EMBRACE YOU Lone(liness Book Two)(6)
Being that it's nearly Christmas, Marcus and I put our tree up. This will be our first Christmas together as a married couple, and Lizzie's first Christmas, period! I'm kept busy fielding calls from relatives about what they should get for her. I tell them clothing, baby supplies and small toys we can play with to stimulate her.
Once our tree is up, I bring Lizzie from her room and hold her upright so she can look at its beauty. She waves her arms up and down - I think she is interested in the lights twinkling, but she doesn't yet understand the significance of the holiday. Still, Marcus and I spread a baby blanket on the floor and set Lizzie on it. We're lying down on either side of her, enjoying the feeling of our first Christmas as a family.
Nigel, our band manager, has set up a series of concerts in and around London right around the Christmas and Boxing Day holidays. These concerts are timed for right before we leave for our delayed honeymoon. At one concert, I peek out through the heavy stage curtain and look for Marcus. As per his usual habit, Marcus is sitting to one side, in the first row. I spot him and wave to him and he waves back with a big grin. Then, I see an odd sight - two young women are sitting in the row behind him, slightly to one side of him. One of the women is markedly overweight. I notice she is staring, totally fixated, on my husband! Her mouth is held agape and her eyes have a fire in them. I don't know why, but I suddenly get the willies and a sick chill throughout my body. I don't know who she is or what her purpose is for being there, so I decide I should alert Marcus. I go backstage and send him a text message, telling him what I've just spotted. I walk back to the curtain and peek through - Marcus' smile is completely gone. He texts me, saying he'll meet me backstage during intermission. By now, he knows our play sets cold, so, just a few minutes before intermission starts, he leaves his seat and shows his backstage credentials to the auditorium employee. Once he's given the okay to come backstage, he waits until we finish.
As before, the smile is completely gone from my husband's face. He takes my arm and sits me down, then tells me he's seen this young woman about quite often in the past few weeks. She's always close by and always seems transfixed on him. Now, I am really scared - for Marcus, the baby and me. We're new parents and we have a new and very tender life to protect. Are we dealing with some kind of stalker?
After I get my breath back, I grab Marcus' arms and tell him that we need to notify the police, if only for Lizzie's sake. I'm having flashbacks about Gemma and I don't want any repeat performances. Lizzie is with my mum and dad right now, and we'll pick her up straightaway after the concert is over. Marcus thinks about calling the police, then he nods. I call them and report what we've seen happening in recent weeks.
Two officers show up less than ten minutes before the second half of our concert is due to begin. They come backstage and ask Marcus and me to point the girl out. Marcus points her out, describing her to a T. Short, overweight, dyed blonde hair, with lip and nose piercings. I spot something new - the girl is now whispering to a tall, very emaciated girl sporting a freakish, badly cut and multicolored Mohawk. The overweight girl is pointing to where Marcus had been sitting. I tell one of the officers what I've just noticed.
"She's probably wondering where Marcus has got to," I say.
"Mr. Hadley, please stay backstage for the second half of the concert. We're going to go find out why she's been following you. Mind, she has the right to be here. She's bought a ticket. But we can ask her about why she's been following you through town," says the officer.
Leaving the backstage area, they go to the audience seats. We still have a few minutes until the end of intermission, so we peek through the curtain. We see both officers approaching the women. The shorter, overweight woman becomes visibly angry and frustrated when she can't come up with a good reason for following Marcus about town. The officers respond by telling her that her behavior could legally be considered stalking. She grows even more angry at this, so I plead with Marcus to stay backstage until the end of our concert. A stagehand finds a comfy chair for him and he watches our performance from the side of the stage, just behind the blackout curtain. Right before we perform our final song, I look to the area where the two young women had been seated - now they're gone! This is proof that the draw for them was Marcus, not our band. I feel fear squeezing around my heart.
When we return to England from our holiday in Spain, we think the stalking situation has been dealt with by the police. We're living our life as normal, looking at new homes to buy in a frantic hurry. The first home we wanted already had an offer on it that the seller took. We were back to square one in finding a new home. One morning, I'm going back into our flat after tossing our bagged rubbish into the bin. It is blistering cold, so I wrap my coat around me and look around. I spot the same squat, overweight girl standing across the street, just staring at our flat. I don't want her to know I've just spotted her, so I wrap my arms around my chilled body - in truth, I'm chilled, both from the cold and from the fear I'm feeling. I hurry inside and upstairs, where I alert Marcus.
He peeks through the window sheers, trying not to be spotted. When he sees her staring right at our front window, he backs up fast, turning ghastly pale. He scoops up his phone and calls his dad, letting him know what's going on.
The two of them decide that the three of us will stay elsewhere until we know we've got the house we've offered on. That afternoon, we pack our immediate necessities and both of our dads help to get us moved to Marcus' dad's property. Because we don't want that girl to know that I spotted her, we wait until it's totally dark to get everything moved over. Fortunately, the flats where we live have got a fence with a back gate and entrance, so we move everything into trucks that way.