Chapter 14 Cece
Cece
Cece is drunk as a skunk when Tina snags her by the arm and tugs her across the floor of the beauty shop. Georgia and Junie
are knotted up together, giggling on the other side. Tina’s mouth twitches and her eyes bulge like she’s straining to hold
back words that threaten to overflow. Georgia and Junie begin packing up, chattering about the impending jaunt home.
Tina checks that the girls aren’t looking before she whispers, “This remind you of that night?” The words hiss with pent-up
pressure.
Cece had the same thought, one she batted away once, then again and again as it resurfaced like a persistent buoy throughout
the afternoon. How could it not? That night when their sister, June, had called them here. She’d called them together for
help, to start their own redheaded revolution—a revolt from inside the city walls of the family—against the naming and the
pressure from the older generations. She wanted them all truly free.
“Yes.” Cece leaves it there, but she could go on. “You were busting to talk about this the entire night, weren’t you?”
“How could I not be?” Tina says. “I mean, I understand why we can’t just lay that family history on the girls willy-nilly, but I just think they would’ve loved to hear about their mama gathering us here, saving the day in her own way. Kinda like the girls are doing for the shop.”
Cece pulls her arm out from Tina’s grip as she turns away. She bites back the words she wants to say. But did she? Did June really save the day? Because their situation doesn’t feel saved. They’re in the middle of the latest Louise mess, another caused by the pressure
of the name as Junie tries to do too much. June could’ve ended the naming, and she didn’t.
June didn’t save them from a thing.
“June calling us together was a onetime thing. And considering this”—Cece gestures widely to the shop—“I’m guessing we’ll
have to circle up at least a few more times.”
“We’re heading out,” Georgia calls as she slings the tote bag over her shoulder.
She and Junie wave on their way out the front door.
When Cece looks back at Tina, her eyes are full of tears yet to break the seal. Cece knows exactly how they’ll overflow and
tumble down her cheeks, just like they always do when they talk about June. Their sister. Cece’s twin. She feels the same,
the hollowness that gets easier to bear but never shrinks. She’s just better at hiding it.
“It’s not about the number of meetings,” Tina says tenderly. “And I might guess you know that’s not what I meant. It’s the
spirit of it, that feeling running through this shop tonight. Just like June created, her very own magic. Surely you remember?”
“Of course I remember,” Cece tells Tina, her chest squeezing. “Even if I’d rather not. The memories of June are all we have
left, so I hold ’em tight—even if they’re a little like poison.”
Cece’s eyes drop to the space between her feet, and despite the alcohol-induced wiggle to her gaze, she can’t help but remember
the maroon carpet that’s now been ripped out. June despised it. If she were here, she’d be giddy over the concrete—even if
it is muddy.
The hardness in Cece’s chest heats and threatens to tear her. This is heartache, the hardness inside her that shows on the outside too. And finally she relents, lets the memory flood in and cover her, as she remembers that night.
June called all the Louises to a meeting. She tore into the shop in a flurry, a tiny baby Georgia in her arms. “Where are
the others?” She could always get away with demanding.
As if she’d summoned them, Mother and Tina hurried through the front doors looking as confused as they were entitled to. Cece
knew what June was about to say because she was with her at Grandmother Dot’s house yesterday.
“Good, you’re all here,” June said.
Mother and Tina flitted to June’s side, all eyes for baby Georgia.
“Here, let me have my grandbaby.” Mother took Georgia gently in her arms and made for a hair chair, where she settled. “Now,
what’s this fuss about?”
June puffed out a breath, her eyes filling and her voice barely holding on as she said, “It’s the name, Mama. The dang name.”
Mother looked at June, and her face slackened. “Tell me everything.”
“It was supposed to stop here, stop with me, all of my children free. I am supposed to be the last June.” June didn’t cry
often, but when she did it felt like little cracks forming along the foundation of our shared life. She was supposed to be
impenetrable. “Grandmother Dot, she called me to her house—”
Cece lifts her head, knowing she can’t bear any more of this reminiscing, and Tina is staring into the floor herself. She
is probably remembering, too, hearing the script, the blow-by-blow of June’s despair.
“We’ll need to tell them eventually,” Tina says. “They should know why they each have their names.”
Cece agrees. She always has, but there are parts that will hurt the girls, parts they might not, probably won’t, understand. Though perhaps after tonight, after seeing how they’ve grown and matured, she should reconsider. They might be able to understand and rise above.
“They’re not kids anymore,” Tina says.
“It doesn’t help to swim in it,” Cece tells her as she makes her way to the door, then switches off the lights. “We’ll figure
it out. Telling them about the whole Dot situation, but it won’t be tonight.”
The last thing Cece wants is to upset the girls, and especially by way of Dot’s drama revisited. The girls see their mama
as someone superhuman, not someone to give in to threats, so she wants to tread lightly. It’s been a blessing to let them
see their mama as a saint and only that for all these years, a small reprieve in the face of great loss.
She knows what it feels like to have been hurt by the various issues Dot created. People seem to forget that.
Tina shrugs slowly and lets out a puff when her shoulders drop. “You’re right.”
They step outside, and Tina locks the door and pulls Cece into a floral-scented hug. “I love you, Cecelia.”
“I love you too,” Cece says.
There’s always a pause in this exchange. Like a moment of silence that says, and June too.
The space she once took up remains in the mix.
It’s a relief when Tina breaks the moment. “Randy will be here soon for me. You head on home.”
“Call a ride if he’s not here in ten minutes,” Cece says, then turns and begins her walk home. She’d thought about calling
a rideshare herself, but the mountain air has cooled off after a hot, muggy day, and she could use the space to work out her
thoughts.
She can’t shake remembering the thrown-together conversation they had within the same walls thirtysomething years ago, alongside
baby Georgia. Back then, June, Tina, Mama, and Cece talked for hours about Dot’s threats and the real options related to ending
the naming, but they couldn’t agree.
Cece was the only one willing to give it all up. To let Dot do what she wanted, let her keep her demands as she rotted in her miserable grave, to let the good earth reclaim the building, let the vines and shrubbery grow up and over the walls until it crumbled into ruin.
Cece would’ve rather set the place on fire than let it twist June to do something she stood firmly against.
But Cece was the only one who felt that way.
In the end, she went along with the others, who decided to give in to Dot’s demands and assured her it would be worth it in
the end. That they owed it to the next generation to keep the family business going. That reason sat in her mother’s arms,
peeping and cooing and gurgling in delight. What could Cece do but agree with what she was told was best for the baby? That
baby girl, itty-bitty Georgia, was the best thing Cece had seen in her life.
If the women had each other, were happy and well, what else did they need?