Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

“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.

Roland lost interest and turned back to the easier target. “My poor Alan, I’m worried about you, about your expectations. Ask yourself, why would a near supermodel ever want to be with you, let alone stay with you?”

Alan looked pained. Everyone turned to Victoria, even though they didn’t have much hope she’d be able to fix this vicious comment.

After a couple of thoughtful seconds, Victoria said, “Roland is right. Asking yourself why a supermodel would want to be with you is a very therapeutic exercise. You should make a list of all the reasons you come up with — and there will be many, no doubt — such as your kindness, sense of humor, charming innocence, piercing blue eyes, feathery blond hair, and you should study that list religiously. It’ll keep your confidence up, your anxiety down, and enable you to enjoy your relationship more fully.”

Ray placed his hand on her arm. “Victoria, I like you, and I don’t want to see you get hurt. Every time you utter one of your lovely translations, I tremble for your safety. Roland has a temper. I warn you that one day he may turn around and slug you.”

Roland’s face turned red. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating!” he said, slapping the table and rising slightly out of his seat, threateningly. “Are you implying that her translations are annoying? That they’ll get on my nerves? Well you’re wrong! For the first time in my life I feel free! I don’t have to watch what I say anymore. I don’t have to walk on eggshells and be careful not to hurt people’s feelings. As long as she’s with me, I can just be myself, and she’ll fix the damage before it even has time to register!”

“You were walking on eggshells?” Lynn said.

“Yes, for your information. Spare me your amazed air,” Roland said.

Everyone was silent for a few long seconds, mulling over the concept that Roland had been walking on eggshells.

Later during that same meal, they talked of Max’s suicide. Roland was not so interested in the topic, since he had murdered Max. Plus, the subject made him uncomfortable. Had it been a suicide, though, he would of course have been very interested, as was the case a moment later, when Alan’s model girlfriend generously revealed that one of her old boyfriends who suffered from depression had committed suicide three years ago. Roland was dying to ask her how he had done it, but he restrained himself, fearing it was tactless. No one else asked either.

Alan was perturbed, because he had noticed that while they had been talking about Max’s death, Ruth had begun staring at Roland rather insistently. Alan hoped it did not mean she was attracted to him. He told himself he was just being paranoid.

The days and weeks passed, and Alan worried about the looks his soulmate and Roland kept giving each other when they all got together.

Alan thought there was something terribly wrong in his relationship. That any human being could possess such a high degree of perversity as to be a near top model and be attracted to him seemed extraordinarily shady. Who knew what else she was capable of? Infidelity, perhaps. It was all too easy for him to imagine, after having lived it with Jessica.

Nevertheless, he chose to fight his fears. He believed that if he had strong enough faith, blind faith, his love would endure, and so would his soulmate. He wanted true love to be possible, and he wanted to be one of the lucky few who had it.

Alan had no way of knowing that the actual reason Roland was staring at Alan’s girlfriend was not because of her pronounced beauty, nor because of her fame, nor because he was attracted to her (he was not especially), but because her ex-boyfriend had committed suicide and Roland wished he could think of a way to ask her how.

Alan had no way of knowing that the reason his soulmate stared at Roland so frequently and insistently was not that she found him handsome or charming or had any interest in dating him or even talking to him (she did not), but because of how obvious it was to her that he had killed Max. She was amazed that it wasn’t obvious to the others, but then again, how could it be — they didn’t know what it felt like to have murdered someone.

Her ex-boyfriend “committed suicide,” but Roland hadn’t picked up on the quotation marks when she’d mentioned it that night she first met Alan’s friends at the restaurant.

But when they’d mentioned Max’s “suicide,” she’d noticed something about the way Roland moved, or blinked, or breathed, or perhaps it was a downward glance. She didn’t know what it was, but whatever it was, she understood it, felt it viscerally. And she knew, at that moment, that Roland had killed Max. She hadn’t said anything, because she didn’t feel she was in a position to judge, having herself murdered her old boyfriend and passed it off as suicide when his lack of logic and tendency to contradict himself had become too annoying to her.

Alan was convinced his soulmate would dump him, leaving him to live the rest of his days alone, while Roland and Lynn would live happily ever after with their soulmates. Alan was dead wrong.

Roland soon discovered that his soulmate, his Translator, his Picker-Upper, was HIV positive. He had been looking for aspirin in her medicine cabinet and had found some Combivir, AZT, and other pills, which he knew were used by such patients. He double-checked on the Internet and confirmed it.

Furious at his Translator for not having told him, for not having cared about his safety, he said to her, “In case you weren’t aware of it, AIDS is a fatal disease that is sexually transmittable.”

“So are lots of things,” she said. “Life is a fatal disease that is sexually transmittable.”

After a long silence, Roland said, “I’m waiting.”

“For what?” she said.

“For you to mention that you just quoted Jacques Dutronc. Or were you going to pass that off as your own?”

“Chill out,” she said.

“You didn’t care that I might catch AIDS!”

“I always insisted we use condoms. And plus, my viral loads are low.”

“It’s still risky!”

“Barely. And what were you doing snooping in my medicine cabinet? And what are you doing now, acting mad! You’re supposed to be all sad that your soulmate might die!”

“My soulmate is supposed to be truthful and not hide that she has a contagious disease! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted you to get hooked on me before I told you. So that you wouldn’t leave me.”

Roland walked out on his soulmate.