The Watcher Girl(8)
The memory plants a smile on my face—one I wipe away as Sutton’s current home comes into view. It’s better to leave the past where it is. Over the years, I’ve found that if I carry too many things with me, the load gets unbearably heavy.
My car crawls, my foot hovering over the brake pedal as I take in the view.
This neighborhood didn’t exist twenty years ago, at least not like this. Once upon a time, it was a part of historic Monarch Falls. Its streets were lined with aging Victorians, regal Queen Annes, and pretentious Gothic Revivals, all of them leaning sideways or crumbling yet still unapologetically magnificent. According to an article I found online, a committee of local historians fought like hell to save it, but as the committee members aged out and died, so did their agenda.
A handful of years ago, a local builder persuaded the city council to let him raze the dilapidated properties to make way for highly sought-after new construction houses. The only stipulation was that the homes had to appear historic . . . which is why Sutton’s place looks like an arts and crafts kit home straight out of a 1908 Sears catalog. Balanced and proportional, low roof, cozy front porch complete with chunky white columns and a swing.
The paint color is an interesting choice to me—brick brown bordering on bloodred in the right light—but my earlier research told me they’re the second owners. They didn’t choose that color. And I should’ve known—Sutton was always drawn to citrusy, jubilant colors or anything that conveyed lightness. Orange was his favorite, followed by clean, classic white. His house being brick-blood is jarring, but I get over it.
I park my car a few houses down and on the opposite side of the street, let the engine idle so the air can run, tuck my hair into a Dodgers cap, and adjust my sunglasses.
Then I watch for anything, for everything.
A middle-aged couple stroll by hand in hand, the husband smiling and nodding at me while the wife offers a suspecting glare. I’ve found that women tend to sniff out the bad in people easier than men, sometimes with nothing more than a passing glance.
That woman thinks I’m up to something, and she isn’t wrong.
But I’m not the kind of bad she has to worry about.
The couple disappear around the corner by a four-way stop, where untrimmed hedges are far too tall to be safe—a covenant or city ordinance violation, I’m sure—and I return my attention to the red house down the street.
Popping a couple of earbuds in, I catch up on a podcast on Errol Flynn, never once removing my gaze from my target.
I settle back. Breathe. Convince myself this is what relaxed and natural feels like.
While I’m used to watching from behind a high-definition monitor, I take comfort in knowing that if Sutton were to walk out his front door and glance in this direction, he wouldn’t be able to distinguish my features from several hundred feet away. In fact, I’m sure I’m the last person he’d expect to see on his street. If he did recognize me, I imagine his brain would refuse to make the connection at first—like spotting a polar bear in the Amazonian jungle.
It wouldn’t make sense.
Not at first.
I finish my podcast and check the time, mentally calculating that it’s been forty-two minutes now. The half-suspicious couple from earlier pass by, the woman giving me a lingering glare this time, as if to silently shoo me off her street.
I toss her one back as if to wish her a condescending “good luck with that.”
I know the law, and I’m not breaking a single one.
Another podcast and a playlist later, I debate whether to stick around. I can’t be obvious. I can’t sit here all day. The longer I linger, the more neighbors will notice, and the less likely I’ll be able to show my face (or my rental car) in this neighborhood again.
My empty stomach groans, and my head is light. I search my bag for a packet of almonds or a loose stick of gum, only to find a stale, unwrapped peppermint from a Thai restaurant down the street from my apartment in Portland. I take it as a sign to call it a day and press the “Engine Start” button, only the instant my dashboard blinks to life and the radio hums an overplayed pop song, the front door of Sutton’s home swings open and out walks . . . me.
Only it isn’t me.
It’s her.
The one he married.
The consolation prize with whom he created this beautiful, perfect life.
The woman with an undeniable and head-scratching resemblance to myself.
Campbell is her name. Maiden name: Beckwith. Hometown: Blueberry Springs, Connecticut. Adorable. I don’t know much else about her . . . yet. My focus the entirety of the past week has been on Sutton.
Their daughter—the one they named Grace—rests on her hip, clapping her chubby hands as the two of them make their way down the front steps and hook a left on the sidewalk—coming my way.
Shit, shit, shit.
I tug the brim of my cap and slump, a ridiculous and unnecessary move given the fact that she and I are complete strangers. She’d have no reason to recognize me, no reason to think twice upon seeing me parked here. She’d have every reason to glance over me and carry on about her day.
A cluster of mailboxes rests equidistant between us, and I spot a set of keys dangling from her hand as she walks. A few seconds later, she’s unlocking a small receptacle, attempting to balance her daughter on her hip all the while.
An older man in a neon-green visor and bright-blue shorts strolls past them, stopping when he sees her struggling.