Let's Pretend We Never Met

by Melissa Walker

  “I like your bracelet, Maeve,” says Agnes, and I look to see the gold cuff flashing in the light as my grandmother makes her moves.

  “Thank you, Agnes. It’s part of a series that was made by a local artist in the early twentieth century.”

  “I know,” says Agnes. “I saw others like it at the Germantown Historical Society.”

  “What a culture bug you are—that’s a lovely place!” says Maeve, and while they’re talking museums I get a few more cards out into the middle. I think I’m going to win this round. “They have histories of important neighborhood residents, Mattie,” says Maeve, and I nod without really listening as she goes on about how beautiful the collection is.

  “I liked the story of the lady with the parrot,” says Agnes.

  “It was a cockatoo,” says Maeve. “They can live eighty years or more, and she had to will it to her children.”

  Agnes laughs.

  “The historical society has a real archive of the area closest to my heart,” my grandmother says.

  Agnes nods up and down, up and down, and even though she’s in a conversation, her hands are still faster than mine. She wins again.

  Mama and Daddy get dressed to leave, and when they come out of their bedroom, they look like famous people. Daddy’s wearing a black tuxedo, and he has sparkling studs at the end of his sleeves—cuff links, Maeve calls them. Mama’s in a red dress with a really low back. The skirt goes all the way to the ground.

  “You look like a smooth glass of poured cherry liqueur,” Maeve tells her.

  Mama did her own manicure this morning and her nails are painted a shiny dark gray that looks good with her dress and her hair is curled at the ends. I asked her why she wasn’t going to a salon like she usually did when she had a fancy night planned, and she said, “Not until I find a job,” but I think she did great at home, and I can’t even tell the difference.

  “You look so pretty, Mama,” I say.

  Agnes P. Davis just lets out a long, low whistle, which makes us all laugh—even Daddy.

  Maeve says I can stay up until midnight, but Agnes goes home at nine, after her mom knocks. When she leaves she says, “Wait for my signal,” and then disappears out the door before I can ask what that means. I try to stay awake watching the celebrities and the musical performances on TV, but I fall asleep on the couch, so Maeve wakes me up and walks me to my room, where she lets me go to bed in my clothes.

  “You’re sleepier than a rag doll without a bone in her body, Honeypie,” Maeve whispers, and I fall asleep again before she even clicks out my light.

  Bangbangbang.

  I wake up to a knock on my wall and roll over to look at the clock. 11:47 p.m.

  Bangbangbang.

  The signal. I thought Agnes said it would be quieter.

  If Mama and Daddy would let me have a cell phone, I could call Agnes right now—she, like every other eleven-year-old I know, has one. Mama told me that’s because her mom works late sometimes and likes to check in. I told Mama she could feel free to work late at whatever new job she finds, but she swatted me on the behind and told me not to be fresh.

  I sit up in bed and realize that there’s a light shining on the brick wall outside my window. When I look closer, I see that it’s in the shape of a star, and it seems like it’s coming from Agnes P. Davis’s room. Cool. This is definitely the signal.

  I tiptoe into the living room. The TV is on and a glittering ball is behind a big countdown clock that has eleven minutes left on it. Maeve is asleep on the couch, her head propped up on a throw pillow. I smile. Even grown-ups can’t stay awake for New Year’s Eve.

  Moving quietly, I walk to the front door and undo the two locks very slowly so they don’t click too loudly.

  When I peek out into the hallway, Agnes P. Davis’s face pops up in front of me.

  “Hi!” She points a flashlight at me, and I see she taped custom-cut black construction paper over it so that it shines in the shape of a star.

  “I love that,” I tell her, and she reminds me that beaming a light on the outside wall is our secret signal if we ever need each other. “Like a lighthouse in a storm,” she says. “But I had to knock this time too, because you didn’t come out fast enough!”

  “I fell asleep!”

  “That’s okay,” she says. Then she hands me a cone-shaped birthday hat. “Come sit.”

  “In the hall?”

