by Kristin Bair
From that vantage point, Agatha watches the We Haul It All truck drive away slowly, offering up a single sorrowful beep as it rounds the bend.
* * *
Tap tap tippity-tap.
* * *
“This is why her name felt so familiar,” Agatha tells Shrinky-Dink. “Because every single dog-loving Mom in Wallingford knows and adores Willow Bean. They extol her virtues almost as often as they ask for prayers and gently used toys and coupons for Bed Bath and Beyond. ‘She’s honest,’ they sing. ‘She’s loyal and committed. She will love your dog more than life itself. She’s a dog in human form. She’s dog spelled backward. G-O-D.’”
“They say all that?”
“Yep.”
“And not one Mom mentioned this the day of the shed incident?”
“Nope.”
“No one said, ‘Which dog walker?’”
“Not to me, but now I know there had to have been ten thousand DMs shooting around Wallingford.” The Moms love direct messages.
“When Dax told you her name, you didn’t remember seeing it in posts on the Moms feed?”
“No. No. Now I do, of course. Every time a Mom gets a new pup and puts out a call for reliable, loving dog walkers, the rest of the Moms holler, ‘Willow Bean! Willow Bean! Willow Bean!’ But then? That day? It didn’t even ring a bell. How could I forget something like that?”
“You blocked it. The brain protects us when necessary.”
“The head is a funny thing,” Agatha says in a whispery voice.
Shrinky-Dink leans forward. “Excuse me?”
“Something my mom always used to say. The head is a funny thing; the heart even funnier.”
“Smart mom.”
“Dead mom.”
“You miss her.”
Agatha nods.
“Have they found the dog?”
“Balderdash?”
Shrinky-Dink nods.
“Not yet. Gem Lily must be so lonely.”
“You must be so lonely.”
Agatha doesn’t answer.
* * *
When she gets home, Agatha finds a double chocolate cupcake in a box on her stoop. No card, no note, just the cupcake she’d longed for. It’s something.
Chapter Eight
Agatha stares at Jane Poston’s photo of the Interloper, so fuzzy, but so telling, like many of the Moms’ “Look at this!” posts. God-awful photographers, the Moms are, with no artistic sensibility and no interest in quality, just quick snaps with a corner of a wall included or a husband’s elbow or the shadow of a barista’s arm. The photos are about the things at which they demand you look and nothing else, no spirit, no song, no rhythm, no secrets. Agatha minimizes Facebook, then pulls the first such post she’d ever seen from her WTF folder, her genesis “Look at this!” post, the one that stole her Moms group virginity.
“Moms!” Sandra Block had posted with her photo ten years before. “Pus is oozing from my son’s butt! Look at this!”
“Nooooooooooooo!” Agatha had wailed at the time, Dustin suckling at her breast. She remembers it as clearly as she does Dustin’s birth. “I will not look at this.”
But look she did. At that post and many more. Unfamiliar with the whos, whats, and hows of a Facebook Moms group, she’d been flabbergasted by the pictures of wounds, stories of private woe, descriptions of melodrama, and general over-the-top inanity the Moms shared so willingly, so passionately. “Quit reading. Don’t look,” Dax had said. He was always full of advice about restraint, though in retrospect he has shown none himself. But not looking was impossible. Facebook moms groups are addictive. Once you’re in, you can’t get out. “They’re the glory and suck-duckery of modern-day parenting,” Agatha had told him again and again. “A moms group is a high school clique on steroids. Or Scientology.”
Back then, when Sandra Block had pleaded “What should I do?” Agatha had done the unthinkable. She’d told the truth. “For Big Papi’s sake,” she wrote, “stop writing FB posts and get the kid to a damn doctor.”
Rookie mistake.
After scolding her like a naughty toddler, the Moms began offering up their own solutions to Sandra’s emergency, clearly preferring their ignoramus home-brewed solutions to life-threatening dilemmas:
Tiana Samuels:
“Have you tried an herbal enema?”
