Chapter Text
She doesn’t see Rio so much so that she feels her presence like a stubborn serrated blade inching further into her vital organs every waking second. She doesn’t need to speak to Rio to realize that her life is being ruined by someone who was still crawling on all fours when Agatha was kissing closeted girls in Catholic school.
Okay, so “ruining her life”? Bit of a stretch. But here’s exactly how the month of November went for Agatha after her dinner entrapment with the Kaplans and Rio.
First, there was the business of Jennifer Kale’s baby shower, the town’s local mommy and me influencer, and a Google Excel sheet soon fled the inbox of every resident of Westview asking to help arrange the party. Oh yeah, and Agatha was finally coerced into joining their text chain, her phone blowing up twenty times a day with pictures of various furry pets.
The thing was, she wasn’t planning to do anything for Jen; she hadn’t liked her since they met in college, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to fawn over her engorged belly now. But then she scrolled down the list of volunteers and sure enough, Rio Vidal was signed up for set-up, tear-down, photography, and floral arrangements. The next five minutes were a blackout memory and she blinked to see that she’d signed up for all the same things and then table centerpieces on top of it.
She didn’t speak to Rio at these events. Instead, she made small talk with the blood-sucking housewives of Westview and purposely made the ugliest centerpieces possible. Yellows with browns, eau de toilette inspired, she would say to them. She frowned when she spotted Rio’s assortment of florals, the intricacy and uniqueness of each one, and the subtle crease of her brow when she was concentrating. When Rio caught her staring, she stopped her roving hands and gave Agatha a flippant wave and a too-big smile.
Fuck her.
If Rio blew up two balloons in a minute, Agatha would blow up four. Sure, she was red and her cheeks were throbbing after the first twenty, but she found a wicked thrill in the way Rio would watch her.
“Look at Agatha, so hard at work. You’re lovely,” a rando had said to her, and Agatha propped her cheeks into a winning smile.
“Oh, you know me!”
But when she looked over to gloat in Rio’s face, the woman was molding the largest balloon arch Westview had ever seen. “Rio, you’re such a doll,” she’d heard a blonde woman say, a hand finding its way to Rio’s bicep.
The balloon from Agatha’s lips came flying out, her slackened attention giving just enough leeway for the air to come shooting out of the rubber and launching it to the ceiling of the banquet room. It looped and curved and hit the blonde on the forehead on the way down.
“Oops,” Agatha had said, shrugging as Rio narrowed her eyes. What are you up to, brown eyes had questioned, but Agatha just picked up another balloon, feeling oddly fulfilled.
Second, there was the matter of Senior Bingo Night at the rec center. Rio had signed up to be the host, and so naturally, Agatha was there to outdo her. Rio, the absolute anomaly, showed up decked out in a dark grey suit. The pants were a little too big, so she secured them around her waist with a comically large belt. It would’ve been uncouth on anyone else.
Agatha was packing her bag up for the evening when one of the seniors, Mr. Honeycutt, made his way over to her.
“You coming back next week, Agnes?”
She winced at the name. “Mr. Honeycutt, no one’s called me Agnes since I was in primary school. And even then, it was mainly you.”
Mr. Honeycutt had been the Vice Principal of Saint Catherine’s All-Girls Preparatory Academy. A place Agatha frequented in her nightmares, a hand clawing at her neck when she woke, and her mother’s name on her lips. Mr. Honeycutt was the club advisor for their debate team and also Agatha’s coach during her short-lived stint in soccer.
“What’d you think of the newcomer?” He asked with a conspiratorial eye. His line of sight followed Rio as she awed over the crochet ladies’ newest creations.
“If you’re going to tell me all about how Rio Vidal is the gift to the community, I’m going to have to stop you right there–”
“No need,” he said, a psh sound airing from his moustached lips. “I’ve seen a lot of proclaimed saints in my day, Agnes. I’m not sure what she is yet. Hiding something, just haven’t put my finger on it yet.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said with faux interest as she draped on her coat. Though she didn’t ask for it, he raised the other end of it so she could slip her arm through. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because, Agnes, I’m not sure there is a town saint, but I am sure that there is a town sheriff. Like it or not, that’s you.”
“Locking up people for insider trading isn’t exactly sheriffing.”
“You’re like a hound with a scent for dirt. I didn’t forget who propelled us to two state titles.”
She stifled a laugh. “You know, I gave an average of two concussions a game, right? If that’s what you mean by my affinity for dirt.”
