The Vigilance of Kristy Baker

Elizabeth Horner Turner

She started to picture Carrie Bradshaw as the one Clay was screwing when she found the first long, blonde hair stuck to his vest. Clay owned at least four fleece vests in different colors, and wore one of them almost every day. Picking the hair off his green Patagonia, Kristy was reminded of the original Carrie Bradshaw, the younger one before the new reboot without Samantha. The original Carrie who drank too much and had so much sex, the Carrie that she bought the entire DVD collection for during her own yearning twenties in New York. Kristy imagined this Carrie showing up at the tech company Clay worked for, wearing a pair of stilettos and slurping a martini that dripped on polished concrete floors. As Carrie moved through the sunlit lobby, hundreds of coders, hunched over computers in great lines all the way down the room, would look up in unison. Their mouths would drop open as she moved past them, hair glowing and bouncing, and every single coder would pop an erection at the exact same time. Could the energy produced by that many rock-hard dicks overwhelm the network? Kristy started to laugh as she opened the garbage can to toss the hair in. Starting the washing machine, she tried to remember what brand of cigarettes Carrie smoked. Merits, she remembered from the show. Pretty sure it was Merits.

But when the second and then third hairs showed up on other vests, Kristy couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was going on. Asking Clay if there were any new women in the office just produced a tirade about how difficult it was to get good women in tech and that maybe she could lay off the feminist rants because he was actually, really trying, but women seem to want marketing jobs, not coding, you know? I mean, did Kristy ever take a computer science class in college? Yeah. Clay didn’t think so. So she tried to chalk the hairs up to the Philz Coffee barista that he raved about at the new location near his office. But Kristy couldn’t stop seeing Carrie Bradshaw as the barista.

Kristy was in college when the show Sex and the City became so popular, and she was immediately hooked. Clearly, the only place to move to after graduation was Manhattan, so she found a crappy railroad apartment off the East River with two roommates and an entry level position at a marketing firm. Small armies of rats ran back and forth in front of the Con Ed building next door, and frequently, the girls found cockroaches hiding underneath their magazine stacks. The walk to the subway, which Kristy actually rode, was close to a mile. But at least she got to say that she lived on the Upper East Side like Carrie, even though the show’s characters would never venture near where she lived. She continued to smoke because Carrie did, although she was banished to the front stoop to do it and she hated how it made her fingers smell.

After work and on weekends, Kristy often took herself on Sex and the City walks to find the bars and restaurants featured in the show or in Candace Bushnell’s original columns. She thought Bushnell’s writing was more detailed than the shows, and it was grittier and less like the fairy tale HBO portrayed. The essays were darker; Carrie and the other characters were often jaded and cynical. Kristy thought they would make fun of her rather than want to be her friend. Even so, early one evening on one of her walks, she almost worked up the courage to go into Bowery Bar by herself, but stopped near the door when she remembered she was wearing sneakers and no makeup. Looking down at her running shoes and the frayed hem on her shirt, she got so embarrassed that she walked into the first boutique that caught her eye. Smiling at the clerk, Kristy grabbed a pair of red leather pants in her size and a rabbit fur purse hanging off a mannequin. She hadn’t even looked at the prices. The purse was made out of several pieces of fur, each dyed a different, bright color and they were all sewn together with lime green yarn. The clerk had also chirped something about the handle being “real pony fur”. By pure luck, Kristy found a seat on the subway home, and she stroked the purse all the way up to the 77th Street stop. She couldn’t stop smiling; she knew Carrie would approve of these purchases. The next night, she wore the new pants and put her keys, phone, and credit card into the rabbit fur purse to go out. While having a cigarette outside the bar, a guy told her that she should be proud, because
she must have the ugliest purse in the entire city. Flicking her cigarette towards his face, Kristy told him to fuck off and walked the mile and a half home in three inch heels. She didn’t care if she blinded him. Carrie would have done it too, she was sure of that.

