10. In Which Juniper Makes a Phone Call
IN WHICH JUNIPER MAKES A PHONE CALL
“ S o you’re asking your mom’s ex if he knows your dad?” Aiden says skeptically.
He’s still sitting on the floor, but now he’s flipping through a yearbook that he retrieved moments ago.
It’s apparently the only one he has, and it’s from three years ago.
It seems unlikely to me that the girl from last night will be in there—or if she is, I’m not sure she’ll be recognizable—but that doesn’t stop me from looking at him every two seconds to see if he’s found anything.
Every so often he holds up the book and points to a picture, and I shake my head or shrug. It’s really hard to tell.
“But she was definitely blonde,” I tell him, not for the first time.
He just nods and continues flipping. Half of his body is bathed in a swath of late-morning light coming from the window, making him glow.
That light is deceptive; it promises warmth and sunshine, when I know for a fact that it’s in the thirties out there.
I looked like a marshmallow this morning, all bundled up in my puffy coat and earmuffs as I hauled my stress-induced shopping haul back into the house.
In between page flips and frustrated sighs, Aiden has been staring pointedly at the fruits of those shopping labors—the pile of fall decorations I pushed off the couch and onto the floor.
That’s where he directs his attention now in his most blatant display thus far; he stares at the mass of garland and pumpkins, then stares at me, and then stares at the decorations again.
“I’ll pick them up, okay?” I finally burst out, rolling my eyes. “Stop with the weird glaring. I’ll leave this room spotless. Happy?”
A spark of devilish amusement flares to life in his eyes, though there’s still a tightness in his lips that I know stems from the yearbook in his lap. “Temper, temper,” he says, tutting. “But yes, that would make me very happy.”
Ugh. So annoying.
“So your mother’s ex?” he prompts, his eyes back on the yearbook as he scans the pages.
“Well, yes, but it’s not quite like that. My half brother, Roland?” I say, and he nods. “It’s his dad. So it’s not just a random ex; it’s her son’s father. His name is Lance. He’s cool; I like him. He’s always been nice to me, and he’s a good dad to Roland.”
Aiden nods slowly, looking up at me. “You think he’ll know something?”
I shrug, playing with the hem of my sweatshirt—which, I notice for the first time, is on inside out. How did that happen? Hopefully Aiden missed that. “He might,” I say. “If anyone would, I think it would be him.”
“Well, call him, then,” Aiden says, nodding at my phone, which is next to me on the couch. “See what he says.”
I’m not sure this is the right direction, but I can’t stand the thought of doing nothing.
Maybe my imagination is just running wild, but it’s not impossible that that girl was killed because she wanted to talk to me.
And until Aiden finds out who she is, I don’t know what else to do besides search for information about my parents, since that’s what she wanted to tell me about.
“Anything?” I ask him, pointing at the yearbook.
“No,” he says in a frustrated voice. “This is either too old, or I can’t pick her out. The photos are in black and white, and they’re small.”
“Keep looking,” I say, resisting the urge to yank the yearbook out of his hands and do it myself.
“That’s the plan,” he mutters. “Make the phone call.”
“Yeah,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Okay.” When I pick up the phone, though, I dial Roland’s number, not Lance’s. I was supposed to let him know I got moved in safely and everything, and I never did.
I debate for a second before turning the phone on speaker.
Roland might say something embarrassing, but I don’t want to have to relay everything Lance says to Aiden, and I don’t feel like I have the current presence of mind to sort through a bunch of information on my own—especially since I probably won’t be able to look at my mother’s past with a completely unbiased lens.
Aiden scoots across the floor until he’s next to the couch, sitting at my feet like this is some weird kindergarten classroom and I’m about to read everyone a story.
We both stare at my phone as we wait for Roland to pick up.
And for a second it seems like he won’t; he waits until the last possible moment to answer.
“You did that on purpose,” I accuse when he picks up.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that I specifically made you wait a super long time,” he says, and I can hear the grin in his voice, the little punk. “You got moved in okay?”
“Yes,” I say, giving him a nasty look through the phone. He can’t see it, of course, but I like to think he can feel it .
“Good. When I didn’t hear from you, I figured your roommate had turned out to be a weirdo who murdered you in your sleep or something.”
“Ha ha,” I say weakly, my eyes jumping to Aiden. I think murder jokes have forever been ruined for me. Judging by the disconcerted expression on his face, he feels the same way. “No. Still alive, still kicking.”
“How’s the house?”
