Someone Is Watching

by Joy Fielding

  Reason enough to get rid of it.

  I head back to the bedroom and retrieve the scissors from the top drawer of my nightstand, then return to the bathroom and impulsively begin hacking at what was once my crowning glory, slicing it off in clumps and tossing fistfuls of it to the tile floor. I continue recklessly, not stopping until all that remains of my once luxurious locks has been reduced to barely more than stubble, a five o’clock shadow run amok.

  When I’m done, I drop the scissors to the counter and stare at my handiwork, my energy spent. “Holy shit,” I whisper.

  In the movies, when the anguished heroine chops off all her hair, she somehow manages to look as if she just emerged from a high-end salon, her hair short but expertly and stylishly layered, her new do even more fetching than her previous one. Not so in real life, I realize, staring at the mess I have made. “Holy shit,” I say again. What else is there to say?

  Overwhelmed by exhaustion, I collapse on top of my bed, turning back on the volume of my TV and watching as a woman wearing a billowing white bridal gown wades into a river, laughing happily, a photographer running along beside her on the shore. I hold my breath, knowing what is about to transpire. I remember reading about the growing trend of brides to do something outrageous in the way of wedding pictures, how this trashing of tradition has become all the rage. I watch the unsuspecting bride’s gown become waterlogged, the weight of her dress ultimately dragging the now-struggling woman beneath the water’s surface. I’m asleep before the announcer can tell me where her tragic drowning stands in the pantheon of 1000 Ways to Die.

  I turn on my side and tumble into a dream. I’m running down a sun-drenched street, pursued by half a dozen faceless men. They chase me to the edge of the ocean and I wade in, quickly becoming weighed down by both my billowy white skirt and the heavy blue waves. There is a raft in the distance, and I swim toward it, sharks gathering beneath my feet. I pick up the pace of my strokes, not noticing until I am mere feet from the raft that there is a man lying on top of it. He sits up, his silhouette familiar although his face is blocked by the glare of the sun. He extends his gloved hand toward me. “No!” I scream, flailing about helplessly in the water, my clothes wrapping around me like duct tape as a giant fin breaks through the ocean’s surface, and hundreds of scissorslike teeth rip into my flesh.

  Which is when I jolt awake.

  “Damn it.” I glance over at the clock, realizing that barely ten minutes have passed. A whole night of bad dreams to look forward to. I run my hand through what remains of my hair, deciding to go to the hairdresser’s on Monday. Maybe they’ll be able to do something. Maybe it’s not as bad as I think. I walk into the bathroom and once again confront my reflection in the mirror. It’s exactly as bad as I think.

  I splash water on my face, debate taking a shower, then decide against it. I’ve regressed enough for one night.

  What was it Jade once said—that we have recurrent nightmares for a reason?

  So what exactly are these dreams trying to tell me?

  “Probably that I’m watching too much damn TV,” I say as the phone rings.

  This time I’m so sure it’s Jade that I don’t even bother to check the caller ID. “No, you cannot stay out past midnight,” I say instead of hello.

  “Miss Carpenter,” the familiar voice says. “It’s Finn from the concierge desk. Wes just arrived for his shift, and he asked me to tell you that as soon as he changes into his uniform, he’ll be up to check out that sofa bed.”

  A feeling of dread immediately worms its way into the pit of my stomach, and I swallow a growing panic. Don’t be silly, I tell myself. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Wes’s visit is not unexpected. Jade made these arrangements with him days ago.

  Except Jade isn’t home, and I’m alone.

  And a young man is on his way up to my apartment, a young man who’s always made me feel vaguely uncomfortable, a young man of average height and weight, a young man with brown hair and a familiar voice, a young man whose breath occasionally smells of mouthwash.… “Oh, God.”

  “Miss Carpenter, is everything all right?”

  I forgot I was still on the phone. “Could you come up with him?” I ask suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Please. Could you come up with him?”

  “I’m just about to go off shift,” Finn says, lowering his voice. “I’m meeting this girl.…”

  “Please.”

