Alice Fantastic

by Maggie Estep

  “I’m Ava,” Ava Larkin said after we chatted for a few more minutes.

  “Yes, I just realized who you are. I’m Kimberly Hunter.”

  “Nice name.”

  “You too.”

  Ava Larkin decided to abort her mission of transporting the gingerbread house to the lean-to and instead accompanied the dogs and me back toward the trailhead, gabbing away. Maybe she was starved for company. Maybe she had to stay locked up in her house on Rabbit Hole Road lest lunatics accost her. Whatever the case, she was easy to talk to. She loved dogs, animals of all kinds, she said. She was a Buddhist and had a regular yoga practice. She was, essentially, standard Woodstock fare. Except for the movie star part.

  She was only in Woodstock a little while longer then had to fly to Canada to work on a film.

  “Some asshole who wants to fuck me is directing,” she said. Her pretty, pale face suddenly hardened, the blue eyes narrowed, and the astonishing cheekbones looked like they’d hurt you. It was odd to hear her suddenly using strong language; she’d seemed so gentle and mild-mannered.

  “So tell me something, Kimberly,” Ava said then, “do you need some work?”

  “Work?”

  “You mentioned working at a pet food store. That can’t be very lucrative.”

  “It’s not,” I shrugged. “I was a social worker. For years. It tired me too much. I prefer living on very little and having a simple life.”

  “So you’re not looking for a job?”

  “Well, no, not really, but what job?”

  “I need a local assistant. Everything from feeding my chickens for the long stretches of time when I’m not here, to dealing with whatever bills come, to running errands for me when I’m in town. Now and then I might need you to go down to the city.”

  I frowned. Not that the thought of this was unpleasant, more that it seemed astronomically unlikely that I would go hiking, encounter a glamorous movie star, and be offered a job by her.

  “I haven’t offended you, have I?” Ava asked. Now she was completely sweet and thoughtful again.

  “Not at all. It’s just somewhat surprising.” I stared at the gingerbread house. What did her wanting to carry a gingerbread house to a lean-to portend about what it might be like to work for her, to be suddenly thrust into her life?

  “I’ll admit,” I added, “I’d be nervous to give notice at the pet food store in the event it doesn’t work out between us.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t have to. Not right now. Like I said, I’m going to Canada. You can make your own hours when I’m away and then we’ll take it from there. And figure out salary and such. For now, would $400 a week be all right for tending to the chickens and keeping an eye on the house?”

  “That’s more than generous.”

  Ava Larkin beamed, and then looped her arm through my elbow as if we were old pals. “Do you have time to stop in now?”

  I almost said yes, and then remembered Betina.

  “My girlfriend isn’t feeling well,” I said. I wondered if she would react adversely to my being gay. “But I could check on her and come back. I have more dogs to run anyway.”

  If my gayness bothered Ava Larkin in the slightest, she didn’t show it. She walked me back to my van at the trail-head parking lot.

  “That’s my place,” she said, pointing to the exquisite white farmhouse atop a hill down the road. “Just come by when you can.”

  “Would you like a ride back over there?” I asked, even though it was barely a quarter of a mile.

  “Thank you, no. I need to walk.” She said it like she meant it. Like she would very possibly unravel if she didn’t walk.

  We shook hands formally, and then I loaded the dogs back into the van and drove back to Byrdcliffe.

  I came home to find Joe and Betina sitting in the living room having tea. Betina was fully clothed and looked completely normal. The Vicodin seemed to have worn off. I hadn’t been gone that long. I didn’t know how the storm had passed so quickly.

  Betina, acting like an ordinary, balanced human being, offered to make me a cup of tea and trotted off to the kitchen.

  I sat down on the couch, sticking my arms straight out in front of me, palms forward, to indicate that I did not want dogs jumping on me.

  “I came to check on her and she was fine,” Joe told me. “She was vacuuming the living room.”

  “What?”

  “I was vacuuming,” Betina said, coming back into the room. “I know. I never do anything to make your life easier. I’m sorry, Kim.”

