Chapter Text
“So, I’m pretty sure that my new next door neighbor is some kind of a spy,” Angie told Vera as she put her clothes in the washing machine next to Vera’s.
“A spy, Angie?” Vera said, looking up from her own pile of laundry, already skeptical. “Is this anything like the time you were absolutely positive that Miriam Fry had kidnapped Sarah’s puppy and it turned out he was just at the vet for an operation?”
“Mrs. Fry was adamant that this was a pet-free building when I moved in! That dog was a barker—and then suddenly, no barking! I still maintain that I was right when I said she would do something drastic when she found out,” Angie protested, gesturing with the dress in her hand for emphasis.
“She evicted her for violating the conditions of her lease. She didn’t hurt the poor dog,” Vera said. She went back to loading her laundry into the machine for a few moments before pausing, unable to resist. “Okay, so what do we know about the new neighbor? What’s your evidence for this spy theory?”
“Well, she’s British. I’ve heard her voice through the wall, and there’s definitely an accent there.”
“Through the wall? Angie,” Vera said, disappointed. “You haven’t even met her yet? Do you even know her name?”
“Well, not properly, but that’s the next bit of intel. When she first moved in the nameplate on her mailbox was typed up and it said M. Carter. Then, a few days later, it was changed, and it said P. Carter, and it was handwritten. Like she’s had to change her name for a secret identity or something.”
“Keeping the same last name isn’t a very solid cover. Next thing you’re going to be analyzing her handwriting on the nameplate.”
“She did have very nice handwriting, very neat. It was kinda annoyingly perfect, actually.”
“Angie, being British and having good handwriting does not make her a spy.”
“Except for the part where I caught her parkour-ing onto the balcony last night,” Angie said, just a tad smug.
“You saw her what-ing onto the what now?” Vera said, incredulously.
“I heard a weird creaky noise outside my window last night, and I saw her hanging from the edge of her balcony, right next to mine, and she just pulled herself up like it was no big deal and slipped inside her apartment. She had no idea that I’d seen her,” Angie told her, excitedly. “She did it so easily, almost gracefully, she wasn’t panicking at all when she was dangling from the edge there, three stories up.”
“That is very…odd,” Vera conceded. “But it still does not mean that she’s a spy.”
“I’ll just have to convince you then. You know what that means?” Angie asked, slyly.
“What?” Vera asked, already dreading Angie’s response.
“My mission for the next week is to gather more intel, and report back next Tuesday with more compelling evidence,” Angie told her, grinning.
“So you’re going to spy on your neighbor to prove that your neighbor’s a spy?” Vera said slowly, already growing exhausted with Angie’s antics, and they’d barely started the wash cycle.
“Yep,” Angie gave a salute.
Angie had only moved into the building a few months ago. At 26, it was the first time she’d had her own place, away from her parents. Even in college, she’d lived at home and commuted. Vera was the only friend she’s made so far, and their relationship mostly consisted of greeting each other when they pass in the hallways and their standing laundry date on Tuesday evenings, when neither of them ever had anything better to do.
Angie told Vera plenty of stories about growing up in the Martinelli household, and between that and being an actress, Vera had decided that Angie was drama starved, and was making up stories wherever she could find them to save her from boredom.
Vera had also told Angie to stop watching so many conspiracy theory shows on the History channel late at night. This, of course, just made Angie even more determined to prove that she was right.
When not attending every audition she could get into, Angie worked at a diner a few blocks away from her apartment. After her shift the next day, she decided to buy a pie before heading home.
Angie knocked on the door directly next to hers, pie in hands, as soon as she returned to her building. When the door swung open, she suddenly regretted not changing out of her awful uniform. The woman standing in front of her was blindingly beautiful, and Angie was still wearing an apron. The glimpses Angie had caught of this woman before had not done her justice in the least.
“Hi,” Angie took a deep breath, trying not to stammer or sound nervous. Best to just barrel through it. “I’m Angie, I live next door. I realized I hadn’t really greeted you properly, or at all really, and I figured I oughta fix that and welcome you and introduce myself and all, so I brought you pie, so I hope you like pie,” Angie realized she was rambling, and cut herself off before it got too much worse. “It’s apple.”
Her new neighbor smiled at her in amusement, “Did you actually just welcome an Englishwoman to America with an apple pie?”
“Well, I was thinking more ‘Welcome to the building’ than ‘Welcome to the country,’ or maybe just ‘Welcome to New York,’ since I don’t know how long you’ve been in the city,” Angie told her. Her neighbor was still smiling, but she looked hesitant. “Come on, English. I promise it’s really good pie,” Angie said, waggling the pie in front of her. “I have to sing the praises of this pie at work all day and I never get to have any, so if you don’t want any I will be more than happy to take it back to my apartment and eat it all by myself.”
“It’s Peggy,” Peggy said with a small sigh as she opened the door fully and stood aside for Angie to come in. “It really does look like a nice pie.”