Obsessed With You (11 page)

Aaron wanted to run to her, try
to explain everything to her, tell her he loved her forever. But he
knew he couldn’t. She would think he was crazy, and he thought he
might actually be crazy. If he ran to her, he had to have proof of
his fidelity. He forced himself to stay where he was, standing now,
binoculars focused on Cathy. After a few minutes, Cathy turned around
and started walking back down the pier toward her house. She had a
little smile on her face that made him happy and sad at the same
time.

Aaron kept the binoculars on
Cathy’s face until she went back into her house. He gave up for the
day and went back to his house to wait on Neil.

*************************

Neil arrived a few minutes before
three. Aaron opened the front door, and Neil ambled in with his long
legs, looking around.

“
I’ve never been in here
before,” he said with awe. “It’s amazing.”

“
I guess so,” Aaron said. He
hadn’t really paid too much attention to the house and its bones.
He had one goal and one goal only.

“
I’ll need to go through the
whole house,” Neil said. “Then look at the exterior.”

Aaron trailed behind Neil as he
went from room to room on the downstairs, then on the second floor.
He leaned down to inspect the baseboard several times, and looked up
at the crown molding, which was in every room of the house.

Back downstairs, Neil walked to a
door in the living room. Aaron had never even opened the door, he had
been so obsessed with Cathy.

“
This is the turret,” Neil
said.

Aaron followed Neil up the
stairwell, which was dark and dusty. They emerged into a circular
room with windows facing the front and side of the house.

“
Damn!” Neil said. “This is
a gem.”

The floors were hardwood, as they
were throughout the house, but the walls curved around. Bookcases
lined the walls, following the curves. Aaron had no idea how they had
been constructed so meticulously.

“
This must have been a library
back in the day,” Neil said. “Do you want to refinish the shelves
or paint them?”

“
What do you think?” Aaron
asked. He had no idea about things like that.

“
If it were me,” Neil said,
“I’d refinish them. They look like walnut.”

“
Can you do the refinishing?”
Aaron asked.

“
Oh, yes,” Neil said. “I’d
like nothing better than to get my hands on this house and bring it
back to its former glory in every way.”

Neil made notes in his cell phone
as they toured the entire house. Then they went outside and Neil
carefully inspected the exterior. He got down on his hands and knees
at some places.

“
These bushes will need to be
cut back before we start the exterior,” Neil said. “They look
like they haven’t been trimmed in decades.”

“
Right,” Aaron said. This
house was clearly a money pit.

“
Do you have any idea of what
colors you want?” Neil asked.

“
I’d like to stay true to the
colors of the time period when the house was built,” Aaron said.
Actually, Aaron didn’t give a damn about the colors.

“
The place where I buy the
paint has a Victorian historical line. I can send you the colors and
you could pick what you want, at least for the interior.”

“
Okay,” Neil said, still not
caring but knowing he had to participate in this process.

“
I’ll email you the paint
suggestions and the estimate tomorrow,” Neil said. “Can you give
me your email address?”

Neil held his phone out, ready to
key in Aaron’s address. Aaron had actually thought that far ahead
and created an account using the name Richard Smith. He gave Neil the
address.

“
If we come to terms,” Aaron
said, “how long do you think the job will take?”

“
I’m thinking at least three
months,” Neil said. “It might seem like a long time, but this old
house needs special attention. I’ll probably do most of the work
myself.”

Aaron shook Neil’s hand. “I’ll
look for your estimate,” he said.

It was already dark when Neil
left and Aaron decided to stay put in the house. He heated up a
frozen dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. He ended the
evening with scotch on the rocks in his bedroom.

He checked his email—his real
email. Mrs. Davidson had sent something asking how he was doing. He
wrote her back that he was doing fine and would keep her updated. His
sister emailed to check on him and asked him to call her if he needed
to talk. He thought about that. Sherry already thought he was acting
like a stalker, but maybe he needed some of her good common sense
right now. He’d call her soon, he decided. Marsha emailed asking
him for a reference letter. He wrote her back that he’d send it in
a couple of days and hoped she was doing well. The rest of the emails
were spam or news alerts he’d set up with the stock market.

After a couple of more slugs from
his drink, Aaron fell asleep, his laptop beside him.

Chapter
Twelve

Aaron looked at himself in the
mirror as he brushed his teeth. His hair had grown long, something he
never would have allowed when he was working. He had a regular
bimonthly appointment at a barber near his office and kept his hair
conservatively trimmed. He also had a full beard for the first time
in his life. It was thick but scraggly looking where it crept up his
cheek in an unkempt way. He slathered shaving cream onto the areas
that needed attention and sculpted his beard into something passable.
He trimmed his mustache and beard and began to look halfway
presentable. If it weren’t for the fact that his face was so gaunt.
Aaron had eaten very little in the past few months and it was showing
on his face. He wondered what Cathy would think of him if she could
see him now.

Aaron ate a bowl of cereal while
he flipped through the channels. He visited the news for a few
minutes, then restlessly moved on. Movies, game shows, cooking shows,
infomercials. In frustration, he threw the remote across the room. It
hit the wall and fell on the hardwoods. Aaron rushed over and picked
it up. It still seemed operational. He would have to be less
impulsive. The TV was all he had.

Right before noon, Neil emailed
Aaron.

“
Your house is huge and in bad
shape,” Neil wrote. “I figure it’s at least four thousand
square feet. My estimate is $30,000. I know that seems like a lot,
but it’s worth it to get an excellent paint job, which I will give
you. The fee covers the paint and any painting assistance I might
hire. If repair work that I can’t handle on the inside or the
outside is necessary, that will be above and beyond my fee. I will
also require a third of the fee up front to purchase supplies and
because I will have to give up other jobs to work full time on your
house. I figure it will take three months of constant work. Please
let me know if this estimate is agreeable with you. If it is not, I
can recommend other less-talented painters to you.”

