The Boy Next Door Read online

  for Benjamin

  Contents

  Begin Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Begin Reading

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: Human Resources

  Subject: Tardiness

  Dear Melissa Fuller,

  This is an automated message from the Human Resources Division of the New York Journal, New York City’s leading photo-newspaper. Please be aware that according to your supervisor, managing editor George Sanchez, your workday here at the Journal begins promptly at 9 AM, making you 68 minutes tardy today. This is your 37th tardy exceeding twenty minutes so far this year, Melissa Fuller.

  We in the Human Resources Division are not “out to get” tardy employees, as was mentioned in last week’s unfairly worded employee newsletter. Tardiness is a serious and expensive issue facing employers all over America. Employees often make light of tardiness, but routine lateness can often be a symptom of a more serious issue, such as and any number of other conditions. If you are suffering from any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact your Human Resources Representative, Amy Jenkins. Your Human Resources Representative will be only too happy to enroll you in the New York Journal’s Staff Assistance Program, where you will be paired with a mental health professional who will work to help you achieve your full potential.

  alcoholism

  drug addiction

  gambling addiction

  abusive domestic partner

  sleep disorders

  clinical depression

  Melissa Fuller, we here at the New York Journal are a team. We win as a team, and we lose as one, as well. Melissa Fuller, don’t you want to be on a winning team? So please do your part to see that you arrive at work on time from now on!

  Sincerely,

  Human Resources Division

  New York Journal

  Please note that any future tardies may result in suspension or dismissal.

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: Nadine Wilcock

  Subject: You are in trouble

  Mel, where were you? I saw that Amy Jenkins from Human Resources skulking around your cubicle. I think you’re in for another one of those tardy notices. What is this, your fiftieth?

  You better have a good excuse this time, because George was saying a little while ago that gossip columnists are a dime a dozen, and that he could get Liz Smith over here in a second to replace you if he wanted to. I think he was joking. It was hard to tell because the Coke machine is broken, and he hadn’t had his morning Mountain Dew yet.

  By the way, did something happen last night between you and Aaron? He’s been playing Wagner in his cubicle again. You know how this bugs George. Did you two have another fight?

  Are we doing lunch later or what?

  Nad :-)

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: Aaron Spender

  Subject: Last night

  Where are you, Mel? Are you going to be completely childish about this and not come into the office until you’re sure I’ve left for the day? Is that it?

  Can’t we sit down and discuss this like adults?

  Aaron Spender

  Senior Correspondent

  New York Journal

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: Dolly Vargas

  Subject: Aaron Spender

  Melissa—

  Don’t get the wrong idea, darling, I WASN’T spying on you, but a girl would have to be BLIND not to have noticed how you brained Aaron Spender with your bag last night at Pastis. You probably didn’t even notice me; I was at the bar, and I looked around because I thought I heard your name, of all things—weren’t you supposed to be covering the Prada show?—and then BOOM! Altoids and Maybelline all over the place.

  Darling, it was precious.

  You really have excellent aim, you know. But I highly doubt Kate Spade meant that adorable little clutch to be used as a projectile. I’m sure she’d have made the clasp stronger if she’d only known women were going to be backhanding the thing around like a tennis ball.

  Seriously, darling, I just need to know: Is it all over between you and Aaron? Because I never thought you were right for each other. I mean, the man was in the running for a Pulitzer, for God’s sake! Although if you ask me, anyone could have written that story about that little Ethiopian boy. I found it perfectly maudlin. That part about his sister selling her body to provide him with rice…please. Too Dickensian.

  So you aren’t going to be difficult about this, are you? Because I’ve got an invite to Steven’s place in the Hamptons, and I was thinking of inviting Aaron to mix Cosmos for me. But I won’t if you’re going to go Joan Collins on me.

  P.S.: You really should have called if you weren’t going to come in today, darling. I think you’re in trouble. I saw that little troll-like person (Amy something?) from Human Resources sniffing around your desk earlier.

  XXXOOO

  Dolly

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: George Sanchez

  Subject: Where the hell are you?

  Where the hell are you? You appear to be under the mistaken impression that comp days don’t have to be prearranged with your employer.

  This is not exactly convincing me that you are columnist material. More like copyedit material, Fuller.

  George

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: Aaron Spender

  Subject: Last night

  This is really beneath you, Melissa. I mean, for God’s sake, Barbara and I were in a war zone together. Anti-aircraft fire was exploding all around us. We thought we’d be captured by rebel forces at any moment. Can’t you understand that?

  It meant nothing to me, Melissa, I swear it.

  My God, I should never have told you. I thought you were more mature. But to pull a disappearing act like this…

  Well, I’d never have expected it from a woman like you, that’s all I have to say.

