the cologne and walked home, hating the world and observing herself hating it. She always found it curious to be in a truly bad mood, a mood in which she got angry at her pocket, at the carpet, at the peephole, for all sorts of uninteresting reasons.

In the car ride to the inn, Saturday morning, Lynn sat on the right edge of the passenger seat, as far from Roland as she could. She pressed herself against the door and looked out the window, disgusted and silent.

“You’re not acting like a stalker,” he said.

“I’m gathering my strength,” she replied, not taking her eyes off the scenery while trying to want him.

“Boy, if you’re so un-perky with me, I wonder what you’ll be like during your weekend with your own stalker.”

She became a shade paler. “Please let’s not talk about him.”

She tried to distract herself by meditating. She closed her eyes and in her mind focused on a large black dot — a giant period. And she tried to want. She opened herself up to desire, to desiring Roland, specifically. She tried to like the sound of his voice as he spoke to her. She waited for him to do something appealing. It seemed hopeless. Tears ran down her cheeks. Not wanting to draw attention to them, she didn’t wipe them away. But soon Roland said, “Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into? A crying stalker.” He sighed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all. Please don’t mind me.”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t cry and say ‘please don’t mind me.’ It’s rude.”

“I was just meditating, and sometimes when I meditate my eyes tear.”

Suddenly, she opened her bag and said, “I got you a present.” She took out the cologne she had bought for him.

“Oh no,” he groaned. “You’re not going to shower me with gifts during the whole weekend, are you?”

“This is the only one I got.” She opened the bottle and sprayed some on him.

A wave of nausea swept over her. “Pull over!” she screamed.

He did. She stumbled out of the car but was not able to throw up. She took deep breaths of fresh air and tried to calm herself.

Finally, she got back in the car. Roland had rolled down all the windows, for her sake. “I don’t think it smells so bad,” he said.

He started dialing a number on his cell phone, telling Lynn, “I have to call the hotel manager and let him know we’re running late. He wanted the exact time we’d be arriving; otherwise, he said he might not be there to let us in.”

Roland got the manager on the phone and told him they’d be there in an hour.

Lynn pondered the fact that Patricia thought Roland could turn out to be the man of Lynn’s life. She smiled to herself when she recalled having told Patricia about her secret name.

Lynn, herself, didn’t really believe the story, but she did find it romantic.

When Lynn was about six years old, she was at the birthday party of a friend of hers, on Long Island, whose wealthy family had the luxury of hiring a fairy, Miss Tuttle, to entertain.

“Are you real?” Lynn asked the fairy.

“No. I’m a fairy. Fairies are not as real as people.”

“I mean are you a real fairy?” Lynn said, impatiently. “Can you prove to me that you’re a real fairy?”

“How?”

“I don’t know. You’re the fairy. You should know how to prove it.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you something a real person would never tell you. Think of a secret name for yourself. This will be your real name. And one day, your Prince Charming will come along, and you will recognize him, because you’ll hear him say your secret, real name.”

“What’s my secret real name?” Lynn asked.

“You have to decide for yourself. And it must be a name you’ve never heard before, a name you make up. And you must never say it to anyone.”

“Can it be beautiful?”

“Yes.”

Lynn thought about it for a while, and said, “Can it be Slittonia?”

“No,” Miss Tuttle the fairy said, thinking it sounded vaguely pornographic. She didn’t want to be accused of having a bad influence.

“Why not?”

“Because you just said it to me. I told you that you could not say it to anyone. Including me. In fact, never say it out loud, even to yourself, not even in a whisper. Only in your mind.”

So Lynn chose “Airiella,” in her mind.

It was only when Lynn got older that she realized Miss Tuttle the fairy must have been down on men, down on love, and that she had given Lynn a secret message, which was: there is no Prince Charming; Prince Charmings are as unreal as fairies.

For where, when, and how would Lynn come across a man who would, within her earshot, utter her secret name — a name she had made up when she was six?

Lynn later learned that Miss Tuttle, the grim fairy, also worked in the neighboring town of Cross as a hairdresser.

When Lynn and Roland entered the tiny lobby of the inn, no one was there. On the front desk were two keys, with a note that said, “For Roland Dupont and guest: In case I’m not back, you can go straight to your rooms. — Max the manager.”