EMILY

It is a new day and a new beginning—a quote someone said on the radio last week. I kept rolling it over in my head. Was it really so simple? Just wake up and start fresh? Yesterday was done, over, and you couldn’t do a damn thing to change it. But today? That was a whole different story. We were the masters of our own life. We could choose to wallow in self-pity and cry about what could have been, or we could learn and grow from the pain … take an honest look at what we’ve done and let it go. Tell ourselves it didn’t matter. Today was new thoughts and new faces and how we reacted to that was our choice. Today I wanted to let go and live my life. I wanted to laugh and enjoy every experience coming my way. Today I was not going to let anything hurt me, scare me, or force me to question my dreams. Today was my day.

I was meeting up with the girls this afternoon. We were heading out on a little road trip.

Andrea had a speaking engagement at a conference Friday morning in Southern California. A friend gave her the keys to her beach house in La Jolla, and she invited Maggie and me to tag along.

We were going to walk the beach, eat wonderful food, drink, and just plain relax and enjoy life. I was looking forward to the escape and a bit of girl time.

I hadn’t seen much of Andrea the last month. When she called about La Jolla, I asked her how things were going. She’d been spending a lot of her time helping out at the women’s shelter in Phoenix. She mentioned there had been a large number of women and kids coming in to escape some really horrendous situations, and she had been dealing with issues day and night.

Maggie had been quieter the last few times I’d seen her, at least when we were out for happy hour. Usually she was the center of attention with her laughter and her stories. Now she seemed to be observing more, listening instead of going into the conversations. A girls’ weekend together would do all of us some good.

Guilt hit me as I packed my duffle bag and threw it in the back of my jeep. I was leaving Lucky for the first time since he became my roommate. I checked into a few kennels, but I didn’t really know what to look for. I asked George for a recommendation, and he promptly informed me Lucky would be staying with him. He swayed me quickly with the fact that Lucky had seen the inside of too many kennels in his short life. He was a rescue dog someone didn’t want anymore. He didn’t need to think I felt the same way about him.

His argument almost made me cry. I felt so guilty leaving him. I knew there would be times when I had to and I knew Lucky liked George and George adored Lucky. They would be fine. The two bachelors just hanging out, watching TV, eating steak, drinking beer, and farting.

“No beer for Lucky, he’s watching his calories,” I had informed George earlier.

Lucky seemed to be fine when I brought over his supplies and his blanket before I left. I gave him lots of extra hugs. They watched as I backed out, then Lucky followed George back into the garage.

Maggie lived close by, so I picked her up first. She was already waiting, her bag sitting in the driveway as she locked up the house. She pulled out a memory card she made for the trip with over 500 songs.

“Perfect driving music!” she promised and promptly slid the card in the slot on my dash. Rock and roll blasted out from the speakers and I began to sing along with her and Aerosmith.

Andrea was ready and waiting for us when we arrived. She was smiling brighter than the eyes of a child on Christmas morning as she carried out her garment bag and stashed it in the back. I’d tied the ragtop back on the jeep for the long drive so we could enjoy the beautiful weather. Sunglasses on, everyone buckled in, and music turned up loud, we headed out.

We headed down through Maricopa, taking the southern route skimming along the Mexican border and the sand dunes toward San Diego. The drive took five and a half hours, give or take, giving us plenty of time to catch up along the way.

There were a few stops as we went through the mountains for group pictures and another to watch the dune buggies racing in the sand. I was amazed some of them didn’t flip over as they climbed the steep hills. Up and down they went. Sand flying all over as the wheels dug through it. I might have another addition to my bucket list, racing a dune buggy through the desert sand. It looked like a lot of fun to me.

The sun dipped lower on the horizon as we drove into La Jolla. The memories of this beautiful place raced through my mind. It was the place Elliot and I came several times when life would get crazy. I always felt so calm here, sitting on the beach, watching the ocean just roll in and out. My blood pressure instantly dropped when I hit the city limits of La Jolla.

Just a few steps away from the park, the beach house overlooked the ocean. I’m not sure what I thought it was going to be, maybe a small cottage or something on that order, but little it was not. Four bedrooms each with its own bath. A living room spanned the entire west side of the house, and a whole wall of sliding doors opened up to a deck facing the ocean. It was amazing. We each grabbed a room and dumped our stuff, meeting back in the living room. Andrea was already gathering up some glasses and a bottle of wine, motioning for us to sit in the chairs out on the deck.

“Please tell your friend that this place is wonderful!” I told her, gazing all around me.

