The Voyeur Next Door (3 page)

I have always liked watching. I like seeing how people interact and behave alone and in groups. I like wondering what they’re talking about and what they’re thinking. As a child, I was the lone kid on the playground, the one that said nothing, but stared at the others as they ran and played. I was okay with that. I never cared that I wasn’t picked for teams, or asked to play skip rope. While I wasn’t some creepy shut in that liked collecting strands of my classmate’s hairs to make dolls, I didn’t go out of my way to make friends either. I still don’t. Friends are great, except I never know what to do with them. I see other people and it all seems so natural. They laugh and talk and make plans to talk and laugh some more at a later date. I would probably throw a fry at them and hope they were distracted enough not to notice me running away.

So I stayed home. When I did have to interact, I did so cautiously and tried not to make any sudden movements. Occasionally, I could even have full on conversations with people without anyone getting hurt. But I liked my solitary life. I cherished it even.

My apartment was designed by someone with no concept of measurements. Everything was done in extremes. The living room was barely big enough for a sofa, while the only bedroom was enormous. The kitchen was small, but the single bathroom could fit an entire Russian circus. The closet in the hall could have doubled as a second bedroom if it hadn’t been so narrow, while the pantry in the kitchen could barely hold a stack of towels. I was only thankful no one ever came to visit me or it would have been hard to explain why my bedroom was in the living room and why my living room was in my bedroom, or why all my food was in the closet down the hall near the bathroom and my towels were in my kitchen. It all worked fine for me, but I knew it wasn’t normal.

Tossing my keys and purse onto the glass table I kept by the front door, I kicked off my sandals and made my way into the bedroom. It was a short walk down a minute hall that split off in three separate directions. Right to the kitchen. Left to the living room and bathroom, and straight for the bedroom. My toes curled in the plush carpet that extended from wall to wall. Underneath it was the scarred hardwood that came with the place. But after a week of waking up to use the bathroom and having to tiptoe on what felt like a sheet of ice, I said screw it and splurged on a carpet. Best investment ever.

My bedroom was my favorite spot in the whole place and it showed. It was designed for comfort and easy access to everything. My queen sized bed faced the TV I had mounted over a glass set of shelves holding my DVD player and surround sound. On one side of the bed was my mini fridge. The other held an end table with a lamp and the remotes to the TV. The terrace doors were on the other side of my bed, draped in sheer curtains. On the opposite side of the room, against the wall that separated the bedroom from the kitchen was my vanity. Everything was within reach.

I stripped. I rarely saw the point of being dressed at home. There was no one there to judge me for the way I looked, or what shape I was in. It was my place of sanctuary. Plus there was something liberating about eating a cup of pudding completely naked.

At a little after six, I drew on a robe, turned off the TV and wandered into the kitchen for a bowl of something. My pantry consisted mostly of things that could easily be warmed, cans of soup, microwavable dinners, the occasional canisters of squeeze cheese. I lived for one person. Me. If I wanted to cook a full meal, I had the luxury of running to the grocery store, grabbing the items and coming home. But those desires were rare. As it were, I grabbed a bowl of cereal and made my way to the terrace.

Seven o’clock was when my neighbors came home. It was when the dark windows lit up and life happened on the other side of the glass. I treated seven o’clock the way soap opera junkies treated their favorite sitcoms, with reverence and excitement.

The steel hoops embedded into the curtains hissed as I dragged the sheer drapes across the metal rod. I propped the glass doors open to the muggy evening and leaned a hip against the frame.

It was still fairly bright out. The sun was just making its final descent behind the buildings, but the narrow notch of space that I considered my little world had shadows slinking their way across the bricks. The lights from the other apartments were sharper, brighter, casting the figures inside into edgy silhouettes.

There were eighteen apartments. Each floor had three windows stamped into the side. I had given each one a name, which periodically changed as the occupants did. For example, in the three months I’d lived there, no one had ever rented the apartment adjacent to mine so that had come to be known as the Empty. Levels one, two, and three were impossible to see into from my sixth floor view. So that left me four, five and six. Four was iffy. I could only see about six feet into their apartments. But five and six were gold and that was where my favorite people lived.

Window one, top row: Old Man and Young Girl I had assumed for the first three weeks were father and daughter. So. Not. I learned that the hard way while eating spicy curry and nearly dying when he heaved the girl against the glass and started fucking her.

Window two, top row: Empty.

Window three, top row: Crazy Jungle Couple who fought like piranha’s over fresh meat and made love just as intensely. They were better to watch than WWE on pay per view. I always had popcorn ready for when they got home. It was impossible to tell how the night would end.

