Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything

by Kristin Bair

“Wait. Lucy saved your life, but all you can talk about is the suspicious stuff about her? Why didn’t you tell the Moms she saved your life?”

  “I’m quite sure her reasons were purely selfish.”

  Melody huffs and puffs. “What selfish reasons could this poor girl have for saving your pathetic life? Tell me, Agatha Arch, tell me. She doesn’t know you from Adam. She’s full of great sadness. She has absolutely zero reason to save your life on the top of a mountain other than, like you, she’s a good person.”

  “You just don’t understand, Melody.”

  “What don’t I understand? That you’re a suspicious, scared little girl who has to bully people who show their feelings? Is that what I don’t understand?”

  Bully?

  Bully?

  Agatha stands up. She is still unsteady on her feet and sure could use a cold beverage. “I am not a bully,” she says. “I am a realist.”

  “You’re a bully.”

  “That is not nice, Melody. I’ve never heard you say anything so not nice.”

  “You have pushed me to this place, Agatha Arch. No one has ever pushed me to this place. Ever! But I promise you, I will not be pushed to this place again. I’m done trying to help you through this. Done.” Then she turns and walks away.

  Crap. Agatha pops back onto the Moms page and types: “Just pushed Kumbaya Queen Melody Whelan to her limit. That’s a first.” But instead of pressing post, she presses delete. She isn’t sure this is something she wants to brag about.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Hi. It’s me. Agatha Arch.”

  “Hello, Agatha. How are Thelma and Louise doing?”

  “I think they’re sick.”

  The goat lady’s tone changes abruptly. “Sick? You didn’t let them near the rhododendron, did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “They’re just lying around. Not eating anything. Only Timothy is active, and he’s acting like an ass. Not eating either.”

  “Ah. I see,” says the goat lady.

  “See what?”

  “This is typical goat behavior. I believe we mentioned that goats have four stomachs, so they need time to lie around and digest. If there are no other symptoms, that is likely what is happening.”

  “Seriously? I thought they were more earnest than that.”

  “They’re animals, not people. We can’t command them to do our bidding.”

  “Hm.”

  “Leave them to rest. I’m sure they’ll be back at the job within a few hours.”

  “Hm.”

  * * *

  “Hey, Hummingbird. Is that you?”

  Agatha is crouched ninja-like behind a silver Mercedes across the street from the House of Sin, hovering her drone at Willow Bean’s living room window. She’s hoping to catch GDOG in the act of something, anything, but so far all she’s got is Willow putting a banana peel in the trash instead of the compost. It’s weak, but it’s a start.

  “Hummingbird?”

  Crap, Agatha thinks. Crap, crap, crap. She pretends not to hear.

  “Hummingbird?” Blue says again. The drone-driving, skateboard-riding, coffee-guzzling, tech-savvy, super-smart, emotionally balanced, how-the-hell-did-she-get-to-be-so-grown-up, fifteen-year-old Blue puts her hands on her knees and bends to Agatha’s level.

  Agatha grimaces, pivots on her haunches, tilts her head, and locks eyes with Blue. “Oh, hey, Blue.” She hops up from her hiding spot and leans against a tree, doing her best not to look like a middle-aged woman crouched in spy pants commanding a drone.

  Agatha summons the drone, makes it do a loop-de-loop around their heads, and lands it skillfully at their feet. A gold medal landing.

  “Very nice,” Blue says.

  “Thanks, teacher.”

  The woman standing next to Blue holds out her hand. “Hi, Agatha,” she says. “I’m Penny Miller. Blue’s mother. I’ve heard some really wonderful things about you.”

  Agatha shakes Penny’s hand and tries to imagine what wonderful things Blue could possibly have shared about the grown woman she was teaching to fly a drone. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Your daughter taught me everything I know.”

  They exchange pleasantries, but all the while Agatha is painfully aware that she is on the street across from the House of Sin, holding her drone, wearing her spy pants, engaging in nefarious acts.

  “Is this your house?” Blue asks.

  “No,” Agatha says.

