The Follower (11 page)

When she returned to her apartment, exhausted from carrying the shopping bags up the stairs, she checked her
mailbox on the phone and listened to a message from Peter Wells:

Katie smiled, listening to the message, thinking how glad she was that she and Peter were back in touch. Sometimes—well, a lot of the time—she felt lonely in the city, and it was nice to know that there was someone she knew so close by, working right at the health club. She deleted the message, figuring she’d call him tomorrow, or maybe just run into him again sometime.

In her bedroom, she opened the closet, trying to figure out what to wear on her date with Andy.

Peter couldn’t understand Why
Katie wasn’t returning his call. He’d left the message two hours ago and she must’ve gotten it by now. She didn’t mention having any major plans for tonight, and she’d even said something about how she had to finish some project for work. Even if she’d gone out for a while, shopping or to do whatever, she had to be home by now.

Lying in bed in his hotel room, watching
Sleepless in Seattle
on mute, he wanted to call again, or try her on her cell phone, but he knew a second call would be very tricky to pull off. If he called again and she picked up, he could have an excuse ready, like,
The machine made a funny sound before
—/
wasn’t sure it was working
. That could come off as natural, but if it didn’t, if she saw through it, it could backfire big-time. She could think he was desperate or, even worse, obsessed. He didn’t want to risk blowing it now, especially when everything was going so well.

He hated that it had come to this, spending the whole goddamn night waiting for his phone to ring. Left with two options—call her again right now or wait to call her at work sometime during the week, he chose option number one. He’d already shown his hand by calling her earlier, and if he waited another day or two to call her again, she might think he’d lost interest.

So he called her landline again, and when her voice mail answered, he had no choice but to leave another message. Shit, why hadn’t he tried her cell? Now he was stuck with nothing to
do except wait for her to call back. If he called her cell now and then she came home and found the message
and
the missed call on her phone’s log, she’d think he was some kind of nutcase.

He continued watching the movie. Although he’d seen
Sleepless
more times than he could count, he never got tired of it. The first time he’d seen it, he was sixteen. He’d rented it from the video store in Lenox and loved it so much that he spent a whole weekend watching it again and again. He couldn’t help crying during the scene at the end when Tom Hanks met Meg Ryan for the first time at the Empire State Building. It was the way he looked at her, with all his longing for her finally realized, that always got to Peter. There were other movies like that, ones he never got tired of watching. It was mainly the classic love stories from the eighties and nineties, like
Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing
, and
When Harry Met Sally
, that did it for him. He liked the predictability of watching movies he’d already seen, of knowing exactly what was coming next. But it had to be a love story or a movie with romance in it. He hated violence. Seeing blood—even fake blood—was way too disturbing.

Peter couldn’t wait to move into the new apartment and watch movies with Katie on their home theater. Maybe, for old times’ sake, he’d christen the new TV set with
Sleepless in Seattle
. He knew Katie would love the movie because she’d love all the things he loved. Maybe he’d even pop the question to her on top of the Empire State Building. She’d appreciate the thoughtfulness of it, and it would be a special moment she’d cherish forever.

It must’ve been a romantic comedy marathon or something, because
Till There Was You
, another of Peter’s all-time favorites, came on next. Another hour went by and he realized he hadn’t eaten since a bran muffin for breakfast, so he decided to go out to have some dinner. He went across the street to a decent Japanese place he’d eaten at several times since he’d been in New York. He sat at the sushi bar and ordered the chirashi, but he was so distracted, thinking about Katie, that he could only manage a few bites. It frustrated him that he couldn’t remember everything Katie had said to him earlier.
He could recall most of the conversation, but there were gaps. Next time he saw her he was going to bring a digital recorder so he could record everything to play back later. Although he was happy with most of what he thought he’d said to her, he wished he hadn’t acted so harshly when she offered to set him up with her friend. He thought he’d covered for it well afterward, but his initial reaction might have turned her off. Maybe she thought he was weird, or had a temper, and that’s why she wasn’t returning his call.

