by Carrie Mac
Evelyn came around to the other side and let Princess out. Then she leaned into Ron’s window and gave him a chaste peck on the check. “I’ll see you at home.” She straightened and turned her gaze to Junie. “And maybe I’ll see you there, too. I hope so, Juniper.”
With her trendy little purse tucked under her arm and her dog at a perfect heel, Evelyn St. Claire walked away, tossing a little wave in her wake.
Alone in the car with her dad, still sitting in the back seat like a six-year-old, Junie started to unwind. Her hands shook and her throat constricted. She’d just been horrible. Tabitha would disown her. She might just disown herself. But still, she wasn’t sorry.
Her father said nothing. He tipped his head forward until his forehead rested on the steering wheel. He didn’t rip into her about being so rude. He didn’t tell her to get in the front. He just sat there, with his head down. For a very long time. Cars passed. The traffic light switched four times, and still he sat. Until, at long last, Junie tapped his shoulder and he looked up.
“Dad?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” She meant the apology for him, and him alone. And he knew it.
He shook his head. “Not good enough.”
“But . . .” A mixture of sadness and frustration and anger tangled Junie’s thoughts. She wasn’t sure which way to go with everything that was pushing at her head, wanting out. “But I’m not sorry about what I said to her. It’s true.”
“True or not, that was inexcusable.”
“Was it? Don’t I get to be honest?”
“No.” He shook his head again, slowly. “Not like that.”
Anger pushed its way to the front. Junie didn’t want it to, but there it was, hot and red. “You’re wrong, Dad.” As she spoke, her dad pulled the car back into traffic. “You don’t get to demand apologies from me. You’re the one who should be saying sorry. To me. And Mom. For breaking up our family. For leaving.”
“I’m not proud of what I did, Junie.” Her dad signalled to turn left, even though Evelyn’s place was to the right. “But it’s done. And it needed to be done. I was ready to leave, with or without Evelyn’s influence.”
Junie wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this.
“And I think you should leave too.”
She absolutely didn’t want to hear that. Her dad waited for her to say something, but when she didn’t, he kept talking.
“Your mother is an addict. Hoarding is a disease. Your mother needs stuff. Like a drug addict needs a fix, or an alcoholic needs a drink. She’s chosen her stuff over her family. I know it’s hard to hear it put like that. But that’s the truth.”
Junie shook her head. She wanted to argue. But she couldn’t. Because she knew he was right.
“I’m not going to live with you at That Woman’s place, if that’s where you’re going with this. I belong at home. With Mom. And so do you.”
“No, sweetheart. Your mom is sick. She needs to get better. You need to get out of there.”
“I can make her better.”
“No, you can’t. She has to do it herself.”
“Is that what Evelyn says?” Her dad made another right turn. He was driving her home. “What about our visit?”
He let out a sad little laugh. “I think you’ve pretty much put the kibosh on that for today, hon.”
Junie’s eyes welled with tears. “But I don’t want to go home.”
“And you don’t want to be with me, either. That’s clear.”
“But I do!” Junie really felt like the six-year-old in the back seat now. Whining. Unsure of what she wanted. Sure that she wanted her dad. And her mom. Together. And not screwed up.
By the time her dad pulled into the driveway, Junie was bawling. It was true; she didn’t want to be with her dad right then. Or her mom. So she opened the car door and ran down the street to the only place that felt safe any more. Tabitha’s house.
It took a while, but Tabitha finally calmed Junie down enough that she was ready to go home. It was dark out as they walked the short distance.
“It’s not fair,” Tabitha said as Junie’s house came into sight, the blue flicker of the TV illuminating the living room window. “You should be all giddy and stupid over your date, not worrying about all this mess.”
“Tell me about it.”
Tabitha hugged her. “See you tomorrow?”
“The big day,” Junie said, with a sarcastic edge in her voice. “My Very First Date.”
“It’ll get your mind off everything else,” Tabitha said. “Promise.”
