Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything

by Kristin Bair

  “She’s someone who has come to town for a questionable reason.”

  “What questionable reason?”

  “Well, she … she … she’s begging for money in town.”

  “She doesn’t have any money? Does she have food?”

  “Jason, sometimes there are people who seem dangerous. This young woman seems a little dangerous,” Agatha says. “We’ve talked about how we do have to be wary of some people.”

  “How do you know she’s dangerous?” Jason asked. “Have you talked to her? Do you know her?”

  Agatha wants to fib, but this is her kid. She can’t fib to her kid. “No, I don’t know her.”

  “Then how do you know she’s dangerous?”

  Agatha is suddenly in the middle of one of those awkward parenting moments. “It’s just a feeling I get.”

  Jason looks at her the way he does the TV when he disagrees with a decision by the Red Sox coach. “Well, she probably has something unique to offer,” he says. “You should find out.”

  * * *

  Later that morning when they go to the grocery store, Jason spots the Interloper in the swatch of grass. “Mom, is that her? Is that the Interloper?”

  Agatha looks. The Interloper is leaning against the “Cross Here” sign in the island, holding her can. “Yes, that’s her.”

  “Mom, she looks sadder than anyone else in the whole wide world. Just like you.”

  As she drives, Agatha thinks about the Interloper and reflects on what a group of sad humans might be called. She starts with the collective nouns she’s memorized for people and professions:

  a tabernacle of bakers

  a discretion of priests

  a school of clerks

  a feast of brewers

  a diligence of messengers

  an execution of officers

  a goring of butchers

  a giggle of girls

  a melody of harpists

  a body of pathologists

  a flood (or a flush) of plumbers

  a sprig of vegetarians

  an amble of walkers

  So many. And so appropriately named. But what of a group of sad humans? What should one call them?

  a gloom

  a bleak

  a misery

  a mood

  a melancholy

  a grief

  a sorrow

  a woe

  Yes, perhaps the last. A woe of brokenhearted souls.

  * * *

  Agatha:

  I hate you Dax.

  * * *

  The goatscaping experts arrive in a pickup truck with “Hello Goat!” painted on its side.

  “Step one is a feasibility review,” Agatha was told when she’d called. The woman is wearing a dark blue sweatshirt with a large pale goat on the chest. She carries a clipboard. The man has a goatee. He is wearing overalls and strangely thick waders. “These protect me from poison ivy and brambles,” he tells Agatha when he catches her eyeing his legs.

  Tap tap tippity-tap.

  Agatha and the woman stay on the perimeter of the overgrown yard but the man strides through the knee-high weeds. “Buckthorn,” he hollers. “Common and glossy.”

  “Check.” The woman checks the invasive species on the chart.

  “Porcelain berry.”

  “Check.”

  “Lots of dandelion and clover. Our goats will love that. Like icing on a cake.”

  “Check.”

  The man dons a pair of gloves that go up to his shoulders, then leans over and moves a bush out of the way. “Poison ivy,” he calls. “Lots of it.”

  “And that’s okay?” Agatha whispers. It doesn’t seem possible that anything could eat poison ivy and not be harmed.

  “Oh, yes, goats love poison ivy.”

  “It doesn’t hurt them?”

  “No, ma’am. They have four stomachs. They can process almost anything. Except …”

  “We’ll have to fence off this azalea,” the man hollers.

  “Except azalea,” she says. She makes a note in the margin.

  “And these rhododendrons,” the man calls.

  “And rhododendrons. A few bites and …” The woman sticks out her tongue, bulges her eyeballs, and makes a horrid gaggy noise.

  “Dead?” Agatha asks.

  “Dead.”

  “They can eat poison ivy but a beautiful rhododendron will kill them?”

  “Strange world we live in, isn’t it?”

  Agatha nods. “In so many ways.”

  “Fences are lifesavers,” the woman says.

  Agatha tries to imagine a fence between her and Dax. Another between her and the world. “Do what you need to do,” says Agatha. “I do not want to be responsible for a goat’s death.”

  “No, you don’t,” the woman says. “That would be an expensive misstep.”

  Tap tap tippity-tap.

  “Oriental bittersweet,” the man hollers.

  The woman checks the box. “Good thing you called us and not a traditional land clearer. Bittersweet clogs chainsaws.”

  “Really?” Agatha says.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  Agatha points to the goat on the woman’s sweatshirt. “Is that a random goat or one of yours?”

  The woman smiles, puts her hand on the goat, and rubs lightly. “Oh, this is my Thelma. Louise is on the back.” She turns. Agatha sees a darker goat nibbling at a pile of brush. “If you’re lucky, this pair will be part of your team. Two of our best.”

  Agatha wonders what the goats are best at. Being goats? Meh-ing? Eating poison ivy? She’s about to ask, but, at the same moment, the man reaches the midpoint of the yard where the remains of the shed are half buried. “There’s a lot of good equipment out here, ma’am,” he calls. “Sure you don’t want to clean it up before the goats come? They’ll walk all over it and possibly break a few things. Our lovely beasts will do anything for a good vantage point.”

  The woman laughs and points to Thelma. “Especially this one.”

