Topical Guide 662
Mark Dorset
Trespassing
Spying
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 9:
“ONE MORNING,” she said, “not long after that visit, I woke up to find that the signs seemed right. I sat up in bed, pushed my curtains aside—”
“They were gauzy and cheap,” I said, “hung on imitation brass rods that snapped into imitation brass clips, the whole setup bought at Darling’s What-U-Need, that dusty store beside the shoe store on Upper.” (“Upper” in the shorthand of the Babbington dialect meant Upper Bolotomy Road, that part of Bolotomy Road north of Main Street.)
“How do you know that?”
“From snooping.”
“You snooped in my bedroom?”
“Many times.”
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 8:
She could park on the town pier and observe the work without feeling that she was being observed herself. […] After a couple of weeks she bought a pair of binoculars at Babbington Sporting Goods. When she was in position on the pier and began unwrapping the binoculars, she saw that her hands were shaking, and she told herself that this was beginning to resemble the behavior of a crazy person. […]
She visited at night, after work, or after a stop at Corinne’s. She would walk to the town pier and study the resort through her binoculars. […] She got out of the car, slipped her shoes off, and walked along the sand at the edge of the bay, as she had that first night when she approached the place with Denny. She had chosen this route because she figured that no one could stop her from walking there. Until she turned from the beach and walked up the steps to the terrace she wouldn’t really be trespassing, after all, just walking along the beach, not bothering anybody.
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 7:
They pulled up across the street, near the River Road Marina, where boats out of the water for the winter were shrouded in flapping canvas. Mr. Lodkochnikov was astonished to find so many of his acquaintances and fellow baymen there with their families, parked along the street, come to see the progress on a Sunday, when they could examine it without being seen, give it a good look without feeling that they were intruding on something that wasn’t any of their business—or, more accurately, to look it over when there wasn’t likely to be anyone around to try to make them feel that they were intruding on something that wasn’t any of their business.
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