Window one, second row: an Asian Couple with Little Girl. Watching them made me nostalgic for my own family, but then the girl would cry and throw things and that feeling would go away.

Window two, second row: Slutty Blonde with copious number of lovers. That week, she was banging the occupant of window three, second row, Handsome Dark Haired Dude with a beer belly but a seriously massive cock.

Row three was full of families.

Window one, row three: Single Mother with Little Boy. I would occasionally see him sitting at the window with his hand held game, munching on carrot sticks.

Window two, row three: Man and Woman with Twin Ghost Daughters. I was convinced those two girls were from
The Shining
. Creepy little shits. Every so often, I would look down and they’d just be standing there … staring back. Not blinking. It made it even creepier that they were both extremely pale with dead eyes and long dark hair. I shuddered every time my gaze roamed over their window.

Window three, row three: Large, Hairy Man with a deeper love of microwavable food than me, who spent a large portion of his time in his recliner watching football. I had a feeling he was a gambler, simply from the fits he’d always have when his team lost. It was irrational. But then what did I know about men and sports? Maybe he just had rage issues. Yet that didn’t explain why he’d get on the phone immediately afterwards and shout at whoever was on the other end. But that also could be explained. Maybe he had a friend somewhere else equally pissed and the two were venting to each other.

The fun was always in the guessing.

That evening, only three of the windows lit up. Old Man and Hopefully Not His Daughter came home first. She sauntered into the living room, tossed her bright, pink purse down on the sofa and flopped down next to it. Old Man ambled his way into the kitchen and yanked open the fridge.

No fucking tonight,
I thought, shifting my gaze to the other two windows.

The Ghost Girls were back in their lacy, purple dresses, white stockings and jet black hairs. They stood shoulder to shoulder with their backs to the window. Their dad was hanging up their matching red coats in the hallway closet. Mom wasn’t home yet. She was a secretary, or a lawyer. She didn’t get home until about eleven, stooped over like her briefcase was filled with bricks.

The third window gave me a start. The presence of the pale, golden glow took my brain a full minute to process and even it knew something wasn’t right.

Window two, top row: wasn’t empty. There was movement behind the curtains. There was light!

“Holy shit!”

Cereal bowl abandoned on the glass table next to the terrace doors, I stepped further onto the balcony. My fingers curled around the cool metal railing and I leaned in as far as I could without forgetting my not Cat woman notion and making the lunge over.

But as quickly as all the excitement had started, it sparked in surprise when the light flicked off and there was nothing. My gaze darted from the windows to the glass doors, waiting like an eager little puppy begging someone to throw the fucking ball already.

Nothing happened. The lights remained off. Stillness continued.

My gaze narrowed as I straightened. “All right,” I mumbled to the silence. “You win this round, but tomorrow…”

I let my promise linger into the night as I stepped back into my apartment.

Gabriel

People were idiots. People on Tuesdays somehow managed to be worse. It was astounding, the number of morons that went through life every day without managing to get themselves killed. Unfortunately for me, they were the ones that always found their way into my shop at the butt crack of dawn, rambling on about things that made my eye twitch and my brain hurt. I’m a mechanic. I don’t give a shit about your rat-looking purse dog’s appointment to the vet to get his anal glands squeezed. It’s not my problem that you waited until Tuesday to get your damn car fixed, or that it overlaps with your rat’s appointment. My job is to make sure your car doesn’t explode one day and kill innocent bystanders. That’s it.

“Ma’am.” The sheer force of my restraint creaked through the clenched lines of my jaw. “Your car will be ready, when it’s ready.”

Even with dark glasses that resembled insect eyes, I could feel the wrath of her squinting. Her little purse dog yipped like a mindless little rodent against her side. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to boot physically out the door more.

“How do you not know?”

The woman had this voice that was a mix between a chirpy bird and a spoiled little girl. It was giving me a migraine.

“Simple. You don’t have an appointment, which means I have two other cars before yours. Second, I have to see what’s wrong with it. Third, I might need to order parts to fix whatever’s wrong with it. Fourth, I have to install it. All of those things take time and my crystal ball is at the shop.”

Over injected lips pursed. “You were recommended,” she stated, like that was somehow my fault. “By a very dear friend whose opinion I value, so I’m going to let your attitude slide. But maybe in the future, if you want to keep customers happy, you might not want be so rude.”

Her stupid little dog gave a yip of confirmation as its owner swirled on her neon pink pumps and flounced through the maze of machines towards the bay doors. I watched her walk away, part of me wondering if I would get karma points taken away, or added, if I killed her.

“Still nothing?”

Grandpa Earl scuffled up next to my hip, his brown eyes fixed on the bright stain of sunshine spilling through the open doors.

