101 Words

“Hi, Lucy. I haven’t heard from you much lately. I don’t even know if you remember me. I know that I only knew you for that one week, but you changed my life. I had friends before you, but you were the first person to actually show an interest in me. To care about my life. The first person who wanted to hear what I said and listened. You inspired me. I just wanted you to know how much you mean to me. Thank you so much.”

“No,” I whisper as the voicemail ends, “I’m sorry I didn’t answer. So sorry.”

Toothbrush, check; slinky dresses for romantic suppers, check; sexy underwear, check; designer jeans and tops, check; killer cosmetics, check; shoes for every occasion, check; passport, check. It’s a bit of a crush for carry on, but the zip takes the strain; I reckon I’m done. This mini break is going to be something else.

Eight forty a.m., Gatwick Terminal Three. “I’m afraid, madam, there’s a sixty-five pound charge for excess baggage.”

“What? I paid less than that for the return flight!”

Bugger off! I had only packed the bare necessities.

I sighed. What was it to be now: fight or flight?

The bus stop for work sits by an outcropping of shale. I envy the rock. It follows my eyes when I sit on the bench, probably wondering why I continue to visit every day. I take a bite of stale bread, and cough up my spittle to force it down my throat. I still carry the pink slip in my purse. The stone doesn’t understand the need to survive. It doesn’t care about bills in the mailbox or hear you crying at night. Care about money, or loss of purpose. Who granted stones the privilege to live without worry or regret?

I was stalking before it was considered fashionable: an angelic schoolboy with the devil on my back and binoculars in my satchel. I still remember my first victim. Traumatized for years by my ski mask in her window, gifts of dead roses, knives on her pillow.

She dropped out of school, found salvation in drugs and married me—ten years now, baby on the way. A picture of domestic happiness. She’s feeling delicate tonight, so I’m taking her a nice cup of tea as she rests in bed. It’s pleasantly surprising that the ski mask still fits after all these years.

Alice returned home after her waitressing shift at the diner and glanced at the clock: 3:51 p.m. Nine minutes before her husband’s regular yard time would begin at the federal prison outside Tucson where he was an inmate. She hurried into the living room and checked the Tucson weather on her cell phone: 85 degrees, nearly double that outside their apartment in Seattle. She set the wall thermostat for that temperature, then sat on the couch. Alice took off her coat, lifted their wedding photograph from the coffee table, and waited to spend the next hour with him in the same heat.

He skulked back and forth along the aisle like a wary tomcat. Collars up, eyes down. I did my best not to watch him, not to smile.

He paused from time to time, gaze skittering up the rack towards the top, then dancing away nervously.

Finally, he approached—set a newspaper on the counter. I started ringing it through when he flipped up the corner, revealing the magazine tucked inside: a glimpse of 2D tits. It was a deft manoeuvre. Dextrous, even.

“It’s all in the wrist,” I told him, and finally released a laugh when the bell chimed behind him.