Your Secret Admirer

“Maison, you got something in the mail. Probably another birthday card.”

I took the envelope from my wife. I did get birthday cards from my dentist and other medical professionals I dealt with, but the return address was unfamiliar. My name and address were written out in a shaky hand. I opened the envelope, and when I extracted the card, something fell out of it. I read the card first.

“Happy birthday from your secret admirer.” That was all it said. The thing that fell out was a $50.00 gift card to my favorite bookstore, redeemable online or in-store.

“Whoever they are, apparently they admire you a lot. Probably just some weirdo, though. I told you it was a bad idea to put your birthday on your author bio. Promise me you aren’t having an affair.”

“Yeah, and told my lover to send me stuff in the mail, to the house where I live with my wife. No, babe, I am not having an affair. You’re probably right, it’s probably just some random weirdo.”

We were able to laugh it off, but I kept wondering who this admirer was. I didn’t know anyone who would do something like this. Fifty dollars was a lot to send to a stranger.

About a week later, there was a knock on the front door. Mindful of any danger, I put my eye up to the peep-hole. There was nobody there. Curious, I opened the door to find a single purple rose -my favorite- artfully arranged with baby’s breath and some greenery in a cut-glass vase. In among the stems was a plastic card holder with a small white envelope stuck in it. On the outside of the envelope, in the same shaky hand that was on my birthday card, was written: “Every breath you take.” Inside was a card that simply said: “I’ll be watching you.”

I froze with sudden fear. Was somebody stalking me? I knew full well that the lyrics of that song were not meant to be taken as a declaration of love; it was written about a stalker. I looked around, but the only other living things I could see were the neighbor’s dog and a couple of crows on a power line. The dog hadn’t barked, which I thought was odd. Normally, Otto would bark his head off at anyone who entered his line of sight, known or otherwise.

What to do with the flower? I didn’t want to take it inside, but I couldn't just leave it here. I picked it up, cautiously, like it might explode or poison me I tossed the whole thing into the trash bin and went back inside. I locked the door, then turned the bolt for good measure. I then went from room to room and locked all the windows and checked that the kitchen door was also locked and bolted. Feeling a bit more secure, although a little creeped out, I went back to my office and tried to resume my research.

I told Fiona about the rose and the note, and what I had done with them.

“Good,” she said. “Don’t encourage him. If you throw away his little presents, maybe he’ll give up and go away.”

“Why do you assume it’s a he, anyway? My bio does say I’m a lesbian; maybe it’s some woman who’s obsessed with me.”

“Because men are dumb. A woman would have sent the card and left it at that. This guy is persistent Maybe we should get a great big dog.”

Which reminded me: “Otto didn’t bark at him.”

“What?”

“Otto. The neighbor’s dog. He didn’t bark, and you know Otto. He barks when it rains.”

“Maybe the guy gave him a dog treat to shut him up. Anyway, just keep throwing this stuff away, and he’ll give up eventually. Or he’ll show himself, and we can get his ass thrown in jail. I want you to keep the doors bolted from now on when you’re home alone. And you know better than to answer the door before you know who it is. In fact, just don’t open the door at all if you’re here by yourself. Whoever it is can always come back after I get home.”

She was starting to scare me. What if this guy was dangerous? What if he showed up and just broke a window to get into the house and get me? Maybe I should sign up for some self-defense classes or something.

“Do you really think somebody may actually try to hurt me? Why? What did I ever do?” Hating the fear in my own voice.

“I don’t know, honey. I really don’t. We don’t know enough about this guy to say for sure that he’s dangerous. I just worry about you so much when you’re home all by yourself. Just for my peace of mind, don’t answer the door unless I’m here, okay?”

“What if it’s the police?”

“Make them show you their badge, and call to verify them.”

“You have an answer for everything.” Talking to Fionna about it made me feel better, as usual. She was a very reassuring presence, warm and loving and patient.

Fionna stood up and came over to kiss the top of my head. “That’s why you love me,” she said, and left the room.

The next Saturday, while I was making a smoothie and Fionna was napping, there was a package addressed to me with the local delivery service shipping label on it in the mailbox. It was about the right size to be a book. I often received books I did not ask for or ordered and then forgot about, so I brought it in and dropped it on my desk with the rest of the mail to deal with later.

