THE BEAST ─ five hargreeves

[ 059 ] the snazziest baked potato

LIX.

t h e   s n a z z i e s t
b a k e d   p o t a t o

—ZARA WAS LOOKING at herself in the mirror. For once, there was little vanity in her gaze. It was more an anxious questioning with behind it the humility of one of who is suddenly unsure of herself.

She pushed up her hair from her forehead, pulled it to one side and frowned at the result. Then, as a face appeared behind hers in the mirror, she started, flinched, and swung round apprehensively.

"H'm!" said Allison Hargreeves. "You're thinking. No thinking. Only drinking."

They were sitting in the beauty parlour where Allison spent her days. In front of her was a half empty bottle of tequila. The place smelled like a sweet and completely wonderful mixture of talcum powder, pomade, and dry cannabis smoke.

A red and white barber pole twirled by the window. Next to it was a political poster featuring Edmund Muskie. Zara remembered him as a tired, slope-shouldered old man from the newspaper obituaries, but this version of him looked almost too young too vote, let alone get elected to anything. The poster read, SEND ED MUSKIE TO THE U.S. SENATE, VOTE DEMOCRAT! Someone had put a bright white band around the bottom. Hand-printed on it was THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE IN MAINE BUT WE DID IT! NEXT UP: WILKINS IN 1963!

Zara spun around in the barber chair.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the beauty parlour," she declared, her voice unsteady, "I have an announcement to make!"

"You're gotten proposed to," said Allison, running a wet comb busily through her hair.

"So you're marrying your guy-friend for his money and leaving this hick-town," said Klaus.

"Unless, of course, you change your mind," added Vanya. "Which is unlikely, but you do change your mind a lot, so it could happen."

"Down the well," finished Kiki. "Jack and Jill, up the hill, down the well. Goodbye and good riddance. Bow-wow-wow. Wow. Meow."

She looked at them in surprise.

"How'd all of you know?"

Klaus, sitting in the adjacent barber's chair, grunted with amusement. Ash tumbled from his joint. He brushed it absently off his smock and onto the floor, where there were several crushed butts among the cut hair.

"It's the third time you've mentioned it," he said. "And each time you say it we become less convinced you're gonna do it."

"This is torture!" Zara groaned. "What's wrong with me? I wish I was better at this whole adulting thing!"

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself," said Allison kindly. "After all, they say every snowflake is unique."

"Yeah, well, you know what else is always unique? Potatoes. Potatoes, Allison. No two potatoes are ever exactly the same. I am a human potato."

Klaus lit up another smoke with a battered Zippo and looked her in the eye. "If it makes you feel better, I think you're one of the better potatoes out there. Like a baked potato. Maybe even a snazzy bacon-cheddar baked potato with chives and sour cream on top."

"Thank you, Klaus," said Zara tearfully. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

She took the half-empty tequila bottle off the counter and chugged three long swallows. She felt it burning a path down her throat. When she was sure the first gulp was going to stay down, she slugged another one, hiccuped, and slowly screwed the cork back into place.