Walls of Fire

7: An Encounter with Lucy

I nervously bit my lip before answering.

"I am Amy."

She arched up her eyebrow, clearly not satisfied with my answer.

Recalling James's words about my false introduction, I made an effort to provide a further explanation. "I am James's distant cousin from London. I am here to study in New York and I needed a place to settle down." Still, there was no change in her expressizon and the air was gradually reaching the peak of crispiness. I smiled subtly and pronounced, "James has been a great help to me."

The old lady pressed her lips together into a firm line and uttered, "Miss what's your surname?"

"Uh-," I scratched my head for a minute and answered back, "Black."

Certainly, I was sure with the conclusion that James's neighbours were super bothering.

"Have we met before on any family occasion before?"

"Yes, I suppose. Last year we shared a small encounter in one of our aunt's wedding." I lied.

"What's the name of your hypothetical aunt?" Her voice was strict and firm.

I led out a nervous chuckle and said, "Aunt Jenny."

It was a common name and the close possibility of the names clashing against each other's was high.

"Ah I see JENNY!" She cried out hysterically.

I sighed in relief. My nerves began to relax and I patted my mind secretly for the witty answer.

"Whom did she marry?" The moment I thought the round of interrogation was terminated, her monotonous voice hit my ears again.

"A man." I rolled my eyes.

The rhetoric answer was her least expectation. She crossed her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes, sending me death stares.

I gulped as I gaped my lips to proceed talking. "Umm-mmm I- "

She nictated in a row, observing me fumble and stutter with the response.

"You claim to know my niece Jenny but why can't you answer a simple question?" Not breaking the intense eye contact, she mocked with sarcasm. "Are you suffering from
dementia, honey?"

Fuck!! Caught badly on the charge of lying.

She recognised me to be a stranger a long time back and I was confident that no amount of excuses were sufficient to establish myself. However, depsite of knowing this fact, she didn't wish to miss a chance to bombard questions about a subject alien to me. Perhaps, my bundle of crappy hilarious answers was a source of entertainment for her.

"We do have relatives in England, but none of them is from London." She confirmed boldly.

My mind was pondering with thousands of questions. I tried to stress my mind to recollect James's exact words.

Fuck! He asked me to introduce myself as a person from England and I was a fool to add some extra details to the statement. The fault was all mine.

"I'll insist you to put forth a clarification about how do you guys know each other. What are you doing in James's house? Wait-" Her eyes travelled down and paused on my ring finger. Her eyeballs widened immediately as a horrible idea might have flashed through her mind "Did you marry my son?"

"Son?" I jolted back at her reply.
The word only seemed to indicate the fact that the old lady was none other than James's mother. It was obvious for her to catch my false statements.