Now I Speak (eBook)

CHAPTER TWO

November 5 – 10, 2011

Stalkers use many tactics, including:

• Making unwanted phone calls.
• Approaching the victim or showing up in places when the victim does not want them to.
• Following and watching the victim.
• Sending unwanted texts, photos, emails, and messages through social media.
• Sending unwanted gifts.
• Using technology to monitor, track, and/or spy on the victim.2

The following day felt like Christmas as I bounded down the small spiral staircase of my lofted bedroom. It was gallery walk day, my day to shine and give my gift to the community in the form of art. Much like parents on Christmas morning, I was already exhausted and driven by the joy of giving to others. I put on a soft, threadbare, black and white flannel shirt and another pair of hand-me-down designer jeans and selected white Ray-Bans from the collection. They were the only expensive pair of sunnies I owned, and gallery walk day required a little extra flair.

Rachel, my faithful gallery employee, greeted me at the shop’s door with camera in hand, snapping pictures of me and the works on the walls. A true child of the West Coast hippie movement, Rachel radiated quirk and delight. Her shock of red hair with its ever-present red rose pinned in matched my caffeinated buzz of enthusiasm.

Being a popular destination on the gallery walk required throwing a damn good party, and the list to accomplish before the opening was long. Help the DJ unload his speakers. Climb on top of the door frame to install a projection system, which I would later use to simulcast a gallery opening in Seattle. Pull together the cardboard dress I had abandoned in frustration the evening before. Set up the wine station. Get the wine. Do I have enough plastic cups? What am I wearing tonight? The list was never-ending. The previous owner, who’d entrusted me to take the helm, had turned the gallery into the hotspot it was. I worked my ass off to live up to this obligation, pressure, and standard and then make it more prominent than anyone could have ever imagined.

I was perched on the gallery’s door frame, completing the projector task. A reporter from the Peninsula Daily News popped in and asked me to come down from my perch. I wiggled my body off the ledge and down the ladder, back to the sacred earth of my gallery. He presented me with a piece of paper, and I beamed as I read the certificate. My eyes misted over the faintest bit. I had won Best Gallery on the Olympic Peninsula. I was crushing it!

The summer of 2009 found me hunched over a table in the guest bedroom riddled with Carson’s clutter as I went about the daunting task of writing the business plan for my gallery. Every time I tried to tidy and organize the room, he would bring in more outdoor gear, yard sale scores, and junk. I rode high on our engagement, only a few months old, and turned my back to the apparent lack of support as he packed his belongings around my tiny corner while I tried to write my future.

Carson traveled regularly, and I found peace in the daytime when he was gone, leading wilderness trips for a drug and alcohol treatment facility. At night, I slept with a heavy metal lemon squeezer under the pillow, ready for combat. I respected and supported Carson’s work, but as his newest sponsees, days or weeks fresh into their sobriety, knew where we lived and that I was alone, I feared for my safety.

No bank was going to give me a loan, and with the very meager funds in my bank account, I needed a private investor to purchase the gallery. It took nearly two months to research and write the business plan and secure an investor; it took two days to plan the wedding.

We had fought over owning the business together; it was mine, and I was very protective, triggered by the men in my past who had taken what was mine so many times before. Eventually, I caved, and on the day of ownership, he beamed beside me as our pens hit the paperwork.

His good-natured public side masked the deeper issues that I’d become accustomed to experiencing. I seek out the companionship of men who wear masks, the ones who draw people in with their charisma but reveal control, manipulation, and judgment behind the closed doors of our relationship. I flee, pass over, and run from those who carry the traits I crave—understanding, listening, empathy, and strength—in favor of the “street angel/house devil.”

Before Carson and I ever hit the wedding aisle—or dock, in our case—our relationship was teetering between my fear of our future and our shared drive not to disappoint Midwest families and the Port Townsend community. After therapy, shouting, blaming, and crying, I asked to postpone the wedding.

One battle led to Carson bursting into the gallery, shouting, “What the fuck do you want to do? Do you want to break up?!”

In tears, I responded in fear. “No! I love you so much, I’d marry you tomorrow!”

I in jeans and a white lace top, he in a cowboy hat, we eloped three days later on the dock with a small group of friends. The hastily planned ceremony was followed by coffee and treats at the Undertown. A cautionary note: If you want to postpone a wedding or not go through with it, do not marry that person instead.

Within the year, our battle to survive ended. White flags were flown as the fiber of our marriage disintegrated. Carson played “99 Problems” by Jay-Z on repeat at the house while I packed up my belongings. His statement was clear, though it hurt, and the sense of relief washing over me felt like an ocean cleansing me.

Despite the relief I felt in divorcing Carson, when I discovered he’d replaced me immediately with a younger woman and impregnated her before our divorce was finalized, I sobbed in the back room of the gallery. The magnitude of the decision to marry and the divorce stayed with me, and I never imagined I could be erased and replaced that quickly or permanently.

With the heartache of losing a life I didn’t want, I walked to the shores of North Beach each evening, tossing a rock into the moving water, letting go. My failure visually turned into taller heels, bigger hair, sophisticated outfits, and edgier shows at the gallery. I will make myself irreplaceable, I thought.

The few months that had passed since my divorce had been the best, hard in growth, but deeply satisfying in all that I had accomplished. I looked around my world, from where I had come, and felt awe and excitement for what the future held. I would challenge myself to accept the future and remind myself of the feelings I had never known before after years of depression and anxiety.

The first Saturday of the month was my marathon, and I always came in first. Texts, emails, and phone calls of instructions, directions, sales, and questions filled every moment, adding to the frenzy in which I thrived. During one scroll through the emails, I noted that, indeed, Jeffrey had submitted his portfolio and bio in hopes of being accepted to the gallery. I ignored it; I’d reply to him on Monday. I had a party to throw.

And a party I did throw. I wore a black and white striped asymmetrical sweater with a black belt around my waist, black skirt, and towering high-heeled boots, and my geometric haircut matched the show perfectly. Friends poured wine for the guests, and Rachel made the sales. I weaved in and out of the crowds, chatting and schmoozing. The simulcast to Ghost Gallery in Seattle kept the party going across the Puget Sound. Techno and house music filled the gallery and drifted down the street while the DJ spun tunes. With the music thumping, people danced and followed the sound onto the street, bodies bouncing up and down in front of the gallery.

The cops arrived after a noise complaint was called in, and I sheepishly met them outside. Instead of shutting the music off, the officer on duty said we had to turn it off by 10 p.m. With that, I slid my way back into the buzzing four walls and continued to drink in every damn second of the night. Not wanting the evening to be over at our ten o’clock cutoff, I went with the artists and danced into the night at the local dive bar.

Foggy-brained the following day, I sipped on my mimosa on the deck of an expansive house near the water, enjoying a private brunch with the artists before they headed back to Seattle. I could not have been more content with my life, and it was the best farewell party I never knew I had.

Content as I was in my celebratory haze of a party well-executed, Monday rolled around with its regular routines. Pay the bills, answer emails, visit artists, work on bookkeeping—the ordinary things. Among the tasks was to shoot off a quick email to Jeffrey, politely declining to show his artwork.

I looked through the email message and attached images of paintings. They felt familiar, and I realized Jeffrey had sent me an email of his work the previous year. He had been in the gallery before—several times in fact. I had never answered his original email and had not recognized him when he’d approached me a few evenings earlier. With people coming in and out of the business it wasn’t strange that I didn’t recall him during our evening conversation. However, it was out of the ordinary for me that I didn’t respond to his email. Looking through the works, I knew why I hadn’t answered...