The Follower (5 page)

“We went to this great Japanese place in the West Village, I can’t remember the name. The eel rolls were really good and I usually hate eel—it’s so gooey. You and Andy should go there sometime.”

“I doubt that,” Katie said.

“Why?” Susan asked.

Katie paused, considering telling her what had happened. It would be good to get another opinion on the whole thing because she knew she was being very emotional right now and she still wasn’t sure whether she was making too big a deal about it—if it was Andy’s fault, her fault, or no one’s fault. But Katie knew that Susan was the absolute wrong person to get advice from. She’d been with her boyfriend, Tom, since high school and she knew zero about dating and complicated relationships. She was also from Greenwich, went to prep schools, and everything had always been perfect in her life. She sometimes got uptight when Katie talked about anything personal, especially sex, and Katie decided there was no use even bringing it up.

“Andy’s just not very into sushi,” Katie said.

A few minutes later, Katie went online and did a search for date rape. She didn’t find out anything she didn’t already know. All the articles and posts talked about guys who keep going even after girls say no, and guys who act much more aggressively than Andy had acted. Katie was starting to feel guilty, wondering if she’d been too harsh with Andy this morning. He’d probably never want to see her again, and last night might’ve been more her fault than his. If she’d said, “I’m not ready yet,” or “I have a headache,” or just, “No,” he definitely would’ve stopped and she wouldn’t be feeling the way she did right now.

Although it was still very early—not even nine o’clock—Katie decided to call Amanda. Amanda had a lot of dating experience and she’d be able to give solid advice.

But before pressing the last digit to Amanda’s number, Katie had second thoughts and clicked off. She remembered
how Amanda had acted on the phone yesterday, putting down Andy and his roommates for being frat boys, and Katie knew Amanda would tell her that she had been raped and to never talk to Andy again, and maybe even to call the police and try to press charges. Besides, Katie didn’t think Amanda would give her an honest opinion because she had been date-raped in college and she was always “anti-guy” in these types of situations.

Now, even more confused, Katie decided to try to forget about it for a while. She had a quick breakfast of coffee and a slice of raisin bread toast with fat-free cream cheese, and then put on her gym clothes. She needed to de-stress on the treadmill for a while, maybe go to a yoga class.

She left her apartment and crossed Second Avenue, then went up the hill on Ninety-third Street, toward Third Avenue. Her legs felt heavy already and she didn’t think she’d have a good workout today. Then she started panicking, remembering how Andy had mentioned that he was going to go to the gym this morning, too. He’d never mentioned which gym he belonged to, and she was pretty sure that there was a gym in Normandie Court, where he lived, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have joined an outside gym. The last thing she wanted was to run into Andy at the gym and have to work out next to him.

She entered the gym cautiously, looking around for Andy. If she saw him and he didn’t see her, she intended to do a one-eighty and hightail it out of there. She didn’t see him on any of the machines on the main level, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in one of the weight rooms. She headed toward the desk, where she had to scan her membership card, when someone said, “Katie?”

For the second time this morning, she jerked her head quickly, and she felt the strain again in her neck, but she relaxed when she realized it was just the guy at the desk who had spoken to her.

“Yeah?” she said, wondering if something was wrong with her card.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

She took a closer look at him and realized he did look kind of familiar. He was tall, with blond hair and very blue eyes. She wondered if she knew him from college. He seemed several years older than her, maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight, but maybe he’d been a grad student or an assistant professor or something.

“Did you go to Wesleyan?” she asked.

“Nope.”

She racked her brain, but couldn’t come up with another guess.

“Come on, I know you didn’t forget me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay, I’ll give you a clue…Bev’s.”

Bev’s was the ice-cream parlor in Lenox, Massachusetts, where Katie had hung out a lot when she was a teenager. She squinted at the guy for a few more seconds, still lost, then it clicked.

“Oh my God, Peter. Peter Wells!”

“You got it.”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe this. What’re you
doing
here?”

“I work here.”

