Saving June (6 page)

Someone left the television on in the living room—an infomercial advertising weight supplements flickers on the screen. A now slim woman holds an old picture of herself,
thick and round, and tearfully proclaims that the product transformed her life, that her husband now loves to touch her and her children are no longer ashamed to introduce her to their friends, her life is now pretty and shiny and perfect, blah blah blah. How can this woman stand to listen to herself?

I’m flipping through channels when Aunt Helen and my mother come in, carrying brown grocery bags. Mom’s hair is bushy and unbrushed, and she has on zero makeup. She’s like the opposite of Mrs. Sterling. Usually she’s the opposite of Mrs. Sterling in that she looks put-together without being overdone, classy without trying too hard, but now she just looks sad.

Mom withdraws an egg carton from the bag, sets it on the counter and just stares at it until Aunt Helen reaches over and puts it inside the refrigerator.

“Harper,” calls Aunt Helen, “would you come in here for a moment? I need to speak with you.”

This can only be bad. These types of “discussions” never seem to work out in my favor. I mute the television—I’ve landed on some documentary special about Area 51—and obediently trudge into the kitchen. Aunt Helen purses her thin lips as she leans against the refrigerator door, fingering the large bronze cross that always hangs around her neck.

“We’ve been discussing the…current situation,” she says. Current situation. What is with all of these euphemisms?
Adjustments. Current situation.
No one can just outright say the ugly truth:
Your sister is dead, your mother is unraveling at the seams, your father is a regular Houdini who has once again pulled his well-honed disappearing act and you have the emotional capacity of a cinder block.
“Your mother feels it would be best—and I agree—for me to come and stay with you both for a short while,” Aunt Helen continues. “Just to look after things.”

The idea of Aunt Helen living here is enough to make my skin crawl. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what she’s doing, especially for my mother, but I also know what I can and can’t handle. Aunt Helen around twenty-four seven, hovering over me, shoving her religious-guidance crap down my throat, falls distinctly into the latter category.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”

“Someone
needs to be here for your mother, since you seem to be having no qualms about gallivanting around with your friends and leaving her to fend for herself,” she says reproachfully. “Do you really think that’s what your sister would have wanted?” Her accusatory tone cuts through me like a knife.

My eyes shift from her to my mother, shocked, but Mom won’t even look at me. I can’t believe I’m being ambushed. I mean, I know Aunt Helen’s never liked me. I get it. June was always the golden child while I’m the rotten egg. I never even had to do anything to make myself look bad
except be average in comparison to her saintly self. This is nothing new.

June wouldn’t be so selfish. June wouldn’t be so cold. June wouldn’t abandon her daughterly duties. Except that she did, permanently, leaving me to take the reins of a role I cannot possibly fill. But no one wants to think about that.

My sister is dead and I’m still being measured up against her ghost. I’m not even surprised.

So why does it still hurt?

The hurt winds its way through me and curls my fists at my sides. My blood buzzes in my head so loud I can’t think. I’m pretty sure if she says another word I’m going to throw something, possibly at
her.
So instead of doing something I know I’ll regret, I storm out of the kitchen and don’t stop until I’m up the stairs and in my room. I take the disc out of my Discman and throw it at the wall as hard as I can. It doesn’t make much of a sound, just bounces off and rolls onto the floor, sitting there in one piece, mocking me. After some pacing back and forth, I put the disc back in the player and turn the volume up as loud as it will go.

For the rest of the night, no one comes to knock on my door and apologize, or see if I’m okay, or even to try and coax me down for dinner. It’s so stupid, because all I’ve wanted is space, and now that I have it, there’s this part of me that is just so achingly lonely I could die.

The idea of California tugs at me again. It’s not even a
mere wish anymore, it’s just…necessary. I have to find a way to get there. Not just for June’s sake, but for mine. I have to get out of this place before I suffocate. A second after that thought crosses my mind, I’m struck with the realization that maybe this is exactly how June felt, too, all of that time.