He smiled at her knowingly and then nodded his head, conceding to stop pushing her. “Ignore me, it’s my old dying brain. Don’t ever retire Agnes, it’s like taking the chickens to pasture before the slaughterhouse.”
It was uncomfortable being read so easily. It made her want to flee, to never reveal the existence of a version of herself before the present one–an Agatha that was weak and young, with no real talent for soccer, but played with so much rage it didn’t matter.
“We both know you would run the table on these crones,” she said with something not similar to fondness but familiarity, perhaps, that eased her expression into warmth.
With a hearty chuckle, he fixed the rim of his cap and set his cane back on the linoleum floor. “I’ll see you next week.”
Before she could even deny the responsibility, he was leaving. Of course, he was using a cane so it wouldn’t have been difficult to catch up to him, but her legs were stiff and tired from standing, so she decided it would be fine to swallow the argument just this once.
“What’s the story there?” The she-devil in question leaned into her view, adorned with a lopsided crocheted beanie. It was bright teal with purple stripes and looked so ridiculous paired with her suit that Agatha nearly choked on her own mirth.
Her laughter echoed through the halls and made the few patrons still left in the room turn their heads, but Rio paid them no mind. She stood there tapping her heeled toe against the floor, waiting for Agatha, muttering complaints under her breath and scratching at the hat.
“Are you done?” She asked, but her eyes were soft, and there was already a hint of a smile twitching at her lips.
“Yes,” she cleared her throat, a hand over her mouth. “It’s like Monsters Inc just died on your head.” She swirled her fingers over her own head.
“Ha-ha,” Rio said, rolling her eyes back. She paused before leaning closer to Agatha, her face contorted with discomfort, and quietly confessed, “Prudence and I are having dinner tomorrow night, but I think she’s getting the wrong idea.”
Agatha peered over Rio’s shoulder to find a stout, elderly woman who was batting her eyes in Rio’s direction. “Oh, you aren’t interested in dating women who could be your grandmother? Shocker.”
Brown twinkling eyes widened at her. “Would you stop that? She could hear.”
“Think she lost that ability after World War I.”
“You’re awful.”
“You make it so easy.”
“And you’re not into that,” Rio echoed her sentiments from the other night. She scraped her teeth against her bottom lip as Agatha bobbed her throat. “Right?”
“No,” she reiterated, shaking her head. It didn’t sound convincing enough. The word “no” has started to lose its charm; it felt too thick for her tongue.
“Do you need a ride home?” Rio changed the subject and put her hands in her jacket pockets, swaying from ankle to ankle.
“What makes you think I didn’t drive here?”
Rio folded her cards instantly. “You keep getting Ubers to work, and your Mercedes hasn’t been in the driveway for a bit.”
“You noticed that?” Her chest rose haughtily, eyes roaming the length of Rio’s linen suit.
“You do live next door,” she mumbled, arms over her belly.
She made a hmm sound with her lips. “Is this the part where you offer to look under my hood?”
“Okay, Agatha. Have fun getting an Uber on the iced-out streets.” She held a tight, strung-out smile, tossing the keys in front of her face before catching them.
“Wait,” she groaned. “This doesn’t mean anything,” Agatha said passively as she spun on her heel and exited before she did something idiotic like tell her that beanie isn’t atrociously ugly.
Rio drove her home silently, eyes straight on the road. Every time the car slid forward at a red light, Agatha would brace herself against the seat, and Rio would sit back as if they weren’t skating down Sixth Avenue.
She took in the old interior of the car. The velvety seats, the smell akin to newspapers–a slightly sweet scent of withered parchment and ink. She had a bright yellow duck adorned with a gold chain and a cigarette in its beak on top of her dashboard. It bobbed its head with every bump in the road. It sometimes felt like the more pieces of Rio she collected, the more confusing the puzzle became. She wondered what lay under the surface, if Rio was always this carefree.
When they finally pulled into the driveway, Agatha put a reluctant hand on the passenger door. Of course, she’d later claim it was because the car had finally filled with warm air and the outside atmosphere was bone-chilling cold.
“Cleaner than I expected.”
She expected Rio to bite, to nudge her into another petty back-and-forth. She’s rather disappointed when it doesn’t happen. Instead, Rio leaned over the console, getting uncomfortably close to Agatha before popping open the passenger door. The cold cleared the fog in her brain immediately.
