by Carrie Mac
In Art class, Junie glanced down at her sketchbook. Forty-five minutes had passed, and all she had to show for it was an angry-looking mess of charcoal that kind of looked like a monster in a box. Surprise, surprise. Wouldn’t want the school psychologist to get a hold of that.
Lulu leaned over. “What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Junie glanced at what Lulu was working on: an elaborate pen-and-ink drawing of a fairy perched gracefully on a toadstool. It might as well have been a self-portrait. Lulu was a tiny, elfin girl, with fine features and big green eyes. Her long, dark brown hair hung halfway down her back, and her flowy skirts and shimmering tops and sandals all year round made her appear altogether otherworldly. “What’s yours?” Junie said, hoping to shift the subject off of herself and her disturbing work of art. If you could call it art.
“Your drawing looks very, very angry.” Lulu shook her head a little. “That’s not healthy, Junie.”
“Duly noted, Lulu.”
Junie considered Lulu a friend—a really good one, actually—even if she didn’t know a thing about her life at home. She was Ollie’s girlfriend—if you could believe that a geek like him could find true love in the tenth grade. They were both super-smart, he was dorky, she was whimsical, and together they were sickeningly sweet. Junie considered Ollie a friend too, and he was yet another one who had no idea about the mess she went home to every day.
Junie and Lulu stopped by their lockers and then made their way to the cafeteria, where Tabitha was waiting for Junie just outside the door. Lulu went ahead to join Ollie, leaving Tabitha and Junie behind.
“Look.” Tabitha pointed to their usual table through the open doors. There was Lulu, just sitting down beside Ollie, and there was Wade Jaffre, too.
“Wow.” This was an interesting new development. Junie didn’t know what he’d done during his lunch hour until now, but there he was, in the flesh, at her table. “He must really like you.”
“After this morning? Highly doubt it. More likely you. He probably thinks I’m a total goody-goody.” Tabitha yanked her arm, forcing Junie’s attention back on her. “Either way or neither way, you have to come clean about your parents.”
“But you agreed to play along!”
“That was before you were so awful!”
“Tabitha, that isn’t fair.” Another glance at the table. Wade was looking their way. He waved. Junie and Tabitha both broke from their argument to each give him a flirty little wave back. And then they went back to it.
“Isn’t it?”
“Don’t go all parental on me, okay? You can’t honestly tell me that you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing as me.”
“I can so.”
“Oh yeah?”
He was still looking at them, only now he was waving them over. Tabitha held up a finger, gesturing that they’d be another minute.
“What would you have done, oh Holier Than Thou Tabitha, who is—in fact—a total goody-goody?”
“Told him to stop in front of the house and let me out so I could go referee my deeply embarrassing parents.”
Junie thought that that was actually a pretty good response. But then Tabitha had had a long time to come up with it. It was infinitely easier to come up with a witty retort after the fact.
“Well, it’s too late. I can’t go back in time, as much as I’d like to for a zillion reasons, so here we are. I’ve got a good little lie going, and don’t you go messing it up. Or I’ll trump you.”
“You would?” She looked genuinely hurt. Since they were old enough to know what “trump” meant they’d had trump power over each other. It was a little like doubledog-dare-you, only it was even more binding. Junie could trump her, and Tabitha could trump Junie, but never at the same time. Whoever got there first. And Junie just had.
“I would. So this is me officially trumping you on this matter, Tabitha Faith Dillard. You have to play along with my lie.”
Tabitha clutched her lunch bag to her chest, horrified. “I can’t believe that you just did that, Junie.”
“Well, I did.” Junie headed for the table. “Now come on. Your boyfriend is clearly requesting your company.”
“Or your boyfriend,” Tabitha said, catching up.
“Or Ollie’s,” Junie suggested. This sent them into a fit of giggles, just in time for both of them to look like ditzes by the time they got to the table.
Ollie and Lulu and Wade were talking about the bottle drive. Who knew one little charity fundraiser could command such time and attention? Ollie and Lulu were sitting side by side on one side of the table, with Wade all by himself in the middle of the bench on the other side. Tabitha and Junie looked at each other, silently daring the other to sit first. With a defiant arch of her eyebrow— payback for trumping her—Tabitha helped herself to the spot on Wade’s left. Not to be outdone, Junie slid in on his right side.
Neither Junie nor Tabitha contributed much to the conversation; they were too busy having their own silent argument with each other. Junie couldn’t believe that Tabitha was acting this way—she might have been the only person who knew the truth about Junie’s home and screwed up family, but she didn’t actually know what it was like to live there. To have that be her life.
When the bell rang, Junie pulled Tabitha aside. “Listen, don’t try to fix this, okay? Sometimes it’s okay to lie. Sometimes it’s even better to lie. This is one of those times.”
“It’s never better to lie.”
“Yes, it is, Tabitha.” Junie squeezed her arm. “You might not have had one of those times yet, but I have. Just trust me on this, okay?”
Tabitha pulled her arm away and held it to her chest, as if Junie’s touch had been scalding. “For now. I guess. But I don’t like it.”
