The Edge of Juniper (4 page)

“Hello.”

“I’m Paul.  I’m a Martin, not a Dearing, so it’s safe for you to introduce yourself.”

I smiled.  “Okay, Paul.  Did Malcolm send you over?”

“Nope.  In fact, he told me not to bother you because you were reading.  He may have mentioned that you don’t talk to Dearings, which is good news for me because he’s always the one to get the girl’s name first.”

“Is that so?”

“It is so.”

“Well, Paul, in that case, I’d be glad to give you my name.  I’m Fay, and it’s nice to meet you.”

“Fay.  You’re new here.”  Juniper was a very small town.

“I’m just here for the summer, staying with my cousins.”

“Cool.  Have your cousins been showing you a good time?”

I thought about the skinny dipping voyeurism and laughed.  “Sort of.”

“Well, you’d be welcome to hang out with me any time.  I’m always up to something fun.”

“Sure, Paul.  Count me in.”

“You know, you’re going to have a tough time avoiding all the Dearings in this town.  The place is crawling with them.  There’s one on every street, practically.”

I smiled at him, knowing the whole thing sounded pretty silly.  But it was kind of exciting, in a weird way.  And anyway, it wasn’t my feud.  “Thanks for the warning.”

“I better get back to work.  We have one more yard to do before lunch, and I’m starving.  But tomorrow night a bunch of us will be at the ball field if you want to come.”

“Is there a game?”

“No.  We just like to hang out on the bleachers.  You might have noticed there aren’t a lot of places to go around here.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Paul walked back to the other yard, where I saw Malcolm waiting, holding a rake.  They talked a minute and then Malcolm grinned and looked over at me.  “Bye, Fay.  Hope that book has a happy ending!”

They grabbed up the rest of their equipment and rushed toward their truck, laughing.  I couldn’t help but laugh, too.  “You have a big mouth, Paul!” I shouted after them.  “I hope you mow over a hornet’s nest!”

4

J
uniper was at
its most bustling, if you could call it that, at midday.  Therefore, the evening shift at Heidi’s wasn’t as busy as the lunch shift.  I wasn’t complaining; my hands were glad for the reprieve from hot water torture.  I propped the mop against the wall and watched Heidi as she plated a burger for Dan.  Next, she brought over an armload of crusty pots, dumped them in the sink, and gingerly seated herself atop a tall stool in the kitchen.  She lit a cigarette and pointed to the faucet.  I set to work filling the sink.

Heidi positioned her stool so she had a good view of the dining room through the window in the swinging door.  “Will you look at that?  Dot and Tim Curn just walked in and for once in his life Tim isn’t wearing his toupee.  I’ve never seen him without that rug.  He’s like a different person—I can even see his eyebrows.  I bet Dot finally got through to him.”  She clucked her tongue, and proceeded to fill me in on the gossip about the other patrons sitting out front, including the Thurlins, who were back from a vacation to a nude beach.

I wished Malcolm Dearing would walk in, so I could hear something juicy about him.  I had wrung out all the daydream material I could from yesterday’s conversation in the yard, and I needed new information.  After all, there was no rule against
thinking
about him.

I wasn’t really listening to Heidi’s blathering, distracted as I was by my own thoughts, but she laughed about something, and a load of pungent smoke wafted into my face.  “Heidi,” I coughed, “I know you’re the boss around here, but do you have to smoke in the kitchen?”  I waved my hands in front of my face.

“It’s my place; I’ll smoke where I want.” She blew a smoke ring, and I watched it rise to the ceiling, where it broke apart on the yellow-stained ceiling tiles.

“I’m going to hunt for more dirty dishes, then.  The ones in the sink need to soak.”

“Leaving dishes to soak is a lazy excuse, kid.  Scrub them.”  She stubbed her cigarette out on the side of her stool, and tossed it into the trash.

I smiled about that, at the way she gave in but also sort of didn’t, and went back to the sink.

“Here, use this.”  She tossed me a fresh ball of steel wool.  “I’m going to run some numbers and smoke in peace.  Let me know if it gets crazy out there.”  She patted Dan’s back on her way out of the kitchen, but a grunt was his only response.

After I finished the pots, I went to the dining room, where things were so dead that Celia and Esta sat at a table, chatting.  Esta waved me over.

“Hi.”

“Sit.  I want to talk to you for a minute,” Esta said.

I sat.

“Fay, since you’re a guest in Celia’s home, don’t you think she’s the one who should be making the plans?  The ball field is not where we hang out, and we’re not friends with anybody in that crowd.”

