The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones

by Daven McQueen

  “I was wondering if I could go visit my mom,” he said quickly, then winced. “In Montgomery. June said it’s not too far, just a couple of hours. I’d just need a ride there and back, and I could be quick, I swear.”

  “And I’d come too,” Juniper added. “For protection.” She clenched her fists, attempting to produce muscles in her thin arms.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask,” Ethan went on. “And I know you already said I could call her. But I just—I just think it would help.”

  Aunt Cara and Uncle Robert looked at each other and Ethan held his breath. “I do have a shipment to pick up from the warehouse next weekend,” Uncle Robert said, still facing his wife. “It’s just outside Montgomery.”

  “And there are two extra seats in the truck,” Aunt Cara said.

  “Can’t imagine Andy would be too pleased.”

  Aunt Cara shrugged. “Andy has no right to keep the boy from his mother.”

  Juniper was practically vibrating in her seat, cheeks red with excitement. Ethan clutched the hem of the tablecloth. Finally, Uncle Robert turned to him.

  “I’d expect you to be on your best behavior,” he said. “Both of you. I’d give you a time for pickup and drop-off, and you’d have to stick to it.”

  “Done and done,” Juniper said with a mock salute.

  “Ethan?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

  Uncle Robert nodded as Aunt Cara added, “And one more thing.” She stood slowly and moved to the kitchen drawer at the edge of the cabinet. After rummaging through it for a second, she pulled out a spiral notebook and dropped it on the table in front of Ethan. The cover said Phone Book in purple script.

  “Call your mother,” she said gently. “Ask her if it’s all right.”

  It took a couple of days of doubting and second-guessing and berating from Juniper before Ethan was finally able to pick up the phone. Finally, on Saturday afternoon—a week from the planned trip—Ethan found himself sitting in front of the phone in Aunt Cara’s living room, Juniper perched on the couch beside him and his mother’s number in his hand.

  With a long, shaky breath, he dialed. When the operator answered, he barely heard himself speak to her. Next thing he knew, the line was ringing, soft and slow. Juniper rocked beside him.

  There was a click, then, “Hello?”

  He almost hung up the phone right then. But Juniper, faintly hearing the response through the phone, punched him in the arm. He blurted, “Hi, is Lydia there?”

  The other line was silent. “One second.”

  Ethan heard the sound of muffled conversation, then footsteps, and the gentle click of the phone being transferred from one hand to another. Then a warm, low, familiar voice said, “This is Lydia. Who’s calling?”

  Ethan suddenly found himself on his knees next to the couch, the phone cord stretched as far as it could go. Relief and sadness washed over him in waves as Juniper squeezed his shoulder and he struggled to speak.

  “Ethan,” he said. “It’s Ethan. Hi, Mom.”

  “Ethan,” she sounded surprised. “Are you at home? Is something wrong? Is it the twins, or your dad?”

  “No, no, nothing’s wrong,” he assured her. He could barely think. “And I’m not at home, actually. I’m in Ellison. Alabama. It’s a long story. I’m staying with Aunt Cara and Uncle Robert. And well, I know you’re in Montgomery. I know it’s not too far from here.” He paused, heard his mother breathing on the other line. “And I was just wondering if you had plans next weekend. Because—because if it’s okay, I’d really like to visit you.”

  Fifteen

  Uncle Robert’s ’52 Chevy pickup could fit two comfortably—three with some effort. Ethan found himself squeezed in the middle of the tan vinyl bench, his uncle’s elbow against his side and Juniper’s hair slapping him in the face every time she whirled to look at something outside the window.

  “Wow, look at all the trees!” she cried. Slap. “There are so many! And they’re moving so fast.” Slap. “Ethan, look!” Slap.

  “Yeah, June. Real cool.” Ethan sank low in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. They hadn’t even made it out of town.

  Uncle Robert chuckled. “Just wait till she sees the buildings.”