I knew what, or rather,
whom
he was waiting for and my irritation level spiked.

“She’s not coming,” I muttered. “I told you that.”

“She could have changed her mind,” Earl grumbled. “And it’s your fault if she doesn’t come.”

I didn’t have time for that. I had two cars up on their lifts and another waiting to get looked at, plus about two tons of paperwork that needed filing and an apartment that needed unpacking. My grandpa’s latest crush was the least of my concerns.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Ali,” was Earl’s response.

I walked away.

Nope. No patience at all.

Fuck Tuesdays.

“Want me to call Lloyd in?”

Across the garage, wiping the grease off a lug nut, Mac stared back at me with squinty, brown eyes.

I shook my head. “No, it’s only three cars. We can do it. How are you coming along on that jeep?”

Mac shrugged bony shoulders. “All right. Just finished rotating the tires. Going to check the fuel and I’ll be done.”

“Then you take rat lady’s Porsche,” I decided, jerking a thumb over my shoulder to where the shiny, red convertible sat roasting in the sun. “I’ll finish the truck.”

Mac gave me the thumbs up and went back to screwing the bolts into the jeep.

The truck needed more work. It was a full day job and those were the kind I liked. Minor fixes throughout the day got exhausting. But I thrived on single minded focus. It made the day go by quicker. At one point, I was conscious of Mac pulling the Porsche onto the lift in the trench next to mine, but didn’t glance over. I couldn’t even be certain how much time had passed until the clip of hurried feet interrupted my quiet.

If it was that damn woman and her yippy dog, I was going to hit something.

Nevertheless, I hauled myself out of the hole and rose to greet the intruder.

“You!”

Ali blinked behind square, black framed glasses. “I’m pretty sure I introduced myself yesterday,” she stated brazenly. “I’m also pretty sure I didn’t say my name was
you
.”

What the hell was she doing back? I was certain I had successfully run her off and yet, there she was in her flowy, floral printed dress and sandals. There was a grocery bag hanging from her fingertips and an enormous purse strapped across her chest. What was worse was her hair. I couldn’t tell exactly what color it was, but it was a chaotic mess of brown, dark brown, even darker brown, some strips of possibly red and even hints of gold. I wasn’t sure if it was a dye job gone wrong, or if it was her natural color, but I would have put my money on natural, simply because it made more sense considering how unusual she was.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She held up the bag. “I’m looking for Earl. I came to bring him these.”

I took the bag because she just kept standing there, holding it out like that was what she expected me to do.

“Eggs?”

“Yup.” She shot a glance around the shop. “Is he here?”

I lowered my arm and the bag. “You brought him eggs?”

Those unwavering eyes found mine. “That and a pet squirrel, but he’s invisible so you can’t see him.”

She said it with such a straight face that, while I knew she was bullshitting, there was a tiny moment of uncertainty.

“Why did you bring him eggs?”

I decided the sane thing to do was ignore the squirrel comment.

“Because he dropped his yesterday,” she stated with a hint of accusation that I wasn’t sure I liked. “Did you know his leg bothers him?”

I scowled at her. “I’ve known the man my entire life. Of course I know.”

“Uh huh.” She folded her arms. “And why doesn’t he have a cane? And why don’t you go to the store? Do you realize how hot it was yesterday? What’s the matter with you?”

Wow. I wasn’t even sure which of those things to address first.

“What?”

“Yesterday,” she said very slowly, like I was an absolute idiot. “Earl walked all the way to the store, with his leg hurting, in one of the hottest days we’ve had in years and you just stayed here, in a nice, air conditioned building. You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

That was the second time she’d called me an asshole and I liked it even less than the first time.

“Okay, you listen here, you—”

My not so nice and colorful series of names I’d invented for her in my head was stalled by Earl’s appearance at the office door and his exclamation of absolute delight at the sight of Ali.

“I knew you would come back!”

Ali snatched the bag out of my hand, shot me a venomous sneer, and then hurried to meet Earl before he started down the steps.

“I brought you eggs,” she told him, holding out the bag. “I wasn’t sure if you still needed them.”

Earl looked absolutely delighted. “Thank you, sweetheart. That was real nice of you. Why don’t you help me make tea and you can tell me why you didn’t come in today.”

I expected her to do the decent thing, to make an apology and an excuse and leave. But if I had learned anything about the odd flurry of crazy that was Ali Eckrich, it was that she was not normal.

“Why don’t we go for dinner?” she offered instead. “I brought my car.”

“Dinner?” Earl perked. “Dinner sounds wonderful. Gabriel, go clean up.”

