Agreeable avery, p.1
Agreeable Avery, page 1
Agreeable Avery
For my dad: Thank you for giving me a writer's soul.
For my mom: My best friend.
“There is no black-and-white situation.
It's all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.”
-Van Morrison
Prologue
I open my laptop, take a deep breath, and listen as my fingers begin the familiar dance over the keys. Click, click, clack. Each stroke, like music to my ears. The floodgates have finally opened. This is long overdue. My name is Avery, and this is my story.
One
Today is moving day. Every inch of my house is packed neatly in boxes marked with colored tape, clearly identifying each room. The new house is labeled to match. I have no idea if this makes the process easier for the movers or not, but in my mind it does, and I’m all about making life simple these days. Simple. The modest word generates a pocket-sized laugh in the back of my throat. I honestly can’t remember the last time life felt simple.
The movers are scheduled to be here in an hour to begin the transport of my old life to my new one, and I need to buckle myself in; no doubt it will be a bumpy ride. Thirty minutes ago, I was lying on the floor in the fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably. Currently, I have a pep in my step, giddy and excited about the endless possibilities of my new endeavor. Who knows what emotion awaits me in the next half hour? Today, I’m a walking portrayal of manic instability—and rightfully so because today I will close the front door to the only home I’ve ever owned for the very last time.
I still remember the day we moved in. Grady flung the front door open and swooped me over the threshold, my legs eagerly swinging back and forth as I giggled. When he set me down in the foyer, we stood there wide-eyed, in awe of the size of our new home. Like two kids, we began playfully shouting, just so we could hear our voices ricochet off the bare walls. Helllooo-oh-oh-oh. I love you-u-u-u. As if the day wasn't already perfect, Grady quickly ran back to the car, and returned with a blanket, sandwiches from our favorite food truck, and a bottle of wine. He spread everything out on the living room floor, and we ate while drinking straight from the wine bottle because we didn't have any glasses.
A sudden swelling of anxiety shapes a knot in my throat, emulating a large pill I can't dislodge. I have lived in this very house for the bulk of my adult life. The thought of someone else living under our roof, in the home we nurtured, is hard to swallow. Breathe, Avery. In… one, two, three. Out… one, two, three. A voice inside my head tells me to pull my big girl panties up, but full-coverage panties aren't going to be enough today. I’m going to need a big girl bodysuit, or a drink, or some sort of medication to make it through this day unscathed. This day, while uneventful for most, represents a forced new chapter in my autobiography, and I’m a little terrified to turn the page. I’d be lying, though, if I didn’t admit that somewhere buried deep inside, I’m also a tad optimistic that the universe is busy rewriting my happy ending.
While I wait for the movers to arrive, there are still a few last-minute things I need to accomplish before I can officially close this chapter. I pull the trash can up to the refrigerator and begin discarding the contents in the side door. Most of the expiration dates are extinct and should have been thrown out long ago. When my husband, Grady, passed, I gave up cooking. In fact, I haven’t cooked a single meal in a year and a half. Some nights I order in, but if I’m being truthful, I usually end up just eating ice cream straight out of the tub. Needless to say, I haven’t paid much attention to the little things, like the decomposing condiments in the fridge.
The day Grady died, my world stopped spinning. Ever since, my life feels like it belongs to two separate people: the person I used to be, who existed with Grady, and the person I am now, who is forced to exist without him. In my past life, I was the wife who had dinner on the table every night without fail as soon as he walked in the door. In my present life, I’m no longer a wife, and with the removal of that title came the removal of my desire to cook. More specifically, there isn’t a single bone in my body that wants to slave over a meal for a party of one.