  The road to Montgomery was uneven for the first twenty-minute stretch as they made their way off of the rural roads and onto the highway. Ethan braced a foot against the dashboard to keep himself in place, but Juniper allowed the jolts of the truck over potholes to launch her out of her seat again and again. Her hair was everywhere, including across Ethan’s shoulders and in his mouth, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  And to be honest, Ethan was glad that she was entertaining herself and that Uncle Robert was characteristically silent as he drove. He needed the time—as bumpy and distracting as this time was—to think. He’d been replaying the phone call with his mother over and over in his mind since it had happened; how she had sat on the other line in stunned silence for a long moment after his question before saying, softly, “Of course, Ethan. Okay.”

  The plan had fallen quickly into place after that. Uncle Robert would bring Ethan and Juniper to Montgomery that Saturday afternoon when he met his suppliers at the warehouse. Ethan’s mother worked during the day, so he and Juniper would spend the day in town and go to his mother’s apartment for dinner. Ethan had the address—the location was circled in dark pencil on a map of Montgomery tucked into his pocket. Uncle Robert would pick them up after dinner and they’d drive back to Ellison. It was simple; it was his mother, the woman who had raised him for the first ten years of his life, and it was a city, where he felt at home. There was no reason for Ethan to be worried.

  But he was. As Uncle Robert turned onto the highway and the road smoothed out for the rest of their journey, Ethan fought down the nerves writhing in his stomach. It had been a long time since he’d last seen his mother, and he was different now. Especially after this summer. He was scared to tell her, as he had promised, why he was sent to Ellison. Scared to see her disappointment, her agreement with his father’s decision. And scared, most of all, that so many years apart would make it impossible for her to still see herself in him just as he, when he pictured her face, lately struggled to see himself in her.

  Still hunched over in his seat, Ethan looked up at Juniper, who had cranked open her window and was now hanging her head outside. Her hair whipped back in the wind like a streak of paint across a canvas and she squinted into the morning light. Feeling Ethan’s gaze, she looked over her shoulder with a grin.

  “Are you seeing this, Ethan? Mr. Shay? Is this not the best?”

  Uncle Robert laughed. “Glad you’re having fun, Junie.”

  “Oh, I’m having so much fun. It’s going to be such a fun day! Ethan’s gonna see his mom, I’m gonna see Montgomery—nothing could be better. Right, Ethan?”

  Ethan forced a smile. “Right, Juniper.”

  As Juniper began a running commentary on the sights blurring past, Ethan willed himself to mimic her enthusiasm. It was his choice, after all, to visit his mother. She was the only one who would understand.

  True to Uncle Robert’s prediction, when they spied Montgomery from the highway an hour later, Juniper let out a shriek. She leaned forward so far, Ethan thought she might fly out the window.

  “Look at that!” she shouted, pointing at a tall, white church. “And that!” Her finger swiveled to a street of four-story brick buildings. “Wow. Wow, wow, wow.”

  “Welcome to Montgomery,” Uncle Robert said.

  Ethan stared out the window over Juniper’s shoulder, struck by a strange sense of familiarity. He knew little about Montgomery—his parents had rarely talked about it, and he’d never felt compelled to ask—but a part of him felt as though he’d been here before. It had surely changed from how it had been when his parents fell in love, and even probably from when his mother had retu
rned after they fell out. But he knew this place, somewhere in his gut; and he was certain of it when Uncle Robert turned a corner and Ethan found himself mirrored on the sidewalk.

  Two black men and three black women walked together, wide-brimmed hats on their heads blocking the sun. The truck passed them quickly. Ethan only caught the slightest glimpse, but it was long enough to see them lean together in easy camaraderie, laughing.

  Juniper, her head inside the window now, saw it too. She reached over and squeezed Ethan’s hand. Ethan held in a breath, releasing it only when Uncle Robert stopped behind a bus that had paused to let passengers off. He watched them exit, joining other pedestrians on the sidewalk, side stepping cars to cross the street. Some black folks, some white—not speaking, maybe, but existing together in the same space. He felt relief swell almost painfully into his throat.

