The Stalked Girl

by Evan Ronan

  “It’s alright,” Lucy says.

  He bangs the back of his head on the counter as he comes up, rattling the laptop and dropping the bottled water. It rolls under his chair and Bernie treats Lucy to a view of his hairy butt crack while he picks up the bottle.

  She gives me a look.

  I just shrug. “Got a quarter on you?”

  She palms her mouth and guffaws.

  Poor Bernie, ever on the outside of the joke, hands her the bottle. “Can I open it for you?”

  “I think I can get it,” she says, without a trace of irony. She really is a sweet girl.

  Lucy uncaps the bottle and finishes half the water in one long gulp.

  “Ready to get back out there?” I ask.

  She nods. “You know I’ve been here before.”

  I’m surprised I don’t remember seeing her. Lucy is what Roy would call a physical specimen. She’s tall and athletic and leaves an impression.

  “I was fifteen or sixteen probably. We came here after youth group a few times, with the older guys who could drive.”

  “Oh sure,” I say, like I remember.

  She drinks more water. Bernie keeps staring, till I give him the mind-your-biz look and he pretends to go back to work on his experimental light novel, or whatever the hell it is at the moment. Last week he compared it to Don Quixote, if Hunter S. Thompson had traveled back in time to write it.

  No idea what that means.

  “High school seems like a long time ago now,” she says.

  “Wait till you’re my age.”

  Lucy laughs. “It’s funny, all the things that seem like the end-of-the-world but really aren’t.”

  “We overblow every problem we have, I think.”

  Her face darkens. “Not every problem.”

  “No, you’re right.” Sometimes I am a complete idiot. “Not every problem.”

  She shakes her head. “Where do you think Adam is?”

  “I’m going to find out,” I say. “When you’re done, I’m headed out to campus again tonight.”

  “Tonight?” She gives me a look. “Nobody is going to want to talk to you. They’ll all be getting ready to go out.”

  “I can be convincing.”

  “Or annoying,” Roy says, suddenly beside me. “Two pretzels, Bernie.”

  Bernie doesn’t hear him. His eyes are glued to his laptop.

  Roy gives me a look. “You see this?”

  “Earth to Bernie,” I say. “Roy is ordering two pretzels.”

  “Creating here.” Bernie points at his laptop. “Just give me a second.”

  Roy shakes his head. “In my father’s day, you’d be working on the back of a turnip truck.”

  “You mean in your day,” Bernie retorts.

  “Bernie,” I say patiently. “Hop to and get the man his pretzels.”

  “He’s not really a paying customer,” Bernie says. “So he can wait a moment, right?”

  I haven’t charged Roy or Wally full price for a table in years. They were friends with Pop and have been coming here a long time. They’ve opened for me and closed for me in a pinch. They’re kind of like loving uncles, in their own way.

  “They’re family, Bernie. Now get the man his pretzels.”

  “Alright, alright,” Bernie says, finally tearing his eyes from the screen.

  I turn back to Lucy. “Okay, Olympian, are you ready to …”

  She looks stricken.

  Her eyes on her phone.

  “What is it?”

  She shakes her head and puts the back of her hand against her mouth. Lucy pushes the phone into my hands.

  “Read it.”

  It’s an email.

  Stop talking, bitch.

  Sixteen

  Bernie, a self-professed computer genius, gets to work on the anonymous hate email. I don’t follow what he’s doing but he’s somehow able to identify the IP address where the email originated, or at least was routed through. He throws a lot of internet jargon at me, all of which sails over my head.

  “Poor girl,” Roy says.

  I nod. “She’s got a lot going on.”

  Roy looks past me, toward the office where Lucy is waiting. “Boy trouble?”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Yeah,” Bernie cuts in. “That’s all I can figure. The IP address is near the college, best I can do.”

  “Thanks, Bernie.”

  “Thanks for being useful for a change,” Roy says.

  Bernie whiffs the air. “You guys smell that?”

  “Smell what?” I ask.

  “That’s the smell of your pretzels not cooking,” Bernie says. “I’ll get them when I free up.”

  Roy gives me a pleading look.

  “You are busting his balls, Roy,” I say. “He’s going to give it back to you.”

  “What happened to the customer is always right?”

  “You’re not really a customer.”

  “So this is the new cost of playing here? Putting up with Bernie?”

  “If I have to …”

  I take Lucy’s phone from Bernie and head back to the office. She looks up at me, her skin still glistening with sweat.

  “It’s from somebody at school,” I say.

  She nods.

  Delicately, I say, “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  “Because it’s an odd message coming from Adam.”

  She looks away. The determined young woman from earlier, who just swam the hell out of a mile and who just raced the hell out of twenty-five miles on a bike, has retreated back into the protective shell of this meek, nervous person.

  “Did you talk to somebody about Brody?” I ask.

  “I had to tell somebody,” she says. “I couldn’t just keep that in.”

  “I understand.”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything. I knew nothing good would come of it.”

  “If you talk to me, good things will come of it. I promise.”

  “I didn’t know who else to call,” she says desperately. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “So you called Lori.”

