I smiled deviously, the wheels of revenge turning in my reptilian little mind.
“Christine,” I said slowly, “lies and stalking are things that I can always engineer …”
Stalktoberfest
In war, truth is the first casualty.
—Aeschylus
When it came to my breakup with John Lombardi, truth was not my friend. I had suffered through the horrible facts of his cheating on me and, in my quest to avenge myself through hockey, had been forced to confront the humiliating reality that I was pretty awful on the ice.
So when I decided to launch a new campaign of emotional terror on John, self-respect was a willing martyr.
Over a year had passed since our split, but Christine’s words of advice on how to spite him still rang in my ears.
Oh, Shallon, let it go! I told myself. You’ve published a book, gotten a job that doesn’t involve non-slip shoes, even learned to skate better—you’ve already won.
But revenge isn’t about winning; it’s about justice. It’s about making someone feel just a fraction of the pain and misery he inflicted on you. But still, I tried to be the bigger person, to put our relationship behind me and focus on hockey, the unexpected silver lining. And like I said, the more I played, the less I thought about that hateful retard and all the heartache he caused. But then one day, months after the Empire State Games fiasco, I was at Chelsea Piers for a skating workshop when I saw him—John.
I was in the middle of a suicide sprinting drill when I suddenly saw his stocky frame and unmistakable chiseled jaw walking toward the locker room, and I stopped dead in my tracks. Just like Giant Douche had at Houston’s, John looked the way I’d remembered him in my happy daydreams—striking and manly. Hidden behind the rink’s Plexiglas, a hockey helmet, and a mouth guard, I felt brave enough to stare right at him.
“John …,” I murmured hollowly, our six months of turmoil reinfecting my mind like a dormant virus.
Maybe he wasn’t all bad, I found myself thinking, already seduced by his Jon Hamm handsomeness. Maybe it was all my fault. Just then, John gave a high five to a buddy walking out of the locker room, and as soon as his friend passed, I saw John roll his eyes scornfully. He had that same disdainful sneer that he’d hurled at me so many times. Pff, same old John.
As quickly as it had come, all of those warm, gooey feelings receded and were replaced by that familiar searing hatred, the ugly remnants of our bitter breakup.
I told myself that this was a sign from the gods that the time for comeuppance was nigh.
I rarely plan anything in my life as meticulously as I plan revenge. I’ve always been a big fan of retribution, mostly because I’m not very good at expressing myself in the moment when I’m actually being screwed over. I know, I know, this seems hard to believe—I’m pretty quick-witted and certainly sassy, but in the face of a breakup, fight with a friend, or reaming by a boss, I just sit there in mute horror. So when I finally do decide that no, I do not like being cheated on, or no, a 50 percent pay cut is not okay with me, the chance to speak up has already passed. I have no choice but to let my vengeance do the talking.
Let me also add that I dole out my revenge responsibly; the recipients of my payback have it coming in a big way. I don’t waste my time planning elaborate vendettas against a guy who doesn’t call after one bad date or a friend who stained a sweater she borrowed. You have to wound me in a very deep way for my particular brand of hell to arrive at your doorstep.
Over the years, I’ve gotten much better at revenge. In high school I was obvious and unoriginal in my rage, shoving a girl during PE or telling everyone that Zack Freeman “kissed like a gay guy”—like I even knew what that was supposed to mean.
But once I got to college, I learned that psychological warfare is the most satisfying of all. For example, freshman year there was a guy named Joey who lived a floor below us. He was a leering, drunken brute and would harass and grope all the girls in Trinity Hall. I usually brushed off his foul come-ons and sloppy butt grabs, but when he told my timid suitemate that he’d “pound her in the ass” and made her cry, I’d had enough. I spent the next two weeks learning to pick the lock on my dorm room door, MacGyver style. Why? Because each lock in Trinity Hall was made by the same company, so once you learned to pick one, you could open them all.
Next, I tailed Joey and his roommate Ricky for several days to make sure I had their schedule down. Then, on an afternoon when I knew they were out, I recruited my roommate Lisa to play lookout as I put my nefarious plan into action.
