Peter’s Predicament – Part 5

“Your wife, Diane has got rather thick around the waist over the past few years hasn’t she, Peter?” Lisa continued, as if she were drunk. “She used to be alright-looking though, back in the day. A bit plain, if you ask me, but not unattractive. But over the past few years she really has packed on the pounds. How long do you reckon it will be before she does anything about that? She sounds like she is wound up pretty tight too. Does she give you a hard time? Take out the bins, fix this, make that. Urgh! I couldn’t do marriage. It’s so dull! But your son, William. What a good-looking young man. He’s quite popular too, isn’t he? It appears so on his Facebook and MySpace. He’s an only child though, isn’t he? I never did see indications of a sibling. Don’t you think you two should have given him a sibling? It’s a bit unfair that he’s on his own with the two of you. He’ll get bullied no end, I reckon.”

Lisa rattled on and on, plucking out facts and thoughts about Peter’s life, sounding like she knew more about it than Peter himself. Peter just stared at her, feeling surreal, wondering whether this was really happening, whether he was really hearing all this.

“And then what, Peter? Things are obviously not going very well between the two of you, so what now?” she said, suddenly flitting to a slightly different subject.

Before she could go on any further, Peter suddenly snapped out of his muted disbelief. “Hang on a second, Lisa. Hang on,” he said scrunching up his face in confusion, before taking a moment to relax his face a bit and take a deep breath. “How do you know all this about my life and my family Lisa?”
She suddenly started laughing and shaking her head. “Oh Peter, I have been here for you, closer than you think for a long time. And these things aren’t hard to find out. The information is really pretty much freely available; it just needed a bit of digging around. Your wife’s Facebook, for example, she thinks she’s shielded it off from public view, but her password is so easy to guess, I’m surprised that not everyone in the county knows it! And she makes it even easier; she has the SAME password for her emails! You’d find some interesting stuff in there.”
Peter interrupted her again. “You hacked into my wife’s Facebook and email accounts? How long has this been going on for? Why?”
“How long? Well it depends what you’re referring to… the Facebook thing has only really been since Facebook took off, so since about 2007? But I haven’t ever strayed too far from you, not since you finished your degree and moved out here to settle down. Do you not even recognise me in the slightest? We’ve met several times before and each time, I’ve failed to get you to take notice of me.”
Peter cocked his head to one side and asked her to elaborate further.
“Remember that office temp with the thick-rimmed glasses, who came in to do the filing, photocopying and any other dirty work you men didn’t bother with?” Lisa asked him, nodding her head at him as he looked at her in astonishment. “The girl at the gym who in the sweatband and the super short-shorts? And the pharmacist’s assistant who is always so helpful when you’re picking up your mother-in-law’s medicines? All yours truly!” she said proudly.
“But how? All those people look so different,” Peter said, still quite confused.
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Oh come on Peter! Make-up, wigs, a few accessories. Men have no idea about this kind of thing! Ah that’s another thing you could probably do a bit better with: take note of your wife’s efforts to improve her looks!”
“Lisa, this is not acceptable. You cannot go around stalking people,” Peter started, firmly but quietly.
“Oh relax! It’s not like I take an interest in every Tom, Dick and Harry. I’m only helping you Peter, really. I mean, think about it. I’m trying to make you see sense and realise that we are supposed to be together. We are destined for each other and the sooner you come to see this, the sooner you can be freed of your miserable and horrid life.”

Peter didn’t know how to respond to this. He felt like he was in a nightmare, and he had reached the point where he desperately wanted to wake up. He needed to wake up, find that it was all a horrible nightmare and roll over and go back to sleep, next to Diane; having never met Lisa today. Lisa was just sitting there, seemingly comfortable and even rather smug. What could he do to get out of this mess? She had managed to spy on every part of his life. She had certainly done her research and seemed to have made herself believe that she was doing good by stalking him. She didn’t seem to be able to see that it was a huge invasion of privacy, that it was wrong in any way. It wasn’t just a case of getting out of the coffee shop and going over to the hospital to meet the family. Peter needed to get Lisa out of their lives once and for all. But how?

*Part 6 – Peter’s Predicament: The Finale will be added soon!*