Little Stalker Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1. - November 19, 1937, her idol, the great filmmaker Arthur Weeman, is born in ...

  2. - At 33, she meets her future husband, the great writer Hugh Nickelby

  3. - At 33, she tends to her father in his time of need

  4. - At 33, she rediscovers her love of literature

  5. - At 33, she makes the acquaintance of Ida Williams, lifelong friend and mentor

  6. - At 33, she is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and bravely ...

  7. - At 33, she begins correspondence with filmmaker Arthur Weeman

  8. - At 33, in a futile attempt to escape her critics, she adopts a nom de plume

  9. - At 33, she meets her future husband, Isaac Myman

  10. - At 33, her book is advertised on GoCARDS in bathrooms all over New York, ...

  11. - At 33, she spends Thanksgiving in the Galápagos Islands with her daughter

  12. - At 33, she is seen frequenting such literary hot spots as Michael’s and Elaine’s

  13. - At 33, signed first editions of her novel are sold for large sums to ...

  14. - At 33, she models for a national Absolut vodka ad

  15. - At 33, a suitor rescues her from a five-alarm fire

  16. - At 33, she briefly takes up residence at One Fifth Avenue

  17. - At 33, she attends a private screening

  18. - At 33, she meets a long-lost relative

  19. - At 33, a former sweetheart comes crawling back

  20. - At 33, she relies on her editor as Steinbeck relied on his during the ...

  21. - At 33, she betrays a sacred trust

  22. - At 34, like a plant regenerating its stem cells, she heals an old wound

  23. - At 34, in a gruesome Orwellian spectacle, she is witness to the murder of ...

  24. - In 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce takes the first recording of a negative ...

  25. - At 34, she marries

  26. - At 34, she embarks on what will forever be remembered as ‘the midnight ...

  About the Author

  Praise for Little Stalker

  “It’s the story of a thirty-three-year-old one-hit-wonder novelist who’s working as a receptionist at her father’s medical office, stealing money from him, discovering secrets about her family’s dark past, befriending the elderly, dementia-stricken Mrs. Williams, falling in love with a paparazzo while dodging a sociopathic gossip columnist, and spying on her celebrity obsession, neurotic, nebbishy, scandalously kinky New York film director ’Arthur Weeman.’ All this energy makes [Little Stalker] compulsively readable.” —Salon.com

  "Hilarious and poignant. . . . This protagonist is an endearing figure.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “A smart and hilarious read; you’ll fall in love with Belle’s neurotic heroine Rebekah Kettle as she struggles to make ends meet, unearth her father’s secrets, find love, and manage a bizarre obsession with a movie director.” —People Style Watch

  “There are only so many good novels about single women living the big-city life, and Jennifer Belle’s novels are among the best, the most human and genuine. Her first-person narrators are solitary female flanuers in continual drift through the pretty and gruesome parts of New York, and it’s always a treat to be in on their streaming monologues as they . . . generally afflict their humanity on an otherwise indifferent world.” —Venus

  “Deliciously sardonic . . . You have to admire a writer who can create a character who is monumentally neurotic, yet oddly appealing nevertheless. Jennifer Belle has brilliantly done so with the protagonist—no, let’s call her the heroine, because she’s earned it— of Little Stalker.” —The Hartford Courant

  “ ‘A lighthearted romp through New York’ [is] precisely what Belle delivers. That it comes with a skewering as well makes it just that much more fun.” —New York Daily News

  “Will keep you hooked to the last page.” —Cosmopolitan

  “Belle suffuses this story with genuine sweetness.”

  —The Indianapolis Star

  “This humorous and intelligent novel, graced by a quirky and insightful protagonist, is sure to please fans of Belle’s work and create new admirers.” —Library Journal

  “Sparkles with offbeat humor.” —Publishers Weekly

  “A funny and rich plot.” —The Sacramento Bee

  Praise for High Maintenance

  “Hilarious.” —The Boston Globe

  “Razor-sharp, deadpan observations and dazzling prose—by turns utterly hilarious and heart-wrenching.” —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Looking for a good laugh? Enter the world of twenty-six-year-old Liv Kellerman. . . . Her nutty sagas will have you rolling on the floor.” —Cosmopolitan

  “Stylish, funny . . . Belle’s unpretentious humor and clean prose style are in an entirely different neighborhood from your average single-in-the-city author.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “An outrageous, hilarious account of one woman’s journey to find herself, the ‘Loft of her Life’ and a man worthy of sharing apartment space in New York City . . . Wicked and twisted . . . uproariously funny.” —The Tampa Tribune

