The Opposite Of Tidy

by Carrie Mac

  Her mother turned away, as if she knew what Junie was thinking. They both heard the familiar theme song of the British soap opera her mom watched on the weekend. On Saturday mornings they played all of the week’s episodes back to back.

  “Coronation Street is starting.” Her mother hesitated in the doorway, her cold pizza slices drooping. “Don’t you even want a plate?” Junie cringed. She didn’t mean to sound bitchy, but she did anyway. Junie tried that again. “I mean, can I get you a plate?”

  Her mom looked at her, her face blank. “Yes. Please.”

  Junie got a plate from the cupboard and held it out to her.

  “You know, Junie . . . I don’t . . . I mean, I never . . .” She took the plate and arranged the pizza on it before wiping her hands on her pants. “I just want to tell you that I don’t want to be like this. The hoarding just crept up and now—”

  “You don’t have to explain—”

  “I see the way you look at me. At all of this.” She gestured around her with the pizza. “When I was a little girl, I never imagined I’d end up like this. I wanted so much more for myself. And for you, too.”

  Junie felt a wash of shame flood her veins. “I don’t—”

  “You do. And that’s okay. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you, Junie. Living with this. With me.”

  The phone rang. Junie lunged for it, so very thankful to have a way to stop the conversation from unravelling even more.

  “Hello?”

  “Your boyfriend called.” Wade had Tabitha’s number as Junie’s, and vice versa. So far that hadn’t been a problem because he hadn’t called either of them, but to be on the safe side, they’d both recorded generic messages with no names. Mrs. D. was in on it, and Junie’s mom never answered the phone, so it didn’t matter on that end. Neither of the girls had cell phones. Not since they’d each been given one for Christmas and the bills were over six hundred dollars by the end of January. And that was just from calling and texting each other. They were still paying them off.

  “Or your boyfriend. Did you talk to him?”

  Tabitha sighed. “No, I saw it was his number, so I had my mom pick it up. I’m not stupid.”

  Junie’s mom was back in the living room, her soap playing loudly, working-class English accents sharp and jangly.

  “No, but you want him to know the truth, so I could see you ‘screwing up’ just so my lie would be exposed. I know you’re trying to play along . . . but I also know that you don’t really want to.”

  “Good morning, Junie. How are you today?” Tabitha’s words were awash in sarcasm. “I, for one, am just peachy. Thanks for asking, rather than launching into a critique of my morals, which are just peachy too, by the way.”

  “Sorry,” Junie said. “Good morning, Tabitha. What did Wade want?”

  “He told my mom he was calling to see if you wanted a ride.”

  As if on cue, the phone beeped. Junie looked at the Caller ID. Jaffre. “He’s calling here.”

  “Offering me a ride, I bet.”

  “Should I get it?”

  “No, because this is supposed to be your house.”

  “Right, well . . . I’ll come over there and we can call him back together.”

  “This is getting ridiculous, Junie.”

  “Ridiculous or not, Tabitha, I trumped you. And don’t you and your peachy morals forget it.”

  Junie grabbed an umbrella and made her way through the rain and wind to Tabitha’s house. Mrs. D. greeted her at the door with a frown. She was dressed to go out and had a rolled up yoga mat hanging over her shoulder in its own narrow bag.

  “You know I don’t like all this lying, Junie.”

  “I know, I know. And I’m sorry, Mrs. D. I promise to set it straight as soon as I can.”

  “I trust you will.” She slipped her water bottle into her purse and collected her keys. “I’ve set out a box of bottles for the drive. It’s in the garage by the recycling.”

  “Great, thanks.”

  One step out the door, she turned and said, “I don’t like you trumping Tabitha on this one, honey. Just so you know. Think about what you’re doing, okay?”

  Junie blanched. “Okay, Mrs. D., I will.”

  Junie stomped up the stairs to Tabitha’s room. “You told your mom that I trumped you about Wade?”

  “Yep. Unlike some of us, I don’t lie.”

