Mrs. Peeping Tom

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 111

The first time I met Mrs. Peeping Tom, I had just moved into town.

The moving truck was still outside. The movers were unloading boxes. I was carrying something I had absolutely paid them to carry, because apparently I like to participate in the illusion of being helpful.

Then a woman appeared at my front door holding a plate of sealed Atkins protein bars.

Not cookies.

Not special brownies.

Not a casserole.

Sealed Atkins protein bars.

Which, in hindsight, should have been my first clue that she was either extremely considerate or extremely familiar with how evidence works.

“Hi,” she said. “I noticed you’re my new neighbor. I’m Mrs. Peeping Tom.”

I stared at her.

Because what do you say to that?

Is that hyphenated?

Before I could decide, she held out the plate.

“I brought you these. They’re sealed. I figured most people won’t eat homemade cookies from a stranger. Or even a store-bought cake, because it could still be tampered with. So I brought protein bars.”

“That’s… thoughtful,” I said.

“I noticed you work out,” she added. “I could tell by your well defined calves. Also, you were moving things out of the truck even though you paid movers.”

I looked down at my own legs like they had betrayed me.

“Right,” I said. “Let me put these away and I’ll bring your plate back.”

“You don’t have to invite me in,” she said.

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’ll just watch from here.”

And she did.

She stood in the doorway while I walked the plate into the kitchen, set the protein bars down, and tried to act like this was not the first scene of a documentary I would later regret participating in.

On my way back, I noticed a fly inside the house.

I grabbed a towel and started swatting at it.

“Oh, the whole town has a fly problem,” she said. “These houses are brand new, but they’re not built well. Lots of gaps. That’s how things get in.”

I froze for a second.

Because that is the kind of sentence a person says before revealing they have been living inside your walls.

I handed her the plate.

“Well,” she said, “if you ever need anything, just ask. I have a generator, gasoline, first aid kits, cat formula, and a full arsenal.”

“Cat formula?”

“For emergencies.”

“Of course.”

“And I have the only working landline in town. So if there’s ever a storm, or a tornado, or the cell towers go down, don’t hesitate to come knocking.”

“That’s very nice,” I said. “I usually try not to bother my neighbors. I’ll do my best not to become a damsel in distress during a federally declared event.”

She smiled.

“I live at the end of the street,” she said. “You’ll know the house. It has the red light outside.”

And then she left.

Which is how I learned that in Seguin, emergency preparedness sometimes comes with surveillance, protein bars, and a woman named Mrs. Peeping Tom.

And that’s when it all started.

After Mrs. Peeping Tom came to my door with a plate of sealed Atkins protein bars and a casual inventory of her emergency supplies, I could no longer relax in my own home.

I felt watched.

Not watched in the normal neighborhood way, where someone notices you forgot to bring in your trash cans.

Watched in the architectural way.

So I did what any reasonable woman would do.

I cemented the bathroom windows shut.

All of them.

Because the bathroom is where a person is most vulnerable. You can be brave in the kitchen. You can be composed in the living room. You can even pretend to be mysterious in the hallway.

But nobody is mysterious under fluorescent lighting with wet hair and miss-matched slippers on.

Then one night, from my upstairs window, I saw something.

At least I think I saw something.

A silhouette.

Standing outside.

It looked like Mrs. Peeping Tom.

Or maybe it was the shadow of my neighbor’s tree.

Or maybe I was hallucinating from all the mushrooms on the pizza.

We will never know for sure.

Unfortunately, her prophecy became real.

A tornado came through town. It skipped my street, as expected, but it flooded both exits, which meant I was technically safe and completely trapped. There was no power. No internet. No phone reception. The cell towers were down, and I was vulnerable, helpless, and hungry as hell.

And not just normal hungry.

Pizza hungry.

The kind of hunger that makes a woman ignore every red flag she has ever collected.

Every pizza place in town was closed because everything in this town closes at six and becomes legally dead on Sundays. The only option was to order from the next town over, which meant I needed a phone.

A real phone.

A landline.

Which meant I needed Mrs. Peeping Tom.

I walked to the house with the red light outside.

As I approached, another woman came out of Mrs. Peeping Tom’s house. She did not look at me. She did not acknowledge me. She kept her eyes forward in the way people do when they have survived something but signed an NDA with their own soul.

I knocked.

Mrs. Peeping Tom opened the door almost immediately.

“I knew you’d come eventually,” she said.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “But I need to use your landline.”

“For what?”