  Aaron Spender

  Senior Correspondent

  New York Journal

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: Nadine Wilcock

  Subject: This isn’t funny

  Girl, where are you? I’m really starting to get worried. Why haven’t you called me, at the very least? I hope you didn’t get hit by a bus or something. But I suppose if you did, they’d call us. Assuming you had your press pass with you, that is.

  All right, I’m not really worried that you’re dead. I’m really worried you’re going to get fired, and I’m going to have to eat lunch with Dolly again. I was forced to order in with her since you’re MIA, and it nearly killed me. The woman had a salad with no dressing. Do you get where I’m coming from here? NO DRESSING.

  And then she felt compelled to comment on every single thing I put in my mouth. “Do you know how many grams of fat are in that fry?” “A good substitute for mayonnaise, you know, Nadine, is low-fat yogurt.”

  I’d like to tell her what she can do with her low-fat yogurt.

  By the way, I think you should know that Spender’s going around saying you’re doing this because of whatever went down between the two of you last night.

  If that doesn’t get you in here, and pronto, I don’t know what will.

  Nad :-)

  To: Geor
ge Sanchez

  From: Mel Fuller

  Subject: Where the hell I was

  Since it is apparently so important to you and Amy Jenkins that your employees account fully for every moment they spend away from the office, I will provide you with a detailed summary of my whereabouts while I was unavoidably detained.

  Ready? Got your Mountain Dew? I hear the machine down in the art department is fully operational.

  Mel’s Morning:

  7:15—Alarm rings. Hit snooze button.

  7:20—Alarm rings. Hit snooze button.

  7:25—Alarm rings. Hit snooze button.

  7:26—Wake to sound of neighbor’s dog barking. Turn off alarm.

  7:27—Stagger to bathroom. Perform morning ablutions.

  7:55—Stagger to kitchen. Ingest nourishment in form of Nutrigrain bar and Tuesday night’s take-out kung pao.

  7:56—Neighbor’s dog still barking.

  7:57—Blow dry hair.

  8:10—Check Channel One for weather.

  8:11—Neighbor’s dog still barking.

  8:12—Attempt to find something to wear from assorted clothes crammed into studio apartment’s single, refrigeratorsized closet.

  8:30—Give up. Pull on black rayon skirt, black rayon shirt, black sling-back flats.

  8:35—Grab black bag. Look for keys.

  8:40—Find keys in bag. Leave apartment.

  8:41—Notice that Mrs. Friedlander’s copy of the New York Chronicle (yes, George, my next-door neighbor subscribes to our biggest rival; don’t you agree with me now that we really ought to do something to draw more senior readers?) is still lying on the floor in front of her apartment door. She is normally up at six to walk her dog, and takes her paper in then.

  8:42—Notice that Mrs. Friedlander’s dog is still barking. Knock on door to make sure everything is all right. (Some of us New Yorkers actually care about our neighbors, George. You wouldn’t know that, of course, since stories about people who actually care for others in their community don’t make for very good copy. Stories in the Journal, I’ve noticed, tend to gravitate toward neighbors who shoot at, not borrow cups of sugar from, one another.)

  8:45—After repeated knocks, Mrs. Friedlander still does not come to door. Paco, her Great Dane, however, barks with renewed vigor.

  8:46—Try handle to Mrs. Friedlander’s apartment door. It is, oddly enough, unlocked. Let myself inside.

  8:47—Am greeted by Great Dane and two Siamese cats. No sign of Mrs. Friedlander.

  8:48—Find Mrs. Friedlander facedown on living room carpet.

  Okay, George? Get it, George? The woman was facedown on her living room carpet! What was I supposed to do, George? Huh? Call Amy Jenkins down in Human Resources?

  No, George. That lifesaving class you made us all take paid off, see? I was able to tell that not only did Mrs. Friedlander have a pulse, she was also breathing. So I called 911 and waited with her until the ambulance came.

  With the ambulance, George, came some cops. And guess what the cops said, George? They said it looked to them as if Mrs. Friedlander had been struck. From behind, George. Some creep whacked that old lady on the back of the head!

  Can you believe it? Who would do that to an eighty-year-old woman?

  I don’t know what this city is coming to, George, when little old ladies aren’t even safe in their apartments. But I’m telling you, there’s a story here—and I think I should be the one the write it.

  Whadduya say, George?

  Mel

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: George Sanchez

  Subject: There’s a story here

  The only story here is the one I haven’t heard. And that would be the story of why, just because your neighbor got whacked on the head, you couldn’t come into the office, or even call anyone to let him know where you were.

  Now that is a story I’d really enjoy hearing.