Tina West:
“How about an essential oil rubbed on the buttocks? I sell a wonderful blend of tea tree, lavender, and myrrh that might just do the trick.”
Stella Bender:
“Bananas.”
Lila Due:
“Fewer bananas.”
So far that was the only truth Agatha could cull from this herd of wackadoodles. They were bananas. All of them.
Mackenzie Tucker:
“Time heals all wounds.”
Sandra Gilliam:
“My cousin’s son seeped a similar pus. He died of a rare rectal cancer a few months after first seepage (prayers welcome). I’m sure it’s not the same thing.”
Melody Whelan:
“Sending love and light.”
Agatha had longed to ask what love and light were going to do for a pus-seeping butt, but instead she’d quietly created a “The 12 Days of the Wallingford Moms” folder on her desktop and slipped this gem into it.
* * *
She closes the folder and looks back at Jane Poston’s post about the Interloper. If there was some other distraction—a vote about next year’s school calendar, untethered teens climbing all over public property, the loss of another beloved business in the downtown’s overpriced rental market—the Moms might shimmy right on past the Interloper and the Interloper might move on to another town, another state, a new place to hide, a new place to take money from unsuspecting people. But other than the search for Balderdash and the shed on Sutton Circle, there is nothing. The Moms latch on.
Rachel Runk:
“Hi Moms! I drove through Apple54 this morning and the young woman is still there. What’s it been, a week? Have we figured out if her need is legit? I’d like to give her a little money, but only if she is truly in trouble. The last thing I need to do is provide funds for a heroin addiction. Much better things to do with my money than that.”
Agatha Arch:
Lara Lynch:
“Rachel, I saw her today, too. She is skinny, as are most opioid addicts I know.”
Agatha Arch:
“Oh, come on, Lara, exactly how many opioid addicts do you know?”
Melody Whelan:
“Let’s not make assumptions, ladies. People also become skinny because they do not have enough to eat.”
Agatha Arch:
“Hungry or not, this young woman has permeated our borders and introduced life-threatening danger.”
Ava Newton:
“Life-threatening danger? As far as we know, this young woman hasn’t done a darn thing except stand at an intersection and ask for money. It may be frustrating and even annoying, but it certainly isn’t putting anyone’s life at risk.”
Agatha Arch:
“Wrong, wrong, wrong. With this woman comes danger.”
Ava Newton:
“You have no proof of such a thing, Agatha.”
Agatha Arch:
“Some things you just know.”
Ava Newton:
“And some things you make up because you’re scared to death of the world. Signing off.”
Agatha Arch:
“Good riddance. Hope the Interloper gets you first!”
Rachel Runk:
“Ladies, if I can direct us back to the young woman. Any info on her need?”
Jane Poston:
“I actually stopped and gave her some change today. She seemed okay. Maybe a little hungry, as Melody suggested.”
Agatha Arch:
“You sure did, didn’t you, Jane?”
Agatha posts a photo of Jane handing money to the woman through the window of her Escalade. Unlike Jane’s photo, this one is cris
p and clear, courtesy of Agatha’s Nikon DSLR.
Jane Poston:
“Seriously, Agatha? You’re stalking the young woman? Taking pictures?”
Agatha Arch:
“Just trying to keep our community safe.”
Mary Devlin:
“Sidebar here, but, Jane, your new Escalade is sweet.”
Jane Poston:
“Thanks.”
Melody Whelan:
“Jane, you agree she may be hungry?”
Right then, the unmistakable beat of “Kumbaya” shakes the Moms page. The thump of Melody’s empathetic heart rolls through like the call of a timpani drum.
Jane Poston:
“Melody, she just seemed a little faint or weak.”
Melody Whelan:
“That’s not a good sign. No one should go hungry, no matter the circumstances. I’ll check on her tomorrow.”
The Moms have heard this thump before, and they all know what it means. Melody Whelan will be leading the charge, parting the Red Sea for this woman. Agatha stares at the screen and remembers her mother’s favorite bit of advice whenever a controversy arose: “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Can she beat the 2,690 member Moms (and odd dads and guardians) once Melody Whelan picks up the reins of empathy?
