by Kristin Bair
“I didn’t think you were serious.”
Shrinky-Dink laughs. “You knew very well I was serious.”
Agatha smirks.
“Agatha Arch,” Shrinky-Dink says, “you’re done. You’re good. You don’t need me anymore. You’ve got this.”
“What about all my fears?”
“What fears?”
“Well, they’re mostly gone but, without Dax, how am I going to handle the ones that linger?”
“You’re going to handle them the way you’re handling everything right now. Beautifully.”
“And if I need help?”
“Call me. I’m here.”
“And the boys?”
“I’ve emailed a list of therapists to you. I’m sure there’s at least one on there who will work well with the boys. I respect each of them.”
“Thank you. I’ll share it with Dax, too.”
Shrinky-Dink smiles.
“But wait? What did you mean about the creepy thing?”
“Just stop.”
* * *
Stop being creepy. Agatha hangs a blue sticky note in her kitchen with these very words written in black ink, and each time she looks at it, she disposes of one more maybe-creepy maybe-not-creepy object or behavior. She sells the long-nose camera lens on Craig’s List for a fraction of what she paid for it. She burns her spy pants in the fire pit, gifts the million-dollar drone to Blue, who will use it to save the world, replaces the sentence “I hate Dax” throbbing in her brain with “I love Dustin and Jason,” and practices calling GDOG by her given name.
This last one she practices as often as possible, while driving, pouring coffee, folding clothes, etc. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. GDOG. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. GDOG. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. Willow. The Goddamn Fothermucking Grande Dame of Grapefruits. No, no, no. Willow. Willow. Willow.
Though she’s tempted to drop the Dax and Willow reflection dolls in the Krug near the mouth of the cave where she’s sure one of the escaped animals from the New Hampshire dude’s pseudo zoo is likely hiding, Agatha connects with her inner yogi and places them gently, but not too gently, in a small box with a tea towel. At first they are touching, Dax hip to Willow hip, but she shimmies them apart and fluffs the tea towel between them so that they can see each other but aren’t touching. A little angst might be good for them. Then she donates the dolls to a local shelter with a bunch of the boys’ retired robots and train sets. She’ll let fate take it from here.
The GoPro goes to Jason and Dustin, who now take skateboarding and life lessons from Blue.
The dart gun goes back to Bird Love.
“How’s the woodpecker?” the clerk whispers, slipping the gun into a drawer.
“Still pecking,” Agatha whispers back.
His eyes pop. “What? This method has never failed before.”
“Oh, I didn’t use it. I figured that for whatever reason, that poor little bird must need to peck the hell out of something. Just like Susan Sontag needs to spray.”
“Susan Sontag?”
“A skunk that lives under my porch. It’s the nature of things. Who am I to steal their glory? Their instincts? Their animalism? Their essence?”
The clerk smiles and nods to the flock of birders trying on new hats down the aisle. “You might just fit in around here after all.”
* * *
Agatha even apologizes to Rick-not-Rick, claiming temporary insanity, and promises to stick to mailperson/mail-receiver etiquette from now to the end of the world. He’s wary but starts putting her mail into the mailbox again instead of dropping it on the ground as he flies by in his truck.
* * *
“Sing it to me,” Shrinky-Dink says when Agatha describes the first-ever Moms sing-along, hosted by Kerry Sheridan and touted as the social event of the holiday season, during which hundreds of Moms squish-squashed into Kerry’s house wearing their “Fear sharpens us; Fear propels us” T-shirts, stuffing their maws with bright yellow Minion cupcakes made by Penis-Maker-Baker, and belting out the latest edition of “The 12 Days of the Wallingford Moms.”
“Oh, come on, do I have to?” Agatha says.
Shrinky-Dink nods.
“Fine.” Agatha takes a deep breath. “On the first of Christmas, the Moms gave to me, an Interloper in the Krug …”
Shrinky-Dink holds up her hand. “How about starting on the twelfth day?”
“I knew you were going to say that. You steal all my fun. Here goes …”
On the twelfth day of Christmas, the Moms gave to me
twelve contraceptives
eleven pairs of spy pants
ten mensural cups
nine cats named Tuxedo
eight pulled pork recipes
seven coupon codes
six rabid foxes (or is that a coyote?)
five Bear Grylls bobbleheads
four Balderdash sightings
three penis cupcakes
two stink bugs
and an Interloper in the Krug
Agatha holds out “Kruuuuuuugggggg” for a good thirty seconds and Shrinky-Dink gives a slow clap.