One evening on the way home from the dry cleaners, Kristy swore that she saw the actual Carrie Bradshaw walking towards her. She was even dressed in an outfit that looked identical to one she’d worn on a recent episode. Oh my God, she’s real! As she grew closer, the woman stumbled on the cracked sidewalk, and while stooping to fix her strappy sandals, Kristy saw the
inch-long roots in her hair and chipped nail polish. When she stood up and shook back her mane of curls, her poorly applied foundation and acne scars showed. She was just a person. Tears pricked Kristy’s eyes and her dry cleaning slipped off her arm. Fake Carrie Bradshaw picked the
bags up for her while Kristy quickly wiped her face. They smiled at each other, and Kristy muttered “thank you” as she walked away. About half a block down, she wondered if this woman was some sort of sign that she shouldn’t ignore. On impulse, she turned around and ran back towards Fake Carrie Bradshaw. Yelling “Hey, wait a sec!” in what she hoped was a friendly voice, she hustled down the block. Fake Carrie Bradshaw stopped and turned around, eyeing her with a slightly suspicious look.“Oh, thanks for stopping. I’m Kristy Baker,” she said, panting slightly but giving her full name because she read somewhere that people respected you more when you gave them both a first and last name. “I just wanted to—well,” Kristy realized she probably shouldn’t come right out and say that she thought they should be friends because this woman looked like Carrie from Sex and the City, so she tried to think of something to say. “When you walked away, I remembered this article I read about how to prevent blisters when wearing heels, and I thought to
myself, I should tell that girl in the cute sandals!” Kristy flashed her best smile and canted her hip to the side to try and look fun instead of creepy.

“Okay,” Fake Carrie Bradshaw said, drawing out her syllables and looking from side to
side.

“You know, you were fixing your shoe back there when you helped me, right?” Kristy’s
armpits grew slick and she felt hot prickles start down her neck. She knew the interaction was getting awkward, but she pressed on. What if Fake Carrie Bradshaw lived near her and she saw her again? She couldn’t just leave now. Plus, she’d already given her full name. “So, anyway, the article says that all you need is anti-perspirant spray!” Kristy said. “The article says to spray your feet with it before putting on shoes, and supposedly you’ll never blister again!” Her hand flipped out in what she meant to be a fun gesture but because her arms were piled with dry cleaning bags, she ended up dumping the lot on the ground again. Fake Carrie Bradshaw helped her gather them, and when Kristy looked back up at her, she was laughing.

“Yeah, sure, maybe I’ll try that. Have a good night, lady,” Fake Carrie Bradshaw said, and spun back around in the direction of Third Avenue. Kristy’s face started to burn and tears pricked her eyes for the second time in ten minutes. What a bitch, she thought. Walking back towards home, she knew that Fake Carrie Bradshaw thought she was a total weirdo, and she started to feel lonely. Whatever. I know her clothes were knockoffs, she thought bitterly. Nobody who walks out of that bodega on Second Avenue could afford the real thing. For weeks afterward, she continued to think about the run-in with Fake Carrie Bradshaw and it started to interfere with her enjoyment of the show. She decided she should focus on something else instead, so she began reading every article online she could find about Candace Bushnell. At least she was real, right? She continued to avoid the entire block where their interaction took place, just in case.

All these years later, and Carrie Bradshaw was still the first name that popped into her head when she found mystery hairs on Clay’s vests and then later, when she found one on his new, expensive hoodie. After picking it off, she stuck her hand in the pockets to check for anything Clay might have left in there. She found a crumpled five dollar bill and a wadded up ball of hair. It was the same white-blonde color, long and curly like the others. This mass, though, was matted and dusty. She threw it in the garbage and wiped her hands on her jeans. The hair ball made her feel sick, reminding her of gutters clogged with trash and the funk on city sidewalks. She started thinking about Fake Carrie Bradshaw and felt her armpits slick with shame sweat. Taking a few deep breaths, she closed her eyes and instead of replaying the anti-perspirant situation again in her head, she instead imagined Fake Carrie Bradshaw as a meth head. She pictured her trudging down half-lit streets towards home after binging in a shitty club somewhere, like Jersey City. Fake Carrie stops at a crappy Greek diner for coffee, and can barely hold the cup because her hands shake so much. Her eyes twitch as she scratches her arms and then she gets kicked out of the diner for not having any money because her bag was stolen by some other tweakers. Kristy started to feel better with this scenario, and decided to add herself into it. She imagined herself at a table in a corner of the diner where she’s eating after working all night at her own PR firm, maybe like Samantha’s, and she generously pays for Fake Carrie’s coffee. Tipping twenty dollars just because, Kristy imagined herself walking out and stooping to hug Fake Carrie who is weeping on the corner. Done with the scenario, Kristy opened her eyes, and did a quick body scan, expecting to feel better, but the image of the hair ball wouldn’t go away. She scrubbed her hands a few more times in the bathroom sink before wiping them dry on a towel she’d wash with the hoodie.