  “Sure thing,” he agrees quickly. “What am I supposed to say to Wes?”

  “Just tell him you’re interested in the sofa, too.”

  “He’s not gonna be very happy.…”

  “Finn …”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  “Thank you.” I hang up the phone, knowing I’m being ridiculous, that Wes is almost certainly not the man who raped me.

  Except.

  What if he is?

  There’s nothing to worry about, I assure myself as I proceed down the hall. I’m being paranoid, bouncing from one extreme to the other, from not being able to focus to focusing too much. Instead of letting go of what happened to me, I’m hanging on tighter than ever. But this is just a temporary setback. Elizabeth Gordon warned me to expect this, that my journey back to normalcy would not be a smooth one.

  So I stand in front of my apartment door, bracing myself for Wes’s arrival, praying that Finn won’t let me down. Staring through the peephole, I watch as, minutes later, the elevator arrives and the two young men step out, Wes in his uniform, Finn in street clothes. My breath tightens as they draw near. I open the door.

  “Sweet Jesus!” Finn exclaims.

  “What the hell happened to your hair?” Wes asks in the same moment.

  Their words combine and overlap, floating toward me on a breath of spearmint, threatening to topple me to the marble floor. I will myself to stand firm. “I … I felt like a change,” I mumble as I usher them inside.

  “You did that on purpose?” Wes sputters.

  “It looks nice,” Finn offers weakly. “Different. It’ll just take a bit of getting used to.”

  Wes shoots him a look that says, You’re as crazy as she is. “Is Jade here?” He glances uneasily down the hallway. My appearance has clearly unnerved him.

  “She went out about eight o’clock,” Finn tells him. “Said she was going to a party.”

  “She should be back soon,” I add.

  A moment of uncomfortable silence.

  “Think we could have a look at that sofa now?” Wes asks.

  Tell me what you see, my mother whispers in my ear.

  I see a man who looks decidedly ill at ease in his neatly pressed khaki pants and short-sleeved, forest-green shirt, skinny arms hanging awkwardly at his sides, his hands too small and delicate to have fit so easily around my throat.

  But I know all too well that appearances can be deceiving, that in order to really “see,” sometimes you have to look beneath the surface, to spot the sharks lurking just below.

  “Of course. It’s right this way.” I lead the two men down the hall toward Jade’s bedroom.

  “How much do you want for it?” Wes asks, examining the sofa carefully.

  “I was thinking maybe three hundred dollars.”

  “Pretty good deal,” Finn says, running his hands across the top of its corduroy surface. “Color doesn’t really work for my place.” He offers me a slight, conspiratorial smile.

  “Would you take two hundred?” Wes asks.

  “Sure,” I agree quickly. It’s worth at least ten times that, but I’d almost give it to him for nothing to get him out of my apartment as fast as possible.

  “Great. It’s a deal.” Wes is about to extend his hand for me to shake, then obviously thinks better of it. “Well, I should probably get to work. Just let me know when I can pick it up.” He walks back down the hall to the front door.

  “Thank you,” I whisper to Finn as we follow after him.

  “No problem,” he whispers back, leaning his
head toward me as Wes opens the door.

  Which is when I catch the whiff of mouthwash on Finn’s breath.

  It’s nothing, I tell myself. They probably keep a bottle of the stuff in the concierge office, and Finn already told me he’s meeting someone, so it’s only natural he’d use it to freshen up after his shift. He was just going off duty when I all but insisted he accompany Wes up here, which is why he’s dressed in street clothes and not the uniform I’m used to seeing him in.

  My eyes absorb his casual attire, from his navy cotton sweater to his dark blue jeans. How different he looks out of his uniform. My heartbeat quickens. There’s nothing sinister, or even unusual, about the fact he’s wearing jeans. What young man doesn’t wear jeans? He’s just exchanged one uniform for another. My eyes continue down his legs toward the black sneakers on his feet. The familiar Nike swoosh winks up at me obscenely.

