I nod absently, scanning through the article. It's my name, over and over. Junie Baltimore. Junie Baltimore. Junie Baltimore.
Maybe John should've gotten the memo that Junie Baltimore doesn't exist anymore. It's Junie Conway—if I would've been born a month sooner, it could still be Baltimore, but I was still seventeen when Mom and Chuckles wed.
"...And then a big green penis came out of the sky and K.O.-ed everyone."
Startled, I glance up from the article. "Excuse me?"
"You weren't even listening!" Maggie accuses with a pout.
"I was!" I argue, but she rolls her eyes and I give in. "Okay, I really wasn't."
"You totes gave that garbage more attention than me. I'm hurt. Genuinely."
I clasp the tabloid to my chest. "You lie!" I gasp, trying to be funny, but when she frowns and doesn't reply with her usually witty comebacks, I drop the tabloid back to the floorboards. "What's wrong?"
"I feel like a total skank, bb, following John around for a whole year while the bastard went on this massive manhunt for RoMo...and I actually enjoyed it." She shivers. The cars on the interstate rush by in a blur. "Just so you know, like, I totes would've never done something like that. You know, if I was a pap. I wouldn't have..."
I put a comforting hand on Maggie's shoulder. "I know. You would've made up something better."
"Damn, yeah, I would—I mean, me? A pap? C'mon, bb, we all know I got better tastes than The Juice."
"Start your own magazine. Call it The Red Rag."
She makes a face. "Ew, totes gross. I'd call it something classy, like Incognito or something."
"Sounds ominous."
"That's the plan—if you end up in Incognito, then you totes did something super stupendous. Or super stupid."
My attention drifts down to the tabloid at my feet again. I wonder how often people think they are doing stupendous things that are stupid...or stupid things that turn out stupendous.
When we reach the condo, Officer Nesky—who has been trialing us the entire time—pulls up behind us in the loading zone to wait while I pack my things. Halfway back, I began to devise a plan on how to break the news to Mom and Chuck, hoping that they haven't seen the news. If they have? I might as well go ahead and ground myself. As we pass the breezeway on the way up, Chuck materializes out of the elevator. I must jump three feet out of my skin.
"OhmyGod!" I slam a hand on my haywire heart. "You scared the shit out of me."
He puts a hand on my shoulder, his face unreadable. "Junie," he says in his best fatherly tone. My shoulders wilt. Oh no, he's seen the news. "We need to talk."
I hope for help from my best gal pal, but Maggie points upstairs and slips into the elevator without me with an apologetic smile. Remind me never to rely on her for help ever again.
"I really don't want to..."
"Junie."
What I want to talk about is how I really, really want to talk to my dad. And that's something neither of us can grant.
"All right."
He leads me out onto the pool deck. It's dark, and most of the vacationers are out at dinner or playing mini-golf. He sits down in one of the chairs and I take the one beside him.
He laces his fingers together. "Your mother and I...we know. Your mug's been all over the news, Junie."
I deflate a little. Of course, he'll talk to me about getting arrested but not about the foreclosure. I'm not privy enough to know that sort of thing in their eyes. "Yeah, that..."
"And I just wanted to tell you that it is all right. We all do stupid stuff. Hell, I still do stupid stuff. Like not telling you about the foreclosure.”
Suddenly, he has my attention. "How did you know I knew?"
He shifts in his chair, scratching the back of his neck nervously. The bald spot on his head gleams in the moonlight. Dad had a bald spot too, but he always wore hats and bandanas so it wouldn't get sunburned. Chuck must put sunscreen on his. “Your mother found out. They called back.” He heaves a sigh. “We were going to tell you...after our vacation.”
“Oh.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t even know about it until I got the mail one day and there was a letter addressed to William Baltimore.”
“The bar's still in his name?” My voice is tight. "Mom didn’t transfer it over?"
“She didn’t want to. What I’m saying is, your mom wanted to handle it herself.”
“Handle it? She kept it a secret. That's my bar. That's my future."
