Let's Pretend We Never Met

by Melissa Walker

  But when I raise the blinds, there’s no star signal—it’s just plain brick. It’s also daytime, so even if she did want to shine a signal it’d be hard for me to see. I shake my head . . . I’m being crazy. Agnes isn’t even home—I just saw her leave. Still, I look hard to be sure the star really isn’t there, because I can feel something inside, something that’s telling me Agnes might need me.

  “Mattie? You ready?” It’s time to go, and Daddy’s in the doorway—he’s driving me to the party.

  On the way, I try not to think about Agnes. I’m focused on being the new Mattie, who wears makeup and goes to boy-girl parties and maybe even almost has a boyfriend.

  Right when I get to the bowling alley—which is completely covered in purple and silver, Robin’s signature birthday colors—Finn comes up to me and asks if I want to bowl in his lane. Duh.

  Shari has totally restyled her hair. No more braids—it’s short now, in a bob that’s smooth and straight. I tell her it looks nice and she says it took hours at her mom’s hair place but she needed a change. My own ponytail feels plain in comparison, even though Mama let me put waves in the ends with her curling iron.

  I’ve only been bowling like twice before, and the ball keeps going into the gutter, but luckily no one’s very good and everyone mostly sits around eating snacks and talking anyway. Which would be fun, except that Marisa wormed herself into our lane and she’s being really loud. I wonder why she’s even here.

  “Finn! Can you help me find a ball that’s better for me? I have the smallest fingers!” she calls out at one point. I swear she’s batting her eyelashes, which are totally covered in mascara. She’s also wearing a dress that ties at the waist, like one my mom has. But it’s tight and she’s getting boobs, so it makes her look older.

  Marisa’s leaning in to Finn as he holds out a lightweight bright-pink ball for her. “Perfect! You found just the one,” she says. “I love pink!” Of course.

  Then she looks over at me and Shari. “You guys can use this one too if you want,” she says, all fake nice. I have a red-and-black marbled ball that’s heavier, and I silently vow to avoid her dumb pink one.

  Shari and I go to the bathroom after we finish a full game of bowling and while I put on my new lip gloss in the mirror she asks me if anything’s wrong.

  “No,” I tell her.

  “You’re all quiet and not smiling.”

  So much for trying to be the new me.

  “Is Marisa bugging you?” she prods.

  I turn on the sink and let the water run over my hands. Marisa is bugging me, but so is the thought of Agnes and her dad. I’m nervous and I feel bad, even though that has nothing to do with me. And what if we’re running out of money and Mama and Daddy are going to start mean-talking to each other again like they did this morning? My mind is stuffed with worry.

  “Yeah, Marisa’s annoying,” I say, grabbing a paper towel to dry off. “But I’m just having one of those days.” That’s something Mama says sometimes. I follow it with a sigh, which Mama also does, and it feels natural. I like to sigh, I decide.

  I hear the door creak open and my heart drops as Marisa walks in, smirking. “Hey, Mattie. Where’s your best friend Agnes?”

  I glare at her, right in the ice-blue eyes.

  “What are you even talking about?” says Shari, rolling her eyes at Marisa.

  She turns to Shari with a fake-innocent look. “Oh, didn’t you know that your new friend Mattie already has a BFF? She lives with Agnes and they raised that baby bird together.”

  “I do not live with her,” I say, my voice low.

  Shari is quiet, but she’s staring at me now.

  “We live next door to each other at Butler Towers,” I explain.

  “Oh,” says Shari. “I didn’t know that.”

  And I can’t tell if it matters to her, one way or the other.

  Marisa turns, her eyes lit up with mean glee. “You guys hang out every day after school, don’t you?”

  “No,” I say.

  “I’ve seen you talking to her,” says Marisa.

  Shari steps in. “I’ve never seen you with Agnes,” she says. Then she turns to Marisa. “I think I’d know if they were friends.”

  “Maybe Mattie doesn’t want you to find out,” says Marisa. “Everyone knows that Agnes is a freak.”

