Copyright © 2016 by Tarryn Fisher
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.tarrynfisher.com
Cover Designer: Murphy Rae, Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae, www.murphyrae.net
Editor: Lori Sabin
Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1541221437
For Amy Holloway.
#Imwithyou
Part One: The Psychopath
Chapter One: Bad Mommy
Chapter Two: Sharp
Chapter Three: The House Next Door
Chapter Four: Menstrual
Chapter Five: Taurus
Chapter Six: Garden of Mercy
Chapter Seven: Bad Chocolate Cake
Chapter Eight: Every Other Friday Night
Chapter Nine: Perspective
Chapter Ten: Whole Paycheck
Chapter Eleven: Meatloaf
Chapter Twelve: The Dude
Chapter Thirteen: Pen Name
Chapter Fourteen: Trains
Chapter Fifteen: Kitschy
Chapter Sixteen: This Is Who I Am Now
Chapter Seventeen: Cigarettes
Chapter Eighteen: Clueless
Chapter Nineteen: Magnolia
Chapter Twenty: Black or Purple
Chapter Twenty-One: Funny Girl
Chapter Twenty-Two: Prettiest Pussy
Chapter Twenty-Three: Other Things
Chapter Twenty-Four: Pickpocket
Chapter Twenty-Five: Spoon
Part Two: The Sociopath
Chapter Twenty-Six: Dr. Seuss
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Something Harder
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Misfits
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Little Fool
Chapter Thirty: Fit Fig
Chapter Thirty-One: Metallics
Chapter Thirty-Two: Ryan’s Lips
Chapter Thirty-Three: Wink Wink
Chapter Thirty-Four: Poem
Chapter Thirty-Five: Win an Oscar
Part Three: The Writer
Chapter Thirty-Six: Bored
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Strangler
Chapter Thirty-Eight: I Want, I Want, I Want
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Third Wheel
Chapter Forty: The Light of the Body
Chapter Forty-One: 212
Chapter Forty-Two: Stalking the Stalker
Chapter Forty-Three: Gamer
Chapter Forty-Four: Snakes
Chapter Forty-Five: The Dentist
Chapter Forty-Six: Sociopath
Chapter Forty-Seven: Genre Switch
Chapter Forty-Eight: Parade
Chapter Forty-Nine: Wink1986
Chapter Fifty: Mona the Whore
Chapter Fifty-One: PTSD
Chapter Fifty-Two: Chapter One
Acknowledgements
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:9
I see you getting things you don’t deserve, living it up. It fucking sucks. I feel resentful because I deserve it more than you do. I could be a better you, that’s what it boils down to. I’m every woman; it’s all in me.
The little girl had blonde hair. When the wind blew, it rose around her head in a tickled cornsilk halo. I imagined I had hair like that as a child. I wouldn’t know because my mother was too busy working to take any pictures of me. Why have children if you don’t have time to take pictures of them, you know? Different day, different issue. Though, let it be known that my mother is a cunt. I lifted my phone and took a picture of the little girl mid-run, hair streaming behind her. It was the type of picture you had blown up and framed. I marveled at my eye for beauty.
As soon as I saw her I woke up from a very long slumber, bones creaking, my heart beating with renewed strength. I closed my eyes and thanked the universe for delivering this gift to me. Then I lifted my phone and took another picture of her because I wasn’t going to be a shitty mother.
It was her. I knew it. All I’d wanted, all I’d hoped for. I was paralyzed as I watched her walk to a car with a tall, dark-haired woman. Was it the mother? A nanny, maybe? There were no shared features between them aside from their eye color—brown. But, then I heard the little girl call the woman Mommy, and I cringed … wilted … died. She’s not who you think she is, kiddo.
I followed them home from the park in my white Ford Escape, freshly washed and gleaming—sticking out like a sore thumb. I was afraid it would draw attention and the mother would notice someone following them. I overthink things, yes? My mind is like a computer with too many tabs left open. I’m very clever, so there’s that. Very smart people have lots of thoughts, but they’re all brilliant thoughts.
I calmed myself down by opening a tab of reason in my mind—most mothers didn’t notice things, not the right things, anyway. They were too busy, too fixated on their offspring: is your face wiped, are you putting germy things into your mouth, do you know the alphabet? They were too comfortable in the bubble of the modern world, if you asked me. Back in the day, mothers were afraid of everything: dysentery, influenza, Indian scalping, polio. Now all everyone worries about is if there’s too much high fructose corn syrup in their kid’s juice box. Get a grip, you know? Everyone is always getting salty about the wrong things. Assume there’s a stranger following you home in a very clean, inconspicuous white SUV, assume you’re raising a narcissist, assume in twenty years your kid will hate you because you didn’t set up enough boundaries.
They stopped for gas, so I circled the block then waited in a parking lot next door, ready to pull out at a moment’s notice. A homeless man knocked on my window while I tried to watch for their car. I gave him a dollar because I was in a very good mood, and also I wanted him to go away. I could see the mother from where I idled. She re-latched the gas pump, her hair falling all over her face, and walked around to the driver’s side. I slipped my car into drive and off we went.