  I gasp and stagger back.

  “Miss Carpenter?” he asks. “Is something wrong? Are you all right?”

  “Is there a problem?” Wes asks from the exterior hallway.

  “You better get to work,” Finn tells him. “I can take care of everything here.” He pushes the door closed with his hand.

  For the first time, I’m aware of what big hands he has.

  “Miss Carpenter? What’s wrong?”

  She went out about eight o’clock, he said earlier, referring to my niece. Said she was going to a party. Who has better knowledge of my comings and goings? Who better to keep track of my every move?

  He’s staring at me with genuine concern in his eyes. I realize he has no idea what’s going on in my head. And why should he? More than three months have passed since that night. He feels safe and invulnerable. He has no idea what I saw then, no idea what I’m seeing now.

  Tell me what you see.

  I see a not-quite-handsome man of average height and weight, with brown hair, a man between the ages of twenty and forty, wearing blue jeans and black sneakers bearing the iconic Nike swoosh.

  But I speak to Finn almost every day. How is it possible I wouldn’t have recognized his voice, even one he buried inside a low and angry growl?

  Except maybe I did recognize it, I determine, as one thought falls quickly on top of the next, each thought occupying less than a fraction of a second. I recall the many times we’ve spoken since the night I was raped, my panic each time he announced himself on the phone, the anxiety I experienced each time I saw him. I attributed those feelings to whatever else was going on around me at the time, but maybe my anxiety was because of him. Maybe my subconscious knew all along that he is the man who raped me.

  Tell me what you see, my mother says again.

  I look deeper.

  I see the sharks of my nightmares circling my feet, their fins gliding ever closer. Finally I realize what they’ve been trying to tell me.

  His name: Finn.

  “Miss Carpenter, are you all right?” he asks again.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him quietly.

  “You’re sure? You don’t look so good.”

  “I just felt a bit faint there for a minute.” I force a smile onto my lips as I lift my eyes to his. “I’m okay now.”

  “You’re kind of pale.”

  “I’m fine. Really. You should go. You have plans.”

  “They can wait.”

  “No. Please. I feel guilty enough about making you come up here. You should go.”

  He shrugs. “Okay … if you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  He turns toward the door, hesitates, then turns back. Our eyes lock.

  He knows that I know.

  We move at the same moment, almost as if everything has been choreographed in advance. He lunges at me as I vault out of his reach and race down the hall toward my bedroom. He’s right behind me, his hands stretching toward my shirt. He grabs hold of it just as we cross the threshold, and he spins me around, effortlessly lifting me into the air and sending the scream emanating from my mouth flying uselessly off in all directions. Somehow I manage to struggle out of his grasp, flailing at him with my feet, trying desperately to evade his fists, his fury. We fall to the floor.

  “You know you can’t get away with this,” I manage to spit out. “Wes knows you’re here.…”

  “He knows you’re crazy!” Finn shoots back. “The whole building knows that.” He pushes himself to his feet, looming menacingly over me. “And crazy people do crazy things. They make unfounded accusations, they attack people who are only trying to help them, people who have no choice but to defend themselves.…”

  Is this what he’s planning to do? To kill me and somehow make it look as if it were an accident?

  “I had no choice,” he whines plaintively, as if already rehearsing what he’s going to tell the police. “She came at me. I pushed her away. She fell back … hit her head …” He reaches down and grabs hold of my arms, pulls me back up.

  I will my body not to resist, allowing it to go slack, as my self-defense classes have trained me to do. Only when I’m on my feet, do I suddenly lash out, my knee slamming into his groin. He doubles over, gasping for air and letting go of my arms. I run around the bed, searching for the binoculars I left on the floor earlier. I’m reaching for them as he comes at me again. My fingers surround them as he throws me down and flips me over. I haul back and bring the binoculars crashing down hard against the side of his head.

  It stuns him, but still isn’t enough to stop him. As I struggle to my feet, he grabs hold of my legs, trying to drag me down as I stumble into the bathroom.