Junie tried to open the front door, but it wouldn’t open all the way. Two large garbage cans were shoved against the closet. They were the big plastic kind with wheels and lids, and both of them were filled with bits and bobs of junk. More junk. New junk. Junie squeezed inside, then shut the door and leaned against it. She wasn’t sure she could handle any more today.
“Mom? What’s with the garbage cans?”
“You’ll be very proud to know that I left the house today,” her mother called from the living room. “I went to get groceries.”
“That’s great!” And it was. But not if it meant what Junie thought it meant.
“And the garbage cans?”
“They were in the alley behind the Quikmart. With ‘free’ signs on them. Perfectly good except the handles on the lids are broken.”
There was no point in going into all the reasons why they did not need two broken garbage bins. Or the crap inside of them. Junie didn’t have to ask about that. She knew exactly what had happened. Her mother had gone alley-shopping, helping herself to all the crap people had put out for the garbage. It was the end of the month, so people were on the move from one house to another and would put out what her mother called “perfectly good and useful items” rather than cart them to the new place.
She hadn’t left the house to go grocery shopping. She’d left to go alley-shopping. Junie lifted one of the lids. A rusty toaster sat on top of a damp stuffed penguin. Below that she could see a jumble of plastic containers, no lids.
Junie sighed. “You didn’t get any actual groceries, did you?”
“I did!” Her mother laughed. She was in a good mood, having brought even more dirty junk home. “I even put them away. After I had a shower. That’s right. A shower. So you can stop counting the days. Set your counter back to zero, kid.”
“I wasn’t counting.”
“Oh, come on. I know you were.”
“Either way, that is very cool.” And it was, but something suddenly occurred to Junie, and now she wasn’t thinking about her mother at all. She was thinking about the dress.
The dress Tabitha had given her. Where was the dress? Junie hadn’t brought it upstairs yet. The last time she’d seen the dress it had still been hanging on the closet door. She pushed aside a garbage bag full of Styrofoam balls her mother was keeping for a craft project that never happened. Her mom had rearranged all the crap to fit the garbage bins in. Of course they wouldn’t fit in the garage. Nothing had for a good five years. They couldn’t even open those doors any more.
The bag wasn’t there. The bag with Tabitha’s perfect white dress folded neatly inside of it was not there.
“Where’s the dress?” Junie hollered. “It’s not here!”
“I didn’t see it.”
“You moved all this shit around to get the stupid garbage cans in the door, so you must’ve seen it. It was right here!”
Junie heard her mother push out of her chair and make her way to the hall. When she was standing beside her, she asked again, her voice a low growl, “Where the hell is the dress?”
“I didn’t see it when I was organizing—”
“You were not organizing, Mom! You were adding to the disaster! Can’t you see what’s happening? Why can’t you just stop?”
“I didn’t see your dress.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Junie put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Because you can’t see anyt
hing any more! You’re sick! When are you going to get it into your thick skull that you’ve ruined everything? You drove Dad away, and pretty soon you’re going to lose me, too, when a social worker comes and takes me away.”
“That won’t happen. It’s not that bad.”
“It is, Mom. It’s that bad, and worse.” Junie pushed past her and fought her way through the maze of crap to the stairs. Once inside the sanctuary of her room, she slammed the door.
That’s when she saw it.
The dress.
Right where Junie had left it that morning. After she’d shown her mom, after her mom had shuffled back to her chair and just as the girls were about to leave, Junie had remembered that she hadn’t brushed her teeth. She’d grabbed the dress and brought it upstairs on her way to the bathroom.
In that moment, it didn’t occur to Junie to go down and apologize to her mother, but it did occur to her that she should call Wade and just cancel the date. She was that much of a mess.
EIGHT
But, of course, Junie didn’t cancel the date.
When she woke up the next morning, there were a few brief moments during which she forgot the horrible day before and all its wretched awfulness. But it all came flooding back when she sat up to get out of bed and saw the dress hanging there. The one she’d accused her mom of losing.