Probably not.
Can she join them?
Definitely not.
What else is there?
* * *
“Sing it to me,” Shrinky-Dink said when Agatha first told her about her “The 12 Days of the Wallingford Moms,” the parody she’d written of everyone’s favorite “The 12 Days of Christmas.”
“Right here?”
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t. I’m a terrible singer.”
Shrinky-Dink leaned back and smiled. “I’ll close my eyes. Pretend I’m not here.”
“I guess I asked for this,” Agatha said. She cleared her throat and began. “On the first day of Christmas, the Moms gave to me, a cure for pus-seeping butts. On the second day of Christmas, the Moms …”
Shrinky-Dink opened her eyes and checked the clock. “How about just the final verse? Start with the twelfth day. That will give me everything I need.”
“I thought you weren’t here?”
Shrinky-Dink closed her eyes again. “I’m not.”
Agatha nodded and began again:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, the Moms gave to me
twelve mani/pedis,
eleven summer nannies,
ten essential oils,
nine squashed turkeys,
eight eyebrow threaders,
seven Disney cruises,
six recs for date night,
five pulled pork recipes,
four car line cheaters,
three cans of Edgecomb Grey,
two rash creams,
and a cure for pus-seeping butts.
Shrinky-Dink laughed out loud and made a note on her iPad. It was the first time Agatha had heard that laugh, and it felt a little bit like friendship. Therapy was sneaky that way.
“Edgecomb Grey?” Shrinky-Dink said.
“The paint color that best complements Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter,” Agatha said. “It’s one of the three most frequently asked questions on the Moms page.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. And it’s asked passionately, as if lives will be forever altered if the right color gets on the right wall, as if this choice will stop world wars, end the opioid epidemic, curb female genital mutilation, and get girls to school in developing nations.”
Shrinky-Dink chuckled. “Edgecomb Grey, huh?”
“Nantucket Fog is a close second.”
“Good to know.”
Agatha sighed. “Well?”
“Well,” Shrinky-Dink said, “I can see why the Moms got mad. The carol sounds a bit judgmental.”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s funny.”
“It is, but it also hits close to home.”
“It’s supposed to. It’s a parody.”
“I’m curious. What are the other two most frequently asked questions?”
Agatha laughed. “The first, what is your favorite pulled pork recipe?”
Shrinky-Dink smiled so big Agatha knew she, too, loved a good pulled pork sandwich. Who didn’t? “And the second?”
“Is this a fox or a coyote? That one is always accompanied by a photo.”
“The Moms can’t tell the difference between a fox and a coyote?”
“Nope.”
Shrinky-Dink sighed and shook her head. Agatha did the same, knowing that while the Moms weren’t a dumb lot with half of them being full-time career Moms who Tasmanian-deviled the shit out of the world in order to stay afloat, they did play into Facebook’s algorithms, willingly engaging in the group energy they counted on.
“I’ve got a theory,” Agatha said.
“I’m not surprised,” Shrinky-Dink said. Agatha is good at theories. It’s part of what makes her a good writer. Big picture stuff.
“I call it Mouse to Cheese.”
Shrinky-Dink waited.
“Biggie Z,” Agatha’s nickname for Mark Zuckerberg, “is the esteemed leader of a group of aliens from another galaxy intent on studying human behavior. Facebook groups are his human terrariums. Moist nourishing environments in which his victims can thrive or fail.”
“And?” Shrinky-Dink said.
“We have to wait and see.”
Chapter Nine
Each day, Agatha adds a little something to Infidelity: A Still Life. A splintered rafter. A bent nail. An overturned bucket. A shard of terra cotta pot. A doorknob. An errant gardening glove. An aerial shot from one of the oak trees. A swatch of the dog walker’s aquamarine muumuu-maxi snagged on a pickax. Even a close-up of a single tear rolling down the seemingly permanent crease on her own cheek, although that one feels a little maudlin. Rhythm matters on Instagram. As do song, artistry, spirit, and secrets. She learns to use filters and pays attention to angles. Vignettes are her secret sauce. In her posts, she’s quippy and clever, wry and witty. She becomes a master of hashtags.