“Bye,” Rio said, a quiet air to her that Agatha picked up on again like that night at the Kaplans. Maybe she was hiding something. Maybe Honeycutt wasn’t just a senile old man. Perhaps, Agatha should be the one to discover it. Oh, could she imagine! A dark, dirty secret on the town’s up-and-coming, and she could squander this unexplainable intrigue of Rio like a bug. With this newfound motivation, she hopped out of the car without another word and nearly pranced to the door.
By the following week, Rio had infiltrated every previously meaningless task that Agatha did. She found herself wondering if she preferred coffee or tea, if she showered in the mornings or the evenings, if she had piercings, and where.
She snapped a stalk of celery in two when she wondered how silky dark hair would feel threaded into her fingers, and apologies are made to Senor Scratchy afterward. Mostly, she thinks about how good it would feel to wipe that smug look off her face.
This attraction was rearing its head, a Loch Ness Monster that Agatha was pretending didn’t exist. If she could just fuck Rio once, and get it out of her system, Agatha was sure she could go back to her selfish ways.
Every time she thought of that particular solution, her brain wrapped itself right back to square one. Rio was her neighbor and had bought a house, and people who buy houses don’t just up and leave them. She was here permanently, and permanence is not an Agatha specialty.
This brought Agatha to her third and final point: the first snow of the season. They had an odd year in Westview, flurries tickling their noses on and off for two months even as the air grew colder and colder. Then, overnight, the residents of Westview opened their doors to a whole foot of snow.
Rio, so unaccustomed to owning a house, had forgotten to salt her driveway and, upon walking outside, slipped and fell primly on her ass.
“Watch your step,” Agatha said from a distance to which Rio promptly gave her the bird.
She trudged carefully over to where Rio was still sprawled. With a gloved hand extended, she spat, “Try pulling me down and I’ll sprain more than your ass.”
“So kind,” Rio had said, a dramatic huff from her lips as she allowed Agatha to help her up. She overestimated how much force was needed to extract Rio and overshot it, sending Rio almost flying into her body. Instead, her neighbor scrambled for purchase on her shoulders, and it left Agatha shivering in her puffer.
“Thanks,” Rio had murmured, fingers squeezing through the synthetic material.
“Mhm,” she dumbly replied, hands taut on Rio’s waist. She suddenly knew exactly how Mr. Honeycutt felt, a chicken feeding on lush grass moments before it’s beheaded.
“Agatha!” Billy shouted from down the street, he had a large box in his hands as he took off in her direction. She nearly let Rio fall again by pushing her off so rapidly.
“What’s going on?”
“I was shoveling Gertie’s driveway when I saw this little guy hiding under her porch.”
They both looked confused until Billy lifted the lid of the box halfway to reveal a scraggly wire-coated dog. The thing shook just peering up at them.
“Does he have a collar?” Rio asked.
“No. I posted a picture of him on the town’s group message, but so far no one has claimed him.”
“Poor guy,” Rio said, rubbing two fingers against its neck. It grumbled happily into her touch.
Agatha could feel the way Billy’s brain teemed with anxiety and looked up to try and determine its cause, but when hit with equally beseeching puppy eyes, she pulled away instantly.
“No, no, no, no,” she chanted, palms out defensively.
“But just until—”
“Nope! Can’t do it!”
“You want to give this poor sweet thing,” Rio said, finally catching on, “to Agatha?”
She shoved off Rio’s arm, huffing with chagrin.
“What about you, Rio? Would you take him?”
“I have a cat. I’m worried she’d scratch his eyes out.” Rio cooed at the dog, “Yes, she would. Yes, she would.”
A cat. She filed the information away for a later date.
“Why can’t you take it home?” Agatha eyed him suspiciously.
“My dad’s allergic, like super. There was dog fur on my jacket sleeve once, and I came home and he looked like Mrs. Puff,” Billy recalled, mouthing a poof as he mimicked Mr. Kaplan’s inflation with his arms.
“Can’t you ask Mrs. Hart or some other old bat on this block? Surely they’ve got to be desperate enough for company.”
“I’ve already tried,” Billy groaned, his frustration mounting. He had a shorter fuse as a teenager, and Agatha hated it as much as she found it endearing. “Please, please, please.”
“You know the worst kind of neighbor to have, Billy?” Rio asked, a hand slapped on his shoulder. She turned to Agatha, a malicious grin planted on her face. “A dog-killer.”
“Mm, you got that right,” Billy said, joining in.
“Oh, come on.” She threw her hands up in the air, the bite of the icy wind starting to chap her lips as she stood at the two in front of her. They couldn’t be a more united front if Ben & Jerry were in front of her, and god help Agatha if this was what her future had in store for her.