She still wasn’t ready to apologize to her mother, though. She was feeling pretty righteous in her careful and emphatic placement of blame. Junie stretched and yawned. This was a new day. The best day. The day of her Very First Date. This would be a better day than the one that came before it. It had to be. If this day went south, then Junie would just curl up under her covers and never get out of bed again. Ever.
She didn’t have World Studies that day, so she only saw Wade at lunch, when he came to sit with her and Tabitha and Ollie and Lulu at their table. Junie had asked him to pick her up at “her” house (Tabitha’s) at four o’clock, so that she could have time to get ready and not have to wear the outfit to school.
When the last bell rang and Junie filed out of English, there was Wade, waiting in the hallway.
“I thought I’d give you a ride home. That way we can get out of the city faster.”
“Sure!”
Junie fell into step beside him. His locker was at the far end of the same hall as hers, so he went ahead to get his things while Junie sorted herself out at her locker. Tabitha joined her, and when Wade came back, he extended the offer to her, too. They followed him out to the van, and as Wade walked around to the driver’s side, Tabitha yanked on Junie’s arm.
“Junie, the dress is still at your house. Your real house. So, do you see a problem here?”
“I know. What are we going to do?”
Tabitha rolled her eyes. “I’ll come up with something.” “Will you?”
“Yeah. Just follow my lead. When the time comes.”
The whole ride “home,” Junie worried about how she was going to get the dress. This date was not getting off to a good start, and it was just another big fat reminder of her big fat lie and how deeply she was mired in it. And sinking fast.
But when they arrived, Tabitha slipped Junie the front door key as they got out of the van, so that Junie could let them in.
“Do you want a soda, Wade? While Junie’s getting ready?” Tabitha eyed Junie as she said it.
“Sure.” Wade flopped down on the sofa in the living room. “Thanks.”
Junie followed Tabitha into the kitchen.
“Go out the back, and be fast! I’ll keep him occupied.
Girls are supposed to take forever to get ready. Use it to your advantage. Go!”
Junie sprinted down the back steps and through the back gate, running down the alley to her own back yard. She let herself in the back door and slammed it shut.
“Junie?” her mother called from her television throne. “Why are you coming in the back?”
“I need to get something. Wade’s at Tabitha’s, waiting. I’ve got to hurry.”
“Well come in here real quick and let me give you a kiss for good luck.”
It was as if last night had never happened. As if Junie hadn’t said what she’d said. Her mother was acting like the proud parent seeing her lovely daughter off on her first date. Like she wasn’t a compulsive hoarder on the brink of losing her only child, either by will or forceful removal. But as Junie made her way into the living room, she had to pass the two garbage bins, which only reminded her of it all again.
“When do you think you’ll be back?” her mom asked as The Kendra Show went to commercial break.
“Wade figures by eight, nine at the latest.”
“No later than nine.”
“Okay.” Junie let her mom hug her. “I’ll tell him the carriage turns back into a pumpkin at nine.”
“Wear your seatbelt.”
“Of course.”
“Did you find the dress?”
Junie wasn’t ready to admit that she had, so she shook her head. “No. But that’s okay.” Part of her wanted her mother to feel bad. It wasn’t nice, but it satisfied that part of her nonetheless. “I’ve got something else in mind. I’ve got to go.”
“I didn’t see it. I swear I didn’t.”
“Never mind. It’s okay.”
“Well, if I moved it . . . I’m sorry. Truly, Junie.” The Kendra Show was back on. Sex addicts who had become celibate. Junie’s mom hugged her again, and then settled back in her chair to watch the show.
Junie took the stairs two at a time, grabbed the dress, boots and hat and ran out the back door and up the alley to Tabitha’s. Tabitha wasn’t in the kitchen. She was in the living room with Wade. Junie peeked in on her way upstairs. Wade was looking at Mrs. D.’s movie collection. He had her 70th Anniversary Edition of Gone with the Wind in his hands and was reading the back. He didn’t see Junie. Junie caught Tabitha’s attention and pointed up.
As Junie hurried up the stairs, Tabitha said to Wade, “I’m going to go see how long Junie’s going to be. Be right back.”
