The Edge of Juniper (2 page)

My parents both worked at my high school—Mom as a biology teacher and Dad as a guidance counselor.  Usually in the summers, Dad got a job tutoring at the student center, and Mom grew a garden, canning and freezing her harvest.  This year, the principal had heard about an organization that was traveling to Haiti to build a school and teach English to anyone who wanted to learn it.  He put the word out, and several teachers from local schools were going, my parents included.

It wouldn’t be just a service trip for my parents, though.  A few weeks before my parents were supposed to leave, they sat me down at our dining room table and explained that they were considering a separation. The force of that one sentence—those words falling from my mom’s mouth just like any other plain, ordinary words—knocked the wind out of me.  They told me I shouldn’t worry; they still planned to go on the trip to Haiti together, so I’d still get my summer in Juniper—as if that was what I was worried about right then.

I’d asked at least fifty-seven questions.  Most of them were variations of
what went wrong?
  There were others, too. 
Who will cut Dad’s hair now?
  Mom had been his barber for twenty years. 
Who will help Mom can all the vegetables from her garden next summer?
  She was nervous of the pressure cooker, so Dad did that part. 
How will we get the Christmas tree set up in the stand?
  That always took all six of our hands. 
What about the dog we were talking about getting? 
We’d been to the shelter a few times, but hadn’t yet found the right pup.

They didn’t have any answers for me, none at all, and told me I was jumping the gun.  I latched onto the fact that they said they were merely
considering
a separation.  I considered lots of things I’d never actually do.  The way I saw it, their trip would be part service work, part marriage retreat.  Dad reinforced that idea when he said they hoped the shared sense of purpose and vision would bring them clarity about the state of their marriage.

I pictured them building their marriage from the dirt up; strengthening it along with the school walls they built.  Maybe they’d laugh together as they raced wheelbarrows full of rocks.  Maybe they’d reminisce as they smoothed concrete floors.  Maybe they’d sit outside at night, using their logical words to fix every problem, like they always did for me.  Dad would come home needing a haircut badly, and Mom would cut it.  It wasn’t just possible, I thought it was likely.  It would be okay, no need for jumping any guns.

Mom was looking forward to eight weeks with no technology.  I was
not
looking forward to that part.  In case of emergency, I had a number I could call, but there wouldn’t be regular contact.  I could handle it though, and I was looking forward to hanging out with Celia all summer.  She was the closest thing I had to a sister.

I hoped I hadn’t wrecked everything by sneaking out.  Maybe this summer wasn’t off to the best start, but I was certain it would get better. Juniper had always been an oasis, a place I escaped to while my regular life was on pause.  Last year, Uncle Todd borrowed a speedboat from a friend, and took us all to a nearby lake.  Mom and Aunt Donna just watched and sipped sweet tea, my dad drove the boat, and Todd taught Abe and me to water ski.  He tried to teach Celia too, but she only fell once before giving up.

Abe got it on his second try, and the whole crowd of us cheered so loudly, I’m sure we scared all the fish in the lake.  When it was my turn, Uncle Todd floated next to me in the water, holding me steady and helping keep the skis straight, before the boat took off.  I fell at least twenty times, but I kept trying until I got it.  I’ll never forget the way it felt to fly over the lake, my eyes squinting against the spray hitting me in the face, Todd hooting and whistling from the water, and the rest of my family cheering from the boat.  That was Juniper to me.

The bedroom door opened again, and I turned toward the sound.  This time it was Celia.  She went to her bed and lay on top of the covers.  “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Fay, I’m fine.  Grow up.  I can handle a little lecture from my mother.”  She stood and stalked into the bathroom.  She’d been telling me to grow up since we were little kids.  Most of the time, she said it to tease me, being that she’s younger, and it made me laugh.  I didn’t laugh this time though, and when she came back into the room, I pretended to be asleep.