  I’m reaching out to break my fall, to steady myself against the countertop, when I feel the scissors that are lying on top of a pile of my discarded hair. I grab them as Finn lunges at me again, his hands reaching for my throat. I plunge the scissors deep into his gut.

  “You crazy bitch,” he mutters in disbelief. Then he crumples to the floor at my feet.

  I stand there for several seconds before walking back into the bedroom and calling downstairs, asking Wes to phone 9-1-1. Then I sit down on the bed and wait calmly for the police and paramedics to arrive.

  —

  My niece arrives home at just before midnight. The ambulance has already taken Finn to the hospital for emergency surgery, and the forensic team is wrapping up. Heath came running back as soon as I called to tell him what happened, and he’s been here ever since. “Holy shit,” Jade says as he fills her in. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute.”

  It’s almost two A.M. before the police are satisfied and I’m able to convince Heath he can go home. They’ll probably want to question me again in the morning, Detective Marx informs me, and I tell her that’s fine with me. We can go over everything as often as she likes. She asks me again if I’d like to go to the hospital, and again I decline. Nothing is broken. At least nothing that X-rays will be able to reveal.

  Even though the man who raped me is now in police custody, I’m not so naïve as to believe that everything has been miraculously resolved. I know I’ll still suffer episodes of post-traumatic shock, some familiar, some new, as a result of tonight’s events. I almost killed a man. And contrary to my earlier fantasies, I derived neither pleasure nor satisfaction from the act. I can still feel the awful reverberation of those scissors in my hand as they plunged deep into Finn’s flesh.

  I know I’ll still endure moments of panic and paralysis. I’ll still have nightmares, although at least now the man chasing me will have a face. And a name. The sharks will no longer find it necessary to swim beneath my feet.

  And I know something else: that I am not powerless, that I can fight back, that I can win.

  I have no idea how long it will be before I feel truly normal again, if ever, before I’ll be able to experience pleasure at a man’s touch, to trust others. I know I have a long way to go. Elizabeth Gordon and I will keep working on it.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, watching as Jade climbs into my bed.

  “I’m sleeping with you
until my new bed gets here.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I’m not doing it for you,” she says. “Your bed is way more comfortable than that thing I’ve been sleeping on.”

  Claire was right about one thing: For all Jade’s bravado, she’s really not half as tough as she pretends to be.

  “Holy shit,” she says, as she said earlier.

  I crawl into bed beside her. “I know. It’s all pretty incredible.”

  She cuddles up beside me, lays a protective hand across my hip. “I was talking about your hair.”

  To my favorite people in the whole world:

  Warren, Shannon, Annie, Renee, Courtney, Hayden, and Skylar

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It’s been a tough road getting this book to print. As most of my readers know, I’ve been putting out a book a year for the past fourteen years. But last year marked the end of my long association with my American publishers, which upset my normal schedule. I’m thrilled to announce my new association with Ballantine Books (an imprint of Random House) and hope our partnership is both long and fruitful. With that in mind, I have a number of people to thank, starting with supporters of long standing: Brad Martin, Nita Pronovost, Kristin Cochrane, Adria Iwasutiak, Val Gow, Martha Leonard, and the rest of the truly wonderful crew at Doubleday, Canada (a division of Random House), all of whom have been exceptional in their advice, guidance, and encouragement. Nita, in particular, is an author’s dream editor—caring, diligent, and sharp as a tack. She doesn’t let me get away with a thing, and for that I’m very grateful; my agent, Tracy Fisher, and her assistant, James Munro, at William Morris Endeavor, who work tirelessly on my behalf and have seen me through a sometimes difficult year with grace and tact; and to my various publishers around the world, all of whom continue to be tremendously supportive and enthusiastic. While I can’t name you all personally, I thank each and every one of you for the wonderful work you continue to do, including translating and publicity. I’ve established strong connections with many of you individually and love the fact that we communicate throughout the year via email on matters both professional and personal. I hope to see all of you in person soon so I can thank you again face to face.