  “Of course.” She drops to the floor, stretching her legs out on the hall carpet and leaning up against the wall. She’s wearing a clunky watch on her wrist, and she has on a party hat too. There’s a big canvas bag next to her with a metal bowl inside.

  I set my door so that it won’t lock behind me. The hallway is quiet and still. There are little lamps all the way down to the elevator bank—they have swirly white glass covers that make shadows on the beige walls. On Agnes’s door, a bunch of curly ribbons and streamers frame a metallic firework decoration. She must have done that tonight, because I didn’t notice it earlier, and it’s not something I’d miss. The only other color out here is the dark-blue carpet, which is surprisingly soft to sit on, I realize, as I settle in on the other side of the bag.

  “What’s in there?” I ask.

  “Party things.” Agnes tugs at a loose thread on one of her slippers. She’s in her pajamas, I realize—a button-up top and matching set of pants printed with yellow ducks.

  She sees me looking.

  “Ducks,” she says, pointing to her shirt and laughing. “Quack, quack!” She starts making a duck noise, and it makes me giggle, but I clap my hand over her mouth because I’m afraid someone will hear us out in the hallway.

  Agnes pulls away quickly and her face gets stone serious. “Don’t touch,” she says loudly.

  “Oh,” I say, leaning away from her. “Sorry.”

  She takes a deep breath. The very deep kind where you count as you breathe out—she goes down from five. Then she says, “It’s okay, Mattie. I just prefer not to be touched.”

  She sounds like a robot, like someone programmed her to say that, and I feel a cold flash in my chest.

  But a second later, Agnes is smiling again. “Mr. Perl told me that in his class I have a special force field that’s just for me so no one touches me.”

  Agnes and I have the same teacher—Mr. Perl. I was really glad when we figured out that I was going to be in her class. But I don’t know what she’s talking about right now, so I just say, “Oh.”

  And then she looks at my face, but not my eyes, more like at my nose, and she says, “Whatever happens at school, it’s okay.”

  “What?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer, she just looks at her watch. Then she points to the paper hat in my hand and says, “Put that on. It’s almost time.”

  I set it on my head, and she reaches into the bag between us. First she gets out a bottle of water and two plastic cups. She pours some into each one, and it fizzes.

  “What is it?” I ask her.

  “Sparkly water,” she says. “My mom drinks it.”

  I take a sip, and the bubbles tickle my nose. It feels special.

  Then Agnes pulls out two sticks and hands me one. She places the metal bowl between us.

  Sitting cross-legged and facing me with the bowl in the middle, she holds up a lighter.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper as she strikes it expertly.

  “Making fireworks,” she says, and in a flash, her stick is lit and sizzling with bright-pink sparks that fall gently into the bowl.

  I smile and touch my stick to hers. It blazes green, fizzing and fiery.

  “Make a wish,” says Agnes, closing her eyes.

  I shut mine tight too. I wish for lots of new friends at school.

  Then I hear Agnes whisper, “Five, four . . .” and I open my eyes and join her countdown as she stares at her watch, chiming in to whisper-shout, “Three, two, one! Happy New Year!”

  We smile at each other through the last flashes of our sparklers, and th
en we drop them into the metal bowl.

  Agnes pulls two tiny plastic bottles out of the bag then, and hands one to me.

  Before I can ask, she says, “Go!” and jumps up. She starts blowing into the wand she’s taken out of her bottle, filling our hallway with glistening bubbles. When I stand and join in, there are so many bubbles that it’s hard to see, and Agnes begins to spin and spin with her arms stretched out to the sides.

  Behind the other doors in our hallway, we hear people laughing and singing.

  “What’s the New Year’s song again?” she asks me, falling back to the ground and shaking her head like she’s dizzy. I sit down too, and when Agnes and I try to remember what the song is, we crack up and just hum.

  “Too many weird words,” I say.

  Agnes nods. “It’s about friends, though.”

  “Like us,” I say, and Agnes’s smile gets so big it takes up half her face.

  “Mattie,” she says, “you’re my best friend.”

