More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

Westwood and settled into a pleasant life.

He was content.

Well, almost. There was the love life situation…

Oh, that.

Pullman was divorced, ten years, from a woman he’d married just after they’d graduated from State. After the breakup he’d dated some but had found that it was hard to connect on a serious level. None of the women he went out with, mostly blind dates, knew much at all about movies, his true passion in life. (Oh, that is so weird, Rod, I love the classics too. Like, I’ve seen Titanic a hundred times. I mean, I own it…. Now, tell me about this Orbison Welles guy you mentioned.) Generally conversation settled into boring bragging about their kids and rants about how bad their ex-husbands had treated them. His dates also tended to dress themselves at the unglamorous places like Gap or L.L. Bean and were generally of — how could he put it? — solid Midwestern builds.

Oh, he met a few attractive women — like Sally Vaughn, the runner-up for Miss Iowa 2002, no less — but that relationship never went anywhere and after her he found himself longing for greener pastures in the girl department.

Which perfectly described LA. Here was a massive inventory of the most gorgeous creatures on earth. But they weren’t just pretty. No, these lasses also had substance. He’d overhear them in the coffee bar of the bookstore, sitting over skim lattes and talking art and politics, brilliant, animated, funny. Just yesterday he’d listened to a couple of twenty-somethings in tight-fitting workout clothes arguing about the odd-sounding instrument on the soundtrack of The Third Man. A dulcimer, no, it was an accordion, no, it was—

A zither! Pullman had wanted to shout, but sensed an intrusion wouldn’t be welcome (and sensed too that the one who’d been wrong would be royally pissed, putting the kibosh on any chance to hang out with either of them).

Your typical LA girl’s DVD collection surely wouldn’t include any sappy tearjerkers. They’d have The Bicycle Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Battleship Potemkin, Wings of Desire, The Manchurian Candidate.

Ah, but how to meet one… That was the problem. How he hated the cold leap, the Hi-My-Name’s-Rod- What’s-Yours stage. Pudgy, clumsy, shy, he always clutched.

He’d hoped his job at the bookstore would connect him with glamorous Hollywoodians. Put him in a situation where he had a purpose — like being a salesman — or where somebody came up to him, then he could charm a woman with the best of them. But at the store, the instant he answered a customer’s question, she had no more use for him. As for his fellow workers, they were either middle-aged losers or youngsters obsessed with their own careers (trying to, guess what, write, act in or direct movies, of course).

Out of sheer exhaustion, Pullman had given up on romance.

But then the Resident in 10B moved in.

Tammy Hudson — he’d asked the super her name the next morning — was a bit older than the stunning young things you’d see at Ivy or the back bar at the Beverly Wilshire. Pullman put her at thirty-three or thirty-four, which was good, a manageable age gap. She was gorgeous. Long hair, black as a raven’s wings, often tied up in a jaunty ponytail or pinned into a flirtatious bun. She was tall and, as her yellow-and-black spandex jogging outfit proved, slim and muscular. She ran every day, and sometimes on his way to open the bookstore in the morning he’d see her in the backyard of the complex, standing in the cool, foggy air, practicing some kind of martial art.

One other thing he liked: Tammy had a great joy of life. She traveled often and — based on what he’d overheard — had a place down in Baja, or knew someone who did; she often spent weekends there. She rode a bright-red Vespa motor scooter, reminding him of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Her auto was an old MG and she drove it lightning fast.

He hadn’t been surprised to find that nearly every day she’d leave her apartment with her portfolio; of course she’d be involved in films. With her expressive face, she’d make a great character actor. Had he seen her in anything? he wondered. There were not many films Rodney Pullman hadn’t seen.

He debated, and decided it wasn’t completely out of the question that they could go out and that something serious might develop between them. He wasn’t really bad looking. Too much gut, sure, but that was true of a lot of successful businessmen; women didn’t mind, if you had the charm to offset it. He had a full head of brown hair, not a trace of gray, and a solid jaw that largely covered his double chin. He didn’t smoke and drank only wine, and that in moderation. He always picked up the check at dinner.

But instantly, as always, the doubts swarmed like bees. How could the shy man meet her some way other than simply walking up and introducing himself? And once you’ve blown your initial chance, he knew all too well, you can’t go back and start over again, not with a beautiful woman like Tammy.

So for months Pullman worshiped her from afar, struggling to come up with some way to break the ice and not make a fool of himself.

Then, this cool April evening, he got a break.

Around seven, Pullman was standing by his window, looking down into the courtyard, when he noticed motion from the bushes across the sidewalk from Tammy’s bedroom. It was repeated a moment later and this time he saw a faint flash of light, like a reflection off glass.

Pullman shut his lights out and pulled the blinds down. Dropping to his knees, he peered outside and saw that a man was crouching in the bushes. He seemed to be staring into Tammy’s window. He wore one of the gray uniforms of the apartment complex’s groundskeepers. Pullman rose and slipped into his bedroom, where he’d have a better view of the courtyard. Yes, there was no doubt. The skinny young guy was peeping. He had a small pair of binoculars. Goddamn pervert!

Pullman’s initial reaction was to call 9–1–1 and he grabbed the phone.

But he hit only the first digit, then thought, hold on… maybe he could use this somehow. He set the phone down.

Tammy’s curtains closed. He focused on the voyeur and he felt a chill as the maintenance guy’s shoulders slumped in disappointment — like he’d been hoping to get a look at her stripping for the shower. Still, the man stayed in position, waiting for a chance to resume his spying. But then Tammy’s door opened and she stepped outside. She was wearing her pink top and tight floral pants. Her blue leather Coach purse was over her shoulder and sunglasses rode high on her head, stuck into her hair, which was loose tonight.

The voyeur crouched down into the bushes, out of sight.

Tammy locked her door and walked down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. Where was the maintenance man? Pullman wondered in alarm. Was he crawling closer to her? But just as Pullman snatched up the phone and started to push 9, he saw the stalker rise. He hadn’t been about to pounce; he’d only been gathering up his tools. Carrying them, he turned away from Tammy and walked in the opposite direction, toward the back of the building.

Tammy disappeared into the lot and a moment later the rattle of her MG engine and the whine of the gears filled the night as she sped away in the little green car.

That evening Pullman stayed close to home, ordering in a pizza and keeping a close eye on the courtyard. Hours passed without any sign of Tammy or her stalker. He nearly fell asleep, but he made some coffee, drank it down black and hot, and forced himself to stay awake so he could scope out the courtyard. Reflecting, with a shiver of excitement, that this was just like the Hitchcock thriller, Rear Window, where Jimmy Stewart, housebound in a wheelchair, spends his time peering through his neighbors’ windows. It was Pullman’s favorite movie; he wondered if Tammy had ever seen it. He had a feeling she had.

At nine p.m., still seeing no sign of Tammy or the skinny voyeur, Pullman went downstairs and around the back of his building, where he found the superintendent. He asked the man, “Who’s that young maintenance guy? The blond?”

“Blond?” the heavyset janitor asked, pulling a strand of greasy hair off his forehead. He smelled of beer.

“Yeah, the short guy.”

“You said ‘blond.’”

“Right, the one with blond hair,” Pullman said, frowning in frustration. “You understand who I mean?” The janitor was Anglo; there was no language barrier. Maybe he was just stupid.