Bad dolls, p.1
Bad Dolls, page 1
Also by Rachel Harrison
The Return
Cackle
Such Sharp Teeth
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Copyright © 2022 by Rachel Harrison
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Ebook ISBN: 9780593548523
“Goblin” was originally published by Electric Literature, Issue No. 400, January 15, 2020.
Berkley audio edition / September 2022
Berkley e-book edition / December 2022
Cover design by Katie Anderson
Cover photograph by Christie Goodwin / Arcangel Images
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover
Also by Rachel Harrison
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Reply Hazy, Try Again
Bachelorette
Goblin
Bad Dolls
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For the misfit toys
Reply Hazy, Try Again
“I never find anything at the flea,” I complained to Maggie as we circumnavigated a couple attempting to get that perfect Instagram shot with the Manhattan Bridge in the background. A crowd had formed on the street, young and trendy, some holding accessories like flowers or balloons, some in fashionable hats. I wondered if they were all waiting their turn for that aspirational snap. I hoped not.
“You have to really dig,” Maggie said. “And you have to go regularly. It’s like prospecting.”
“Okay, Yosemite Sam.” I laughed. “ ‘Prospecting.’ Done a lot of prospecting?”
“Yes, can’t you tell? I’m pure gold, baby,” she said, spinning around and lowering her oversized sunglasses to give me a wink.
Maggie was very glamorous. She had impeccable style; her closet was full of vintage finds. It helped that everything looked good on her. Some people are lucky like that.
Not me.
We got to where the vendors were set up under the bridge and started browsing. Maggie was an intense browser. She liked to stop and examine everything. She was easily compelled. I once made the mistake of going to MoMA with her, and we were there for seven hours. I wasn’t a lingerer. It took a lot to catch my interest and a hell of a lot to keep it.
We spent a while thumbing through timeworn postcards and subway maps, observing antique furniture. Then we wandered toward the bins of old action figures and plastic soldiers and displaced Happy Meal toys and limbless baby dolls, all interspersed with matchbooks and baseball cards and buttons and marbles.
It was crap, basically. Just a bunch of crap being sold at a Brooklyn premium.
“Who buys this stuff?” I whispered to Maggie, who was admiring a mustached McNugget in a cowboy hat.
“There’s a nostalgia factor,” she said. An indirect answer.
I sighed.
“It’s good to have things around that bring you joy,” she said, and it was as she said this that I spotted the Magic 8 Ball tucked away in a random bin, wedged between a View-Master and a filthy Cabbage Patch Kid.
I reached for it before I understood what I was doing, before I could question what kind of germs occupied its surface. I held it in my hands, turned it around. I couldn’t tell how old it was, if it’d been swiped from a Target discount shelf last month or discovered in some grandfather’s basement, a precious relic from a childhood long ago.
I gave it a good shake, then read what it had to say, its first words to me.
WITHOUT A DOUBT.
“Oh, cool!” Maggie said. “I always wanted one of those. You should get it.”
I wasn’t a frivolous spender, but for some reason the 8 Ball seemed like a necessity.
“Yeah,” I said. “I should.”
When I brought it to the vendor, a man in a backward cap and oversized flannel, he furrowed his brow. “Where’d you find that?”
“That bin. Over there,” I said, pointing.
He shrugged, then looked me up and down and said, “Twenty bucks.”
It seemed steep, and I almost put it back. But there was something about the weight of it in my hand, how it fit so perfectly in my palm, the way my fingers curled around it, an easy grip. I wanted it, and right as I had this thought, right as the want took root, I looked down at the 8 Ball and now it said, YES—DEFINITELY.
I thought it a funny coincidence.
“Fifteen,” I told the vendor.
“Okay,” he said, nodding.
I’d never haggled before. It was exhilarating.
“Look at you,” Maggie said, “Miss I Never Find Anything at the Flea.”
I cradled the 8 Ball in my hands. I knew it was illogical to have spent fifteen dollars on something I could have gotten for half that from Amazon, and I typically felt immediate guilt after any impulse purchase, even something as small as gum at the register. I waited for the buyer’s remorse to set in, surprised it hadn’t already. “Well, I guess this is the exception.”
“See, Jordy? When you loosen up and are open to things, you find them, and they find you.”
I laughed, charmed by Maggie’s faith. “Sure, if you say so. And you know you’re the only one who can get away with calling me that.”
“Come on, Jordan. Let’s keep looking. See what treasure awaits.”
As we walked, I glanced down at the 8 Ball.
OUTLOOK GOOD, it said.
* * *
• • •
Later, Maggie and I sat in Brooklyn Bridge Park, eating sesame bagels with too much cream cheese and drinking iced coffee, savoring our patch of grass and the view of downtown Manhattan. Maggie admired the cameo brooch she had bought at the flea. I took the 8 Ball out of my bag.