It was a tossup who was more stunned by the command. Ali and I both exchanged semi horrified glances that went completely ignored by Earl.

“Grandpa, I have work—”

“It’s closing time anyway in half an hour,” the older man stated sharply. “And when a pretty lady asks you to dinner, you don’t say no!”

I glanced at Ali, not because I wanted to see this
pretty
he was talking about, but because I was more certain than ever that she was the antichrist. I’d barely known her for twenty-four hours and she had managed to push every one of my buttons, and I wasn’t the type of guy who got easily ruffled. But everything about her had my senses going on high alert. And it wasn’t because she was some unbearably beautiful creature that just radiated sexual appeal and magnetism. She was fairly ordinary and possessed the type of features that were mostly hidden behind an array of unkempt hair and bug-eye glasses. However, she did radiate something. I just wasn’t sure what the hell that was. All I knew was that she was colossal pain in the ass and I was better off keeping her away from me.

“She asked you out to dinner,” I said, already turning away.

“And I’m telling you to go clean up!” Earl barked, hobbling his way down the steps.

Grandpa had been a Master Sergeant back in the day, before friendly fire accidentally blew out his leg. The wound had healed and he’d continued on with his duties until retirement. But every year, that leg kept getting worse and worse, and he was too stubborn to use a cane. He claimed it wrecked his street cred with the ladies, but I knew it was pride. I threatened to superglue the thing to his hand while he was sleeping, but he knew I wouldn’t; my mother would kill me. Thirty-five years did not give me the confidence to piss that woman off. Besides, Earl might have been old, but I wasn’t going to intentionally put a blunt weapon in his hand to beat me over the head with.

He reached the bottom landing and straightened all six feet of himself to glower up at me with the confidence of a man who knew he could beat my ass no matter how old he was.

“Do I have to repeat myself?”

Had Earl not raised me after my dad rammed his car into a pole when I was six, I would have told him to forget it. But he was the only father figure I had and I respected the man too much to disobey.

“No,” I muttered.

“Good. Take these with you.”

The carton of eggs were shoved into my hands. My gaze shot over Earl’s head to where Ali stood, watching the exchange with about as much joy as I felt. And in that moment, I realized something; she made me feel young and not in a good way. She made me feel childish and petty. I wanted to stick my tongue out at her and that was just mortifying.

Eggs in hand, I stalked past the two and marched my way upstairs. The eggs were placed in the fridge and I went to wash up and change clothes.

The loft had been my apartment before I moved and I only moved because I got tired of sharing my space with everyone at the garage. As a control freak, I would never dream of leaving my underwear lying about, but what if I did? What if I wanted that option? I couldn’t. But aside from that, I had plans to renovate the place and that involved me not being there when it began. So I had found a place close by and started a life that didn’t involve the shop for the first time in five years. A part of me was ready to move on and start forgetting. But a very large part of me needed to return to what had once given me peace and joy. I wasn’t sure how, but one thing at a time.

Ali and Earl were standing where I’d left them when I made my way back downstairs, freshly showered and dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt. Earl was telling her something that had Ali clutching her stomach and laughing with enough force to make her entire body quiver. She wasn’t even trying to be quiet, or delicate about it. I felt a twitch in my lips as the sound rolled over the garage in waves of delirious delight. Something about her laughter was irrationally contagious and it momentarily charmed me, before I caught myself and sanity prevailed.

“Ah, Gabriel, you’re here.” Earl caught sight of me first. “I was just telling Ali about the time you let Tamara dress you up as a girl for Halloween.”

I hated that story. I hated that no one ever seemed to forget it. You try to do the brotherly thing once and no one ever let you live it down.

“I was a kid,” I muttered in self-defense.

“You were twenty-seven,” Earl corrected without missing a beat.

I refused to be drawn into one of Earl’s little games where he tried to get me to socialize by coaxing me into conversation with people I really didn’t want to talk to. He’d been doing that since I was a kid, inviting random kids over off the street to play with me because I liked being alone. Thankfully, that was during a time when neighbors trusted each other and no police were phoned. By the time I was a teenager, I learned not to tell my grandfather about not having friends. I lied mostly. It wasn’t until high school when I met Mac and Lloyd and the lie became a fact. As a grown man, he was no longer interested in finding friends to keep me company. His job now was to find me a woman, because I refused to. Women were a complication I wasn’t mentally, or emotionally equipped to handle. Ali was definitely the sort I needed to stay away from. Everything about her screamed dangerous, which was ironic considering she looked like a librarian.

I glanced towards the woman in question and caught her already watching me with a look of contemplation that made my apprehension prickle.

“What?”

One corner of her mouth twisted downward in what I could only assume was grudging acceptance.