IMAGINES: Celebrity Encounters Starring You (48 page)

“I hardly think that’s likely.”

“Isn’t it?”

You shake your head, perhaps more sure of yourself than you should be. “Of course not. Watching your channel . . . it’s kind of endearing, you know? These people have been watching you for years.”

He pauses, stopping just long enough for you to notice the mischievous glint in his eye. “Like you?”

“God, you’re never going to let that go.” You roll your eyes, though you can’t help wondering if you should be reading more into it. “I just keep up with your videos, that’s all. Not as obsessed as when I was fifteen, but . . . more like up-to-date.”

He smiles, more to himself than anything else, and you realize that you’d give anything to read what’s running through his mind. “Well, it’s nice to know. I’m flattered. Just . . . you know, don’t set up a webcam through the wall and live-stream my bathroom routine, or something.”

Your laugh rings out across the room, and you find the confidence
to shoot him a wink. “Can’t make any promises there, I’m afraid.”

He goes to say something, but a vibration from his pocket interrupts you both, and he pulls out his phone to read the message on-screen. “Crap, is that the time?” His glance at the clock makes you realize how long you’ve spent together. “I should probably be heading back—I completely forgot I was supposed to be filming a gaming video with Phil tonight.”

He picks up his laptop from the sofa and tucks it under his arm, already gathering to his feet. “Thanks again for everything. Like I said, I owe you one.”

“And like I said, it’s fine.” You rise to your feet, following his footsteps back toward the front door. “Letting you use my Wi-Fi was hardly the biggest inconvenience of my evening.”

“But my company might’ve been,” he jokes.

You roll your eyes. “Sure. It’s not like there aren’t five million people who would kill to be in my shoes right now.”

“It’s like you’re trying to inflate my ego.” As he readjusts the laptop under his arm, his dark-eyed gaze is punctuated by an unexpected flutter in your stomach. “Thanks, though. At least I know where to come next time Phil’s downloading more of the world’s longest and most pointless videos.”

“Anytime.”

“I’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” you say, as he reaches for the handle and pulls open the door, letting a cool blast of air into the apartment. “See you later, Dan.”

You linger as he crosses the hall, heading for his own apartment. Only once your door has closed behind you do you lean back against it, taking the deep breath you feel like you’ve needed for the past hour. The whole situation still feels surreal; though you had been hoping for a proper introduction to your neighbor,
you’d also thought it might come with more preparation than the three seconds it had taken to answer the door. Maybe, when it came to Dan Howell, you had to be grateful for anything.

Still, as your mind runs back over the exchange that’s still fresh in your mind, you can’t halt the smile that’s now creeping onto your face. A tiny spark of excitement runs through you, fueled by the anticipation of the next time you bump into each other.

There’s no way of knowing where things might lead, but that’s not going to stop you from hoping Dan’s Wi-Fi might cut out again soon.

T
he Metrolink train is pulling into Union Station when you notice him in the back of the quiet car. There he is slouched in the window seat. Is he actually trying to blend in with the crowd of staid Orange County commuters? Maybe the other sleepy suburbanites are oblivious, but you for one are not fooled. You can see this guy is exceptional. He is not the kind who spends his weekdays on salary in a cubicle and his weekends running errands at Costco and Home Depot with the wife.

His loose-fitting bomber jacket can barely conceal a massive chest and bulging biceps. The Ray-Bans stretched across his face might reflect the 7:00 a.m. sunrise, but they can’t conceal the bruise across the cheekbone of his ruggedly handsome face. And his long sleeves might hide the Tag Heuer watch from the other commuters, but you spotted it right away.

And he is staring at you through the sunglasses. You can feel it, channeling that animal instinct you get when a predator has you in its crosshairs.
It must be my overactive imagination,
you think,
maybe a bad ingredient in that murky cup of coffee I bought before getting on the train.
What possible reason could this suave, intimidating stranger have to size you up?

And why does everything about him feel so familiar?