  She looks at me and nods.

  “Because you two used to be really close,” I say. “It makes sense.”

  “It was stupid.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was cruel of her to tell somebody else.” I fold my arms. “Why do you think she would do that?”

  “I can’t believe she did.”

  “Tell me why she did.” I lean against the door. “Does she have feelings for Brody?”

  “No.” She says it like it’s utterly impossible. “Absolutely not.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.” Her face reddens. “Maybe I said something in front of somebody else, you know? I was still drunk when I woke up the next day, maybe I just …”

  Her voice trails off and I can see her falling down the rabbit hole of a traumatic memory.

  “Let’s go for a run,” I say. “Right now.”

  She doesn’t look at me. “I just want to go home.”

  “Lucy.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “Are you going to let them stop you?”

  Finally she meets my eyes. She speaks in a weak, trembling voice, but her words are powerful:

  “No.”

  ***

  Instead of driving, I opt for Lucy’s bike. I haven’t ridden a bike, never mind a sleek fine piece of equipment like this, in many, many moons. So I need a few minutes to get my balance back, and then we’re off. Lucy sets the pace and we head up the road and bang a left into the development.

  She’s fast.

  I mean, fast.

  When I look at her, it’s like she’s hardly moving. But if I focus on her feet, I can see how quickly she’s turning them over. The plan was to loop through the neighborhood a few times and get to three miles, but she just keeps going and we start over. She’s running hard as dusk settles over the town, the sky golden and purple, and though I’m not winded riding
the bike, I can definitely feel it in my legs just keeping up with her. Her jog is my sprint, and her sprint is my riding a bike.

  We push on. Lucy’s stride gets a little sloppy, but who the hell am I to judge? She’s closing in on six miles. I haven’t run six miles since my Marine days, and I was never this fast, not even with a drill sergeant up my ass.

  As we near the end of our final loop, she kicks it up a notch. I’m amazed. After all the swimming and cycling and running, she taps into that hidden gear and she’s flying. It’s a dead sprint, and she’s moving dangerously fast down the road. One wobbly step and she nearly goes down, but somehow she rights herself and pushes through the final stretch. When I catch up to her, she’s bent at the waist with her hands on her thighs. Huffing and puffing.

  “Great run, kid,” I say.

  “They’re not going to stop me,” she gasps. “They’re not.”

  Seventeen

  On the way back to Lucy’s place, we get snagged in rush hour. The long ride is good because it gives me time to think and also bad because it gives Lucy time to think.

  “So how’d you do?” I ask.

  My question pulls her from a deep, brooding place. She stops looking out the window.

  “What?”

  “With the triathlon you just completed,” I say.

  “Oh.” She thinks about it. “The swim was good. I need to shave a few minutes off the bike and a couple off my run. I think that’ll do it.”

  “Six weeks is plenty of time.”

  “It’s really three weeks,” she says. “I have to taper before the qualifier.”

  “Three weeks is plenty of time.”

  “Sure it is.” She flashes a surprising smile. “If you’re sitting behind a steering wheel.”

  “Touche.” I make the right onto Meetinghouse Road and we’re free of the rush hour. “Do me a favor tonight. Put together a training schedule and send it to me. I need to find coverage for the pool hall.”

  “You’ve got Bernie.”

  I laugh. “I also have an appendix, which I don’t really need and if it gets infected, it could kill me.”

  She laughs too. “He seems nice.”

  “Bernie?” I look at her incredulously. “The guy working the register?”

  She nods. “I guess I’m just tired of jocks and frat brothers.”

  “I’m not your father, but I forbid you from dating Bernie.”

  This gets a belly laugh. “He’s not my type anyway.”

  “What is your type?”

  She gives me a look. “Not him.”

  I don’t understand the look, but I don’t push it because it seems weird talking to her about her dating preferences and what she looks for in men.

  “Are you running, swimming, or biking tomorrow?” I ask.

  She shakes her head as we pull up to her house. “Day off.”

  “Alright. If you need to get out of the house and go somewhere, give me a buzz.”

  “Thanks, Greg.”

  When I stop the car, she reaches across the seat and gives me a hug. Before she gets out of the car, the front door opens and I see her mother. Mary waves and comes out. Mother and daughter hug briefly on the sidewalk, then Mary walks to the car. I power the passenger window down.

  “How is she?” Mary asks.

  “She’s tough,” I say. “She’s a fighter.”

  Mary shakes her head. “Why do I feel like we lost today in court?”

  “I wouldn’t say we lost,” I answer.

  “Maybe not.” She looks me dead in the eye. “But we didn’t win either.”

  “No,” I admit. “We didn’t.”

  “Do you want to come in for dinner?”

  “I’d love to, but I’m headed out.”

  “Headed out where?”

  “I’m going back to campus to talk to some people.”

  “Who?”

  I put the car in PARK. “Mary, is there something you want to tell me?”

  She feigns confusion, but I see right through it. “No.”

  “Come on. Whatever it is, I might need to know.”

  “I don’t know this for sure, because Lucy doesn’t ever want to talk about it, but I think she and Lori fell out over a boy.”

