Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

But it happened again. Not more than a week later, her mother noticed that Lynn was dressing rather well. She said, “Isn’t that a little ladylike, that style?”

Lynn said it was not ladylike in the least, but that was a lie, and she knew it. She was a closet ladylike-clothes wearer. She loved flipping through fashion magazines and followed their more conservative styles.

After college, Lynn got a master’s in art history at Columbia. She then spent a year working as a researcher for Christie’s in Contemporary Art sales, and spent two years working her way from a sales position at Luhring Augustine gallery to its director. There, she established such good contacts with important collectors that several of them agreed to back her when she moved to open her own gallery.

The first time Lynn’s parents visited her gallery, they looked at the paintings hanging on the walls and said, “Like father, like daughter.” It took Lynn a moment to realize they were implying she was a garbage collector, too. She wondered from whom she had gotten her good taste. Certainly not them. Maybe taste skipped a generation, like insanity.

Just as Mark Bricks was about to leave the gallery, Judy walked in wearing a red pantsuit.

“I was worried about you,” Lynn said, hugging her gently.

“We were just talking about you,” Mark said.

“Sorry I haven’t been in touch,” Judy said, “but life has accelerated. I’ll get to the point. Go and get yourself hit by a truck. All three of you. But you, especially, Lynn. I highly recommend it. It clears the head like nothing else. It will help you regain your desire for things, lots of things. Forget all the other tricks, the addictions and all that. This is much more effective. Foolproof. If your lack of desire ever drives you to the verge of suicide, first try walking in front of moving traffic.”

Mark said, “You’re not, by any chance, trying to eliminate your competition, are you?”

“No! I’m absolutely serious.”

“Hmm. You do seem well,” he said.

“Yes, you do,” Patricia said.

“I am well. It was a very violent blow, but evenly distributed over the length of my entire body, and therefore it was more traumatizing to my soul than to any one part of me. Now I have an incredible zest for life. There are all sorts of things I want to do, vacations I want to go on, people I want to meet. That’s why I thought of you, Lynn. I feel the opposite of you. Getting hit by that truck was the best thing that ever happened to me. But I’m aware that the benefits might wear off. The euphoria, the divine perspective might fade, so one day I may have to do it again to refresh my zeal.”

She paused, and they all watched her. “Well, I just stopped by to tell you that. Lynn, your walls are still empty, so think about it.”

She kissed all three of them and left.

Mark left shortly after that, and as soon as he was gone, Patricia said, “As I was saying, it’s a crime to plagiarize. Do you know that certain authors have committed suicide because people found out they were plagiarizers? They killed themselves out of shame. Have you done anything else, other than follow him and send him notes?”

“I sent some lingerie.”

“What? He’s a man! Stalking will never treat you well if you treat it with mockery.”

“I didn’t do it with mockery. I enclosed a note that said I could wear this lingerie for him. It was the lingerie my stalker sent me.”

“Lord! That is worse than derivative. You’ll get nowhere fast this way.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“Tell me you’ll come up with your own ideas.”

“I’ll come up with my own ideas.”

Lynn did try to come up with her own ideas, but in the meantime she simply continued following Roland down the street. And she, in turn, was often followed by Alan.

Ray, the homeless ex-therapist, continued observing them. People sometimes interested him, like this chain of stalking, but he had been disillusioned by so-called intriguing people. And they had cost him one year of his freedom. While trying to pierce a mystery of human motivation, he had overstepped the bounds of lawfulness and had ended up serving a one-year prison sentence for coercion in the second degree — a class-A misdemeanor — and getting his therapy license permanently revoked.

The incident had begun innocently enough when one of his patients had informed him that a female acquaintance had told him not to bother pursuing her romantically, because she was not interested in dating him.

“Do you have any idea why she didn’t want to date you?” Ray had asked.

“No. And I don’t care.”

“You don’t care? But it would be useful to know, for future reference, like the next time you meet a woman you want to date.”

“But I didn’t want to date her.”

“Then why did you ask her out?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why did she tell you not to pursue her romantically?”

“Beats me.”

Ray leaned forward in his seat and spoke very clearly. “What did you say to that woman that made her think you might want to date her?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing? She just said that, out of the blue? She rejected you preemptively?”

“Yes. It hadn’t even entered my mind to date her.”

“It would be good for you to know why she said that. I think you should call her up when you get home and ask her.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I do. It’s important that you do this. We can’t make much progress if you don’t.”

That night, Ray called up his patient and asked him if he had called the woman yet. The patient said no. So Ray called him back an hour later and asked him if he had called her yet. The patient said no. This went on a few more times, a few more days, until finally Ray managed to get the woman’s phone number from the patient and called her up himself and asked her why she had told the patient not to bother pursuing her romantically. There was a long silence. The woman said, “Who are you?”

“That’s not important,” Ray said.

“You’re a friend of his? Why didn’t he call me himself?”

“He didn’t want to, but I think it’s important that he know why you said that.”

“You think it’s important?” she said. “Who are you, his therapist?”

“Yes.”

She laughed. “No, really, who are you?”

“I am his therapist.”

She snorted, still not believing him. “Listen, I don’t have time for this.”

“Wait, can’t you just, please, answer the question?”

“No. How’s that? No.” And she hung up.

No? No? Why, no? He punched his pillow.

“She’s a bitch,” Ray informed his patient.

“Yeah, she might be.”

“No, I’m telling you, she is. How can you not see it? I mean, that she would presumptuously tell you not to try to date her, for no reason! Why doesn’t that make you more mad? That’s not healthy.”

“Well, it did annoy me a little bit.”

“That’s my point. Why not more? That doesn’t make sense. It’s as though you’re hiding something, as though you perhaps know why she said that, know what you did to make her say that, and you just won’t tell me.”

“Yes, you’ve already told me you think that, but it’s not true.”

“Then why aren’t you more mad that she was so presumptuous? You don’t seem at all tormented by the mystery of it.”

“No, I guess I’m not.”

“Well, you’ve got to work on that.”

This patient, who at first hadn’t cared why the woman told him not to pursue her romantically, was gradually transformed, thanks to Ray, into a neurotic wreck who ended up resorting to alcohol and drugs to endure the stresses of life caused by his therapist.