Someone's Watching Page 2

  “You stay out here and talk to Marty,” she said. “I’ll go in and look over the house with Frank. Your father’s hoping I won’t come up with any ideas that cost money,” she told him. Marty wanted to say, “If you did, it wouldn’t matter because he doesn’t have any.” But he just smiled and nodded. Both he and Judy watched her walk to the house. There was a long, embarrassing pause between them. He looked at Bill Stanley’s pickup truck. “Come over here,” he said. “What grade you in?”

  “Supposed to be in ninth,” she said. He looked up quickly. She kept her arms folded just under her breasts and looked off at the forest across the road. He saw the way the breeze lifted strands of her hair from her temples and noticed the patch of freckles about the bridge of her nose.

  Girls had always been a mystery to him. He had never been as successful with them as most of his friends were. For one thing, he was too particular. His two buddies, Buzzy and Tony, always accused him of messing up double dates and spoiling things for them. When they tried to fix him up, they paired him with the “easy” girls, girls anyone could go with. On occasion, when they pleaded with him desperately, he would do it just so they would be successful.

  But he hated these forced dates. He felt like his father then. Frank could go with any woman; it didn’t matter if she was short, tall, fat, skinny, had teeth, or didn’t have teeth. He didn’t make love to a woman, he made love to women, the gender. Marty had no greater fear than the fear that he would eventually become like his father.

  But when it came to the girls he admired, the girls he thought were special, he found it almost impossible to get to know them. He never had to get to know the “easy” girls; they shoved their bodies at him, pressed their lips to his with more vigor than he had, and hungered for some animal satisfaction that terrified him with its ferocity. It was as though they were out to steal his manhood, drain him of his sex. He was afraid of them.

  He wasn’t afraid of the “special” girls; he was confused by them, by the things they laughed at, the way they turned a phrase or said hello. He had trouble beginning a conversation, finding common ground. He could say anything he wanted to the “easy” girls—it didn’t matter; it didn’t count. But with the other girls, first impressions were important because he wanted them to like him. He was afraid they would never like him. There wasn’t much to like, as far as he could see. The bottom line was that he lacked the confidence because he didn’t believe in himself. As he studied his new stepsister it struck him that they might have more in common than he first imagined.

  “What do you mean, ’supposed’?” he asked. She turned to him with a weak smile on her face.

  “I failed some subjects and they put me in an eighth-grade homeroom.”

  “Oh. Well, that doesn’t matter. You’ll catch up.” She just shrugged. He rapped at the fender with his rubber hammer for a few moments. “Where do you live now?”

  “In an apartment outside of Liberty.”

  “The school bus doesn’t come down here. The drivers always made me walk to that corner of the main road.” He indicated it with the hammer. She looked in the direction and nodded. “I mean, it’s not a big deal . . .”

  “No.”

  “What subjects did you fail?”

  “Social studies and math.”

  “Math? That was always my best,” he said. “I can help you with that.” He turned back to the fender, and she took that moment to stare at him.

  Ever since her mother told her she’d be marrying Frank O’Neil, Judy was terrified. But she was even more afraid to voice any opposition. She believed her mother blamed her for the breakup of her first marriage. Judy’s remembrance of her father was clouded with memories of the terrible, often violent fights between him and her mother. The arguments always seemed to turn on the mutual accusations concerning who was more responsible for Judy’s birth and the subsequent drain on their finances. She was nearly ten when he finally just upped and deserted them. After that, Judy felt that her mother resented her even more. She had to get a full-time job and give up the house they were renting. Gradually her mother lost concern for her good looks, gained weight, and became less selective about men.

  However, for Judy, Frank O’Neil was the most gruesome of all. When he was drunk, there was a raw, animal lust in his eyes that frightened her. She hated the way he looked at her and laughed, his lips drooling with beer, his large hands opening and closing as though he were massaging an invisible breast. Usually she would flee to her room and lock the door. But just last week she had closed the door and forgotten to lock it.

  She was lying in bed reading, occasionally listening to their laughter and movement. She heard them walk past her room to her mother’s bedroom, and although she tried to ignore it, she couldn’t help but hear their wild lovemaking. Afterward she heard Frank make his way to the bathroom, which was just past her bedroom. She heard the toilet flush and then, a few moments later, her door swung open and he stood there, totally naked, an idiotic smile on his face. Before she could scream, he laughed and said, “Oops, wrong room.” She wanted to tell her mother about it after Frank left, but when she looked in on her, Elaine was already snoring.

  Now she was worried about moving into the same house with such a man. She had wondered what kind of a son he could have and she was already surprised. Where Frank’s features were chiseled and hard, Marty’s were graceful and well proportioned. He was actually very good-looking. There was nothing of his father’s madness in his face; there was a calm air about him that put her at some ease. Although his long, light brown hair didn’t have the slick look of professional styling, it was neat and attractive.

  “It’s quiet around here,” she said. He stopped working again.

  “Well, there’s nobody nearby. It’s even like this in the summer because the hotels and bungalow colonies down the road have gone out of business. You’ll get used to it, though.”