  I clench my hands into fists when Marisa locks eyes with me.

  “I know you’re friends with her.” Her voice is so cold and accusing, like she’s saying, I know you ran over my dog.

  “She lives in my building!” I shout, taking a step closer to her to shut her up. “I am not friends with her!” Then, before my brain can stop my mouth, I hear myself say, “I don’t even like her!”

  Marisa smiles with tight lips, and it looks like an evil jagged line.

  Then she pushes past me and walks back out to the party. She doesn’t even use the bathroom—she just came in here to be cruel (and to make me be cruel too, apparently). The door swings open, and I hear people laughing and yelling, “Spare!” but when it closes again I’m there in silence with Shari by the badly lit sinks.

  I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I can’t meet my own eyes.

  But Shari doesn’t seem to notice. She just says, “Marisa is so aggro. That’s why Robin and Emily and I stopped hanging out with her last year.”

  “Huh?” I’m confused.

  “Robin only invited her because their moms are still friends and Marisa’s parents got divorced last year, so . . .”

  “I didn’t know that,” I say.

  “I know it’s sad, but Marisa got really mean after that,” says Shari, looking in the mirror and inspecting her eyebrows. “It’s not like her parents breaking up was our fault. It was weird—we’d been close since we were little, but then it was like she had a new starring role in a movie about girls who turn on their friends.”

  I stay quiet. I don’t know what to say because I feel like I’m in that movie right now.

  “She’s probably also mad at you because of Finn.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “They kissed last year on a church ski trip,” she says. “They never, like, officially went out or anything, but I can tell she still likes him.”

  My body goes cold.

  Shari shrugs. “Anyway, don’t let her get to you. I don’t know what her deal is with trying to make it seem like you’re friends with Agnes.”

  She points to my lip gloss, which is squished a little bit because I’m making another fist, and says, “Can I use some of that?” So I open my palm and hand it to her and she puts it on, and then we go back to our lane, where Bryce is pressing the button to start a new game.

  Marisa is laughing really loudly at something Finn said, and then he looks over at me and I can’t even muster a real smile, because my heart feels like it’s underneath a rock.

  Chapter 22

  Shari’s mom drops me off at my apartment building, and all I can think about is how I want to crawl under the covers and be quiet and warm and alone for a while.

  But when I open my front door, I hear Daddy talking. “. . . getting worse. We should tell Mattie.”

  “Tell me what?” I ask, peering around the hallway corner to see them both sitting on the couch.

  Mama looks at Daddy and then pats the spot next to her. “Sit down, honey,” she says, trying to make her voice sound nice.

  I move slowly because it’s strange that they’re sitting here together and it seems like they are about to confront me about something and I think that they’re going to tell me that I’m being a bad neighbor and friend to Agnes and I won’t be able to explain how it is at school and how the other kids are and why I don’t know how to be her friend.

  “How was bowling?” asks Mama, like she suddenly remembered where I was all afternoon.

  “Fine,” I say. And they let me leave it there without pushing more. Which is when I know something is definitely wrong.

  I steel myself
for defending my friends-not-friends thing with Agnes. I can explain how she was the one who was okay with it being that way, until it didn’t work anymore. I can tell them I’m confused.

  But instead of talking about Agnes, Daddy says, “Mattie, your grandmother is getting older, and we’ve made the decision to move her into a retirement community.”

  “What?”

  Mama’s voice rushes in. “She’s okay, don’t worry. It’s just . . . time.”

  Maeve. This is about Maeve. My grandmother’s gloved hands and sparkling eyes flash in front of me.

  “Why?” I ask.

  Daddy looks at Mama, and he says, “It’s the best thing for her, Mat. She isn’t safe living on her own anymore. You may have noticed her memory is a little . . . spotty.”

  And then I think about Maeve’s arm cast, and the way she keeps calling me Elodie, and how she doesn’t label boxes right.

  I swallow back the lump in my throat. My parents stay quiet—they’re good at that, waiting for me to talk. I appreciate it, but I don’t know what to say. Finally, I ask, “Is she okay with moving?”