  “Uh …” I stammered, embarrassed at her making this kind of statement in front of Joe. “Thanks, Betina.” Wishing to steer the conversation away from the sensitive and personal, I announced that I’d had a strange encounter on the Rabbit Hole trail.

  “Oh?” Joe said politely.

  “I ran into Ava Larkin. She was carrying a gingerbread house. On the trail. Then she offered me a job.”

  “Come again?” said Joe.

  I explained in more detail.

  “Just further evidence that your life is enchanted,” said Joe.

  “Enchanted? Me?”

  “Full of lovely surprises,” Joe said.

  I squinted at him.

  “It’s true,” Betina volunteered. “Strange things always happen to you, Kim. Some people attract great luck, others attract misfortune. You attract strange things. And dogs.”

  “I suppose,” I shrugged. “I told Ava Larkin I’d stop by her house in a bit. But I wanted to come home first to check on you, Betina.”

  “I’m fine,” she drawled.

  “So I see. Well, I’m taking the second round of dogs now.”

  Joe gave me a worried look, the same kind of look Ira, the three-legged hound, might give me if he was unsure about what I wanted from him.

  “You’ll stay awhile? We’ll talk more when I get back?” I asked Joe.

  “Sure,” he said, looking relieved to know what I wanted from him, which, in this instance, was more babysitting of my girlfriend, whose apparently stable condition I didn’t entirely trust.

  As I got ready to go out again, I pictured Betina seducing Joe the minute I left the house. She’d never expressed interest in Joe but her sexual history is dotted with instances of her having sex with, and often getting involved with, people just because they are there. Somehow, all this time, I’d been able to persuade myself that I was an exception to this emotional sloth of hers. Now, I doubted it very much.

  I drove back to Rabbit Hole Road, parked the van, and let the second batch of dogs loose on the trail. They galloped and bounded and looked for squirrels for an hour before we headed back to the van and then down the road to Ava’s. A long dirt and gravel driveway led to the big white farmhouse. There were several barns and chicken coops and, near one of the barns, a large pond I’d never realized was there. I parked the van and walked up to a big solid oak door with an old cast-iron knocker. Before I reached for the door, Ava opened up. She had changed into loungy-type clothes: a white tank top that showed off her very firm and prominent breasts, and a pair of white silky pajama pants.

  “You can bring the dogs in,” she said.

  “They’ll create chaos.”

  “I’m a fan of chaos.”

  I went to get the dogs. They scrambled in, a soundtrack of toenails against wood floors. I cringed. Ava Larkin had to have all sorts of priceless baubles and antiques that these savage, orphaned beasts would destroy with their whiptails and drooling mouths. But Ava had asked for it and just smiled her beautiful movie star smile as the animals wreaked havoc.

  We went to sit in her well-appointed kitchen. A huge barn-wood table stood in the middle of the room. There was a Vulcan stove and an old porcelain sink. The fridge looked to be from the 1950s and was avocado green. There was ample counter space and handsome cabinets of bleached wood. Cast-iron pots of every description hung from overhead racks. Some of the dogs immediately settled down, but Skipper, a black Lab, and Rosemary, the shepherd, were
off on some sort of exploratory mission. I expressed concern over their making a mess but Ava Larkin just waved her hand, “It’s fine, stop worrying.”

  In some ways, she was even better looking in life than on screen. Now and then, as she explained some detail of the chicken feeding or the management of potential gas leaks, I would imagine that I’d stepped into one of the many films I’d seen her in—maybe that Sofia Coppola movie where she’d played the chanteuse/hit woman, or the Ridley Scott movie where she’d been a seventeenth-century courtesan, or even the Spike Jonze movie where she’d had hairy armpits and fifty pet rats.

  After about an hour, when she’d shown me around the property and introduced me to the chickens, Ava Larkin gave me keys and the code to the alarm.