When I opened the package, the first thing I registered was the title, and I felt myself go cold. It was Stephen King’s novel Misery, about the obsessed fan who imprisoned her favorite author. I opened the book and got another shock: This book was inscribed to me, by name, by King himself. Beneath his signature scrawl were three words that had become chillingly familiar: “Your secret admirer.”

Now, only a few people in my inner circle knew that Stephen King was my idol, and the only celebrity on Earth that I would turn into a blabbering fangirl in front of. Although I owned a copy of every one of his books, none of them were signed, not even my prized illustrated Dark Tower set. The very idea of having a King book inscribed to me made me weak in the knees. Looking at it now, I felt an internal tug-of-war for a moment. I had to tell Fionna, but there was no way I was throwing this gift away. I would keep a napkin signed by Stephen King, and this was one of his best novels. I just had to explain to Fionna that the intrinsic value of this book transcended any other considerations.

She wasn’t thrilled.

“He’s sending you a message, and it’s not a good one. I really do not feel safe. I did some looking around, and I want to get a security camera for the front porch. We can get a picture of this guy and then turn it over to the police, okay?”

“But I can keep the book? It’s not like it has anthrax or something in it, and paper doesn’t save fingerprints, so it’s useless as evidence.” I felt like I was pleading with a judge.

“Yes, keep the book. I’m not about to tell you to get rid of it; you’re holding it so tight to your chest it’s like you’re trying to absorb it by osmosis.” She knew me too well.

Fionna took a trip down to the electronics store and came back with this fancy wi-fi camera that she proceeded to install so it faced our front porch. She tested it a few times, having me walk up to the porch over and over, until she was satisfied. We went to bed feeling much more secure.

Nothing happened for another week, but we were on high alert. When a package did show up, it was almost a relief.

This one was bigger than the last, almost six inches square. When I opened it, I was glad we were going to hand over the whole thing to the police. Inside the box was a coffee mug, white on the outside and purple on the inside. On one side of the mug it said “Maison’s elixir.” On the other side was a photograph of me walking out to the mailbox. The sweater I wore in the picture was one I had worn only four days ago. Somebody was watching me. Somebody had a camera and was taking pictures of me without my permission. Somebody knew everything about me and wanted me to know it. Somebody that could be dangerous.

I showed the mug to Fionna, who had been in the garage, which she had converted into a painting studio.

“That’s it. This is getting scary. Let’s see what the camera caught.”

We sat down together and she opened her laptop. A couple of clicks later, we were looking at the camera’s live feed. She opened a folder and clicked something else. The little red numbers in the top right of the video window changed; we were looking at fifteen minutes ago. Nothing for a while, and then there was a brief flash of static. Then a figure came walking up to the house. He was fairly young, maybe mid-twenties, with light hair, but he was wearing a Parcel Post uniform. He set the package on the porch, scanned it with a handheld device, and left. Fionna closed the laptop.

“Well, it’s probably not the delivery driver. But maybe we can track where it came from if we go down to Parcel Post and talk to the manager there.”

The Parcel Post depot was in an industrial park close to downtown. Fionna drove and we went down there with a picture of the kid who delivered the package.

When we showed the picture to the receptionist, she gave us an odd look and said she would have to call the shift manager. There were some uncomfortable chairs in the lobby, so we sat and waited. We did not have to wait long. A big, burly man in a t-shirt and suspenders with an unlit cigar in his mouth came out after a few minutes and walked us back to his office. The door said Oscar Fields.

“Show me that picture, would you?” His voice was a surprisingly melodic tenor.

Fionna pulled out the screenshot she had printed out, showing the young man’s face clearly. She laid it down on the desk between us and slid it over to him.

He looked at the picture for a long time, chewing his cigar. Finally, he looked up at us, the strangest expression on his face, and said, “Is this a prank or something?”

I was confused. “What do you mean? This kid has been delivering packages for somebody who could be a stalker, and we need to know who is sending them. If we could just talk to him….”

“That kid hasn’t been delivering shit. Johnny was killed a month ago. The brakes on his van failed and he ran into a tree. He was pronounced dead at the scene.”

Both Fionna and I were speechless. But he went on.

“He delivered to your neighborhood. I keep track of our shipment activity, and I know he brought you a lot of deliveries. He was one of my best drivers, even though the kid didn’t need the money; his parents are loaded. He just liked having something to do.”

“So how the hell did he wind up on my security camera? And where are all these packages coming from?”

“Whoever that is, it can’t really be Johnny. Maybe take that picture to his mother and see if she can tell you for sure. Maybe he had a brother or something; he never talked about his family. His last name is Mastrioni.”