"But it doesn't have to be," he tries to reason. "This is your life, Junie. The bar was your father's."
I ball my hands into fists. "And that is my father's bar. And my mom lied to me! She's known about it for God knows how long! We could've done something! I could've done something..."
But Chuck's shaking his head vehemently. "She was going to tell you. I married your mother because she’s honest, and she’s smart. She wouldn’t keep a secret like that from you. I wouldn't either. Don't hold this against her."
"It's hard not to."
"I know," he agrees softly. "But try to understand. Your mother hates secrets."
I have no argument to that. Mom could've kept Chuck a secret, but she hadn't. She chose instead to be ridiculed for marrying so soon after Dad's death that it reeked of an affair. They shunned her from the book club, from barbeques, from Homeowner meetings...she took it all with flawless elegance, electing to fill her time with new things—woodworking classes, yoga, weekends off with Chuck.
Even I know that Chuck and Mom honest-to-God love each other, and I know that Mom and Dad honest-to-God did, too, and a love like that you can't keep hidden because you don't want it secret. You want the whole world to know.
I'm not mad at Chuck because he loves my Mom. I'm mad at him because he’s not Dad. And, all of a sudden, that sounds like a very silly reason to be mad at someone at all.
"I'm just mad," I finally admit, "and I'm sort of scared."
He reaches over, very tentatively like I'm a wild tiger at the zoo, and places his hands over mine. It's supposed to be comforting, I guess, but his palms are sweaty and heavy. "We'll all sit down and figure it out, okay, Junie?" When I pull my hands out from his and wipe them on my shorts, he adds, "Is there anything else?"
"Remember when I went to get underwear?" There are still bits of dirt from the cemetery clinging to my nails.
Chuck thinks. "That the night I had cherry moonshine? Good stuff, those Davidsons...what about it?"
I take a deep breath and start from the beginning. It's a long story, and I flub a few things—I leave out the beach, and dancing at the Lona, and the CD in his car—but I have to give him credit for listening so long. As the words spill from my mouth, it feels like a great anchor has been untied from my feet, and I am slowly rising back to the surface for air. I know about secrets, and I know about lies, and I know they can fester far deeper than any truth ever will.
When I finish, he puts a hand on my knee and says in a very solemn voice, "Junie Conway, you're grounded—for life."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
"Grounded!" I growl, shoving my duffle bag into the trunk of Maggie's Buick and slamming it closed. Officer Nesky has gotten himself a donut and a coffee from the gas station across the street. He waves at us when I glance back at him, and scowl because no one should be that friendly at midnight. "After I came clean, told the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me Bruce..."
"Almighty?" Maggie slides into the driver's seat. I buckle myself in shotgun.
"Springsteen."
"Oh. It could be worse, bb." She backs out and we start down Ocean Boulevard toward the interstate, t-minus six hours until home. Officer Nesky pulls out after us. "We could still be in jail with those super creeps. I swear they were homeless."
"I think one was a prostitute." Roman Holiday's "Deep End" pulses through her speakers before I reach to turn the dial. "Classic rock?"
"Sure." She glances over. "Do you want to talk about it?"
&n
bsp; I turn to The Rock MBK station from memory, and the sweet voice of Bon Jovi crackles through the speakers. Savoring the sound, I close my eyes and sink back into the polyester seats. The cherry-smelling car fragrance sways in time to "(Do You Want To) Make a Memory." "Yeah, I mean how unfair is this? I owned up to my mistake. Fat good that did me. God knows I'll be the talk of the town for the next year anyway, so go ahead and ground the soon-to-be social pariah!"
"At least they won't be talking about your mom's marriage anymore," she offers up. "But that's not what I meant, bb. I mean if you're okay with...you know."
"Oh," I reply, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible to the pink elephant in the car, "that."
What am I supposed to say? That I'm fine with it? That I had a three-day love affair with a guy I didn't even know? That, when he kissed me, even though it was bittersweet it felt like all the stars in the sky orbited around us? That with one touch he could set me on fire? That he had treated me with more respect and more kindness than any other man, save my own father? That I didn't care he used to be a playboy? Or that he blamed me for the paparazzi, but that I'm bitter he left without even a goodbye?