  “All right,” Uncle Robert said, turning right onto a smaller side street and pulling over to the curb. “This is for you.” With a gruff nod, he handed them each three wrinkled dollar bills. “Just in case. Spend it wisely.”

  Juniper took the money carefully and tucked it into the polka-dot purse in her lap. “Thank you, Mr. Shay,” she said. “We absolutely will.”

  Ethan muttered a distracted thank you, his attention on the brick buildings outside the window. Down one of these streets was the apartment building where his mother lived. He had memorized its placement on the map, a small circle amid a spiderweb of streets. It wasn’t far from downtown, not even a mile.

  “You kids be careful.” Uncle Robert tightened and loosened his grip on the steering wheel, over and over. “This isn’t Ellison, but it’s no Arcadia either. Keep your heads down and all that. And if you need anything, you’ve got my number at the warehouse, right?”

  Ethan nodded—the number was scrawled on the corner of the map in his pocket. Uncle Robert sighed. “All right, then. This is where I leave you.”

  “Bye, Mr. Shay!” Juniper called, shoving open the passenger door and leaping out onto the pavement. To Ethan, all of this felt barely real. He murmured a good-bye to his uncle, sliding across the worn seat toward the door. As he did, Uncle Robert suddenly placed a hand on his arm.

  “I mean it, Ethan,” he said, as Ethan turned to look at him in surprise. “If you need anything at all.”

  If relief and apprehension had been battling in Ethan’s gut, it was apprehension that won out now. Something in Uncle Robert’s gaze sent a nervous shiver through his shoulders. But again, he simply nodded, offering his uncle what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  “Sure thing, Uncle Robert,” he said, sliding out of the car. His uncle waited until they had reached the corner before shifting into gear and driving away.

  It was a particularly muggy day, and they hadn’t even walked a block when Ethan felt the sweat gathering on the back of his neck. A few minutes of wandering had brought them back to a busy street, where storefronts were arranged one after the other and pedestrians stopped to chat and window shop. Juniper’s attention changed focus with each novelty that appeared. She cooed to Ethan over a couple walking their baby in a stroller, a window display filled with TV sets, the way the sun reflected from the mirrors of so many passing cars. And slowly, he started to relax. There was nothing he could do until he went to his mother’s for dinner, after all, and that was three hours away.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked Juniper, who had paused at the window of a bakery.

  “A great question.” She straightened, hands on her hips. “You know, I always said if I made it to Montgomery I’d do it all—trouble is, now I can’t remember what I meant by that.”

  Ethan stepped back to make room for an elderly black couple, who nodded at him as they passed. “Well, let’s think,” he said. “What’s something you’ve always wanted to do that you can’t do in Ellison?” Juniper opened her mouth immediately, and he held up a hand. “A reasonable thing.”

  Juniper sighed loudly. “Ethan Charlie Harper, you’re no fun.” She resumed walking, slowly, and he followed a few steps behind. “Let me think,” she said. “Climb up the fire escape of a building, try every flavor of ice cream in an ice-cream parlor, paint a mural—” She’d been ticking off the options as she walked but stopped suddenly as a drop of rain landed right in the middle of her forehead.

  Ethan had learned after two months in Alabama that somehow the sky here could do this: open up and empty without warning. Juniper knew this even better than he did, but still she shrieked and covered her head with her arms as she took off down the sidewalk.

  “Hey, wait up!” Ethan called, weaving through the other people also hurrying for shelter. Juniper laughed, dropping her arms and tossing her head back as she ran. Rain streaked down her cheeks and soaked her dress, but she did not weave through the awnings of nearby buildings. Ethan could have easily sped past her, but he ignored the wet curls flopping into his eyes and kept an easy jog. Juniper was, in this sudden sun shower on a city sidewalk, as in everywhere else, radiant, and he didn’t want to leave her behind.

  They only ran two blocks; the rain only lasted five minutes. And yet, by the end of it, they stumbled to a breathless stop as if they’d run for miles. “You look,” Juniper wheezed, “like you just got out of the shower.”

