Adam Stuart Moxley Was the Love of My Life by Anika Carpenter
When Alfie asked where I wanted to go on honeymoon I told him Winnipeg, said I wanted to French kiss in front of Manitoba Museum’s plesiosaur fossil. I lied. Nothing about fossils aroused me, and Alfie would’ve known this if he’d paid the least bit of attention.
I wanted to go to Winnipeg because that’s where Moxley’s was. Moxley’s Rentals, home of key cutting, photocopying, scissor sharpening, waterbed supplies and, regret. My plan was to call in there one morning, leave Alfie in the hotel sleeping off another night’s drinking and gasbagging. I’d sashay in, like I used to when I was fifteen, and ask in my huskiest voice for a waterbed repair kit. I’d make sure to look up at the security camera, give a sassy wave. This would be the last sighting of me before I disappeared off the face of the earth. Like Adam had.
The bridal car circled the church six times before I got a voice note from Alfie.
‘Angie, the thing is, the thing about me is, well, look I need a woman who’s got a hold of herself. Since you told me about Manitoba, I keep having this dream where your bones are fragile as charcoal and your brain’s hard as coprolite.
I played Alfie’s message to the chauffeur. He drove me the two-hundred kilometres to Winnipeg, said not to worry about the cash, turned down a thank you fuck. I drank complimentary champagne alone in the hotel room, scrolled the internet, read stories about Moxley’s; the woman who’d rented a wheelchair for twelve years straight, the eighty years’ worth of memorabilia kept behind the counter. Maybe there’ll be a piece about me after tomorrow; the jilted bride, still dressed in silk and lace, desperate for news of her teenage sweetheart. As I pictured the headline a thought got in my head like a screwworm, maybe Adam’s brother won’t recognise me, or worse, I’ll find out he’d had news about Adam and didn’t think to track me down to tell me.
The next morning I was sicker from thinking than drinking. I went to the museum to clear my head, stood in front of that fossilised plesiosaur and imagined kissing Adam and then kissing Alfie. The way Adam kissed was so different to the way Alfie kissed. Adam always squeezed my arse, whereas Alfie gently held my face like I was something rare, precious. If only he’d been OK with things slipping a little here and there we could’ve been happy, we would’ve moved to Winnipeg, tended our lawn with one of Moxley’s rented mowers, hired their car toppers for camping trips with our two kids; been the kind of regular customers who’d hear first-hand any news of Adam’s bones being dug up, and when news came Alfie would’ve cradled me in his arms as I sobbed, told me it’s OK, he understands, hurt people do crazy things.
Anika Carpenter lives and works in Brighton, UK. Her stories have been published by Fictive Dream, Gone Lawn, Gooseberry Pie, 100 Word Story and others, and have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Bath Flash Fiction Award. You can find her via her website www.anikacarpenter.com or on BlueSky @stillsquirrel.bsky.social
