I don't know what made me angrier, the property damage, or the fact that I missed the chance to go to the movies with Matthew because I had to be home to answer questions for the police. Matthew came over too, and he and Charles watched WWF so that Matthew would have something to write about for Media Studies. In hindsight, that's pretty funny, but at the time I was too annoyed to laugh.
“So you had reporters in your yard all day and one of them warned you about a suspicious vehicle?” the cop asked. She was a young woman with red hair pulled up into a bun and freckles all over her face.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Driving slowly past your house?”
“Yep.”
“Any idea whom that would be?”
“No, no idea.”
“Any guess?”
“Nope.”
“Have you fought with anyone recently, or seen anything-”
“I hugged Jason Vanderholt-”
“Really?”
“He is a friend. But once, after we had coffee, someone slashed my tires.”
“So you think this is a jealous fan?” said the cop.
“Given the timing, yes.”
“I'm concerned about that car, though. This is near the War Zone here, where you live.” The War Zone was a bad neighborhood many blocks away that was dominated by drug violence.
“It's not that close,” I said.
“And this, the University Area, can be very unsafe.”
“We've never had any problems,” said Lori. “No one on this street has, that we know of.”
“Miss Winters, do you, or have you ever had any contact with anyone in the drug trade who might hold a grudge?”
Yes, but he's in prison, I thought. I shook my head. “I'm pretty sure this is a fan. Some girl who wants to marry Jason Vanderholt and thinks that I'm competition or something.”
“You really know him?” asked the cop.
I rolled my eyes. “He's from Albuquerque. People know him. It's no big deal.”
“Still-”
The look on my face must've silenced her, because she turned back to her notes real fast. “Okay, I'm going to write this up, and has your landlord called back yet?”
“She'll be here in ten minutes,” said Lori.
“We can wait for her, then.”
I looked at our front windows. One had a fist sized hole in it. The other just had a big spiderweb of cracks. The police had put one rock, the one found inside the house, on the windowsill. There was no telling what rock had made the other break. It was with the hundreds of others in our rock garden.
Lori put her head to one side. “What's that sound?”
It was my computer chiming. I darted down the hall and saw that Jason was calling again. “Hey,” I answered.
“Hey, reporters go away?”
“Yeah, and now someone's broken our windows.”
“What?”
“Some jealous fan-”
“You're kidding me.”
“No.”
“You're sure it was a fan?”
I told him about my tires and his eyes only got bigger. “Chloe! I had no idea. No idea this was happening to you.”
“It's only happened twice.”
“That's terrible. I'm paying for the windows.”
“There's insurance-”
“I am at least talking to your landlord. What's his number?”
“Hers. Not necessary.”
“No, listen, I don't want you to get in trouble for associating with me. I'd hate it if you got evicted or something because one of my fans is breaking her property. You have to let me talk to her. What's her number?”
“She'll be here in a few minutes.”
“Even better. Let me talk to her on Skype.”
“Chloe?” Lori called from the front room. “Eli's here.”
“That's our landlord,” I said.
“Carry me out.”
“You don't-”
“Do it. Please?” His eyes were narrowed, his expression was all stubborn resolve.
I gave in, picked up the netbook, and carried it out to the front room. Eli blinked at me from behind her thick, round glasses. Her graying hair was piled on top of her head. She was a dance instructor who lived in Nob Hill. I held the netbook screen up to her. “Eli, Jason, Jason, Eli.”
“Jason Vanderholt?” said the cop.
Lori stuffed her hand in her mouth to suppress a giggle.
“Here,” I handed the netbook over.
“Please let me pay for the windows,” I heard Jason begin.
I turned my back on that conversation and went to sit by Matthew.
“He called you?” Matthew moved over to make room for me.
“He called about the tabloid stuff today. Normally, he doesn't call.”
He slipped an arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him. “Thank you,” I said.
“For?”
“Being you. I needed a good friend today.”
***
That evening, after the cops had left and Eli had nailed plywood over the broken window, someone else knocked on the door. I was eating my leftovers from Tia Anita's.
Lori was gone. She and Charles had taken off for the evening, and I couldn't blame them. I peered through the peephole to see a Hispanic man in plain clothes who looked vaguely familiar. I opened the door.
“Miss Chloe,” he said. “Jesse Baca. Officer Baca.” He stuck out his hand.
“Oh, hi.” He was the cop who'd written up the report on my slashed tires.
“I heard about what happened here.”
“Yeah, I think we're okay. Just-”
“I wanted to let you know, you're gonna be safe. We'll be patrolling your street for the next little while, all right?”
“Thank you. You don't have to-”
“It's been ten years, but I won't ever forget that phone call when we heard you were gonna pull through. It was a miracle, the shape you were in.” He patted my shoulder. My right shoulder. “You're going to be all right, you hear? Can't help it if a pretty girl like you is attracting movie stars. And two incidents this far apart? That's not good.”
“That is going above and beyond, really.”
His smile was fatherly and kind. He gave my shoulder another squeeze and stepped down off our front step. Sometimes it paid to be from a city that was such a small town in so many ways. Even though I hadn't admitted it to him, I would definitely sleep easier knowing that some crazed fangirl wasn't going to climb in my window and take me hostage.
Jason had seemed able to sweet talk Eli into being sanguine about all this. I was grateful for that too.
***
“Any more break in attempts?”
“No. The windows are fixed. It's all good.”
“Your landlady wouldn't let me pay.”
“I'm sure she's got insurance, but thanks for offering.”
“So you're okay?”
“I'm fine, really.”
“I really am sorry. The whole fame thing can be pretty stupid.”