“It’d be a shame if word got around that Agatha Harkness left a puppy out to die on the cusp of Christmas,” he aired, voice projecting onto the cul-de-sac.
“You’re Jewish!”
The dog barked at her, its tongue sticking out of the side of its mouth. A snowflake fell on its nose, and the dumb thing whirled its body around trying to catch it.
“See, look how excited it is to be with you,” Rio added with an ear-to-ear grin.
“Enough!” She said, looking at them like they were her misbehaved children. “I am not taking that mutt if it’s the last thing I do.”
Rio sighed loudly, her hands outstretched to Billy as Agatha watched. “Fine, I guess I’ll have to be the town hero once again since there is nobody else that will step up and–”
“Buh, buh, buh,” Agatha interjected, hip-checking Rio out of the way and snatching the box from Billy’s arms. “Give it to me.”
The dog wagged its tail at her. As it grew more excited at the prospect of gaining Agatha’s meal ticket, drool dripped from its jaw. “We’ll just have to work on that,” she said, resigned. With a last glance at Billy, she questioned again, “Just until someone claims it right?”
“Yeah,” he said, not sounding wholly confident.
God, this was a terrible idea, she thought on repeat until she made it inside her home. Once inside, the dog didn’t seem at all curious to leave its four cardboard walls.
Even when Agatha helpfully directed, “Get! C’mon, get!”
It curled up into a little ball instead and remained planted on cardboard. Sure, she had plenty of spare space in the house, but she’s not exactly a nurturing type. Do dogs usually get their own room?
She tried luring it out with peanut butter on a spoon, even getting on her hands and knees at some point to wave it in the furry-eyed creature’s face. When that didn’t work either she resorted to throwing a tennis ball she had found in the closet. It had looked at it with curiosity once, tilting its head to follow the bouncing ball, and then had started licking its arm.
She booted up her laptop and googled the steps to restorative care for a stray. As soon as she read the word “fleas,” she nearly put the thing back outside altogether, but after a peek towards the box, round begging eyes haunted her, and she turned off the laptop to go run a bath.
Bending down on her knees, Agatha tried to open her palms to the animal. In response, it backed itself into the farthest corner of the box from her, shivering.
“Are you afraid of me too?” Agatha wondered, drawing her hands back onto the material of her loose leggings. Her forehead crinkled for a moment, pondering how she was going to survive the next week if it wouldn’t even go near her. Feeling guiltier by the second, she impulsively reached for her phone and hit Rio’s contact before she could think better of it.
Rio was at her door in a matter of minutes, bearing a backpack full of supplies and a scarf so big it swallowed her whole. She did a little sideways shimmy on Agatha’s mat that forced her to stifle an unwelcome giggle.
She stood there watching Rio as she peeled herself out of the sweatshirt, the whole ordeal rucking her t-shirt up, and uncovering an expanse of toned abdominal muscle. Almost panicked by the warmth building below her hips, she turned her gaze away. She’s seen plenty of muscular women fully naked and hasn’t ever been so self-conscious about her own behavior.
Rio stared at her, expectedly. Agatha waited for the tease, or an annoying remark about her incompetence to take care of a five-pound dog. It doesn’t come.
“So where is he?” Rio tossed her sweatshirt onto Agatha’s couch, making herself at home in Agatha’s space like she’s been there a million times, and isn’t Agatha’s latest self-proclaimed nemesis.
Her brain short-circuited. Perhaps, the menopause had finally caught up with her. “Upstairs.”
“If you want to make some tea and just sit on the couch, I’ll be done soon.”
“No, that’s okay.” She wrapped her robe tighter around her belly. “I want to watch.” The warmth prickled down her shoulders. “I’ll need to learn anyway.”
___
Slender, focused fingers traced a collar of dish soap around the puppy’s neck, and Agatha watched with parted lips. It wasn’t fair that the dog seemed perfectly content and relaxed in Rio’s hands, yet frightful at Agatha’s. She lathered it with gentle circles and it couldn’t seem to keep its eyes open, drowsy and limp in the warm bath.
It nestled next to Rio afterward and dried itself against the material of her sweats. Agatha set a mug of hot tea in front of them, a silent show of appreciation.
“How old are you?” she said abruptly, a finger over her lip.
Rio, unabashed, replied, “Twenty-seven.”
“Can you even drink?” she teased.
“Are you going to insult me every time I answer your questions?”
“A girl can dream.”