  “Addictive and captivating . . . The same wisecracking, fierce yet vulnerable point of view that made Going Down so special is taken even further in High Maintenance.” —Time Out New York

  “Satisfying. Even non-New Yorkers will be sucked in as Liv navigates her way through heartache and the city.” —Mademoiselle

  “Compared to everyone from Dorothy Parker to Liz Phair . . . Belle has pulled through with a book I certainly wouldn’t kick off my beach blanket. . . . The voice in this book is irresistible. . . . Take Belle to the beach with confidence.” —Newsday

  “Just buy the damn book.” —The New York Observer

  “Belle has created another unforgettable narrator—funny, self-absorbed, a little damaged.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Sharp, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny.” —The Baltimore Sun

  “Hugely funny.” —New York Daily News

  “Liv’s wackiness gives this unruly novel moments of great humor, but in the end the book is as much about the peculiar landscape of the New York housing market—the snooty upper-class clients and the real estate agents who kowtow to them—as it is about a young woman finding her own independence.” —The Washington Post Book World

  “Belle deftly mines real estate as a metaphor, especially in Liv’s affair with an impulsive architect, and her clients and fellow brokers are both terrifying and hilarious by turns.” —Entertainment Weekly

  “In this latest New York romp . . . Belle draws both Liv and the idiosyncrasies of the Manhattan real estate market so well that one can’t help wondering just what is fiction (Belle did a stint as a broker herself ) and what may be biography. . . . Belle’s skewed take on life in the big city keeps the smirk-per-page ratio high . . . offbeat observations . . . hilarity and pathos.” —The Denver Post

  “[An] amusing . . . humorous real-estate romp with Manhattan views.” —US Weekly

  “If you think the Hub housing market is tough, take a look at this tale of high-stakes real estate—and sexual—wheeling and dealing. Belle knows the world she depicts.” —Boston Herald

  “Like a hot fudge sundae . . . delicious. Gutter-mouthed, smart-ass Liv, she’s a Becky Sharp for our time.” —Gotham

  “You’ll feel right at home with Belle’s . . . follow-up to her racy debut, Going Down.” —Glamour

  “Brimming with Gotham references, weird but lovable characters and typical urban scenes, [High Maintenance] is a witty and engaging tale of love and real estate in Manhattan. . . . Belle�
�s tongue-in-cheek style and laugh-out-loud antics keep the pages turning . . . fresh and invigorating.” —Publishers Weekly

  "This work continues in the same tradition of Belle’s highly praised first novel, Going Down, with equal parts hilarity and pain . . . in turns funny and poignant.” —Library Journal

  Praise for Going Down

  “A witty, gritty, and thoroughly convincing first novel.”

  —Nick Hornby

  “A rollicking debut.” —The Village Voice

  “A funny, sad, nasty little gem of a novel.” —Jay McInerney

  “A kind of twisted version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . . . Delightfully, sickeningly, hilariously enthralling.” —Tama Janowitz

  “Imagine Holden Caulfield’s sister, Phoebe, growing up and turning tricks to study acting, and you have Bennington Bloom. . . . Alternately vulnerable and self-possessed, Bloom is the main attraction of this book, but there are others: a riveting plot with menacing undercurrents and creepy details, a cast of colorful minor characters, and a happy but not sappy ending. Going Down is loaded with comical ironies . . . a wonderful, aberrant, compulsively readable novel.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “The best thing about Jennifer Belle’s appealing first novel is Bennington Bloom, the near-tragic yet fantastically winning narrator. . . . Belle has created an oddly affecting character whose self-reflexive candor and wry observations add up to an astringent, darkly comic view of New York life.” —Elle

  “Belle combines very funny, sharply written prose and superb grasp of narrative in her debut novel. . . . The arresting combination of her caustic wit and insightful observations makes for a wickedly hilarious sense of humor evoking Dorothy Parker. . . . Belle’s riotous, vivid debut has the energy and gritty appeal of New York City itself.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Also by Jennifer Belle

  Going Down

  High Maintenance

  FOR CHILDREN:

  Animal Stackers

  (illustrated by David McPhail)

  RIVERHEAD BOOKS

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party web-sites or their content.

  Copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Belle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic

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  Belle, Jennifer, date.

  Little stalker / Jennifer Belle.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-594-48292-2

  1. Single women—Fiction. 2. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 3. Dating (Social customs)—

  Fiction. 4. Stalking—Fiction. 5. Stalkers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3552.E53337L

  813’.54—dc22

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my father

  Jenny kiss’d me when we met,

  Jumping from the chair she sat in;

  Time, you thief, who love to get

  Sweets into your list, put that in!

  Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,

  Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,

  Say I’m growing old, but add,

  Jenny kiss’d me!

  —JAMES LEIGH HUNT

  1.

  November 19, 1937, her idol, the great filmmaker Arthur Weeman, is born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Otto and Ethel Hamburger

  All day long I called Mr. Moviefone. Arthur Weeman’s Swan Song is playing exclusively at the Ziegfeld Theater, Fifty-fourth Street and Sixth Avenue. Today’s remaining showtimes are 10, 12, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. And every two hours, at 10, 12, 2, 4, and 6, I imagined it starting without me. It was the first time in my whole life that I hadn’t gone to the first showing of the new Arthur Weeman movie, but I had promised I would go to the eight o’clock with Derek Hassler.

  Finally at six-thirty I called him to see if we were meeting at the theater.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Who’s this?” he asked.

  “It’s me—Rebekah,” I said.

  “Rebekah who?” he asked. I paused. Was he kidding? Rebekah of Sunnybrook Fucking Farm. How many Rebekahs did he know? We had been dating for almost a month, a great first date followed by four mediocre ones but still, it had potential. Until that moment it hadn’t occurred to me that he was dating Rebekahs all over town. After almost a month, I hadn’t expected the question “Will you marry me?” but I didn’t expect the question “Rebekah who?”

  “This is Rebekah from the Bible,” I said. “God commanded me to call you and tell you you’re a jerk.”

  “Oh, Rebekah Kettle,” he said. “I’m sorry, I just happen to know two Rebekahs. I’m glad you called, you know there’s been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I really like you, Rebekah.”

  “I like you too, Derek.” I actually hadn’t been sure if I liked him until that moment when he said he liked me.

  “And I’d really like to have sex with you but . . .”

  “But?” I asked.

  “But I don’t want to have to call you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “I want to have sex, I just don’t want to have the responsibility of feeling like I have to call you.”

  I paused for a moment. “If you don’t call me, how am I going to know when we’re going to have the sex?” I asked.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Are we just going to hope to bump into each other on the street?” I asked.

  Not only would not speaking on the phone make having sex difficult, it would probably make having children an impossibility.

  “I just don’t want to feel obliged to call you. Like Thanksgiving. I know you wanted to meet my parents but now I’m not even sure I’m going. We’ll already be closing the Valentine’s issue and tonight I know we were supposed to have a date but I have to stay at the office,” he said. “I have to cancel.”

  I’d had a feeling that Thanksgiving wasn’t going to work out. It was three weeks away, which was like three years in early dating time. But I wasn’t upset about that. What I was upset about was the movie. “When were you planning to let me know that? It’s already six-thirty,” I said. “I don’t understand how you can do that.”

  “Sometimes I cancel,�
�� he said.

  It was a statement of such simplicity and honesty that, as furious as I was, and as much as I hated him at that moment, I almost had to respect him for it. Sometimes I cancel. Sometimes, I cancel. The words lowered themselves slowly through me from my brain to my chest, like the chandeliers at the Metropolitan Opera House, indicating that the show was over.

  There was nothing else to say after that. Sometimes he cancels.

  Sometimes I hang up.

  I sat quietly on my bed waiting for the blow from the breakup to set in. I steeled myself. I was a protester handcuffed to a condemned building waiting for the wrecking ball. I was Anne Boleyn walking to the chopping block, ready to forgive my executioner. But, strangely, I didn’t feel the blow at all. That was the worst part, the realization that at thirty-three I could break up with people left and right and not even cause the tiniest spike on an EKG machine. My heart barely looked up from its television, just smiled and gave me the thumbs-up sign.

  Ten years ago I would have wailed on the subway. I would have cried myself into a bout of vomiting that resulted in being hospitalized with an IV drip. I would have called Derek Hassler back and begged.

  Instead, all I could feel was excitement that in less than an hour and a half I would be sitting in a red velvet chair at the Ziegfeld. I certainly wasn’t going to let Derek Hassler ruin that. And I was glad to go alone and not have to hear his opinion of the film after in his gumbo-thick Southern accent.

  Thank God for Arthur Weeman.

  There are only so many things you can count on in this world. I know that every winter I can find a great vintage coat and that every spring it will fall apart. I know that every summer I can get perfectly sliced watermelon strips that taste faintly of cigarettes, jammed into round plastic containers at the Korean market. And I know that every fall there will be a new Arthur Weeman movie and that a deep depression will overcome me as soon as the closing credits start to roll. Because then I know that it will be a whole year until the next Arthur Weeman movie.