She noticed he was really cute, had dimples. “No way!”

“I just started today.”

“This is
so
funny.”

“I know—I can’t believe it either. When I saw you walk in here, I was shocked.”

“I live right down the street.”

“Really?”

“Where do you live?”

“I just relocated to Manhattan,” Peter said. “I’m staying downtown right now.”

“Wow. This is so unbelievable.”

“I know.”

“I mean, when you said Bev’s, I looked at you and I thought, Who is this guy? And then I thought, Wait, that’s Peter Wells. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you right away. You look so different.”

“Really? How’s that?”

She wanted to say that he was much better-looking than she remembered, but she said, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just your hair or something.”

“Yeah, I finally got rid of the bangs…But I recognized you right away.”

“But I was, what, thirteen the last time you saw me?”

“Yeah, but you’re just as pretty.”

“Thanks.” She hoped she wasn’t blushing.

“God, I remember all those conversations we used to have.”

“You do?”

“Of course. I always got a big kick out of talking to you…So how’s everything else? How’s your sister?”

The muscles in Katie’s face tensed and Peter must have noticed.

“I guess you didn’t hear,” she said.

“Hear what?”

“Heather died.”

“Oh, God. When?”

“She committed suicide in college…at UMass.”

“What?
Jesus, I had no idea…God, that’s so awful.”

“I know.”

“Oh, wow, I’m so sorry. I just can’t believe that. Shit.”

“I know. It’s still, like, really weird for me when I think about it.”

A girl came over and asked Peter for a towel. He gave her one, then said to Katie, “I’m really sorry about Heather. I haven’t been in touch with anyone from Lenox since my family moved…Wow, suicide. I’m still shocked.”

Starting to feel sad and wanting to change the subject, Katie said, “But it’s really great seeing you again. It’s a total blast from the past.”

“Isn’t it? So when did you move to the city?”

“Like five months ago, after graduation.”

“Like it?”

“Yeah. I mean, it takes some getting used to, you know, but it’s great.”

“Where you working?”

“This financial PR firm in midtown.”

“Really? That’s great.”

“It’s not very exciting. I might go back to school, I’m not sure yet. I might be taking the GREs in the spring. What about you? I mean, is this your, like, permanent job?”

“No. Actually, I’m going to be a physical trainer.”

“That’s cool.” Katie remembered Andy saying “That’s cool” so many times this morning and how annoying it had been. “I mean, that’s great.”

A couple of gym members were standing near the desk, waiting to get Peter’s attention, so Katie said, “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, definitely. And, hey, we should really hang out sometime.”

“Yeah, that sounds great. Let’s definitely exchange numbers before I go.”

“Terrific.”

Peter smiled and Katie noticed his high cheekbones and those dimples again, then she walked away toward the treadmills. As she waited for one to become available, she turned on her iPod to the “workout songs” she’d downloaded. As Kelly Clarkson belted out “Walkaway,” Katie still couldn’t get over running into Peter Wells this way, and she was still surprised how good-looking he was. She didn’t remember him being bad-looking, but there used to be something awkward about him. Maybe it was just because he was very thin and his long, grungy bangs used to hang down over his eyes. Now he was in great shape, with nice arms and shoulders, beautiful blond hair, and he seemed like a really great guy, too. He was Heather’s age—five years older than Katie, which made him, what, twenty-seven now?—so Katie never knew him very well, but she remembered how she used to see him in the icecream parlor. Sometimes he’d have the latest video he’d rented from the video store next door and they’d talk about movies. She saw him around town all the time—riding his bike, skateboarding, or hanging out at the library. He seemed to be alone a lot. She remembered vaguely that his family had moved away—probably when he was about seventeen.

A treadmill freed up. Katie did some light stretches and then started her workout, walking for about a minute before starting to jog. She was still thinking about Peter, about the huge coincidence of running into him in New York City, and how it felt kind of nice and homey to see a familiar face, and then her mood soured as she remembered what had happened to her last night and how Andy could belong to this gym. She looked to her left and right, not seeing Andy anywhere, but then she looked straight ahead, at the mirrored wall, and saw Peter, behind the front desk, watching her. He had a blank, distant expression, and she wondered if he was actually looking at
her
, or at something else in the mirror, and then she smiled and he smiled back, showing off those adorable dimples.