“And I don’t like my life, but it is what it is for now. I’ll tell him the truth when the time is right. Leave that up to me, okay? You don’t have to worry about it. Just play along.”
“Fine. I’ll play along. But I’ll worry about it, too.”
Junie wanted to walk home with Tabitha after school, just to make sure that things were okay between them, but it was Wednesday. Wednesday was her father’s night to have her at his place. The current arrangement was that he got her every Wednesday and every other weekend. She usually agreed to hang out with her dad on Wednesdays, though she wouldn’t spend the night, and she rarely went otherwise. Partly because of That Woman, but mostly because of her mom. Junie didn’t think she should be left alone, and her dad seemed to agree, as he didn’t do much to enforce the weekend visits.
Junie went out to the parking lot to wait for her dad and was relieved when Tabitha joined her, sitting beside her on the curb.
“Are we okay?” Tabitha asked.
“Mind-reader freak.” Junie leaned against her. “I think we’re okay. You think we’re okay?”
“I guess. Yeah.”
She and Tabitha had to leave it at that, because her dad pulled into the parking lot just then. Even before he stopped, Junie could see that That Woman was sitting in the passenger seat, and Princess Over All III—her prizewinning Weimaraner—was stretched out across the back seat, front paws regally set one atop the other. Junie said goodbye to Tabitha with a tight hug and then approached the car.
“Where am I supposed to sit?”
That Woman—Evelyn St. Claire, if Junie was being polite—turned and gave Princess a look. That was all it took and the dog sat up, now only taking up half the back seat. Evelyn looked at Junie, all smiles.
“There,” she said. “Better?”
“Better would be the dog in the very back, where dogs are supposed to be.” Junie opened the door. “That would be slightly better. Very slightly.”
Once Junie was in and the door was closed and they pulled away, Evelyn turned and said, “Better is a negotiable quality. We all have our own versions of what is better.” Another smile.
“Dad?” Junie pu
t it out there in general, trying to fill that little word with all of her questions why. Why was he with That Woman, the life coach he’d hired to help her mom but who had only succeeded in breaking up his marriage and ruining her life even more than it was already? Why had he brought her along today, on their day? Why did he like her in the first place?
“I got off early, and Evelyn is done for the day, so we thought we’d go get ice cream before dinner. Live on the wild side. Dessert before the main course.”
Evelyn laughed. She turned to Junie again. “Your father is so funny, Juniper.”
Junie didn’t think it was funny at all.
“What if I don’t want ice cream?” This elicited small daggers from her father via the rear-view mirror.
They drove silently for a while. That Woman rested her hand on Junie’s father’s thigh. Princess Over All III stared at her out of the corner of her eye as she sat facing carefully forward, hardly moving a muscle as the car leaned into the corners and pulled to and from complete stops. That dog was not a dog. That dog was a robotic statue.
And That Woman was not a woman. She was an evil home wrecker. What kind of personal life coach would do that to a client? Especially a client as vulnerable as Junie’s mother. She’d lured her father away with her perfect ponytail and tailored suits. She’d charmed him away with her limegreen hybrid car and downtown loft. She’d weaselled her way into their lives by lying, saying that she could make Junie’s mom better when all she wanted was to snatch her dad away and make him her love slave.
Junie let her thoughts slide back to ice cream as her dad parked the car. She did not want ice cream. She did not want to be here with That Woman and her dog. She didn’t even particularly want to be with her dad. With a sigh, she climbed out of the car and trailed into the ice cream parlour behind her dad. That Woman waited outside. She didn’t eat ice cream, and didn’t want to leave Princess tied up.
Junie reluctantly ordered chocolate peanut swirl, which was, in fact, her favourite. But all that thinking about the state of her ruined family turned her stomach and she really, honestly, didn’t want the ice cream. She waited until her father and Evelyn strolled ahead of her along the river path, away from the ice cream shop, and then she dumped it in the garbage. Princess Over All III looked back just then, from her perfect heel at Evelyn’s side, as if to say she knew all, saw all. Which apparently she did. She even slept up in the loft bedroom, where her father and Evelyn slept, which meant that she was watching when they did it. That thought was the one that tipped Junie over the edge. Her stomach swirled and churned. A horrible image invaded her thoughts: her father’s naked, hairy butt plunging up and down between That Woman’s waxed stick legs. She doubled over and ran for the women’s washroom, where she threw up her lunch into the garbage can. Finished, she cupped her hands under the faucet and rinsed out her mouth with water. She spat, and rinsed again, but the taste of bile was still there. Welcome to another fabulous Wednesday night, brought to you by the home wrecker and the oblivious fool and their creepy omniscient dog.
FIVE
On the morning of the bottle drive, Junie woke to the steady patter of rain. She pulled on the outfit she and Tabitha had agreed on the night before and made her way downstairs. Her mother had slept in her chair again, for the seventeenth day in a row.
“Mom.”
A line of drool crept down her chin. Her hair was smashed flat on one side and sticking up on the other. She was snoring, her chest rising and falling heavily. Her open laptop was perched on her thighs.
“Mom!”
“Unh?” She opened her eyes. “What?”
“You should sleep in your bed. That’s what they’re for.”
“What?” She blinked, still sleepy.
