Let's Pretend We Never Met

by Melissa Walker

  “Does that mean you guys are great at gymnastics or something?” I ask, half joking, but honestly confused.

  “No!” Agnes laughs an out-loud crazy sound. “It means I don’t have to go to school every day if I don’t feel like it. Some days yes, other days no. Balance.”

  “Oh.” She seems confident, but I’m not sure she’s allowed, like, by the law, to not go to school. I didn’t know that was a thing a kid could do.

  “Besides, I’ll go on Monday and I’ll tell the story of how we were heroes for a baby bird. Maybe we’ll get extra credit. Mr. Perl likes things like that.”

  Then Agnes tells me she wants to go check on the nest, so we head down in the elevator. I think she’s right about Mr. Perl, but I get the knot in my stomach again, because I like how things are at school without Agnes there.

  When I look at the baby bird through the binoculars, though, I can see that it’s getting better, with feathers coming in and everything. I decide I shouldn’t worry. At least not right now.

  “I’m going to bring in a report about Billie with an ie next week,” she says.

  “Billie with an ie?”

  Agnes points toward the bird. “That’s her name.”

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  “The same way Grandmother Maeve knows I’m a lightning bug! It just is!” Agnes shouts, and she spins around happily.

  I sort of understand what she means, so I don’t ask her more questions.

  When Doorman Will comes out to say Mama called me in for dinner, I ask Agnes if she wants to eat with us.

  “My mom left me spaghetti,” she says, so I don’t ask again.

  “I’m gonna go up,” I say. She nods but doesn’t move. As I’m leaving, I turn back and see Agnes aiming the binoculars at the nest again.

  “Billie, you are a beautiful bird,” she says very quietly, but I hear her. And when I go inside, I see that Doorman Will is at the window, keeping watch over Agnes.

  At dinner that night, it’s just me and Mama again. Daddy used to be home to eat with us at least a few times a week, but he’s still adjusting at his new job, and also he needs to check in on Maeve, so we have to be supportive. Meaning we can’t bug him about missing family dinner.

  Mama wants to know more about school, and I have lots of things to say, even though it hasn’t been a full week yet—it feels longer, in a good way. We talk about how Shari brings butterscotch candies and shares them with me, and also how Finn is so funny that I almost got in trouble for laughing in class today. I mention Diego too, and how he’s very smart and serious, so she won’t think I talk about Finn too much.

  “That’s great, Mattie,” says Mama. “What’s your favorite part of the day?”

  I think. “Hmm . . . at lunch I sit with Shari and Emily and Robin—Emily and Robin have a different teacher, but they’re really nice.”

  “So lunch is the best?” asks Mama, smiling.

  “Yeah.” I laugh.

  Today at lunch, Robin started getting Shari’s and Emily’s advice about her birthday party planning, and then she turned to me and said, “What do you think, Mattie?” which means I’m definitely invited when it happens. My lunch table is my favorite because there were three of them, but adding me makes four, and Shari and I are in class together all day too, so it seems like we’re going to be best friends. It’s too early to say those words out loud, but I can already sense it. She asked for my phone number to put in her cell, so I had to tell her how I don’t have my own phone. (“It’s so lame,” I said, and everyone agreed and sympathized with me.) I gave her both my mom’s and my dad’s numbers, just in case.

  I’m feeling happy inside as I sit with Mama tonight and we eat our lasagna, but then she asks me how things are going with Agnes and the happy dims.

  “Fine,” I say.

  She gives me a look that reminds me that fine is not an acceptable answer in our family. Daddy says it’s a bad word because people use it to stop up a conversation without saying anything.

  “Good.”

  She raises her eyebrows.

  “We have fun,” I tell Mama.

  “I’m glad,” she says. “Mrs. Davis says she’ll definitely be at school on Monday.”

  “I know.”

  “So you’ll have another friend to be around,” says Mama, and I can feel her looking at my face really hard. So I try to keep it very still.

  “Yup,” I say.