It took me less than six minutes to crack open Joey’s dorm room door, wriggle under his bed, deposit “the package,” and slip back to my room undetected. “The package” was a mixture of canned tuna, cod liver oil, and an open tin of Fancy Feast. Here I should mention that not only did I go to school in California, but the town was expecting a heat wave, which meant that the putrid mixture would reek like death in no time at all. Plus, because the suite was occupied by eighteen-year-old boys, and disgusting ones at that, finding the stink in that room would be like trying to find an unroofied beer at a Sigma Chi party.
Word of my caper quickly spread among the girls on my floor, and we all waited anxiously for the smelly/glorious horror to begin.
Twenty-four hours later, Lindsay in 4C saw Ricky purchasing three cans of Febreze from Rite-Aid. The day after that, Jen in 2A spotted Joey doing six loads of laundry … with extra bleach. By day three, Lisa’s sorority sister admitted that she’d tried to hook up with Joey but had to leave because the room smelled so nauseating. After that, things really got bad/awesome: Ricky took to sleeping in the common room and the guys on their floor had signed a petition to kick the two out altogether. Once the campus heard about the two fishy freshmen, their social lives dried up within hours.
At the end of the week, all of us girls watched in smug victory as Joey and Ricky cleared out every piece of garbage from their rancid room and shelled out $200—each!—to have it professionally sanitized.
I never told Joey that I was the one who turned his dorm into a landfill, which is the key to any good plot. Sometimes it can be tempting to take credit for your handiwork (just ask al-Qaeda), but it’s a rookie mistake. If you’re caught, you just look petty (which you are), plus you run the risk of getting sucked into a tit-for-tat cold war that goes on forever.
But now, all these years later, I’d have to reveal my face in order for my plan against John to work. Christine was right; I didn’t need to get drafted to the Rangers to get under his skin. I knew my very presence at the rink would be enough to send him into a tizzy.
At first glance, this sounds like child’s play—no lock picking or smelly concoction, simply show up and watch his blood boil, right? But the devil is in the details. I had to figure out when he’d be at the rink, why, and how I could run into him without making it obvious that I was stalking. Timing would be everything. Even if I did get face-to-face with my enemy, what would I say? I’d worry about that later, I told myself. For now, I needed to know his schedule.
It took me nearly a week just to deduce what team he was on. I spent hours combing through the Chelsea Piers team rosters online, but I couldn’t find his name anywhere. Finally, I resorted to calling the rink and pretending that I’d found a shin guard with his name on it.
“I could drop by before his game,” I said in a fake southern accent (it just seemed necessary). “What team is he on, darlin’?”
The teenage employee revealed that John was a sub on the Ice Hogs, part of the elite league. Aha! A sub! Loser. That would also explain why I hadn’t seen his name on the roster … but now he’d be even harder to track since he wasn’t a regular player.
So I turned to math. Sifting through the Ice Hog stats sheet, I deduced that John played about 60 percent of their games—not the best odds, but it was all I had. Their championship playoff game was next Wednesday at seven P.M. and I knew John wouldn’t miss it. Even if he wasn’t playing, he’d be there. I circle
d the date on my calendar and told my roommates to be home for dinner—Operation Stalktoberfest was about to commence and I needed their help.
“Eeeee, yay!” Marcia squealed as I laid out the plan. “I love a good stalk!”
I presented a large, hand-drawn map of the Chelsea Piers Sky Rink and parking structure, with the two possible entrances marked with big red Xs. I’d need an accomplice stationed at each one, because John could take either depending on whether he arrived via cab or subway.
“I’m going to hang this map here in the kitchen so we can all get familiar with it before Stalktoberfest,” I said authoritatively. “This will be your basic hammer-and-anvil assault, but if you guys prefer we can do a flanking maneuver and close the net on—”
“I’m sorry,” Pfeiffer said, interrupting. “What are you talking about? Hammers?”