Relax, Kristy thought, as she added extra OxyClean to the load. Clay and I are OK. She took a deep breath, and repeated, Clay and I are OK. I just need to stay vigilant, she added, repeating the phrase her mom had told her almost every time they spoke on the phone when she lived in New York. Her mom frequently talked about her own single years in New York before moving back to California, but the first time she’d ever talked to Kristy about vigilance was when she’d come home after college graduation before starting her first job. Her mom sat her down with mugs of tea to tell her all about the power of New York—how it was completely alluring while also being very dangerous.

It’ll suck you right in, sweetheart,” she said before launching into a story that Kristy had never heard before. She had been taking the subway home after her shift at Lord & Taylor. “I’d walk a little extra to catch the 6 train instead of the others. That’ll probably be the one you take to get home to your new apartment,” her mom said, patting Kristy’s arm. “So, summertime there was just brutal. It was always so humid and people on the trains could be downright hostile. There was this one evening when I got on the 6, and the whole train went dark. Every single car. We had a subway blackout, and people just went crazy!” Her mom went on to say that someone grabbed her purse, and when she refused to let go, they began to punch her until she gave in.

“Oh, it was so painful. Stars just erupted behind my eyes,” her mom said, making her hands pop open in the air near her face. “But I loved that purse!” She started to gently laugh, and then took her napkin up to dab at her eyes. “The power came back on a few seconds later. That’s when I realized my nose was bleeding all over my new sweater.” Kristy didn’t know what to say, but she grabbed her mom’s hand and squeezed. Her mom went on to tell her that an older woman, “a darling spinster,” had taken her mom to a police precinct and stayed with her while she made a report. Afterwards, she walked Kristy’s mother around the corner to a hospital to get her nose and the rest of her bruises looked at.

“What a nice person,” Kristy said, leaning forward. “Are you still in touch with her?”

“I have no idea what happened to the woman,” her mom said, looking off into the backyard. Standing up suddenly, she clasped Kristy’s upper arms, squeezing both of them over and over. It was the first time Kristy remembered her mother saying “Just stay vigilant, darling,” and then she walked out of the room. She had just begun to clean up their tea things when her mom came back in, kissed Kristy on the cheek, and tucked something into her back pocket. “It’s just a little emergency money. Hide that in a special place in your wallet.” Later, Kristy pulled out a ten dollar bill.

When it was time to move the laundry to the dryer, Kristy refused to touch the hoodie with her bare hands. She managed to tangle it up inside some jeans and used them to throw the whole wad in. She dialed the heat up to maximum, not caring if everything shrank. Stepping on the lever to open the garbage can lid, she leaned over to look for the wad of hair. It was much bigger now, the size of a tennis ball, and it had shed all the dust and lint. In fact, it was shimmering. She reached down to touch it gently, but somehow plunged her whole arm down into the garbage can. The hairball tangled in her fingers and wrapped around her hand. Working to get it off, she felt like she was fighting a gorgeous spiderweb. Which goddess had something to do with spiders? Arachne? Finally getting the hair web off of her fingers, she shoved it back into the can. “Don’t struggle like that or I will only love you more,” she whispered to herself, thinking of an old Cure album that her older sister used to play obsessively. Kristy wasn’t allowed in her room, so she would sit in their shared bathroom and lean her head against the door, hoping to hear her sister play “Lullaby”. The song scared her—the spiderman and the nightmares—but it captivated her, too.