  “Just in case. I mean, I’ll still be here for at least another week and we’ll spend more time going over things, but I’m sometimes suddenly called into the city and I want you to be fully armed for dealing with my life if I have to leave sooner than planned.”

  Armed for dealing with her life? I pictured myself riddled with bullet holes. I’d be tending her chickens and a psychotic stalker would mistake me for her and kill me. Of course, there was no physical resemblance. But still.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes, I’m fine.”

  She scrutinized me. “Is something about this making you uncomfortable?”

  “You don’t have any stalkers, do you?”

  She smiled. “Not recently, no. No one will be camped out up the hill with an AK-47 aimed at the house, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “Strange world we live in, isn’t it? Celebrity. It’s an uncomfortable skin.”

  “I can’t even imagine.”

  “No,” Ava said, a little sadly, “you can’t. But, of course, I asked for it, tried for it, wanted it. It’s a certain kind of freedom. It’s a trade-off. One I’m willing to live with.”

  This struck me as a sensible outlook. I had always presumed stunningly gorgeous women to be incapable of sense. Maybe it was just the stunning women I attract, like Betina for example.

  Ava accompanied me outside as I herded the dogs back to the van.

  “I feel very good about this,” she said as I climbed into my vehicle.

  “That’s surprising, if you think about it,” I replied. “You just met me on a trail in the woods and have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of.”

  “You’re trying to scare me?” She looked delighted.

  “No,” I smiled, “just marveling at your openness, I suppose.”

  “Thank you, Kimberly.”

  We shook hands. As I pulled out of her driveway, Ava Larkin stood smiling and waving, like a dignitary from the beautiful world.

  I came home, unleashed the dogs, removed my hiking boots, and walked into the living room to find that Eloise had arrived and was installed on the couch with a pit bull in her lap. Betina was nowhere to be found but Joe was sitting opposite Eloise, in an armchair, with Carlos in his lap.

  “You look beautiful,” I told my daughter as I leaned over to kiss her cheek.

  “I doubt that.”

  “Eloise, you have to learn to accept compliments.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, you’re going to be a barrel of laughs to have around.”

  “Mom,” she said, “don’t talk to me like that in front of Joe. He barely knows me. What will he think?”

  “What will you think, Joe?” I turned to look at my neighbor.

  “I’m remaining neutral over here.” He tapped the arms of his chair as if they were hunks of Switzerland.

  “Smart man,” Eloise said approvingly.

  I studied my daughter, looking for traces of the heart-break she’d alluded to over the phone. She is so small and delicate that she always looks at least slightly broken. I’m petite, but my olive complexion makes me look sturdier than my tiny, birdlike daughter with her nearly black hair and impossibly white skin. Eloise is drop-dead beautiful but doesn’t seem to take her good looks very seriously, and I’ve seen her go out with men who would be considered hideous by most standards.

  “Where did Betina go?” I asked, and as if on cue, I heard drawers opening and closing and a door slamming upstairs.

  “She said she had to go to the bathroom. Twenty minutes ago,” Eloise said.

  I saw Joe and Eloise both giving cautious glances in my direction while refraining from commenting further.

  “I should get back to work,” Joe said after we heard another door slam upstairs.

  “Sure,” I said. “Thanks, Joe.”

  “Stop by later if you want,” Joe offered.

  “Okay, maybe I will,” I said, realizing that I meant this and also realizing that, by having asked Joe to check on Betina earlier, I had opened up some sort of door with him. Some door to a friendship potentially deeper than that of mere neighbors.

  “He’s nice,” Eloise commented after Joe had left and I was leashing up the last round of dogs.

  “Yes, he’s a good man.”

  “Aren’t you going to see why Betina’s slamming doors?” Eloise asked.

  “She has days like this,” I said with a shrug.

  “Oh, Mom.”

  “Oh, Mom what?”

  “Nothing.” Eloise was looking at me from under her bangs. “Do you want help walking the infirm dogs?” she asked, motioning at Chariot, the husky with a weak hind end, Heather, the blind retriever, and Chicken, the ancient greyhound.