  “I don’t mind it,” she said, a stronger smile on her face. Once again Marty got the feeling that they might have a lot in common. He threw the hammer down.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you around the house too. You’ll have a nice, roomy bedroom.”

  When they walked into the house, they heard Elaine and Frank in the kitchen. There was the sound of beer cans being popped. Judy looked at the living room. She was taken aback by the deer’s head on the wall above the fireplace. The large, glassy eyes were so sad-looking.

  “My uncle Harry got that one.”

  “How terrible.”

  “Yeah, well, the deer got him back,” he said, remembering the hunting accident. She looked at him quizzically, but he started toward the stairs. “The bedrooms are all upstairs. Watch the bannister. It’s a bit shaky.” She followed him up. He stopped by the first room on the right and pushed the door open. “This is my room. Nothin’ much to it.” She hesitated about looking in, but he didn’t seem to care if she saw the clothes strewn about or the unmade bed. “Yours will be the one right across the way here,” he said and opened that door. She followed him in. There was a nice double-size brass bed. Now it had only a naked mattress on it. There were two unmatching dressers, one a light walnut, the other a dark mahogany, both quite chipped and scratched. The longer one had a dusty wall mirror above it. There was one large wall closet to the right. She noted that there weren’t any curtains on the windows, only faded yellow window shades. The room had a hard oak floor that looked as though it hadn’t been washed in a decade.

  “There’s work to be done here,” she said, and he laughed.

  “Well, it’s been a while since a woman’s hand was felt on this house, a woman that cared, that is. You have any furniture to bring?”

  “No, our apartment came with it.”

  “Just as well. The bed ain’t bad,” he said, sitting down hard on the mattress. He bounced a little and the dust began to rise. “Oops.”

  “Needs some work.” They both laughed, then looked at each other, smiles frozen on their faces.
Maybe it won’t be so bad, she thought.

  He felt a little excitement, and for the first time he wondered what it would be like to have a sister.

  Two days later Frank and Elaine were married by the justice of the peace in Woodridge. It was a quick ceremony, taking a little more than five minutes. Besides the judge and his wife, Marty and Judy were the only people there. Frank wanted it that way, acting as though he were ashamed of it all. Marty didn’t understand why, but he felt embarrassed. He looked at Judy and saw a simple, quiet smile on her face. Someone who looked at her quickly might interpret it as an empty, mindless look, but he realized it was the look she wore when she was trying to understand something or someone. Actually, he mused during the wedding ceremony, Judy is rather cute.

  There wasn’t to be any honeymoon. Neither Frank nor Elaine had the money for it. They did want to be alone, so they settled for a trip to a new bar Elaine had been to in Middletown. They were to have dinner there and be home “sometime before mornin’. Don’t wait up.”

  “And don’t get too friendly with your stepsister,” Frank warned him, smiling lustfully. Marty could only look away, sure that Judy had heard the remark. Because of the remark and because of his own shyness, he was grateful when Tony Martin came over to the house not long after Frank and Elaine left. Tony wanted him to work on his car. He couldn’t understand why Marty was so eager to comply.

  They worked on tuning the engine and adjusting the carburetor until nearly eleven. Judy came out to watch, but she grew bored with their car talk and went into the house to watch television, poor as the reception was. Tony came in with Marty afterward and they drank beer and ate cheese sandwiches. Judy offered to make them, but Marty went right to it. She grew tired and went to sleep before Tony left.

  In the morning their so-called new life began. Elaine worked as a cashier in the Jamesway chain department store in Monticello. Her shifts varied from week to week, morning to afternoon or afternoon to evening. Judy had a hard time starting in school, transferring at the tail end of the year, and her difficulty with math intensified.

  One afternoon, when she returned from school, Marty asked her how it was going and she showed him a failed math test.

  “Got a retest on this stuff tomorrow.”

  “How to find interest on a loan. It’s just simple multiplication. Come up to my room after supper and I’ll help you with it.”

  “Thanks,” she said, her face lighting up. Her excitement made him think. Was she that eager to do well in math? He watched her run into the house, unaware that Frank had stopped working to observe the scene.

  “Gettin’ to know her real good, ain’tcha?” he asked when Marty turned back to the car.

  “No.”

  “Gonna be some cockteaser,” Frank said. “Already is,” he added, looking toward the doorway. Marty hit the dent in the car door harder and Frank laughed madly. That laugh always reminded Marty of Jack Palance in Shane. He studied his father for a moment and for the first time experienced a sense of fear, fear not for himself, but for Judy.

  Their dinners were usually uneventful. When Elaine was on the late shift at the department store, Judy prepared the meal. Most of the time Frank wolfed down his food and went off to meet some of his drinking buddies. Occasionally he went back to work on a car. A number of times he didn’t show up at all and Marty and Judy ate by themselves.

  Lately, though, Marty noticed a change coming over Frank. He took longer to eat his meal, sat quietly and listened to their conversations, and leered at Judy. Marty saw the way his eyes moved as Judy went about the kitchen. He sensed that something was building in Frank, something ugly and explosive.