“I need to order pizza from the next town over.”

She stepped aside.

“Come in.”

I did not move.

“Before I come in,” I said, “I need you to know that I know.”

She blinked.

“You know what?”

“I know you watch people.”

Her face changed.

“Have you been watching me?”

“Yes,” I said.

She stared at me.

She looked almost impressed.

“You cemented your windows?”

“I started with the bathroom windows,” I said. “Then I did the rest of the house.”

She sighed.

“Do you still have flies?”

I froze.

“What?”

“Do you still see flies inside your house?”

“Yes,” I said. “Unfortunately.”

“Then I still have a way in.”

I felt my stomach drop.

“As long as flies can get into your house,” she said, “so can my gaze.”

“Damn it,” I whispered.

“You have to follow the flies,” she said. “Find where they’re getting in. Find the gaps. Seal the gaps. Only then will you truly shut me out.”

“Why do you do this?” I asked. “Why peeping?”

She looked past me, toward the flooded street.

“Ever since my husband died, I’ve been bored to death,” she said. “There’s no one to argue with anymore. No one to make my life a living hell. And there are not many hobbies in this town.”

“So you chose voyeurism?”

“It chose me.”

“You could have chosen crochet.”

She frowned.

“Doesn’t yarn attract cats?”

“Yes,” I said. “But only if you’re doing it correctly.”

“I’m allergic to cats, actually to all animals.”

“No,” she finally said. “I’m too deep into this. I can’t start a new hobby at my age.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, before I use your phone, I also need you to know that I left a letter in the outgoing mailbox telling people I came here. So if I disappear, they know your house was my last known location.”

She looked at me.

“You mailed a letter during a flood?”

“I had no stamp, so I used an ‘I Voted’ sticker.”

“That won’t work.”

“It might. This country is built on hope and dreams.”

She smiled.

Then she led me to the landline.

“You can use it,” she said. “I’ll give you privacy.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

Then she walked to the other side of the door and closed it.

I heard her breathing behind it.

“Mrs. Peeping Tom?”

“Yes?”

“Are you watching me through the peephole?”

“No.”

“Are you listening?”

“No.”

I stared at the door.

I picked up the phone.

Ordering a pizza while being watched by a female peeping Tom is one of the most vulnerable things a person can experience. You think vulnerability is being naked. It is not. Vulnerability is saying “extra mushrooms” into a landline while a widow with an arsenal and cat formula silently evaluates your character through a peephole.

I ordered the pizza.

I tipped generously.

Not rescue-helicopter generously, but enough to inspire problem-solving.

I hung up.

Although the roads were closed because of the flood, and no car could get in or out, I figured we could make the delivery work through athletic creativity.

I had not ordered the pizza because I believed a car could drive through a flood.

I ordered it because I believed in human creativity.

I figured the DoorDash driver could stand on one side of the water, I could stand on the other, and he could toss the pizza to me like a football.

The distance wasn’t impossible. We both would have had to believe in ourselves, but that is what delivery fees are for.

Right after hanging up, I looked through the peephole and asked the most serious question I had asked all night.

“Mrs. Peeping Tom,” I said, “how long do you plan to keep watching me against my consent?”

She looked offended.

“You should be flattered by all the attention I give you.”

“I cemented my windows because of you.”

“That was your choice.”

“I went to the police.”

“And?”

“Apparently, there is only one cop for the entire town, and for my case to even be reviewed, I have to get on a waiting list.”

She nodded, like this was a normal administrative delay.

“Not a list,” I said. “A waiting list to get on the list.”

“Well,” she said, “government moves slowly.”

“So now I’m trapped in a house with no windows, waiting for one cop to become emotionally available enough to investigate you.”

“That sounds difficult.”

“It is difficult. As much as I appreciate darkness, I still need fresh air.”

She sighed.

“How long?” I asked. “How long until you stop visiting me through the architectural weaknesses of my home?”

Mrs. Peeping Tom thought about it.

“Until the newness wears off,” she said.

“The newness?”

“You were new in town. New people are interesting. Once I figure you out, I lose interest.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“So I’m basically on surveillance until a newer person arrives?”

“Most likely.”

“And after that?”

She shrugged.

“I may visit from time to time. Nostalgia.”

“Nostalgia?”

“Not often. Maybe years from now. Maybe I’ll pass by your house one evening and think, I wonder what she’s doing now.”

“That’s not nostalgia. That’s relapse.”

She smiled.

“Call it whatever helps you feel relaxed in your windowless house.”