Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

“Clearly not,” said Ray, annoyed that despite his expertise in matchmaking, he hadn’t been able to provide Lynn with her ideal man. “What about hairy electrician?”

“What?”

“H — airiella — ctrician,” Ray repeated.

“Leave me alone.”

“We’re just concerned,” said Roland. “What about primary element? Oops,” he added, clasping his hand over his mouth, “I just uttered your real name. Prime — airiella — ment. This must mean I, too, am the man of your dreams.”

“Why are we trying to burst her bubble?” Alan said.

“It’s not a bubble,” Lynn corrected. “It’s real. He also said, ‘Very elegant.’”

“I hear it,” Alan said. “V — airiella — gant.”

“Lord,” said Roland.

“What is this nonsense, Lynn?” Ray said, as if talking indulgently to an unreasonable child. “We’ve just demonstrated to you that your secret name can be uttered very easily and very frequently by anyone.”

“Perhaps,” Lynn said. “But I never heard it before. I only hear it when he utters it.”

“And where did you get this secret name anyway?” Patricia asked Lynn.

“I was at a fancy birthday party when I was around six, and a fairy told me to think of a secret name for myself and that one day I would recognize the man of my dreams because I would hear him utter my secret name.”

“A fairy?” Roland asked.

“Yeah, Miss Tuttle, the birthday party fairy.”

“Miss Tuttle?” Alan asked, chills coursing through his body.

“Yeah,” Lynn said.

“Was she also a hairdresser?”

“Yes. You knew her? She was from Cross, actually. Miss Ann Tuttle.”

“You bet I knew her! Roland recently made me believe she was my childhood sexual abuser, but she was not,” Alan said, looking sternly at Roland. “I went to see her, and she had a mangofish in a fish tank in her house.”

In a blasé tone, Roland said, “That fish is probably a cover-up, a fish she bought to appease men who, over the years, have knocked on her door to confront her about having abused them as boys.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Alan said. “I hope it’s true. I kind of regretted finding out I hadn’t been abused.”

“You’re a sick son of a bitch,” Roland said.

“No. Abusers are like garbage cans. You can toss all your crap into them.”

“If you would like us to, I’m sure we could find someone to abuse you,” Roland said.

“It’s too late. I’m not little anymore.”

“You’re still pretty little.”

“Alan, I’m sure Miss Tuttle didn’t abuse you,” Lynn said. “I’m sure that mangofish in her house was not a cover-up. Miss Tuttle the fairy is responsible for my finding the man of my life. She’s a wonderful person. I owe her, if not my life, then my happiness, and I am categorically certain that she would never harm a child. She is divine, and I mean that literally.”

“Has anyone ever even heard of a mangofish?” Roland said. “I haven’t. Rest easy, my boy, you’ve been abused.” He patted Alan’s hand, and under the table he dropped a paper clip.

The following day, at six, the man of Lynn’s life was already there when she walked in the café. He had called her at the gallery and told her where to meet him.

He was sitting on a barstool at a high and little round table. He was not wearing an apron. She didn’t understand how she could have managed never to see him in the neighborhood, never to run into him on the street. He had sandy stubble around lovely full lips in whose lines a wonderful personality seemed evident. And his gestures were the furthest thing from superficial.

She sat on a stool across from him, leaned over the table, and said, “I don’t care about hairy electrician or primary element.”

“Neither do I,” he said.

They laughed.

Lynn was secretly envied by Alan and Roland, who were yearning to find the same magic she had found.

Roland, particularly, was on the lookout for an enchanting encounter. He kept waiting for it to happen, hoping it would, but nothing of the sort was happening to him. Until early one afternoon.

He had just walked out of his usual restaurant after dropping a paper clip near the door. Outside, the day was cold and sad.

He stood at the curb, wrapping his scarf around his neck, looking left and right, searching for a taxi.

He heard a female voice near him saying, “Usually there are more of them in the street at this time.”

He looked at who had spoken. It was an attractive young woman standing next to him, alone. This was rather romantic, he thought. He told himself it was perhaps, even, as romantic as what had happened to Lynn. And it was happening to him, now, that mind-blowing romantic situation.

“Yes,” he said. “Are you here every day?”

She looked at him and asked, “What?” in a manner that seemed almost annoyed. He then noticed she had a black cord coming out of one ear. “What?” she asked him again. “I’m talking on the phone!”

The traffic light changed, and she crossed the street with a youthful stride. He heard her fading voice say to her interlocutor, “Sorry, it was just another creep who thought I was talking to him or to myself like a madwoman.” And she laughed.

Overcome with sadness, Roland could not move. He felt like a fool, and he felt old. Lynn’s sappy, silly story had gotten to him. Disgusted with himself, he clenched his fists in his pockets and remained standing there a long time.

Just as he was finally about to cross the street, he heard a woman behind him say, “Excuse me?”

He turned. A magnificent woman with black hair topped by a lock of white hair, somewhat resembling a skunk or Susan Sontag, stood there.

“Yes?” he asked.

“You dropped something,” she said.

“Yes?”

Her hand came out of her pocket, holding a paper clip. “I wasn’t sure I should bother giving this back to you.”

“Yes, you should.” He took the clip.

“In that case,” she said, “perhaps you’d like the rest of your things.”

He frowned. “What things?”

“The things you’ve lost over time.” She pulled out of her handbag a plastic baggie filled with more of his droppings.

“You must be mistaken,” he said, suddenly horribly embarrassed.

“Yes, I probably am,” she said, replacing his droppings in her bag.

He looked around, hoping to be comforted by the sight of something distracting during this awkward moment.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I come to this restaurant every day to have lunch and work at my laptop. I’ve seen you here very often, losing things. You’ve lost so much over time.”

He didn’t know what to say.

She added, “I wonder why.”

He thought about it, and for the first time the answer came to him. “To find something more precious.”

Then, looking away, but holding his hand out to her, he said, “Can I have my things?”

She reached into her bag and gave him his lost things. The package was too big to fit in his pocket, so he held it discreetly at his side, in as small a ball as he could make it.

“I met my soulmate,” Roland told the others at a dinner reunion he had insisted upon, two weeks after their last one.

“You did?” Ray asked.

Alan flagged down a waiter and ordered a cocktail to get either flatteringly carded or drunk.

“Do you have some identification?” the waiter asked.

“I lost my driver’s license ages ago. Do you really think I could be twenty-one or younger?”

“It’s possible,” the waiter said.

“I’ll have a Virgin Mary,” Alan said, and turned to Roland. “You were telling us you met your soulmate.”