“Well, you said it.”
“And you don't disagree. That's refreshing.”
***
“So it doesn't look like there's any more media coverage of you. No wild rumors about you carrying my love child. All good.”
“I'm so relieved.”
“Had enough Hollywood glamour in your life?”
“To last several lifetimes, yeah.”
“How's Matthew?”
“Huh? He's fine, I think. I still owe him a movie sometime.”
“He around a lot?”
“Yeah, he doesn't live all that far. Walks past our house on the way to campus.”
“Oh, okay.”
***
“How are you tonight, Chloe?”
“I'm good. You?”
“I'm eating celery, and I keep wanting to offer you some, but I don't think I can find a way to stuff it through the internet.”
“I'm not hungry, thanks.”
“What's that you're working on?”
“Drawing diagrams to understand how the Golgi apparatus works.”
“Oh, that thingy in cells where proteins get assembled? Is it proteins?”
“Don't you start quizzing me too.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, you sound really sorry.”
***
“You usually work until after dark?”
“Three nights a week, yeah. Matthew walks me home, though.”
“Seems extra nice of him.”
“He's Texan. Very chivalrous.”
“Oh, okay.”
“You seem very interested in Matthew.”
“I've never had a female best friend.”
“Well, you've got me. I'm a friend.”
“True...”
“I've talked to you twice this week. I think that's way friendly.”
“Yeah.”
***
“No more vandalism on your house?”
“Nope. There was a cop car cruising the neighborhood pretty regularly for a while. They're being vigilant.”
“Really? I'd think your incident was pretty minor compared with other stuff they deal with.”
“Yeah, I think that's true. But this one they nipped in the bud, it looks like. Seems to be working.”
“That's great. I'm relieved.”
“I need to go. Matthew's coming by any minute.”
“Oh, right. Talk to you later, then.”
***
A month after the window break, Matthew and I were seated on the floor of the living room with printouts of web pages strewn all around us.
“I'm not even sure what I'm looking for,” I said. “Themes in the types of web searches I do when not studying? I don't hardly do any.”
“You search news stories. You think you have it hard? I don't even have internet at home.” He reached for my netbook. “May I?”
I handed it over and turned back to my mess of papers. Matthew was right, I did search news stories. Usually crime ones. I didn't want to talk about that to my Media Studies professor. I liked the guy – on my paparazzi report he'd written, “Mind if I share this with the class? Just kidding!” - but that didn't mean I wanted to open a vein and pour out my heart in a class I only took for the company.
Matthew was clicking away on my computer.
I reshuffled my printouts, then gathered them all together and tried to sort through them again.
A few more minutes and a few more clicks and Matthew hadn't said a word.
“You find what you need?” I asked.
“Um...”
“Hmm?”
“How often, exactly, do you talk to Vanderholt?”
“I don't know. He calls whenever. He's very chatty.”
“He calls you every other day, Chlo.”
“Well, I don't answer all those.”
“Okay, he calls you every day. Every other day is about how often you answer.”
“What are you looking at?” I looked up at him.
“Your Skype call log.”
“Why?”
“Because... Sorry. You're right. This is none of my business.”
“I've been stupid again, haven't I? I'm totally not picking up on his signals and being more than friendly.”
“I dunno.”
“Just be honest.”
“You don't talk to me that often.”
“What?” Before I could catch myself, I laughed.
Matthew got very quiet.
“Wait... what?” I said. “Am I missing something? Because that whole myth about females being able to read minds? We can't.”
“He bothers me.”
“Jason?”
“Yeah. He's too forward with you.” Matthew leaned back against the couch and rested his hands on his bent knee.
“What do you think might happen?”
“He's trying to charm you.”
“Maybe, but it isn't working.”
“So why do you talk to him so much?”
“I dunno. Now that you point it out, I'll cut back. You're right. It's probably giving him the wrong idea. I just never thought someone like him would want to get any ideas about me, you know?”
“Why not? Don't insult yourself, Chloe.”
“Because it's random. I'm not insulting myself. I seriously doubt I'm the only girl he tries to charm, though. He's got to have how many fawning over him?”
Matthew nodded. “Yeah, that's smart that you know that.”
“Why thank you. Okay! Sorry, that was irony and I know you hate that. Lowest form of humor and all that.”
“Well, I guess I was patronizing, so I deserved it.”
I nudged him with my elbow. “Thank you for looking out for me.”
“Yeah... sure.”
He wanted to say something else, that was obvious, but I didn't quite know what. Despite how close we were as friends, Matthew could be quite shy and reserved. I didn't push the issue, but I did steal a lot of glances at him that evening. He was seriously cute. And he was my best friend. I purposely didn't follow those thoughts too far, in case I was misreading.
But I did note that he was the opposite of my ex-boyfriend, Jon. Jon was popular and outgoing, and Matthew was quiet and introverted. Jon was on track to make good money, while Matthew dreamed of becoming a high school English teacher in a small town somewhere. Jon was several years older than me, but Matthew was my age. Matthew wasn't anything like any guy I'd ever been interested in before. Not a bad thing.
***
The following Friday, Matthew went home for the long weekend. I was at work, wiping down the counter when someone slid their purse right into the path of my cloth. It was a nice leather purse too, not something I'd want to risk getting bleach on. I looked up.
The woman who looked back at me had my face, or close enough. Same heart shape, except she didn't have a cleft in her chin. Same big brown eyes, same thin lips. “Beth?” I said.
She glanced around. It was clear she wanted to be anywhere but here, with me. “Chloe,” she said, “you know that Chris got paroled, right?”