Rio pulled on her now-dry sweater, courtesy of Agatha’s drying machine. A thrill pulses from her toes up at the idea of Rio walking around town in a sweater that smelled like Agatha.
Rio relaxed back onto the couch with the mug in hand. Printed on the cup was “I like big mugs and I can not lie!” Billy’s little boyfriend had bought it for her fortieth birthday which led to a very long lecture about why Agatha never wanted them to discuss her romantic life again.
Because Agatha has never corrected her tendency to let sleeping dogs lie, she urged on. “So you’re in your twenties–still have a few years left of the good parts by the way–unmarried, no permanent salary, and yet you could afford to buy a house all on your own. And don’t tell me it’s just because Pete bought the farm.”
Rio’s lip twitched, but she hid it behind another sip of tea.
“So, which is it? Rich parents? Well, you never talk about them and if you’re rich you’re not moving to bumfuck New Jersey.”
“Are you usually so capricious with friends?” Rio watched her, amusement in her voice, though something more serious flashed momentarily across her face.
“We’re not friends.”
“Oh, pardon my false assumption, I didn’t realize the line of people banging down your door with friendship bracelets,” she answered dryly.
Agatha ignored her. “Are you a scorned woman on the run from her abusive husband?”
“Do you picture my life as an Alfred Hitchcock film? No, not that.”
Rio, the pest, laughed at the idea seconds later as if remembering the insanity of it.
“I don’t trust you. How could we be friends?” Agatha asked with a pout, playing at a more innocent angle that she hoped would get Rio to bite.
“I don’t think you trust anyone,” she said, leaning forward to impose on Agatha.
“I’ll answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine. Truthfully,” Rio said, after a long, thoughtful beat.
“Fine,” she spat with an upward jut of her chin. She wasn’t sure what the brunette wanted to ask, but it still put her on edge. She was not opposed to outright lying, but some annoying voice told her that Rio would see right through it.
“Who’s the woman in the photograph?”
“What photograph?” She responded in turn, there were many pictures around Agatha’s home, but sure enough Rio points to the one near the staircase. Her throat bobbed uncomfortably. There was no reason why Rio would know about Evanora. With a pointed look from Rio, she ceded. “My mother.”
“I don’t see the resemblance,” Rio comments with a shrug, and Agatha sags with an unnamed relief. “So are you guys close?”
“I believe this makes two questions.”
“Agatha.”
“Fine, no, we’re not. Happy?”
“For such an outspoken person, you really are avoidant of your personal life.”
With a stilted breath, she weighed her options. This was a calculated risk she was just going to have to make to get her answers. “My mother is the most manipulative, rotten, Jesus-worshipping woman on this planet. And no, I don’t think that being religious and being evil are synonymous, but I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive either.”
“It’s not simply because I’m a lesbian,” she said as Rio sank into the armchair. “It’s just a small part of a much bigger story that concludes to her that I’m a huge fuck up and waste of oxygen.”
“And your father?” Rio was pushing it, few made it this far without Agatha biting their head off.
“He died.” Her chest panged. Turns out it’s easier to talk about someone you hate-love rather than someone you just really love.
“My dad’s dead too,” Rio said with a curt nod. The faraway glint in her eye made the clock seem to slow time. “Death is hard because we’ll never get to say all the things we want to. The living are sometimes even harder, we have so much to say and yet nothing is spoken.”
“I didn’t get to go to my dad’s funeral,” Agatha confessed. It took her by surprise how easily Rio could coax things out of her. It was almost like she cared to make Rio feel less alone, and to make herself feel it too. “Evanora didn’t want me there. She thinks I’m the reason he’s dead.”
Once she dared to look at Rio and found pools of rich brown eyes gazing back at her. Rio’s whole body seemed to give way to Agatha’s momentary softness. It was unlike anything she had ever witnessed before; it felt like being slowly eroded by the gentlest stream.
“She’s right,” Agatha had finished. A thick coal-sized lump formed in her throat.
“Is that the bigger story?”
A calculated risk, Agatha repeated to herself. A mantra that she would use to anchor her next words carefully. Still, she felt the unease sneak into her bones and settle like stones. “When I was sixteen, I felt the most under pressure to please my mother. So I got myself a little boyfriend that I never wanted and tried things I had never been interested in. Well, the Lord has a funny way of working: I got pregnant.” Rio’s eyes widened, but there was no judgment in them, only a hint of shock that colored her in the warmest shades.