2

L
aughter woke me
, and I smiled into my pillow.  At home, only my alarm ever woke me.  My parents left for work early, and though I could have caught a ride to school with them, I preferred to get a little extra sleep.  Freya and Finn would show up, likely running late, hand me a slice of cold toast, and drive us to school.  They were twins, and they made me an honorary triplet, on account of my name also starting with an F.

I got out of bed and put on my bathrobe, apprehensive in spite of the laughter, wondering what the fallout from sneaking out would be.  But when I approached the kitchen, my heart squeezed in a delicious way.  Uncle Todd and Abe were thumb wrestling, and Todd was letting Abe win.  “You crushed me again, Abe!  Do you hide cans of spinach under your bed?  Lift weights in the middle of the night?”

Abe cracked up at his dad’s goofiness.  I sat down by Celia, who had just finished setting the table.  Donna scraped some eggs onto each plate, and then pulled biscuits out of the oven.  This was a far cry from cold, soggy toast.

“What are you girls up to today?” Donna asked, as though nothing had happened last night.

“Work.  Fay’s going to get a job with me at the restaurant.”

Donna nodded and pointed her spatula at me.  “Don’t let that woman scare you off.”

Celia laughed.  “Mom.  Heidi’s harmless.”

“She isn’t.  She’s a scary old lady if I ever met one.”

Uncle Todd chuckled, and then looked at me, chewing thoughtfully.  “It’ll do you some good to work.”

It may be true that it does
anybody
good to work, but I didn’t like the way he said it.  It felt like he was insinuating I didn’t know what hard work was.  I nodded into my plate, letting it go.

Maybe he realized he’d hurt my feelings, because then he said, “Hey, I have a few extra minutes before I have to get to work.  Anybody want to toss the Frisbee?”

Before I could say yes, Celia said, “Dad, that’s boring.  And anyway, we don’t have time.  We have to get ready for work.”

“Boring, huh?  How about you, Abe, is Frisbee boring to you?”

“No sir.  Let’s go do it!”  Abe shoved the rest of his biscuit in his mouth and jumped up to dig through the hall closet to find the Frisbee.

After breakfast, I got dressed, taking extra care to look responsible.  “Shorts aren’t professional, are they, Celia?”

“I promise, Heidi isn’t going to care what you wear.  I’m wearing shorts. It’s too hot for jeans.”

I went with the shorts, though I still felt weird about it.  We left through the front door, Celia shutting it quietly behind us.

“Wait, we didn’t tell anyone good-bye.”

“And we’re not going to.  Mom didn’t tell Dad about last night, and now that he’s in the back yard with Abe, she might feel like lecturing me again.”

“Oh.”  Time for a subject change.  “Well, thanks for getting me this job.  Do you really think it’ll be okay?  I’ve never even met Heidi.  I should have worn the skirt.”

Celia reached out and put her hand in my elbow.  “Try to relax.  Take some deep breaths or something—you’re stressing out for no reason.  Heidi told me it was fine.  We don’t have a dish washer right now, so she has to wash them herself, and she’d rather sit on her ass and smoke fifty cigarettes in a row than do any work.”

Walking to Heidi’s Restaurant made me feel like I lived in a city more than living in an actual city did.  In Perry, I couldn’t walk anywhere from my house.  My neighborhood was situated west of town, and it would have been much too far to walk or bike into the city center. I had an aging learner’s permit, but my parents already told me they wouldn’t help me buy a car.  They bought me very little in the way of non-necessities, ascribing to a minimalistic approach to life, as well as to the idea that kids need to earn their stuff in order to appreciate it.  I figured I could use my time here to add to my car fund.

The Youngs were a one-car family.  Uncle Todd took the car to work, and he worked long hours.  So we walked.  Juniper had good sidewalks though, and their house was right in town.  Nothing was farther than a fifteen minute walk away.

We turned onto Market Street, and my eyes drifted to a pale blue house with a wide front porch, where a boy sat atop an up-ended five gallon bucket.  He held a length of wood, the sandpaper making a
chh chh
sound as he smoothed it. We neared his house, and I watched his hands move rhythmically against the board, sawdust floating to the porch floor and dusting the tops of his bare feet.

