Chapter Text
Agatha is not a bad neighbor. She doesn’t bake welcome cookies, but she’s not letting her bunny leave little brown surprises on their lawns either. There are no ragers thrown at her home, no outlandish Christmas decorations, and she even occasionally waves to Pete, the elderly man who takes his coffees on the porch every morning, as she pulls out to work.
So she’s a little peeved when she comes home after a grueling day at the office to find her entryway blocked by a tower of packages.
“Didn’t take you for an online shopper.” She jumps at the voice, her annoyance growing as she glances at Billy. He’s oddly dirty.
“I’m not. Why are you covered in mud?”
“Soccer practice,” he says, hands placed on his hips.
“Your dad still got you on that?”
“Unfortunately.”
“You tell him you have the balance of a baby deer after a few benzos?”
“Already tried,” he sighs. He reaches for the top package, a bubble mailer, and reads off the name. “Rio Vidal. She’s got the wrong address.”
“How astute of you. What’s next? You realize your curls are flat?”
“What? No–,” he twists a brown lock of hair automatically, testing it for imperfections, and when there are none he drags his arm down and glares at Agatha. “Are you even going to return these?”
“I don’t know yet,” she says, turning another box to the side to reveal its origins. “A brand new Ninja Creamer sounds nice.”
“Ninja CREAMi. Anyway, that’s beside the point, you pull out an honest-to-god paper map when you drive. Agatha, even my own grandmother has moved on to Apple Carplay. I know you aren’t going to use anything that requires reading a manual.”
Agatha huffs, rolling her eyes at the teenager before taking her pent-up frustration out on the boxes in front of her. She’s dropping them haphazardly to the side to Billy’s absolute horror, that little pissant.
“If Rio Vidal wants them, she can come get them.”
“Well she doesn’t have to walk very far,” Billy says and Agatha turns around. There’s a blooming ache in her temples the minute she hears his tone.
Before Agatha even asks, Billy holds his phone out to her, the neighborhood text chain pulled up. Agatha is not a part of it, by choice.
“2802 Sherwood Drive, that can’t be right because that would be…” There’s a sudden gasp of horror as she steps farther off her porch to look at the house right next to her. There’s a “FOR SALE” sign in the yard beneath a new “JUST SOLD” sticker. Damn.
“You haven’t met Rio?”
“You have,” she asks indignantly and Billy opens and closes his mouth like a fish.
“She’s nice. A little intense.”
“What happened to Pete?” She exclaims her question to no one in particular, thinking that it was unusual that she hadn’t seen him for a while.
“Pete died,” Billy says, aghast as if Agatha had done it herself. “You sent flowers to his funeral.” Her brows furrow. “I waved to you at the candlelight vigil. You got a 17th-century Aubusson tapestry from Pete’s estate sale and then used it as a foot warmer for your home office!”
“Huh,” she hums. “Sounds like me.”
“That’s because it was you!” He huffs in exasperation and makes wild hand gestures as Agatha’s attention pulls away.
“Billy,” she commands, her eyes tracing the dates on the sale sign in the yard. It had only been on the market for three days. “How did Pete die?”
“He had a heart attack in the backyard. A neighbor called in worried and the police found him lying in the dirt a few days after.” His arms are folded across his chest and he looks vaguely squeamish recalling it.
“So, let me get this straight. Old man Pete kicks the bucket right in that backyard where no one finds him for days, and this Rio woman moves right on in to our tiny town. She’s either desperate or seriously deranged.”
“Great, if it’s the latter then she’ll have something in common with you,” he mutters under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing! You know, if I didn’t know you, I would find your lack of concern for your neighbor of fifteen years really disturbing.”
“Well then it’s a good thing we know each other quite well,” she says with a coddling voice and now it’s Billy’s turn to groan.
She’s never been able to pinpoint why, but ever since the Kaplan family moved in a few doors down, their little boy has had a peculiar fascination with Agatha. She had been a bit of a shut-in, if you can believe it, before Billy started interrupting her routine. Now that he was in high school, he would come over and they would play chess or watch reality TV, and Agatha would even join the Kaplans for game nights and dinners on occasion.