  When we’re almost done eating, Mama says, “Well, I’m glad you’re liking your new school. And I have news!” Then she tells me that she’s going to start working at a bakery called Blue Sky in downtown Philadelphia tomorrow—the one that was an old bus depot. They just called her this afternoon. “My first shift is tomorrow, so I have to be there at four a.m.”

  “That’s great!” I say. “The cookies worked!”

  She nods happily. “They like the blog too.”

  Mama made batches of fancy cookies and delivered them with her job applications—it was Agnes’s idea. She also keeps this baking blog where she tries out recipes and takes really nice photos of what she makes; she has professional lighting and everything.

  “Baking is your happy place,” I say to her.

  “You know I love being home with you too,” she says. “I feel a little guilty that you’ll have to get ready for school on your own some days.”

  “I’m old enough,” I tell Mama, thinking that I really am. Besides, I don’t want her to worry about that—she looks more sparkly right now than she has in weeks, even though she’ll have to be up before the sun. She’s used to those kinds of morning hours. I think bakers are the earliest risers in the world.

  That night, I toss and turn for a while, and when I hear Daddy come home I look at my clock: 10:42 p.m. Mama’s talking quickly like she does when she’s excited, but I can’t make out what she’s saying except for a few snippets about dessert ideas. I don’t hear Daddy respond, but then they put on an old record that they like from when they first met, and even though I don’t really like these songs, the muffled sound of them makes me relax and I drift off to sleep.

  Chapter 11

  On Saturday morning, Mama’s gone when I walk into the living room rubbing my eyes, and Daddy tells me we’re going to pick up Maeve and go to the Bellevue Stratford for brunch. It’s called something else now, but it’s a really old historic hotel so Maeve uses the original name. They serve tea with tiny sandwiches and cookies on stacked silver trays. It seems like where a princess would eat, so I used to love it when I was younger and my hero was Cinderella. Now my hero is the spy girl from my favorite book series, but I still secretly want to be a princess too.

  It’s snowy outside, which would have meant we’d stay home in North Carolina, but Daddy says they know how to plow the roads here, so we get in the car to go anyway, and he tells me that I shouldn’t count on school ever being canceled, like he knew just what I was thinking. Then he says, “Mattie, how is school, anyway?”

  It makes me feel like I’m talking to some relative I don’t ever see, because that’s the kind of big question they always ask. Daddy has been like that kind of relative since we’ve moved. He’s never home. I haven’t been to his work. We used to go to his office every Wednesday night in North Carolina—we’d make a picnic on his floor right under his painting of a windmill because that was the night he usually had to stay late. No one has mentioned office picnics up here.

  I think back to what Mama has said. “It’s only been a few weeks. Daddy needs to settle in. We need to be supportive.”

  “School’s good,” I tell him. “I like my teacher.” I really do—Mr. Perl isn’t as goofy as I thought on the first day. He has a fun way of teaching us things, like after our morning lesson we play a quiz game later in the day where he asks questions about what we learned and we have to buzz in as teams by dinging a bell and answering. We’re building up points that are tracked on a board in the back of the room; whichever team wins gets to pick the location and the theme of
the end-of-school party for our class.

  “That’s great,” says Daddy. “And you’ve met some friends? I mean, besides Agnes.”

  I don’t really like the way he says “besides Agnes.” It seems like he’s not counting her, and I wonder if Mama’s told Daddy about the weird things Agnes does sometimes.

  “Yeah,” I say. “At lunch I sit with Shari and Emily and Robin.”

  “Great,” says Daddy. “It’s good to have lots of different friends.”

  I look at his face closely. He’s smiling, but he doesn’t really seem happy. Then the car gets quiet, so I ask, “Is Maeve okay?”

  “She’s fine,” he says. When we pull up to a red light, he turns and looks at me. “You know that Maeve’s getting older and some things may change, but you don’t have to worry about losing your grandmother.”

  I nod. “I know.” But my body stiffens—that thought had never crossed my mind until he said it.

  My grandmother’s hands don’t stop moving when we sit down at the Bellevue Stratford. We have a corner table with a floral tablecloth covered in see-through lace. Maeve has on white gloves that go up to her elbows, and she brought a pair for me too. Mine are short and pink with bows at the wrists.

