Gina took another step down. She was on the walkway, then she was turning right onto the sidewalk, then she was standing in front of her mailbox.
Her hand felt trembly as she took out her mail. The pile was filled with the usual detritus—coupons, catalogs, circulars. She found her credit-card bill, which would be depressing, and a political campaign postcard, which was infuriating. The glossy magazine from her alma mater was a surprise. Gina had been blocked from the official Facebook page after she had posted that the theme for their twentieth reunion should be Fucked? Married? Killed?
The magazine started to shake, but that was only because Gina had started to shake, too.
She felt the freak-out steaming through her nerves like a boiling tea kettle. Her hand went to the back of her neck again. She sputtered out a breath. Her lungs went rigid. She couldn’t get enough air. She knew that someone was watching her. Was he standing behind her? Had she heard footsteps? Could she hear a man walking toward her now, his arms outstretched as he reached for her neck?
“Shit,” she whispered. Her entire body was shaking, yet somehow her legs would not move. She felt her bladder start to ache. She closed her eyes. She forced herself to spin around.
No one.
“Shit.” She said the word louder this time.
She walked back toward her house. She kept looking over her shoulder like a crazy person. She wondered if the woman who lived across the street had been watching her. The nosey nelly was always in everybody’s business. She wrote long screeds on the Nextdoor app about people leaving their trashcans out on the street and not properly separating their recycling. If she wasn’t careful, someone was going to slap some deli meat on her Nissan Leaf and then it would jump off like the Sharks and the Jets.
Gina’s knee almost buckled as she leapt up the front stairs. She slammed the door behind her. The mail dropped from her hands and scattered onto the floor. She fumbled with the deadbolt. She didn’t lock it.
The door had been open while she was outside. Had someone sneaked in? She had spun like a top at the mailbox. Her back was to the front door for several seconds. Someone could’ve slipped inside. Someone could be inside the house right now.
“Shit!” She rushed to check window and door locks, looking in closets and under beds, because that was just how insane she was lately.
Was this what it felt like to go stir crazy?
She went back to the couch. She grabbed her iPad. She googled symptoms of being stir crazy.
A quiz came back.
1. Are you moody?
2. Have you lost interest in sex?
3. Do you feel anxious or restless?
4. Are you overtired or sleepy during the day?
She checked yes on every question, because her vibrator couldn’t read.
The result:
You are at risk of developing depression. Have you considered speaking with a therapist? I have located four different specialists in STIR CRAZY in your area.
Gina let the iPad fall back to the couch. Now the internet knew that she was depressed. She was probably going to be inundated with spam and ads for natural cures and supplements to improve her mood.
She didn’t need a pill. She needed to get ahold of herself. Paranoia was not her personality type. She was goal-oriented. A self-starter. Highly organized. Methodical. She socialized often, but she was as equally pleased with her own company. She was all of the things that a different quiz had told her were good qualities when, two years ago, she had googled Am I the type of person who can work from home?
Gina had easily transitioned away from the office, but she had quickly determined that she needed a reason to occasionally shave her legs and wash her hair. Her two outlets were the gym, which she hit at least three times a week, and lunch dates, which she tried to schedule at least twice a month.
She pulled up her calendar on her iPad. To her surprise, she saw that she had not been out of the house in six days. Canceled lunch plans. Skipped workouts. Missed work meetings. Instead of rectifying the situation with a burst of phone calls, she started strategizing. Between Postmates and InstaCart, she could eke out another week before she would be forced to leave the house. That was when her twelve-year-old boss wanted her in the office for a video conference with clients in Beijing. Gina would definitely have to put on clothes with buttons and zippers and actually show up because I accidentally fed a mogwai after midnight was an excuse that only worked on twelve-year-old boys in the year 1985.
She stared at the squares on the calendar. Another week would extend her confinement to a total of thirteen days. Thirteen days was nothing. People took thirteen-day lunches in France. She had lasted almost thirteen days on the Atkins Diet. In college, she had eaten ramen noodles for a hell of a lot longer than thirteen days. Hell, she had pretended to have vaginal orgasms with various boyfriends for thirteen years.
She got up from the couch. She went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge. Four tomato slices in a Ziploc bag. Twenty-six cans of Diet Coke. A cucumber of obscene proportions. A half-eaten Kind bar.
If the cops looked in her fridge, they would think she was a serial killer.
She found a pad of paper and pen in the drawer. She started a grocery list for InstaCart. She could make soups, chowders, even casseroles. She had downloaded tons of meditation apps that