  “You can just go work if you’d like,” I told her, knowing that on the rare occasion when she does visit, Eloise likes to hole up in the guest room, obsessively working on her stuffed animals. “But thank you for the offer.”

  I got the aged and infirm dogs out, came back in, and fed all the animals, then, exhausted, climbed upstairs where I hoped to find my girlfriend in a slightly sane state.

  Betina was sitting at the edge of the bed, naked. Next to her was the battered green suitcase she loved, half filled with clothes and toiletries. For a moment, I felt optimistic: Maybe she was moving out. The next moment, I felt guilty for this thought. And the moment after that, irrationally enough, I wanted to make love with her. I am usually not even vaguely attracted to her when she’s in one of her fugues.

  “Are you going somewhere?” I asked.

  Her legs were dangling over the edge of the bed like those of a doll on a shelf.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Where?” I didn’t wait for her to answer, just reached down and pinched one of her tiny, pale pink nipples. She looked up at me, surprised but not, apparently repulsed. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had sex. I put my left palm under her chin, tilted her face up, then leaned down and kissed her deeply. She responded. I bit her bottom lip. I bit her neck. I sucked on her collarbone and pushed her back on the bed. I ran my hands up and down her stomach then put my right hand between her legs. She was wet. She wiggled. She moaned. She suddenly sat up, squashing my hand.

  “No,” she said, “I’m not even gay.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not even gay. I don’t know why I keep fucking you and living with you.”

  “Oh,” I said, hurt and relieved at the same time.

  “I thought I loved you.”

  “Yes. So did I.”

  “You mean you don’t love me?” Now she looked wounded.

  “Oh, I do, I suppose. I don’t know. I really don’t know anymore.”

  “This is so sad,” she said.

  It was the sanest thing she’d said in weeks.

  She was sitting at the edge of the bed again, legs spread slightly.

  “I’m going to live in the monastery.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “With the Buddhists.”

  “But you’re not a Buddhist. You hate meditation. And religion.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I want to sleep on a narrow bed with scratchy sheets. I want silence.”<
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  “Ah,” I said. “Which Buddhists, anyway?”

  “The ones on top of Overlook Mountain.”

  “Oh.” This meant she wasn’t going far. Four miles away, to be exact. I figured the moment the reality of a Buddhist monastery sank in, she might decide she is gay after all and attempt returning to my home and hearth.

  “When did you decide all this?”

  “Right before taking the Vicodin. I thought I should knock myself out for a little while, enjoy a break from reality before setting off on my new life.”

  I stared at her, baffled.

  “Is there something I should be saying now?” I asked. Once she walked out that door, I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to see her again. I almost felt like my daughter Alice, who is so deeply definitive in the ending of affections, who goes from hot to frozen in a blink. Maybe this abrupt ending of love would bring me closer to my emotionally savage daughter. Maybe she would laud my ferocity.

  “There is not much left that is to say,” Betina answered.

  In our first weeks together, I’d been charmed by her mentally translating from German to English before speaking and therefore structuring sentences in strange ways. Now, I just wanted to correct her.

  “I do need a ride to the monastery,” Betina added.

  I had forced her to learn how to drive but she’d never really taken to it, what with the winding, shoulder-less roads of Ulster County. Her not driving had created yet another dependence, one I initially found endearing but eventually irritating.

  “Of course,” I said. “Is that all you’re taking?” I motioned at the green suitcase.

  “For now.”

  “This may sound harsh, Betina, but I’d prefer if you weren’t coming back and forth all the time. If we’re going to break up, I’d like to do it definitively.” I was slightly incredulous to be speaking these awful things. They must have been welling up inside me for eons. I wish I’d known.

  She gave me a hurt look.

  “I’m not saying this to be cruel.”

  “You’re not? I thought you loved me, Kimberly, how can you say these things?”

  “You’re the one who is quite suddenly moving out.”

  “And you do not seem sad by this.”