What people don’t realize is that stalking takes stamina. A curious person does not become a stalker any more easily than a person who exercises daily becomes a marathon runner; it requires a physical and mental tenacity only the truly dedicated can achieve. Stalking takes strategy, focus, and, let’s face it, a hell of a lot of time.
At the start of my nightly vigils, I park on a residential street uphill and around the corner from Steve’s apartment. I grab my water bottle from my tote bag monogrammed with my initials which used to carry my workout clothes or sleepover supplies when I had a life, before I started stalking, that is.
I admire the taupe house in front of which I park, marked with all sorts of signs of domesticity, a station wagon in the driveway, bikes sprawled on the lawn, and a window view of a den revealing plump couches. On various occasions, I have seen a lanky, salt and pepper haired man picking up the yard’s toys or a small child torpedoing to the front door. Envious of the inhabitants’ settled, sloppy togetherness, I walk briskly by the house.
As I make my way down the street, I hope I don’t look conspicuous and think of a friend of mine who when living with her parents for a brief time, went out one evening to a single’s event, and returned home to find a bunch of cars parked in her parents’ driveway. To avoid entering a house full of company, she tarried in her car down the block across from a neighborhood pond. Within a few minutes, cop cars surrounded her, sirens blaring, and because of the different address on her license, the police forced her to accompany them to her parents’ home. I think of my friend’s embarrassment each time I amble down the road. Nosiness is the great danger of suburbia.
I dress in practical clothes: shoes in which I can walk, pants in which I can squat, and a jacket with a zippered pocket that holds my keys, cell phone, and cigarettes. I stroll down the hilly street parallel to Steve’s address regarding each residence’s after-work routine; a pickup truck pulls up in front of the white stucco house; the dining room light illuminates from a shingled cottage; and cars make quick stops in front of the corner house, the flurry of carpool activity.
I walk to the end of the block, turn onto the street perpendicular to Steve’s apartment, and duck into the side path of a house next to his, following the stepping stones toward the backyard. Steve lives on the first floor of a mammoth, three-story, contemporary home. The house next to Steve’s is a dilapidated, white Victorian carved into four units, each part rented out to a person from a far-flung world.
The rear of the house is split into two apartments. The top, back of the house belongs to an aged man who lives a nocturnal existence, much to my dismay since it impairs my nighttime movements. Near midnight, the stooped man arrives home, shuffles through the gravel driveway, trudges upstairs, and hangs his laundry on a clothesline crossing the upstairs porch on a diagonal. The unit below the old man’s apartment belongs to a squat, Asian woman and a bearded man who always wears Hawaiian shirts. The pair rarely ventures out and does not entertain; their lack of social life makes me think they are stuck in misery.
The front of Steve’s neighbors’ house faces a four-way intersection. In the front, bottom apartment, the tenant keeps her shades pulled down, but in small slices of light I have seen she is a black-haired woman with a fancy, laptop computer. The front, second floor apartment belongs to an indeterminate number of people fresh out of college, who party on the porch regardless of the weather. When I stalk Steve, I decide the couple in the rear, ground floor apartment are the most likely to notice me because they seem bored with the own lives and a touch shy of odd enough so as not be lost in their own world.
I wonder if my ex-boyfriend, Steve, had been straightforward with me, blunt, cruel even, and told me he was interested in other women whether I would have slipped down the curiosity slope from inquisitive girlfriend to stalker. The climb down began when I had a suspicion about his interest in another woman. I confronted him, he denied it and that became our template, the pattern we followed: I would see or feel evidence of his betrayal, approach the subject with him, and he would deny any foul play. His denials allayed my fears but only temporarily. I went to increasing lengths to verify his truthfulness; I searched his emails and scoured his phone bills. I began a quest for an answer, a truth I knew from the first time Steve mentioned the other woman’s name, Kymberly.
Most nights, I sit on a patch of asphalt and overgrown grass behind the rise of the neighbor’s grey, back porch and view two, key vantage points, the driveway and the pantry window. In the beginning, Kym parks her car on the street but about a month into their relationship I watch her push the front door open, walk hippity-hop to her car, pull in the driveway snug behind Steve’s silver Passat, and rush back through the doorway. I almost puke and have to take five Tylenol P.M. to get to sleep that night. Over time, her car stays parked in the driveway, his car the accessible one, and he drives her to work in the morning. They travel together everywhere.
When I feel brave and if it is very late at night when there is scant possibility of being seen, I look inside their cars for clues about how their relationship is progressing. I can tell a lot just from their cars; I see soda cans in their respective cup holders, his, a Diet Coke, and hers, a Fresca, and, at times, I spot a bottle of vitamin water or a crumpled candy wrapper. The seats move backward or forward depending on which one of them drives. Poorly folded maps and crumpled, pullover fleeces litter the back seat. I yearn for the afternoons Steve and I spent running errands, stopping at the gas station to fill up and get a snack.