“It’s great,” I say. The tension eases out of me a bit as I start talking about something other than death. “My room is in the loft. It’s small, but it has great natural light. I met the landlady too, and she’s nice.”
“Good,” Roland says. “What about your job? You got that all set up?”
“Yep. I’ll work at the yoga studio.”
“You get good hours?”
I shrug. “Good enough.”
“And how about the new roommate?” Roland says. “You like him?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t,” I say, glaring at Aiden, who has the audacity to smirk distractedly as he continues flipping pages. “He’s a pretentious pain in the?—”
“Ha,” Roland cuts me off, which is probably for the best. “Told you you would never find a roommate as good as me.”
“At least he puts the toilet seat down after he pees,” I say.
Actually, I don’t know if this is true. Aiden has his own bathroom connected to his bedroom, and I’ve never been in there. But he seems like the kind of guy who puts the toilet seat down, based on how clean he wants things all the time.
“That was one time, Juniper,” Roland says now.
“It was not. But one time falling into the toilet in the middle of the night is all it takes,” I say with a shudder.
It feels weird to be talking so lightly to Roland when I feel so heavy inside, but I force myself to continue. “And truthfully,” I go on, my nose wrinkling as I remember the Blind Date Incident, “I don’t think I can ever room with you again. Like, ever.”
“Agreed,” he says immediately. “No way. Not after?—”
“Don’t say it,” I say. “Just—don’t say it. I’m trying to forget.”
“What happened?” Aiden says, speaking for the first time since this phone call started. His smirk turns into something more sympathetic. “Did you see him naked?”
“Ew,” I say, and on the other end, Roland says the same thing.
“No way, man,” he says. I’m a little offended that he’s addressing Aiden in such a friendly manner—doesn’t he know that his loyalty is to me, his loving older sister? But he just goes on, “Some stupid friend of Juniper’s set us up on a blind date, not knowing we were brother and?—”
“That’s enough of that,” I say loudly.
But Roland, it seems, is not interested in my opinion. He keeps going. “Imagine your old college buddy tells you to come meet some hot friend of his girlfriend’s, and you get there and discover it’s your sister ? —”
“Roland!” I all but shout into the phone. “Focus, please.” I glance at Aiden, who looks horrified; undoubtedly he’s imagining what it would feel like to get set up on a date with Caroline. “I need to talk to Lance about something.”
“You could have just called him directly,” he grumbles.
“I wanted to say hello to you first,” I say, smiling. “My wittle baby brother?—”
“Ugh,” Roland says. “Shut it. Here’s Dad.”
I hear a shuffling sound on the other end, and then a familiar voice speaks. “Juniper?”
“Hi, Lance,” I say. “How’s it going? ”
“Going just fine. I’m enjoying having Roland home for a bit. What’s up? He said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Yeah,” I say. I take a deep breath, trying to dispel the sudden nerves that are invading my gut—a thousand little needles, prickly and sharp, perforating my innards. “I had a question about my mom, actually.”
The tiniest of hesitations from Lance. Then, “Okay. What do you want to know? I’ll tell you what I can.”
The anxious little needles in my gut move from pricking to stabbing , and when I press my fingers to my neck, my pulse is racing, my heart working overtime.
“I was actually wondering if she ever mentioned anything about my father.”
Silence.
Then, “What did she tell you about your father?”
“Nope,” I say immediately, shaking my head. “I’m not asking you to tell me the same thing she told me. I’m asking if you know anything more.” I swallow. “Please, Lance. She’s dead. She’s gone. But…I’m not. And I want to know.”
I hear Lance sigh into the phone, a heavy, static sound. “All right,” he says. “All right. Look, I don’t know much, okay? Your mother was not an easy woman to get to know, Juniper.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “Of course I know that.”
“But she got pregnant when she was eighteen, and it happened at a party. It was the summer after her senior year. All she ever told me was that she had a group of friends she hung out with all the time. They gave themselves some ridiculous name—the Elitists? No, the Elites. It was your mom and something like three or four guys. The way she told it, one of those guys is your father.”
The Elites? I never heard her use that name before.
“Okay,” I say. “What else? Anything you remember?”
“No,” he says, his voice full of regret. “I’m sorry. But no. She never said anything else.”
“All right,” I sigh. “Thank you.” I clear my throat. “I appreciate it, Lance. I really do.”
“Just be careful if you’re poking around, Juniper,” he says with a sigh of his own. “Don’t go digging up the past if it seems like it would be better buried. All right?”