I'm with Stupid (16 page)

I look back at my own e-mail to William. The thing is galloping through cyberspace right now. That last line. “PS—New York anyone? I miss you too!” Is he going to think I was responding to his e-mail? He wouldn’t think that, would he?

I look at the inbox. I have a new message.

Subject: Hey Gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thnx 4 th fast respinse. Im coming to nyc-can u beleve iit!!!!

Thnx so much 4 understdin. u saved my lif I cant wait 2 c u. u-r- all I thnk about gorgeous!!!!!!!!! My reel dreams r comin tru!!--ill write when I reserv the flight!--iam soso gled I trustd u!!!!!!! sosoglad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! luv, willy

He’s so glad he trusted me? I mean this is not a fucking joke. He talks like a normal person when you meet him face-to-face but what is happening inside his brain? And he just told me he loved me—
over e-mail
. . . but then . . . I told him I loved him, too. I didn’t mean love as in love love but it sounds like he doesn’t know that. Come to think of it, what does he know? What is he thinking right now? That I’m going to make his dreams come true. What can I do, help him learn to write? Was it his accent that threw me off? Did it make him seem smarter than he is? But he is smart, isn’t he? He knew so much about nature. The more I stare at William’s words the more I feel that maybe his writing is normal and I’m insane.

I open a blank e-mail. I start typing furiously:

Subject: big misunderstanding

dear william,

sorry for the misunderstanding. when I said “new york anyone?” i meant that in a rhetorica . . .

I look over at the inbox. I have a new message. I read the header. Subject: Hey Gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im cumin!!!!!!!!!

Is he on crack rock right now? How is he doing this so fast? Maybe he knows magic. I can’t even take a sip of water this fast. Im cumin? Im cumin? I’m glad someone’s cumin because I’m not cumin. And how is it that he can spell
gorgeous
but nothing else? I open the e-mail. William is fading fast. I can scarcely make it out. What is wrong with him??????????????? He’s blowing my mind right now.

I continue staring at the screen while trying to piece the clues together like a detective solving a crime. Maybe he has a learning disability. Someone should run a battery of tests . . . or at least one decent drug test. Don’t they have compulsory education over there? He’s acting like he’s never seen the inside of a school. He’s having a serious Koko the Chimp moment.

Subject: Hey Gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im cumin!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bokd meflite ill be thre nxt weak. Hoop u can pike mee up at he aeorport!!!!!!!-u-r-alll I thin abut. Iam in lov w/ur WILLY

I jump out of the chair. Good thing the walls in this building are as thin as the Olsen Twins. I start shouting Libby’s name. “Get over here now,” I bark. “Noooooow!”

Libby bursts through the door seconds later. She asks if I was robbed. I shake my head and explain what just happened. I let her read the e-mails. “What is this gibberish?” she asks, staring at the screen. She’s crinkling her nose like she smells dogshit. My eyes widen: “That’s what I called it, Libby. Gibberish! It’s incomprehensible, right? I barely know what he’s saying. Do you know what he’s saying? What is he saying?”

“I don’t know what he’s saying,” she admits. “I thought I couldn’t spell but he can’t spell at all. I think he’s coming to New York.” Libby turns to me. “Oh, that’s nice.”

Wrong.

That’s not nice. He wants to live with me? I pick up the phone and call Max. He sounds rushed when he answers. I tell him to get over here right now. We have a situation.

“What’s the matter, were you robbed?” he asks.

“I wish. It’s worse than that. Just get over here.”

“Can’t,” he says. I hear cooing. “I’m on Richard’s fire escape with my buddy Peter”—he struggles with something—“we’re releasing pigeons into his apartment.” He laughs. “One of them just crapped on the couch . . .”

“Got over here now!” I tell him. “You have five seconds to get in a cab. Move it! I’m not kidding.”

“What is the matter with you?” he asks, annoyed.

I squeeze the receiver like a lemon: “You want to know what is the matter with me. I’ll tell you what is the matter with me. William is the matter with me. He just sent me fifty moronic e-mails in two seconds. He’s like the fucking roadrunner. He’s coming to New York—”

“Oh my God!” he squeals. There is more cooing in the background. “William is coming to New York! No wonder you’re yelling. You need to go to the beauty parlor, chop off those dead ends. Is he going to bring the ranger’s costume? It’s a little too cold for short shorts but—”

“Max, I need you to focus,” I tell him. “I need you here right now, in the moment.” Max tries to convince me that he’s always in the moment. I look at Libby, who’s at the computer rereading William’s e-mails. “No, you’re not,” I point out. “You’re in South Africa with William and his rifle.” I pause. “Just get over here,” I add, my voice trailing off, “and you’ll see for yourself. This guy is not right, Max.”

Max comes over half an hour later. He sets down a monkey wrench, a thick piece of rope, the kind you might use to tie a boat to a dock, and a cage. I ask what took so long. “Gravity,” he answers sourly. His shirt is smeared with dirt; he brushes off feathers. “Now what’s going on?” I let him read the e-mails. He looks at the screen and squints. He has the same look Libby had. He looks like he smells dogshit. “This is a bunch of gibberish,” he marvels. “I can barely make out what he’s saying. He’s a worse speller than Libby.” Libby nods: He is. Max takes his eyes off the screen: “So why am I here?” he asks. “What’s the trouble?”

“Look at the screen!” I plead. “Don’t you see a problem?”

“So he can’t spell,” Max concludes. “Big hairy deal.”

“Don’t you get it?” I push. “Don’t you see anything wrong with this situation?”

“Let’s see,” Max says. “There’s a hot park ranger coming to have sex with you all the way from South Africa. He’s over six feet, has blue eyes . . .”