  “We’re working on that,” Daddy says. “It’s hard. Maeve wants to stay in her house, but she just can’t. With all the stairs and the space she doesn’t need . . . it’s—”

  “It’s not practical anymore,” interrupts Mama.

  “But shouldn’t she get to decide?”

  “To a point, yes,” says Daddy. “And we’ve been talking to her since we got up here, helping her to transition slowly and—”

  “Wait,” I say, putting this together. “Have I been helping her pack up to move?”

  Mama nods. “We thought about it as a yard sale at first because that was easier for her to accept, and we are having a sale. . . . It’ll be such a relief for her to get rid of some old stuff and move into a smaller space where she can—”

  “Get rid of some old stuff?” I repeat back.

  “Well, she has so much . . . ,” Mama starts.

  “You’re making her give up her memories and throw away her treasures!” I shout. “That will make her brain worse! You don’t understand her at all.”

  I flash back to Christmas, how Uncle Jay called it our last one in Maeve’s house. They all knew. Everyone’s been keeping this from me.

  And then I start crying. It just happens. I can’t stop it.

  “Oh, honey,” says Daddy, coming over to put his arm around the back of my chair. I shrink down so that he’s not touching me. I don’t want him to touch me.

  “This isn’t about Maeve’s things—it’s about her quality of life. Mattie, she has to move. That house is too much for someone her age. And with her mind going . . .” He stops talking, and I see Mama’s mouth in a thin line, all concerned. And then I look up at Daddy, who’s very serious and worried.

  I can’t stand their faces.

  So I jump up from my chair and stomp to my room, turning in the doorway. I slam my door and sink down onto the bed. I think of trying to call Lily, but then I realize she never returned that missed call I made a while ago.

  Why is everything changing all at the same time?

  Chapter 23

  The knots of worry in my stomach are getting more jumbled by the hour.

  I call Maeve on Sunday, but she says she’s “busier than a bee making honey,” and we decide I should go over next weekend. I don’t want to wait that long, but you can’t argue with a grandmother.

  When I pass Agnes’s door on Monday morning, I see that it’s covered in shiny green wrapping paper and there are little shamrocks cut out of cardboard that fall in rows from the top of the doorway.

  “Happy St. Patrick’s Day,” I say to no one. I was home all day yesterday with nothing to do, so I finished reading a new mystery book and experimented with my lavender eye shadow. I guess Agnes was decorating her door for the next holiday.

  If she’d asked me, I could’ve helped. I even have a sparkly green glitter marker, so we could have decorated the shamrocks with it. I could’ve asked Agnes how her dad’s visit is going, and I could’ve told her about Maeve and how she has to move.

  I sigh, which is my new thing. And when I get down to the bus stop, Agnes is already there. She waits right by the corner where the door opens. When the bus arrives, she gets on first and doesn’t look at me at all.

  I feel mushed up inside, and I can’t meet anyone’s eyes. If I see someone straight on, they’ll know that something’s wrong. But if you don’t look people in the eyes you don’t feel as much.

  One person I’m not looking in the eyes is Finn, even though I sit next to him on the bus. I keep my head down and pick at what’s left of my sparkly nail polish. Something about knowing that Finn kissed Marisa has made everything seem off with him. I keep picturing him looking into her cold ice eyes and seeing something he likes. He must know something is wrong because he hardly tries to talk to me either, and he doesn’t come by my table at lunch or try to tell me any jokes during class breaks. On Tuesday, Marisa purposely shoves in front of me and sits with him on the bus. He doesn’t say anything about saving the seat for me, which makes me feel like I have an arrow stuck in my chest.

  Agnes is at school every day this week, but she’s not looking at me even more than before, and when we step off the bus now she doesn’t wait for me—she just gets in the elevator, and I can tell that she pushes the close door button so that I can’t ride up with her. I walk slowly to help her out with that—I wouldn’t want to be in an elevator with me either. I look at the clock in the lobby every day, and I see that she was right . . . 4:12 p.m.

