Questioning by the cops, unfortunately, didn’t deter Sterling* a bit because he kept calling every day. After about a week, I told Kiki not to put his calls through, so I could work in peace.
“You have 17 messages,” the creepy computerized voice on my answering machine at home said, STILL overstocked with bawling communications from Sterling begging me to take him back two weeks after he invaded my apartment.
“You big pussy,” I mumbled, erasing his drivel. Finally, I called the phone company and requested an unlisted number, a monumental mistake. After work the next day, there he stood beside my car with a dozen red roses in yet another crystal vase.
His radiant smile only stoked my ire. I stomped over and snatched the roses from him.
“What’re you doing?”
Ignoring him, I glanced over the railing of the parking garage at the empty sidewalk five stories below and dropped the flowers onto the sidewalk. The impact of the crystal striking the concrete echoed like gunfire as I watched the roses tumble, and the vase splinter into tiny, sparkly chunks.
“HEY!? Those cost eighty bucks,” he growled.
“I’ll gladly give you the $80 if you’ll leave me the fuck alone,” I said, rushing past him toward my Toyota.
“So, how’d you get into my apartment? Some bullshit fabrication to the maintenance guy?”
His eyes darkened. “Kennedy, please,” he said, grabbing my arm, preventing me from getting in my car. “I love you.”
I wrestled away from him. “But I DON’T love you, you meat-headed moron! Go home to your wife!” I screamed.
He stepped back, surprised by my sudden rage. He seemed to be enraptured by the delusion that we were star-crossed lovers according to one message about “marrying the wrong woman”. Made me wonder how long before I’d have become the wrong woman if I hadn’t dumped his sorry ass.
“This isn’t the real you,” he said sadly.
“Oh, yeah?” I said laughing, “Well, that’s where you’re dead wrong. I’m a serious bitch from a long line of QUEEN bitches (except my mother, God rest her soul), and THIS is only the beginning.”
His smile faded, and fear flickered in those dazzling green eyes.
“How’d you break in?” I hissed, unlocking my car door when a bolt of brilliance crackled in my weary brain. “You made a key, didn’t you? How? When I was asleep?” I studied him, trying to think of a Walmart or somewhere nearby where he could’ve copied my key in the wee hours. But I came up empty.
“Have a drink with me, and I’ll tell you.”
“No, way!”
“Just one drink,” he pleaded.
I started to decline again when suddenly…I knew…”The bubble bath!” I blurted out.
He was taken aback, meaning I’d probably hit the jackpot. “That night you brought me bubble bath. I got in the tub, and you left, 40 minutes to buy another bottle of wine… long line at Ralph’s my ass! You went to Simmons Hardware down the street, and -”
“No, please, just let me explain,” he graveled, inching toward me.
“NO!” I yelled, slipping into my car, slamming the door, and driving away. And I took great pleasure in watching him getting smaller in my rearview mirror. If ONLY I could get him to STAY THERE…
My landlord had already changed the lock to my front door after the Dom Perignon incident. So, I felt a little safer that night, knowing I’d curtailed Sterling’s access.
Following another exhausting week of dodging Sterling’s calls at work, he was sitting on my front steps waiting for me.
I had given Tim a very short and simplified version of mine and Sterling’s breakup, saying he wasn’t a nice man after all. But, apparently, Tim gleaned a lot more from my phone conversations when I thought he was asleep.
Tim shot past me, prompting Sterling to stand up. “Hey, you big Jackass,” Tim said angrily, wagging his finger at Sterling.
“Tim,” I gasped, biting my lip to keep from laughing, “Jackass is NOT a nice word. Don’t say that.”
But Tim continued his tirade at the bewildered Sterling, “My Grandpa says you can’t have a wife AND a girlfriend. So, you go home now.”
Sterling, ever the charmer, merely smiled, and said, “I just wanna talk to her for a minute, okay?”
I unlocked the front door, and Tim swaggered inside, mumbling, “Jackass.”
“What do you want?” I asked, crossing my arms, aiming my flat-eyed glare at him.
“Pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
Tired of his bullshit, I closed my eyes when the perfect plan occurred to me. “Fine,” I said with a sigh, “Lunch, tomorrow, at the Italian Courtyard.”
