BinDon’t look for love when you should be looking over your shoulder
Surveillance
I ❤️valentines
Months of planning and patience finally paid off. Months of careful surveillance, hidden at his desk behind his textbooks. Studying every detail, looking for any opportunity to make contact. Keeping careful notes — favorite food, favorite soda, favorite hangout spots, favorite band, favorite flower, the gestures that made Zoe smile, the gestures that forced her smile, the smile that said her boyfriend Chad misread her signals entirely (something Chad did more and more after Zoe caught him with her best friend Emily under the bleachers at Homecoming).
Roland listened, too. Listened to gossip, rumors, and hushed conversations. Which was easy to do since no one noticed him. The listening part was how he discovered Zoe dumped Chad last week, the week before Valentine’s Day. His window of opportunity had opened, and the curtains were flapping in the breeze.
The listening part was how Ronald discovered Zoe dumped Chad last week, the week before Valentine’s Day. His window of opportunity had opened, and the curtains were flapping in the breeze.
He stopped her in the hall, just outside their French class (a class he’d taken because she’d enrolled). With one hand he offered a bouquet of chrysanthemums, with the other a heart-shaped box of Lindor truffles (but only six truffles because that’s all he could afford with the money he took from his mother’s purse). The Zune in his pocket played the Jonas Brothers’ “Lovebug,” her all-time favorite song, a perfect backup to his invitation to join him at the Valentine’s Day dance.
Score!
He arrived at her door exactly at 7:30, as promised, with the cab waiting (because he wasn’t about to show up with his mother driving the car). His finger shook as he rang the doorbell. A moment later Zoe’s mother opened the door and showed Roland into the living room where Zoe waited with Chad and the geeky girl who sat in the back row in history, twisting her hair around her finger and giggling at odd moments.
Zoe wrapped her arm around Chad’s waist. “Chad and I made up. But I didn’t forget you. I recruited my cousin Sophie to be your date.” She mouthed the next words. “She’s been stalking you since Freshman year.”
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Wry noir author Phillip T. Stephens wrote Cigerets, Guns & Beer, Raising Hell, the Indie Book Award winning Seeing Jesus, and the children’s book parody Furious George. Follow him at Phillip T Stephens.
