Strange in Skin (13 page)

I hurried up and rounded the corner myself but only peered around it hoping she would still have
her back turned toward me so I could figure out exactly where I had seen her before. I pressed my
back against the end of the aisle against some boxes of crackers. An older lady passed by me and
gave me a disapproving look. I stared at her back briefly and then stretched my neck out so I could
peek down the next aisle.

There stood a short, thin woman wearing tight skinny jeans and a loose red short-sleeved sweater
that exposed one of her shoulders. I watched carefully as she positioned herself with her back still
toward me and stood up on her tiptoes to inspect a can of soup at the very top of the shelf. Her bright
blonde hair bounced as she settled back on flat feet once again. For a moment, I was able to see her
side profile. I gasped. It was Candace, Emry’s ex-wife. He had referred to her as
Candy
. A pang of
jealousy ripped through me just then, and I jumped back and pressed my body against the end of the
aisle.

What a coincidence
, I thought. Candace and I in the same exact store at the same exact time. Then I
felt another emotion that I was not used to feeling. I suddenly wanted to watch her every move. I
wanted to see exactly how she moved and memorize her facial features, because I knew that she had
been with Emry.
My
Emry. He was more hers than he was mine. She had been married to him. Again,
that sick feeling came over me. Jealousy and disgust all at the same time. She looked all wrong for
him. How could he have ever been attracted to her? Then again, look at me. I was nothing to gloat
over either.

I found myself stretching my neck to get another look at Candace. I realized she was gone, and then I
found myself panic stricken. I raced down the aisle and glanced around to the next one. She wasn’t
there. My heart rate picked up as I practically ran to the next one, and finally, there she was. This time
I didn’t hide. I decided to pretend like I was browsing that aisle as well and I even walked by her.

What on earth was I doing? What if she had turned around to look at me? What if she recognized me
and questioned me about my little visit with Emry? I wouldn’t even know what to say to her.

I walked quickly down the rest of the aisle and straight out the doors. The wind whipped all around
me as I felt the bands of cold snow-sleet mix fall violently into my face. It burned, but I barely felt it. I
rushed to my car and tried to focus on slowing my breathing as I slammed my door shut. I leaned my
head back against the headrest and closed my eyes. What was I now, a stalker? Why did I care so
much about her anyway? He told me he was completely over her and had no feelings for her
whatsoever. But it irritated me that she had been there to visit him. What if she still loved him and
wanted to be with him? She looked like the kind of girl that once she had something in her head, she
wouldn’t stop until she had exactly what she wanted, even if that meant destroying a girl like me. Then
again, I felt the exact same way about her. She had her chance with Emry and had blown it. He didn’t
want her anymore. It was time for someone else to have a turn, and that someone was me.

I opened my eyes and tried to focus on the large automatic sliding door at the front of the store. It
opened and I held my breath, but only a couple with a small child walked out. I watched one of them
press the child against their chest as they ran toward their vehicle and tried to shield him from the sky
belting ice their way.

I relaxed again. What was I going to do here exactly? I didn’t want to go back home. I had barely
been at the store for maybe a half hour or more. Carlin would surely still be awake when I got back. I
had no interest in holding a conversation with her or having to listen to her try to hold one with me.
We didn’t like each other. That much was clear. She didn’t seem to like my mother much either, so I
wondered why she was even there to begin with. Maybe she was trying to steal my father away to get
even. If so, she was in for a big surprise when she found out that my father was already taken by Mrs.
Anderson.

The doors of the store opened a few more times, and a little while later I sat straight up in my seat
as I squinted to make out who I thought was Candace. Whoever it was, they weren’t too good at
running in high heels as the accumulation from the sky had increased. Just a few parking spots down
from me she stopped and threw open the trunk of her car. It was enough for me to recognize those
skinny jeans. It was Candace. She was driving an old red clunker with quite a bit of rust around the
edges. I watched as she jumped into the driver’s side and started up the car, the engine coming to life
as she turned the key and put the car in reverse. I found myself putting my own key in the ignition and
starting mine as well. My hand moved to the gearshift. Now what? She started to pull out of the
parking lot, and I frantically pulled my car out after her. I was going to follow her.