“Sure. Can I put this on?”
“Yeah, go for it.” Tabitha pointed out the remote and then followed Junie upstairs.
Junie got dressed in record time. Tabitha was sorting through her makeup and pulling out the colours she thought best. “Here.” She dumped the small handful in Junie’s lap. “I’m going back downstairs to stall for you. Be quick.”
Junie did the best she could with the mascara and lipstick, but decided not to bother with anything else. She rarely wore makeup, and so the more she put on, the faker she looked. She decided she looked better with less. Or she looked less desperate, anyway. She took a good look at herself in Tabitha’s full-length mirror one last time. She corrected her slouch and put her hands on her hips, one leg in front of the other. That was better. The dress clung to her in all the right places, and the boots did look really good with it. She tried the hat on and decided it was a bit too much, considering. It wasn’t like they were going out to dinner and a movie. This was just a ride in the country. But then, she reconsidered; a ride in the country was the perfect occasion to wear a cowboy hat, wasn’t it? So she took it along anyway, not sure if she could pull it off, but willing to try.
As she came down the stairs, Wade gave a little whistle.
“Wow.” He grinned. “You look great. Really great.”
“Thanks.” Junie blushed. She fingered the dress awkwardly.
“It’s Tabitha’s dress, actually.”
“It’s yours now, Junie.” Tabitha nodded. “It looks way better on you than it ever did on me.”
“Doesn’t matter whose it is.” Wade’s eyes were locked on Junie’s. “It looks incredible on you. And I love the boots. Not every girl can pull off wearing such excellent boots. But you can.”
Junie didn’t know what to say, so she murmured another “Thanks,” and moved closer to the door. “Should we go?”
“Yeah. Absolutely.” Wade handed the DVD back to Tabitha. “See y
ou later, Tab. Don’t worry about your Siamese twin.”
“I’ll try not to.” Tabitha waited until Wade wasn’t looking, and then did a silent, ridiculous victory dance that made Junie laugh out loud. Wade turned, but by then Tabitha had composed herself, except for the enormous grin on her face. “Have fun, kids! Drive safe.”
Junie and Wade didn’t talk much as they made their way out of the city. Junie wondered if it was nerves, or if he was just concentrating on not getting them killed. There was a lot of traffic. The afternoon commute was gearing up.
“Sorry I took so long,” Junie said. “We’d have beaten the traffic if we’d left earlier.”
“It’s all right,” Wade said with a shrug. “You don’t have anywhere else to be, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“Good then.” Wade winked at her. He reached for the radio and turned it up. He had it on the same oldies station it’d been on when she’d got that first ride from him. Frank Sinatra was crooning about flying to the moon. Junie could completely relate. She was on the moon. Her Very First Date! She grinned. And kept grinning. She hoped Wade wouldn’t choose that moment to look over and see her silly smile. But then, maybe that would be okay. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she fussed with the brim of her cowboy hat.
“What’s the story behind the hat?”
“This?” Junie tipped it toward him. “My dad took me to the Calgary Stampede last year.”
“Yeah? You into rodeos?” Wade looked surprised. “Didn’t figure you for a rodeo fan.”
“Oh, I’m not. Not at all.” Junie shook her head. “I could hardly stand it, all the bulls and cows and horses being forced to do all that stuff. No way.”
“Your dad made you go?”
“Sort of.” Junie turned the hat in her hands. She remembered the flight, sitting beside her father, hating him. He’d just left them and moved in with That Woman. “He won the trip at work. Some bonus incentive thing. He was going to take . . .” Did Junie really want to get into this? Was this when she was supposed to come clean? Tell him about her father, and then spill it about her mother too? No. Not yet. She could be careful. Not tell any more lies, but not undo the ones that already existed. Not yet. Junie shook her head, arguing with herself. He’d find out soon enough that she’d been lying to him all this time. And he would dump her then, so she might as well enjoy herself now, because this might be the one and only date she’d ever go on. “He was going to take a friend, but his friend bailed. So I went instead.” There. She’d leave it at that.