Lying at the top of the can, the hair ball seemed to expand even more, covering everything beneath it. As Kristy watched, it seemed to gently pulsate. She grabbed the garbage lid with both hands to slam it shut, but it fought against her with its quiet close. Her heart pounded through her body as she stumbled upstairs. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she noticed that her hands smelled of some musky, sexy perfume that was definitely not hers. I know he’s screwing someone, she thought, leaning against the door frame. She brought her hands to her nose and breathed deeply. Her hair smells so good. The lyrics worked their way into her head again, “it’s much too late to get away,” she thought. Then she shook her head and stood upright abruptly. She commanded herself—stay vigilant! and practically ran into their bedroom.
Moving to Clay’s dresser, she opened each of his drawers to sniff at his clothing, searching for the hairball scent. Except for his Metallica t-shirt which always reeked of old sweat, everything else just smelled like their lavender laundry soap and him. In the different pockets she rummaged through, she found a few gum wrappers and a bent business card for a roofer. Then she moved to the closet. At first, the door refused to open. The glass knob slipped in her hand, and she had to turn it several times before it finally gave way. She made a mental note to deal with the door later, and flicked on the light. Clay hung his pants up like her father always did, held in between two wooden clasps upside down with the waist and belt loops towards the floor to keep their creases sharp. This always made her laugh since Clay usually just wore jeans anyway. Everything seemed fine in the closet, button downs and blouses neat and quiet, pants all in order. She began to shove past her cocktail dresses to the very back, because if something was hidden, wouldn’t it be there? She stopped briefly at a dress she hadn’t worn in years and could have sworn she’d already given away. It was a backless minidress dripping with sequins that she’d bought for a beach wedding to which two exes were also invited. She’d wanted to look smoking hot. She must have looked good because after both of them took turns flirting with her, she ended up in a heavy make-out session with one of them on the beach, and ditched him when the sand got to be too much. She remembered feeling like a total badass. Smiling to herself, she pushed all the way to the back, where she found a rumpled pair of men’s cords that she’d never seen before, dumped messily onto a metal hanger. Dark blue, wide-waled, and cuffed, they smelled strongly of cigarettes. Were these really Clay’s? In the front left pocket, she found a crusty tissue. In a back pocket, there was a corner of some kind of thin, plastic wrapper—red, like the Durex condoms she used to buy.

She decided to make a pile of things. Evidence, she thought. Kristy folded the cords and laid them on his side of the bed, with the tissue and plastic wrapper on top. Then she added the card for the roofer and the gum wrappers. She decided she needed the hairball next, and hurried down to the laundry room to get it. Carefully opening the garbage can, she peered inside, but it wasn’t on top of the trash like before. Kristy dug through lint and old dryer sheets until she found the hairball buried deep inside, like it had burrowed its way down to the bottom of the can. It had shrunk back down to the size of a golf ball, and it wasn’t as gold and glinty as before. She picked it up between her thumb and index finger and shook it slightly. When nothing happened, she shoved it into her pocket. It was time to change out the wash anyway. Just stay vigilant, she whispered to herself. As she yanked open the washer door, she gasped. It was completely golden inside—filled with something delicate and puffy and glowing from within. She flipped on the room light. It must be manna, she thought, even though she had no idea what manna really was, but she imagined it as gentle clouds of spun honey. It was simply beautiful, whatever it was. When she reached to touch it, she gasped again at its softness. What is this? she thought, grasping it with both hands to pull it towards her. It began to pour out of the washer, hitting Kristy’s chest and pressing her back against the wall. The cloud-thing was massive, spun of thin, golden tendrils, and as it pushed out of the washer, it opened up to envelop her. Weaving itself around her arms and shoulders, it continued to pour forth, and the musky perfume that had been on the hairball filled the room. Her mind spun as she tried to elbow an arm out of the mass. What’s happening? she panted, moving with effort as the curly strands entangled her, spiraling downward to wrap around her hips and thighs. Wiggling her left hand upwards, she pulled at the bits of cloud near her face, working to tear open a space to breathe. Everything smelled so good and felt so silky, but she knew had to keep breathing. Wiggling one leg free, she pressed her foot against the washing machine to get some traction. Her mom’s voice echoed in her head—Stay vigilant! As she worked her fingers into the bits tightening around her throat and shoulders, Kristy answered, “I’m trying! I’m trying so hard.”

—

About Author

Elizabeth Horner Turner’s work has been published in journals including Cutbank, Fairy Tale Review, Gulf Coast, Lost Balloon, and trampset. Her work has been selected for Best Small Fiction and Wigleaf’s Top 50 and Long List. “The Tales of Flaxie Char,” her poetry chapbook, was published through dancing girl press in 2017. Her forthcoming short fiction chapbook entitled “Horsemouth and Aquariumhead” will be out from Black Lawrence Press in Fall, 2024. She lives in San Francisco.

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Twitter and Instagram: @LHornerT