  Penny smiles. When she meets Agatha’s eyes, Agatha imagines her face as an FB avatar and realizes she’s a card-carrying member of the Moms group. No secrets here. “Blue,” Penny says, “I suspect this house may belong to friends of Agatha’s. It looks like they were kind enough to let her polish her skills here.”

  Could it get any worse?

  In her head, Agatha falls to her knees with gratitude so she doesn’t have to be any more embarrassed than she already is. Agatha nods. Then she gives Blue one of those giant “I’m full of shit” smiles that grownups love to give kids. “Yes, these are friends who let me practice my drone maneuvers at their house,” she says. “It’s more fun to practice where there are lots of people to observe.”

  Just then, Willow Bean’s front door flies open and the boys tumble out. Agatha tries to duck behind the Mercedes before they see her, but she’s too slow.

  “Mom!” Jason screams, and he races toward her at the same exact second an Escalade careens down the street. The driver slams on the brakes, and the Escalade skids to a halt just a foot from Jason. He falls to the ground, eyes wide. Agatha screams. The driver screams. Blue screams.

  Penny Miller does not scream. She calmly walks to Jason, stands him up, brushes him off, whispers in his ear, and escorts him to Agatha.

  The woman in the Escalade leaps out. “Oh, my god! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she says. “He jumped out from nowhere. I wasn’t going fast.”

  Agatha wants to wallop the woman, but there is a train clanging and collumping through her head. Jason is in her arms but she can also see him lying on the ground in front of the Escalade in a puddle of blood. A million what-ifs race through her brain. What if the woman hadn’t been able to stop? What if Agatha hadn’t been spying from across the street so Jason hadn’t been compelled to run to her? What if Dax had never had an affair? What if he hadn’t left her for a girl nearly half his age? What if Jason had been killed? What if, what if, what if? So many goddamn what-ifs in the world.

  In the middle of all of this, Dustin gingerly crosses the street to join them. He tiptoes. He looks both ways twice. He cocks his head and listens for a car. He’s the cautious one. The one who will always look both ways both literally and figuratively. When he finally reaches them, he wraps his arms around his brother and mom. Blue is shaken, but her mother is clearly experienced in helping people through tough moments. Life of a librarian.

  “These must be your sons,” Penny says after the Escalade gets the okay to drive away.

  Agatha nods. “Jason, Dustin, this is my friend Blue and her mother, Mrs. Miller.”

  The boys look up and smile. Jason is almost over his panic. Then without warning, the Grande Dame of Grapefruits is there. The silk muumuu-maxi surprise. Her face drips with concern. “Oh, my goodness, Agatha, is Jason okay? I saw everything from the living room.” She points to the window Agatha had been filming at just ten minutes before.

  “He’s fine. No thanks to you,” Agatha says.

  Blue is watching closely, trying to figure out what is going on. “This is your friend, Hummingbird?” she says.

  Agatha grimaces. “Yes, this is my friend.” She nearly chokes on the word.

  Blue holds out her hand to Willow and they shake. “I’m Blue, a friend of Hummingbird’s.”

  “I’m Willow. A friend, too.”

  “It’s so cool you let Hummingbird practice her drone at your window, filming and everything,” Blue continues. “Most people would hate that.”

&nb
sp; In that instant, Agatha, Penny, and Willow Bean are suddenly united in that weird grownup world in which you pretend something so absurd you’re sure the kids must know the real scoop but are incredibly thankful they haven’t quite figured it all out. Willow Bean could so easily pop this bubble. Agatha is surprised and grateful she doesn’t.

  “Thank you, Blue,” Willow says. “Being on camera so often, especially when I least expect it, has taken some getting used to, but now I sometimes forget the drone is there, recording nearly every moment of my home life.” She is alluding to the time a few days before when Agatha had maneuvered the drone to the upstairs bathroom window and caught her gliding naked out of the shower.

  “It’s like reality TV,” Blue says. “For real though. Real reality.”

  Willow Bean nods and smiles. “Yes, just like that.”

  “Are you going to put it on the internet?”

  Willow coughs and looks at Agatha. “Oh, I hope not,” she says. She has had no privacy for weeks.

  After a collective awkward grownup laugh, Agatha says, “Right now, this is just for home use. Privacy and all.”