At least now, he can stop running and...what, get back to music? Return to the roar of the crowd? A small, aching part of my heart hopes he does. The way he talked about it on the boardwalk, I now can't imagine him anywhere other than adored by millions of people. He needs to be adored. He needs to be loved. Everyone deserves a second chance, even Roman Montgomery.
But there's a bigger hollow part of me full of nothing but the echoes of what might have been. His hand on the small of my back, his warm cheek pressed against mine, his breath hot on my neck...
I know what love is now. It isn't planning to give yourself up in a room full of stagnant electric candles. It isn't kissing behind dumpsters and stealing moments behind open doors in the hallway or the janitor's closet at lunch.
Love is not planned. It doesn't have a set time or place. It is something you can't define because it's bigger than any of us alone. It's the sideways glance of the stranger behind you in line, the well-worn silence between strangers over ice cream. It's serenading you on the beach, and with you dancing cheek-to-cheek. Love is made up of small impossibilities—inconsequential, incalculable moments strung together like imaginary constellations.
Maybe John's right and I was just another girl. I was a holiday, and I was a secret. Those two poisons, beating beside a heart that had fallen in love with him...
It fills me with a sadness bigger than my bones.
"I will be," I finally confide, as close to the truth as I'll ever get. "I will be okay."
Friday
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Maggie and I stare at the Roman Holiday wall-shrine in her room. There is everything from t-shirts to posters to concert tickets to magazine cut outs to dream boards stretched from one end to the other. It's a testament to her love for the band.
We stand side-by-side, looking up at the massive wall, before she takes the article she cut out from The Juice about us and pins it right in the middle.
"At least the article gives your wall some flavor," I try to joke, although just looking at it makes me want to vomit.
"Yeah." She steps back and admires her work of art. "Hey, bb?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you want to help me take it down?"
I study my best friend for a long moment. The dark circles under her eyes mirror mine. When we got in at six-thirty this morning, neither of us could sleep so we sat up watching episodes of Supernatural on Netflix. A part of me wishes she'd never come to the beach because, even though she'll never admit it, it destroyed her ideal of the people on her wall, and the articles behind them.
But, then, another part of me is glad I wasn't alone for it. I'm glad she was there, however selfish that might be, and I'm glad I still have a person to call my best friend.
"Sure," I finally reply, and she smiles.
"Awesomesauce!" She perks. "Besides, I totes think it's time to dive into a new fandom. Get on the bandwagon again, travel to where no man has gone before! Ooh, Chris Pine. Now he's a nice piece of ass."
"I dunno, RDJ is pretty hot."
"In that ex-druggie sort of way." She cringes and plucks our article from the middle of the wall. She begins to rip it, but then sets it gingerly on her bed. "Just, uh, don't destroy anything. It totes might be worth something."
"Because a Roman Montgomery PEZ dispenser is valuable," I deadpan as I peel it off the wall from where she double-side-taped it.
"Oh, shut up and start peeling. We have a new shrine to erect!" She begins to name off other bands and actors in the running, and all I can do is shake my head while I take down the ab-licious poster of Roman, and try to remember him as nothing more than a person that I used to know.
Saturday
Chapter Thirty
When my parents finally returned home, Mom agrees to break the news of the foreclosure to the employees on Wednesday, because Monday is already a shitty day, and on Tuesday everyone’s getting over the hangover they gave themselves from the shitty Monday. I'm not sure I follow her logic. I just think she doesn’t want to tell anyone.
Chuck doesn't retract his decision to ground me, and Mom agrees. "I'm very disappointed, Junie," she tells me, holding up a tabloid of my blurred-out naked body hurtling over a gravestone.
Classy.