  I think about Lily and Josephine. I know they would think Agnes is babyish, with her bubbles and her duck pajamas. But they’re not here to tell me that she’s crazy or that I’m quiet, are they? And with Agnes, my life isn’t quiet at all, on the inside or the outside.

  “You’re my best friend here too,” I tell her. Because the way I said it, it’s not a lie.

  “Jay! Christopher!”

  Maeve is standing in the doorway, calling my dad’s and my uncle’s names.

  But then I stand up.

  “Honeypie?”

  She’s frowning.

  “We were just ringing in the new year, Maeve!” says Agnes, making her voice like a car commercial. “Don’t blame Mattie—it was my idea.”

  Maeve shakes her head like she’s trying to clear it.

  “Well, get back inside before your mama wakes up,” Maeve tells Agnes. “And take all this stuff with you.” She moves her finger around in a circle that points to the hats and the bowl and the charred sticks.

  We say good night and I go inside with Maeve.

  “Are you mad?” I ask, handing over the bubble wand.

  “No,” she says. Then she laughs. “For a second I thought . . . oh, never mind. I told you you could stay up. I just wish you’d let me know you were out there.”

  “I’m sorry.” I drop my head down and walk into my room. I really am sorry. I hate disappointing Maeve.

  “Honeypie?” Maeve’s voice comes softly from the doorway.

  “What?”

  I look up, and she blows a string of bubbles at me. “Happy New Year.”

  Chapter 7

  On New Year’s Day, Mama doesn’t get up until I’ve been awake for an hour already. When she walks out into the living room, her face looks puffy and her eyes are still half-closed.

  “I made oatmeal in the microwave,” I tell her. She smiles and shuffles into the kitchen. The oatmeal is probably a sticky mess of goo by now, but Mama doesn’t say that as she sits down to eat it. She just says, “Thanks, Mattie.”

  Then she tells me she thinks we’ve unpacked enough and as soon as she showers and gets dressed we can go to Home Depot to buy paint and stuff for my room—they’re having a sale. That’s how I know Maeve didn’t tell her about finding me in the hallway last night—it’s our secret.

  Mama gets in the shower, and I turn on the TV. Daddy pads out in his slippers and makes coffee. When he passes me on the way back to his room with a mug, he ruffles my hair. That’s when I ask, “Did you have fun last night?” And I find myself hoping really hard that they did.

  Daddy stops and turns to me on the couch.

  “Yes,” he says. Then he stops, but I can tell there’s something else. I’m good at figuring out when silences are real and when they’re pauses about to be filled. “You know your mama’s a little sensitive these days, so be extra kind to her, okay?”

  “What’s she sensitive about?” I ask.

  Daddy rubs his hand over his face like he’s too tired to think. “She has to find her way in a new place, look for a job . . . deal with me.” He smiles then and adds, “Your mom’s never lived anywhere outside of North Carolina, you know.”

  I nod, thinking that leaving the only hometown you’ve ever known must be really hard if you’ve lived there for a whole adult life. I only got to eleven, and it feels weird not to be there.

  “Okay, I get it,” I say, and before I can invite him to come with us to Home Depot, he’s back in his room closing the door and Mama’s dressed and ready to go. We don’t even have to talk about whether Agnes is coming—she pops her head out her door as soon as she hears ours open, and I’m glad for the company.

  But when we get to the store and Mama goes off “to find paper towels in bulk,” Agnes starts acting weird. She walks funny because she says she can’t let her feet touch any of the lines on the floor of the store. And there are a lot of lines.

  “Can you stop?” I ask her, but she doesn’t answer and she doesn’t stop, and that puts me in a grumpy mood.

  When we get to the paint section, she starts reading out the names of the paints in a really high-pitched voice:

  “Violet Indulgence!

  “Summer’s Secret!

  “Wonderstruck!”

  “That one,” I say, needing her to be quiet. “Wonderstruck looks good.” It’s a golden yellow, close to the orange that I found on my walls, but different enough to be my own. Also, I like that name.

  “Okay,” Agnes says, handing me the paper with the paint sample on it.

