Through his windows he’s learned the comings and goings of his neighbors in great detail. The old man who lives in the house on the corner of Second and Redondo walks his old dogs at 8:30am, 11:00am, 2:30pm, and at 4:30pm. The dogs are both little � one is clearly part dachshund, and the other is slightly taller, and much fluffier. The old man smokes during these walks and the Watcher suspects that nicotine inspires these walks as much as the dogs’ need for exercise. The quiet girl with the nice ass who lives in the apartment behind hustles across the Watcher’s field of view promptly at 9:10 am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on her way to the bus stop at the foot of Redondo (where it meets Shoreline). The book bag she carries suggests she’s on her way to school � either the Junior College or Cal State, he doesn’t know which. When the semester started, her crossing was one of the events for which he’d stand and risk observation, but lately he stays in his chair. It’s gotten to be the same old same old with her, and besides, he suspects that she’s on to him.
He witnesses a motley collection of joggers and cyclists throughout the morning; assorted stroller pushers and dog-walkers through mid-morning and mid-day; the mailman, the UPS and Fed-ex men, strangers parking their cars around the corner from someplace on Broadway (which is just a block away), occasional visitors flitting by through the afternoon and evening. When he wanders out, to the Laundromat to get quarters, or to O�Shannon to ogle the waitresses and drink beer, he sees some of the same people in different contexts, and he doesn�t always recognize them right away.
This morning he has noticed a woman behind the wheel of a four door Honda parked across the street. He�s seen her before. She lives in the house on the corner of First and Coronado, the one with the dirt front yard and the falling down garage. She�s married to a man who looks like an English professor. It�s strange to see her behind the wheel of a car parked across the street. He usually sees her jogging along the sidewalk, once in the morning and once in the evening, a pair of small dumbbells in her hands and a pair of iPod buds in her ears. The twice a day workouts have not had much of an effect on her physique. Her body has remained stubbornly chunky and droopy since he first noticed her almost a year before.
Her car is parked near a palm and the shadow of it falls across the windshield. It�s difficult to make out what she�s doing in there, but she�s doing something. The Watcher takes the chance and stands up to peer over the top of the blinds. She is dressed in her sweat suit and one iPod earbud dangles from its white wire over her near shoulder. Her hair is matted and pressed in places; she has been sweating. She doesn�t seem to be doing anything but staring ahead. The Watcher squints. Now she seems to be chewing. Quickly. She�s chewing quickly. Her mouth looks full, a squirrel�s bulge in her cheek, her jaw hurrying up and down. She bends forward slightly and her hands come up. There�s a fast food burger. It�s big and she has to open her mouth wide to take a bite. The burger disappears below the car�s windowsill and she wipes something from the corner of her mouth, looking straight ahead, chewing. She pauses to swallow, then she sips from a straw, and takes another big bite. Then another. Then another. Then more until the burger is gone. She takes several long draughts from the straw and wipes her mouth and looks down and to the right, reaching for something in the glove box, and she sits back up and looks down at the space in front of her, she seems to be fiddling with something and her upper arm jerks a little, and then she flicks a bit of paper over into the passenger seat and fusses with whatever it is in front of her for a moment, and then she brings it to her face, the Watcher can finally see what is � it is a candy bar, a jumbo Snickers or extra large Milky Way � she gives it a little sniff and turns it in the light and seems to sigh or exhale a little and sets her chin to face the candy bar and slightly adjusts her posture to its presence, about to take the first bite, the Watcher imagines the sweetness flooding her mouth after the savory burger, the slight burn of chocolate and sugar, the soothing nougat or caramel right after, crunchy peanuts, and then, strangely, she stops and straightens and looks in the rear-view mirror, looks over her right shoulder and the Watcher knows he�s about to be seen but doesn�t know what to do so he stands there, hoping her eyes are like cat�s eyes � extra responsive to motion � and if he stands still she will regard him as the wallpaper, or a lamp, or a weird shadow and then she turns to face his side of the street and he can tell where she�s looking, she doesn�t know about him exactly, she�s looking along the row of apartment windows and driveways and parked cars that is his side of the street, scanning along toward him and then she scans by him and he exhales and thinks it�s time to slip back to his chair in front of the computer and she scans back and stops scanning and stares and squints and recognizing something, she tosses the candy bar toward the passenger�s seat without taking that bite and turns to face the wheel and does something out of view, starting the car, and she pulls away and stares back across the street at the Watcher and keeps looking until she�s too far to twist her head and stare.
The Watcher�s heart is beating hard and fast. He feels he�s done something wrong, watching the woman sneak food, standing up and staring and watching her eat, but really, he didn�t do anything wrong. He just watched. She�s the one with the flabby middle.
After washing up in the kitchen he returns to his chair in front of his computer. He googles �webcam wireless� because he doesn�t want to bother with running a bunch of wires across his living room to his computer. If they are cheap enough, he will rig up three or four.

