The Edge of Juniper (9 page)

6

I
was awakened
the next morning by more muffled shouting from my aunt and uncle.  It appeared they hadn’t yet finished their argument from last night.  Across the misty gray room, Celia sat up.

“What are they even fighting about?” I asked her, uneasy.

“Would you relax?  I’ve told you a million times.  It’s how they communicate.  They work stuff out that way.”

“I don’t know.  It seems like they dig themselves deeper, instead of working anything out.  I’m not sure fighting that much is healthy.”

She smiled brightly at me.  “You and I argue constantly, and I love you.”

“That’s true.  But I didn’t say they don’t love each other.  And I’m not sure our arguing is so healthy either.”

“It’s healthy debate.  We’re stretching our minds.  Now we better get moving.  We have the first shift at Heidi’s today, and we might as well get an early start.”

Two hours later, I was in the thick of the morning rush at the restaurant.  I stood in the kitchen absentmindedly scrubbing a pot, knowing there were more pressing things I should be doing but unable to shake myself out of my stupor.  I felt distracted, my brain full to overflowing.

“I’ve been staring at the wadded up napkins on table seven for the last ten minutes.  Customers are piling up.  Is there a reason you haven’t cleared it off?”  For Heidi, reprimanding was a sport.  She was always trying to come up with clever new ways to rebuke us.

There
was
a reason I hadn’t cleared table seven.  That was Malcolm’s usual table.  If he came in, I wanted an excuse to be near him.  “Sorry.  I’ll go do it now, Heidi.”

I cleared that table and two others that were recently vacated, and still no sign of Malcolm.  I was in the back, obsessively peeking out the window in the kitchen door, when I saw him walk through the front door with Paul. Celia sent the other waitress, a woman named Tippy, to their table.

I kept an eagle eye on the rest of the tables in the restaurant, hoping for a reason to go out there.  Why was everyone eating so slowly?  Finally, a couple finished and paid their bill.  I tried to walk casually out into the dining room carrying my tub, but I was tied up in knots and could only manage a shaky shuffle.  I kept remembering the way he had looked at my mouth the day before, feeling the weight of his glance as though it still rested there.  I wiped my lips with the back of my hand, but it didn’t erase the feeling.

I cleared table five at a snail’s pace, hoping Celia would leave the dining room for a break or something so I could tell Malcolm that I would
not
be coming to his place for lunch. The phone call with Freya last night had renewed my hope, and I didn’t dare do anything that might cause trouble and make my parents come home too early, before they mended things.  I wondered what my parents would think of it all.  I knew they would loathe the entire situation.  If they were here, it wouldn’t be a situation at all.

I looked up at Malcolm and my resolve crumbled.  I wanted to be a decisive person, but the solution eluded me.  I had lain awake last night debating my obligations to please my family versus my growing curiosity toward Malcolm.  He had looked at my mouth, after all.  I lined up four coffee cups in my tub, pondering it.

I thought it was pretty stupid the way Celia’s family was about Malcolm’s family.  I didn’t understand why Uncle Todd couldn’t see it was his own fault he’d done something worthy of police intervention.  He got caught being a jerk and then blamed the person who tried to stop him.  Maybe I
should
go.

I sighed, finished wiping the table, and feeling utterly defeated, looked over at Malcolm one more time, hoping the answer would come to me out of nowhere.  He waved me over, but I shook my head at him. Celia was staring at us.  She stopped me as I walked past her.  “Fay, why have you been engaging in all sorts of non-verbal communication with him?  Don’t think I haven’t noticed every glance.”

I knew if I started hanging out with Malcolm, she’d harp at me constantly about it.  Maybe being nagged at by Celia was worth it, I thought, as I looked at Malcolm’s arm resting on the table, tan and thick, and dusted with dark hair.

“You’re imagining things, darling,” I told her, in my southern belle voice.  I jutted out my hip and gave her a wink.  Sometimes being sassy could stop her from getting too serious.  I wasn’t sure it would work this time, because she put her hands on her hips and glared at me.  But then she crossed her eyes and squinched up her cheeks, and capped it off by sticking out her tongue. We both laughed, and I was able to escape further questioning about Malcolm.