I wish she was here so I could ask. I wish she was here at all, sitting on my bed, recounting some stupid argument she had with Tyler, or complaining about how I’ve used up the last of the hair conditioner or sitting out on the roof with me as I sneak one of Mom’s stolen cigarettes. We used to do that, sometimes. The first time June caught me smoking I thought for sure she’d rat me out, but she never did.

I wish she was here, but she isn’t, she never will be, and I have to get used to that.

I wait until I know Aunt Helen and Mom have both gone to bed before I creep into the kitchen, make myself a peanut butter sandwich in the dark and go back upstairs. Sometime after midnight I fall asleep, listening to the CD on a loop. When I wake up, the sheets are caught in a sweaty tangle around my legs, the batteries in my Discman are dead and it’s bright outside. A glance at my alarm informs me it’s past noon.

Aunt Helen and my mom are gone. Again. Apparently I’m the only one expected to be under voluntary house arrest. I check the answering machine—no messages. My father hasn’t called since the wake. Go figure. He’s probably
too busy with Melinda, the most important person in his life.

I don’t know why I’m so annoyed; it’s not like I want to talk to him. I almost feel like I wouldn’t care if I never talked to him again. June is gone, and where is he? I don’t care how hard it is for him. I don’t care if he’s uncomfortable in this house. I
needed
him, and if he couldn’t be there for me over something so important, what good is he at all?

It’s quickly becoming clear that the only person I can lean on at all these days is Laney.

I consider calling her when I remember she’s elbow-deep in an AP English exam and unavailable for another two hours. Nothing good is on daytime television, and really, it makes me anxious to sit in the living room for too long with June’s urn planted on the fireplace mantel, staring me down. There’s nothing to do but roam the deserted house.

Mom started smoking again after she and Dad split. She thinks she’s good at hiding it, like I don’t know she keeps a stash of cigarettes hidden in her jewelry box. Sure enough, there’s a pack of Camel Lights stowed away under a mess of necklaces, along with a plastic lighter. I nab both and retreat back into my own room.

There were times, before the divorce, when our parents would fight. Mostly it was Mom who would yell, while Dad sat silent, a stony wall to her barrage of shouts and
accusations. I know she thought he was messing around on the side, during his late nights at the office, and hiding money from her. I have no idea how much of that was actually true—if any of it—but Mom would get so worked up, she must’ve really believed what she said. She’d just go on a total rampage, annihilating everything in her path. The best coping method was total avoidance, and so sometimes during their arguments, June would come to my room, near tears, and we’d climb out my window and onto the roof and just sit. Sometimes I’d smoke, sometimes we’d talk, and sometimes we’d just sit there in mutual silence. During our conversations, we never acknowledged the obvious: our parents’ marriage was vaporizing before our eyes.

Maybe we thought if we didn’t mention it, it would go away on its own. Maybe we just didn’t know how to talk to each other the way we used to, when we were little kids and best friends who shared everything.

Now I wrench the window up and slowly slide my legs outside, climbing out just enough to sit on the ledge with my bare feet flat on the slanted roof, already warmed by the high sun. I shake a single cigarette from the pack at my side and stick it in my mouth. It takes only two tries to strike up a flame, which is quite impressive considering how hard my hands are shaking. I wonder if it’ll always be this hard, to think about June, if I’ll ever be able to
separate the good memories from bad, or if they’ll always be intrinsically tied together.

I light the end of the cigarette, inhaling deeply. The air is hot and still, the breeze nonexistent, the sun beating down in an otherwise clear sky. From my perch I can spot some kids a few doors down, skipping rope on the street and chanting in unison.
Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in nineteen hundred and forty-two. The waves got higher, and higher…

If I close my eyes it’s almost like June’s beside me, the way she used to be. I can see her perfectly in my mind—those slim arms wrapped around her knees as she pulls her long legs in close to her chest. She used to sit like that all the time, like she was trying to make herself as small as possible.

Maybe she was always trying to disappear.

I’m sitting there, breathing in the mingled smells of smoke and cut grass and tar from the shingles, trying to remember, when suddenly a voice cuts through my meandering thoughts.