“Beds are for sleeping. Chairs are not. You should sleep in your bed.”
“Maybe I did.” Her mother sat up a little, set aside the computer and stretched her arms. “Maybe I got up early and came down.”
“No. You slept right there. All night. Again.” Like a loser, she wanted to add. “There’s no way you can sleep in your own bed because it’s covered in dirty clothes and junk.”
“And so what if I did sleep here? What’s it to you?” Junie could think of all kinds of answers to that, but she held her tongue. Her mother stretched again and then pushed herself up out of the chair and headed for the bathroom, leaving a great big sag in the chair in the shape of her butt. Junie shook her head and hurried into the kitchen to get something to eat. She and Tabitha got groceries once a week, so at least she knew there was food. She grabbed the bread and stuck two pieces into the toaster.
On her way back to the chair, her mother passed through the kitchen, where Junie was eating at the table, which was piled high above her head with her mother’s crap, except for the tiny wedge Junie kept clear for herself. Her whole family used to eat at this table, but not for many years. At first her mom had used the table just to “organize” her things as she brought them home or they arrived in the mail. And then it became the first dumping ground and they ate dinner in front of the TV in the living room. That’s when Junie knew something was wrong. She was old enough to know that good families ate dinner together around the table. Even families of two, like Tabitha and her mom. They still ate dinner together every night at the dining room table, with cloth placemats ironed flat and cloth napkins tucked neatly into carved pewter rings, and smudge-less glasses and cutlery set in the proper place and order.
“Where’re you off to so early?” her mother asked the fridge, staring at its insides.
That fridge was actually one of the cleanest spots in the house. About a year ago, the old fridge had gotten so disgusting, with expired tubs of unrecognizable foodstuffs and moulding fruit and soured milk and leaking jars of ancient condiments, that Junie’s mother had ordered a new fridge online, and had just abandoned the other one rather than clean it out. The delivery guy had brought it in through the sliding glass door off the dining room, and grudgingly wrestled it along the narrow trail through the detritus to wedge it in beside the old fridge. He’d taken one surreptitious peak into the other one and did not offer to cart it away. So there it stood. Junie had taken ownership of the new fridge, and that’s why it was the third-cleanest spot in the house, after her room and the one bathroom she kept spotless too.
“I told you. Today is the bottle drive.”
“Right.”
“You forgot.”
“Right.” She took a slice of cold pizza from a greasy box, hesitated, and then helped herself to another one. “But it’s all coming back to me now.”
“Oh, really?” Junie set her cereal bowl down with a deliberate clatter. “Then tell me, why is this not just a bottle drive? Why is it actually something much more important?”
A piece of pizza in each hand, her mother winked at her. “I believe his name is Wade. Wade Jaffre.”
She had remembered. Junie was genuinely surprised. And impressed. She’d told her about him while her mother watched the Shopping Channel. Superstorage System! Holds up to twelve pairs of shoes and just slides away under the bed! For just $19.95, we’ll send you two Superstorage Systems PLUS the Handyman Keychain, with eight different screw heads! Four of them were on the way. One for her, one for Junie’s father—even though he’d left them for That Woman—one for Junie, and one spare in case any of them lost theirs. Just what they needed.
“He’s the one you have a crush on, right?” She took a bite of pizza. “And Tabitha too?”
“He’s the one that half of the girls at school have a crush on, but yes. Both of us too.”
“That’s not good.” Her mother shook her head. “What are you going to do when he picks one of you over the other?”
“He won’t pick either of us, I bet. He’s just being nice. Getting us to help him out with the bottle drive. I’m sure that there are plenty of grade eleven girls he could choose from.”
“Sounds like he’s being more than nice. Sounds like he’s courting yo
u. Both of you.”
Junie cringed at the word “courting.” Who said “courting” any more? And what would her mother know about it anyway? The last time she’d gone on a date was over twenty years ago. And that was with Junie’s father, who’d been her first and only boyfriend. So there was no way that Junie would take any so-called “courting” advice from her mother.
Junie brought her bowl to the sink—which she insisted on being kept clear after she’d found a writhing colony of maggots in a heap of unwashed dishes a few months before—and rinsed it.
“Besides, if he picks one of us, he’ll pick Tabitha. She’s prettier.”
“She is not. You’re both beautiful.”
“You have to say that.”
“And I would anyway.” She took another bite of pizza.
Junie gave her a long, sad look. This was the mother she missed so much that it actually hurt her, drawing a tightness around her heart that made it hard to breathe. This mother, the one who took an interest in her instead of all the crap she ordered off the Internet and all the sparkling junk from the Shopping Channel. The one who asked questions and was interested in the answers.
“You’re beautiful, Junie.”
Junie wished she could say the same for her mother. She had been beautiful, back when she was first dating Junie’s dad. There were pictures as proof. Snapshots of the two of them going to prom, dressed up in their tragically outdated finery, beaming at each other. But she’d been wearing the same filthy clothes for five days now, and likely hadn’t washed in as long either. Junie wanted to shove her mother into the bathroom, make her strip and then force her to get into the shower and actually take care of herself. Where had that polished, slender earlier version of her mom gone?