Here I am, eighteen and graduated from high school and...I'm grounded. Like a thirteen-year-old. Since my parents have come home, they've been watching me like a hawk as if they're afraid I'll go rogue at any moment. I feel like I'm in prison but it's worse because they pretend like they still love me. I wouldn't be surprised if they secretly inserted a tracking device on me in my sleep.
Note to self: sleep with the door locked.
Sunday
Chapter Thirty-One
Mom should be thankful, at least, because she's not the talk of the town anymore. I've already been uninvited to three end-of-summer parties I didn't even know I was invited to in the first place and a birthday party by some girl I barely knew in high school. I think we had algebra together, but Maggie swears we had P.E. with her freshman year.
Maggie swears this'll all blow over.
"You won't be a pariah forever," she says after a cheerleader we went to high school with shoots me a particularly nasty look at the 7-11.
"Yeah, but forever's a long time to wait," I reply, and sucked down half of Maggie's slurpy in hopes to kill myself via brain-freeze. We flunk down by the curb, and I open up a bag of onion rings.
“I’ll be here for you,” she replies, stealing one from the bag.
“Thanks.”
Because I'm pretty sure my Facebook friends list has decreased to a solid three—my parents and Maggie.
Monday
Chapter Thirty-Two
"Junie!" Chuck calls from the kitchen.
He and Mom are making cake pops for the neighborhood's end-of-summer cookout—one that I have not been uninvited to yet. Which is a plus. I need to get out of the house. I'm beginning to reorganize my closet by color—and with my extensive collection of black t-shirts, I'm not sure if I should organize them by the color palette on the graphics, or by the fade.
When I crawl off my bed and thump down the stairs into the kitchen, they’re humming along to "Crush on You." If it's possible, Roman Holiday has become more popular. Not that I hate them anymore. Now, I just want to gouge out my eardrums every time I hear them. Which is a step up, I swear.
And yeah, okay, I might hate RoMo just a little.
Flour and icing powder the countertops in the kitchen. What did my parents do, have a cake pop battle while I slept in?
“What?” I ask, sitting down at the table.
Mom hands the cordless phone to me between her elbows. “You've got a few letters on the counter and some man wants to talk with you. Something from last week...?”
“What?” I mouth, curiously putting the phone to my ear. S
he shrugs and hands Chuck another stick to shove into a cake ball. I get up, grabbing the stack of letters, and walk into the living room for a little privacy. “Hello?”
“Junie Baltimore?”
"Conway," I correct, tearing open the first letter.
Go to hell slutface, it reads.
"Are you the daughter of William Baltimore?"
I drop the letter on the coffee table like it's an iron brand. My eyebrows furrow in vexation. "I'm sorry, but who is this?"
"Go fuck yourself, cuntlips. I hope you die." Then, a dial tone.
"Oh...kay..."
I toss the phone onto the couch. The next letter is addressed to me too in loopy, heart-swirling cursive. I don't recognize the handwriting, or know anyone from Michigan, but I open it anyway.
Dear Junie Baltimore, Do us all a favor and slit your wrists. End your suffering. You're welcome.
Flabbergasted, I shred open the next two letters. Are they all like this? They call me worse names, and one even includes a cutout from one of the tabloids with devil horns drawn to my head and a penis shoved against my lips. The last letter is from Asheville—a very polite un-invite to the neighborhood cookout.
At least I knew that was coming.
Returning the cordless phone to the kitchen, I slide up onto the barstool. Chuck slips Mom a peck on the cheek while reaching for another cake pop stick.
I hold out the un-invite. "I'm not going to the cookout."
Chuck inspects the invite without missing a beat. "Fine by me. I hate housewives anyway." He eats the cake pop he's making and hands the invite to Mom.
She scans over it. "Oh, my. I didn't realize it was this serious."
The other letters feel heavy in my hands. "Me neither."
"All this over some famous guy?"
"Yep."
She tears the un-invite in half and tosses it into the garbage can beside the counter. "Fine, then I refuse to go, too."
"You know what? Let's throw our own cookout." Chuck eats another cake pop. "Two can play at this game."
Roman Holiday Page 15