YES, it said.
“That will be useful,” Maggie said. “You tend to be indecisive.”
“Me? No, never,” I said. I shook the 8 Ball, which now read, AS I SEE IT, YES.
I put it back in my bag.
“You should ask it if Kenny is going to propose.”
“Mm,” I said, suddenly queasy.
“Apologies,” Maggie said, pulling at her collar. “I was just thinking of silly sleepover questions. Does he like me? Is he going to ask me out? Considering you’re already past that, well . . .”
I shoved some bagel in my mouth as an excuse not to respond.
“Let’s ask it something better,” Maggie said, sitting up on her knees. “Why don’t we ask it if we’ll be friends forever?”
“Really?” I asked.
“Really!” she said. “Please. Let’s have a little fun.”
“All right.” I fished out the 8 Ball and asked, “Will Maggie and I be friends forever?”
I closed my eyes and shook.
I opened my eyes. When I saw what it said, I gasped.
“What?” Maggie leaned over to see. She read it out loud. “ ‘Better not tell you now.’ Hmm. How mysterious.”
“It’s a toy,” I said, slipping it into my bag and then zipping the bag shut.
“Yes,” Maggie said. “Still . . .”
“Still what?”
She shook her head and then tilted her gaze up, up toward the high noon sun. She was like a sunflower, always seeking the light. She had her summer freckles, abundant across her nose and the tops of her shoulders.
“It’s such a beautiful day,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Beautiful.”
* * *
• • •
Kenny was in the kitchen, making gnocchi. Making a mess.
“Hey,” he said. “How was the flea?”
“You know—the flea,” I said, searching the fridge for a seltzer.
“Get anything?”
“No.” The lie made a hasty escape. It caught me off guard.
“Oh, well,” he said. “Did Maggie?”
“Yeah. She always does. She got a brooch.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“A decorative pin,” I said. It was what my mother would have called a comma-dumbass sentence. When I was a teenager, I developed a problem with my delivery, my tone. My condescension was out of control. My mother would say, “If it sounds like there’s an implied ‘comma dumbass’ at the end of the sentence, try again.”
I opened my mouth, ready to apologize to Kenny for how I’d spoken to him, but part of me resented having to take responsibility for his obliviousness. I changed my mind.
“Ah,” he said, unaffected. “Like
“Exactly.”
“Cool,” he said. “Dinner will probably be around seven.”
“All right. I’m going to go for a run.”
He gave a murmur of acknowledgment and returned his concentration to the gnocchi/mess.
I went into the bedroom and changed out of my sundress and into my running gear. I pulled my hair back. I stretched. I thought about the 8 Ball, where I could put it that Kenny wouldn’t find it. I didn’t understand why I was so averse to him discovering it, to him touching it, but the idea made me itchy. I thought he might disturb its energy, which I knew was ridiculous. It was unlike me to indulge in such ridiculousness.
Still . . .
I took out the 8 Ball and asked it, “Am I being an idiot?”
CONCENTRATE AND ASK AGAIN, it said.
I huffed. I closed my eyes and gave it some thought. “Is it silly that I don’t want Kenny to know about you? That I don’t want him to touch you with his gnocchi fingers?”
MY REPLY IS NO, it said.
“Is that more about me or more about Kenny?” As soon as I asked, I knew it was too complex a question for an 8 Ball. I whispered, “Is it him?”
ASK AGAIN LATER.
“Is it me?”
CONCENTRATE AND ASK AGAIN.
“All right,” I said. I opened the drawer of my nightstand, moving aside glasses cases and assorted tubes of hand lotion to make space for it.
I was closing the drawer when I saw the 8 Ball now said, BYE.
I didn’t know that was one of the responses.
“Bye,” I said, and then I went for my run.
* * *
• • •
Maggie came by my desk the next morning for our usual nine o’clock coffee run. She was wearing a plaid blazer with the brooch on her lapel. Her hair was in a French braid. She wore lipstick, and I noticed because she didn’t usually. It was a divine shade of lavender.
“Should we go get Chrissy?” I asked on the way to the elevators.
Occasionally Chrissy, the administrative assistant on Maggie’s team, would join us. I liked her. She was fresh out of college and brimming with nervous energy. She always had a story about a hot hookup, about a wild night out, about someone she liked who didn’t like her back, about the perils of app dating. She complained about her roommates, about the intricate dramas of unwashed dishes and who paid for toilet paper. She made me feel grateful for my age, for the fact those chaos years were behind me. There are too many hard lessons to be learned in your early twenties. Too much crying outside of H&R Block, in bars, on the subway, in some random hookup’s dingy bathroom. Too much crying.