“I will. She found it a few years ago. She did most of the redecorating herself, hiring out only what she didn’t know how to do or didn’t want to attempt. It was a foreclosure and in pretty sad shape. This was her healing place after a rough divorce. All her energy went into fixing it up. I remember how it looked when she bought it. I’m not sure I would have attempted it.” Andrea pretended to shudder. “The message she wanted passed on to all of us was to relax and enjoy. And to heal.”

We spent the evening sitting out on the deck in oversized chairs, so comfortable one could sleep in them, mesmerized by the Pacific Ocean in front of us, drinking wine, and just plain old girl talk. It was, hands down, the most relaxing and comfortable evening I had experienced in a long time.

The kitchen was stocked with all kinds of delicious food, snacks, fresh fruit from the local farmers’ market, and meals Linda, the owner, had prepared ahead of our arrival. She had been at the beach house most of the week before we arrived, leaving the day before. She left a list of some of the local restaurants within walking distance should we decide to eat out.

Andrea retired earlier than Maggie and myself, as her speaking engagement was in the morning. I offered to drive her into San Diego or let her take the jeep, but Andrea planned to use the car Linda kept in the garage.

With paradise right outside the front door of the house, I was sure my jeep was going to stay parked in the driveway all weekend. We could walk everywhere.

Maggie and I stayed up until well after midnight, drinking and catching up on what had been happening recently, including details on my stalker, or the lack thereof.

“Have you come up with anything yet?” she asked.

I shook my head. I still couldn’t think of one single person I could imagine doing this to me. Stalking was something that happened in a movie or in a magazine article, not something you thought could happen to you or even someone you know. I felt naked and vulnerable to someone who was invisible. I hated feeling like this, having no control over the situation. It was horrible in every sense of the word.

“What about Jailbait?” asked Maggie. “He was an immature little shit.”

I thought about the idea for a minute. I couldn’t really see him exerting the effort into stalking me, but maybe.

“I thought of Steve at one point, but honestly, I just can’t see it. Stalking would take some effort on his part and effort to do much of anything is way too much for Steve,” I said. “But, I will mention it to Officer Campbell when we get back. Whoever it was drove a beat up old four-door, and Steve owns a truck.”

“Loser guys have loser friends,” Maggie pointed out. “I’m sure most of his friends can’t afford much in the way of vehicles. And I’ll always think of him as Jailbait, not Steve, because you were doing the whole cougar thing with that one.” She giggled, punching me in the arm, gently.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “I will definitely mention his name when we get back, have them check it out at least. I really don't think Steve is stalking me. And I hate the name Jailbait. It makes me look bad too, you know.”

Maggie just laughed at me and poured more wine in both of our glasses.

“Does the idea of a stalker scare you, Em?”

“Sometimes. I’m more annoyed than scared at this point. Whoever it is hasn't tried to hurt me. It's just so frustrating, not knowing who it is and the creepiness of being watched. That's what bothers me the most. I don’t think they would try anything really bad, breaking in or attacking me with Lucky around. I think Lucky would scare anyone off.”

Maggie quickly agreed with me. Lucky was intimidating with his size and protectiveness. He was a very gentle dog and harmless, unless someone tried to hurt me. I hoped.

“Are they sure it’s a man?” Maggie asked.

“It was a guy that put the note in my door,” I told her. “We checked out the video camera. He had a hoodie pulled up over his head, hiding his face but we could see his hands, definitely a man hand. Rough looking and hairy. Needed a manicure, too.”

“Hey!” Maggie exclaimed. “Maybe that bitch you worked with when you first came down here is behind it! What was her name? The one that made your life a living hell for a while. I remember all the phone calls when she was driving you crazy. She was really mean to you, wasn’t she?”

“Carol,” I remembered. She was one I would never forget. She went out of her way to be nasty to me and I never really knew why. I left work in tears more times than I could count. Blaming me for everything that went wrong in the place, changing the schedule the night before I was supposed to work and not telling me, talking shit about me behind my back. I had never experienced anyone as malicious as that witch. I finally quit because of her

“What ever happened to her?” Maggie asked.

“After I left, I never saw her again. Actually, I never went near the bar again—I didn’t trust myself. I harbored a deep and sadistic desire to punch her in the face. The bar closed a few years after I left. Good riddance, too, the rest of the staff watched everything happening and never stepped in, not even management. Besides, it all happened over eight years ago.”

“Karma will get her. She’s probably fat and ugly now.”

“She was fat and ugly back then,” I replied with a grin. We both laughed.

I didn’t want to think about my stalker this weekend, just forget he existed for a little while. I wanted to relax and enjoy one of my most favorite places on earth, La Jolla, and the ocean. My stalker was back in Arizona and I was here where it was safe.