In her car, a dreamcatcher hangs from the rearview mirror. “Tacky,” I think, but he probably likes it. Near his birthday in September, I spot a present wrapped in balloon wrapping paper on her passenger seat. In October, it is a pair of high-heeled sandals I see strewn on her back seat that provokes my anxiety; I convince myself Kym wore them as part of some sex act since the summer, sandal-wearing season is over.
Through the pantry window, I also monitor a progression; Steve’s single man cans of tomato soup give way to adventurous ingredients for home-cooked meals like coconut milk, herbal tea, and exotic nuts. I notice a new, rice cooker box perched on the top of the fridge, a nod to her Thai heritage and rice-oriented meals. At the end of the summer, he places a basil plant on the sill and I imagine the food she prepares requiring fresh basil. It’s a sweet gesture, the kind that made me love him, the sight of his tall, muscular frame fussing over a delicate plant.
Steve and I met in February and, when we spoke about the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day holiday, he told me his grandfather’s mantra for that time of year, “Time to plant your peas.” As a fun gift, I bought pea seeds, potting soil, and a seedling container and we watched the plants sprout on his porch.
Several times, I walk right up to the pantry window and watch him grab an item from the fridge or throw something away in the multi-compartmentalized trashcan I gave him as a solution to the dilemma of separating recyclables. I wonder how his heart doesn’t break, like mine, each time he lifts the lid.
When no one is home, I take my time and peer in the pantry window at the refrigerator door, a virtual cornucopia of information because Steve is a magnet man. On our trip to Alaska, we scoured the souvenir shops for a totem pole magnet. Steve likes to find the quintessential token of a place; this I adore about him. What I view as discretion, others may deem onerous, but the fact that I pleased such a particular man thrills me more than any ‘A’ I received in graduate school. I watch his clip magnet fatten with take-out menus, the town’s recycling information get posted, and the Red Sox schedule appear; each is a sign to me they are hunkering into domestic bliss.
On nights I feel brave, I walk the length of the driveway looking in and listening to the windows lining the side of his apartment. A few times, I overhear them in the kitchen. He asks how long he should reheat something in the microwave. She asks why he looks nice one evening. He replies, “Except for my shoes.”
Kym mimics, “Except for my shoes.” She knows, as I had learned, that Steve searches high and low for shoes he likes, never quite content. I wonder if he cared for the way she mimicked him. He would not have liked it if I had done it; it would have fueled his underlying, ever-threatening anger.
A few weeks into my routine of stalking, I observe the bathroom light switch on at 10:30 at night and suck in my breath. The flick of the switch signals he is showering after his Nordic Trac workout and she, car parked in the driveway, is evidently welcome enough to sit on his couch or at his computer while he pushes his heartbeat to 170 beats per minute and undresses. I watch the bathroom light switch off and turn on again right away. I presume the light comes on a second time for her to wash up before they go to bed.
When Steve and I first met, he called me every night we were not together at 10:44, after his workout and shower. 10:44 became our magical time of day; even when we were together, we’d notice the precise moment and kiss. I ache when the clock strikes that time now and wince in pain because he has replaced our routine with one revolving around her.
When I really feel like inflicting pain on myself, I follow them to bed by circling the house, quietly unlatching the front gate, and moving across the yard to a spot underneath his bedroom window. The window hangs above my height so I take my glasses off and press my ear against the aluminum siding straining to hear their intimate conversations. I hear her muffled voice and him laughing, a sound I miss so much I could cry. But, in truth, I want to hear if they are having sex, noisy sex complete with groans, name calling, and bursts of pleasure. This noise God spares from me because, no matter how actively I pursued hearing it, the reality, most likely, would have killed me.
With no more activity to watch, I head back to my car, reversing my walk up the hill past the still, dark houses. I push the remote to unlock the car door and slip into the driver’s seat, a beaten down version of myself, slumped and defeated. After my car scales the hill, I light a cigarette, my only companion these days, and I arrive home as I drag the last puff. If I need to, I stop at a CVS situated a quarter of the way along a rotary on my route home, where the night crew pulls out a hard pack of Marlboro Lights before I even reach the counter.
Once home, I reluctantly unlock the door knowing my connection with Steve, however deranged, is severed for the night. I fall onto the couch and assess my night’s observations. I remain on the couch for the night and do not sleep. Crawling in bed reminds me I am alone and prompts thoughts of Steve that are not mine to have. I feel my thigh against the cool sheets and I crave Steve’s strokes, his arousal, and the pressure of his body that follows.
Instead of sleeping, I flip channels with the remote, watching shows that would never captivate me before, a sure sign my brain is turning to mush. The other morning, I watched ‘Judge Judy’, a new low for me. I fill my mind with the TV characters’ lives since mine is too painful to consider. I look everywhere for acknowledgement about how I feel. During one episode of ‘Becker’, I experience an epiphany. The hard-headed doctor, Becker, talks to his spunky R.N. about the pain he is in because he wants to date a woman who is not interested in him. “Has this ever happened to you?” the doctor asks the nurse.