Aaron laughed. Neil was a shrewd
businessman. Actually, Aaron thought it would cost much more than
Neil’s estimate. He was glad to pay the price.

“
When can you start?” he
wrote back.

“
Next week, at nine a.m. on
Monday,” Neil wrote back.

“
See you then,” Aaron wrote.
“Send me your routing number for your checking account and I’ll
put the deposit in.” Aaron had no checks. All business with Neil
would have to be done through the family LLC.

*************************

The weekend was without end for
Aaron. The bright spot was when Neil emailed him on Saturday with
recommendations of paint colors for each room. Aaron approved them
all. What did he care?

He was beginning to feel demented
and forced himself not to spy on Cathy—as much as he wanted to. He
had told himself he just needed to make sure she was all right.
Hadn’t he seen for himself that she was all right when she smiled
on her way back to her house the other day?

But Aaron needed more than that.
He needed to know if she was involved with someone else; he needed to
know if he still had a chance with her.

When Neil knocked on the door
Monday morning, Aaron thought he might look as crazy as he felt. He
mustered up a smile as he opened the door.

“
I’m ready to get started,”
Neil said. Cans of paint, a ladder, brushes, roller pans, drop
clothes, and various other tools surrounded Neil on the porch. He
gathered up his supplies and walked into the house.

“
I thought we’d do the living
room first,” Neil said. “Unless you’ve got another idea. I was
just thinking we could get that room out of the way so you could
start using it again while I work on the rest of the house.”

“
That sounds like a good plan,”
Aaron said.

Together, he and Neil moved the
meager furniture out of the living room into the dining room area.
Neil managed to pull the cable wire over far enough to connect it.
Aaron needed that TV.

For three days, Neil patched the
walls and painted them an olive green color. Aaron sat in the dining
room watching TV and thinking about Cathy. He did not go through the
woods to spy on her. He was watching CNN on the third day when Neil
entered the room.

“
My fiancé would love to see
this house,” he said.

His fiancé? Was Cathy already
engaged to someone else? Aaron’s heart fell to the floor and began
to form a puddle of misery at his feet. He had lost Cathy!

“
Uh,” he said. He was
speechless.

“
She runs a vintage shop in
town. She loves the old stuff. But if it’s not okay. . . .”

“
No,” Aaron said. “Of
course it’s okay.”

“
Lindy will be glad to hear
it,” Neil said, turning back to the living room.

“
Lindy?” Aaron called after
him.

“
Yeah. She’s my fiancé.”

Aaron’s heart began a slow
crawl off the floor. He still had a chance.

Suddenly feeling exuberant, Aaron
said, “Bring her by anytime.”

On Friday, there was a knock at
the door and Aaron hauled himself out of his recliner. Neil met him
in the foyer.

“
That’s probably Lindy,” he
said. “She’s bringing my lunch today.”

Aaron opened the door with Neil
behind him. A blue-eyed woman with blonde hair in braided pigtails
hanging across her shoulders stuck out her hand.

“
I’m Lindy,” she said.
“I’ve brought lunch today.”

Aaron shook Lindy’s hand. She
sparkled her way inside the door and set a paper grocery bag down on
the floor in the dining room. Aaron central.

Lindy got down on her knees and
began to pull sandwiches and chips out of the bag. She put them on
plates and handed them to Aaron and Neil, then made a plate for
herself.

Lindy chattered through their
lunch of chicken salad sandwiches and Aaron found himself responding
to her. She was so damn cheery, he would have been an ogre not to
find her charming.

Somewhere in the course of the
vibrant conversation, Lindy said, “Our friend Cathy lives in the
next house over.”

Aaron came alive at the mention
of Cathy’s name. His whole body tingled.

“
We went to high school with
her,” Cathy continued. “She came back a few months ago after a
bad breakup.”

Aaron felt guilt wash over him.
He was responsible for that.

“
But she’s been seeing her
high school boyfriend lately, so I guess she’s gonna be all right.”

Aaron became numb. He was dead
weight on the chair he was sitting in. He died in that moment.

“
Yeah,” Neil said, unaware
that Aaron had just died. “I guess getting back with your high
school lover is the remedy for what ails you.”

Lindy and Neil looked at each
other and laughed, in their own private high school world. Aaron was
dead.

Lindy packed the used paper
plates and napkins back into the paper bag and stood to leave. She
kissed Neil goodbye and waved at Aaron.

“
It was nice to meet you,”
she said. “You should come out with us sometime, if you want to.”

They were so wrapped up in their
love for each other, they still hadn’t noticed that Aaron had
ceased to exist. He forced himself out of his grave.

“
Yes, maybe I’ll do that,”
he said.

And then Lindy left, leaving only
pixie dust behind. Neil got back to work, and Aaron kept his eyes
glued to the TV.

Near the end of the day, Neil
came back into the dining room.

“
I’m finished in there,” he
said. “We can move your stuff back before I go.”

They moved the couch and recliner
and console back into the living room. The olive-colored walls
enveloped Aaron, attempted to comfort him. The crown molding gleamed
like cream in a cat’s bowl.

He shook Neil’s hand and said
he’d see him on Monday. Then he collapsed into his recliner and
stared blindly at the TV. How could he win Cathy back from her high
school boyfriend? The odds of that did not seem good. They had their
memories, their music, maybe even a favorite song. Definitely a song.
He felt sick.