Cade lived alone on the first floor in an upscale apartment complex. He had no serious girlfriends, but he tried to date as much as he could. Unfortunately, he would go through long periods without having a serious relationship, and he would get bored and lonely. He would spend time with the guys, hanging out at a sports bar drinking beer. He liked the apartment complex he lived in and most of his neighbors, and he was especially intrigued by the resident apartment manager, Blondie.
He didn’t know her real name, but called her Blondie to himself because she wore shoulder-length blonde hair. He heard that she was a divorcee, and he had never seen any guys around her place, even though she was attractive enough. She was older than Cade, probably in her mid-30s, Cade had surmised. She was very quiet for an apartment manager, and seemed lonely to Cade. She frequently had an almost severe look to her pretty, feminine features. He had talked to her briefly when he moved in several months ago, but had not had a chance to talk with her since. She had been all business in her prim suit and perfectly styled blonde hair, and seemed to want to emphasize the rules and regulations of the complex. She had given him a disapproving look throughout the brief meeting, even though he had tried to be as friendly as possible. He had assured her that he wasn't planning any loud late-night parties.
Blondie lived alone across the narrow parking lot from Cade and didn’t seem to have much of a social life. Cade couldn’t figure out why, because she was attractive and successful looking, if a bit severe. She drove a relatively new silver BMW, wore expensive suits, and seemed to be very refined. He didn't know whether she had a job in addition to managing the apartments, but thought perhaps she came from money. Or maybe she worked from home. She was certainly always around the apartment complex. She never seemed to smile or laugh, but just quietly watch people. Cade noticed she seemed to watch people a lot. Her big brown eyes would seem to watch everything that took place in the apartment complex. Often, he would see her at her upstairs apartment window, at the parted curtains, looking out at him as he was coming and going.
She kind of creeped him out at times because she was always watching him, with her big brown eyes, almost spying on him. He would frequently look up as he got into his car in the parking lot, and catch her watching him. Nothing that went on at the apartment complex seemed to escape her notice. It didn’t help that her apartment was directly across the parking lot from his, and that she was on the second floor. She could literally look down from her balcony into his apartment, and could watch him as he came and went.
Her constant presence, or the threat of her presence, sometimes had him closing the blinds of his apartment when he was home, even when he wished he could leave them open for the natural light. He had several plants by his window that needed light, so he left the blinds open whenever he could. He wasn't sure if she could see through his windows during the day, but certainly at night he knew she could.
One day, as he casually looked up at her window when returning from taking his trash to the Dumpster, he noticed her standing at the parted curtains of her second story sliding glass doors. He could see that she had a large pair of high-powered binoculars pressed to her eyes, and she was sweeping the apartment complex to the north of where he was walking. He stared for a moment, incredulous. It was like she was a one-woman neighborhood watch, and she had nothing better to do than spy on the neighbors. Cade envisioned her keeping a notebook of people’s comings and goings, some sort of a strange journal, keeping tack of other people’s lives in her lonely existence. Knowing how careful she was about watching the complex, Cade figured the binoculars made sense. The more he thought about her, and her voyeurism, the more he wanted to get to know her better.
As time passed, and he saw her at the laundry or the pool, he would smile and nod politely, and she would nod back with a very slight hint of a smile. He felt that she was starting to melt a little toward him, and he was careful not to break any of the complex rules to keep on her good side.
One Friday night, Cade returned home from happy hour after work at a local bar. He was home relatively early for him, and as he pulled into his parking lot, he noticed Blondie at her window. Her lights were off, but he could see her curtains moving at the sliding glass door on her balcony, and caught the sight of the glint of glass and the blackness of binoculars peering out from the window. Unreal! he thought to himself. He kind of felt sorry for her and how lonely she must be.
He went into his apartment, turned on a few lights and kicked off his shoes and socks. It was a bit stuffy in the apartment, and he didn’t want to turn on the A/C, so he peeled off his shirt as well, noticing in a mirror that he still had a pretty good tan from the boating outing he had been on the previous weekend. He thought about putting shorts on but decided to leave on his faded blue jeans. He went to his sliding glass window that led out to the patio, and opened the blinds and slid open the slider. The cool night air flowed pleasantly into the room. The screen was gone from the slider, but the night was cool enough to keep away any bugs, so he left the window wide open.
Cade headed to the kitchen, flipped on the light and rummaged in the refrigerator. He pulled out a Corona and found a half-eaten bag of pretzels. He settled down in an easy chair in front of the TV with his feet up on an ottoman. Drinking the beer and eating pretzels he flipped back and forth between ESPN and a movie that he had seen before but liked. He watched TV for a while, feeling slightly buzzed from the beer. He had wished that Kim, a friend from work, had been around tonight, but she was at some family function. And he hadn’t met anyone at the bar that was interesting to talk to. So here he was, at home, on a Friday night with nothing much to do.
