Chapter 40 Junie
Junie
Junie wakes early, partially due to nerves and partially due to the fact that she knows her days of doing her hair are numbered.
At least for now—while she has it—she will relish it. Junie showers in the bathroom she shares with Georgia and pads back
to her room to dress, leaving wet footprints behind. She picks something comfortable to wear, knowing she’ll be sitting in
the chemotherapy chair for a good while.
When she returns to the bathroom, she releases her hair from the towel she’d twisted up and secured atop her head. She admires
her damp locks, raking her fingers through them, delighted that the handful of blonde highlights Tina wove into the red months
ago are still shining strong. Junie reaches into the cabinet beneath the sink and retrieves her Blowout Bombshell cream, then
squeezes some into her palm, spreads it between her hands, and smooths it through her hair. She closes her eyes and lets herself
feel the pull of her hands, the love of doing something for herself. You’ve got this. Look good, feel good. Just like Mama promised.
After brushing the product through with a wide comb, she pulls out a blow dryer and a thick round brush.
She segments the hair and pins it up in small twists.
The blast of hot hair hits her square in the face as she turns on the blow dryer, and it’s a delightful reminder that she’s alive and kicking.
Junie pulls and turns the heavy brush up and down the sections of her long layers, twisting the brush at the end for the perfect curl.
Section by section, she molds the hair into a voluminous collection of waves that frame her face.
Two hours later Junie sits in the chemo chair, and despite the fact that she’s the patient, she wonders if Eddie is perhaps
a hair more miserable than her. He’s trying his best. He smiles. But it’s strained and can’t be anything but just for show.
“Do you want another pair of socks?” he asks.
He has a backpack of supplies at his side, and he diligently unloads them for Junie as needed. He bought cold therapy gloves
and socks—apparently they’re a preventative for complications. She’s waiting on her cheery nurse to connect her drip, so she’s
still sitting at zero experience.
What a wild moment; it’s the silence before the leap.
Eddie lays a second blanket at Junie’s feet with a folded lip that can easily be pulled up. “Just in case.”
When he settles into the seat across from her looking as gray as a storm cloud about to burst, she realizes what she’s done.
She’s put too much on him; she’s mined too much of his heart of gold. It should be Georgia here with her. Or Cece. Or Tina.
Or Daddy.
Junie just couldn’t bring herself to break the joy of Good Hair Days.
She couldn’t bring herself to break her Georgia. Not yet.
“I’m sorry,” Junie tells him quietly. “This is the most depressing date I could’ve planned for us.” She tries for a smile.
“No apologies. I’m in the easy seat.” He sinks down into it like he’s settling in for the long haul.
Poppy, who could easily be renamed Nurse Sunshine, arrives. “Hi, Miss Junie. I’ll be with you the whole way today.” She smiles
politely at Eddie. “Are you the boyfriend?”
Eddie’s face flickers. “Depends on who you ask.”
“Ooh! Do I smell drama?” Poppy giggles to herself. “Hang on, I forgot my charting tablet. Be right back.”
“Look at you starting rumors,” she tells Eddie. “You know I’m scheduled to come back here every other week for the next eternity,
right? Let’s try to keep some of our crazy under wraps.”
“I think Poppy’s keeping things light for your sake,” Eddie says. “Oh, and we need to talk about you being sick after this.
My schedule’s clear—I can play the doting boyfriend in front of Georgia—even if it kills me—to nurse you back to health.”
Junie grins. “We’ll come back to that ‘even if it kills me’ part, but I won’t need your help.”
“You’re going to be in rough shape, Junie. You can’t bootstrap this alone. You need to let someone be there, and I’m happy
for it to be me. I am a trained medical professional, remember?”
“Do you want to snuggle up in my bed with me and make googly eyes at me?” Junie bats her eyes with every dramatic flourish
she can muster.
“Careful, or I’ll be the one with the nausea.” He lays a palm on his deep brown hair.
“Seriously, though, I’ve planned it. I’m going to be ‘hungover.’”
Despite the eyebrow waggle Junie tacks on at the last word, Eddie glares back at her like he’s caretaking the world’s biggest
idiot. And probably, he is.
“You’re going to Cards tonight?” he says deadpan.
“Of course.”
They wouldn’t usually have Cards on a Friday, but they also wouldn’t usually have it more than once a month—with November
and December off for the holidays. It’s part of the way the event has stayed under the radar this long. But they desperately
need cash, and Cece checked with Sheriff Mike who said he’s the only one on duty tonight.
“No, you’re not. I won’t let you,” Eddie says.
His words waver at the end as he questions his authority to command Junie to do anything—in light of them being here, at the
infusion center, with the Louise/Scott family clueless about what’s happening.
“I don’t care,” Junie says. “Let me live a little. Geez. Plus, it wouldn’t be a Good Hair Day if I’m not there.”
She’s told him the basics of Good Hair Days at this point. He’s too close to all of it—and keeping too many of Junie’s secrets—not
to be in the loop.