I walked to the kitchen and washed the dishes I’d just collected.  Was I a coward?  I knew treating the Dearings so poorly wasn’t right, so was I doing the wrong thing by placating Celia and agreeing to my family’s limits?  Or did that make me strong and loyal to my family?  Or was I not going because he had looked at my mouth and I was nervous about what I wanted to happen next?  Either way, I shouldn’t go.  Malcolm would figure it out when I didn’t show up, I supposed.  After he left, I went to clear his table.  On his plate was his napkin, laid flat with my name written on it.  He had neat, block handwriting.  I turned it over.

Vanilla hair, long and sweet

Chocolate eyes, warm and kind

Cherry mouth, bold and clever

Skin spiced with cinnamon freckles

Come to lunch?  Ice cream sundaes for dessert.

I wadded up the napkin and stuffed it in my pocket.  My face felt hot, and I wanted to laugh out loud.  A poem.  For me.  A cheesy, silly, terrible poem.  This was unprecedented.  Malcolm had been brave enough to be goofy.  I’d always thought of myself as brave, too.  Freya’s words echoed through my head. 
A summer could be anything.
  Forget all the back and forth, I could make a real decision later.  For now, I was going to lunch.

I had worried I’d have to find a way to shake off Celia.  But she hung up her apron and rushed out the back door with barely a good-bye.  She was meeting Ronan, I knew.  Now I stood leaning against the oak tree in Malcolm’s back yard, wondering if I’d work up the courage to go knock on the door.  Even if Celia found out, she wouldn’t tell her parents.  If word somehow got back to Uncle Todd, I didn’t think he would
actually
kick me out, nor did I think Celia could get in trouble for it.  He was loud and tended toward exaggeration, but it was all just a smoke screen, set up as a way to continually justify his anger.  He’d probably relish another chance to bask in it.

I considered other things too.  I smelled like bacon, eggs, and lemon dish soap.  My hair was wound in a tight bun, required by Heidi.  Well, I thought, it hadn’t seemed to matter to Malcolm, had it?  He had written me a poem.

The back door swung open, and Malcolm walked out onto the patio and smiled at me.  “Were you planning to come in?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”  I took in his damp hair and clean plaid shirt.  “I’m leaning toward yes.”

“You can stay out here if you want, and I’ll come to you.  We can have a picnic under that tree.”

I watched him standing there, loose and patient, not a worry in the world.  “I’ll come in.” I figured we’d be away from any prying eyes if we were shut inside the house.  He held the door open for me as I walked into an extremely cluttered kitchen.  There was a mile-high stack of cookbooks on one counter, the windowsill was jammed with seashells, and the dining table was covered with scraps of fabric, boxes of yarn, and a sewing machine.  A woman stood at the stove, stirring something in a pan.  She was tall and willowy, with the same shade of brown hair as Malcolm.  She turned to us, and I saw she also had the same clear-eyed, cheerful expression on her face that so often graced Malcolm’s.

“You must be Fay.”  Her voice was as willowy as her body.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Dearing,” I said, and stuck my hand out for her to shake.

She ignored my hand and pulled me into a hug.  “Call me Marigold.”

“That’s a pretty name,” I said from inside her long, wavy hair.

She pulled back to look at my face, but still held onto my shoulders.  “Thank you.  I chose it myself when I was three years old.”

I blinked.  “Okay.”

Her face broke into a smile and she laughed.  “Malcolm, she’s a gem.”  She gestured to the table.  “Sit.  I’ve made fajitas.”

Malcolm went to the fridge and pulled out a block of cheese and a pitcher of lemonade.

“Thank you.  It’s nice of you to feed me; it smells delicious,” I said, as I pulled out a chair and sat.  I noticed that each of the chairs around the table was unique.  I watched as Malcolm found a grater and set to work shredding the cheese.  He seemed at home in the kitchen.  “Malcolm, do you cook?”