He felt queasy, as if his stomach wasn’t handling the food. He left a twenty-dollar bill next to his plate and rushed back to the hotel across the street, just making it into the bathroom in time. Sitting there, staring at his cell phone, he wondered if it was possible that she somehow didn’t get the message. Maybe the answering system on her phone was broken, or maybe her roommate had played the message and deleted it without telling Katie. Or maybe Katie was just playing games. Some girls didn’t like calling back guys too quickly, thinking it made them seem too desperate.

No, Katie wasn’t the game-playing type. She didn’t get the message—Peter was convinced of it. He left the bathroom and sat at the foot of the bed. After rehearsing possible conversations in his head for several minutes, he called her cell. Her voice mail picked up right away, meaning the phone was probably off. He ended the call and tried her home number.

“Hello.”

“Katie?” He was sweating.

“No, it’s Susan. Katie’s not here. Can I take a message?”

She didn’t sound at all like Katie. What was he thinking?

“Um, no.” Shit, he hadn’t prepared for this. He’d have to wing it and he
hated
winging it. “This is her, um, friend, Peter. Do you know, uh, when she’ll be back?”

“She didn’t say. I think she went to a movie or something. Can I take a message, or do you want to call back and leave one on her voice mail?”

Peter didn’t want there to be two messages from him on her voice mail, and a voice mail and written message would be even worse.

“Oh no, that’s okay, I’ll just talk to her later,” he said. “Thanks.”

He ended the call and threw his cell phone onto an armchair and watched it bounce onto the rug. What the hell was he thinking, calling her? Now her roommate would tell her that some guy named Peter called but didn’t leave a message and then, when Katie listened to her voice mail, she’d either think it was strange that he’d called twice, or she might think that there was no urgent reason to call back because he’d said he’d “talk to her later.” Peter slapped the top of his head a few times, then realized what he was doing and stopped. He had to come up with a plan, some way out of this. He couldn’t take not hearing from her today, or even tomorrow. He had to hear her voice, talk to her, at least see her.

He opened a drawer, took out his Yankees cap and cheap sunglasses, and went down to the street and hailed a cab. He knew he might regret this, but he didn’t care.

He had the driver drop him off on Second and Ninetieth, a few blocks from Katie’s apartment. He walked up the avenue toward her block, looking around to make sure she wasn’t nearby. It pissed him off that he had to do all this sneaking around crap again. After he’d “met her” at the health club, he thought he was done with all that. He thought they could have a normal relationship from then on, be like any other two people falling in love. But he knew he had to wear the disguise tonight. He was planning to wait across the street from her apartment, to watch her when she came home from the movie. He couldn’t actually
say
anything to her, though, or let her see him, because he knew she wouldn’t believe that he had just run into her by accident on a side street where there wasn’t much pedestrian traffic.

He found a good spot, near a parked SUV, directly across the street from her apartment. He’d be able to see her perfectly, and if she saw him he could duck and hide behind the car.

It was past ten o’clock. After waiting a while longer, Peter started to wonder if it was possible he’d missed her, if she’d already returned from the movie and gone into her apartment.
It had taken him about twenty minutes to get from his hotel room to where he stood now, and it was very possible that she had come home while he was on his way over. But there was no way he was leaving now. He’d rather stay where he was all night just for the chance of seeing her than go back to the hotel and have to sit there, waiting for the goddamn phone to ring.

He waited another hour or so. He had to pee badly and was about to go between an SUV and another car when he saw Katie walking up the block on the opposite side of the street. He was so excited to see her that he almost shouted her name and he didn’t notice right away that she was with that guy again, the frat boy.

Peter was shocked. He didn’t understand how, after she had met him, she could want to be with anyone else. He was especially surprised to see her with Frat Boy again. He knew she was an intelligent, sensible girl and he would have expected her to have better judgment than to go out with a guy who had absolutely no respect for her, who had treated her like dirt.

