Following Polly Read online

  After weeks of glancing at the contents of his bag, I deduced that he was a junior living in Quincy House, majoring in history. Jean thought that showed compatibility, as I had settled on history as a major. I also figured that he was thinking about law school. He sometimes rearranged his bag revealing LSAT preparation books and law school guides. He was from New York City; I knew that because he used an Amtrak train ticket from the Thanksgiving break as a bookmark. I didn’t know if he had a girlfriend.

  A few days later, I scored a major coup. I was taking an afternoon seminar at the business school across the river, and I saw Charlie decked out in sweats and a Walkman, running on the bridge. He was there, like clockwork, every Tuesday and Thursday. I found myself trying to come up with excuses to go to the business school even though I didn’t have class there on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to see if I could catch a glimpse of him.

  “What’s his name?” Jean asked me after two weeks of information about his running habits and his tendency to nap for maybe a minute or two during the slide portion of the class.

  He was just the guy with the blue shirt. But I knew Jean would be disappointed with that answer.

  I panicked and looked at a copy of Madame Bovary that was lying open on my desk. “His name is Charlie,” I told her, naming my crush inaccurately after Emma Bovary’s doltish husband.

  “Charlie’s good.” Jean changed the subject.

  My crush grew and grew. I reported this to Jean, who instructed me to make my move. She told me to ask him if he wanted to study for the final exam together. That way we could work late one night, and the mood would be set for some romance to happen. My stomach turned at Jean’s suggestion. I think I experienced shortness of breath.

  “I’ll think about it,” I told her.

  And I did. I thought of nothing else. I pictured the two of us holding hands in the library, laughing at the Francophiles and even hosting cocktail parties, similar to the ones Mother and Barnes would have liked except that they would be held in a dorm room and Barnes would not be there. Charlie (as he had become to me, even though I finally learned his name and revealed it to Jean) would come to visit me in New York during the summer, and I would go visit him in Washington. Why Washington? One day his knapsack spilled during Flatineau’s class and among his notebooks and history texts was an orientation packet for his upcoming summer internship at the White House.

  But I had never spoken to Charlie. In fact, I don’t know if we ever officially looked at one another. It would’ve been strange to invite him to study with me. Aside from that, he was an upperclassman and might not want to be quizzed by a clueless freshman. Jean had no patience for my resistance. She had already dated two seniors and was accustomed to initiating flings.

  “Your mother should never have sent you to an all-girls’ school,” she told me as she was getting ready for the final spring dance. “You’re way too scared of boys.”

  She was right. I was scared of boys.

  ________

  I still think about Charlie. I learned recently that his family is going through some public trouble. The papers all report that his father, a major bigwig in the pharmaceuticals industry, has been going to prostitutes. This must be difficult for Charlie. He works at the law firm of Pennington & Litt, which represents Kelt Pharmaceuticals, his father’s company. I know this because I worked as a paralegal at Pennington & Litt right after college. Everyone at the firm was aware that Kelt was a big client. Everybody at the firm knows who Charlie is. Only, they don’t know him as Charlie.

  Dr. Moses asks me if I think we are making any progress in the therapy.

  “It’s only been a couple of weeks,” I tell her. “I thought I was on the lifetime plan like Woody Allen. It’s probably going to be years before I have my big breakthrough.”

  “That may be true,” Dr. Moses says, “but I’d still like to check in with you and see how you feel.”

  Hmm. I certainly like it here. Although sometimes it cuts into my Polly time.

  “I mean… I guess so. I haven’t yet figured out my lifelong dream.”

  “That’ll come. Right now, we’re just trying to get to a point where you agree it’s okay to have a lifelong dream.”

  For some reason, I start crying.

  “Do you need a Kleenex?” Dr. Moses asks, reaching behind her couch.

  “No—it’s okay. I’ve got it taken care of.” I’m using my shirtsleeve. The tears keep coming.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I don’t know why I’m crying like this. Maybe I’m tired or something.”