“Who’s the lumberjack?” I whispered to Celia.

“Ignore him.  Don’t even look at him,” she said, which of course meant I looked at him again immediately.  Just a quick glance, enough to take note of his messy brown hair, sawdust covered jeans, and lack of a shirt.  He had thick stubble on his face, and his chest was broad and tan with a patch of hair in the middle.  The word that came to mind was brawny.  It might have been a touch longer than a quick glance.

He saw me looking, and raised his arm in greeting.  I copied him, and Celia pulled my hand down and pinned it to my side.

“Why can’t I wave at a cute boy?  What’s the harm?”

“Shh!”  Celia sped up until we were past his house, and she wouldn’t talk to me until we had turned onto Tulip Avenue.

“What was that about?”

Celia rolled her eyes at me.  She could be a world champion eye roller.  “You’re going to have to find a different cute boy to flirt with.  That was Malcolm Dearing.”

“Oh, of course.  Malcolm Dearing.”  We walked in silence for a bit.  “Who’s Malcolm Dearing?  Is he your arch nemesis?”  I thought that could be a fun development.

“Fay. 
Dearing?
  Dad works for Dearing Plastics.  Malcolm’s dad is my dad’s boss.”

“You’re not allowed to talk to the boss’s family?”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember.  Last summer?  It was all our parents talked about when you came to visit.”

I remembered a lot about that visit: Wading in the creek and seeing that snake, Celia curling my hair, walking in the woods and getting a tick on the back of my leg, badminton in the yard, a water balloon fight with Abe.  I had not sat around and listened to the adults talk about the Dearing family.

Celia sighed, out of patience with me already, at seven forty-five in the morning.  “Mr. Dearing hates my dad.  It’s like a personal vendetta.  He called the police on my parents last summer, when they were just having a fight, like all parents fight.”

Not mine.  I had no experience with parental arguments, because my parents never fought in front of me.  If they had, their possible divorce might not have come as such a shock.  “So Malcolm
is
your arch nemesis.”

She gave me a stern look.  “Anyway, they were just having an argument in the yard one night, and Mr. Dearing walked past our house.  He called the police to come out for a
domestic dispute
.  The police.  For an argument.  It was ridiculous.  After that happened, Dad says Mr. Dearing treats him like garbage at work.  Mom told Abe and me we shouldn’t talk to any of the Dearings now, so we won’t give Mr. Dearing any ammunition.”

The wind picked up and blew the hair off my neck for a moment.  It felt good, as the morning was already intolerable with heat and humidity.  The heat lit a spark of mischief in me.  “What if we’re swimming at Esta’s pond, and you start to drown and the only person nearby is Malcolm Dearing?  Can I ask him to go for help?”

Celia rolled her eyes again.  I wondered if a person could get an eyeball cramp.  “He wouldn’t be welcome at Esta’s pond.”

“Okay, well what if you run over the Dearings’ cat on your bike?  Can you go to their door to bring them their cat corpse?”

“You are morbid and insane,” Celia said, but she almost cracked a smile.  “I don’t think they have a cat.”

“What if Mrs. Dearing wins the lottery and insists that every employee of her husband’s plastics factory gets a cut?  Would you be allowed to accept the money?”  That did it, Celia smiled.  I smiled too; pleased that I had pulled her out of the dark mood she’d been in since last night.

We turned one more corner, and Heidi’s Restaurant sat in front of us, squat and crooked.  Even aside from its questionable structure, it was still an eyesore, painted cotton candy pink with a yellow front door.  Celia led me around the side of the building to the dirty back door.  “Heidi doesn’t like employees to enter through the front.”

We walked through the kitchen, past a large man frying bacon at a grill, to a closet in the corner.  Celia dug around in a drawer and pulled out a black apron, stiff with grease and dirt, which she half-heartedly dusted off and handed to me.

“You want me to put this on?  I haven’t even talked to Heidi.  She might not hire me.”