Poppy returns with her tablet in hand, begins taking Junie’s vitals, and charts information in her tablet. “Alright, first
step done,” she says. “I’m going to grab the supplies and we’ll get you started, hon.” Poppy takes off back in the direction
of the nursing station.
“I guess you should enjoy yourself. I shouldn’t be the one to stop you.” Eddie sucks in a breath and then stops himself.
“Go on,” Junie says.
“No.”
“Fine, then I’ll guess. Let’s go with ‘And if they’re so special to you, they should know about your illness.’”
He pulls out a pack of Twizzlers. “Close enough.”
Junie sighs. “You’re right. I don’t have a good excuse. Only a reason. Knowing she misread the result is going to send Georgia
to a dark place.”
Eddie nods. “I’ve been thinking about Georgia too. I think she’d rather be hurt than left out. Especially during a time when
you could really use her help. She’s a good woman, your sister. Not perfect, but she’s incredibly capable and loving and actually
sort of funny when she lets loose—”
Junie lets out a theatrical groan. “Good God, if y’all don’t figure it out between you, I just might tie you together until
you do.”
“I’ve already told you: I don’t date. Not anymore. Not to mention as far as she’s concerned, I’m creepily dating her sister.” Eddie looks to the ceiling for strength.
Junie shoots him a glare. “You must be the pot to my kettle, because you’re an idiot.”
“What?” Eddie’s limbs stretch and tighten, and Junie can see he’s truly struggling with this.
“Sorry. It’s just that it doesn’t seem that way. You both totally look like you have the hots for each other, except the one
thing on Georgia’s side is that she knows she royally screwed up. You’re the blameless one. You could say ‘Let’s give it another
shot’ with much more authority than her.”
“It’s just . . .” Hurt passes across his face.
“She hurt you too badly to give it another try.”
Eddie leans over his knees and begins to bobble his leg. “That’s what I thought, what I planned to feel. But now she’s back
here, and it feels like it could, somewhere far off in the distance, be fixable. But now I’m keeping things . . . about you,
about our ‘dating.’ I’m not certain about anything, but even if I wanted to see what could be there, I can’t while I’m keeping
these secrets.”
It’s another sacrifice Eddie has made for Junie. Passing on this second chance. She’s been too absorbed with her own problems,
her own drama to deeply consider it until now. She was far too quick to accept him brushing off the possibility of something
with Georgia.
Junie sighs. “Ugh, I’m so sorry. Seriously.”
“I know. I know you are. But I didn’t want you worrying about me in this whole thing anyway. Especially about something romantic. That’s just not that important compared to everything else going on.”
But now that Junie is sitting squarely in the middle of the storm, she realizes that it truly is the rest of it that is the
most important stuff. The storms will come, and no person can stop them. But the fun, the friendships, the trips, the memories,
the delicious dinners in good company. Love. It’s what matters the most.
“It is important,” Junie says. “The good parts, the fun parts, the love we get to have in life. It’s what I’m learning right here in turd storm central.”
Eddie shrugs. “And you’re probably right, but I want to keep this about you. Not about something hypothetical between me and
Georgia.”
“Well, I probably won’t need you to fake it much longer. I’m coming clean with her as soon as I can. She’s supposed to go
back to Atlanta on Sunday, Monday morning if I can twist her arm . . . just as I’m about to need her the most.”
Eddie nods. “It was really good of her company to give her two weeks away.”
Junie nods. “I think she could work remote if she wanted, probably. I don’t really know the ins and outs of her job, but I
just get that feeling.” She swats her hand. “Not that she seems to like the job that much. Atlanta either. Not when she’s always coming home.”
“Who knows, maybe she’ll be able to work something out. You really think she’d be happy moving back to Whitetail, even temporarily?”
“She seems happier than ever after two weeks here. Relaxed and down to earth and unwound, even if we are chasing a fix for
a torn-up beauty shop. Honestly and truly her best since she returned and kicked off these Good Hair Days. None of us are
the same since, but especially her. You’re the first person I’ve admitted it to out loud because it goes against everything
Mama said, but . . . Georgia belongs here. She should be running the shop with me. Or take it herself and let me be a bohemian
weirdo tending a garden and building a zucchini empire.”
“Maybe,” Eddie says. “But please, just tell her. I don’t want to have to ruin our friendship by going over your head to tell
her, and I won’t be attending the next chemo alone. You decide which one of us tells them.”
“You’re ready to be off the hook from me?” Junie pouts.
He wavers. “There’s no ‘off the hook’ from this, Junie.
You are a royal pain that has assumed a permanent spot in my heart.
I’m on your team, kid. But it’s time for me to step back so your women can take over.
” He swallows hard. “You were born into a pack family. Y’all are made to work in a group; you’ve never once been a collection of individuals.
And when all of you are in it together, you’re absolutely unstoppable. ”
“I’m glad I get to keep you,” Junie says. He makes her feel so loved inside his understanding. “And especially if I don’t
have to date you.”
The nurse returns then, ready to hook her up to the IV.