  There wasn’t much Junie could say to that. Tabitha handed her the phone and she called Wade, thanking him for his offer of a ride and explaining that Tabitha was already at her house.

  Before he got there, they decided that Tabitha would sit in the front, so she’d have her chance to flirt with him.

  “Because the minute he finds out that I’ve been lying to him, he’ll choose you anyway, so what does it matter?”

  “I’m lying to him too.”

  “Not really. You’re just playing along with my big fat lie. And no, I’m not calling my mother fat.”

  “Good.”

  Wade honked his horn, so they dashed out into the rain, Junie carrying the box of bottles from Tabitha’s house.

  “Ladies,” he said as they shook off the rain and buckled up their seatbelts. He glanced at the box and then turned to Tabitha, “Any from your house?”

  “Those are—”

  “From both of our houses,” Junie finished before Tabitha could barrel forward, being honest without thinking.

  Tabitha turned and rolled her eyes at Junie as Wade pulled away from the curb. There were probably more empty bottles in Junie’s house than they’d collect for the whole drive, but she wasn’t about to admit that.

  The bottle drive was in the far corner of the mall parking lot. Lulu and Ollie had beaten them there and were struggling to put up a big white tent to cover the area where they’d be sorting the bottles. Between the five of them, they managed to get it up and set up the tables that Ollie’s dad had brought in the back of his truck.

  “Who’s supposed to do what?” Lulu asked once everything was ready.

  “Lulu and Tabitha can greet people and take their bottles,” Wade said. “Ollie, Junie and I can sort them out. How does that sound?”

  Tabitha shot Junie a look. See? He likes you best, she said with her eyes, and for the first time, Junie wondered if she might be right.

  Ollie settled himself at one end of the long table, Wade and Junie at the other. People backed up their cars and unloaded beer bottles and pop cans, and Junie and Wade and Ollie took them and sorted like with like. They had to pack the bottles by dozens. Junie caught Ollie watching her count.

  “I can count to twelve,” she said. “It’s pretty much everything after that that’s the problem.”

  Wade raised an eyebrow. He turned to Ollie, but Ollie just shook his head.

  “Math is not my forte,” Junie added. “Ollie tutors me.” “Ah.” Wade grinned.

  “Still want me to count for you?”

  “Sure.” Wade stacked another box on top of a tower of boxes. His arm muscles firmed up as he did. “Ollie can help you if you get stuck.”

  “Jerk.” Junie punched him in the arm.

  Tabitha, having seen the whole exchange, called Junie over.

  “For the record, you only punch your crush in the arm if you are eight years old or younger. Case in point, Nick Gimse in third grade.” She accepted a bag of wine bottles from a guy driving a Land Cruiser. “Thank you, sir.” She returned her attention to Junie. “If you want Wade Jaffre to take you seriously, you have to act your age.”

  “Are you giving me boy advice? Do I have to remind you that I’ve been your date for every high school dance we’ve ever been to? So much so that I’m sure the whole school population thinks we’re lesbians.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “Fine, then me too.” Junie glanced back at the sorting table. The bottles were piling up. “Okay, lesbo. Are we finished with this little coaching session?”

  She punched Junie in the arm. “No more elementary school d
ating techniques. Be a woman.”

  “Maybe Evelyn St. Claire can employ you as a life coach intern for your summer job this year.”

  “And maybe her Weimaraner will chew off her surgically sculpted nose while she sleeps.”

  “That’s not a very Tabitha thing to say.”

  “Well, That Woman inspires terribly violent thoughts. Very un-Tabitha-like thoughts. Out of everyone involved in your family’s massive meltdown, she’s the only one worth blaming anything on.”

  Wade came up in time to hear the last bit. “Who’re we blaming? And for what?”

  “No one,” Tabitha and Junie said in unison. “Nothing.”

  “Understood.” He helped himself to the wine bottles and took Junie’s hand. Tabitha grinned. Junie felt luscious, nervous chills dance up her arms. Wade Jaffre was holding her hand. In his. Their hands were touching. His was warm and dry. Hers felt clammy and sticky from handling the dirty bottles. “Care to join me at the sorting table?”