  Agatha thinks about climbing the tree across from GDOG’s house to take photos of her husband and his lover. She understands doing anything for a good vantage point. “No, no plans to clean it up. If the goats break something, they break something. I’ll take full responsibility for that.”

  “You’ll have to sign a waiver,” the man says.

  “Not a problem.”

  The woman makes another note in the margin.

  “What about the grass?” Agatha asks. “You know, under the weeds.”

  “Goats don’t care for it much.”

  “Oh. Really?”

  “Really.”

  The man steps onto the driveway and peels off his waders. “Looks good,” he says as he drops them into a woven bag.

  “How long do you think it will take?”

  The woman surveys the yard. “Half an acre. Three goats. A week or two, depending on the weather.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  The woman hands a copy of the list of plants to Agatha. “We’ll email a contract to you by tomorrow. Once you sign and return, we can let you know the date for the installation of the fence.”

  “The fence?”

  “Yes, that’s how we keep the goats in and predators out.”

  “Predators?”

  “Coyotes. Fisher cats. Foxes.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “We have.”

  “Have you ever lost a goat to a predator?”

  “Not yet, but we don’t take chances.”

  “Makes sense.” Agatha thinks about the neighborhood fisher cat. Then, as the goat people climb into their truck, she says, “Tell Thelma and Louise I look forward to meeting them.”

  Tap tap tippity-tap.

  * * *

  Agatha clicks onto Willow Bean’s Instagram feed and stares at a photo of her boys tossing a beach ball with Willow at the beach. For fuck’s sake, she hadn’t even known they’d gone to the beach. Her own kids. “Mine, mine, mine
!” her heart screams. “They are mine!”

  She texts Dax. “Are the boys there? I need to talk to them.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, right now. If they’re with you, I need to talk to them.”

  “Okay, okay. It might be loud. We’re at the Sox game.”

  He might as well have taken a bat to her head.

  “The playoff game?”

  Dax doesn’t answer.

  “You took the boys to a playoff game without me?”

  He still doesn’t answer.

  “Dax, is GDOG there?”

  There is a stupid long pause so she knows the answer even before Dax texts it. “Yes.”

  “Have them call me now. I don’t care about noise.”

  “Sweet Caroline” sings from her phone. “Hi Mom,” Dustin says.

  “Hi honey.”

  “We’re at the …” Dustin’s voice drifts off. Clearly someone is at bat. Then there is a huge cheer. “Yah!” Dustin yells into the phone. “Mom, Mookie just hit another homer. Did you see it?”

  She wants to say, “No, I’m not at the game with you. Your dad took his chippie instead,” but the one thing she is good about is not badmouthing Dax to the boys. The other thing she’s been good at so far is not driving that cleaver into Dax’s head. “No,” she says. “I haven’t turned on the game yet. What’s the score?”

  Dustin is distracted but after a short silence says, “3–2, us.”

  “Okay, honey, enjoy the game. Let me talk to Jason for a minute.”

  Unlike Dustin, Jason is easy. “Mom!” he yells into the phone. “Oh, my god, Mom, did you see Mookie’s home run? It was just the kind you love. It’s a great game. A few minutes ago, I told Dad, ‘Call Mom and make sure she’s watching this,’ but he said no. Then you called! You’re like magic!”

  Finally, Agatha smiles. Her Jason. She is still like magic to him. After all the changes of the past few months, she is still like magic.

  “Are you having fun, sweetie?”

  “I am, but it would be better if you were here. Willow won’t let me get popcorn.”

  “Why not?”

  “She says it’s bad for my teeth.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake,” she says.

  “You mean, for Big Papi’s sake.” He giggles.

  She smiles. “You’re so right. Hey, you go watch the game. Pass me to your father.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, too, sweetie.”

  Then Dax. “What?” he says.

  “What the hell, Dax? Get the boy some popcorn. The Grande Dame of Grapefruits does not get to decide what my boys eat at baseball games.”

  “Fine, fine. I’ll get him popcorn. Now can I go watch the game?”

  Agatha hangs up, trying to remember how anyone knew anything before social media was a part of their lives. Her grandmother used to tell a story about her neighbor calling on the house phone, picking up the extension in the kitchen, and learning that the cops had stormed a house a few streets away but no one yet knew why. Her grandmother says she and the neighbor speculated a bit, leaning out of their mutually facing kitchen windows to try to get a glimpse of fire or flight, but didn’t learn anything until a third neighbor buzzed in with news from her police scanner. This was in the glory years of call waiting when you never missed a call, back in the olden days when people actually wanted to talk to other people. They’d never thought of texting or sending an email or posting a GIF or ending an exchange with a poop emoji. No, they’d called each other and answered when the phone rang. Can you imagine?

  Back then, the old-fashioned mom connection worked in its own slow, clunky way, with one mom calling another on a landline and that mom telling the “whatever” to the next mom when she put the first mom on hold to answer the other line, etc. But today, the mom connection via social media is lightning fast. Things happen and, seconds later, you know it. Everyone knows it.

  Like the turkey incident. And the cupcake battle. And the arrival of the Interloper.

