The weird thing was, I was kind of good at it. Me, who couldn’t hardly hold a conversation with a stranger not a month before. Maybe it was having Jeremiah with me, ghostly all the time, or maybe it was just my newfound confidence and purpose, but I liked all the small talk and glad-handing, I liked meeting people’s kids and grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. I liked everybody knowing my name, everybody wanting to know me. And so what if it was mostly older folks? When you’ve been ignored and disliked as long as I had, you’ll take any kind of attention you can get, and from anybody. And those people liked me. Hell, they loved me. Just for being me. You should have seen Grandma, the way she smiled at me, how proud she was. I never felt so loved and accepted in my whole life.

I even saw Mr. Cartwright, sweating and shaky, come walking up to Grandma and me, wanting to say hi to us. I’d never seen a man so fearful as he was of my grandma, but he was still brave enough to try, and I respected that. When I realized she was about to ignore him, same as usual, I figured, what the hell?

I stepped in front of her and stuck my hand out.

“How are you today, Mr. Cartwright?” I said.

I swear to you, the man looked up at me with tears in his eyes. He didn’t take my hand—he wouldn’t dare.

“Thank you,” was all he said, “thank you so much,” and he stumbled away.

“Taking charge of things now, aren’t we?” said Grandma.

“I’m just trying to give the man a fair chance,” I said.

“Well, he did get you safely through an evening at the Clock, I’ll give him that. And don’t look so surprised. Not much happens in this town without me knowing about it one way or the other. Now come along, we’ve got work to do.”

After a couple of hours of that kind of thing, I started to feel pretty good about myself.

That’s why, when Grandma was chatting up the seamstress about an alteration for me and I saw this sweet-looking old lady beckoning at me through the window, I figured I would step outside and say hi to her.

She was a short woman, bone-skinny, probably in her seventies or so, standing under a shade tree just across the street. She wore one of those pink dresses you see old ladies wear in church sometimes, even though it wasn’t Sunday. A huge purse dangled from her left hand, stuffed full of something and heavy, from the way she was straining to hold it.

I walked on over to her.

“Hi, ma’am,” I said.