  “Oh, Wade. Are you asking Junie on a date?” Tabitha’s tone was cheeky. “Because it kind of looks like it.”

  Wade blushed—actually blushed, his brown cheeks brimming dark red. “Maybe.”

  Junie glared at Tabitha. She wanted to both kill her and make her queen of the world. She mouthed over her shoulder, I hate you, and then, I love you! as Wade dragged her back to the sorting table.

  SIX

  They raised five hundred and sixteen dollars at the bottle drive, and so would end up with over a thousand by the time the teachers’ union matched them. At the end of the day, after they’d made several trips to the bottle depot in Ollie’s dad’s truck, Wade suggested they get warm at the café across the street from the mall.

  “What can I get everyone?” he asked as they gathered at the counter to read the menu. “It’s my treat.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Lulu said in her breathy way.

  “She’s right,” Junie added. “You don’t.”

  “You all helped me out, so let me do this to thank you.”

  He bought their drinks, and they took a table as the barista started to make them. Ollie’s and Lulu’s soy lattes came up first, and then Tabitha’s mocha. When the three of them had gone to collect their drinks, Wade leaned over to Junie and said in a low voice, “If I was going to ask you out on a date, you’d know it.”

  This caught Junie off guard. What was she supposed to say to that? It didn’t matter, though, because everyone was back at the table, and Junie’s and Wade’s drinks were ready. He leapt up. “I’ll go get them.”

  Junie sat back in her chair, stunned. She glanced at Ollie and Lulu and then told Tabitha that she had to go to the bathroom. Which Tabitha understood as code for “come with me.”

  Once in the privacy of the bathroom, Junie told Tabitha what Wade had said to her.

  “Out of nowhere.”

  “No. Not out of nowhere.” Tabitha shook her head.

  “Like he’d been thinking about it since I mentioned it.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.” Tabitha groaned. “Just like I know he’s into you. Not me. Way to go, Junie. You’re horrible, I hate you, etcetera, etcetera.”

  Junie was going to argue, but thought better of it. “Want to have a cat fight? Go all scratch-your-face-up-bitch on each other?”

  Tabitha shook her head. “Nah.”

  “Yeah, me either.”

  But still, a long moment passed, and Junie knew that Tabitha was taking the time to imagine what could have been. At least, that’s what she would have been doing if the tables had been turned.

  “Just promise me one thing,” Tabitha said.

  “Anything.”

  Tabitha pulled the door open. Across the café, Junie could see the others, laughing. Ollie and Lulu tucked into one big easy chair all knotted up with each other, and Wade across from them, his and Junie’s drinks on the low table beside him. He glanced up and smiled. Waved.

  “Don’t gloat. Okay?”

  “That’s easy. I won’t.” Junie made her way down the little hall, her eyes on Wade the whole time. At the end of the hall, Tabitha grabbed her.

  “You might, though. Even if you don’t mean it.” Junie could tell by her words and the expression that went along with them that Tabitha was more hurt than she was letting on. Junie would have been too, if it had been her.

  She pulled Tabitha into a hug. “I won’t. Promise.” “Thanks.” Tabitha pulled away, her eyes red around the rims. “You go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Your drink will be cold.”

  Tabitha shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Sorry, Tab.”

  She shrugged again. “Go on.”

  But then the weird thing was that once she was back at the table, her drink in hand, Wade hardly said one more word to her. He talked to Ollie, and Lulu, and even Tabitha when she finally came back to the table. But he didn’t say much to Junie, hardly even a goodbye when he dropped her and Tab off at Tabitha’s/Junie’s house.

  It had finally stopped raining. Junie and Tabitha stood on the sidewalk watching his van drive away. Tabitha looked at Junie. Junie shook her head.

  “Now what am I supposed to think?”

  Tabitha draped an arm across Junie’s shoulders. “Not sure. Playing hard to get?”