Grady and I had a routine of sorts that was easy—a dance that we’d perfected over decades of marriage. Each morning, he would rise before the sun and start the coffee pot. Not long after, I would slink out of bed, crawl into my workout clothes, and head downstairs to prepare his breakfast while he perused through work emails. Understanding I was nowhere near ready for conversation, he would silently smile up at me from his favorite dining room chair. All the chairs looked exactly the same, tufted dove gray linen with a light walnut finish, but his chair was identifiable, the padding showing slightly more wear. Once his breakfast was ready, he would eat while I tidied up the kitchen and inhaled a cup of coffee. I’m pretty sure we could have gone through those exact motions in our sleep, and to a great degree, I did. I’m agreeable toward most things, mornings not being one of them. Silently, we would head out the front door together, parting ways to take on our individual days. He would plant a kiss on the top of my head, and only then would I utter my first words of the morning: Have a good day, G. See you after work. My utterance, giving him the thumbs-up to finally converse with me: It won’t be soon enough. Love you. We then backed out of our driveway—him turning left towards the office and me turning right in the direction of Pilates, my daily cleanse to center my mind and body. Afterward, I would run errands, marking things off our ever-growing daily to-do list, then spend the remainder of my afternoons writing in my study. Over the years, I have published seven books. Not a substantial number, but nothing to balk at. I was working on book number eight when Grady passed. It's funny; I can’t even remember what it was about anymore.
Our end-of-day routine was just as predictable as our mornings. He would walk through the front door after a long day, toss his keys in the marbled bowl on the entry table, drop his briefcase in his office, and meet me in the kitchen, where I would be ready with two fingers of bourbon. And every day, without fail, he would say the exact same thing in his singsong voice as he strolled into the kitchen rolling up his shirt sleeves: Something smells heavenly. To which I would reply, in a matched chorus: How was your day, dear? In the beginning of our marriage, the phrases started out as a joke, a spoof of sorts, mocking Ward and June from Leave it to Beaver. Ironically, it suited us perfectly, and the skit absorbed into our daily routine for over twenty years. The corners of my mouth climb, remembering what was once my favorite part of the day.
After our exchange of pleasantries, he would lovingly wrap his arms around my waist and kiss the top of my head before we sat down to decompress from our respective days. That was his time to purge the events of his day, and my opportunity to share how my writing was evolving. We both equally loved our careers—he a financial attorney, I a writer—but they could not have been more opposite. His weeks were long and tedious, jam-packed with countless meetings, conference calls, and the occasional court appearance. My writing world was lonely and completely contingent on one moving part, me.
Now that Grady’s gone, everything feels empty. I don’t write anymore, and nothing smells heavenly at the end of the day. What I miss the most is having someone who knew me so intimately that I never had to say a word. Grady knew everything about me. The good, bad and ugly. He embraced that I despise mornings—just because my eyes are open does not mean I’m functioning. Once, when we were on vacation, he jokingly purchased me a t-shirt that read: I’m not getting up at stupid o’clock, and truer words have never been written. He knew that I required coffee as soon as I opened my eyes, and well into the afternoon, so he made sure that our pantry was always stocked with my favorite brand. He supported my aversion to the beach—I prefer the mountains over the ocean any day of the week. The thought of sand in every crevice of my body literally gives me anxiety induced hives. Needless to say, when we made the decision to purchase a vacation home, we visited several locations before pulling the trigger, none of which were sandy or tropical. We ended up buying a beautiful cabin in Colorado—our own private escape, nestled inside the eyes of the aspens.
To be fair, I was equally accommodating to his eccentricities. Grady preferred a clean, almost sterile home, so I made sure to keep a tidy house. This wasn’t really a chore for me because I don’t prefer clutter either, but I often teased him, acting as if I was going above and beyond, slaving over my chores. Sometimes, when I would mop the kitchen floor, I would perform a parody of the mice singing Cinderelly, while he sat watching from his chair, laughing at my antics. He always found the humor in my jokes, even when they weren’t that funny.
Like a character in Groundhog Day, he ate the exact same thing for breakfast daily: two eggs over easy, one slice of Dave’s Killer Bread, lightly toasted, and two slices of extra crispy bacon. As boring as it was, I gladly prepared it because that’s what made him happy. But by far, his most out-of-the-box oddity was his unhealthy obsession with red gummy bears—only the red. I would regularly tease him about his prejudice toward the other colors, holding up the green ones while mimicking Kermit the Frog’s mantra, “It's not easy being green.” Nonetheless, on each grocery run, I would stop in the candy aisle and purchase several bags of gummy bears, only to weed out the red, keeping them in a special container for him in the pantry. Eventually, I figured out that I could order just the red ones online, making it much easier to satisfy his discriminatory sweet tooth.