  “Are you getting enough sleep?” Dawn asks warmly. “Do you feel tired?”

  Of course I feel tired. I spend at least three mornings a week chasing Polly around the Silvercup Studios lot, watching her flirt incessantly with Preston Hayes and Ian Leighton. The other days she’s running around the city with D.M. or engaging in some no-good activity down by City Hall. I really could use a vacation.

  “I’m not a big sleeper,” I tell her. At least the crying has subsided. “I never have been.”

  After the plane crash, I could only fall asleep when I was with Mother. The quiet of my room was overwhelmingly lonely. Mother let me fall asleep in her bed every night. That was our best time together.

  When I was eleven or so, I stopped sleeping in her bed every night but was happy to know I had the option. It all stopped when she started dating Barnes. He wasn’t a frequent overnight guest or anything, but Mother said that was an inappropriate habit.

  I heard Mother telling Barnes about the fact that she felt bad for me.

  “It’s really hard for her,” Mother explained to him.

  “Angie, she needs to learn. She can’t go running to you every time she has a tough night.”

  Jean calls me this morning to tell me the big news. Charlie is taking a leave of absence from Pennington & Litt. The public story is that it’s for health reasons; the real story is that Chip Pennington has told Charlie that while the entire firm appreciates all the work that he has done, clients will associate him with his father. And they told him that it would be best for him, both out of firm and filial loyalty, to leave for a short while.

  Jean loves to tell me Charlie news whether or not I want to hear it. In January of my freshman year, not long after I realized that my crush was somewhat obsessive, she told me she saw him holding hands with Polly Linley on a movie line in Harvard Square.

  Charlie and Polly were on a date? My life was turned upside down. I felt betrayed. Although Jean had vowed never to speak to Polly, she was concerned about my well-being. She casually asked Polly if she was dating the upperclassman who liked running and history.

  “Oh, that guy,” Polly sneered. “We went out a couple of times, but he doesn’t have any style. I got rid of that one.”

  Jean encouraged me to find a new crush, reasoning that I shouldn’t long for a man who longed for Polly. I was able to push the short-lived couple to an unused part of my brain, and my crush remained intact. Jean can’t let it go.

  Today she admits to me, however, that while she enjoys the salacious quality of Charlie’s work situation, she’s also disturbed. She feels that her own job is threatened by this turn of events. Lowry, White & Marcus is a similar firm, and Jean had always assumed that once she earned her partnership, she could expect job security. I remind her that her father is a retired classics professor and will have no impact on Lowry, White & Marcus’s financials. Jean tells me that doesn’t matter. If they feel that anything you do could hurt their client image, they will throw you out. Charlie, she reminds me, had spent three years in the District Attorney’s Office and then four years in the United States Attorney’s Office, prosecuting corrupt officials. Jean doesn’t need to remind me of this. I’m well aware of Charlie’s impressive résumé.

  ________

  It’s cold today and, while we have two weeks until it’s officially winter, the trees are bare and the sidewalks are brittle. The streets in my nei
ghborhood look sterile.

  I’m betting that Polly hasn’t left her house yet. Today is Thursday, and for some reason Polly seems to get a late start every Thursday. So I dawdle at Mother’s a bit. She and I chat amiably until Barnes enters the room. He hands me a file folder.

  “Alice. I’ve done a lot of research on your career path and the job market. And I think I have narrowed your options. You should go to law school.”

  “Thanks, Barnes. I don’t want to be a lawyer.”

  “Law school gives you three years to figure out your future. With that memory of yours, you’ll probably be at the top of your class. You’ll be buying time, Alice, without wasting time. If you haven’t figured it out by the end of law school, you can work as a lawyer indefinitely until you figure out what you want to do.”

  “I really appreciate that, Barnes,” I say, although I don’t appreciate it. “But law school is tough and working as a lawyer is hard. It will be almost impossible for me to come up with a—” I want to say “lifelong dream” but Barnes cuts me off.

  “Alice, most people work at jobs they don’t want to do. What makes you think you’re so special?”