She drove quick for the roads being so slick, and I felt nervous keeping up with her, afraid that the
tread I had decided could make it through this winter without getting new tires might make my car
suddenly slip. Scenes of me wrecking flashed in my mind as I imagined my car going off the side of
the road and slamming into the guardrail. Maybe I would spin completely around and hit another car
head-on or go into the wide, deep ditches that were on both sides of the road. My right hand moved to
double check that my seatbelt was securely in place. Then it moved to meet my left hand that was
gripped tightly on the steering wheel. There weren’t many other cars on the roads. I figured everyone
else was being smart tonight by staying inside and avoiding driving altogether, like I should be. I
didn’t even know why I was acting so psychotic now. What exactly was I expecting from this
situation? I couldn’t just follow her into her house.

Candace went to the edge of Seneca almost toward where the prison was, but then she turned down
a narrow road that winded into a more country section of town. The snowy mixture falling from the
sky started to come down harder in heavy sheets. I cranked my windshield wipers on high and
strained my eyes to see. Her rear taillights had disappeared suddenly from my vision. Where had she
gone? My heart began to thump in my chest. I slowed and thought I saw a lane up ahead on the right. I
moved closer toward it and saw brake lights. Was that her? It had to be. A heavy mist lifted from the
ground making it even more impossible to see. I waited a few minutes, my car stationary in front of
the lane, and once I couldn’t see the brake lights anymore, I counted to 60 in my head, giving her a
minute to get out of her car and into her house, then I pulled into the lane a little bit. It wasn’t a very
long driveway. I shut off my own headlights and the ignition next.

Now what? Was I going to go up and knock on her door, give her a friendly smile and say,
Oh, hi,
I’m Anna James. I believe you may remember me from the prison? We were both visiting Emry
Logan on the same day, and because of you, my time was cut in half with him. If you wouldn’t
mind, I would love for you to tell me everything you know about him. Oh, and by the way, I hate
you too for having been married to him before.

I almost laughed out loud. I was a stalker! This was just plain crazy.
I reached in back seat and grabbed an extra scarf, a wool hat and an extra heavy pair of gloves I
kept as spare back there and put them all on, wrapping the scarf a couple times around my head so that

really the only thing that remained uncovered were my eyes. I got out of the car and shut the door
quietly. I felt the wind and wet moisture instantly hit my face. The bitter cold air sent a burning
sensation down my throat as I breathed it in. Sleet hit my eyelashes, and I put my head down as I tried
to stay along the edge of the driveway. After a few steps, I attempted to lift my head and saw the red
car parked in front of a small brown house. A gust of wind blew again. It knocked me back a little. I
struggled to regain my balance.

A yellow light flickered on in one of the front windows. I watched a figure move across the room
inside and assumed that it had to be Candace. I moved closer to the window. I could see wallpaper
with roses dotting it and a chandelier dangling from the ceiling. Candace came into view. She had
already changed out of the clothes she had been wearing at the store and now was sporting an old
faded black sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. Her damaged bleached blonde hair hung midway down
her back. She was pacing back and forth in the room. I squinted my eyes to see what she was doing
and realized she was on the telephone as she had a cordless tucked under her chin as she walked in
circles, her lips moving frantically as she spoke.

I looked up to the sky. I pulled my scarf down so that the sleet and snow could freely hit my face. I
could feel it pelt my cheeks and then melt, sliding down my skin in thick droplets. I knew I really
shouldn’t be here right now. This felt too dangerous for me. What would Emry think if he knew I had
followed his ex-wife, had practically walked up to her front window and had been watching her? He
would surely think I was completely insane, some sort of freak. I definitely felt like a freak now, and
a foolish one at that by letting these crazy impulses take over me. I threw my arms up in the air in
defeat. This was ridiculous.