Shannon stands behind the bar at the end of another weeknight shift when most of the tables have cleared and been cleaned, refilling salt and pepper shakers and bottles of ketchup and bottles of vinegar, as usual. She’s thinking about Chris Across the Street. Her love for Chris Across the Street has never gone further than this, and this is how she likes it; the quietest romance, a never whispered secret, so secret she’s safe from knowing herself whether she means for it to exist or does not. She doesn’t know if she pretends she and Chris Across the Street are lovers because she’s afraid they may never actually be lovers (or that one day they will be lovers), or because it’s fun to pretend and look at the world made lavender by pretending. She doesn’t puzzle over it because it’s fun to be in love and that’s enough for her.
She’s also having a conversation with That Guy Jeff, the same conversation they always have at the end of her shift, a conversation she would never have with Chris Across the Street. That Guy Jeff tells her about his commute; about getting quarters from the laundromat and getting caught; about catching his assistant, not really his assistant, the department’s assistant, but you get the idea, catching the assistant reading blogs on company time, regularly it turns out, there are extensive computer logs of illicit blog-reading; about accidentally slipping an inflated expense report past his boss and making up the difference when he discovered the error a week later; and about his upcoming trip to the desert where he plans to camp out and listen to nothing, not a sound, not a peep, only the steady thumping of his heart and that whispering from inside as blood flows through his veins. He pulls off his blue LA Dodgers ball cap, runs his fingers through his hair and says, “What about you?”
Jorge the busboy bustles around her, collecting floor mats and stealing glances. Shannon doesn’t mind Jorge and his glances because it’s fun to be secretly in love.
“Oh, you know. Work” she says. “School. If I go anywhere this year it’ll be San Francisco. Or New York. I’ve never thought that sound was a whisper. I’d call it a ‘shuuush.’” She purses her lips into a delicious kiss to make the sound and That Guy Jeff stares, stumped.
Jorge looks over at That Guy Jeff as Shannon shushes and Shannon notices a glare. Jorge is a sweetie, Shannon thinks.
“New York’s great,” says That Guy Jeff, filling the silence. “San Francisco seems too precious to me, if you know what I mean.”
Shannon stops fussing with her bottles. “They’re noisy places and lately that’s what I like.”
“Sometimes noise is nice. Wanna get a drink with me after your shift?”
“A what? A drink? Where?” A guy like That Guy Jeff is supposed to understand the rules of secret love.
“I dunno. Someplace noisy. I’ve been meaning to ask for a long time. For forever, really, but you know, it’s hard, and I think I just decided to follow up finally…”
“You’re such a sweetie. Where then?”
“You choose.”
“Across the street.”
“The Wriggle Room is not very noisy.”
“I know the bartender,” she says, “and he’ll turn up the jukebox if I ask.”
She arranges all the bottles onto a tray and carries them out to the tables, wishing she hadn’t suggested the bar across the street. That Guy Jeff nurses his beer and looks at SportsCenter on the big screen behind the bar. Jorge disconnects a beer keg from the tap and carries it back to the kitchen, returning with a fresh keg loaded onto a hand truck painted red.
After her shift, Shannon and That Guy Jeff cross the street to the Wriggle Room where Chris Across the Street tends bar. The Wriggle Room used to be a real dive, and it used to be called Caroline’s Wriggle Room, but that was long ago when the neighborhood itself was much scruffier, and much dirtier, and when visitors from the Shore and the Heights referred to Broadway and Redondo as ‘iffy.’
“Shannon, sweetie! The usual?”
Shannon nods.
“I’ll have a draft beer,” says That Guy Jeff.
Chris Across the Street returns with Shannon’s vodka and grapefruit juice and That Guy Jeff’s draft beer and stands, waiting. After a moment he says, “Cat got your tongue?”
“Something like that,” she says, smiling.
“Goof,” says Chris Across the Street. “Always goofing.” He leans against the bar-back and re-arranges blank lottery slips for a moment then leaves to refill another quiet drinker’s glass.
“The thing about going to the desert…”
“I know,” she says. “‘Shuuush.’” They sit and drink their drinks. She watches Chris Across the Street tend bar while That Guy Jeff looks from television to bartender to Shannon and back.
“Okay,” she says at the end of her drink, “Let’s go.”
“Okay. Where?”
“Up the street.”
“The lesbian place?”
“That’s right. Very noisy.”
She waves and smiles at Chris Across the Street, who smiles in return and nods to That Guy Jeff. The Lesbian Bar is on the same side of the street as the Wriggle Room, but on the other side of Redondo. Packs of cigarette smokers flank the entrance, engaged in conversation, some quiet, most loud. That Guy Jeff pulls the door open and many, many loud conversations pour out onto the sidewalk. Shannon reaches for him and pulls him back.
“What’s the matter?” he asks.
“Nothing. If you do me a favor I’ll let you in on a secret.”
“Okay.”
“When we get inside, pretend you’re him.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you’re him,” she says, nodding east toward the Wriggle Room and Chris Across the Street. “And I will pretend you’re him, too.”
Soon their conversation rises up and joins with all the other conversations muttering through the bar. It is the same conversation she always has with Chris Across the Street, the one she’ll never have with That Guy Jeff.