  I look at Mother, hoping she’ll say something about me being special, but she doesn’t.

  “Thanks, Barnes, but I think I’ll put off the LSAT for a few months. I’ve been making some real progress.”

  “Some.”

  “Really?” Mother’s face brightens. “Anything you care to share with us?”

  Barnes is staring me down. He can tell I’ve made no progress, and he’s angry that I’m rejecting his law school idea.

  “I’ve been taking some meetings,” I say in my most CEO-like tone.

  “Taking meetings with who?” Barnes asks.

  “I think you mean ‘whom,’” I tell him.

  “Who’s at the meetings?” Barnes bellows. His face is red, and I’m suddenly enjoying myself.

  “A classmate from Harvard. Perhaps you have heard of her: Polly Dawson?”

  “You’re taking meetings with Polly Dawson.” Barnes’s voice is dripping with disdain.

  “Sure,” I tell him. “We’ve had a couple of lunches at the Four Seasons and have been sort of exploring New York together.”

  Sort of.

  “That’s wonderful,” Mother says, relieved that her decision to push me into therapy was the right one.

  Barnes looks suspicious.

  “We always had this bond in college,” I tell him. “Remember? We lived in the same freshman dorm. We have the same birthday.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Mother says again, and Barnes looks defeated.

  “I have to go and pack for my backgammon convention,” he announces.

  “We’re really proud of you,” Mother tells me.

  As I leave, I realize I sound like those crazy people who stalk celebrities for months and months, and fabricate a personal relationship with them. If Mother were to approach Polly and ask her about me, Polly would have no idea what she was talking about.

  This is a big wake-up call. The following has got to stop. I need to find a real career for myself. Then I can tell Mother that it didn’t work out with Polly—I can even tell her that the Principessa is a major B-I-T-C-H.

  But alas, I find that my calendar is still rather clear for the rest of the day. Maybe I’ll just go by Polly’s apartment building and see if there’s any activity.

  Okay, so I’ve been standing outside Polly’s building for more than an hour. I know I just said I was going to stop, but the day has gone to waste anyway. I might as well see what she’s up to. Tomorrow, I’ll do something productive.

  Polly emerges.

  She’s in her public outfit. Her hair is cascading down her back. She’s wearing some sort of light-colored animal skin. Knowing Polly, it’s a polar bear. I remember a few years back when animal-rights groups tried to boycott Principessa products to protest Polly’s wearing a tiger skin on the cover of her Principessa catalog.

  Polly shot back at the groups.

  “If a tiger could drive a car it would,” she announced at a press conference, “and it would run over every animal-rights wacko out there.”

  Initially, the business world gasped at Polly’s outburst. For days, there was talk that Principessa would go out of business. No such luck. Polly’s little eruption transformed into a lucrative and unexpected trend. Her store sold baby tees, pajamas, and boxers decorated with little tigers driving cars. Since then, Polly rarely goes to a public function sans animal pelt.

  It turns out we are going to Gracie Mansion.

  The mayor’s home.

  My first thought is: I can’t get in there.

  My second thought is: I’m not dressed for the occasion.

  I’m able to sneak by security. Well, not exactly. I notice that the mayor’s office is hosting an event for high-profile women. When the bouncers ask me for my name and identification, I grouse, “Don’t you know who I am?”

  It works. They are mortified. I sneak into the mansion’s drawing room and look for Polly. She is just there to make an appearance. She kisses the mayor on the cheek; I give him a polite but uncalled-for curtsy. She waltzes out the door, and I do the same.

  Today Dr. Moses wants to know what I think about Barnes.

  “It’s complicated,” I tell her.

  “Try me.”

  “The man ‘saved’ Mother. He virtually brought her back to life. Something I couldn’t do.”

  I remember so clearly meeting Barnes for the very first time. I had just turned sixteen and was thrilled to meet him. My friends thought I would be freaked out that a stranger would be replacing my father. But I was relieved. This stranger had given Mother a second chance. It was a miracle. I had never even thought of him in the same category as my father.

