Chapter Sixteen #2
But we’ve tried that already. We’ve gone back and forth one too many times, and I can’t risk it again. Not after waking up this morning from warm, satiated sleep to the cold, hollowed-out feeling of loneliness made all the sharper by knowing it didn’t have to be this way.
James was right all along, and so was I: We have to run our races. Separately. No matter what the magic or our dead mothers may have to say about it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell James, turning to leave him alone in the studio. “It doesn’t change anything.”
—
Even after a shower at home and changing clothes and psyching myself out with a too-sugary coffee, going back to finish recording is agonizing.
It’s never been easy, but even with Catarina’s chipper direction and a whole room of space between us, every time my eyes meet James’s, he might as well be in the booth with me, breathing in my ear, against the nape of my neck, the back of my knees…
“And Juniper?”
I nearly jump out of my skin when Catarina addresses me directly.
“Yes?” I ask, my voice croaky.
“Remember we’re going for breathless but—and forgive the adjective—not pornographic. This is still a book for teens, and I know it’s a difficult line to walk, but we need it to be…passionately accessible. Sound good?”
“Great,” I say.
It is not great. I’m on complete autopilot, and it’s a testament to Catarina’s direction that I am able to finish reading my parts at all. My head keeps wandering to forest-green pajamas on the floor and framed T-shirts on walls.
But…we finish it—the dreaded scenes and thus the entire project—and I don’t know that I ever bothered to imagine this day, but if I had, I wouldn’t have thought I’d feel so horribly ordinary.
Or rushed, come to think of it. I should have known, I guess, that because James and I are the only ones here from the cast, it wouldn’t be a huge to-do, but it still catches me off guard: How Catarina gives us each a box of tea bags and a honey bear with a bow on it as a goodbye gift.
How James and I are just expected to go our separate ways, shake hands, call it a job well done with not so much as a hope to see you soon that may or may not be genuine.
It feels like someone pressed Fast Forward on my life again, and once more I find myself in a place and time that don’t feel like my own.
We’re walking to the parking lot, the three of us, and Catarina has already assured us that while she thinks we’re more than good to go, she’ll be in touch if there needs to be any patchwork re-recordings.
“And you’re so close on the social media component!” She pats my arm. “I knew you could pull it off. Have we made an audiobook narrator out of you yet, or are you heading back to the world of…what was it? Publishing?”
“Headed to, I hope,” I tell her, the words extra heavy on my tongue. “I’ve actually just scheduled an interview.”
James jerks his head toward me.
“You have an interview?”
I nod, thinking back to this morning when I was drying my hair and responding to an email I had hoped would arrive for months with professionalism and a noted lack of excitement.
“Next week, actually,” I say. “They’re flying me out to the city to see if I’d be a good fit for an assistant position.”
“That seems…fast,” James says.
I shrug, still not able to look at him. Because I’ll cry? Rage? I don’t want to find out.
“Yeah,” I say, “they had an opening. I wanted to seem flexible and eager, so I took it.”
I risk a look at him. Thankfully he’s looking down at the ground so I don’t have to meet his eyes, but I can still see the way his jaw clenches and loosens.
He wants to say something, but either because of Catarina or because of me, he’s not going to.
Which is…good. We don’t have much else to say to each other now that our deal is fulfilled, painting or no painting. Shirt or no shirt.
Dad is waiting for me when I get home from the studio even though it’s only three o’clock.
“Got off early!” he declares. “I want to take my girl to a celebratory late lunch. Go on, get dressed! Holler at that boyfriend of yours if he’s up for some steaks and—” Dad cuts off when I start crying.
“I’m calling Sunset,” he says after approximately two seconds of watching me. “This seems like a Sunset fix, not an old dad fix.”
“No,” I say, wiping my eyes. “You can’t call Serena. She…” I sniff. “She won’t get it, Dad. Not this time. She already said…She told me not to, and I did.”
“Told you not to what ?” Dad asks, but then seems to think better of it. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t need to know the details and I’m sure you don’t want to give them to me. Am I to conclude that the boy is no longer an ongoing concern?”
I nod.
“Okay,” he says. “And did the boy harm you in any way?”
“No,” I say. “Not at all. He just…We just broke up, I guess.”
“Right,” Dad says, and he looks at a loss again. “Not the right puzzle, then, kid. And there’s no shame in that. No shame in trying.”
“Something like that,” I say.
Because it’s too much to admit to myself and definitely too much to say aloud to Dad, but it feels like more than just a breakup.
It feels like getting an unwanted answer to a question I’ve been turning over in my head for a third of my life.
It feels like all the signs pointed to “almost” when I wanted them to point to “yes.”
It’s a break apart more than a breakup, but there’s no time and no one to put me back together if I shatter, so onward I go.
I’ll go to an early dinner with Dad. I’ll call Serena for a catch-up. I’ll resolutely not think about the way he looks beneath his clothes as I keep posting photos of James with wolves, James at the piano, James laughing on the beach. I won’t think of him calling me love. I won’t think at all.
Serena nearly loses her mind when I call to tell her about my interview.
There’s a pause and then a near-deafening scream that makes me flinch and smile.
“They want you to come interview in person ?” Serena squeals.
“Really? They must want you. There’s no way they would go through the trouble of bringing you in if they weren’t going to offer it to you.
Barring you unzip your human suit and reveal the true book-lizard form beneath, it’s in the bag.
Or I don’t know, maybe publishing wants book alien lizards. ”
“I think they’re mostly interested in blue aliens last I heard.” I laugh.
“ Juniper. This is insane!”
“I hope so,” I say. “Brace yourself for a what should I wear FaceTime call sometime soon, okay? I need help hiding the zipper on my human suit so that the literal biggest publisher in America doesn’t see that I’m just sixteen ill-mannered raccoons in a human costume and change their minds about hiring me on as an editorial assistant. ”
There’s a great deal more squealing—I think Misha joins in midway through—and it’s just what I need to refocus. This was the point of taking on the Meadow project. Everything is exactly as it should be.
I run the healing pad of my thumb over and over my ring finger as Serena hurriedly starts sending me links to pleated pants and oversized blazers.
I don’t tell her about the one night with James.
I don’t tell her about the numbness I feel about the interview or how I keep looking at Mom’s painting on my wall and wondering, wondering, wondering.
I don’t tell her about how I am both relieved and furious that my phone hasn’t lit up with James’s name.
Instead I listen to her ramble about color theory and how I should wear a light pink to harness my Barbie energy, and I tell myself that all is well.