  Then she starts again:

  “Rustic Pheasant!

  “Maestro!

  “Lime Bloss—”

  “I already picked one,” I interrupt.

  She stills, mouth open midshout, and says quietly, “But you need more than one color for your walls.”

  “You need more than one color,” I tell her. “I don’t. I’m going to paint my walls all the same like a regular person.”

  I thought I was going to be adventurous, but now that I’m here and Agnes is acting so strange, I just want my walls to look normal. I see a lady near the counter watching us and my face gets warm.

  “Why would you paint like a regular person?” asks Agnes.

  “Because.” I march up to the paint-mixing guy and ask for my color.

  When I glance back I see Agnes coming toward me, walking all herky-jerky to avoid the lines again. And there’s someone behind her.

  A sandy-haired boy is imitating her walk a few feet away. He stops abruptly when I turn, but he and his friend laugh to themselves. Agnes doesn’t seem to notice.

  I’m suddenly extra glad that I haven’t started school yet, because what if someone saw me here, shopping with a crazy person?

  Mama comes to find us, and I give her a look that says Agnes is being a nut! But I’m not sure it translates because she just smiles back at me, and her eyes are still as cloudy as they were this morning. We go to the kids’ bedroom section and pick out some bird- and flower-shaped decals that you can stick onto walls and peel off when you’re tired of them. They look like shadows, so I decide they’re sophisticated.

  On the car ride home, Agnes tells me that she has some leftover blue paint from her room that we can use to make swirls over the gold color I picked out, but I don’t say anything back to her.

  In my bedroom, the first thing Agnes does is rush to the windowsill and say, “Let’s put these somewhere safe.” I take my treasures and place them on the very top of my sock drawer. With Mama’s help, we push my dresser to the center of the room, along with my bed and my desk, so we can cover them all with plastic while we paint.

  Mama tells us to start in the middles of the walls—she’ll work on the edges after she puts tape over the parts we shouldn’t paint. Daddy is still in bed, but Mama says we can listen to music if we keep it low. We put on the radio, and Agnes and I sing along to a Taylor Swift song.

  I want to ask Agnes why she was so weird at the store, when she’s being normal again now, but I
don’t. We work quietly together, and it feels like we’re in our own little world, making the walls around us a glowy gold that will be warm and cozy when we’re done. Part of me wishes I could keep Agnes here, in between these yellow walls, where she’s my new friend who is never bored or boring.

  But another part of me is thinking about two days from now—when school starts. And I feel a heavy blob in my stomach, the kind that sits there when I hear Mama and Daddy argue, or when I know I’m going to have to take a test the next day.

  That night, I use Mama’s phone to call Lily. We talk about how she got a spa gift certificate for Christmas so she and Josephine went to get manicures for the first day back at school. And then she drops the bomb:

  “Ryan kissed me!”

  “He did? When? What was it like?” My rush of questions sounds excited, but inside I feel myself getting upset as she gives me details. (Soft, kind of wet, but nice. They were out in her driveway with snow flurries all around, which made it extra magical.) Then she says it happened last week.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I would’ve texted you, but you don’t have your own phone,” she says. “It’s weird to have to call your mom’s number, Mattie. Sorry, but it is.”

  I feel like I might cry, but I swallow it down and make my voice sunny. “I start school this week,” I say.

  “OMG, good luck! I’d be so nervous.”

  “I am,” I tell her. And then I realize that I could use Lily’s advice. “Actually, I’ve started becoming friends with my neighbor.”

  “Oh, that’s great!”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But she’s a little weird.”

  “Weird like how?”

  I tell Lily about the yelling in Home Depot and the crazy walk and the way Agnes acted like a robot when I touched her.

  “Whoa—that girl has problems,” says Lily.

  I sit up straight. “But she’s also really fun,” I say. “Her room is all different colors and she likes to play this game called Detective where we pretend to be solving a mystery in our building.”

  “Is she our age?” asks Lily.

  “Yeah, she’s eleven,” I say.

  “Oh.”