  But is this immediacy a good thing? What does it do to hearts and minds and anxiety levels to know everything—bad and good—at every moment?

  * * *

  Agatha climbs the stairs slower this time. She eases the red door open and breathes. It had been much easier to enter this bastion of pain when she’d been pissed at Stella Bender. When she’d been trying to prove to a loony Mom that she’s full of stuff and nonsense. Now not so easy. But she needs her dictionary. Her beloved, dog-eared, 400-pound, coverless dictionary. An online one won’t do.

  She walks to the desk and touches the corner. So beautiful. So her.

  She drags the giant dictionary across the desk and thumbs to “H.”

  H-a-t-e.

  The definition sucks: “intense or passionate dislike.”

  So mild. So impersonal. So non-hate-y.

  She thumbs to “A.”

  Abhorrence is better, much better: “a feeling of repulsion; disgusted loathing.”

  Yes, disgusted loathing. That’s what she feels for Dax.

  But she doesn’t. Abhor him. At least not all of her doesn’t. Some of her abhors him, for sure. But some of her still loves him. She kneels next to the desk and presses her palm against the wee door carved into the side. The photo of her boys, the three of them, is still in there, a magical thing tucked tight.

  She stands, turns, walks out, and pulls the door closed behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “You’re not writing another ‘The 12 Days of the Wallingford Moms,’ are you?” Shrinky-Dink asks.

  Agatha pulls the draft from her bag. “Of course I am. They’ll be expecting it.”

  “Maybe ten years was enough.”

  Agatha sighs. “Nope, it’s much too much fun, the highlight of my year.”

  “But it makes you miserable.”

  “It doesn’t make me miserable. It makes me laugh. They, the Moms, make me miserable.”

  Shrinky-Dink grunts. “Read me what you have so far.”

  Agatha clears her throat. “Lalala la!”

  “Get on with it.”

  “On the twelfth day of Christmas, the Moms gave to me, twelve penis cupcakes …”

  “Stop there.”

  Agatha stares with her mouth agape. “What?”

  “That’s going to upset them.”

  “It’s only one day.”

  “And it’s too much.”

  “I’m keeping it.”

  “Forewarned is fair warned.”

  * * *

  Kerry Sheridan knocks on Agatha’s door.

  “Hello, Kerry.”

  “Hello, Agatha.”

  “Can I help you?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “Are you getting goats to eat the ground cover? To clear your yard?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Word got out.”

  “How? I haven’t told anyone.”

  “Okay, I was watching when they came by.”

  “Spying, you mean?”

  “Watching.”

  Agatha sighs. “Yes, Kerry, I’ve hired goats to come for a week or two to eat all the brush.”

  “What about the poison ivy?”

  “They love poison ivy.”

  “This is marvelous, Agatha!”

  Kerry is smiling. She never smiles at Agatha. Agatha didn’t know she had teeth.

  “It is?”

  “It is! I’m so happy. The boys will be delighted.” She leans over and hugs Agatha. “I can’t wait to see our boys playing ball again in their favorite field.”

  And then she’s gone.

  * * *

  While downloading and organizing the day’s photos, Agatha happens upon a folder containing a dozen or so pictures of the boys and Dax that she had taken a year before. One minute she is seething over photos of the Interloper, the next she is sobbing over Dax throwing Dustin into the ocean. Best vacation eve
r. The smile on Dustin’s face is so big and so pure she is pretty sure she stops breathing. She clicks through the lot.

  Jason holding a crab.

  Dustin on Dax’s back.

  Jason holding a lobster.

  Jason on a boat gripping a big tuna.

  Dustin with the wind in his hair.

  Dax with a kite so high in the air, the kite itself isn’t even in the photo. The string disappears off the top edge.

  Agatha wants to believe that string leads right to her heart … from Dax’s loosely clenched hands to her heart, hovering somewhere above the photo, in the sky, above her two boys and her husband. That taut string with the distinctive pull, to something. To her.

  The final photo in the series is just Dax. She remembers taking it. He is sitting on top of a picnic table with the sunset and ocean behind him. He is leaning forward, arms resting on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. His head is cocked to one side, just slightly, and he is grinning, like he knows something delicious and can’t wait to tell her. Even though you can’t see them in the photo, Agatha remembers that the boys are sitting in the sand at Dax’s feet. It could have been a photo in which Dax was glancing down at them with love, but it was a photo about her. About them. There is no kite string in this one, but there is something even stronger tying them together.

  The next photo is of the Interloper. That day, Agatha had taken ten photos of this woman, and in every single bloody one she is wearing the same lifeless expression. It is as if her body is standing at the intersection, shoving the can at cars as they pause at the stoplight, and nodding ever so slightly when they contribute, but her mind/heart isn’t really there at all.

  Agatha dates each photo and tucks them into the Interloper folder on her desktop. Then she clicks back to the photo of Dax. How could he be giving that same look to the dog walker today? How is that possible?

  * * *

  Agatha picks up her phone, types, and hits send. I abhor you, Dax.

  That’s more like it.

  Tap-tap. Tippity-tap.

  * * *

  “Bite thy tongue, Agatha, bite thy tongue.” Shrinky-Dink shakes her head.