  When Elaine was there, as she was for this particular evening, Frank was less obvious about his interest in Judy. He concentrated more on finishing his meal and getting out of the house. After dinner Marty went up to his room to read Brainchild, the new paperback he had bought at George’s Luncheonette in Sandburg. He kept all his books well hidden in his room and didn’t let Frank see him bring them into the house. Reading infuriated Frank, who was always disdainful of anything educational. He ridiculed Marty’s interest, saying that reading made him soft and flaky, “like those damn fags who hang around the community college.”

  Marty left the doorway open deliberately, in anticipation of Judy’s arrival. When she finished the dishes, she came upstairs, got her books, and appeared in his doorway. She tapped on the jamb and he looked up.

  “Come on in.”

  She hadn’t gone into his room since the first day he showed it to her. Even though there wasn’t much to it, she looked about curiously. There was a single, pinewood frame bed, a light maple dresser that obviously didn’t match, and a tall cabinet he used for a closet. A Playboy centerfold of last year’s Miss August was pinned haphazardly above his dresser. The sight of it made her pause. He saw the object of her gaze and laughed.

  “One of Frank’s presents. Let’s see the work.”

  She walked farther in. There was no place for her to sit but beside him on his bed. He opened the textbook and looked at the pages she had singled out with a piece of blue ribbon. “Okay,” he said, ripping a piece of paper from her notebook, “let’s go over it.” She leaned toward him, conscious of the warmth and scent of his body. Her heart beat faster when his face nearly touched hers. Although he was talking and working, she was barely listening. When it came time for her to try the example, she put the decimal point in the wrong place. Patiently he explained it again. This time she listened hard and did it right.

  “Thanks a lot,” she said. “You’re smart.”

  “I’m nothing special.”

  “You ever fail anything?”

  “No, but I came close. This stuff’s easy if you take your time reading about it,”

  She sat there for a moment, trying to think of something else to say and prolong her stay in his room, but before she could start a topic, they heard the phone ring and then Elaine called out to him.

  “Probably Tony,” he said, starting out. “I told him to call me if he wanted to go to a movie tonight.”

  “Oh.” He left her and she got up from his bed slowly to stare at the girl in the Playboy centerfold. The woman’s body had such rich, creamy flesh tones. She wondered if that was her real skin color or if they tinted her somehow. Was this the kind of woman Marty admired?

  She went back to her own room to finish her work. Not long after, he was knocking on her door.

  “Elaine told me to tell you she’s going shopping with Madeline White.”

  “Oh. You’re going to the movies?”

  “Yeah,” he said, pulling his faded and grease-stained T-shirt over his head. He seemed oblivious to the way she was staring at his muscular chest and shoulders. “I’m going to take the ’68 Plymouth Frank got from Charlie Gordon as payment for the work he did on his wife’s car. It has no plates or insurance, but I’m drivin’ it only to the outskirts of Woodridge. Tony’ll pick me up there.”

  “Is . . . is your father still here?”

  “Frank? Yeah, but he’ll probably be goin’ off somewhere,” he said. He was about to turn away from her when he caught a look in her face. “Why?”

  “No reason.”

  “No,” he said, moving farther into the room, “there’s a reason.” She closed her book and turned away from him. He looked behind him and advanced until he was at the foot of her bed. “Tell me.”

  “I . . . just don’t feel comfortable alone with him. Please don’t say anything,” she added quickly. He stood there looking at her, holding his T-shirt, his arms frozen in air.

  “Did something happen between you two?” Her silence confirmed it. “Tell me.”

  “Promise you won’t say anything.”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  She told him about the incident at her apartment when Frank walked into her room naked.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell your mother?”

  “I was going to, but . . .”

 
“But what?”

  “She seems happy with him. I didn’t want to do anything to break it up. Especially after what happened with my father.” She looked as though she would cry.

  “Has he done anything since you moved here?” Her hesitation made him repeat the question more firmly.

  “He’s pinched me a few times. Nothing terrible.”

  “That’s terrible enough,” he said. “He’s an animal.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I mean, he’s your father and . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He smiled at her. “You ought a brush your hair down. You have nice hair, but you’ve got to take better care of it.”

  “I know.” She ran her fingers through the strands.

  “Don’t worry about Frank. He never comes home early. I’m sure he’ll leave soon. If he doesn’t, I won’t go.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean for you . . .”

  “That’s all right. It’s not important.” He just stood there, his shirt in his hands, looking serious.

  “How come you always call him Frank? Did you ever call him Dad?”

  “Can’t remember calling him anything but Frank.” He thought for a moment and then said, “That’s probably because I never liked thinking of him as my dad.” He shrugged and left the room.

  Judy stood up and went to the mirror above the dresser. She stared at herself for a few moments and then took a brush to her hair. As she stroked it she thought about the way he looked at her when he was explaining the math. He has such nice eyes, she thought.

  She blinked her eyes and studied herself in the mirror again. Her face was flushed. She unbuttoned her blouse slowly to reveal the tops of her breasts and leaned over, pressing her arms against the sides of her body. It deepened the cleavage. The action made her giddy. Afterward, when she stood up straight again, she realized that her skin was too pale. She looked nothing like the Playboy model pinned on Marty’s wall. As soon as she could, she thought, she’d put on her old bikini and go out to the backyard to work up a good tan.