Just One Look

Forget the physical for a second. The young Charlaine Swain had been a bundle of energy. She had zest for life. She was ambitious and a go-getter. Everyone said it. There was always a spark with Charlaine, a crackle in the air, and somewhere, somehow, life-just plain living-had extinguished it.

Were the children to blame? Was it Mike? There was a time when he couldn’t get enough of her, when an outfit like this would make his eyes widen and his mouth water. Now when she strutted by, he would barely look up.

When had that started?

She couldn’t put her finger on it. She knew the process had been gradual, the change so slow as to be almost indiscernible, until, alas, it was a fait accompli. It hadn’t all been his fault. She knew that. Her drive had waned, especially during the years of pregnancies, post-natal nursing, the ensuing exhaustion of infants. That was natural, she supposed. Everyone went through that. Still she wished that she had made more of an effort before the temporary changes hardened into something apathetic and enduring.

The memories, however, were still there. Mike used to romance her. He used to surprise her. He used to lust after her. He used to-and yes, this might sound crude-jump her bones. Now what he wanted was efficiency, something mechanical and precise-the dark, a grunt, a release, sleep.

When they talked, it was about the kids-the class schedules, the pickups, the homework, the dentist appointments, the Little League games, the Biddy Basketball program, the play-dates. But that wasn’t just Mike’s fault either. When Charlaine had coffee with the women in the neighborhood-the Mommy and Me meetings at Starbucks-the conversations were so cloying, so boring, so stuffed with all things children, that she wanted to scream.

Charlaine Swain was being smothered.

Her mother-the idle queen of the country-club lunch-told her that this was life, that Charlaine had everything a woman could want, that her expectations were simply unrealistic. The saddest part was, Charlaine feared that her mother was right.

She checked her makeup. She applied more lipstick and rouge and then sat back and appraised herself. Yep, she looked like a whore. She grabbed a Percodan, the mommy equivalent of the lunchtime cocktail, and swallowed it. Then she took a closer look in the mirror, squinting even.

Was the old Charlaine still there somewhere?

There was this woman who lived two blocks down, a nice mother of two like Charlaine. Two months ago, this nice mother of two walked up to the Glen Rock train tracks and committed suicide by stepping in front of the 11:10 A.M. Bergen line heading south. Horrible story. Everyone talked about it for weeks. How could this woman, this nice mother of two, just abandon her children like that? How could she be so selfish? And yet, as Charlaine tsk-tsked with her fellow suburbanites, she felt a small pang of jealousy. For this nice mother, it was over. There had to be relief in that.

Where was Freddy?

Charlaine actually looked forward to this, her Tuesdays at ten, and perhaps that was the saddest thing of all. Her initial reaction to Freddy’s peeping had been revulsion and rage. When and how had that slid into acceptance and even, God forgive her, arousal? No, she thought. It wasn’t arousal. It was… something. That was all. It was a spark. It was something to feel.

She waited for his shade to come up.

It didn’t.

Strange. Come to think of it, Freddy Sykes never pulled down his shades. Their properties backed up to each other’s, so that only they could see in each other’s window. Freddy never pulled down the shade in the back. Why would he?

Her eyes roamed toward the other windows. All the shades were pulled down. Curious. The curtains in what she assumed was the den- she had never, of course, stepped foot in his house-were drawn closed.

Was Freddy traveling? Had he perhaps gone away?

Charlaine Swain caught her reflection in the window and felt a fresh wave of shame. She grabbed a robe-her husband’s ratty terrycloth-and slipped into it. She wondered if Mike was having an affair, if another woman had drained that once insatiable sex drive, or was he just not interested in her? She wondered which was worse.

Where was Freddy?

And how degrading, how truly scraping-the-bottom pitiful it was, that this meant so much to her. She stared at the house.

There was movement.

