Chapter 19 Junie
Junie
Monday afternoon, Junie sits at the doctor’s office in nothing but her undies and a thin paper gown tied in front. Crinkly
paper covers the exam table below her, and her toes graze the cold metal step. The whole room looks gray in the wash of fluorescence
from the strip lights above, but here she must wait until it’s time to get her ta-tas scanned.
Again.
After finding a lump and reviewing the biopsy that followed, the doctors seem to want to rescan every bit of her and draw
blood for every possible test as they generate plans for next steps.
Junie pulls out her phone to pass the time, to distract her from the fact that she’s obviously the youngest woman here. All
of the women, many with gray hair, looked at her with pity when she walked through the waiting room up to reception, as if
she had a sign on her chest: Barely Past My 30th Birthday.
Junie clicks through the phone and watches a funny cat video Georgia sent and smiles for the first time since she entered the building.
She’d already mentioned the appointment, one she called a “checkup,” so she was able to slip out without questions.
What Junie didn’t mention was that she’d drive to Eddie’s house so he could be her medical chauffeur per their arrangement.
Yesterday, Georgia and Junie passed the day nursing their hangovers from the Good Hair Days meeting and ignoring the awkwardness
of the Eddie moment sitting between them. Later in the day, Georgia announced that she’s staying in Whitetail for a week—much
to Junie’s delight—to help with the shop, and she’ll check in with work remotely. A perk of being the boss, undoubtedly. They
made a plan with the aunts on the group text to buy their first set of lotto tickets. Cash will be pooled weekly, and they
will trade off who buys each week. Buyer picks the numbers and the games.
A smiling tech knocks and opens the door. “We’re ready for you.”
Junie follows her to the mammogram and ultrasound room, and on the way she catches sight of Eddie in the waiting room. Junie
sticks out her tongue at him, which elicits an eye roll. Before long she’s standing in front of the machine and opening her
gown. Getting a mammogram at this juncture feels a little bit like a waste of time, but according to the doctors it’s important
to document where things stand as a point of comparison.
But the mammogram and its impending vise grip is not what Junie wants to think about, so she reminds herself that she has
a Good Hair Days meeting to look forward to tonight. And all because of her favorite person, Georgia. Junie hasn’t been able
to shake the awkwardness of the run-in they had with Eddie. That night, Junie couldn’t sleep. She knew Georgia couldn’t sleep
either because she heard her up and moving around, then the squeak of the rocking chair out front. Maybe Georgia’s not as
sure about the pairing as she said she was, but she has yet to mention it.
“Could you step up to the plate, please?” The tech is asking for Junie to slap her ta-tas on the X-ray plate, but in Junie’s
mind it sounds like a call to be honest with Georgia.
Junie nods, positions herself, and waits while the plate descends and squishes her into a pancake.
Maybe she should bring it back up with Georgia. Lord knows she’ll be sleepless for days, weeks probably, if Junie’s suspicions
are correct. But that’d require Junie telling her sister about this deal with the breasts and the doctors and the tests and
scans. It’ll come, that time. It will.
“All done,” the tech says.
Back in the exam room, Junie pulls on her clothes, grateful for this being over and done. She exits to the desk out front
where she schedules a follow-up appointment. She turns around and scans the waiting room for her ride.
Junie plops a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and shakes. He jostles upright, almost dropping the thick fantasy book that had him
absorbed. He’s sweet like that, Eddie Rigsby, still into magical creatures and heroes and the good guys coming out on top.
And yet he’s also sturdy and reliable, a true and practical force. He’s someone you want on your team. The calm to Junie’s
chaos, very much to her relief.
“That was quick,” he says. “Everything go ok?”
Junie shrugs because that’s the only answer when none of it’s really ok. Together they push through two sets of doors to the
parking lot.
It’s either the third or fourth appointment, counting blood draws, that Eddie has accompanied her to, and he’s probably the
very last person Junie ever expected to be by her side for any of this. Not that she expected any of this to begin with. But
it all started the day Junie ran into Eddie at this very doctor’s office. He’d moved home after leaving his fancy hospital
professorship at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville and accepting a job at the local family medical clinic so he could help
care for his aging mother as she recovered after surgery.