“It’s a tactical maneuver, duh.” I sighed. “Basically you two flush him toward me and then I crush him, in conjunction with a circumvallation. Obviously.”
The girls just stared at me.
“I feel like you just started speaking in tongues,” said Marcia.
Thanks to two years in army ROTC during college, I’d learned all sorts of tactical maneuvers, which helped me step up my revenge game considerably. Preliminary bombardment, creeping barrages, decentralized command—I knew them all. And as such, I had become one badass mothafucka to mess with.
Once I’d translated my plan into language Pfeiff and Marcia could understand, I needed to make doubly sure my logistics were sound. I spent one solid afternoon prowling around Chelsea Piers, interrogating security guards and employees about other exits and entrances I might not have considered.
“What about those stairs?” I asked Jose, the parking attendant. “Could someone access the Sky Rink from those?”
“Oh no,” he said in a thick Spanish accent. “Those are jus’ for emergency, mija.”
Once I felt satisfied that my perimeter was solid, I took snaps on my cell phone and forwarded them to the girls, along with their “scripts.”
Since we didn’t know where John would enter the complex, they both had to be prepared to “groom the dog,” as I dubbed it. This meant that when John approached, whichever one of them was closer would pretend to be on her cell phone and say loudly, within earshot of John: “Wanna go to the Oilers game tonight? … Yeah, one of the players has a crush on Shallie and sent them to her office!”
John loved the Oilers and his ears would surely perk at the mention of his favorite NHL team. This would ensure that he would hear my nickname but would be so distracted at the mention of his precious team he would forget all about it … until of course he encountered me upstairs. Then the overheard conversation would suddenly resurface.
A player has a crush on Shallie? My Shallie?! he would think hysterically, and wonder just how deeply I had infiltrated his beloved hockey world. During our relationship, John made it very clear that I was never to encroach on his sport, even though I’d played for years. The game was his, and if I ever suggested that I come see him play he made me feel like a mistress threatening to call his wife. And yet there I’d be, invading his precious world of pucks and pads with a team of my own.
I tingled with fiendish delight just thinking about it.
Once the fake phone call took place, they were to use walkie-talkies to tell me, “The dog is approaching the kennel.”
“Why don’t I just call you on your phone?” Marcia asked.
“Because I already bought walkie-talkies.”
“But … isn’t that going to be kind of odd?” she asked, pressing me. “You sitting in the bleachers with a walkie-talkie crackling?”
Of course she was right, but I told her that it was too late to deviate now and pulled out two black wigs from my purse.
“That’d better be a puppy,” Pfeiffer said as I plopped the hairpieces on the table.
“You guys are going to need disguises.”
“Shallon, he’s never met us,” Marcia said. “And even if he did recognize us, we’re mentioning you by name, so …”
“And I already have black hair,” said Pfeiff, “so I’m not sure how much good this ‘disguise’ will do.”
I sighed and wondered if Eisenhower had this much trouble planning D-Day. I finally coaxed Marcia into the wig and sent the girls to bed. In twenty-four hours Operation Stalktoberfest would commence, and we all needed our rest. Being creepy takes a lot of energy.
The next day, I spent an hour getting ready: perfectly wavy hair, subtle-yet-sexy makeup, a low-cut tank top, and yoga pants.
“So, what are you going to say to him exactly?” asked Marcia as the three of us headed out the door.
“Um …”
I had no idea. I recalled the Joker’s line in The Dark Knight: “I’m like a dog chasing a car—what would I do if I actually caught it?”
I would act cool and serene, a far cry from the pathetic, broken girl he’d left all those months ago. I figured that we would chat amiably for a few minutes; I’d look irresistible, oh-so-casually mention that I too played at Chelsea Piers, then watch him slink miserably away.
What actually happened was both infinitely better and infinitely worse.
It started off smoothly enough. The girls got into position as I took my post in the bleachers of the east rink, where I would pretend to watch my (nonexistent) friend play in the Sled Dogs game.