I begin manically rubbing my forehead. “Stop, right now,” I moan. “Max, he doesn’t just want to sleep with me, he wants to stay with me and, to top it off, help him with his book on Monaco.” I need to send another e-mail.

Max folds his arms. “I forgot about that book,” he says as if recalling someone from high school who dropped out after getting pregnant. “Sounded boring. I wonder if he took my advice and started writing?”

“That’s the problem!” I scream. “He can’t write, he can’t spell! Is no one seeing this?”

Libby reminds Max that he encouraged William to become the next Tom Clancy. She wonders aloud if William took him seriously. Max waves his hand dismissively: “Please,” he says. “He did not. Who would take that seriously? I was just making conversation. Who would want to be the next Tom Clancy? He’s fat.”

I look Max in the eye. I’m ready to hit him over the head with the shovel I will use to dig his grave: “Do you want to know who would take such a thing seriously?” I scream. “William would take it seriously. William does take it seriously! He must have believed everything you said, do you understand the implications of that? He must have thought we were big city slickers, thanks to you. He grew up on a farm. He’s delusional.”

“You’re delusional,” Max says.

“No, I am not,” I protest. I sit down in a chair and put my head between my legs.

“Relax already,” Max advises. “I hate it when you get panicky like this. Tell him to cancel if you’re going to get your shorts in a knot. You’re not under any obligation.”

I look up: “He already booked the flight. He’s the fastest man alive. How am I supposed to tell him to cancel now? He told me I just saved his life by letting him come to New York. And do you know why he needs his life saved? I’ll tell you why, because you got him
fired
when you threw that card with the charming little message, ‘Thanks for last night! Your dick is HUGE!’ Helga went through his stuff and found it. Apparently it was grounds for dismissal. You forced me to sleep with him. You confused me. This is your fault. If it wasn’t for you I never would have had a one-night stand. You never should have given him my e-mail address without permission.”

“First of all,” Max says, “this is not an after-school special, Tori Spelling. I didn’t make you sleep with anybody. Second of all, you are absolutely blowing this way out of proportion. Stop screaming at me. You’re being so loud, and this is so not a big deal.”

As soon as Max tells me to stop screaming I start screaming again: “How am I blowing this out of proportion? What am I blowing out of proportion! Tell me, quick. What? Huh? Because I’m not blowing anything out of proportion. He told me I was the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He told me he’s in love with me. These are not small things. They’re weird! I’m not in love with him. I don’t know him. I met him
on vacation
. This was supposed to be a no-strings-attached fling. This was supposed to be a movie—
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
. I was trying to get my fucking groove back!”

Libby smiles warmly: “I can’t believe he’s in love with you. Didn’t I say he was a sweet guy?”

Max turns from the computer screen and nods at her. “You did.” Then he looks at me and holds up two fingers. Is he giving me the peace sign? It’s not going to be that easy. I ask what he’s doing. “Nothing,” he responds, “I was just wondering why he wrote that he loves you too in his e-mail.” He looks back at the computer screen. “You didn’t happen to tell him you loved him in the throes of passion, did you? I could see you doing something like that.”

I attempt a chuckle. “Yeah, like I would really do that,” I uneasily respond. “No, of course not. It must be a typo like everything else.”

“Just checking,” he says before walking into the bathroom to take a leak. He doesn’t bother shutting the door behind him. “Well I for one am looking forward to his coming, blubber buns,” he calls over his shoulder. “Do you know how much fun we’ll have parading him around town? It’s going to be a blast. We’re going to get free drinks everywhere we go. This is the best thing that could have happened.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” I tell him.

“I don’t know, babe,” says Libby. “He’s just a bad speller. It’s not that big a deal. I’m a terrible speller and look at me.” I look and advise her to stop telling me to look at her.

“Oh let him come,” Max calls out from the bathroom. “He can always stay with me.”

The phone rings and I jump, praying it’s not William. I check the caller ID. It’s my mother. I pick up the phone without meaning to. She starts telling me something about more cans of soup she bought in bulk, then something about earmuffs, and then about setting up a couple of days to come work at the deli. I say yes a few times, to what I don’t exactly know, while staring at the computer screen. Max flushes the toilet. More bad news. I have one new message.

Subject: Hey Gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-my flite itinerary.

I don’t bother opening it. I knew this was way too good to be true. I hear my mother’s voice through a fog: “So is that okay?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say absently, “I love you.”

I hang up and turn to my so-called friends: “Well, it’s official,” I announce. “He just sent his flight itinerary.”

“I’m excited!” Max shouts. He opens my fridge and removes an apple. There is a piece of paper taped to it instructing me not to call Richard (again) because I’m the asshole who called three times. I have to get rid of those things. Max peels the note off the apple’s skin.

“It’ll all work out, babe,” Libby concludes.

I look around. “He’s going to stay with me in this two-room studio?” I disbelievingly ask.

“It’ll be cozy,” Max tells me. “We can all snuggle up in bed together and read stories.”

“He’s probably too tall to fit.” Libby giggles.

Max walks over to the computer and peers at the screen one last time. He makes a face and turns to Libby. “Hey, Lib, so do you think he was serious about Salt-N-Pepa being his favorite group?” he asks.

I can see that Max, for once, isn’t kidding. I lean in, stupefied: “He said that?” I ask. “When?”

Libby nods, explaining that William mentioned it in the safari truck on our first night. He did? Where the fuck was I? Obviously not paying attention to the red flags. Max heads for the door. He’d better run. “He’s like Crocodile Dundee,” he offers. “I think it’s sexy.”