How to Give a Stalker the Slip
Uninvited gardener; unwanted advances
As fans and frequent flybys know, most of my tales are told from my point of view. I find first-person narration to be an effective device for enhancing the engagement of both myself and my readers. By casting myself as a participant in events, I become absorbed in the writing, and my readers are eased into suspending disbelief.
Notwithstanding that my deception is intended for entertainment purposes, conscience commands that I classify my stories as fiction and supplement with a confession in notes: inspired by truth, massaged by imagination.
On rare occasions, I start off with the intention to relate the unvarnished truth, yet, as I write, the story steadily accrues sheen up until its high-gloss finish. Though much of the polishing can be blamed on the machinations of my mischievous muse, many times I have no choice but to conjure details so as to render scenes I didn’t witness and conversations I was not privy to.
Lesson learned: go with the default: fiction.
How ironic, then, that though the gist of the tale I am about to relate is true, it is classified as fiction, not because I’ve taken liberties with the details, but because the story itself is not believable. I was thus obliged to take a bass-ackward approach: that is, I’ve fudged facts so as to comport with the classification of fiction.
On last Friday’s glorious afternoon, I decided to surprise my friend Scott with a pizza from our favorite greasy-cheesy joint. It was high time to kick off the faux summer season with a picnic.
Our premature salute to summer was to take place in Scott’s side yard. We were confined to the property; Scott owns a vacuum repair shop, into which customers would wander at inopportune moments, such as half a sec before closing time or whilst he is attending to euphemistic “business.”
As I positioned the pizza box on the glass-topped table, Scott emerged from the backyard, accompanied by a dark-brown, buxom woman in a summer dress, whose shade of fuchsia was a dead-on match to my hair.
By way of introduction, Scott told me that Sarah had come to advise him about how to better tend his garden.
Sarah proceeded to enumerate his errors — sundry “suns” of omission, as I recall — after which, declining the proffered pizza, Sarah wandered the yard, moving potted plants from shade to sun, and vice versa, in an aimless fashion, such as it seemed to me. (Bear in mind: I flunked Floralese.)
When I left, at about four-thirty, Sarah was still making the rounds.
Sarah meandered for about ten minutes after my departure, Scott told me when he called that evening. Meantime, he’d gone inside the shop to lock up, when, as always, someone stopped in.
It was Sarah.
She said after all that yard work, she could sure use a good hot shower; for that matter, so could he — she’d be more than happy to give him scrub down.
The first time Scott ever met this woman was that very afternoon when she came by to retrieve a vacuum cleaner he’d repaired for a friend. He had not solicited, nor did he appreciate Sarah’s gardening advice. He had certainly not encouraged her to linger for three hours.
Flushed and nonplussed upon hearing Sarah’s suggestion, Scott recovered his voice just in time to hail an acquaintance who was passing by.
Scott corralled the unsuspecting fellow into taking Sarah around the backyard, to play a couple of rounds of mini-miniature golf on the quickie one-house course he’d constructed.
Scott got out of Dodge; the game commenced.
Ten minutes later “Dave” reported that after he’d beaten Sarah for the second time, she flung down her club and stalked off.
Since “Dave” is a pseudonym, I can in good conscience classify this story as fiction.
