Falling into a Second Chance by Alie Garnett
Chapter Five
“Manic Monday”by The Bangles suddenly started to play throughout the house. Though Agatha couldn’t hear the speakers on the main floor, she knew it was ringing throughout that floor also. She sang along as the words began, though she had never had the panic of being late for a job on Monday morning—or any morning for that matter. Her entire work career had been focused on nights. Waitressing, bartending…. At one time, she’d even been a night manager at a hotel. She was a night person.
There was nothing better than to crawl into bed as the sun came up, pull the covers over her head, and sleep until noon, or well past noon if there was enough silence. She would do it every day if given the opportunity, but she no longer worked odd hours for little pay and hope that there would be tips. Her only job now was as a waiter for her sisters’ catering business. It sucked, but neither of her sisters would fire her, and she couldn’t walk away from them. Some weeks it was the only time she saw them anymore.
Just one year ago, they had all been living here in the big boxy house they had been raised in. Sure, the oldest sister, Harper, was thirty, and the youngest, Buzz, was twenty-five at the time, but they all had bounced back to living together with Mom. Mom had been a bubbly thirty-five at the time and loved her stepkids as much as she loved the two she had borne herself.
Last year her stepmom had finally landed the love of her life. After years of pining for Harrison and oddly already having two children together, he finally noticed the perky blonde who worked in his office. They had dated for a short time and had married within a few months. Sera Lovely had started the great Lovely Fall, which had led to all four of her sisters finding a man in quick succession. Agatha was the last man standing, in the house and in the game of love.
Laying the hunter green pencil down, she looked over her drawing of a rabbit and a donkey talking. She knew what they were saying but hadn’t added the words yet. The illustration looked like she had imagined it, which wasn’t always the case. Sometimes her pictures came out wonky, and she had to redraw them.
Pushing away from her desk, she surveyed her domain. She’d had this bedroom since she was ten when sleeping in the same room with her sister Buzz became too much. One afternoon after school, she had dragged her mattress and all her worldly possessions up to the attic, and nobody had said a word. Of course, her real mom had been gone for years by then, and her dad didn’t care much about any of his kids, so he didn’t say anything.
Her bed was covered with stark white sheets and bedding. It was a dim room and needed the white linen to bring in the light. For years she had slept on black sheets, but as she grew up, she’d changed them to white. But she no longer slept in that bed unless she couldn’t make it down the stairs to the master bedroom. Since her sisters had slowly moved out of the house and in with boyfriends, fiancé’s, or husbands, Agatha had claimed the largest room as her own.
Still singing along with the song, Agatha headed down the flight of stairs to the second floor into the room she slept in now and grabbed the brightly colored box from the dresser. The box had been there in the closet for three weeks, until today waiting for today. In this room, her bedding was walnut brown and mint green, and she had loved it when she had seen it online a few months before.
Box in hand, she headed down the next flight of stairs to the main floor as another song about Monday came on. With a loud voice, she requested the little computer assistant to turn it off. She loved technology that kept her on time, because clocks had never been her thing. Many jobs had she lost because she forgot to go into work, too busy drawing or sleeping. More than once, a sister had yelled at her that she was missing a family function because she was drawing or sleeping. Now that they had all moved out, she spent all her time drawing or sleeping, except from 3 to 5 p.m. on weekdays.
Leaving the package on the kitchen counter, she grabbed a pop from the fridge and went through the big house again to the front door. Across the large wraparound porch, she skittered down the steps and grabbed the mail, sitting on the top step to wait.
At 3:10 p.m., Violet and Emmaline would get off the bus four blocks down and walk to her, passing their parents’ new house as they went. Sera and Harrison worked until after 5 p.m., sometimes later. Most days, Emma would just go home, and Violet would walk alone, but some days, Emma wanted something to eat, and Agatha would feed them.
Flipping through the letters that had come that day, she saw bill, bill, paycheck. She still couldn’t believe that she got paid to draw. It had been her dream ever since she was seven years old, and now she was doing it at twenty-seven. She tore the envelope open and grinned—the number was higher than it had been last month. She was getting paid well for her drawing.
Last year, after a few missteps and a lot of chickening out, she had walked into the office of the publishers Abbott & Merchant and had blown them away. Or so they said three months later when they offered to buy all nine of the children’s books she had completed.
The last envelope was even more important than the paycheck but wouldn’t be possible without the paycheck. It was a letter from her lawyer, not the lawyer it should be, but a stranger instead. Just as she was getting published, her stepmom married a lawyer, but by then, she was already with someone else. Opening it, she saw the papers Aspen Andrews had told her she was sending on Friday. In two weeks, she would own the house behind her, every inch of it. Not that she had been worried that the current owner would kick her out since it was her dad. But she wanted to own it and not have to think about the future. It would be hers.
So far, she hadn’t told Sera or any of her sisters that she was buying the house from their father because then she would have to tell them that she had quit her job as a bartender at various clubs and bars around town. Then she’d also have to tell them that she didn’t actually need the job at her sisters’ catering company anymore either. She hadn’t told them that she had sold her books.
Yes, she should tell them, but it just never came up. Agatha was known as the unpredictable one, the jobless one, the one who was home and dependable. Sure, being unpredictable and dependable usually didn’t happen at the same time—she hadn’t been unpredictable for a few years now, but the memory still lingered with her family.