* * *
While the Interloper has disappeared from sight, she hasn’t disappeared from mind. Like many who pass through, she will be thought about, conversed about, dreamed about, for months, even years, to come, as is the case a few evenings later, when Agatha and Melody run into Dax and Willow at Westfall’s. With a gulp of martini, an extraordinarily deep breath, and a sharp jab in the back by Melody’s pointer finger, Agatha smiles and wishes the duo well, all while struggling to control the torrent of images of the past few months now streaming through her head like a movie in fast forward:
the shed
the cock
the hatchet
the muumuu-maxi
the spy pants
the Interloper
the pine cone
the mad mad mother
Dax
the Interloper again
Balderdash
Officer Henry
GDOG
the woodpecker
Bird Love
Eddie, oh Eddie
Janie Mae Crawford
Their Eyes Were Watching God
It’s funny how time works, how so much can happen over what feels like forever, but then be condensed into mere seconds. By the end of the reel, Agatha is sweaty and Melody’s gentle “Was kindness like that so hard?” feels like a dagger being stabbed into her eyeball.
“What now?” Agatha says.
They escape out a side door to a swatch of grass in the park near the statue of Wallingford’s founder, not far from the spot where Blue taught Agatha to command her drone.
“Perhaps we should practice being in the moment,” Melody says, and she moves into Tree pose like an aspen.
“What? Right here?” Agatha says. She looks around. The grass is crispy with frost and dozens of Friday evening dinner-goers are parking and walking and passing and looking.
“What’s wrong with here?”
Agatha gestures at all the people.
“Oh, come on. Forget about what they think,” Melody says. “Be in the moment. Be a tree.” She closes her eyes.
“Perhaps your tree shall fall,” Agatha says, nudging Melody’s arm with her elbow.
But even nudged, Melody doesn’t fall. Melody Whelan never falls, literally or figuratively. She holds that pose like she has roots all the way to Antarctica.
“Oh, fine,” Agatha says. She pulls Bear from her purse and stands him up next to Melody. “Watch this,” she says to him, then she lifts her right foot up into her crotch and raises her arms overhead. Immediately she topples onto the grass.
Melody smiles, eyes still closed. “Try again.”
Agatha tries, falls.
“T
ry again.”
She tries, falls.
“Again.”
“Melody,” Agatha says, trying again, “who stays in life?”
“What do you mean?”
“Susie died. My parents died. Dax left. The Interloper left.”
“Oh, that kind of stay.”
Agatha nods, falls.
“Nothing is a guarantee,” Melody says. “Nothing is permanent, but very often, it’s your friends who stick around. Now, try again.”
The squad car pulls up as Agatha tries and falls once more. She expects Officer Henry to laugh or give her a warning about yoga in a public place, but instead he smiles, waves, and gives her a thumbs-up. She waves back from her spot on the ground.
“Agatha Arch, is Officer Henry flirting with you?” Melody asks.
“Maybe,” Agatha says, smiling. “I don’t think I’d mind.”
Minutes later, as Agatha tries and fails to hold Tree pose for the tenth, maybe eleventh, time, Kerry Sheridan and Jane Poston pass on their way to Westfall’s. They stop, pile their coats at the founder’s feet, then join Melody and Agatha in their quest. Foot in crotch, arms overhead. Kerry sucks at it, but, not surprisingly, Jane is one hell of a tree.
Then Rachel Runk and phyliss-with-one-l-and-two-esses come along. Neither is a master, but both try really hard.
When the streetlight flickers on, twelve women are gathered on the green, all standing or trying to stand in Tree pose, and even not-there-but-there Interloper is there-not-there, a ghost or a ring of light or a crest of frost.
Melody smiles and nudges Agatha with her elbow. “See?”
A charm of goldfinches flutters in Agatha’s mind. Then a dazzle of zebras.
“See what?”
“Friends.”
But what to call friends, Agatha thinks, if I have them?
Maybe a flicker.
A flash.
A quiver.
A clementine.
A zephyr.
Whatever I call them, she thinks, they are here.
Knees and bum wet with frost, palms scuffed, Agatha pulls into Tree pose and holds it, finally, finally, holds it. “Like this?” she whispers to Melody.
“Just like this.”
Also available by Kristin Bair
(writing as Kristin Bair O’Keeffe)
The Art of Floating
Thirsty
Author Biography
Kristin Bair is the author of the novels The Art of Floating and Thirsty, as well as essays about China, bears, adoption, off-the-plot expats, and more. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including The Manifest-Station, The Gettysburg Review, Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, The Christian Science Monitor, Poets & Writers Magazine, Writer’s Digest, and other publications. As a writing instructor, her peripatetic nature has landed her in classrooms and conferences around the world. A native Pittsburgher, Kristin now lives north of Boston with her husband and two kiddos.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alcove Press, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Alcove Press and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-500-4
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-501-1
Cover design by Celeste Knudsen
Printed in the United States.
www.alcovepress.com
Alcove Press
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: November 2020
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