KC was still behind me. I could confront her. I could lose her. Or I could ignore her. It was Wednesday. Susan didn’t see patients on Wednesday. She taught a seminar Wednesday mornings and took Wednesday afternoon off. It was our day to have lunch together. I smiled – a solution had presented itself. Pearl and I strolled and KC stalked us until we got back to the office at 11:30. Pearl and I went up. Pearl drank some water and then flopped on the rug. I stood and looked out my window. KC had taken up a position across the street outside F.A.O. Schwarz where she could gaze up at my window. I felt like the Pope.
Susan was due at noon. She arrived of course at 12:20.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry I’m late,” she said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re always late. I expected you to be late.”
She came over and gave me a large kiss, which, I thought, boded well for later. When she was through kissing me she went directly to the mirror over my washbasin and began to reapply lip gloss.
“Where shall we lunch?”
“We could go straight to my place,” I said.
“Un uh,” she said. “And eat about four in the afternoon?”
“We could order out,” I said.
“Sure, and while we waited…? I don’t think so.”
“Where would you like to go?” I said.
“Anyplace where you won’t try to undress me.”
“You’re the one that came in here with the big kiss,” I said.
“Because I love you, does that mean I have to lie down immediately on my back?”
“I think so,” I said. “Though I’ve never been a stickler for position.”
“I’ve noticed,” Susan said. “Let’s go to the Ritz Cafe.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
I smiled to myself.
“Why are you smiling.”
“Just happy,” I said.
We walked Pearl down to my place and put her in my living room. I put fresh water in Pearl’s dish, and turned on the radio so she’d have music to listen to. She hated talk radio. Susan kissed her good-bye, and we went out. We came back out of my apartment and turned left on Marlborough Street and right on Arlington.
“Talk to me a minute about people who stalk people,” I said.
“Sure,” Susan said. “I suspect you know what I know. It is some sort of attempt to maintain or, I suppose, acquire the feeling of power over someone. Following a person may not give you real power, but it gives you the feeling of it. You watch them. You know where they go, what they do, who they see.”
“Knowledge is power,” I said.
“Exactly,” Susan said.
“Are stalkers dangerous?” I said.
“Not necessarily. Sometimes the need for power extends to physical coercion, sometimes not. Sometimes dirty tricks, sometimes not.”
“And the purpose?”
“Fear of loss,” Susan said. “A lover, say, from whom you are estranged. You fear if she gets out of your power you’ll lose her. And the feeling of power is a way to feel as if you haven’t.”
We were at the corner of Commonwealth less than a block from The Ritz when Susan spotted KC Roth. She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at her. KC realized that Susan had seen her and tried to look as if she were just strolling along and didn’t notice us.
“What the hell is this?” Susan said to me.
“The lovely and tenacious KC Roth,” I said.
“She’s stalking you again?”
“Yep.”
“You knew it?”
“Yep.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“I thought it would be more dramatic if you discovered her yourself.”
“It is,” Susan said.
She was quiet for a moment, then she turned toward KC Roth and yelled.
“KC!”
KC tried to look startled.
“Susan?”
“Get over here,” Susan said.
KC walked over to us.
“Susan, what are you…?”
“Shut up,” Susan said.
She jabbed at a bench on the mall.
“Sit down,” she said.
Her teeth were clenched and her face was hard-edged and kind of white except for red splotches on her cheekbones. I stood a few feet away. Oh boy!
KC wasn’t brave, but she was stupid. She stood there looking at Susan.
“Wha…?” she said.
Susan took hold of her blouse with both hands and yanked her to the bench and slammed her onto it.
“Now listen, you asinine little shit for brains,” she said with her teeth clamped hard together. “This is the last time you bother him, you understand?”
“Bother?”
Susan still had hold of her blouse. She pulled her close for a moment and slammed her back against the bench.
“Call, follow, whine at, see, talk to, touch, look at, annoy, anything – you understand? Annoy him again and I will knock out every stupid fucking tooth in your stupid fucking mouth.”
KC began to cry. She twisted loose from Susan and stood up.
“I need him,” she screamed at Susan. “You have no right to keep him from me, if it weren’t for you…”
With her clenched fist Susan hit KC on the jaw with a left hook just like I’d taught her, getting her shoulder into it so that the power came from the body, not the arm. KC fell backward and sat down hard on the bench. Her lip was bleeding.
“Are we clear?” Susan said.
KC touched her mouth and took her hand away and stared at the blood on it.
“My God, I’m bleeding,” KC said.
“You’ll be sleeping with the fishes, you neurotic bitch,” Susan said, “if you don’t stay away from him.”
KC nodded, still staring at the blood on her hand.
“Say it,” Susan said with such force that I was a little scared.
“I’ll stay away.”
“You bet you will,” Susan said.
She turned and looked at me and said, “Come on,” and started off toward The Ritz at a very fast pace. I followed her. We went in the Commonwealth Avenue entrance and across the lobby into the cafe. The maitre d‘ put us in a window seat only a few inches from passersby on Newbury Street.
“My hand hurts,” Susan said.
I nodded.
“You didn’t tell me that it hurts your hand to hit someone.”
“Mostly,” I said, “if you hit them on the face or head. It’s why I try to use my forearm or elbow when I can.”
“I’ll try to keep it in mind.”
“Were you influenced by Freud or Adler,” I said, “when you gave KC a whack on the kisser.”
“Wonder Woman, I think. Not very shrink-like, was I.”
“No.”
“Did you mind?” Susan said.
“No. I liked it,” I said. “It was what I wanted to do, but felt I couldn’t.”
“You knew I’d blow my top,” Susan said.
“I was hoping,” I said.
“What do you think she’ll do?” Susan said.
“Dash back to the shrink you sent her to, that she stopped going to.”
“So she can report me,” Susan said.
“Yep.”
Susan smiled.
“So maybe it was just the right thing to do,” she said.
“I’m sure it was. Will your reputation be destroyed in the psychiatric community?”
Susan smiled again, more broadly than before.
“No, my colleagues will envy me.”
“Good,” I said. “Want to see if they’ll bring you some ice for your hand?”
“No, but they’d better rush a martini out here pretty quick,” she said. “Before I’m overcome with pain.”
I signaled the waiter.
“Right away, Mrs. Silverman, I sure as hell don’t want to cross you.”
The drink came promptly, and a beer for me.
“You think it worked?” Susan said. “You think she’ll leave you alone?”
“Oh, I’m sure it will,” I said. “But you better not let word get out about my sexual performance, or you’ll be beating up beautiful women every week.”
Susan raised her glass toward me and touched the rim of it against the top of my beer bottle.
She said, “Be my pleasure, big guy.”