Now that I was thirty, I barely cried. I was delightfully numb. And I could afford things like Venti Starbucks beverages every morning, an Uber during a downpour, after-work cocktails, meditation apps. Small luxuries that made the days easier.
“She’s out today,” Maggie said. “Sick day.”
“Poor baby.”
“Please,” Maggie said. “She’s probably hungover.”
I laughed. “Poor baby.”
Maggie shook her head and pressed the elevator button. When the doors closed, she did a funny dance. She liked to dance when we were alone in the elevator. I liked to watch.
“What if there are cameras?” I asked her once.
“Free show,” she said, spinning around. “You’re welcome.”
We got off on the tenth floor and headed to our little corporate-cafeteria Starbucks.
“So, what will it be today?” Maggie asked me. “Back on the chai train? A flat white? A Red Eye? Maybe a matcha?”
She was mocking me because I changed my order every day, constantly waffling about what I wanted while waiting in line. I could never settle on a signature drink.
“Not sure,” I said. “Thinking.”
“This is why you need the 8 Ball,” she said.
“The 8 Ball isn’t going to advise me on if I want a hot hazelnut latte or a caramel iced coffee.”
“It might,” she said. “And it might tell you to just send that email without reading it four thousand times.”
“I’m a lawyer,” I said. “I’m meticulous.”
“Sure,” she said, grinning. “So, what’d you do last night?”
I shrugged. “Went for a run. Kenny made gnocchi.”
“Did he? Impressive.”
I waited for her to tell me that I was lucky. That was what everyone said. I was so lucky to have Kenny. I knew they meant well; still, I thought it was mildly insulting at best, dangerous at worst, to say this to someone. Relationships are complicated, and no one could ever really know what goes on from the outside looking in. Why reinforce a reliance, a codependence? Why create this completely unnecessary sense of desperate gratitude? Kenny was great. He was affable and creative and generous, but he was also terribly irresponsible with money and a certified slob. To tell me that I was lucky to be with him dismissed his flaws and my contributions. I did his taxes. I set up his IRA. So lucky.
I wasn’t certain about much, but I was certain that when it came to relationships, luck was never in play.
At least, fairly certain.
“Make your decision, miss,” Maggie said. “You’re up.”
“You go first.”
“Nope,” she said. Her flat palm moved up my back and landed between my shoulder blades. She gave me a gentle nudge forward.
My body prickled in the wake of her touch.
I stammered at the counter. “Um . . . sorry . . . I’m sorry. Hazelnut . . . No, sorry. Caramel iced coffee, please. Venti. Light ice. Thank you.”
I heard Maggie giggling behind me.
I gave her a look, and she put her hands up in surrender.
We waited for our drinks and then said our goodbyes at the elevator, going to our separate sides of the floor.
I’d been at the company only a few months. Before I started, I worried about the rigid corporate environment, but I ran into Maggie in the bathroom my first week and she invited me to coffee. We became fast friends, a rare fluency between us I’d never quite experienced before. I was excited about her. I told Kenny, all my friends. I’d find any excuse to talk about her.
“Maggie has perfect skin, and she swears by Cetaphil.”
“Maggie gave me the recipe for this bomb salad dressing.”
“Maggie also loves [insert movie, TV show, musical artist, food, writer, podcast, etc.].”
“As a kid, Maggie almost drowned in Lake Champlain, and she swears Champy saved her.”
“I’m glad you made a friend at work,” Kenny would say. “We should have her over.”
And when he said it, I felt the same way as I did about him with the 8 Ball when I brought it home. I didn’t want to let him anywhere near her.
* * *
• • •
The following weekend Kenny and I went to Coney Island with his best friend / former college roommate, Sam, and Sam’s new girlfriend, Alexa, who had never been.
“It’s not how I pictured it would be,” she said, her disappointment tangible, contagious.
I felt myself catch it, the threatening tickle of it in the back of my throat. It proliferated swiftly, suffusing me with negativity, cynicism.
When Kenny and I had first started dating, we were constantly taking trips to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone and eat Nathan’s and walk up and down the boardwalk, playing new-relationship trivia, where the answer to every question is always prizeworthy, and the prize is you.
Did you ever get injured in gym class growing up? Yes? That is . . . very endearing! You move on to the next round!
A few years in, we already knew pretty much everything there was to know about each other. There was no trivia left, the prize already won. I knew that in third grade Kenny had bruised his coccyx in an unfortunate scooter-board-derby accident. The injury forced him to sleep on his stomach, something he still did to this day. I knew what he was allergic to (shellfish, penicillin). I knew everything he loved (thunderstorms, Dave Grohl, the Yankees, Italian subs, Prospect Park Frisbee, me). I knew his Social Security number.
We were together, game over.