“Hey!” My eyes fly open to see Jacob Tolan, standing on the edge of my front yard, shielding his eyes from the intense sun with one hand and squinting up at me.
“Enjoying your moment of faux teenage rebellion?”

The unexpected intrusion nearly sends me plummeting off the roof and to an early death. At the very least, a few broken ribs. Flustered, I quickly right myself and glare
down at his figure. The first thing I notice is that he’s wearing a black leather jacket open over a long-sleeved red flannel shirt, even though it’s about a billion degrees outside, and black jeans, again. Possibly the same pair. What is this, the nineties?

“Get off my lawn,” I shout, holding the cigarette away from my face.

“Oooh, tough words from the girl who smokes—let me guess—Virginia Slims?”

Who the hell does he think he is, coming here and accusing me of smoking girly cigarettes?

“Camel Lights, actually, dickwad.” I take another long, harsh drag, just to prove a point. Unfortunately, the effect is diminished when I start coughing up half a lung.

Jake extracts his own pack from his jeans pocket, tilting it up for me to see. “What do you know. Same brand. Got a light?”

I reel my arm back and chuck my lighter at him, hard. My aim is decent enough, but Jake dodges out of the way just in time; the flimsy thing barely clips him in the shoulder, and he shoots me a long, even look as he leans down and fishes it from the grass at his feet.

I keep on glaring as he straightens and lights his cigarette. “What do you want?”

He says, “We need to talk,” and glances around conspicuously. “Preferably in, you know, private.”

“Like
…private,
private?” I ask. Does he seriously think anyone would bother to listen in on this conversation?

He scowls and does that annoying squinty thing again. “Is there any other kind?”

Part of me wants to tell him to go screw himself; the other part of me is curious to know what possible reason he could have for coming around and wanting to talk. Curiosity wins out in the end. I stub the cigarette out, making sure to roll my eyes and blow out an exaggerated sigh so he won’t think I’m, like, really wanting to
know
what he’s doing in my front yard.

“Fine, whatever,” I tell him coolly. “Give me a minute.”

I scoot back through the window, carefully wedging it down, and then hurry downstairs. It seems like a good idea to make him wait for a while, just so he doesn’t think I’m dying to hear whatever it is he has to say. Even if I kind of am.

I stand at the front door and count to thirty before I open it. Jake is still standing in the same spot, stomping out his cigarette, and instead of approaching me, he just cocks his head to the side until I march over.

“What do you want?” I huff.

I want to know what’s going on, but if he keeps this up, forget it. I’ve never been the kind of girl to beg. I’m definitely not about to start now.

He grabs my arm and hauls me behind the towering oak tree at the edge of the lawn. “Let’s talk in there,”
he says, jerking his chin toward the van parked right on the curb.

I glance around to see if anyone is in earshot. Our old neighbor Mr. Jones is mowing his lawn, and some woman pushes a stroller down the sidewalk. When the woman passes, she gives us a strange look, but then the baby starts wailing and diverts her attention.

I stare at Jake blankly. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“What? Why not?”

“Sketchy black van? Weird stalking of my house? What are you going to do next, offer me some candy?” I scoff. “Sorry, I saw that
Dateline
special, thank you very much. Besides, anything you need to say to me, you can say behind this tree.”

He makes this annoyed growling sound in the back of his throat, then takes a deep breath. “Listen. I know what you and Laney are planning on doing.”

Well, that is not what I expected. I look at him closely. He can’t know. Can he?

“Uh, okay,” I say. Best to play dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What, like I’d come all the way over here just to bullshit you? Do you think I’m an idiot?” He pauses. “Don’t answer that.”

Not a problem, as I’m sort of at a loss for words at the moment. All I can do is look at him. Up close, I get a better view; there’s no denying the fact he is really, really
good-looking, in this rakish, edgy, badass,
I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-screw-you-I-don’t-need-a-mirror
kind of way. He has these piercing, unbelievably green eyes that are as gorgeous and sharp as the rest of him; it’s like they can see straight through me. But I don’t want to be seen. I just want answers.

Realizing his hand is still on my arm, I shake it off. He shoves his hands in his jean pockets and waits.