“Yeah, a long time ago,” she admits.
“And when did you get over it?” he wants to know.
“I’m still not,” she replies, informing him of the insidious nature of unrequited love; it lasts forever.
“That’s my fate,” I think. “I’ll never be over Steve.”
I’m a nocturnal creature; I burrow during the daylight hours, close the blinds, and consume cans and cans of Diet Coke. I’m no different than the furtive and invasive raccoons that come out at night to raid garbage cans. It’s not a pleasant way to live but it keeps me in a numb state, neither facing the pain of rejection or the sorrow of grief. I exist in an alternate universe and am, indeed, difficult to reach. I do not pick up the phone to speak to those in frequent touch with me. I receive a few, stray messages, a cousin inviting me to see a play and an old friend from Austin, Texas touching base. I respond to no one.
I lose my job as a Project Manager at a web design firm. The Director of Project Management, a former, Olympic figure skater who transferred her determination to the business world, informs me I act disengaged. Tellingly, I cannot remember her name to reply to her. It’s like I am in a mental state of shock; my mind working like the body does during a time of trauma, shutting off, turning self-protective and insulated.
In the morning, I resume my monitoring of Steve by a stealthier but no less relentless tact. Turning on my computer, I venture to websites Steve and his new girlfriend update daily, often hourly. The cyber-stalking gives me a direct glimpse into their minds. I browse the URLs from most to least informative.
The first location bound to show activity is her ‘myspace’ page. Every morning, she posts reviews of movies they watched the previous night, restaurants where they ate, and links to subjects they discussed. She changes her quotes to reflect the topic du jour; this I know because the subjects match the talks Steve and I had verbatim. I witness his transfer of attention to Kym and seethe with the desire to be included.
His ‘myspace’ page displays the sharing of the same details he shared with me as our level of familiarity increased. He posts a link to a fantastic mural from his college’s library, photos from his family’s annual, July 4th trip to Lake Winnipesaukee, and his profound thoughts about the temporariness of life. It’s like watching a spider spin his web; Steve ensnares his new girlfriend with strands of sensitivity, family values, and poetic beauty.
I check their social book-marking pages, sites where users post links they want others to see, a virtual sharing of ideas and useful information. I find links to recipes for lemon chicken, song lyrics about true love, and articles like “10 Steps to Stay in Love.” I think of how I learned, months after Steve and I started dating, that he went to a wine class to educate himself and impress me. Steve likes instructions, life simplified and automated.
She likes white orchids, cute animals, and tequila. References to these subjects are peppered throughout the hundreds of sites she saves. I view a video of a tequila drinking contest, cartoonish pictures of kittens, and a write-up about a local eatery that sells white orchid ice cream. Some days, they post more than others; usually, she finds four or five links that reflect his interests while his predominantly display his own ambitions, the exact ones he shared and pursued with me.
For more information about Kym and Steve, I go to their photo saving pages, where users can view other members’ photos as well as comment on and rate photographs using a star system. Her page is panoply of photos. She saves pictures of multi-hued horizons and sultry sunsets tagging them with soothing, inspirational words like, “There’s always hope!” I can hear the anxiety in Steve’s voice she is trying to calm, as familiar to me as my own heartbeat. Of course, she uploads a variety of photos of herself in various settings, skiing on a white capped mountain, drinking a foam topped pint of beer, and posing beneath an autumnal tree. I admire how smart she is; men are primarily visual creatures and she never misses a chance to thrust her image in front of Steve. Also on her page, I am able to learn about their outings, a Red Sox game, the Topsfield Fair, and Gloucester’s coast.
Steve is reserved in his photo sharing. His page displays approximately ten photos and a majority of them were taken when he was dating me, a fact I interpret as promising. One photo shows a stuffed creature from an extensive exhibit of taxidermy we attended at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History. Steve and I spent a snowy, Sunday afternoon at the museum where the artificial, frozen grins fixed on the stuffed creatures amused us. I relish the memory of our day together. I love that she can’t get rid of me.
Next stop on my perusal of Steve-related sites are his professional websites, websites he created and runs. I notice new features he adds and announcements he makes to his thousands of users in a style imitative of a corny MC. “Hey gang! Check out the cool, new way to vote for your favorite comic,” he’ll write on his comic generating site. I marvel, as I always have, at his work and torture myself with the idea that she is his new muse, the inspiration for his witty ideas.
I check each site multiple times throughout the day, trawling for the latest morsel of information. At six o’clock, when Steve usually arrives home from work, I check a website where he downloads music he likes. I watch on-line and see the song Steve selects. I watch it stream as he listens, the status bar filling as his selection plays. I watch until the bewitching hour she has walks in the door and he turns off the music by closing out of his account.
And I load up my car for my nightly vigil knowing the crest of the wave, ever-heightening, will pummel me to bits.