I looked back toward the window. Candace was nowhere to be seen. I turned around and started
back down the driveway to where my car was parked. I had almost reached it when I suddenly saw
headlights flash my way and turn into the lane. I dived to the ground behind my car and ducked down
out of sight, my body crouched low. An old Toyota truck rolled slowly by me and stopped right
beside Candace’s car. I peeked around the edge of my bumper. The truck’s engine roared, and I could
see its windshield wipers going back and forth as the passenger-side door opened and a girl jumped
out, waved once to the driver and ran to the front door to get out of the weather. I didn’t get a very
good look, but I knew at once that it had been Traci, Candace’s daughter. Emry seemed to have
spoken fondly of her. I was a little envious of that fact as well. I had no idea why. She was just a little
girl, after all.

The truck backed out of the driveway and I waited until it was completely gone before getting back
in my car. I turned the key in the ignition and backed slowly out of the driveway, even though I fought
every impulse inside of me to floor it in reverse just to get out of there. I drove a little ways down the
road before stopping the car and leaning my forehead against the steering wheel. I was on the verge of
hyperventilating.

I had just drove to some stranger’s house and watched her through the window in the middle of a
snowstorm. Something was seriously wrong with me.

Heat from the car vents blasted my face. I just sat there for a few minutes with my body slouched
over, my eyes closed tight. Emry’s face popped back into my head as I tried to picture him as
perfectly as he was. I tried to remember all the details of his face. His soft brown hair and how the
edges just touched the outer edges of his eyes, his perfectly small, rounded nose and smooth cheeks
dotted with freckles. I imagined his lips, the bottom one a little fuller than the top and how they parted
just a little as he breathed. His hands resting before him, the nails looking chewed, and his tan arms
with biceps clearly visible underneath the orange jumpsuit. A prison jumpsuit.

A horn blasted loudly from behind me as I jumped so high my head actually hit the roof of the car. I
looked in my rearview mirror and winced from the brightness of the high beams obviously meant to
give me the hint to get out of the way. That’s when I realized that I still had my car parked in the
middle of the right lane. I put the car in Drive and pressed my foot on the gas pedal. It lurched
forward, and with the adrenaline still zipping through my veins from the night’s events, I recklessly
sped down the slippery roads of Seneca.

I still didn’t feel like going to my house. I felt like an emotional wreck, and I didn’t want to have to
walk in there and face all of them right away as I figured they’d all still be up watching TV.

The snowfall was lighter now. I turned down the speed of my windshield wipers. I eased up on the
gas pedal and slowed the car down as well, trying to think of where I could go. I knew where I
wanted to go. I wanted to go to Seneca County Prison, but I knew that was impossible and tried to
erase the thought out of my mind as quickly as it appeared. I wish I had had more friends to turn to for
a place to hang out. Most of the girls I had been close to in high school were now married and
actually had lives. Most of them didn’t even live in Seneca anymore. I felt cornered as if there was
nowhere else to go but home. I considered pulling off in some abandoned lot and sleeping in my car.
But that wouldn’t be fair to my mother. She would be worried sick about me and probably already
was with how I had left, not to mention the amount of snow that had just fallen down in the past few
hours.

I began driving down a familiar part of Seneca and then I breathed a sigh of relief as I neared the
antique store and pulled into one of the front parking spaces. I shuffled through my pant’s pocket to
see if the key to get in was still there. Sure enough, my fingers gripped tight around it. I removed the
heavy scarf from around my face along with the long coat, both dripping wet from my recent stalking
expedition at Candace’s, and tossed them in the backseat.

Once inside the store, I flicked on the lights and took off my other coat to hang it up. I looked
around and soaked up the silence for a moment before plopping down in an overstuffed antique
leather chair in the corner of the front room and tried to relax. I tried closing my eyes, and a million
different thoughts automatically ran through my mind. Maybe I should try this again. I reopened my
eyes, and then after a moment, shut them tightly, only this time I pictured myself in a white box with
nothing around me but pure white walls. I tried to focus on how there was nothing but white around
me, nothing to look at but the whiteness, the blankness, as I tried to clear my head and not be so
bombarded by the thoughts and emotions that now haunted me every second of every day from the
moment I woke up and sometimes even in my sleep. I deserved a few minutes of peace to reclaim my
sanity that I had felt almost certainly slipping away from me tonight.