  “We must wave our arms about as we lunch, so we can show off our gloves,” she whispers to me. Sometimes she thinks I’m still six years old, but I don’t mind. I feel like we’re at a costume party. The waiter is in on it too—he’s in a tuxedo, and he bows after I order my tea.

  We get a tower of muffins and sandwiches and cookies and cream and jam.

  Then Maeve asks me to tell her more about “that lightning bug of a neighbor.”

  “We rescued a bird named Billie with an ie,” I tell her.

  Maeve’s eyes widen and sparkle. “Billie with an ie!” she says, clasping her gloved hands together. “Brilliant. What’s she like?”

  “She’s a baby,” I tell her. “Agnes is going to do a report about her for school.”

  “Has Agnes been going to school?” asks Daddy. I didn’t even know he was listening because he hasn’t looked up from his phone. Even now he’s scrolling with his thumb.

  “She’s been out a few days,” I say. “But I think it’ll be okay—Mr. Perl likes Agnes.”

  “And why wouldn’t he?” asks Maeve. “Christopher, put that contraption down and have tea with your family!”

  Maeve doesn’t raise her voice, she just makes it stronger somehow, and that means everybody listens. Daddy puts away his phone and reaches for a sandwich. It’s a tiny triangle, and it looks silly in his big hand. He swallows it with one bite and wipes his face on a cloth napkin.

  “Mattie, I thought you and I could work on painting your room today,” says Daddy.

  I look at his face to see if he’s joking, but I don’t think he is.

  “Mama and Agnes and I painted it already,” I tell him. “Right after New Year’s Eve.”

  I see him freeze for a minute, like I’ve hit pause on a TV show, but then he flashes a smile. “We’ll put up some posters, then,” he says. “Maybe make use of those stars you got in your stocking.”

  “That would be great, Daddy.” I’ve actually been waiting for him to help me with those—I want them on the ceiling, but it’s hard to reach, even if I stand on the bed. Or even on a stack of pillows on the bed, which Agnes told me to try. Turns out that’s not easy to balance on.

  “Oh, you can create a whole world with those stars,” says Maeve.

  “I know,” I say. “Agnes has a book about stars that shows you what the signs look like—Virgo and Taurus and all that. She’s going to help me make the ceiling look like the real sky.”

  “That girl,” says Maeve, with the good kind of sigh in her voice. “You picked a fine friend, Elodie.”

  “I’m Mattie,” I say, laughing. But my grandmother looks confused for a second.

  “Who’s Elodie?” she asks.

  Daddy puts his hand over hers. “Elodie is Jay’s daughter, your other granddaughter,” he says. “This is Mattie, my daughter.”

  I frown. Why is Daddy talking to Maeve like she’s a little kid? She just mixed up my name for a second.

  I smile at my grandmother, and she smiles back. “Mattie,” she says, and I nod to reassure her. Then we pick up our cups and clink them together with our pinkies in the air.

  Chapter 12

  Two minutes after Daddy and I get home, I hear a knockknockknock at the door.

  “It’s Agnes,” I tell him, and I watch for his reaction.

  “Well, ask her to bring her star book,” he says with a shrug.

  Daddy’s in a good mood now. He hasn’t looked at his phone since Maeve called it a contraption. Well, maybe he did in private, but not in front of me, anyway.

  When I open the door, Agnes smiles big.

  “Billie flew!” she says, opening her arms up in a big circle and flapping them wildly.

  “What? Really?” I ask, grabbing my coat. “Be right back, Daddy!”

  We race to the elevator and head to the tree, where the strawberry carton is now empty.

  “She got more and more feathers and I spent the morning down here watching and finally she just hopped off the side and flapped and flapped!” Agnes is doing the waving-flying thing again with her arms, and she looks like a rainbow spinning top in her colorful scarf.

  “That’s so amazing,” I say. And it is. Agnes saved this bird.

  “I can’t wait to tell our class about it,” she says.

  I take a deep breath and hope everyone will think it’s as cool as I do. They will . . . right?

  We head back inside.

  “My mom’s working, and I have to be quiet,” says Agnes. “What can we do?”