  “Here’s hoping,” Junie said with a shrug.

  As it turned out, Junie didn’t have to hope for long. The next Tuesday in World Studies, Wade asked if he could be her partner for the War History trivia game the class was putting together. Of course she said yes. But again, he didn’t say much. They were in charge of coming up with ten question cards about the Geneva Convention. They sat side by side at the computer, pulling up bits of the agreement they could use.

  “Ever hear of Stanley Kubrick?”

  “Sure.” Junie hadn’t. So why had she said so? Lying was becoming so normal to her that it came as easily as—if not more easily than—the truth. She didn’t like that about herself. She had plenty of big lies to take care of. To hell with the small ones. “Actually, no. I haven’t,” she corrected. “I don’t know why I said yes.”

  “Well, I’m a big fan. He’s a filmmaker. Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, you know? The conspiracy theorists say he even manufactured the footage of the first moon landing, all on a closed set somewhere outside of London. They say it never happened at all. That it was ‘just’ a movie.”

  “Really?” Junie scrolled down to the part where it stated that prisoners of war were entitled to the same quality of health care as their captors. That would make a good question.

  “I found some cuttings from Dr. Strangelove for sale online.”

  “Cuttings?”

  “The actual bits of film that the editor cut.”

  “I take it they’re pretty rare then.” Junie carefully transcribed the text onto an index card. “Right?”

  “Very rare. So, the guy who’s selling them lives in Chilliwack, if you can believe it. He’s that close.”

  And all of a sudden, Junie realized where this was going. She swallowed. Her hand shook. She had to put her pen down so she wouldn’t mess up the rest of the words.

  “Yeah?”

  “So, I thought I’d drive out after school on Thursday to get them.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Junie’s throat was dry. She needed a glass of water. She wasn’t sure if she could bark out even one more word without a drink of water first. She glanced at the water fountain by the door. She coughed. “Excuse me.” She got up and crossed to the fountain and took a long drink. He was going to ask her to go with him. Where was Tabitha at a time like this? But, if she’d been here, and Junie asked her for support, would that be gloating? This not-gloating thing might be harder than she thought.

  The walk back to the desk was long. Very long. It went on forever, in fact. And the whole while, Wade was looking at her, his face pale. Apparently that was the face of someone about to ask another someone ou
t on a date.

  “So, Junie.” Wade forced a smile. “Remember when I said you’d know when I asked you out on a date?”

  Junie could only nod. She felt like he was asking her to marry him. She was surprised that he wasn’t on one knee, the whole class looking on.

  “Will you go with me? To Chilliwack? On a date?”

  “Yes.”

  Wade whistled. The people on either side of them glanced up from their own work. “Phew. Jesus. That was hard.”

  Junie couldn’t have agreed more.

  That afternoon at Tabitha’s house, Tab said that telling her a fact was not gloating. It was a fact that Wade had asked her out. It was a fact that Junie had said yes.

  “Anything more than that and I might have to cry.” “You just tell me when to shut up.”

  “I will.”

  And then Tabitha squealed and bowled Junie over with a great big hug. “Oh my God! You’re going on a date! Our first real date! But why Chilliwack? What the heck is out there except farms and smelly cows? And what are you going to wear?”

  It was funny to hear Tabitha talk like that, but Junie was relieved. She wasn’t sure she could stem her excitement, even in the face of Tabitha not being the chosen one.

  Tabitha leapt off the bed. “I have the perfect thing.”

  And it was. A white cotton sundress dotted with small pink flowers. It had dainty straps and a bodice that snugged neatly across Junie’s chest. The skirt wasn’t too full either. It was exactly right. Junie remembered it from the summer after eighth grade. Tabitha had got it for her uncle’s wedding.

  “It doesn’t fit me any more,” Tabitha said by way of explanation. “Boobs got too big.”

  “It is perfect.”

  “I think you should wear those pink cowboy boots with it.”

  “Really?” Junie spun in front of the mirror, trying to picture the boots with it.