17. In Which Aiden’s Heart Does Inconvenient Things #3
The closet doors emit a painful-sounding squeak on their tracks as my sister rolls them open, revealing a decently full row of clothes draped over a hodge podge of mismatched hangers.
“Let’s see…” she says, diving right in. She rifles through the shirts and dresses and pants, clearly looking for something specific.
Nothing I can see looks like what she wears these days; I was telling Juniper the truth.
Caroline really does stick to joggers and yoga pants and other comfort-first outfits.
That wasn’t always the case, though. It’s a weird time capsule, this closet, a reminder of who she used to be.
Juniper must be thinking the same thing. “There’s a lot of really cute stuff in here,” she says as her eyes follow Caroline’s searching hands. “You don’t wear them anymore?”
“Nah,” Caroline says without looking. “These days I just like to be comfortable. I used to be sort of a fashionista”—she nods at the clothes she’s still shuffling through—“and I did a lot of fashion blogging and stuff. I wanted to go to Fashion Week and all that, but…” She shrugs. “Things changed.”
“What changed?” Juniper asks, and it’s a gift she has—the ability to ask a personal question without coming off as intrusive or invasive.
She merely seems curious, her head tilted to the side, hair tucked behind her ears, her teeth digging into her lower lip as she watches Caroline work. “Why did you give those dreams up?”
“I didn’t give anything up, really.” My sister smiles over her shoulder at Juniper, maybe to let her know she’s not offended.
“But my little bunch of humans is so important to me that something like Fashion Week pales in comparison. I still love clothes and style and all that. It’s just less important than it used to be.
” She shrugs. “One day when the girls are older and need less hand-holding, I’ll revisit the things I wanted to do before.
I haven’t given them up—they just needed to be set aside at this season of my life. Oh, here it is!”
Juniper shuffles forward, craning her neck to see what Caroline is digging out from the back of the closet.
“It was hiding,” my sister says. She maneuvers a plastic hanger out from behind the row of clothing and passes it to Juniper. “There’s a bathroom,” she says, pointing across the hall. “Go change and see if it fits.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say once Juniper has crossed the hall and closed the bathroom door. “About the Fashion Week thing.”
Caroline gives me a little smile, one that pulls apostrophe-shaped dimples to the corners of her mouth. “You never asked.” It’s not accusatory, the way she says it, but I feel accused nonetheless—because she’s right. I never asked.
We sit in silence until Juniper returns, the quiet broken only by the soft thumps and thuds of Caroline hunting for a pair of heels on the closet floor. She sets them neatly on the bed when she locates a pair she likes, turning just in time to see Juniper re-enter the room.
And I guess I was wrong about nothing of Caroline’s fitting her.
“As I suspected would be the case,” my sister says, her eyes on my pink-haired roommate, “that outfit looks much better on you than it ever did on me.”
I can only assume this is the truth.
I’m feeling pretty irritable toward myself all of a sudden.
In the past I’ve sort of appreciated the weird way attraction works for me; I’m literally incapable of being attracted to women I don’t at least find interesting .
That’s why the Betties do nothing for me.
Betty One and Betty Two are objectively pretty, I can tell that much, but I have never once felt actual attraction toward them.
I think even if either of them hugged me or kissed me, I would feel nothing, despite the direct physical contact. It’s just how my body and my mind work.
And it seems the opposite is also true. Because even though Juniper Bean is not touching me right now, even though she’s just standing in front of my sister’s mirror, my pulse jumps whenever I look at her. I feel wired, full of adrenaline, and it’s only getting worse.
If I’m honest with myself, I’ve been intrigued by her from day one. It’s probably why the way she looked in that ribbon dress had me loosening my tie, noticing twinges of feelings that were normally absent.
“All right,” she says, turning away from the mirror and toward where Caroline and I are now seated on the bed. Caroline passes her the heels, which she steps into. “How do I look?”
“Weird,” I mutter, rubbing my chest. It’s an incredibly strange, disconcerting feeling, being attracted to someone who’s wearing my sister’s clothes. Not quite as bad as being set up on a blind date with her, but…still not great.
“Ignore him,” Caroline says, shooting me a disapproving glare. “You don’t look weird. You look perfect. Very classy.”
Juniper runs her hands over the outfit—tailored pants that fit surprisingly well; a silky, low-cut blouse; and a fitted blazer.
She somehow looks both sexy and professional, and my lungs can’t quite seem to reach capacity, my breath shallow in my chest. If anything, the pink hair seems to magnify the effect; it speaks to the parts of her personality that I’m most attracted to.
“You’re not allowed to call me weird,” she says, tucking some of that hair behind her ear and frowning at me. “I’m your wife. We have become Aidiper. We have a beautiful daughter?—”
“For the love,” I say, standing up quickly.
“I look good. I look fancy. Be supportive, please,” she goes on.