I long for the simplicity of our life together, so easy and comfortable. Grady and I, coasting through life together on a tandem bike, two souls me shed together as one. Now it just feels like I’m doing my best to balance on a unicycle, with a flat tire.
Two
Although most everything is packed and ready to be carted away, I still have Alexa plugged in on the kitchen counter. Grady always called the voice-controlled contraption Alex Forrest, (from Fatal Attraction) because it “creeped him out.” He didn’t much care for “the spying device that masqueraded as a radio,” but he acquiesced to my desire to have one. He actually went into the settings and changed her command name to Alex. I ask Alex to play The Rolling Stones, while I clean out the refrigerator. The Stones always put me in a good mood. Any time I hear Mick Jagger’s voice, it takes me back to my childhood, reminding me of a thousand moments that have melted together, forming a single memory: listening to my dad sing in the car. He would do the same bit every time The Stones came on the radio: toggle the volume knob to a piercing level, point his index finger in the air, and sing each and every word by heart. He would do this with the windows rolled down, belting it out as loud as he could, in an effort to embarrass me. Little did he know, while I slouched in the passenger seat, dripping with teenage irritability, I secretly loved every minute of it. My own private concert, from my favorite person in the world.
I’m in the zone, tossing containers into the trash to the tune of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” playfully bopping my head and singing along, making everything hit the trash bag to the beat: You (splat) Can’t (Splat) Always (Splat). I’m so focused that I barely hear the ding-dong echoing from the doorbell. Immediately, I command Alex to turn the music down and maneuver my phone out of my back pocket to check my Ring app. It's too early for the movers, and everyone in the neighborhood was at my farewell get-together last night. Well, almost everyone. My gut tells me it’s Karen. And… my gut is right. I inhale a pleading breath, mustering the patience to endure this encounter.
The only nice thing I can say about my soon-to-be ex-neighbor, Karen, is that her name fits her like a pair of custom-made gloves. She’s standing in direct view of my camera in designer leggings, tucking her freshly highlighted hair behind one ear, causing the perfectly angled lob to appear lopsided. Her obscenely arched eyebrows and expressionless smile come into focus, and I scowl down at my phone, releasing an audible groan. I know the reason for her visit is to make me feel small, in some way or another, one final time before I move. And after today, she will undoubtedly move on to torment the new occupants of this house. Every fiber of my being would rather go to a movie theater, alone, and purchase a ticket to watch a two-hour screening of a battery-operated monkey clapping cymbals than have this interaction, but I answer the door anyway.
Karen is my neighbor, and quite frankly, she's one of the few, if not the only reason, I’m delighted to be moving. Allow me to set the scene: She’s the passive-aggressive woman we all know and don't love in our neighborhood, friend group, social obligation group, work group, and so on—if you have a group, she’s in it. Her name may not be Karen, but she’s Karen. She has mastered the art of bitching and whining in such a way that it becomes a never-ending cycle of complaining, with absolutely no resolution—she literally complains just to complain. It’s exhausting. Karen’s the kind of person you don’t wish any harm on, but you secretly hope her pillow never has a cold side.
As I open the door, I’m greeted by her puckered expression, summarizing her contempt for my appearance. I’m moving for Christ’s sake. I threw on the only thing I hadn’t packed yet, which was a pair of girlfriend-cut jeans, a black tank, and my favorite Anthropologie tennis shoes. It’s not like I’m wearing a trash bag. Although I might as well be, judging by the scowl on her face. Once she realizes I’ve observed her disdain, and that portion of her job is complete, she does her best to form a smile, but instead of curling up at the ends, her lips form a straight line.