As fate would have it, his mother had a routine appointment for an annual mammogram on the very same day Junie was slapped with a breast cancer diagnosis, flashed several sets of sad eyes, and then, with a paper stack of Helpful Information, sent on her merry way.
People who knew better planned to have someone come with them to appointments like these.
But Junie wasn’t ever supposed to be one of those people.
She is young. She is healthy—or at least she’d thought she was.
They already lost Mama this way. She and Georgia got tested for the faulty genes, and she was supposed to be clear.
Now it seems there may be some questions around that genetic test, which Junie has re-requested from years and years ago.
Thirty is young to find a lump, and when they biopsied it, the lab reported that it was an aggressive variety. Given her family
history, specifically the fast progression of her mother’s illness, the coincidence seems too great to be simply a fluke.
There is a possibility of an error in her own results, so Junie hovers over her email, hoping to get to the bottom of what
really happened with the test. It’s a good thing she made sure to always keep health insurance after experiencing life without
it as a teen. It’s one of the few things she can celebrate herself doing all the way right.
On that day about a month ago, Eddie saw Junie, a howling, blubbering mess, sitting in her car and did the decent thing and
drove her home. Walking in her mother’s footsteps, so close to Mama in the worst way, broke Junie apart on the deepest level;
the injustice shook her so acutely that it felt like she was permanently rearranged. Perhaps she truly was. Eddie got her
number, called to follow up, and over days that became weeks urged her to “tell Georgia, tell someone, anyone in your family, Junie, dammit.” She thinks Eddie is alright being the keeper of her secret for now.
He’s not one to blow a cover, but he seems to be wearing thin under the pressure, begging Junie to tell Georgia, the fix-it queen.
All the same, after the sight of Junie that very first day, he won’t let her go to another appointment alone.
Eddie rolls down the passenger window from inside the car. “Junie? You feeling alright?”
“Oh! Sorry.” Junie slips inside.
Once they’re on the main road, Eddie clears his throat. “Ok, so what’s the deal with the other night at your house? You didn’t
even mention to Georgia that I was back in town? That you’d run into me?”
“Of course not.”
“Which I guess explains why she assumed something shady was going on.” He squeezes his lips into a concerned line.
“She thinks we’re dating.”
The car jolts as Eddie’s foot slips to the brake. “You can’t be serious.”
“As cancer.”
Junie watches her words fall on him, and he pulls in a slow, deep breath like she’s seen him do many a time now. It’s the
same thing Georgia does when she’s trying not to lose her mind over Junie, a prayer of sorts for patience. Junie giggles—to
give him permission to loosen up about all of this.
“Look. You need to talk to her. This is going too far. Can you imagine how mad she’s going to be when she finds out you kept
this from her?”
“I can exactly imagine it—in fact, I can almost feel it in my sickly bones.” Junie adds a theatrical shudder. “Which is precisely
why I’m not telling her. And she gave us her blessing to date, even said we’d be cute—which turned my guts twice over, for
the record—but date we shall.”
Eddie freezes and his mouth flops open.
“You ok?” Junie asks, cocking her head.
“Uh. Yeah. Yes, totally. For sure.” He takes a breath. “I guess I’m just surprised that Georgia would give her blessing.”
Even if Georgia has put this man through hell, it seems the emotional strife didn’t quite burn all the way through his feelings
for her.
“I mean, you don’t actually want to go on a date,” Eddie says.
“Yes, actually I do, but fake. And more than one—it has to be convincing.”
“Absolutely not,” Eddie says.
“Why?” Junie stops herself from pouting because he’s had her back in so many ways for which she could never repay him. And
because she’s just now realizing how much he might be hung up on her big sister.
“Because there’s no possible way Georgia’s really ok with this.”
Junie grins and reaches out a finger to gently poke Eddie’s ribs. “You think she’s still got the hots for you too?”
Eddie fends off Junie’s touch and rakes his free hand through his hair like he’s trying to comb out his exasperation. A flash
of true hurt passes behind his eyes. “That’s not my point. Though I will have you know that ever since she massacred our relationship, I’ve been retired from the dating scene. Anyway, my point here
is that despite things between Georgia and me being dead, it doesn’t mean she really wants her sister dating her ex. Come
on, it’s so weird. Even I can see that.”
“She said it, so what can I do but take her word as truth?” Junie’s insides squirm—she knows Georgia loves her enough to lie
about this.