I wanted to see the father’s hair, assuming she had one, of course. Nowadays anything went in regard to parenting: throw two men together, two women, give them a kid. Nothing was the same as it used to be. Not that I was homophobic or anything, but it was unfair that the gays were being given babies and I was not.
When their car pulled into a driveway, I parked across the street, under a tree heavy with fat, pink cherry blossoms. It was the time of year when the world was bright with life, all the new things peeking through after a hard winter. Except me. I’d watched the blossoms coming, knowing I was void of life, but that wasn’t really my fault. Humans were leeches, deserters. I felt lonely and isolated because there was no one like me. People said, find your tribe. But, who was my tribe, and where were they? The small town girls I’d grown up with? No. The women in the office where I’d held my first job? Hell no. I’d accepted at a very young age that I’d be alone. I played with friends who only I could see, and as an adult most of my relationships were through the internet. I watched as the mother unbuckled the sleeping girl from her car seat and lifted her to her hip. I felt a pang of jealousy, but then the child’s head lolled off her shoulder, and I wanted to rush over and … and what? Fix it? Take the child? I tsked behind the wheel at the oversight. Bad Mommy. Some people shouldn’t ha
ve children.
They lived in a grey brick Tudor, a mile from my own modest house. What a coincidence! I added up the dates in my head again. Two years, two months, six days. Could this be the child? I felt certain it was, but there was always that nagging doubt. I’d seen a psychic after all the bad things happened. She told me that I’d stumble across the soul of my child one day, that I’d know it was her. I’d imagined it so many times, seeing a teenager, an adult woman, I’d even imagined that she would be my nurse as I lay dying in the hospital of old age. I pulled a baggie of goldfish from my purse and began compulsively shoveling them in my mouth.
I was about to doze off when a gold sedan pulled into the driveway at exactly six fifteen. No one is suspicious of gold sedans because only boring people drive them. People who don’t have enough personality to go with, say a … red, or white car. They’re the neutrals of society. The blenders. I tossed my baggie of goldfish on the passenger seat and sat up straight, dusting crumbs off my chin. A man got out. I squinted against the fading light to see his hair. It was too dark to see the color. Another example of daylight savings ruining lives.
I considered getting out of the car, I could pretend to be taking a walk, maybe pull up outside the driveway and ask him for directions somewhere. No, I couldn’t risk being seen. He held a briefcase in his hand, swinging it back and forth as he walked. Was he whistling? Happiness in his shoulders, happiness on his lips, happiness in his step. None of what he’s doing is real. I wanted to reach out and warn him that it’d all be taken from him one day. It’s just the way of things.
When he reached the porch, a light flickered on and I leaned forward in my seat. His hair was dark! Greys were probably starting to thread through his temples, but from here all I could see was the dark helmet of hair under the glowing yellow porch light.
I sat back, breathless. I was right. I pressed my fingertips against my eyes and started crying. Wet, sorrowful tears leaked down my face and dripped onto my sweater. I was crying for what I lost, for what I’d never get to experience. I slid my fingers under my eyes to clear out the tears and watched as the door opened. The woman threw her arms around his neck. They looked like the perfect family, like happiness came easily to them in their grey house. I could already tell she didn’t deserve it.
Bad Mommy.
“I’m not obsessed with them per se.”
“No?”
“No.” Why did my voice sound like that? I touched my throat, made a little eh-eh sound before I continued. “I’m interested in them, sure. I feel … connected. But, I’m not crazy.” Why was I always assuring people that I wasn’t crazy? Was it because they were all so normal, so boring?
“Fig.” My therapist sat forward in her chair, light glinting off of her red-rimmed glasses.
I looked down at her shoes instead, also red. She was like a little matchy-matchy dolly. It’s like no one cared to have a little personality. I tapped my finger on my rose gold watch then reached up to finger the silver hoops in my ears. Maybe she’d notice and feel inspired. That’s what life was all about. Making others want to be you.
“You followed the mother and daughter home from the park, correct?”
She was twisting my words, trying to make me sound crazy. That was the danger of seeing a therapist.
“I drove toward my neighborhood,” I said. “After the park. They live really close.”
I thought the matter would be settled, but her eyes were drilling into me.
“So you didn’t follow them to their house and sit outside for hours in order to see the little girl’s father?”
“I did park,” I said. “I already told you that. I was curious.”
She sat back and wrote something on her notepad. I craned my neck, but she was a professional at hiding things. Maybe she was a psychopath. Writing things down that I couldn’t see was a power play, yes?
“And how often have you done that since the first time?”
I was suddenly so thirsty my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth. I looked around the room for water. Warm air blasted through the vents in the ceiling. I slipped out of the sweater I’d just bought and licked my lips.
“A few times,” I said, casually. “Do you have any water?”