“Oh.”  I forced my face to remain neutral.  I had mentioned Paul’s invitation to Celia as we lay in bed last night.  She had seemed excited about it then, because Paul is one of the older boys at school, and she hadn’t been invited to hang out with them before. But apparently she had talked to Esta in the meantime.  Esta had a way of shooting down any ideas that came from me.

I looked to Celia, who just shrugged.  “We don’t have to go, Celia.  I just thought it sounded like fun.  We can do something else.  It’s Saturday night; I’m sure there are lots of things going on.”

Celia scoffed.  “Hardly.  Everybody does the same things every Saturday night.  There’s the crowd at the ball field.  Some people park in the back parking lot of the hardware store.  About half the kids drive to Bakerstown for a movie or bowling or something.  The rest of us just find somewhere to hang out.”

I spread my palms on the table.  “Celia, look.  My only plan for this summer was to spend a lot of time with you.  So we’ll do what you want tonight.”

“Okay.  It doesn’t really matter.”  Celia appeared aloof, but I knew better.  “Ronan’s going to be at Stacker Park with some friends.  We could go there.”

“Ronan.”  I looked at Esta, wondering what she thought of him.

“It’s settled then,” Esta said.  “Tonight, Stacker Park.”  She rose and went to a table, where the man newly dispossessed of his toupee was holding up his glass and waving at her.

I put my head down on the table and closed my eyes, wanting a little rest.  The Formica felt cool on my cheek, and I let my thoughts drift for a few minutes, as I listened to the sounds of clattering forks and low chatter.  “Celia, are you still here?”  My words were garbled, as my face was smooshed against the tabletop.

“I’m here.”  She sounded weary.

“Are you sure we won’t get in trouble with your parents if we go out tonight?”

“I already told you it would be fine.”

“I was just making sure.  I’d hate to do anything to make your mom mad.  So, I finally get to meet Ronan tonight.”

Celia was quiet for a moment, and I raised my head to look at her.  She crossed her arms over her chest.  “Just…promise me you’ll keep an open mind about Ronan.  It’s important to me.  He really likes me.”

“Of course I’ll keep an open mind.”

“And I know my mom has a temper, but we did sneak out.  You have to admit we deserved to get in trouble.”

“I know.  She was just really…loud.”

Celia scowled.

I drummed my fingers on the table, realizing I’d said the wrong thing.  “Loud isn’t always a bad thing.”

“That’s true.  Maybe if your parents were louder, they wouldn’t be splitting up.”

The thought shot a dart of fear into me.  “They’re not splitting up.  They’re working it out.  That means they’ve had discussions, right?  Probably even loud ones, when I wasn’t around.”

“I think you’re in denial.  I never knew of anyone who separated and then got back together.”

She might have been right, but it was easier to lean towards irritation than let sadness float to the top.  “They’re not separated yet.  And you’re just saying that because I said your mom was loud.”

She sighed, and relaxed her posture.  “You’re probably right.”  She smoothed her hands over her hair.  “Listen, I get it.  I know you’re going through a hard time with your parents, and you miss your life.”

“Yeah, but I also like it here, with you.  No matter how loud it gets.”

Celia held her hands out to me.  I hugged her tight, thankful to have someone who loved me no matter how many times I offended her, and who returned the favor by offending me regularly and letting me love her too.

The sky was just beginning to darken as the three of us walked toward Stacker Park, which sat near the edge of town.  We turned onto a gravel road, and rocks crunched under our feet.  I understood now why both Esta and Celia wore tennis shoes.  I had on a pair of pretty blue flats, and I could feel every rock I stepped on jabbing me through the flimsy soles.

Celia linked her arm through Esta’s, and then through mine, making us into a chain.  “I love this.  My two best friends together with me.”

I squeezed her arm with mine, and laughter reached me from the playground.  “Sounds like the fun has already started.”

Three people were there, and I only recognized Ronan, from the picture on Celia’s dresser.  He walked toward Celia and she let go of us to step into his arms.  He kissed the top of her head, and looked up at me and Esta.  “Ladies.”

“Hi Ronan,” Esta said, her voice limp and distant.  I took note of that.  Maybe she wasn’t completely sold on Ronan either.

“Ronan, meet my cousin, Fay,” Celia said, after she stepped out of his embrace.

“Hi, Fay.”  He had slimy eyes, and he slid them down my body from head to toe, leaving a trail of slime behind.

Yuck.
  Before I even responded, or indeed, even said hello, he went back to nuzzling Celia’s neck.

I tried anyway, because I
had
promised to keep an open mind.  “Hello, Ronan.  I’ve heard a lot about you.”  No response.