“You mean like Elizabeth Mastrioni? The one who heads the Art Society?” Fionna sounded like she couldn’t believe her good luck.

“Yeah, that’s his mom. You know her?”

“Actually, yes. I’m an artist, and she is one of my gallery’s patrons. I have her phone number on speed dial.”

“Then I’d use it. The only thing I can think is that he has a brother who is doing this out of grief.” He seemed surprisingly compassionate towards some hypothetical brother, and I had to admire that.

“You’re not getting presents from a dead guy” Fionna declared in the car after our meeting with the shift manager. “He must have had a brother, like the man said. I’ll call Elizabeth. I can’t tell her we have pictures of her dead son, though. I’ll just tell her we need to meet.”

She made her phone call privately, and then told me she had arranged a meeting for the following day. We ate dinner before I retired to my study and she went out to work on a painting. I pulled up my most recent novel on my laptop, but I had a hard time concentrating on it; I kept picturing the kid in the camera footage, wondering if I was really getting gifts from some poor twin brother just aching with grief. I’m no good at waiting. I closed the document and went to take a sleeping pill and rack out.

Elizabeth Mastrioni lived in a big, renovated Victorian house in an upscale neighborhood. We parked on the street and walked up to the front door. Before she rang the bell, Fionna reminded me: “We’re going to ask if Johnny had a brother first. If not, then we don’t show her the picture. I’ll come up with some pretext or other and we’ll leave.”

The door was answered by a young woman in a housekeeper’s smock. She showed us to a sitting room and told us that Elizabeth would be with us shortly. There were pictures of Johnny at different ages around the room, but no siblings in any of the photos. It did not look promising. Elizabeth solved that mystery almost immediately.

“It’s so hard to lose your only child so young. Johnny was only twenty-eight. He had his whole life in front of him,” she said as soon as she sat down. Here eyes were wet, and she held a crumpled tissue in one hand. Then she turned to me and said something that gave me chills: “He was obsessed with you, you know. Had all your books and even looked up your birthday on your author bio on that website.”

“I had no idea…” I managed to say.

“Here. Let me show you his room. I think you should see this.” Elizabeth got up. We followed her through the house, up a broad stairway, and then into Johnny’s room. I stared.

There was a poster on the wall from a film adaptation of one of my novels. The rest of the walls were covered in framed dust jackets from each of my books. There was only one bookcase, and all of my books were on it, as well as most of the work of Stephen King. I looked for it, and saw a gap where Misery would go if they were arranged chronologically, like mine were. Sure enough, that title was missing. He had a small computer desk, and there were a few Post-It notes stuck to it. Of course the handwriting matched; I wasn’t even surprised.

“We wanted him to go to law school.” Elizabeth was saying behind me. “His grandfather started a law firm after graduating from Stanford and his father went there, too. But Johnny wanted to be a writer. He wanted to be a science fiction writer, just like you. He was working that damned delivery job because we told him we wouldn’t pay for those writing workshops he wanted to go to. He was so….persistent!”

You can say that again, I thought. Out loud I said, “This might be a weird question, but did your son know Stephen King?” I realized as I said it how stupid it sounded. She didn’t seem to think it was stupid.

“I doubt it, but he didn’t talk to me very much after that last argument. He could have been friends with the pope without me knowing.” I could hear the sorrow and regret in her voice. I knew we had all we were going to get. However….

“Ms. Mastrioni, do you believe something of who we are still lives on after we die?” I was running on instinct now.

“Absolutely,” she replied. “I know Johnny is still here. I feel his presence everywhere in this house. When he was little, he was very protective of his Momma. I think he still is, and he’s watching over me.” She had begun to weep, tears slowly making their way down her face, but her voice was steady enough. It seemed time to go.

“Okay, maybe you are getting presents from a dead guy,” Fionna said when we were on our way home. “The question is, what do we do about it?”

“He doesn’t seem to be trying to hurt me or anything. Maybe he’s harmless, and I should just be glad somebody remembers my birthday and wants to give me flowers.”

“If it’s chocolates next, we’re sharing them,” she declared, and the conversation was somehow over.

That seemed to be that. I still got the occasional gift left on the front porch for a year or so, and then the presents just stopped. In a way, I miss them.

And that is how I got a signed copy of Stephen King’s novel Misery without ever meeting the man who wrote it.