Katie was so beautiful, so perfect
in every way, that it was hard for Peter to stop staring at her. He loved the way her legs and arms moved as she ran, and the way her ponytail bobbed back and forth against her back. She had a great back—smooth, muscular, and lightly tanned. He forced himself to look away a few times, because he didn’t want to make it too obvious, but she was just impossible to resist.

After her workout, she did some more stretches, then went over to the mats to do abs. As she did crunches on the exercise ball, he watched, loving the way her lips parted with each exhale. He was hoping she’d meant what she said about exchanging numbers and getting together sometime, that she wasn’t just being nice.

When she finished doing abs, she did some isometric-type exercises, and then came over to him at the desk.

“Good workout?” he asked.

“Yeah…not bad.”

Even sweaty she looked amazing, much better than in those pictures of her he’d seen on the Internet. Standing next to her he felt a spark between them, an energy that was so intense he knew she must’ve been feeling it as well. He had an impulse to screw all of his plans, to tell her straight off how he felt about her so that they could start their lives together, but he resisted it. He’d planned everything carefully and knew it would be crazy to try to rush things now.

They chatted for about five minutes about Lenox and about
people they both knew—a typical whatever-happened-to, I-wonder-where, oh-my-God-do-you-remember conversation. Then things progressed even faster than Peter had anticipatéd. Instead of having to ask for Katie’s number, she spontaneously wrote it on the back of a Metro Sports Club business card and said, “You have to call me so we can hang out sometime.” Peter, trying not to let his delight show, but trying not to sound too nonchalant, either, said with the perfect balance, “Yeah, definitely.”

The rest of the morning, Peter was so thrilled that he was barely aware of even being at work, at his silly job, and he felt like someone else was going about his duties of handing out towels, answering phone calls, and dealing with whatever mundane questions gym members had, and he was just sitting back, observing it all. At around noon, Jimmy introduced him to a guy named Todd, who relieved Peter at the desk; then Jimmy asked if Peter could stay late—even though it was his first day on the job—to stand on the street and hand out flyers to passersby. Peter knew that Jimmy was pulling a power trip, telling the new guy to do the dirty work. Jimmy was really getting to Peter. It was so painful, listening to him go on and on about the hot chicks at the club, acting like he was some kind of Casanova or something, when he was obviously the type of guy who couldn’t even get a girlfriend.

Normally, Peter wouldn’t have had the patience to put up with a guy like Jimmy, but today he was in such a great mood that Jimmy could’ve asked him to scrub the insides of all the toilets and he would’ve happily said yes.

Peter stood outside and handed a flyer to almost everyone who passed by, giving the BS sales pitch—“A two-day free trial and initiation fee waived for today only,” as if prospective members weren’t always offered two free days with no initiation fee. He was so pepped up because of Katie that he managed to convince several people to walk in off the street and talk to the sales rep about a membership, and Dave, the sales rep, even managed to close a sale.

At the end of Peter’s workday, Jimmy came over to him and said, “Great going, man. I didn’t know you had sales skills.”

Peter knew he easily could have felt insulted. It was as if Jimmy was treating him like a five-year-old who’d spelled his first word—
Oh, you made a sale, Peter Weter. I’m so proud of you. You’re such a smart little boy
. But since Peter didn’t really care about this job and wasn’t even planning to keep it for more than a couple of weeks, he smiled and said, “I was just doing my job.”

“Maybe you’re wasting your time, trying to become a trainer,” Jimmy said. “Maybe I should just train you to be a membership consultant.”

Again, Peter felt like Jimmy was trying to get a dig in, but he just brushed the whole thing off, making it into a joke, going, “Yeah, maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

“Hey, was that your girlfriend you were talking to before?”