  Penny Miller takes her daughter’s hand. “Time to go, Blue. Nice to finally meet you, Agatha.”

  Agatha nods and smiles. “You, too, Penny. Thanks for helping out with Jason.”

  Penny nods back. Then Willow nods. It seems like the thing to do. And so, for one additional very long moment, they are a really weird group of awkwardly nodding grownups.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Agatha’s hormones swell.

  “Part 3 of Who Can I Bonk? is about to commence!” she texts to Melody. She’s sure this will make Melody talk to her again.

  Nothing.

  “The winner is the UPS guy,” Agatha texts. Bait.

  Nothing.

  One more try.

  “As long as you don’t look at his face, he’s kind of hot in his brown shorts and knee socks.”

  Dead silence.

  * * *

  Looking back, Agatha will admit that going for yet another deliverer of packages is dumb as hell, but in the moment she is keenly focused on convenience. Bonking a man who stops by her house on a regular basis makes sense in her “urge to merge” brain. She makes her move on the day he accidentally delivers Dax’s blood pressure meds to her house instead of the House of Sin.

  He knocks on the door, and when she sees him peeking through the window, she hikes up her skirt and does a flirty twirl.

  The UPS guy jumps back. Agatha assumes out of joy and excitement.

  She shimmies to the door and opens it. “Hello there, UPS Guy,” she says in her sultriest voice.

  The man is wide-eyed. A good sign, Agatha thinks. “Yes, ma’am, hello,” he says. “I have a package for Dax Arch.”

  “Yes, that’s my husband. My estranged husband. And if he has his way, my soon-to-be ex-husband,” she says, shimmying a bit more and leaning forward so her cleavage is highlighted by the shaft of late afternoon sun coming through the window.

  “Very well, ma’am.” The guy is tall and as skinny as a straw. Agatha has never slept with a straw-like guy, and the thought of it jacks up her hormones another notch.

  “Would you like to come in for a bit?” she says. “Take a rest. Have a coffee,” she pauses, “or maybe a glass of wine.”

  The UPS guy stands as far from her as possible without tipping backward over the porch railing. He stretches his long, rubber-bandy arm toward her, package in hand. “Thank you, ma’am, but I’m on duty right now. No time for coffee. Or wine. Or anything else.” He shakes Dax’s box of meds in front of her face. The pills rattle inside.

  When she steps through the doorway and moves closer, his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Perhaps,” she says, “I’m not being clear. I’d love for you to come in and have a bit of fun this afternoon.”

  “I am getting the message, ma’am,” the guy says. “You’re being quite clear. And while I appreciate the offer, I’m in a hurry.”

  Undaunted, Agatha lifts her skirt a bit, strokes her thigh, and gives him a wink. “I won’t tell anyone. Please come in.”

  “I have to go,” he says. He tosses the box at her feet.

  “Not yet,” she says. “We have so much to explore.”

  The last glimpse she has is the guy leaping over her porch railing onto the driveway, his needlelike legs higher than his head.

  “No luck with Ichabod Crane,” she texts to Melody.

  Silence.

  * * *

  “I have to move,” Agatha tells Shrinky-Dink at her next appointment. “I am mortified.”

  “We all have embarrassing moments.”

  “Like hurling one’s scantily clad self at the UPS guy? Like that?”

  Shrinky-Dink laughs. “Not quite like that, but equally embarrassing, I’m sure.”

  Agatha drops her head into her hands. “I doubt it.”

  “You could connect with a high-end escort service. There are a few in Boston.”

  Agatha lifts her head. How in the world has she fallen to a place in which her shrink is suggesting she find a sex partner via an escort service? “You’re not serious?”

  “I am. Physical need is a real thing. It’s very do-able.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Agatha, I’ve told you many times you are not the only person who has gone through these things. You are not as different as you’d like to believe.”

  Agatha tries to imagine the woman in gray hooking up with an escort for the evening. She can’t.

  “I need sex, but not with some stranger by appointment.”

  “But the UPS guy would be okay?”

  Agatha groans. “Seems so.”

