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We walked up the stairs back at the apartment block, Eli still chatting away. My problem was that he wasn’t telling me about his day but about the cartoon that he watched a week ago.
Several times I tried to get a word in but each time he would just keep talking. It made the silence when he was gone that much worse. I didn’t realize how much he talked until I spent time on my own.
“Can we go see Miss Maggie?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said and started on the last set of stairs.
Miss Maggie is one of the people who lives on our floor. She came around and introduced herself when I first moved in. When I opened the door and saw an old lady with grey hair, I expected her to give me a cake or something to welcome us.
Instead she firmly told me that she may be old but she didn’t act like those old farts in the next building over. She told me to expect loud music to come from her apartment and not to complain.
She started to come around more often and soon bonded with Eli and his love for cartoons.
Max had put a stop to her coming around but that didn’t stop me from going and seeing her a couple of times a week. I preferred to be in her apartment anyway.
Eli knocked on the door and pushed it open.
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“Miss Maggie?” I always made sure that she knew who was coming. Not for her sake, but for mine.
Once I came in and didn’t ‘announce’ myself as she would say. I nearly got smacked round the head with a baseball bat. Suffice it to say that I always ‘announced’ myself now.
“Kay? Eli? That you?” she asked.
“Yeah!” Eli shouted and ran down the hallway. There were two reasons he loved to come to Miss Maggie’s. To watch cartoons and to see the cats.
I went down the short hallway and into the small living room. The apartment wasn’t big, but then there was only Miss Maggie. All the furniture circa nineteen seventies matched, complete with a crochet blanket on the back of the couch.
Photos lined most of the walls, if you followed them in the right order it showed Miss Maggie’s whole life. I loved to sit here and look at them, especially the black and white ones. They all held a certain history that I found fascinating.
When I walked into the living room, Miss Maggie was listening intently to Eli, I gave her a kiss on her cheek and headed straight for the kitchen.
“So I think he’s going to be my best friend.” I heard Eli say.
“That’s really nice, dear. What's his name?”
“Andre, and we played with the trains as well.”
“And what about the other young man?”
“No way!” Eli shouted back. I rolled my eyes and switched the kettle on.
I pulled two cups down from the green cupboard and place a tea bag in each. Earl Grey tea. I hated the stuff.
My lips pursed from pouring the water over the tea bags, just the smell of it made my eyes water. I was a coffee girl and nothing would ever sway me from that.
I carried the cups in and placed them on the table next to Miss Maggie. Eli sat in the middle of the couch both cats sprawled over his lap. Careful not to disturb them I sat down gently. Henry, the ginger one, lifted his head and meowed at me. One of those ‘don’t come any closer’ kind of meows.
I never left here without a scratch from at least one of them.
“How was your day dear?” Miss Maggie asked, picking up her tea and taking a sip.
“Lonely.” I huffed and sat back.
“I bet, it’s a big change.”
“Yeah.” I picked my tea up, grimaced when I took a sip and put it back down. I really needed to start bringing some coffee with me.