  “You look like you just took a swim in the lake,” Ethan retorted. He wrung out the hem of his T-shirt, dripping water onto the sidewalk. Around them, the city was coming back into motion: umbrellas closed, heads peeked out from shop doors, first tentative steps were taken back onto the pavement. No one seemed to notice or care about the boy and the girl giggling on the sidewalk in front of the movie theater.

  Ethan noticed the theater sign first, its overhanging sign affixed with the words Montgomery Cinema in boxy letters, with the current shows listed beneath it. It looked much like the theater he and his friends frequented back home, the one that was two blocks from school, and which was smaller than the others and had a projector that sometimes didn’t work, but was ten cents cheaper and served the best popcorn in the state.

  “Say, June,” he said, skimming the titles, “didn’t you say you’d never gone to the movies?”

  “Sure did.” She followed his gaze up to the sign and audibly gasped. “Did you plan this, Ethan?” she asked, playfully accusatory.

  Ethan held up his hands in defense. “Hey, you’re the one who was leading the way. But as long as we’re here, we might as well catch a show, right? We’ve got just enough time.”

  “You don’t need to convince me,” Juniper said, gazing up at the titles in awe. “Oh, man—which one do we even choose?”

  Ethan chuckled—there were only two options. “Your choice. Look, why don’t you get the tickets? I’m going to look for a bathroom and try to dry off.”

  “It would be my honor,” Juniper said. She darted off to the ticket booth, where a bored-looking cashier was tapping his hand against the counter.

  Ethan glanced around for a restroom sign and eventually spotted one a few stores down, nestled between a pawn shop and an ice-cream parlor. The sign hung above the entrance to a narrow alley, and when Ethan entered it, he saw that it branched off into two hallways a little ways down, with two signs perched above two mismatched drinking fountains. As he got closer, he was able to make out the words. Above the drinking fountain to the right, which was large and clean, was a sign reading White. To the left, above a dinky, dirty fountain that seemed moments away from falling off the wall was a sign with the word Colored.

  Ethan froze, his heart suddenly plummeting. He gripped the basin of the right-side fountain to steady himself. As he stood there in the center of the walkway, a man emerged from the “white” side, wiping his hands on his jeans. At the sight of Ethan, he raised an eyebrow.

  “Excuse me,” he snapped, nodding to the drinking fountain.

  “Oh, right,” Ethan mumbled, taking a few shaky steps back from the fountain. “S
orry.”

  The man did not respond, but eyed Ethan shamelessly as he bent to take a drink. He was a small man, dressed in a poorly tailored suit and gripping a briefcase under his arm. He seemed to find nothing amiss with the signs above the drinking fountains.

  “Don’t stare at me,” the man said as he walked off, and Ethan jerked away. Just then, a black woman in a sun hat emerged from the “colored” hallway and studied him with concern.

  “You all right there, sweetie?” she asked, her southern drawl thick and soothing.

  Ethan opened and closed his mouth, floundering for words. “I—I’m not from here,” he managed.

  The woman seemed to understand, because she pointed to the aisle she had just exited. “That’s where you want to go,” she told him.

  Muttering a garbled thanks, he edged past her and down the hall. At the end of it, he stumbled into the men’s restroom, noting the sudden paleness in his cheeks as he glanced in the mirror. Of course, he thought. It was here that the girl his age was arrested from the bus for taking up space designated for whites. With his heart in his throat and the rainstorm forgotten, Ethan splashed water on his face. He had to be careful here, perhaps even more so than in Ellison. Here, the way Ethan had been treated for weeks was law.

  “Just keep your head down,” he said to his reflection. When he returned to the theater a few minutes later, Juniper was standing on the sidewalk, two tickets clutched in her hand. She saw Ethan approaching and grinned. She didn’t notice the stiff way he walked or the fact that his hair was still wet.

  Instead: “Got them!” she cried, waving the tickets in the air. Ethan forced a smile and reached out to take his ticket from her outstretched fingers. A new animated movie, Juniper told him, about talking dogs who fall in love.

  “Sounds great, doesn’t it?”