“Hi Karen. What’s up?” Let’s get this over with.
She thrusts a gift bag at me and begins accosting me with her, presumably, well-rehearsed speech. “I just wanted to stop by and tell you goodbye. I didn’t realize you had a party last night until Gwen told me this morning. I mean, she said I didn’t miss much, but I still wanted to stop by and wish you luck before it was too late.”
And there it is, jab number one. Wish me luck before it’s too late? Too late for what? I’m not terminally ill. I’m moving.
“That’s very nice of you, Karen. Thank you very much. I’m so sorry you didn’t get your invite. I dropped one in all the neighborhood mailboxes last week. I wish I had known you didn’t receive yours.” I lie straight to her face—the buttery words roll off my tongue so smoothly, I almost believe them myself.
“Mmm… in any case, happy moving. I hope you were able to find something decent, since you're not working. Gwen said your new house is substantially smaller. I hope you won’t be too cramped.” Numbers two and three in the same sentence. I wonder how many insults she’ll hurl at me before she feels like her mission here is complete?
She’s always believed me to be unemployed. She doesn’t have any idea that I’m an accomplished writer—nobody does—I publish under a pen name. In reality, I’ve made a substantial income over the years.
“Thank you very much. I’m sure I’ll manage just fine. I appreciate your concern.” All lies. Go fly a kite, Karen.
“Okay then, let me know if you need anything. I’m happy to assist with unpacking, or furniture placement to help make your new place feel more spacious.” Four. I think she might be done, though, because she’s turning to walk away. She truly has mastered the art of being a miserable bitch. If I had to guess, she was born like this. Came out of the womb, giving her doctor the side eye, judging him for not doing a better job of delivering her.
I’ve gotten used to her condescending nature over the years. Most times, it's trivial. I see you painted your front door. How interesting that you chose red! It’s definitely… different. It’s comments like that that make me want to scream, Shut the fuck up, Karen! Why don't you worry less about my front door and more about your husband needing to get laid so he’ll quit eye-raping the rest of us in the neighborhood? I don’t say a word, though—I never do. I just smile and say things like, You’re looking great, Karen, as always! Because that’s who I am—Agreeable Avery. That’s what Grady always called me. He gave me the nickname when we were dating, and it stuck. Because, no matter the situation, I was gracious, flexible… agreeable. It was the art I had mastered.
Being agreeable in my marriage came easy to me. Grady going out of town for a work trip? Agreeable Avery at your service, picking up his dry cleaning and packing his bag for him. Company function for his firm? Agreeable Avery, smiling and pretending to give two shits about his partner’s wife’s rowing class. It sounds fantastic! I can’t wait to give it a try! Even though I did Pilates daily, I never mentioned it. At the club for dinner and ran into one of his clients? Agreeable Avery to the rescue, remembering their children's names for him, making sure to pass on my new gluten-free, chicken casserole dish to the wife. I eat gluten! There, I said it. I don’t even have a gluten-free recipe. I do, however, have a recipe that Karen posted on Facebook that I copied and pasted to hand out when I need to be amazing, Agreeable Avery. At some point, I'd perfected the tone of my voice so that I even sounded agreeable. It was never a conscious decision I made, I just fell into being this person when I met Grady. He always said it would be carved into my headstone. The truth is, I’d rather be cremated—not that he ever asked me. Of course, he knew I’d agree with what he wanted either way, so that’s really a moot point. Years ago, he purchased a double plot, so we could be buried side by side for eternity. When he told me, I just smiled and thanked him for being so thoughtful. Don’t get me wrong, I did appreciate his dependability, and his unwavering knack for making sure things were always taken care of. That was who he was. He was a fixer. Nothing ever went wrong on his watch. And if he could make daily life so comfortable, the least I could do is return the favor, be thankful, agreeable. Although lately, it feels as if I’ve been switched over to autopilot—just going through the motions, driving mindlessly through life without any recognition of how I got here. I know I don’t have anyone to blame for that besides myself. But here I am, still being agreeable, even when it takes everything I have.