YOU WEAVE YOUR WAY
through the throng of commuters in the west hall of the station, queuing at the first Starbucks you see. Maybe a second coffee might counteract the apparent hallucinatory effects of the first. Waiting in line, you watch hundreds of people pass through the main hall of the station, hailing from towns like Glendale, Buena Park, and Riverside en route to their service jobs in the office towers, restaurants, and retail stores of downtown. This is the Los Angeles that you know, the part they never show on
Entourage
or
TMZ
, the city of everyday citizens who go their whole lives without getting invited to a Hollywood party or having someone ask them for an autograph.

No one in this sea of strangers has any cause to stare at you because you are one of them, the tribe that will never be envied or admired. Yet there he is again, staring back at you from behind the corner of the Wetzel’s Pretzels stand. Why would he be standing there? Wetzel’s doesn’t even open until lunch, and judging from his physique, he is hardly the type who snacks on doughy, oversize pretzels.

You decide it’s time for a diversionary tactic, trying to recall the details of countless film scenes where the hero realizes he’s being followed. You toss your coffee into the trash. Then instead of taking your normal route down the escalator to the Red Line railway, you pivot, pacing briskly out of the station, through the old lobby, past the travertine walls, over the terra-cotta floors. When you reach the Alameda Street exit, you jump the line and hail the first cab in the loading area.

“You’re in a hurry,” the driver says, stating the obvious.

You give him the directions to your office on Seventh Street.

When the cab turns south on Alameda Street, you finally summon the courage to glance back. There he is standing on the sidewalk, getting smaller as you drive away but still larger-than-life.

Then you realize why the man seems so familiar.

Matt Damon,
you think,
the man looks just like Matt Damon.

LATER THAT AFTERNOON,
you are sitting at your desk in a vast sea of cubicles. You stare at your computer screen, listening on your headset to another mind-numbingly tedious conference call.

“Remember our purpose here, folks,” someone says, but it’s too late for that. You forgot the purpose a long time ago. Out the window, you notice coworkers strolling along the sidewalk down below toward the food court on Figueroa. One of them told you once that deciding where to eat lunch was the high point of her workday. The conference call drones on.

And there he is. Again. Parked on Seventh Street, waiting in a vintage Mini Cooper.

You’ve seen him too many times now for it to be a fluke. There’s a rule of thumb in LA: The first couple times you spot a celebrity, it’s probably just someone who looks like the person. But the third time, it’s the real deal.

You think to yourself,
I am being stalked by Matt Damon.

YOU RETURN TO YOUR HOUSE
in the suburbs and go through the usual “How was your day?” routine with your wife. You realize you forgot to pay the water bill last month. Your son’s school is having another PTA fund-raiser. The neighbor keeps throwing his dog’s waste bags in your bin when you leave it out for trash day.

“Did you talk to the neighbor?” your wife asks.

Through your living-room window you spot the Mini Cooper on the street in front of your lawn.

“Honey, there’s something I need to tell you,” you say. “You know I love you, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You remember
that first date? How you told me your favorite movie was
Good Will Hunting
?”

She looks at you, puzzled. “Of course. But what’s the matter?”

“I think I’m in danger.”

“What kind of danger? Not another round of layoffs, is it? It’s probably better if you found something in Orange County, anyway.”

“Someone is following me.”

“What? Following you? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone be interested in
you
? I mean, besides me of course.”

NEXT THING YOU KNOW
you are on the phone with your wife’s friend, a licensed psychologist. She books you for the earliest available appointment.

“I’m glad your wife called me,” she says at your first meeting. “I want you to know there is no shame in this and no cause for alarm. These symptoms are very common and very treatable.”

“What symptoms?”

“These sorts of paranoid fantasies.”

“It’s not a fantasy,” you insist.

“You really believe that a movie star is stalking you?”

“Seeing is believing.”

“Not always. You’re at a transitional stage in life.”