“I’m the sous-chef.  Since I could stand on a chair without tipping over, Mom has had me helping her cook.”

I watched as Marigold waved a lit candle over the top of the pot.

She must have seen the question on my face, because she said, “Something I invented when Lyle and I got married.  I bless the meal with a honeysuckle candle.  In the language of flowers, honeysuckle represents the bonds of love.  I make the candles from the honeysuckle that grows on the edge of our property.  I feel it ties home, family, and love all together.”  She waved the candle around a bit more, and then blew it out.

“That’s lovely,” I said and looked down at my hands resting on the table.  I wasn’t a person who believed in things like that.  It seemed too much like fairy tale magic.  But maybe if someone in my family had been more magical, our bonds would have been strong enough.

I hadn’t noticed Marigold sit down at the table next to me.  I jumped when she laid her hand on my arm.  Her fingers were warm and dry.  “I can teach you how to make the candles if you like.  I’m due to make another batch anyway.”

I looked into her open face.  “Sure, I’d like that.”  I imagined my mom laughing as I waved one of those candles over her beef stroganoff.  She’d tease me, but she’d let me do it.  I wondered if you had to believe in it for the magic to work.

She patted my arm and stood.  “Good.  After Malcolm leaves, we’ll get to it.  Unless you have plans for your afternoon?”

I thought back to Celia’s good-bye when we left the restaurant. 
“Tell mom I’m still at work, and I’ll be home to help make the lasagna,”
she had said.

“No plans.  I can stay.”  I looked over at Malcolm to gauge his reaction to his mom and me hanging out.  Freya and Finn would have been mortified if I hung out with their mom without them.  Malcolm had finished grating the cheese and was leaning against the counter smiling though, so he must not be embarrassed by his mom.

“Fay, would you set the table?” Marigold asked me.  “Just push all that fabric to the center.  We’ll do our best not to spill on it.”

“Certainly.”  Warmth spread through me at the request.  I couldn’t really explain why it made me so happy, except that it made me feel like part of the family.  “Where do you keep the plates?”

It hadn’t only been a lure; after the fajitas, Malcolm was true to his word and made ice cream sundaes.  His mom gave him an odd look when he sprinkled a little cinnamon on mine.  “That’s new,” she said.

He only shrugged and apologized to me for the absence of cherries.  After a strangely humorous conversation about Marigold’s father’s funeral—He’d wanted to be buried in a purple polka-dot suit and an orange bow tie, and wanted Weird Al songs played continuously, to cheer up the mourners—Marigold shooed us away, insisting that she do the dishes so Malcolm and I could have a little time alone together before he went back to work.  She said it just like that, too.  Time alone together.

I followed him down a hallway to his room, missing the security blanket of his mother.  He walked into his room, but I lingered at the doorway.  “Are you sure it’s okay if I come in?  Won’t your mom mind?”

Malcolm sat down on his bed.  “She won’t care.”

My parents allowed Finn in my room.  They even allowed him to sleep over when Freya did, though that was probably because we’d been doing it since we were seven years old, and we still lined up our sleeping bags across the living room floor the same way we did back then.  I hesitated, suddenly understanding what it must have been like for my friends all these years.  “I like your mom, and I don’t want to give her any reason to dislike me.”

He smiled and patted the bed next to him.  “It’s fine.  Come sit.  I’ll show you around my room.”

I sat beside him, and we scooted back to lean against the wall, our feet dangling off the side of the bed.  I still wore my tennis shoes, but his feet were bare.  “Look, even your toes are hairy.”

“Do you like my hairy toes?”  He wiggled them.

“Yes, I do.”

“I think that’s the best compliment I’ve ever received.  Now for the tour.  It’s a sitting tour, so relax and enjoy the ride.”

I grabbed one of his pillows and put it behind my back, noticing as it passed my nose that it smelled like him, that blend of grass and wood and Malcolm.

“Okay, I’m sure you noticed that shelf over there.”  He pointed to a slim bookshelf by his closet.  “And I’m sure you were mightily impressed by all the trophies.”