“My moth–Evanora was furious. Well, she dragged me to the car and tried to make me do something I didn’t want to do. When I refused, she dropped me off on the side of the road as punishment. My father was the one to race out of work to get me, and on the way, his car was rammed off the road by one of those 12-wheeler cargo trucks, and he…” She felt the next words grasp onto her throat, unwilling to come out. So instead, she rubbed a hand absentmindedly against the wool sweater atop her stomach. “So, as you can see, Rio, it’s my fault. Sixteen is too old to be written off as an unknowing victim. I got what I deserved.”
Rio quieted, her lips drawn finely together. She thought nothing was going to come of this at all, but Rio tried again, her mouth parting as she gathered her thoughts. “Agatha, anyone can tell you a million times that what happened wasn’t your fault, but it won’t matter if you think it is. You might benefit from understanding that forgiveness is not the same as absolution. Forgiveness doesn’t free anybody from remembering. It just allows us to do something else about the guilt rather than rot from it.”
“Forgive Evanora?” Her eyebrows crinkled, heart hammering incessantly as she processed the words.
“No, no,” Rio said as if sensing Agatha’s quiet misery. She slotted herself next to Agatha and cupped her hand. “I meant you might try forgiving yourself.”
Agatha recalled the hard hands of her mother across her cheek. She remembered the way her body ached and her mind was desperate for more, a too-easy punishment for the level of her crime. She’d killed the one person who ever loved her unconditionally, she deserved to rot for it. But here, with Rio’s hand somehow finding Agatha’s, she can’t think of much besides how the noise in her head has become obsolete.
“What are you? Some kind of shrink?” Agatha had snatched her hand from the touch and bounded upright from the couch.
“I knew I was growing on you,” she said smugly, allowing fresh air to enter Agatha’s cramped lungs once again. She smiled like nothing had happened, like Agatha hadn’t just admitted something so gross and personal.
“Like a disease, Vidal.”
“So I guess I owe my end of the bargain now,” Rio said, and Agatha knew she would keep her word. Something rumbled in the depths of her heart then, unfurling itself and letting it be known.
With the words that Rio had said still echoing in her mind, she felt raw on display. She didn’t want to think about why she hadn’t even told Billy something she so carelessly gave away to Rio.
“No,” she cleared her throat. “A different day. I should get some rest.” She folded her arms across her chest, closing the channel between them.
On cue without any preamble, Rio straightened from her position, gathered the remainder of things, and didn’t even have to be walked to the door. “Goodnight, Agatha.”
“Goodnight, Rio,” she quietly replied, fists curling into the silk of her robe. It wasn’t until the lock clicked that Agatha realized she’d never even asked what happened with the pregnancy.
_____
There it is all laid out, the weeks recapped, and Agatha is staunchly resigned to hating Rio for the rest of her days because how dare she show up in Agatha’s town, and Agatha’s neighborhood, in Agatha’s dreams.
Not that Agatha’s been trying or anything, but ever since the night Rio came over to help with the dog (She still hadn’t named him—why would she? He’s not staying.) there’s been radio silence from the blue house next to her. The anger morphs into something different, teetering dangerously close to reckless wanton.
When she leaves for work, Rio is not watering her flora in the yard. There are no more neighborly visits. She doesn’t even wait for Agatha to bring her the stream of Rio’s constantly lost mail, no! According to her Ring doorbell, the woman just creeps up to her porch while Agatha is at work and looks through the pile of things delivered and creeps right back with her mail! Ooh, the nerve, Agatha thinks as she cracks another pencil between her palms.
Ridiculous, she thinks. Stupid. Annoying little–
Agatha takes the dog on a walk with a leash that Rio loaned her, her eyes peeled for any wide-eyed brunettes on the street with no avail.
“Agatha,” Billy calls, waving as he scooters down the street toward her.
“Both hands on the steering wheel—bar.” Agatha reprimands him instantly, and he blushes and grips the handlebar with both hands as he skids to a stop.
“Hi there, little guy,” Billy beams, bending down to scratch the top happy dog. It jumps and leaps all over Billy, and she catches herself on the verge of a smile.
He looks up at her, eyes knowing. “He’s growing on you, huh?”
“Why does everyone assume I want things to grow on me?”
“Who’s everyone?” His eyes are filled with a narrowing suspicion, and before Agatha can hush the plow of questions about to emerge, he shoots up excitedly. “I knew it! You have got the hots for your neighbor.”
“Please, I don’t have 'the hots' for Rio. I’m not some prepubescent boy with a poster of Megan Fox in Transformers on my bedroom ceiling.”
