Chapter 19 Junie #2
“Here’s a compromise: You tell her we’re friends but not romantically involved. Which is also true,” he says. “There’s already
been enough hurt between us, I don’t want any more at my hand.”
“So she can catch us sneaking around to appointments and think we’re lying to her?” Junie says. “That won’t end well—”
“None of this will end well if you keep waiting to tell her. What difference do you think waiting will make? It won’t change the
truth.” It’s the firmest he has been with her.
The difference is obvious: avoiding inducing chaos among the Louise women once again. The difference is sidestepping more
problems, sidestepping laying more requests at their feet.
“We just need to go with it, pretend we’re dating, and it’s precisely the cover we need while I do my treatment stuff. Let
me deal with the telling people part,” Junie says.
“I don’t want this undercover.” He stretches the word. “Besides, don’t forget you’re talking to a doctor here. There’s only so long you can hide this.
You’re going to get very sick with treatment. You’re already very sick, and it’s not going away. They’re going to notice something’s
up, so why don’t you tell them on your terms?”
“I can’t,” Junie says. She pictures Georgia crushed in the wake of Mama’s death. “I mean, I will, but I need to get this stuff figured
out with the genetic testing first.”
Eddie sighs. “What does it change? If the results were wrong or confusing or misleading, that’s on the lab and their poor
quality work.”
The oncologist and breast care specialist both looked like they were suppressing groans when Junie told them which lab Georgia
had used for genetic testing. Right before they were tested, an influx of new labs saturated the market that was previously
dominated by a single company. The upside was that cheaper tests were made available to a larger group, and the downside was
that some labs weren’t well-prepared to serve customers and rushed to market for a piece of the pie. Apparently the company
Georgia and Junie used was known for confusing paperwork better designed for the scientists manning the lab than the average
Joe reading the results.
“Georgia read my result, Eddie.” Junie is unmoving and serious. “I was too scared to look, so she opened the envelope. She knew it was negative right away—it was different from hers. What if it was only because it was different from hers?”
Eddie shrugs in reluctant agreement. “It could also be a lab error. It happens. Or it could be an awful, terrible coincidence.
People do get breast cancer, often in fact, without any sort of gene for it.”
All those years ago, Georgia’s results arrived first in the mail. She was positive for carrying the gene, and everyone cried.
Then a week later, Georgia opened Junie’s envelope and glanced at the results, and the sheer elation on her face was a memory
Junie held dear for years. It was a moment she revisited when she was sad. Until the appointments kicked off, and the first
doctor suggested there could be a problem with the results—a lab error or an interpretation error. A mistake Georgia made
in reading it. What that doctor didn’t understand is that Georgia doesn’t make mistakes; she’s not like Junie. And if Georgia
did make a mistake? And in this one very specific way? It would undo her.
Eddie lets out a strained sigh. “It’s a tough situation.”
Junie leans in and begs her voice not to waver. “What if Georgia read it wrong? I can’t do that to her. Not when I’m already
sick. That’s enough. But also, what if the lab got it wrong? She picked the lab because it was what we could afford at the time.”
She can’t untangle these things, the results, her illness, the way she and Georgia love each other from inside their bones,
because they’re all wound up together inside her. Some of it inside Georgia too.
“Please, pretend date me?” Junie says earnestly. “I’m going to lose my hair.”
The car rolls to a stop at a light, and Eddie looks over at her. “Is that maybe one of the worst parts?”
Junie looks back at him, and she thanks the heavens for sending her Eddie because very few people could really understand what that will mean the way he does.
Junie comes from a lineage of women with salon blood in their veins.
Usually, hair is what they can control with their tips and tricks.
Their special kind of hair witchcraft—it is what they do.
But now, in the face of this disease, that will be taken from Junie too.
“I might have to tag Tina in from the wig wall,” she says casually. “But I’ll add wig expertise as another hair skill as I
figure it out.”
Eddie nods quietly as he turns back to look at the road and drive. Eventually he speaks. “Ok, fine. I’ll do it, but I’m not
happy about it.”
“So you’re agreeing?”
Junie looks at him as he drives, and she hopes that in the pause, he’ll realize it’s the right choice—to let her pretend.
At least for a little bit.
At last Eddie puffs out a breath. “Only for a bit. Then you need to fix this, because I don’t want people thinking—”
“Are you embarrassed for people to think you’re dating me?” Junie says it grinning from ear to ear as she pokes his ribs again
because she knows he hates it. “That’s low, my friend.”
Finally his frustrated glare cracks. “Never, sweet Junie,” Eddie says. “You’re a doll. And not one bit of a pain in the ass.”
They continue down the road, the humming engine their only soundtrack. Eddie silently reaches over and squeezes Junie’s shoulder.
When she turns to look, there’s a tenderness in his eyes, and it reminds Junie of the way Georgia looks at her.
“Thank you,” she tells him, not a hint of sarcasm.
He nods, releases her shoulder, and turns back to face the road ahead.
Soon Eddie pulls into his mom’s house, and Junie picks up her car. She checks the time and decides to head straight to June’s
for the Good Hair Days meeting. She can’t wait to get back in that bubble and away from her medical woes.
The bubble for Louises, for big hair, for drink pouring and a few crass words.
Junie can’t help but wonder how long she can keep it as is, unspoiled.
As much as she knows her Louises would want to skin her alive for going to her appointments without them, protecting them from the heartbreak is one of the small powers she holds.
At least for now.