She was doing her best to ignore the tightness in her chest whenever he mentioned college.
“Let’s just return the stuff okay? I’ll come with you and do all of the talking.”
“I’m a recluse, not an invalid.”
He frowns. “I didn’t say it was for your benefit.”
If Agatha was a lion she would growl at him until the Earth shook. But she wasn’t and so she turned on her heel and let her pea-coat sweep in the wind.
They stalk up to the house together, a comical stack of packages in Billy’s arms swaying precariously in the wind. Agatha bangs on the door and shoots Billy her best fake neighborly grin.
She’s not expecting a twenty-something-year-old to open the door. There’s white powder across her black jeans and on her arm and cheek too.
“Hi, can I help you?” She’s got this shininess to her voice that comes with being twenty-something and Agatha dislikes her immediately.
“Hey Rio,” Billy says, his voice straining under the exertion of his muscles. He turns to the side so that Rio can make out his face.
“Oh, hi Billy! Are those mine? I must have put in the wrong address, I’ve been wondering where all my stuff went.”
She helps with the boxes, taking all of them in her arms as if they were weightless, and sets them down gingerly next to the two pairs of shoes in her entryway. “Thank you, I’m sorry for the trouble.”
“It’s no big. How are you settling in?”
God, Agatha loathed small talk.
“It’s been alright,” Rio says, her gaze falling on Agatha. Her attention is plucked at the sight of very disarming and inviting brown eyes. “I haven’t gotten around to meeting everyone just yet. Hi, I’m Rio.”
There’s a hand in front of her, an expectant look etched on Rio’s face. She gives it a curt shake and drops it immediately after, the warmth and softness of the other woman’s hand feels out-of-place against her palm.
“Agatha.”
“She lives next door,” Billy adds and Agatha shoots him a look of very poorly concealed disapproval.
“Oh, does she now?” Rio takes a glance at where Billy’s looking, there’s an offbeat way that her eyes seem to light up when she recognizes Agatha’s house.
“Yes, I’m sure you’ll see me around.” Or not. Agatha’s really hoping this will wrap up quickly; a languid dip in the bathtub is calling her name.
“Are you the one with the bunny?”
“Señor Scratchy,” Billy supplies with a tilt of his head.
“Cute,” she says to Agatha. “Actually, wait here one second.”
She retreats into the home further. The minute she’s out of sight Agatha pinches the kid’s forearm with a grunt.
“Ouch!” He jumps and his wild eyes flash at her.
“We need to get out of here.”
“She’s being nice!”
“She’s being nice,” she parrots like Billy has found sand by the shore, “ and it is making me uncomfortable.”
“This could be a chance to make a friend,” Billy counters and Agatha’s eyes flash with fury again and he raises his arms over his face in preparation.
“If I wanted the company of the youth, I would ask to come to one of your little beanie-wearing skating shindigs.”
“First of all, no one is wearing a beanie.” His voice becomes raised in harsh whispers, “And second of all, she looks like she pays her own taxes so I don’t think you have to worry about the youth.”
“If you’re so keen on all that friendship, why don’t you ask her to join you then,” she grits out.
“Ask her to join what?” Rio has magically reappeared in the doorway, a large fennel in her hand, her fingernails have dirt underneath them.
“Uh.” Billy starts, “Ask you to come for dinner. With my parents. This Saturday.”
If Agatha could sink into a puddle of goo and dissipate from the porch right now, she would already be slinking down the steps. Rio pauses for a moment, her tongue poking the inside of her cheek. Her gaze dawdles on Agatha and the air feels tightly wound like vultures circling prey before the ambush.
“Are you going to be there,” she asks Agatha with a shameless grin. It makes the back of her neck hot.
“She will,” Billy eagerly answers, traitor.
“Then I’ll be there.”
“Peachy,” Agatha says, ignoring the tingling sensation in her cheekbones. “Well, we should be on our way. Billy has got a lot of homework to do, he’s really fallen off the wagon.” She holds her hand up to her face like she’s sharing a secret that Billy isn’t privy to. “It’s the teenage binge drinking. Gotta keep your liquor cabinet locked around this one!.”