“I never said it was Rio,” Billy says, hopping back on his scooter to do an embarrassing lap around Agatha. The dog barks cheerfully, blissfully unaware of the tension building in her head.
“Nothing is going on with Rio and me. It’s exactly as you said it, she’s my neighbor. As in for the rest of time. Oh, and one more tiny detail. I loathe her.”
“You know hate isn’t a far cry from lo–”
“Billy, if you say another word, I will personally see to it myself that you will not live long enough to vote, much less see D.C.”
“Grouchy today,” he mutters, but his lips seal together afterward and he takes it upon herself to be a more silent companion on their walk.
Well, silence can only last so long when Billy’s thoughts are so loud that Agatha can’t get any peace from the sunset.
“What?”
Billy shoves his hands in his pockets, looking meek for the first time in their conversation.
“You’re going to Jen’s Westview Eligibles Thanksgiving dinner, right?”
“Ugh, yes, I can’t miss a social gathering because of that damn bet with Rio. And because that bitch can cook.”
“Great! Well, since it’s only a 2-minute drive from the theater…Would you mind dropping Eddie and me off there first? I know it’s last minute, but Rio was supposed to take us and she said she wasn’t going to the dinner anymore—”
“Hold it,” Agatha turns, so swiftly that Billy walks right by her for a second. “Rio’s not coming to this brainless middle-aged horny shit show?”
“Uh, no?” Billy’s face twists to try and read the expression on Agatha’s face, but he just ends up looking quite constipated.
“I’ve had enough,” she spits, and an indignant screech erupts from the back of her throat. “You open up about yourself—one time—and suddenly everyone thinks you’re like a fragile piece of glass! Ugh, how dare she!”
Agatha starts trudging all the way back to her home—scratch that—Rio’s home to demand answers, or at the very least chew her up a bit.
“How dare she with her stupid shiny hair, and that teensy gap between her perfect teeth, and her homegrown non-GMO delicious bunny chow,” Agatha mutters under her breath the entire walk over, her dog excitedly moving with her. Only Billy’s signature scrape of the concrete with his scooter is trailing her with loud protest.
“Agatha! Agatha! Think about this for a second, you can’t just go marching up to her house and blow her door off the hinges.”
“Billy, some things you just won’t understand until you’re an adult,” she says, nothing breaking her stride. She loves pulling out that card.
“Or a hopeless lesbian,” he says with a souring expression, just quiet enough that she doesn’t bother to snap back at him.
“Well, Rio can bet her bottom dollar that I am not letting this bet go on any longer just because she’s too chicken to come out and face me.”
“I feel like I’m missing something here,” Billy says, stopping abruptly as they reach Rio’s front lawn. “Agatha, you know I have to try and stop you.”
“I know,” she says, still smiling too brightly. “That’s why I have to do this.”
With almost an evil grin, she throws the leash over Billy’s scooter and then leaps back closer to the door. It’s too fast for him to register what’s happening.
“Rio has a cat, remember? You’re in charge of the dog. Follow me inside, and the dog’s getting mauled. Leave him out here, well, he likes to run after cars!”
“Agatha!” Billy nearly shrieks, indignantly. “This is so not fair.”
“Buh, buh, buh.” She inches closer to the door. “Dog murderer. Not so fun when it’s used on you, huh?”
She rings the doorbell repeatedly before instinctively pulling on the door handle. To her surprise, it’s completely unlocked. This lady has got to be some form of crazy.
The lights are all off, and there’s a cold draft in the room. It’s downright disturbing, but she swallows back her doubts and tries to rechannel the fire she had a minute ago.
“Rio?” Agatha calls, steadily making her way further through the house. This is the house where Pete died. Maybe he’s haunting it. Maybe Rio’s his next victim for defiling his place of death with a potato garden.
“Aarrgggggaaaah,” a rough, calloused voice calls. Fuck, Agatha thinks. She’s here all alone in this weird ass house and someone is going to find her face down in a bed of arugula.
As she rounds her body, her back to the couch as she studies the art on the walls. They’re all oil paintings, but it’s too dark to make out if she’s staring at a grape or a woman’s bosom.
“Aagaahaaa,” the voice calls out again, except this time she feels the presence right behind her on the couch. She turns just in time to see a weird alien creature in neon blue and purple, its strangely human limbs reaching towards her.
“Back, you cursed thing!” Agatha screams, grabbing a trophy off the mantle. The glass is heavy in her hands, and the alien’s arms fling wildly in the air.