It was slight. A shadow had crossed the side of a shade. But movement nonetheless. Maybe, just maybe, Freddy was truly peeping again, upping, if you will, his excitement level. That could be it, right? Most peepers got off on the stealth, I Spy aspects of the act. Maybe he simply didn’t want her to see him. Maybe he was watching her right now, surreptitiously.

Could that be it?

She loosened the robe and let it slide down her shoulders. The terrycloth reeked of man sweat and the aging remnants of cologne she’d bought Mike, what, eight, nine years ago. Charlaine felt the tears sting her eyes. But she didn’t turn away.

Something else suddenly appeared between the window shades. Something… blue?

She squinted. What was it?

The binoculars. Where were they? Mike kept a box of crap like that in his closet. She found it, dug through the many power cords and adapters, and unearthed the Leicas. She remembered when they bought them. They were on a cruise in the Caribbean. The stop was one of the Virgin Islands-she didn’t remember which one-and the purchase had been spontaneous. That was why she remembered it, the buying of the binoculars, because of the spontaneity of such a mundane act.

Charlaine put the binoculars up to her eyes. They were auto-focus, so there was nothing to adjust. It took her a moment or two to find the space between the window and the shade. But the blue spot was there. She saw the flicker and her eyes closed. She should have known.

The television. Freddy had turned on the television.

He was home.

Charlaine stood without moving. She didn’t know how she felt anymore. The numb was back. Her son Clay liked to play a song from the Shrek movie about a guy forming an L with his fingers on his forehead. Loser. That was Freddy Sykes. And now Freddy, this scuzzy creepazoid, this Loser with a finger-capital L, would rather watch television than her lingerie-clad body.

Something was still strange.

All those shades pulled down. Why? She had lived next to the Sykes house for eight years. Even when Freddy’s mother was alive, the shades were never pulled down, the curtains never closed. Charlaine took another look through her binoculars.

The television flicked off.

She stopped, waiting for something to happen. Freddy had lost track of the time, she thought. The shade would open now. They would begin their perverted ritual.

But that’s not what happened.

Charlaine heard the slight whir and knew immediately what it was. Freddy’s electric garage door had been activated.

She moved closer to the window. There was the sound of a car starting up, and then Freddy’s hunk-of-junk Honda pulled out. Sunlight reflected off the windshield. The glare made her squint. She blocked it by cupping her hand above her eyes.

The car moved and the glare cleared. She could now see who was driving.

It wasn’t Freddy.

Something, something base and primitive, commanded Charlaine to duck out of sight. She did. She dropped down and crawled for the robe. She pressed the terrycloth against herself. The smell-that combination of Mike and stale cologne-now seemed oddly comforting.

Charlaine moved toward the side of the window. She pressed her back against the wall and peaked out.

The Honda Accord had stopped. The driver-the Asian man behind the wheel-was staring at her window.

Charlaine quickly flattened herself back against the wall. She stayed still, holding her breath. She stayed that way until she heard the car start moving again. And then, just to be on the safe side, she stayed down another ten minutes.

When she looked again, the car was gone.

The house next door was still.

chapter 7

At exactly 10:15 A.M., Grace arrived at the Photomat.

Josh the Fuzz Pellet was not there. As a matter of fact, nobody was there. The sign in the store window, probably left from the night before, read CLOSED.

She checked the printed hours. Opens at 10 A.M. She waited. At ten-twenty, the first customer, a harried woman in her mid-thirties, spotted the CLOSED sign, read the hours, tried the door. She sighed in high drama. Grace gave her a commiserating shrug. The woman huffed off. Grace waited.

When the store had still not opened at 10:30 A.M., Grace knew that it was bad. She decided to try Jack’s office again. His line kept going into voice mail-eerie hearing Jack’s too-formal recorded voice-so she tried Dan’s line this time. The two men had, after all, spoken last night. Maybe Dan could offer a clue.

She dialed his work number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dan, it’s Grace.”

“Hey!” he said with a tad too much enthusiasm. “I was just about to call you.”

“Oh?”

“Where’s Jack?”