  It’s the week before spring break, and Shari and her family leave on Thursday to go to the Bahamas. She’s been all wrapped up in their plans—their hotel complex has something like seven different pools—and I’ve been fake smiling along with her. I’m not sure if she noticed, but I’m glad she’s distracted. I don’t want anyone digging into my mood.

  I hear Finn say his family is going to North Carolina over break, and I feel him looking at me when he says it, but I don’t raise my eyes.

  Mr. Perl notices that I’m being quiet in class, and he makes a joke about my team suffering because I’m “off my game.” Bryce tells me I need to step it up.

  It’s like when things are going wrong, people just pile on and make it worse.

  When I get home on Friday afternoon, my apartment feels lonely even though it’s warm and smells good because Mama is baking sugar cookies. She asks if I’ll help decorate them, but all I can think is that if she had time to bake today before I got home, maybe her hours are getting cut even more at Blue Sky.

  “I made fairy frosting,” she says.

  That used to be my favorite thing, when she mixed vanilla frosting with rainbow swirls running through it—we called it fairy frosting. But today it makes me think of Agnes and all her colors, and suddenly it’s like I can see this cloud of gray all around me. Not even fairy frosting can chase it away.

  I shake my head no and go sit on my bed.

  Daddy’s home in time for dinner, and when I come out of my room, I see him hugging Mama in the living room. They’re swaying slightly, almost like slow dancing, and I hear him say, “It’s been stressful. I’m sorry.”

  Mama steps up on her tiptoes and hugs him tighter. “I know,” she says softly. “Me too.”

  I walk backward into my room, close the door quietly, and bang around for a minute so they know I’m coming out. When I open the door loudly and ask, “What are we having for dinner?” they’ve already parted. Daddy’s setting the table, and Mama’s bringing out a steaming bowl of pasta.

  We sit down and talk about what’s happening on America Sings!, how Daddy has a new client at work, and how Mama’s magic bars sold well today at the bakery, so maybe her manager will notice. I don’t ask about why they were hugging and saying sorry, and they don’t ask me why I’ve been in a mood all week. But somehow, tonight, a part of me that’s been fiddling with the knot of worries in my stomach lets go, and w
hen I relax, some of the knots seem less tangled.

  Chapter 24

  When my grandmother opens the door for Daddy and me on Sunday, I gasp. There are boxes everywhere. The big furniture—the red couch, the chair with the buttons, the dining room table—is still in place, but the smaller things, the sparkling, special things, are gone. Even the red-patterned rug is rolled up in the corner.

  I sink down onto the couch, and Daddy heads into the kitchen. “I’ll make tea,” he says. Maeve comes to sit next to me.

  “What’s happening?” I ask. And I mean with the packing, but I also mean with everything.

  Maeve smiles at me. “A new adventure.”

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving this house.”

  I see her lip quiver—I know I do!—but she just says, “It’s time. I’m an old woman.”

  “You’re not!” I say to her. “If you want to stay, you could stay.”

  “I want to go.” She puts her hand over mine.

  “I don’t believe you,” I say, shaking my head. My grandmother is lying to me.

  I stand up and climb the stairs before she can stop me, up to the little third-floor bedroom that’s been mine and Elodie’s forever, and when I get there I slam the door so it echoes throughout the tall, skinny house. The single bed is child-sized, and my feet almost hang off the edge now, but I still love it. I reach for the old silk comforter with black and red checks, and I bunch it up, burying my face into it to catch my tears. I don’t hear anyone coming for me, and I’m glad.

  After a few minutes, I calm down enough to lie quietly, but I tell myself that I’m not going downstairs. I close my eyes and I must fall asleep, because when I open them again the sunlight patch that was on the wall has moved up to the ceiling and now it’s just a sliver of rose gold.

  I hear soft knocking on my door.

  “Honeypie? I have snacks.”

  I don’t feel as angry anymore, and I’m kind of hungry. So I say, “Come in.”

  Maeve is holding a silver tray with a grilled cheese sandwich and green apple slices. She places it on the nightstand beside me and sits down on the end of my bed.