“Wait, wait!” It speaks, backing away from Agatha.
“Oh my god, it has Rio’s voice. It’s possessing Rio,” she says, grip tightening around her weapon of choice.
But the lights come on, and Agatha’s eyes pinch together to see that it’s not some alien creature after all. It’s Rio, scantily clad, but still Rio.
The neon purple and blue was just the beanie Petunia had made her, pulled down to cover her face. Rio lifts the beanie to its proper position on her head, breathing heavily. “Agatha? What the hell?”
“I. You. It.” God, she sounds like a dumbass. Another throaty groan. “I came here to check on you and demand to know why you’re avoiding me like the plague.”
“So you just walked into my house?” She doesn’t sound mad, just perplexed and a little pleased. Agatha can feel the fire burning strong again.
“The door was open! Because you’re a lunatic!”
“I’m the lunatic? You’re the one ready to bash my head in! ”
Agatha turns scarlet, heat thrumming and heart thumping as she puts the award back on its shelf.
“Well, next time don’t look so ridiculous,” she sniffs, chin high.
“Yeah, how dare I look so grotesque in my own home,” she deadpans.
“Well, out with it.”
Rio bends an eyebrow, looking a little confused. With that dumb hat on Agatha can’t help but feel her chest squeeze. It feels eerily close to affection, which has never sat well with her; it only makes Agatha want to run and hide.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re avoiding me,” she demands instead.
Rio licks her lips, a hand jutted on her hip like Agatha’s growing two horns or something. “I’m not avoiding you, Agatha.”
“You haven’t been watering those plants you claim to love so much. You cancel on Billy, which I mean, come on, I get that I scared you off with my little sob story, which, may I remind you, that you asked for.” The insecurities rise from the pits of anxious thoughts, and she starts pacing in front of Rio. “But there’s no reason to cancel on the kid because you just can’t stand to look at me anymore.”
“Agatha, I have the flu.”
“What?” There’s that cold, humbling draft again. Blowing out the flame in her like a whirlwind, she spins to face Rio, whose nose is particularly red. “What about the packages? You love to annoy me with your endless wrong deliveries. Now you’re sneaking them off my porch?”
“Yeah, because I was sick and I didn’t want to infect you,” Rio says slowly, then she moves to pick up an already torn envelope. “And because I didn’t want you to see this.”
She hands Agatha the white, torn envelope. Agatha, who normally loves to snoop, has a weird knot in her belly she can’t name. She reads the contents, eyes widening every second.
“You’re moving out of Westview?” It’s quiet inside Agatha; for once, she doesn’t know exactly what to say.
Rio nods, arms tightening over herself. “That was always the plan. A few months here just to sort some stuff out.”
“I don’t get it. Why would you buy a house and then move out before the paint dries?”
Rio kneads her lip in her teeth, eyes anywhere but Agatha. “Does it really matter? I’ll be out of your hair.”
“And the kid’s trip?”
“I’ll go right after.”
Agatha let her brain sort the pros and cons of Rio’s sudden arrival and departure. On the negative side, Billy might be a little sad, but she’d have everything back to the way it was. She was content like that anyhow. On the plus side, there would be no annoying pestering neighbor anymore. No neon colored beanies or speed walk competitions or drives home out of the snow. Fantastic, she thinks and repeats it to herself only twice more before she feels convinced.
No permanence, she thinks and then looks up at Rio. Rio’s who’s watching her with the largest brown eyes she’d ever seen. Rio, whom she’ll never have to worry about because she’ll be gone. Rio who has no strings attached. It’s like a mummy come to life, how fast she is decided.
“Agatha?” Rio asks, and she realizes she’s been silent for too long. There’s that quietness to Rio again, but she looks almost afraid. As if Agatha’s opinion is the most valuable thing in the world, and—fuck it.
She takes one step forward, couch between them, a wild hunger playing the kick drum to her heart. In one swift motion, she’s tugging off that ugly beanie, replacing it with a fist full of gorgeous brown hair and stealing Rio’s breath into her mouth.
Rio’s feverish brain must have caused some nerve damage because the woman sputters like a rundown engine. It just takes a second before she springs into action with eager, possessive hands on her waist and teeth pulling on her bottom lip. The guttural moan that escapes her lips turns into a yelp as Rio practically scoops her up and pulls her firmly down on the couch.
There are hands planted on her hips, and she pushes Rio’s back flat against the cushions. “Give me the flu and I’ll end you.”
“I don’t really have control over—” Agatha kisses her harder this time.