On day three, she has 1,475 followers.
Within the first week, 9,328. Her phone pings with each new follow. It’s addictive. Pavlovian. The more pings she hears, the more photos she posts.
Her followers, she notes, are mostly women, many, like her, who’ve been cheated on, wronged, sliced to the quick by husbands, wives, lovers, boyfriends, girlfriends. These aren’t women looking for love, understanding, empathy, and support. They’re pissed-off women looking for a posse.
Many Moms from her FB group follow her IG, too. Jane Poston. (ping) Melody Whelan. (ping) Rachel Runk. (ping) And so on.
When she hits 10,000 followers, Agatha orders a pair of spy pants. They’re glorious.
If you can’t beat them, join them.
If you can’t join them?
Spy on them.
“Spy on them?” Agatha doesn’t lay out her plan for Shrinky-Dink, doesn’t show up at her appointment and say, “Hey, I’m going to start spying on my estranged husband and his hussy,” mostly because Shrinky-Dink would do everything in her power, with typical shrinkerly restraint, to stop her. She would apply logic where Agatha wants none. Is there anything worse than being in a highly emotional state and someone, anyone, a dermatologist, a grocery clerk, a lawn specialist, but especially a shrink, turning themselves inside out to apply logic to an illogical situation?
But even though Agatha doesn’t reveal her secret plan, in her head she hears what Shrinky-Dink would say if she knew. She hears the tsks, the admonitions, the warnings, the caution, the “Agatha, this isn’t going to end well.”
* * *
Agatha’s new pants aren’t marketed as spy pants, of course. That would be strange. But they are equipped with dozens of pockets that will allow Agatha to tote all the items she needs. Some, like the “long-knife pocket” that stretches from the middle
of Agatha’s thigh to the top of her calf, are unusually large. Others are quite small. In preparation for the work ahead, she packs them with necessities.
A good-sized camera lens goes into the drawstring pocket. From the loop at the waist, she hangs her binoculars. She tucks a can of spray paint in the calf pocket of the left leg. Fluorescent pink. Her high-tech voice recorder fits nicely in the hip pocket, along with a mini-speaker and microphone. The pencil and paper are for old-fashioned note taking. She’s not sure she’ll ever need invisible ink, but she packs the pen anyway. She stashes a small bag of the boys’ favorite candy in the calf pocket of the right leg so that if they happen to catch her in a suspicious activity, she can sweeten them up. Anything for Sour Patch Kids. In various other pockets, she stashes a headlamp, gum, rubber bands, a nail file, a mini-roll of duct tape, waterproof matches, a whistle, firecrackers, a ball of twine, and a few other bits and pieces. She Googles what Bear takes on his adventures, then adds a survival blanket, a sewing kit, and snare wire to her stash. You never know.
While the kitchen cleaver would fit just fine into the long-knife pocket, she opts for a Leatherman Super Tool 300 EOD with a fold-down blade not more than an inch long. Better to avoid temptation, no matter what Shrinky-Dink believes.
* * *
The first nor’easter of the season hits that Tuesday, and for twenty-four hours rain pelts houses and slams into windows, pools and puddles in low-lying areas. Agatha watches Kerry Sheridan chase her garbage cans down the road, tumbleweeding past Mrs. Crichton’s house and moving on to the intersection with Brumpy Loop, the road on which Agatha had wanted to live. Forget the fact that when she and Dax had househunted, there’d been no houses for sale on it, and that, yes, the Sutton Circle house was a charmer that she eventually fell for. Even so, the writer in her wanted Brumpy Loop. She’d imagined a castle with a turret and the ability to say to people, “Address? My address? Oh, eleven Brumpy Loop.” What a wonderful name.