I looked over at the other people, who were dangling in swings and watching us.  “Hi,” I said, and waved.

The girl spoke. “I’m Molly.  That’s Nick.”  She gestured to the guy.

I walked to the empty swing next to Molly and sat, my shoes skimming across the dirt oval underneath.  Ronan finally unsuctioned himself from Celia’s neck, and they sat down at a picnic table facing the swings.

“Hey, Esta,” said Nick, “I heard there was some criminal activity at your uncle’s pond this week.”  The group busted up in laughter.

“Celia and Fay are the ones who actually saw it.  I just made the phone call,” Esta said.

“See any asses?” Nick asked me.

“A few.”

He laughed.  “Nice.  Next time, call me.  Sounds like my kind of party.”

“Next time, I’d advise you to be the ones in the water.  That group looked like they were having tons of fun,” I said.

“Now that’s a plan,” said Nick.

“I don’t know about the skinny dipping part, especially not with you clowns,” Molly said.  “But night swimming does sound fun.  How about it, Esta?”

Esta smirked.  “You might like the skinny dipping part if I invite Hunter Davies.”

Molly blushed, and ducked her head to hide her smile.

I nearly fell out of my swing.  That was the first time I’d ever heard Esta playfully tease anyone.

“You talk big, Esta, but we all know
you’re
too much of a prude to ever get naked at the pond,” Ronan said.

Silence descended.  Aside from being thoroughly disgusting, something bitter was behind his words.  Molly shifted in her swing.  I felt a strong urge to defend Esta.  Before I could speak, Celia did.  “Don’t be a jackass, Ronan,” she said lightly, and swatted him on the arm.  “Leave her alone.”

Molly and Nick laughed then, but Esta and I did not.  I could admit I hadn’t tried very hard to like Ronan, but I felt like he was easy to peg.  Esta looked at me out of the corner of her eye, and I saw uneasiness there.

I was further irritated when Ronan said, “You know who we should invite if we do go to the pond?” he asked.  “Sadie and Sasha.”

Molly rolled her eyes.  “Naked twins.  How predictable.”

“You’re a real pig,” I said to Ronan, unable to keep quiet any longer.  “Your girlfriend is sitting right beside you.”

“Oh Fay, he’s just kidding,” Celia said.

My open mind slammed shut.  With nowhere to put my feelings, I spun myself in my swing until the chain kinked and doubled up on itself, then let go and felt the evening air whirl around me.  I wanted to get up and leave, and take Celia with me.

When my swing stopped, I started twisting the chain again.  Celia giggled, and I looked over to see Ronan whispering in her ear.  “We’re going on a walk.  Don’t wait for us, we might not be back.”  She slid off the picnic table bench, and glided away—Ronan’s hand on the small of her back, steering her.

I dug my heels into the ground to keep my swing from spinning and looked at Esta.  “Seriously?  After that talk this afternoon, she
ditches
me?”

“Yeah, they never hang around long, especially on weekends,” Nick said.

“Noted.”

“I really thought she’d stay longer tonight though, because you’re here and all,” Esta said.

“Now I feel like moping.”

“Let’s go to Dream Cone and get some ice cream,” Nick said.  “That’ll fix you right up.”

“For once, Nick, you’re right,” Esta said, and stood up.  “Come on, Fay, let’s feed our feelings.”

We walked into town along the path we’d taken not even twenty minutes before.  We all got large cones, and then Esta and I said good-bye to Molly and Nick, who had decided to go to the hardware store parking lot and see what was happening there.

Esta and I ate our ice cream while walking around.  When we reached Low Street, Esta walked into a yard and sat on the porch swing.  “This is my house.”

I sat beside her.

“I’m sorry Celia ditched you.”

“She ditched you too,” I said.

“Yes, but I’m not her super special summer guest.”

I winced.  “Sorry.”  Was that it?  Was Esta upset about the time Celia would be spending with me this summer, and worried it would cut into her own time with Celia?

“I’m used to it.  Every year, she talks about you constantly in the weeks before you arrive.  And all year long it’s Fay this, and Fay that.”

I laughed.  “That’s funny, because when I talk to her, it’s Esta this and Esta that.”

“Huh.  Well, that does sound like Celia.”

We both chuckled.  We sat quietly for a bit, swinging slowly.  “So, what’s the deal with Ronan?  Is he
ever
good to her?”

“She says when they’re alone, he’s like a different guy.  He only lets his guard down with her.  I do know that Ronan’s parents are terrible.  He told her his dad hit him a lot when he was a little kid, before he could fight back. And his mom isn’t much better.  So now, Celia lets him get away with anything.  It’s like she thinks she can make up for it.”