I exhale slowly, closing my eyes. “You look fancy,” I say. “Now you should go before my family hunts you down and subjects you to an inquisition.”
“This is perfect,” Juniper says. “Thank you so much.” At first I think she’s talking to me, but when I open my eyes, it’s Caroline she’s addressing. “I really appreciate your help. I’ll bring these back?—”
“Oh, don’t bother,” Caroline says, waving her hand. “I’ll never fit those clothes again. You keep them.”
“But your fashion?—”
“Keep them, Juniper,” Caroline says with a smile.
Juniper bites her lip, looking down at the outfit. “Are you sure?”
“Of course.”
Juniper returns her smile with pink cheeks and then says, “If you insist. Thank you, Caroline.”
Ugh. I think this is turning into one of those You hang up first! No, you! situations. They’re going to sit here and thank each other and say goodbye for the next twenty minutes.
I don’t have that kind of patience, and I definitely don’t want my parents to wander back this direction and begin questioning Juniper. She didn’t sign up for that today, and my mother’s respect for boundaries is about as negligible as Juniper’s herself. “Let’s go,” I say to her.
“Rude,” she mutters, wrinkling her nose at me.
But she returns to the bathroom across the hall, emerging a few moments later with her original outfit back on, Caroline’s clothes draped over one arm.
She follows me out of Caroline’s bedroom, down the hall, and to the front door.
My sister brings up the rear, smiling cheerfully and wishing us luck when we step outside.
I glance at the dining room table, where my parents, Jeff, and the girls are all watching with interest, their plates empty in front of them.
“You’re thinking hard about something,” Juniper says when the front door closes behind us.
Am I that obvious? “How could you tell?” I say, more curious than anything.
Juniper reaches up and touches my forehead. “There’s this little v-shaped crease you get right here. So what is it?”
“Ah,” I say with a sigh. “Nothing. Or I guess—I’m just thinking about the food fight my students had the other day.”
Juniper raises her eyebrows at me, something I only barely see because of the wind whipping her hair around her face.
“My mom made mashed potatoes,” I explain. “It reminded me.”
She nods as we head out to the driveway, past the flower beds that have succumbed to fall weather. “What about it?” she says over her shoulder.
“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s just frustrating. I get irritated every time I think about it. And I’m worried about the food bank, I guess. Our funding is already abysmal, and Lionel Astor will cut it more if he wins.”
“Raise money,” Juniper says.
I snort. “Because it’s that easy.”
“Well, no, but there are ways. Hold a fundraiser. A silent auction. Or do a hunger banquet. Something like that.”
I come to a stop next to her questionable little yellow Volkswagen, parked in the driveway much straighter than when I first saw it out in front of Grind and Brew. “What’s a hunger banquet?”
“Are you about to open the door for me? Like, chivalry?”
“What?” I look down, and sure enough, that’s exactly what I’m doing—my hand is outstretched, reaching for the handle to the driver’s side. I snatch it back, ignoring the little grin on Juniper’s face. “No,” I say. “What’s a hunger banquet?”
She nudges me out of the way, and I step aside.
“It’s basically a banquet where three economic tiers are represented statistically,” she says, opening the back door and laying Caroline’s clothes neatly across the seat.
“Upper, middle, and lower. You’re assigned one of those tiers at random when you arrive—pick a piece of paper out of a hat, that kind of thing.
And then whatever economic tier you’ve ended up with determines the meal that you get.
But it’s all based on the most recent statistics on poverty, see?
” She stands up, closing the door to the back seat.
“Okay…” I say, gesturing to her, indicating to keep talking.
“So only a very small number of guests at the banquet will be fed a super nice meal—fifteen percent, I think,” she goes on.
“That fifteen percent represents the upper class. They sit at nice tables with tablecloths too. And then thirty-five percent of the attendees represent the middle class, and they get a middle-class meal with middle-class seating. The other fifty percent represent the lower class, and they basically sit on the floor and get rice and water.” She shrugs.
“I went to one in college. The percentages might have changed since we did it, but that’s the gist. It’s pretty impactful, honestly, and it’s a good way to raise awareness.
Your high schoolers might benefit.” Then she looks at me, frowning.
“Are you coming with me? Didn’t you guys just start dinner? ”
“Huh?” I say. “Oh. Yeah.” Why is it my first instinct to follow this woman? “Do you, uh, want to join us?” I don’t really want her to, because I’m not ready for my family to meet her when I’m still figuring out my feelings, but it seems polite to ask.
She laughs, though. “No, I’m good. Thanks, though.”
I nod. “Drive safe.” I cringe at my own lameness, waving her off awkwardly once she gets in, starts the car, and pulls out of the driveway.
I’m able to field off questions relatively well when I return inside, but I spend the rest of the evening wondering how I could convince a bunch of high school kids to pay to come sit on the floor and eat rice.
* ? These are the middle names of a set of twins I know, because—once again—coming up with names is hard, and I like putting in real-life tidbits!