Chapter 22 Junie
Junie
Junie has snuck out of her dad’s house, her childhood home, to meet up with a boy. It’s not the first time she’s done it,
but she’d be entirely unruffled if it was the last.
Especially since the boy is Eddie. It’s like sneaking out the window and sliding down the gutter to get to a dentist appointment
on time—though in fairness, both are critical to keeping her health on track.
Junie tiptoes to the vegetable garden, through the morning dew that the climbing sun has yet to burn off, and dips below the
sprawling holly tree.
“Junie,” Eddie whispers.
She turns and veers toward him. “Thank God.”
The rest of the women are up in the attic, sifting through old stuff and choking on freshly disturbed layers of dust. Junie
only has a few minutes before she’ll need to get back.
“You ready for our debut?” Junie asks.
She needs this to seem legitimate, so she’s staged this moment for Eddie to “stop by” and sell the story of them as lovebirds
who can’t stand too many hours strung together without each other’s touch.
“Not sure I have much choice.” Eddie’s face stays slack.
“So no PDA or any of that nonsense, please, but just be nice and act like you’re into me. Got it?”
“Dang, Junie.” Eddie pulls her under his arm and squeezes as she wriggles. “You really think I’m going to try to plant one
on you? I’m barely a willing participant.”
“Fortunately, no,” she says. “Thanks for saving my rear. Again.”
Junie slips out from under Eddie’s arm, waves farewell, and walks around to the front of the house. She pushes through the
front door, skips up the stairs, and climbs into the attic. The basic wooden ladder creaks as she pulls herself up step by
step, and as she crosses into this space under the roof, the air turns thick. It’s warm from the late-summer heat baking the
sparkly shingles above, and the air is hazy thanks to flecks of dust and dander the women have disturbed from their years-long
slumber.
There’s only a single window, set in the dormer on the front of the house. The nook could be cozy with a bit of cleaning,
proper finishing, and air-conditioning.
“Thought you’d ditched us there for a minute, Junie,” Cece says from behind a stack of boxes labeled Girls Stuffed Animals 1996. “Check this out. There’s three more just the same.”
“They can’t all be full of stuffed animals,” Junie says.
“I’d believe it,” Georgia calls over. “Don’t you remember that was Mama’s favorite thing to buy us?”
Junie does. She remembers having so many of them lined up on her bed that she had to angle her pillow to sleep, her comfort
secondary to that of her plush animals. How much of this stuff was saved because it was a treasure, and how much is simply
stuff that lived in conjunction with Mama, so it was boxed up and put away? Because she’s sure she doesn’t need to spend hours
combing through her childhood stuffed animals, not when there’s so much else to be done. Not when it’s going to force her
to relive the last years they had with Mama.
“Y’all should definitely save those for keepsakes,” Tina says.
Junie thinks Tina dabs a tear at the corner of her eye. It could also just be the dust.
Georgia calls over, “Maybe some.” Her voice wobbles a little, then she leans back down to the box she’s working through.
It’s the same for all of them, finding themselves in dusty spots or with shaky voices far too often. Junie suspects every
one of them misses Mama just about the same as the day she left them.
Junie is about to open her mouth to say something about it, maybe ask them if they feel the same, when Daddy calls up, “Junie,
you have a visitor.”
Georgia was right. This time should be Louises only—and even if the Louise name could be earned, Eddie hasn’t yet qualified.
Georgia knew, like she always does, that this would be an emotional crawl through things left behind. Georgia knew it would
be hard.
Junie shouldn’t have invited Eddie.