CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS ALL VERY WELL TO PLOT and stalk and plan about getting Joe, but it was another thing altogether to go out and start doing it. What exactly should I do? What was the first step? I needed input, so I called Katie. I could hear crashing and shrieks in the background as she answered the phone. “Hi, it’s me,” I said brightly. “Bad time?”
“No, it’s fine,” she answered blithely. “Hold on, I’m going in the closet.”
I waited as she hid herself away from her sons. There was a sharp scream from one of them, followed by another crash.
“Do you need to go?” I asked, envisioning one of my godsons with blood streaming down his face.
“No, no, they’re just playing,” she answered. “What’s up?”
“Well, a couple of things,” I said, stretching luxuriously on my couch. There were fringe benefits to being single and childless, and talking uninterrupted on the phone was one of them. “Sam was here the other day, and I thought we really should take him out some night. He’s still a little glum.” Actually, Sam had seemed just fine to me, but I sensed he was only happy when he was doing stuff with Danny.
“Sure,” Katie said. “Just give me a couple days’ notice.”
“Great. The other thing is…well, it’s about Joe.”
“So what’s going on?”
“Well, I’m kind of ready. To make my move.”
“Good for you!” Katie said cheerfully.
“So can I run the plan by you?” I asked, feeling very eighth grade.
Katie laughed. “Sure. Go for it.”
“I was thinking maybe I could have him see me out running, so he could notice that I’m, uh, in shape or whatever. And he’d see Digger and then he’d realize that we’re both dog lovers. And then we could talk about that when we saw each other next.”
“That sounds great. Very well thought out.” Katie’s voice became muffled. “Michael, if you do that one more time, I’m taking that dump truck away for nineteen days!”
“I thought you were in the closet,” I said.
“I am. Doesn’t mean I don’t know everything that goes on here.”
“Nineteen days?”
“Figure of speech. He thinks it means forever,” she answered, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“So the running thing is good?” I asked, seeking validation.
“Running thing sounds great,” Katie answered. I heard Mikey’s lisping whine. “They found me, Mil,” my friend said. “Gotta go.”
“Okay. And thanks, Katie. I’ll let you know about Sam.”
WITH KATIE’S APPROVAL IN HAND, I set about orchestrating the casual, coincidental encounter with Joe. This is what I pictured.
I am running down Nauset Road, Digger trotting adorably by my side. I am wearing nylon running shorts and a T-shirt with an adorable, pithy statement. And what’s this? Oh my goodness, it’s Joe Carpenter in his truck! He slows down, appreciating the feminine bouncing, then realizes it’s his old classmate, Millie Barnes! “Hey, Millie!” he says, pleasantly surprised. “I didn’t know you were a runner.”
I stop, not horribly out of breath (because my car is hidden at the ranger’s station a half mile back).
“Hello, Joe!” I answer, reaching down to pat my adorable doggy. “How are you?” Chatting ensues. Some laughter. A few appreciative glances at athletic form (his glances, my form). We talk until a car rudely honks its horn, and Joe, regretfully, must take off. He watches me in the rearview mirror as I run effortlessly and happily until his truck rounds the bend and he can’t see me anymore (when I start walking back to my car).
Joe left for work at 6:30 every morning. This I’d learned on a stalking expedition several years ago. But timing was everything for my little running venture, and I had to be sure.
We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of, haven’t we? Things we don’t want to confess to friends or parents or children. My obsession with Joe was one of those things. It was bad enough to have been secretly in love with a man for more than half of my life, but resorting to stalking at twenty-nine and a half was really embarrassing. Still, one does what one must.
Joe lived on a little dirt road on the bay side of town. It wasn’t close enough to the water to be ultra-desirable, and it was close enough to Route 6 to hear the traffic in the summer. Joe had lived there all his life. When his mom moved off-Cape three years ago, Joe took the place over. It was a rambling little cottage, with two additions put on since the original house had been built. Not a ranch, not a Cape, the house actually had no particular style at all. But it had a little deck and was private, surrounded on all sides by pitch pines and bayberry. Of course, I’d never been inside, but as Joe Carpenter was indeed a carpenter, I was willing to bet it was pretty damn cute.
And so at 5:45 in the morning, a time usually reserved for crows, fishermen and infants, I battled those familiar feelings of stupidity and exhilaration, drove across town, parked at the Church of the Visitation and walked to Joe’s road to begin stalking.
The birds’ springtime cacophony of song echoed around me, crows screeching and red-wing blackbirds chuckling. Though it was early May, the temperature still dropped into the forties at night, and the air was cool and damp. I shivered. Digger was at home, much to his dismay, but one can’t stalk properly with a licking, wagging, diarrheic dog at one’s side.
Until recently, Joe’s little road hadn’t been officially named; it was just a dirt road off Herringbrook Road. You know, where the Carpenters live? And the Lynches? And the Snows? Not John Snow—Nick Snow. That used to be how we Cape Codders identified this bumpy, sandy little stretch. But the out-of-towners who have invaded the Cape in record numbers in recent years liked signage for their summer addresses, and Joe’s road was now called Thistleberry Way.
I walked down the road, which was barely wide enough for one car. Joe’s driveway was the last one off Thistleberry Way. As I got close, my heart started to pound. The thing about stalking was, obviously, I might get caught. And how mortifying that would be! There was no good excuse for me to be near Joe’s house…well, no excuse other than the one I had ready. “Oh, Joe, great! I was coming home from an emergency at the hospital, and my car broke down. I was just going to see if I could use Mr. Snow’s phone…”
Well-researched and with no admission of guilt. Still, being caught would be dreadful nonetheless, because I knew for a fact that I would not be the first woman seen lurking on Joe’s street.
Okay. There was his driveway. I took my place across the road, about thirty feet back into the woods, well camouflaged by the squat trees and dense undergrowth. Poison ivy was rampant, but I found a sheltered patch that didn’t appear to have any of the evil weed and also afforded me a fair view of Joe’s driveway. Squatting down, not wanting to get my bottom damp, I began to wait.
This stalking episode seemed a bit more humiliating