At approximately 18:35 the target made contact with our envoy at entrance point Bravo; Pfeiffer ran through the fake phone call perfectly as Marcia radioed that he was en route.
My stomach did a somersault as he walked through the door. He was so beautiful in his haughtiness, so untouchably lovely, like a marble bust. My icy heart instantly softened.
I called out his name and broke into a smile … and he practically broke into a run.
“What are you doing here?” He scowled, jerking his neck back. You’d think he’d run into Hitler.
Well hello to you too, Buttercup. “I’m watching my friend’s game,” I laughed, just soooo shocked at the coincidence. I put my arms around him and felt him stiffen.
Now, okay, I should probably come clean on something. There was more to our breakup than just his cheating on me: after we split, I was so hurt and angry that I wrote about his infidelities on my blog for the entire world to read. You’d think that I would’ve learned my lesson after the Giant Douche debacle just a few weeks prior, but no.
Since John had never listened to a word I said when we were dating, I never imagined he’d deliberately look to read my website. But he had. And “upset” does not do his reaction justice. John had been furious and sent a scathing e-mail telling me I was vicious, hateful, and deserved a lifetime of pain.
I had felt slightly guilty at airing our dirty laundry on the web but reminded myself that he cheated on me; a few snarky blog posts wasn’t an eye for an eye—it was an eyelash for an eye. Plus, that was all in the past; I thought that the statute of limitations on my comparatively minor offense had run out by now. I was wrong. I’d hoped we were a misdemeanor, but I guess we were a felony.
“Aww, do you still hate me too much to hug me?” I said playfully, trying to hide my trembling hands.
“No, a hug was given,” he said, sounding like an IRS agent confirming the status of my tax return.
A hug was given. Wow. Really? It was going to be like that after nearly two years? We managed to chat for a few minutes before he inched away from me like a nervous dog. However, in between a few inanities about our jobs and new apartments, I managed to work in the fact that I played hockey at Chelsea Piers now too.
“Wait …,” he said, looking like someone had punched him in the throat. “You play? Hockey.”
“Yes, I play,” I said. “Actually, in a way, it’s thanks to you. If you hadn’t gone on and on about the game I never would’ve realized how much I missed it!”
He gasped, disgusted. This had been my plan all along, of course, but it was a Pyrrhic victo
ry. I had proved I still had the power to get under his skin, but for what? I didn’t want John to hate me. I wanted him to love me—then and now. Part of me thought he’d see me perched cutely in the bleachers and remember all of our good times: our mornings at the Comfort Diner eating French toast, the kisses while he shaved, the afternoon delight on his lunch break. But he didn’t. What leapt into his mind was Shallon the Burdensome, Shallon the Petty, and this little encounter, I realized, would do little to make him think otherwise.
A German proverb says that a great war leaves the country with three armies: an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. That day, I was serving in them all.
Penns and Needles
Navigating New York with a broken bone is a huge pain in the ass. It’s also a great way to get laid.
I’ve always been much better at handling physical pain than mental anguish. When I was twenty-three, the guy at the dry cleaner told me I looked old, so I cried for two days and scheduled an appointment for Botox. But when I was eight and compound-fractured my arm roller skating, I actually fell asleep on the car ride to the doctor. It’s a good thing that I’m so cool in such a crisis, because I’m very clumsy.
After my cracked arm, my next big injury was in seventh grade, when I was thrown off a horse. Let me tell you, you’ve never known pain until you’ve tried to pull a cowboy boot off a broken ankle. I spent three god-awful months on crutches and have a permanent hoof-shaped bruise on the inside of my foot. But still, I considered it a cakewalk compared to the dry cleaner incident.
Six years later, my best friend, Ellen, and I were at a water park when my face hit the back of her head going down a slide, smashing my nose to bits.
But at least back then I had a mama to help me bathe, make me snacks, and do my laundry while I convalesced. If you have to be injured someplace, Irvine, California, is a pretty ideal location, especially when you have a professional nurse for a parent.
Exes and Ohs Page 13