Billy just sighs with the weight of a brand new lie, but he doesn’t protest. It’s moot point to retaliate against Agatha.
“Wait, for Señor Scratchy.” Rio stretches the fennel out in the space between them. With some reluctance, Agatha takes it in her palms and is extra careful not to slide her fingers over Rio’s.
“You grew this?” Agatha says, words slipping out before she can catch them. But when she looks up, Rio is smiling big and free.
“Yes, I did,” she grins, a thumb jutted towards the backyard. “Right out there.”
The decades of life Agatha has over Billy have prepared her to minimize facial reactions when something absolutely nutty is being announced. It’s no surprise when his face contorts into nothing short of astonishment and horror.
“Where a man died?” Billy grasps at his mouth a moment after, even more horrified at his own words.
Rio, to her credit, doesn’t even blink. “It’s the cycle of life. We are born from the Earth and eventually return to it.”
A pregnant pause.
“Okay, well this has been fun!” Agatha pushes the fennel into Billy’s hands, clasps her own hands together, and then guides him slowly from the porch. “We’re just gonna–Toodle-loo.”
“See you Saturday,” Rio beams and waves vigorously as they exit her driveway.
“I invited her to dinner with my parents,” Billy repeats, mouth agape.
“Well let’s hope she chooses to bring a bottle of wine! And not, you know, a dead man’s tomatoes.”
___
She briefly considers the consequences of turning back inside when she spots her younger neighbor locking the door to the quaint red-bricked house. Maybe if she walks a little quicker she can put some distance between them and it’ll be too awkward for Rio to run and catch up.
Barely rounding the driveway, a voice cuts through the cold autumn wind.
“Agatha.” She stops in her steps, running would be futile as Billy’s house looms at the end of the block.
“Billy’s right?” Rio smiles, lifting up what appears to be a baked blueberry crumble. Even in the exposed chill of the evening, it smells heavenly. That bitch. Agatha had been going to the Kaplans since Billy was still sucking his thumb and Rio had the audacity to kiss ass on day one.
“Yup,” she says, popping the ‘p’.
“I have to ask,” Rio says, sucking air through her teeth. “Did that comment about the vegetable patch freak you out?”
“What comment?”
“I mean I have eyes. Billy seemed shocked, to say the least.”
“Billy has Dolly Parton fun facts where his manners should be. Don’t mind him,” she responds.
She hums and then takes it as an invitation to keep talking as they start the trip down the road.
“What’s fun to do around here?”
“Where are you from again?”
“Brooklyn.”
She almost snorts. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The question is frankly rude, but Agatha’s never claimed to have manners either. Her mother instilled them in her, but as an exercise in the freedom of adulthood, she chooses not to indulge in such frivolous matters.
Rio just laughs, a sound that teeters on being villainous. It’s maddeningly charming. “Would you buy it if I said a change of scenery?”
“No,” she says at the same time Rio darts her tongue out to wet her lips. Agatha looks away promptly when Rio catches her following the motion.
“I’m a pilot–kinda…Just lost interest in it.” She shrugs, her eyes downcast.
“How are you ‘kinda’ a pilot?”
“You know Agatha, I’ve dutifully answered every single one of your questions. You haven’t–”
“Alright, alright.” She sighs, a narrowed look pointed at Rio. “There are a few bars and clubs if you’re into that kind of thing. The old-timey-looking cinema has five-dollar Fridays. Billy and I go every week.”
“I am into that kind of thing.”
“So why Westview? I’m sure if you needed a vacation, there are places on the beach that are calling your name.”
“No beaches in Westview,” she asks, sarcasm dripping from her mouth.
“There’s water polo at the senior center.”
“Damn, must’ve missed that on the brochure.” Rio’s answers about her past are so evasive that it tickles the part of Agatha’s brain to dig. She wants to pull her apart piece by piece. The thought startles her after having only spoken to her twice, and she tamps down the urge with a deceptive smile.
“So what kind of work do you do now?”