Our first date had been at the Italian Courtyard, a little bistro near IBM.
“Really?” He asked, the look of unbridled glee was revolting, but I had to shut that out.
“No promises,” I said, trying not to acquiesce too easily.
“Okay,” He said, grinning.
“But tell me something,” I asked, looking down, pretending to be coy. “Why didn’t Clair ever answer the phone when I called your house?”
“I have a separate line for business in my den,” he said, grinning as if he were the smartest man on the planet.
I nodded, totally wishing I could just run over the bastard and be done with it…
“And the picnic in your backyard that Saturday?”
“She was at her mother’s in Oregon.”
I nodded, went inside and shut the door shouting, “Goodbye, Sterling.” A moment later, I heard his footfalls clambering toward the street.
After an awkward lunch punctuated by small talk, I gave Sterling a sweet little kiss in the parking lot beside his car. Not too passionate, just long enough for Kiki to snap our picture from her Volkswagen not three feet away.
Kiki and I giggled all the way back to the office, and I finally felt like I could see the end of the Sterling saga…
That evening, pretending to be Clair, I called the electric company, the gas company, and the water company in Santa Monica, and shut off the utilities for Clair and Sterling because “My husband and I are moving out of state.”
Shortly after, Kiki stopped by with the clandestine kissy pictures from the One-Hour Photo down the street, which I mailed to Clair the following morning.
I called in sick to work two days later and drove over to Sterling’s house at 7 a.m. I saw him speed off in his used Mercedes around 7:30. A few minutes later, a lovely blonde woman pulled out of the garage in a snazzy, red Miata. Assuming she was Clair, I followed her to George’s Salon in Pasadena. I saw her blow-drying an older woman’s hair around 30 minutes later through the window. I wrote down the address of the salon on an old grocery list in my purse.
THEN, I went to an adult bookstore in Alhambra and bought several gay porno mags. I went home, typed up little labels with Sterling’s name and address, slapped on the cover of the magazines. I put the magazines in a brown envelope with Clair’s name on it in big BLACK letters. I drove to George’s Salon and left them with the annoyingly friendly receptionist.
That night, sitting on my couch drinking red wine with Kiki, I actually felt GIDDY waiting for Sterling’s life to implode. Three hours later, I was dead asleep when Sterling started BANGING on my door screaming. I had expected the Sterling explosion to occur shortly after his wife opened Pandora’s box of the gay persuasion. So, Tim was at Kiki’s.
“Open up, you fucking CUNT!”
Oh, the C-Word off the bat, he REALLY didn’t know me.
I crept to the front door, golf club in hand. “Andrew, is that you?” I called out while reaching for the phone, not that I knew anyone named ANDREW in the greater Los Angeles area.
“No, it’s Sterling, you fucking whore! Open up!”
“Sorry, not happening, but I warned you, Sterling!” I said, just as the 911 Operator came on the line…
“Nine one one, what’s your emergency?”
“There’s a man trying to break into my apartment,” I said urgently just as something went CRASHING through my front window. “Oh, my God! He broke the window. Please hurry!” I yelled, this time with genuine urgency as I rattled off my address.
“Is there anyone else at home?”
“No, just me,” I said, creeping toward my living room. A large rock sat in the middle of the carpet, surrounded by a field of glass. And then, I saw HIM…at the window, knocking out the remaining glass with his fist.
“You goddamned piece of shit!” he screamed, trying to wedge himself through the window, into my house!
I ran into the bedroom, locked the deadbolt, and began shoving my dresser against the door. I stayed on the line with the operator for 15 minutes while Sterling slammed his fists against the bedroom door, hollering obscenities and threats like a damned bull the whole time.
Finally, the police arrived. They arrested Sterling for breaking and entering, and I was kind of the hero of Tarzana for a day or two though I refused to give any interviews about The Sterling Stalker who had a long list of women he’d harassed in the past.
“Did you think the gay porn was a little over the top?” Kiki asked me when all hullabaloo boiled over.
“No, I figured that was the one thing that would really make him see red.”
She nodded, and she never worried about another man stalking her…cuz she knew I’d always have a plan…
*See Post #49 – The Sterling Stalker for the full story.
