He was the devil in my eyes, at least.
Run! Run, Maggie! My mind kept screaming, but I stayed still, unable to look away from the horror before my eyes.
“Maggie!”
I emerged from the water at the sound of my name and released a deep breath before taking a deeper inhale.
“Maggie, Mrs. Boone is here to see you,” Daddy hollered from downstairs. I stood up in the bathtub and unblocked the drain, allowing the water to swirl clockwise down the pipes. My long, stringy blond hair hung down to my buttocks, and my skin stayed ghostly pale.
My eyes met the clock on the wall.
6:01 p.m.
Mrs. Boone was late. Really late.
Years ago, when she had heard about my trauma, she’d asked if she could meet with me once a day so I could interact with someone. Secretly, I thought she met with me each day to hide her own loneliness, but I didn’t mind. When two lonely souls found one another, they held on tight, no matter what. I wasn’t certain if that was a good or bad thing yet. One would think when two lonely people came together, the two negatives would cancel out and make a positive, but that wasn’t the case. The two seemed to make an even deeper level of loneliness, one they loved to drown in.
Mrs. Boone often brought her cat, Muffins, along with her to entertain me at lunchtime. She always came by at noon, and we’d sit down in the dining room for sandwiches and tea. I hated tea, and Mrs. Boone knew I hated tea, yet each day she found the need to bring it to me from the local bakery, Sweetest Addictions.
“You’re young, which means you’re stupid, so you don’t truly understand how wonderful tea is for you. It will grow on you,” she promised—a promise that was always a lie. It never grew on me. If anything, I hated it more and more each time.
She had lived in Britain when she was young and in her prime, and I had to assume that was where her love for the mucky drink came from. Since the death of her husband years ago, she had always dreamed of moving back to England. He was the reason she had come to America, but after he passed away, I guessed as time went by she’d lost her nerve to go back to England.
“Stanley was home,” she’d always say about her late husband. “It didn’t matter where we lived, because as long as he was there, I was home.” After he passed, it was almost as if Mrs. Boone became homeless. When Stanley packed his bags and went off to the afterlife, he took Mrs. Boone’s safe haven with him—his heartbeats. I often wondered if she ever closed her eyes for a few minutes and remembered those heartbeats.
I knew I would.
“Maggie!” Daddy shouted, shaking me from my thought.
I reached for the oversized white towel on the counter and wrapped it around my body. Stepping out of the tub, I moved in front of the mirror and grabbed my hairbrush. As I began to get the knots out of my hair, I stared at my blue eyes that matched Dad’s and the sculpted cheekbones I had also received from him. The small freckles across my nose came from my grandma, and the long eyelashes, my grandpa. So much of my ancestry could be seen each day simply by staring into a mirror. I knew it was impossible, but sometimes I swore I had Mama’s smile and her frown.
“Maggie,” Daddy hollered again. “Did you hear me?”
I debated not responding, because I was pretty irritated that Mrs. Boone thought it was okay to drop by so late in the afternoon as if I hadn’t other things to do. Twelve noon was when she was supposed to come. We had a routine, a planned schedule, and she had gone against it that afternoon. I didn’t even truly understand why she bothered to stop by each day, or why I allowed her to come over for lunch. She was ruder than rude most of the time, telling me how stupid I was and how ridiculous it was that I wouldn’t speak a word.
Childish, she called it.
Immature, even.
I guessed I kept dealing with her each afternoon because she was one of my few friends. Sometimes her rude comments were so harsh they’d pull a reaction from me—a small grin, tiny, silent chuckles only I could hear. The seventy-year-old fart was one of the best friends I ever had. She was my favorite enemy, too. Our relationship was complicated, so the best word to described us was frenemies—friendly enemies. Plus, I still loved her cat as much as I had when I was a child, and she still followed me around the house, rubbing her soft fur against my legs.
“Maggie May?” Daddy hollered again, this time knocking on the bathroom door. “Did you hear me?”
I knocked on the door twice. One knock meant no, two knocks meant yes.
“Well, let’s not keep Mrs. Boone waiting, okay? Hurry downstairs,” he said.
I almost knocked once against the door to show my sassiness, but I refrained from the act. I braided my still soaked hair into one giant braid that hung over my left shoulder. I put on my underwear, then slipped my pale yellow dress over my head. I grabbed my novel from the side of the tub before opening the bathroom door, then hurried down the stairs toward the dining room to see my favorite frenemy.
Mrs. Boone always dressed as if she were off to meet Queen Elizabeth. She wore jewels and gems around her neck and her fingers, and they always sparkled against the faux fur she wore around her shoulders. She always lied and said it was real fur, but I knew better. I’d read enough books based on the forties to know the difference between real fur and fake.
She always wore dresses and tights with sweaters and short heels, and then she’d place a shimmering colorful collar around Muffins’ neck to match her outfit.
“It’s rude to keep the elderly waiting, Maggie May,” Mrs. Boone said, tapping her fingers against the cherry oak table.
It’s rude to keep the young waiting, too, Mrs. Boone.
I gave her a tight smile, and she cocked an eyebrow at me, displeased. I sat down beside her, and she pushed my cup of tea toward me. “It’s Black Earl Grey tea. You’ll like it this time,” she said.