Celia went to her locker and pulled out a clean apron for herself.  “Suit yourself, but you’ll need it in about five minutes.  Like Mom said, she can be a little tough, and she has a weird sense of humor.  But deep down she’s really a big softie.”  She gestured to a hallway.  “Go that way.  Her office is the door just past the bathrooms.”

I set the apron back in the drawer and went down the hall, hoping it wouldn’t be terrible to work for Heidi.  I knew I wouldn’t quit though, no matter how bad it was.  I’d earn my car a dollar at a time here just as well as anywhere else.  I knocked on the office door.

“Come in,” said a gruff voice from behind the door.

I pushed open the door and went inside.  Heidi was a fossil of a woman, with steel gray hair in tight kinks on her head.  She lit a cigarette and looked at me expectantly.  “Well, shut the door.  This is a non-smoking establishment.”

I shut the door and sat down in a chair across from her.

“You’re Celia’s cousin?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, fine.  You’re a dish washer.  You’ll clear tables and scrub dishes and mop floors.  That alright, kid?”

“Sure, that’s great.”  I felt an unexpected burst of pride in Celia, that Heidi must trust her enough to hire me at her word.

“Well, what’s your name?”

“Fay Whitaker.  What’s your name?”

The wrinkles above her lips unfolded as she smiled at me.  “Call me Heidi.  Go dig up an apron and get started.”  She shooed me away with a wave of her hand.

I stood, sure there had to be more to it than this.  “Is there any sort of paperwork, or maybe some training?”

“What’s there to know?  You clear off the tables and wash the dishes in water as hot as you can stand.  We’ll take care of paperwork later.  Now get, kid.  I’ve got work to do.”

I tied on the stiff apron, and it stood out from my body like a shield.  I patted it down, but it popped right back up.  I looked over at the cook, a silent man who never seemed to turn away from the grill.  No one had introduced me to him, and I knew if I didn’t say something, it would get awkward.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

He grunted, and tilted his head at me in acknowledgement.

“I’m Fay.”

“Dan.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

He emitted another grunt.

“Are there clean aprons around here?”

“We have to take them home and wash them ourselves.”

“Oh, okay.  Thanks.”

“Mmhmm.”

I wasn’t sure if things were less awkward now, or more.

I found a gray tub under the sink, and throughout the morning, I stacked dishes into it and traipsed back to the kitchen to wash them.  My hands were red and raw from the hot water.  A search for lotion or dish gloves proved fruitless, and I stood at the sink examining a crack on the second knuckle of my right hand as Esta entered the kitchen from the back door, carrying an apron.

“Hi Esta,” I said.  “It’s good to see you again.”

“I heard we’d be working together.”  She tied her apron on and eyed my reddened hands.  “Thank God I’m not a dishwasher,” she said, and breezed by me to grab a tray.

Apparently she hadn’t suddenly become fond of me since last summer.  In spite of her efforts to the contrary, I liked Esta.  She was loyal, funny, and no-nonsense.  Perhaps by the end of the summer, I’d figure out how to get her to invite me in past arm’s length, where she’d kept me as long as I’d known her.

I swung my tub up into my arms and headed into the dining room.  The place was buzzing with energy as the lunch rush began, which pleased me, because I hadn’t been sure a lopsided pink restaurant would have any sort of a rush.

I cleared a table, and as I wiped it down I noticed Malcolm Dearing enter the restaurant with another boy.  He was wearing a shirt now, but it was dirty and covered with bits of grass.  The other boy looked even grungier, with smudges of dirt on his chin and grass stains on his pants.  They must have spent the morning mowing lawns.  My brain, against my will, concocted an image of Malcolm wielding a weed whacker.

They walked to a table by the window that was covered in dirty dishes from the previous patrons.  I snagged Celia’s arm as she came through the kitchen door, her tray crowded with plates of fried food and sandwiches.  “Hey Celia, am I allowed to clear the table for Malcolm, or will that get me in trouble with your parents?”