  George

  To: George Sanchez

  From: Mel Fuller

  Subject: Where I was

  George, you are so coldhearted. I found my neighbor facedown in her living room, the victim of a brutal attack, and you think all I should have been concerned about was calling my employer to explain why I was going to be late?

  Well, I’m sorry, George, but the thought never even crossed my mind. I mean, Mrs. Friedlander is my friend! I wanted to go with her in the ambulance, but there was the little problem of Paco.

  Or should I say the big problem of Paco. Paco is Mrs. Friedlander’s Great Dane, George. He weighs a hundred and twenty-nine pounds, George, which is more than I weigh.

  And he needed to go out. Badly.

  So after I took him out, I fed him and watered him and did the same to Tweedledum and Mr. Peepers, her Siamese cats (Tweedledee, sadly, expired last year). While I was doing this, the cops were checking her door for signs of forced entry. But there was none, George.

  Do you know what this means? It means she probably knew her attacker, George. She probably let him in of her own volition!

  Even more bizarrely, there was $276 in cash in her purse that had been left untouched. Ditto her jewelry, George. This was no robbery.

  George, why don’t you believe there’s a story here? Something is wrong. Very wrong.

  When I finally did get to the hospital, I was informed that Mrs. Friedlander was in surgery. Doctors were frantically trying to relieve the pressure on her brain from a giant blood clot that had formed beneath her skull! What was I supposed to do, George? Leave? The cops couldn’t get in touch with anybody from her family. I’m all she has, George.

  Twelve hours. Twelve hours it took them. I had to go to her apartment to walk Paco twice before the surgery was even finished. And when it was, the doctors came out and told me it had only been partially successful. Mrs. Friedlander is in a coma, George! She may never come out of it.

  And until she does, guess who’s stuck taking care of Paco, Tweedledum, and Mr. Peepers?

  Go on. Guess, George.

  I’m not trying to get sympathy here. I know. I should have called. But work was not necessarily foremost in my mind at the time, George.

  But, listen, now that I’m finally here what would you think about letting me write up a little something about what happened? You know, we could hit it from the be-careful-who-you-let-into-your-apartment angle. The cops are still looking for Mrs. Friedlander’s closest relative—her nephew, I think—but when they find him, I could interview him. You know, the woman really was a wonder. At eighty, she still goes to the gym three times a week, and last month she flew to Helsinki for a performance of the Rings. Seriously. Her husband was Henry Friedlander, of the Friedlander twistie fortune. You know, those twist-ties that go on garbage bags? She’s worth six or seven million at least.

  Come on, George. Let me give it a try. You can’t keep me doing gossip for Page Ten forever.

  Mel

  To: Mel Fuller

  From: George Sanchez

  Subject: You can’t keep me doing gossip for Page Ten forever

  Yes, I can.

  And do you know why? Because I am the managing editor of this newspaper, and I can do whatever I want.

  Besides, Fuller, we need you on Page Ten.

  Would you like to know why we need you on Page Ten? Because the fact is, Fuller, you care. You care about Winona Ryder’s legal battles. You care that Harrison Ford’s had a chemical peel. You care about Courtney Love’s breasts, and whether or not they are silicone.

  Admit it, Fuller. You care.

  The other thing ain’t a story, Fuller. Old ladies get bonked on the head for their Social Security checks every day.

  It’s called a telephone. Next time, call.

  Capisce?

  Now get me the copy on the Prada
opening.

  George

  To: George Sanchez

  From: Mel Fuller

  Subject: I do not care about Courtney Love’s breasts….

  …and you’ll be sorry for not letting me run with the friedlander story, George. I’m telling you, there’s something there. I can smell it.

  And by the way, Harrison would NEVER get a chemical peel.

  Mel

  P.S.: And who doesn’t care about Winona Ryder? Look how cute she is. Don’t you want her free, George?

  To: Human Resources

  From: Mel Fuller

  Subject: My Tardiness

  Dear Human Resources,

  What can I say? You caught me. I guess my and any number of other conditions have finally caused me to hit bottom. Please enroll me in the Staff Assistance Program right away! If you could hook me up with a shrink who looks like Brendan Fraser, and preferably conducts his therapy sessions with his shirt off, I’d appreciate it.

  alcoholism

  drug addiction

  gambling addiction

  abusive domestic partner

  sleep disorders

  clinical depression

  Because the primary condition from which I am suffering is that I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman living in New York City, and I cannot find a decent guy. Just one guy who won’t cheat on me, doesn’t live with his mother, and isn’t turning to the Arts section of the Chronicle first thing Sunday morning, if you know what I mean. Is that asking so much???

  See if your Staff Assistance Program can handle that.

  Mel Fuller

  Page Ten Columnist

  New York Journal

  To: Aaron Spender