“You’ll be the first to know when I figure it out, neighbor. But what about you? I can’t imagine you doing something quaint.”
“I’m a prosector that specializes in white-collar crime.”
“Lot of crime in a town like this?” Rio studies her, eyes alight with the new information.
“More than you’d think. Why?” She stops, leaning into Rio. Her voice is low and husky when she asks, “Got a skeleton in your closet?”
To her absolute dismay, Rio only seems to take pleasure in the suggestion. “Ah, just a few bones here and there.”
“Careful, now. Wouldn’t want to lock you up.”
“Don’t you?”
The playful edge in Rio’s voice curls into something much more dangerous, and Agatha can hear her heart thrum under her thin sweater. Rio is young, pretty in a way that would make giving into this fairly easy, and intriguing enough. The con being that she’s Agatha’s next-door neighbor which would make her usual cut-and-run routine a bit of a hassle.
In the end, she decides she’ll let this mundane attraction run its course. Beautiful women are ten-fold in New Jersey and Agatha doesn’t need this one, she reasons.
“Not at all. We should get going” She gives Rio a friendly smile before backing away and continuing. She doesn’t hear Rio’s footsteps following behind her.
Good, she thinks and ignores the annoying tang of disappointment that’s left on her tongue.
“Did I read that wrong?” Rio asks with humor in her tone, her footsteps are now–very loudly–catching up to Agatha’s. She’s got the type of allure that Agatha assumes has left her with very little experience of rejection.
“Read what wrong?” Agatha’s strides are growing longer, and her desire to keep Rio stumbling has won out against her lack of stamina.
“C’mon Agatha, you know what I’m talking about.” There’s a red blush threatening to overtake Rio’s cheek and a twisted glee fills Agatha’s stomach at the knowledge that she’s caused it.
“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell!” She’s almost at the finish line, can hear the Italian bistro music coming from the Kaplans’ windows, and makes a beeline for the door.
Rio trails with extraordinary determination. So much so, that they spend the next minute in utter silence making a show of who can out-speed walk the other. Their heavy breathing echoes down the street like a cursed chant as Agatha overtakes Rio with her free arms cutting through the wind.
She clicks the doorbell with the satisfaction of beating Rio at a child’s game. The satisfaction swiftly dies down into something animalistic as her neighbor’s eyes rove up and down Agatha’s panting chest. She feels like a dog with raised hackles, equally tinged with fear and excitement.
“Hey guys,” Rebecca says, swinging the door wide as Agatha clears her throat. Her friend’s eyes wander between Agatha and Rio like she's picking up on the weird aura they’ve created on the porch.
“We brought cobbler,” Agatha says, hurrying inside before Rio can protest.
Agatha spends the better half of the evening conversing with the Kaplans and paying no mind to the brunette seated across from her. Rio doesn’t say much at all, just comments a quip here and there that gets most of the table to laugh. She studies everyone else while they talk as if testing the waters. Almost annoyingly so, Agatha’s attention keeps wandering to Rio during the conversation. Her bicep flexes every time she adjusts the way her chin is being propped up by her palm, and it leaves Agatha with a sort of numbing fixation.
“So, now that all the grownups and Rio have gathered,” Billy begins.
“Should I be taking that as a compliment?”
“Sorry,” he says to Rio. “Now that the grownups, Rio included are here…”
“Now hang on,” Rebecca says. “Rio here is very accomplished for her spry age. Which is…”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine, thank you,” she continues. “I hear that you helped Mr. Salvatore with the leak in his roof.”
“Helped tow pumpkins to the elementary for that Pilgrim event too,” Jeff adds, a respectful nod to Rio.
“Pumpernick’s Plant Patch?” Billy sits up. “I loved that as a kid.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just wanted to do something nice for the community.” Rio’s face fills with a soft pink flush that lingers all the way to her collarbones. This woman’s been here for a week and has already won the favor of the neighborhood, god help her. She just wants to push her to the floor and dip her tongue into those pretty collarb–
“Agatha?” Jeff echoes, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Lost you for a sec.”
She can feel Rio’s stupid grin hot on her cheek. “What did you need me for?”
