into the kitchen, saw the phone blinking and stuck her tongue out at it. The refrigerator was covered with a mass of notes telling her to get things done. She hadn’t done any of them.
She took a half bottle of orange juice out and drank the whole thing in three long swallows. Large and robustly healthy, everything about her was oversize. She looked at her hand holding the orange juice container and sighed.
She yearned to be small, dainty, dark-haired, not just another California blonde. Bimbo, the Watch Commander said. She couldn’t fight what nature gave her. She avoided the beach, and the sun; not out of fear, but because she didn’t want to be California tan. Consequently her skin was pale, rosy—not ‘in’ at all.
She looked at the clock. “Christ, nine already.” She’d got home after eight every day for the last ten days.
She tapped the answering machine play button.
“...Lunch tomorrow, don’t forget. And Sunday dinner. Your brothers will be here: Daddy will be very disappointed...again if you don’t show up.” Her mother’s understanding of emotional blackmail was total.
“...Hi, gorgeous. This is the best D.A. in Los Angeles. Come to dinner with me Saturday night. I’ll tell you all the latest. Call me, please.”
“Damn, the Groper.”
Teresa went in the living room and stripped out of her uniform. As usual it joined and assortment of clothing pushed to one end of the couch. She stripped quickly to panties and bra, put on a pair of thongs and turned the TV to the news. She watched for a moment, frowned and shivered.
“Must have left the window open again.”
She walked into her bedroom. The curtains fluttered in the breeze.
“Nice home safety, Keely,” she murmured.
She knelt by the window and reached out to close it. When she pulled the curtains apart she froze. She stared hard at the locust tree just across the alley, not sure if she imagined seeing a man’s shape through the leaves.
What was it? An unnatural movement. She looked away from the tree toward the Peerson’s house then back to the tree. There! Through the leaves, a man sat on a branch next to the trunk. He had something in his hand. It looked like a notebook. Her eyes began to adapt to the semi-dark.
She spoke softly. “A peeper, for God’s sake. Well you’re in for a surprise, sport.”
In the front room of the Peerson’s house, Rose Peerson argued with her daughter, Sarah, about the biker as usual. The eight year old boy, Peter, sat in the front room studying and watching TV at the same time.
“How does he do that?” Teresa whispered.
Teresa saw the light by the garage go out. She couldn’t see Ken Peerson, the tree was in the way, but she knew his habits as well as the man in the tree. Ken Peerson would have spent the evening working on the old car in front of the garage.
Rose Peerson, goaded beyond endurance by her daughter, lost her temper.
“Sarah! That is it! That is all, by God!” I do not want to hear one more word! You are not going out with that greasy lout. Are you totally out of your mind? Do you think I’m going to sit at home worrying while you ride around Glendale on that man’s Harley Davidson ‘dawg’? They were made for each other, you were not! If you mention him one more time I’ll ground you for ten years.”
“Grounded until I’m twenty four, oh, great. I might as well be living in some Russian prison camp.” Sarah snuffled pitifully. “You’re cruel and unfair. Daddy would let me go out with Tommy.”
Ken Peerson appeared behind her. “Daddy would not let you walk across the street with that bum. Forget Tommy what’s his name.”
“Selkirk.”
“I put up with that other troll, the one with the purple hair. Little turd ate every thing in sight. At least he was your age.”
Peter, snickered. “You mean the Zit King. Terminal acne,” he giggled. “He sweat gallons every time you looked at him, Dad.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Peter, I was kinda getting used to him. His hair reminded me of those creatures who came out of the pods in Alien.”
Father and son laughed together. Sarah sobbed tragically and left the room in high drama. “You hate me! Nothing I do is right!”
Father and son looked at each other and shrugged. Neither had any understanding of puberty.
“You think it’s funny, little man,” Mrs. Peerson said. “You wait till the first time you bring home some little girl in pig tails and braces. You’ll get yours.”
“Never happen, Mom. If they don’t look like a Playboy Centerfold, I’m not taking them anywhere.”
“Good plan, son. A fella should have his standards. That’s why I married your mother. She makes Christie Brinkley look like a women’s libber.”
“Hah! Don’t try an sweet talk me, Ken Peerson, you chauvinist dork.”
“Chauvinist dork!” Father and son looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Jesus, Rose, where in the name of God did you learn to talk like that?”
“From Arnold Swartzenegger.”
“Whoa...Der Terminator has gespoken,” Peter said in a creditable German accent.
Across the alley in the apartment house Teresa tried to relax, her whole body stiff from kneeling. She watched the figure in the tree making notes in a journal.
“Damn,” she whispered. “This is weird. A peeper who takes notes. I ought to go over there and pull that S.O.B. out of that tree by his perverted little pecker.”
Teresa glanced toward the house. Rose Peerson stood in front of the sink in the kitchen washing dishes. She was a short, bosomy woman, twenty—she said—actually thirty pounds overweight. Rose worried more about the thirty pounds than most people worry about death and taxes.
Ken Peerson appeared in the kitchen behind his wife. He snuggled close against her and put his arms around her waist.
“Ken, stop. I’m worried about that Tommy Selkirk. He is bad news.”
“I know. Don’t worry, he’s not taking Sarah anywhere. He lifted his wife’s hair and kissed her neck.
“Ken! Stop it,” she giggled. “I swear, every time you work on that car you get hornier than a bear in springtime.”
Ken laughed. His hands slid up the front of her dress and began undoing the buttons. His hands went inside her dress and caressed her breasts.
Teresa felt a pang of loneliness and lust, pure and simple. Her hand came up to her own breast unthinking and rubbed a stiffening nipple. She stopped suddenly, guiltily and forced herself to look away from the house.
“Christ!” she whispered. “What’s wrong with you? You’re worse than that asshole in the tree.”
She