  “Do you resent him for that?”

  “For being able to do something I couldn’t, you mean? No. I think I may understand it. I was too young to take care of her.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” Dr. Moses says as she removes her clogs and brings her legs up on the couch.

  “It’s just that I feel ripped off. I’m happy that Mother met someone. I just wish he were different. Mother started off married to Indiana Jones and she ended up with Marie Antoinette.”

  “I can see how that would be a comedown.”

  “I know that Barnes doesn’t want bad things to happen to me. He has just made it abundantly clear that he wants to be the most important person in Mother’s life, so he tries to limit my access to her. I’m less likely to intrude on his time with her if I’m employed. It’s just who he is.”

  “But is it who your mother is?”

  “It’s not how she was,” I say. “Maybe it’s who she is now.”

  I leave Dr. Moses’s feeling sad. To make matters worse, it’s too late to catch Polly today.

  Today we go to the apartment on Chambers Street. We are only there for an hour before she comes out. She’s not alone. She’s with a man. Not even a man. He looks like a boy. He’s wearing cargo pants and unlaced hiking boots. Oh my! He has a soul patch. A soul patch?! Doesn’t he realize she’s wearing Pucci?

  Polly Princess is a big cheat. This is not the flirtation dance I witnessed at Silvercup. This is sneaky.

  I decide to skip my therapy appointment. All the work that I have put in: I have to see it through to the next step. Dr. Moses would understand—if she knew what I was doing.

  We go to Mee-Hop, a restaurant in Chinatown. It’s completely un-glitzy except for the nine thousand Christmas lights all over the place. I have been so consumed with Polly that I forgot Christmas is in two days. That’s okay. Barnes ruined the holiday a long time ago.

  The place is packed. Polly is sporting her understated but beautiful look. Her perfect ponytail effortlessly bounces on the back of her head. She’s wearing a slate-blue tunic over black leggings and tall black boots. Most of the patrons are Chinese and don’t seem to recognize Polly. The two find a little
table in the corner. As I glance around the restaurant looking for the perfect seat, I hear a familiar voice behind me. I feel that tingling sensation. It’s Charlie’s.

  I head toward the restroom so that I can assess the situation. I should abort my mission. Charlie might see Polly. I wonder if he would say anything to her. For all I know, he’s still pining away for her.

  My eyes keep wandering to Charlie’s table. I find him so appealing. He is still thin and he is slouching ever so slightly. His dusty brown hair remains untamed. I read somewhere that chemistry is not necessarily determined by looks. Jean says that it’s all smell. But all that I smell now is the scallion pancake that sits before me.

  Charlie’s back is to me. He’s sitting across from a cop. I know this because he’s wearing a uniform, with a name badge on it. KOVITZ, it says. Maybe he’s talking to Kovitz about his father.

  Polly’s becoming less and less interesting to me. She’s staring into her lover’s eyes. He’s looking proud. The relationship has “going nowhere” written all over it.

  You’d think I’d consider this day a great success. Polly slipped up. I saw her and I saw the guy. But I feel less resentful of her than ever.

  I’m too distracted by Charlie and Kovitz. I cut my mission short.

  The next day Dr. Moses tells me that I seem preoccupied—more so than usual. She may be right. I’m jarred by the Charlie spotting. Not just because it involved Charlie, but because it happened during an operation. I can’t tell the therapist because that would entail discussion of Charlie and following Polly, neither of which I’m prepared to do.

  My two secrets, I think as I leave her office.

  I can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching me.

  Today I’m ready to change my life. My most recent Polly excursions have been more annoying than interesting. I have been so caught up in following this woman that I missed Daphne’s visit to New York. Besides, I have a feeling my secret missions aren’t so secret. Yesterday, when we emerged from a shopping spree, she quite suddenly turned around. While looking right at me, she started screaming, “You. You. You. I knew it was you!” I was trying as fast as I could to put together a sane-sounding explanation for my behavior when I heard a voice behind me.