As she waited, she noticed the for sale sign was gone from the front yard of the big old house across the street. Hilda Jenkins had lived there for over sixty years, but she was gone now. In all her twenty-seven years, Agatha hadn’t made it past the front door of any of the houses on the block. The closest she had gotten was during trick or treating. Never had one of her few friends lived on her street. Sera and Harrison had recently bought a nice house two blocks over, and that was the only one she had been in on that block. Agatha had always dreamed of having a friend right next door, but that had never happened, much to her disappointment.
When she had been growing up, all the houses in her neighborhood contained old people—at least, maybe they seemed old only because she was a kid. But since they were only now dying off, they were possibly not as old as Agatha had thought back then. Now there were families and kids and block parties; the street was far more active than it had ever been before. So far, she couldn’t say if she liked it or not.
Agatha grinned when she caught sight of the little dark-haired girl with the pink backpack of a cartoon character that Agatha could now discuss ad nauseam because Violet had told her all about it. The kid wasn’t Sera’s baby for nothing. Bubbly and an extrovert with a capital E, Violet was always happy and always talking, even before Agatha could hear her.
Today Violet turned nine. She was getting older and would soon lose interest in her boring, quiet older sister, but for now, the kid loved Agatha and would spend every day with her if possible. She usually spent two hours with Violet before her parents came home from work. It wasn’t the time she had spent with older sister Emma when she was this age, but it was something.
Agatha had been eleven when Emma was born to her new stepmom, her dad already gone. Agatha had only needed one look at the baby to know that they were sisters; they both had the same fine black hair. Though the two shared no blood, they were bonded from the beginning. Agatha took an active role in raising the baby and had been her primary babysitter. Her other sisters were busy with school activities, which Agatha had no interest in. At the time when it should have bothered her that she had to stay home, she had actually loved having a built-in excuse.
When Agatha was nineteen, Sera had brought home Violet, another black-haired baby for Agatha to love. That time around, Agatha didn’t have to work around school, as it had only taken her a few weeks to know that art school was not for her. She just wanted to do what she wanted to do, no assignments. So, she had been sort of a nanny for years and worked nights as a bartender, but she had been able to spend her days with her baby sisters. Now that they were older, she missed those times.
“Emma got to go home and said I could not,” was all Agatha heard Violet say as the girl walked past the mailbox and started up the steps.
“Because you have to stay away until your party,” Agatha explained yet again. They had talked about Violet’s party a dozen times since the plan had been hatched, each time the younger girl arguing why the plan was bad.
“But I want the party now.” The little girl stomped her foot before heading up the steps to Agatha.
“You’ll just have to wait,” Agatha said firmly. Sera wouldn’t like it if she brought her daughter home now. She and Harrison had taken the day off to get ready for the party. Agatha knew that they had done other things besides getting ready for the party because a kid-free day was a kid-free day.
“Can I open the present from you?” A little black eyebrow went up, and Violet’s blue eyes stared at her in question.
“I promised to bring it to the party.” Agatha accepted Violet’s ready hug.
“Please, Ag!” she begged.
“Can you act surprised when you open it again?” Agatha laughed. She couldn’t say no to her.
“Of course I can.” She knew the girl couldn’t; she was the worst secret-keeper in the family.
“You must be the Cramers,” came a voice from the bottom of the stairs. “I’m Chris Lowell. I just bought the Jenkins house.”
Peeking out from behind Violet, Agatha suddenly couldn’t breathe. Chris Lowell? She hadn’t seen him in almost two years. She assumed he was still a big football star, so why was he buying a house in her neighborhood? In her safe, little Chris-free neighborhood.
Looking him over, Agatha noticed that his curls were back and that he wasn’t as broad as he was before. He still had some amazing muscles in his arms, but not like that night two years ago.
Even then, she knew sleeping with Chris was a mistake, and doing it the night before an important career-changing meeting was her worst mistake. She missed her meeting and everything that it could have brought into her life. All because she spent the night with him when she knew she shouldn’t.
His eyes were looking her over from head to toe. She wondered if he would recognize her this time. He had last time, but she had changed since then—changed a lot. Two years before, she had been stick-skinny with crazy hair. Since then, she had gained forty pounds. The mohawk had grown into a black bob that was now just above her shoulders, though still stick-straight because Agatha had never had curls. She looked a lot like a mom and less like a homeless druggie, even if she didn’t have kids of her own.
“No, the Cramers live there.” Violet pointed at the house next door. “I am Violet, and this is Agatha. We live here. Sorry, I mean I live down there, and she lives here now.”
Agatha couldn’t stand another moment near him. After all, nothing had changed in two years or even since high school. “Violet, I’m sure he’s not interested.” Her body wanted him to remember her even though her heart begged him not to. Agatha needed walls between them. She couldn’t do this today; today was Violet’s birthday. She needed to focus on her.
“Agatha? I pictured someone a lot older.” Chris’s brown eyes were still as captivating as they had been at thirteen when he called her Chrissy all year, and as panty-melting as they had been in that hotel room at twenty-five.
“Sorry, just me with an old lady name.” She shrugged and took Violet’s hand. “We have to have a snack. See you around the neighborhood.”
No way was she sticking around in case he actually realized who she was. If that ever happened, he seemed to have the ability to forget her. She wished she had that ability.
“See you around,” he called.
Agatha took her sister into her house to feed her and let her open the present..