  “Can we get your star book so we can map out my ceiling?” I ask.

  “Sure!” says Agnes. We enter her apartment, and I see her mom frowning at a glowing laptop on the dining room table.

  “Hi, Mrs. Davis,” I say hesitantly, pausing as Agnes rushes into her room because I’ve been taught to always greet grown-ups.

  She looks up, still frowning, but her mouth quickly breaks into a warm grin. “Mattie!” She closes the laptop. “I’m so glad to see you. Agnes has been telling me about your adventures with Billie and how you’ve nursed her back to health.”

  “It’s mostly Agnes,” I say, because that’s true.

  “You’re a good friend,” says Mrs. Davis, and something in her eyes makes me shift my weight. I am dying to disappear into Agnes’s room, but I’m stuck. “I’ve seen a change in my daughter since you and your family moved in,” she continues. “Agnes is more herself, more relaxed. Having you around seems like it’s done more for her than even her therapist can.”

  I’m silent. I don’t know what to say. I thought therapy was for grown-ups who had, like, really hard things happen to them. Also, does Agnes want me to know about that?

  “That’s good,” I say finally, looking around the room and avoiding Mrs. Davis’s intense eyes. If they’re this strong with glasses covering them, I’m glad she doesn’t wear contacts.

  Suddenly Agnes rushes out of her room. “Got it!” she says. “Let’s go, Mattie.” She pulls me away and through the door and we both yell “Bye!” to her mother and get a “Have fun, girls” in response.

  Daddy and Agnes and I sit down on my bed with her book and my package of glow-in-the-dark stickers. I try to forget what Mrs. Davis said to me because I don’t want to be as important as therapy. I’m only in sixth grade.

  “We don’t have enough to do the whole sky,” Daddy tells us.

  Agnes says, “Of course not! There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on all the beaches on the planet.”

  I think that’s amazing, and Daddy nods at her. “That’s right, Agnes,” he says. Then he looks at me. “Well, pick the constellations you want most.”

  “I’m a Gemini, so definitely that,” I say.

  “I’m a Libra!” Agnes shouts.

  “Leo.” D
addy raises his hand. “Your mama’s a Scorpio.”

  “And Grandmother Maeve?” asks Agnes.

  “Gemini, like Mattie,” Daddy says.

  “Let’s start with those four,” says Agnes, turning to the Gemini page of her book.

  The funny thing about these constellations is that they look nothing like what they’re supposed to be. The Gemini twins are just two sort-of rectangles. The Leo is hardly a lion—more like a jumble of half circles. But I want my sky to look real, so when Daddy holds me up to reach the ceiling and dot it with a pencil, Agnes stands right beneath us and directs my marks.

  “Over to the left two centimeters. No, that’s two-point-three centimeters, more right. No, up just half a centimeter. That’s down! The other up. There!”

  We do this maybe thirty times. I still have no idea how much a centimeter really is, but Agnes keeps talking that way, and it seems to amuse Daddy—he’s smiling. His arms must be tired from picking me up and putting me down, but he doesn’t say that.

  When we’re done, Agnes and I lie back on the bed. “I can’t tell which one’s which,” I whisper.

  “That’s how the real sky is,” Agnes says.

  I scrunch up my eyes and try to find her stars. “Where’s the Libra again?” I ask.

  “There,” she says, sitting up. Her fingers trace a path quickly, and I can tell that she really does see it up there in the jumble of stickers.

  “Wait till they’re glowing at night, Mattie,” says Daddy. “Agnes, you did a great job!”

  He puts his hand on her shoulder for a squeeze, and I jump up quickly when she flinches so much it shakes the bed.

  Daddy pulls away and looks at Agnes, but she smiles as soon as he removes his hand. Then she says, “Thank you, Mr. Markham.”

  There’s a long minute of silence, and I wait for Agnes to explain. “She doesn’t like to be touched,” I say finally.

  “Ah . . . okay,” says Daddy. “I’m gonna get some coffee.” Then he turns and walks out of the room.

  My heart hurts for a minute. Why didn’t Daddy just know about Agnes, like Mama did? I don’t know who to be mad at, so I just feel bad.