  * * *

  Awash in misery, Agatha climbs the stairs to her bedroom, flops onto the bed, and looks around. Every single thing is a reminder of Dax. They’d picked out the furniture together. Strands of his wiry hair are still sticking out of his hairbrush. A ratty pair of slippers pokes out of his closet. The book he’d been reading when all of this went down, the biography of a king, is still on his side table.

  Suddenly enough is enough. Horniness transforms into rage.

  Agatha stomps to the basement, grabs a couple of empty boxes, and stomps back up to the bedroom. Then she pitches all of Dax’s stuff into the boxes, including anything of hers that reminds her of him. The navy bedspread (his favorite); his king book, slippers, and brush; his clothes, pillow, and crap from his bedside table drawer; his stash of sleeping pills. “I don’t need these anymore,” he’d told her the week before. “Sleeping next to Willow makes me sleep like a baby,” to which Agatha had roared.

  When the room is empty except for the furniture and her clothes, she hauls the boxes to the curb, pops onto the Moms page, and writes, “Free stuff at my curb. More to come.” She adds photos. The Moms love “crap on the curb” posts, and happy face emojis pop like candy. When she hears a car pull up, Agatha clicks to her favorite furniture store. “Queen beds,” she types. Then she orders a beautiful new bedroom set. On her own personal credit card. Screw this king-size monstrosity with Dax’s DNA all over it. She doesn’t need it. All she needs is a nice comfy queen that fits her, her books, and her fothermucking broken heart.

  An hour later, she summons the We Haul It All truck.

  “Finally ready to get rid of that mess?” one of the men says, gesturing to the shed debris.

  “Nope, that stays,” she says. “You’re here for the furniture in the bedroom. Take it all.”

  * * *

  “Agatha? Agatha?”

  Agatha sits up on the lounger on the porch.

  Kerry Sheridan smiles and puts a foot on the first step. “I thought I saw your head up there. Aren’t you cold?”

  Agatha shakes the heated blanket at her. “I’m plugged in. Nice and toasty out here.”

  “Ah, very good.”

  “Can I help you with something?”

  Kerry climbs the steps. “Yes, I think so. I hope so.�
�

  Agatha slides over on the lounger. “Have a seat.”

  As Kerry sits, Thelma hops on the riding mower and lets out a long meeehhhhhh. “Those goats are marvelous. Looks like they’re nearly done.”

  “A few more days. They’re definitely good at what they do. Even Timothy.” Agatha looks at Kerry. “So? You said I can help you with something.”

  “Yes, I’m wondering, …”

  “Spit it out, Kerry.”

  “I’m wondering if I can borrow a goat for a few hours.”

  “What for?”

  “Just a small patch of poison ivy on the far side of the house. Pretty sure it originated here.”

  Agatha pauses. “Kerry, I hate to say no. Truly. But the goat people are quite clear about using the goats only on the area they’ve approved. They did a whole survey of the brush and everything, making sure there was nothing poisonous to the goats. I signed a waiver about not allowing the goats to go off property.”

  Kerry sighs. “Oh. Okay. I was just hoping with our newfound camaraderie that this might be something you could help me with.”

  “It’s not about you, Kerry. It’s about the goats.”

  “Yeah. Thanks anyway, Agatha.” Kerry heads back down the stairs, shoulders slumped.

  Agatha moans. “Hey, Kerry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How about I walk Thelma over for a bit on a leash? If she happens to find some poison ivy on our stroll, well, so be it.”

  Kerry grins, giving Agatha another glimpse of those teeth Agatha never knew she had. “Thank you!”

  * * *

  Who in their right mind could ever have predicted that one day Agatha Arch would miss the Kumbaya Queen? On what planet, in what galaxy, in what lifetime, in whose reality is this even possible?

  But it’s true.

  Agatha misses Melody. She misses the quiet drumbeat of her approaching presence. Her oddly conservative blouses buttoned to the throat. The string of pearls. She misses the single question mark Melody often posted after Agatha said something not so nice on the Moms page. She misses their yoga classes. And the way Melody calls her Agatha Arch whenever she infuriates or bewilders her. Not Agatha. Not Arch. But Agatha Arch.