“As I was saying,” Billy says, a teenage grumble in his throat. “This spring break, the school is organizing a trip for the students to visit Washington D.C. I was hoping that you might all want to support my education and the broadening of my impressionable horizons and insist I go.”
“Billy, bud, we already said that your mom and I have work. We can’t go with you.”
“I know, but I’m already fifteen. I think I can handle a weekend in D.C. and I would learn so much and I am begging you.”
“I don’t know. It’s far. Nobody we know is going,” Rebecca sighs.
“Please? Brendan and Tommy are going. Mrs. Hart is chaperoning. I’ll never ask for anything again!”
All he’s missing in his bribe is a creative floor routine to a melodramatic song. But besides that, the kid is putting in on the ritz, it pulls at her heartstrings.
“When’s spring break?” Agatha says, a toothpick hanging from her lip, resigned to her ill tendencies to give in to his whims.
“Last weekend of March.”
Her fingers rap against the table. Once. Twice.
“I’ll go with the kid,” Agatha says at the same time Rio opens her mouth. “I can go to D.C.”
Billy’s parents turn to each other and have a silent game of conversation through facial expressions. It leaves the rest of the table in awkward silence. Billy’s fingers are crossed and he gives Agatha a silent, Thank you. She shakes her head and waves off his gratitude.
“So…,” Jeff begins, his wife immediately cutting him off.
“We’ve decided that it would be okay,” she says, Billy whoops. “It would be okay if both of you went.”
A chorus of groans from their audience.
“Well, Agatha because she knows Billy so well. There’s no one we’d trust more to watch out for him.” Jeff motions between Agatha and Billy.
“And Rio because,” Rebecca flattens her lips. “Rio because you are both terrible at keeping yourselves fed and I know, left to your own devices, you would play hooky on Mount Rushmore for Blackjack with the seniors at the pool.”
“I’m responsible,” Agatha says, arms folding across her chest.
“Yes, you are honey,” Rebecca placates.
“Just humor us, and both go. If you’re both still sure about this, it’s not too late to back down.”
“I’m peachy,” Rio says with a smirk aimed right at her.
“Me too,” Agatha affirms, never being one to back down first.
“Great, it’s settled,” Billy beams.
“Now, hold on Mister. You’re going to have to fundraise for three now. Got that in you?”
“Please, I could sell cupcakes in my sleep.”
“You’re going to have to do a lot more than that,” his dad warns.
“Yada, yada. Crumble?” Billy says, still high on getting his way. He moves to the kitchen and his parents follow.
“I am responsible,” she says again, feeling more and more like a petulant child.
Rio breathes hard out of her nose, a faint smile pulling at the corner of her lips. “I’m sure you are Agatha. I just have a–ahem–certain reputation in the community. Reliable, dependable, that kind of stuff.”
She can tell Rio’s egging her on, if not by her tone, then certainly by the way she’s waggling her eyebrows at Agatha. “You think you’re so neighborly,” she says, poison on her tongue.
“I have been known to save many a cat from trees,” she says, flattening her palms on the table.
“Ah, did you get a Medal of Freedom for that? They’re just giving ‘em out like candy these days.”
The other woman hums, rounds the table, closes the distance between them, and leans her body back against it.
“You know what,” Rio says, a mischievous lilt in her voice. “I bet you couldn’t be so neighborly if you tried, Harkness.”
“You’re joking.”
“Can’t hack it, then sack it.”
“I could be the most neighborly, good-willing, hope-harbinger piece of ass that ever walked this town,” she threatens, eyes hungry for a challenge.
“You’re on,” Rio grins maniacally. “We’ll put it up for a vote on Christmas.”
She stopped her eyes from widening at ‘Christmas’, there was absolutely no way she was playing this game for longer than Thanksgiving. But spurred by Rio’s ego trip, she shakes on it anyway.
“Careful what you wish for,” she whispers and fights the pull from Rio’s eyes lingering over her form.
“Alright,” Rebecca announces from the kitchen, and Rio smiles down at her baring teeth before retaking her place at the table. “Who wants dessert?”