  I think about it, replay my earlier conversation with Lucy in my mind. “I asked her that flat out and she denied it. Either she’s a great liar, or she’s telling the truth.”

  Mary lowers her voice. “She came over once when Lucy came home for the weekend. When I asked Lucy about her boyfriend, Lori reacted strangely.”

  “Back up,” I say. “I thought Lucy didn’t have much experience with boys. Who was she dating?”

  “Remember earlier I mentioned that boy Brody?”

  “Yeah, I do …” But this makes no sense at all.

  Mary senses my confusion. “Why do you say it like that?”

  I don’t answer. “This was a few months ago?”

  Mary nods. “Early in the semester.”

  I’m tempted to go inside and corner Lucy until she explains to me what the hell is going on. But she’s had a hard day. I suspect she and Brody were just fooling around a few months ago and instead of completely lying to her mother, Lucy dressed it up like they were boyfriend/girlfriend.

  “What do you mean Lori reacted strangely?”

  “It was like she was … jealous. That’s what I thought at the time.”

  More to chew on.

  “Alright, I gotta hit the road, Mary.”

  ***

  I let rush hour die down a little bit, stop at a chain for a burger and beer, then get back on the road. No matter how I go, I’ve got a little bit of a ride and time to think.

  As far as I know, Lucy was never dating Brody. And I believed Lucy when she said her falling out with Lori had nothing to do with a boy. So why then—

  My phone buzzes. It’s my ex.

  “Hey, Lorelei.”

  “Greg. Your daughter is driving me nuts.”

  “Why is she just my daughter when she’s driving you nuts?”

  My little quip gets her to chuckle. But that’s all. “Do you remember that sweet little girl we used to have?”

  “Fondly.”

  “She’s been replaced by a teenager.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. It’s happened. She turns thirteen and it’s like somebody flipped a switch. I don’t know who she is anymore.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m glad I didn’t take that job in Maryland last year,” she says suddenly. “Then I’d be dealing with this without your help.”

  “Wow,” I say. “Guess that’s a compliment.”

  “I guess it is.” She blows out a big breath. “Nothing happened tonight, this is more just a general gripe.”

  “How about I take her out tomorrow night?” I ask. “Maybe—”

  “Don’t say a movie,” Lorelei jumps in.

  “I wasn’t going to say a movie,” I utterly lie.

  “Take her out for dinner. Get her to open to you. I’m afraid we’re …”

  My ex-wife is suddenly choked up.

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “Don’t mind me. It’s just hard. She used to be this sweet girl, who never said a bad thing about anybody. And now all she does is talk back and challenge me on everything.”

  “These are all normal things,” I say, which is absolutely the worst damned thing to say, and I know it before my ex even responds.

  “Oh, really? Thank you, Dr. Spock. That makes dealing with this so much easier, Greg. So when she yells at me about not wanting to do the dishes, I’ll just remind myself that this is normal and everything will be fine.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “You’re right. It’s hard. I can’t even imagine. I’ve only caught the brunt of it once and I was totally unprepared for it.”

  She laughs. “Do you remember how we used to worry about her?”

  “We’ve worried about so many things, and most of them turned out to be nothing
.”

  “I know. But do you remember how we used to think people would walk all over her, because she was so nice?”

  “Guess we didn’t have to worry.”

  “Nope.”

  “Takes after her mother.”

  “Takes after her father!”

  I laugh. “She got what few good parts there are in me, and what many good parts there are in you.”

  “I heard the news,” she says. “I’m glad Lucy got the restraining order.”

  I sigh. “It’s just a piece of paper.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I bring her up to speed on the case. Then, “I’ve got to find this kid.”

  “This is where I say be careful.”

  “This is where I make a quip about how the other guy should be careful.”

  “And this is where I remind you you have a daughter and a whole life.”

  “And this is where I try to change the subject.”

  We go on like this for another minute, then the conversation begins to wind down. We say our goodbyes and I’ve still got some time before I get to campus, so I call Tammy.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Don’t sound so happy to hear from me.”

  “Sorry. It’s just Mom being Mom.”

  “Hey.” I put a little steel in my voice. “That’s enough about your mother. You can be upset with her as much as you want, but I don’t want you speaking disrespectfully about her. She works really hard and takes care of you.”

  “I know,” she admits. “But it’s still difficult living with her. I mean, she tells me what to do and how to do everything, like I’m a complete idiot. I mean, who cares if my bedroom is messy, it’s not like I’ve suddenly turned into an F student and it’s not like I’ve turned into a slut or anything. It’s just clothes on the floor. Who cares!”

  Whoa.

  “Honey, slow down there.”

  “Dad, you know what she’s like,” Tammy says. “She probably did the same thing to you, always telling you what to do and how to do it, I mean it’s just endless.”

  The truth?

  Yes. That’s what Lorelei did to me.

  But there are two sides to every story. Lorelei had plenty of her own complaints about me, and in the end we both admitted we weren’t best for each other. We separated as amicably as any two people can, but sometimes I still feel bitter about certain things she did.