She pointed to a little fridge in the corner of the room and I stood up and walked over. Mini bottles, row after row of them. I grabbed one from the back so it would be the coldest and returned to my seat. I busied myself opening the bottle and drinking greedily to stretch the time. Any moment she would announce that our session was over, and I could front her next question for the following week. But she didn’t end our session, and I started to sweat.
“Why do you think you feel connected to this particular mother and daughter?”
That one took me off guard. I relaxed, running my thumbnail lightly across my wrist as I thought.
“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it before. Maybe because the little girl is the same age as my daughter would have been.”
She nodded thoughtfully, and I snuggled down in the cushions.
“And maybe because the woman-”
“You mean her mother?”
I shot her a dirty look. “The woman,” I emphasized again, “doesn’t look like the other mothers. She is the anti-mother.”
“Does that upset you or appeal to you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, for the second time. “Maybe both.”
“Tell me about her—the mother.” She settled back in her chair, and I started picking at the skin around my thumbnail.
“She wears things that make the other mothers look, you know? Leather pants, a Nirvana T-shirt underneath a blazer, more bracelets than I’ve ever seen anyone else pile onto their wrist. This one time, she wore a black fedora and a grey shirt you could see right through, the only thing between the rest of the world and her nipples was her hair.”
“And how do the other mothers on the playground respond to her?” she asked. “Have you noticed?”
I had, that’s what had caused me to notice her in the first place. I watched them watch her, and I was hooked.
“She doesn’t care to talk to the other mothers. You can tell they don’t like her because of that. She snubbed them before they had the chance to snub her. Brilliant, if you ask me. They’re pack dogs and they shoot her looks that range between inquisitive and outright annoyance.”
“Do you like that about her?”
I thought about that.
“Yeah, I guess I like that she doesn’t care. I’ve always wanted to not care.”
“It’s good to keep tabs on yourself,” she said. “Know how you work.”
“So, why do I follow them?” I asked in a moment of transparency.
“Our time is up. I’ll see you next week, Fig.” She smiled.
It was late that night when I drove to Bad Mommy’s house and parked a block away. I’d thought about not coming, but I wasn’t going to let myself be bullied by some shrink. It was chilly outside. I fished my hoodie from the backseat and pulled it over my head, tucking my hair carefully into the hood. It wasn’t likely I’d get caught, but this sort of blonde hair attracted attention. This part of town was comprised of young families who were respectively in bed by nine thirty, but you could never be too careful. I decided my cover would be a late night jog. Harmless enough. If anyone were to peep out of their window, they’d see a woman in sweats trying to be her best self. I reached down to check the laces on my new trainers. I’d bought them online just for this occasion. I’d seen Bad Mommy wearing them to the park, bright white with leopard accents. I’d wanted them immediately. I pictured us running into each other at the market or the gas station as we stood with our hands on the pump, and her saying, “Oh, I have those trainers too! Don’t you just love them?” I’d learned this technique from my mother who used it on men after she left my father. You pretend to like what they like so you have something in common. Perhaps you really start to like it—then it’s a win/win.
&nb
sp; It was just a few feet away now.
I glanced furtively around the little street with its hand-painted mailboxes and lush flowerbeds. Not a soul in sight. Most of the windows in the houses were already dark. I jogged on the spot for a few seconds then I grabbed the door to the box and yanked it open. Inside were three pieces of mail and on top of them—a small, brown box. I took all of it, tucking it into the giant pockets of my hoodie while I glanced around. The trainers were pinching my toes, and all I wanted to do was curl up on my couch with Bad Mommy’s mail and a cup of tea. Maybe I’d even have shortbread with my tea, the ones in the plaid tin with the little Scottie dog.
The first thing I did when I walked inside my house was get naked. Pants were for losers. Also, they were biting into my waist, making my skin pool over the top—a very bad feeling. I carried Bad Mommy’s mail to the dinette, setting it down without looking at it. Patience, I told myself. All great things took patience. I made tea, being careful to pour the milk in at exactly the right time. Grabbing the tin of shortbread, I carried my cup over to the dinette—an old wooden thing I’d restored and painted myself—and slid into one of the yellow chairs. I placed each envelope face down, putting the package last. Deep breath, okay … I turned the first one over. Her name was Jolene Avery.
“Jolene Avery,” I said out loud. And then as to not be swooned by her pretty name, I said, “Bad Mommy.”
I used my nail to slide open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of white paper inside. A doctor’s bill, how boring. I scanned the words. She had blood work done two weeks ago. I looked through the medical jargon for more details but that’s all it said. Lab. For what? A pregnancy? A standard procedure? I was no stranger to medical issues. In the last year, I’d been hospitalized twice when my blood pressure spiked, and there were all the tests they’d had to do when they found spots on my brain. I’d blamed George and those bad things he did to me. I was perfectly healthy until I found out what a bastard he was.
I set the bill aside and turned the next one over. This was addressed to her husband, Darius Avery. It was an insurance quote, junk mail. Darius and Jolene Avery. I bit into my cookie. The third letter was a birthday invitation. Red and yellow balloons floated all over the card. You’re Invited! it said in bubble letters.
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