You laugh nervously. “So it’s part of some identity crisis?” But you see she’s not laughing back. “That doesn’t make sense. I’m content. Great marriage and family. My job’s a little dry, but so what, the people are nice and it pays the bills.”

The therapist looks at you with a tilted head. “Many people have a good life by objective standards. Yet there can still be unresolved
tensions under the surface, feelings that have lingered for decades.”

“Why exactly would that cause me to have visions of Matt Damon?” you ask sarcastically. You were always suspicious of psychologists in the first place.

“Maybe it’s a symbol from your subconscious. Your wife tells me that you met and bonded over the movie
Good Will Hunting
. Back then you had your own dreams of making movies.”

“That’s right.”

“But Damon went on to win an Oscar and become a superstar while your film aspirations went unfulfilled.”

“The chance of success is slim. Everyone knows that going in.”

“Let’s go back even earlier. During high school, there was a lot of pressure to be a high achiever, wasn’t there? You wanted to go to an Ivy League school but you couldn’t get in.”

You don’t really love where this is going. “So . . . ?”

“You know that Matt Damon went to Harvard.”

“A lot of people went to Harvard.”

“Going back even earlier in your childhood years, your wife told me you always had a negative body image. You were too skinny and could never gain muscle in your upper body no matter how you tried.”

“Okay. Okay, I get your theory,” you say impatiently. The pretense of doctor-patient civility is starting to unravel as quickly as the doctor-patient confidentiality apparently already has.

“Many people still harbor internal doubts and unfulfilled dreams from their formative years. On top of that, we live in a celebrity culture. Fame and wealth seem like the ultimate antidote to our problems. You’ve got to understand that your obsession with Matt Damon—”

“I am
not
obsessed with him!” you shout in exasperation. “
He’s
obsessed with
me
. So what if I need to stand in line at the DMV like everybody else? So what if I wasn’t invited to George Clooney’s wedding? That doesn’t mean I’ve lost my grip on reality.”

“If you’re going to heal, you’ve got to get out of denial mode,” the therapist says with what feels like more than a hint of pity. “You can’t let these delusions chase you forever.”

“It’s not the delusions chasing me that I am worried about. You haven’t listened to a word I said.” You stomp out of the office, ending the session.

YOU RETURN HOME
from the session and your wife receives you like a forlorn puppy.

“Your friend the shrink obviously thinks something is seriously wrong with me,” you tell her preemptively. “I can understand why she thinks that, but at what point do I just stop trusting myself and accept her assessment? You believe me, don’t you?”

Your wife dodges the question gracefully, as expected. “Whatever is going on, I am here to support you.” She gently touches your shoulder. You detect the worry in her reaction, the deep fear that maybe her husband is going nuts.

“Maybe I
did
get the whole thing wrong.” You try your best to make your voice reassuring. “I am sure everything will be fine,” you lie, realizing it was a mistake to bring her into this.

Whatever is really going on, you should’ve handled it on your own.

THE NEXT MORNING
you take the Metrolink to work again, using the ride as an opportunity to reflect on the whole situation and
analyze it from different angles. Your mind shifts gears into practical mode. If this
is
really all in your head, will the company health plan cover your treatment? What is the insurance billing code for paranoia over being stalked by a movie star? What is the copay and deductible?

You start entering research terms into Google. The query for “midlife crisis celebrity obsession” takes a few seconds to pull results with the train’s spotty cell coverage.

You click through a bunch of links, and the train is approaching Union Station when you come across a medical journal article that describes delusions as “strongly held unrealistic beliefs that are difficult to change, even when there is evidence that contradicts the delusion.”

Within a minute of your reaching Union Station, the time for reflection has ended and you realize he’s on your heels again. Your heart races as you push through the crowd and bolt toward a nearby platform. He pursues you with the frightening speed you’d expect of someone who used to be a CIA assassin, or maybe just a millionaire with a home gym, a chef, and a small army of personal trainers.