He slipped behind the SUV for better cover, and then he peered out slightly and watched them stop in front of her building. If they went inside, he didn’t know what he’d do. Maybe he’d go after them and try to stop them somehow. Who knows? Maybe he’d even fight the guy. Girls always loved that, when guys fought over them, and Peter knew he could whip the skinny frat boy, especially if he took him by surprise.

But they weren’t going inside—not yet anyway. They were talking, and although Peter couldn’t hear what they were saying, they seemed to be having a serious conversation, probably about the state of their relationship. Frat Boy was doing most of the talking, using a lot of hand gestures to help plead his case, as Katie stood there with her arms crossed, looking unconvinced. Peter had read a lot of books on body language and knew that excessive hand gestures were a telltale sign of insincerity, and he hoped that, if Katie didn’t know this, too, she at least sensed it and wouldn’t fall for his crap.

But then Katie’s arms relaxed at her sides and she smiled a
few times at whatever Frat Boy was saying to her. He was so phony, such a bullshit artist. Couldn’t she see it?

Then Peter read her lips as she said good night and backed away a couple of steps toward her building’s doors. Maybe she’d blow him off after all, but no, Frat Boy followed her and she stopped. They talked for another minute or so and she seemed into the conversation, smiling, and even laughing once, and when he reached out to hold her hand, she let him. All of it was making Peter nauseous. Then they kissed good night. It wasn’t a peck good night on the cheek. It was a real kiss, a long kiss—it seemed practically endless. Peter felt acid rising through his throat, stinging his tonsils.

This was all wrong. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go at all. In all the hours he’d spent, working out scenarios in his head, rehearsing lines, he hadn’t even contemplated this possibility.
They
were supposed to be kissing right now, not
them
. They were supposed to be in love already, starting the rest of their lives together. He didn’t know how things had gotten so screwed up so quickly.

Finally the kiss ended. Peter read Katie’s lips,
Call me
, and heard Frat Boy say, “I definitely will.” Then Katie went into the vestibule of her building. Frat Boy remained standing there, watching her, and after Katie opened the inner door, she turned back to look at him. He made a gesture with his hand of sipping a drink from a glass—probably some inside joke between them because it made her laugh—and then she waved goodbye and went upstairs.

Peter remained behind the SUV, watching Frat Boy walk up the block toward Second Avenue. It took a while for Peter to get hold of himself. He couldn’t believe that Katie was still with that loser and he wasn’t exactly sure how to handle it. He knew he had to adjust his plan, the same way a general needs to adjust his army’s tactics after a sneak attack by the enemy. The problem was he didn’t know what adjustments to make because he hadn’t even contemplated the possibility of failure.

He went across the street, into the vestibule of her building. Her name wasn’t posted, but the buzzer of Apartment 10 had a label S. Roberts above it. He remembered Katie’s roommate
saying her name was Susan, so Peter figured that this was the right apartment. He knew if he buzzed right now, Katie probably wouldn’t even ask who it was. She’d think it was Frat Boy and let him right up. When she opened her door and saw him there instead, she’d be surprised. But then they’d sit down and he’d explain everything, lay it all on the table. He’d tell her that he was in love with her and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Then she’d start to cry and admit that she was in love with him, too. Then the music would swell up and they’d kiss.

Although Peter knew he could win her over tonight very easily, he decided to do the smart thing and play it safe. In all love stories, things work out, the hero gets the girl in the end—it was guaranteed. The competition—if you could call it that—from Frat Boy was actually a
good
thing. Compared to that slimeball, Peter knew he would come off as an even better catch. Besides, there’s always “the other guy” who seems right for the girl, who seems like he might get her, but who really has no chance at all. The other guy is just a plot device, an obstacle, and in the end his only purpose is to make the victory for the hero even sweeter.