16. June
JUNE
“Have a good lunch with your sister.” Nick tries to kiss my cheek, but I turn my head and capture his lips. We stand beneath a tree on the street corner near Atch. His hair shines in the dappled light.
Last night was amazing, beyond amazing. It was everything . I could’ve stayed in that practice room talking and kissing Nick for hours, but I had to get back because I’m on dorm duty this week. I tried to sleep, but my skin was overheated and sensitive, and the memory of Nick’s mouth was too much.
“I wish it was lunch with you,” I murmur, running my lips over his jaw. My fingers curl into the sides of his T-shirt, holding him to me, basking in his heat and inhaling his scent—woodsy, spicy shampoo, and laundry detergent, and beneath all that, Nick. Just Nick.
He tilts my face up to his. “I’ll see you in an hour for Con choir.”
“Too long,” I whine. The only thing stopping me from jumping him right here is a public indecency charge. And his phone buzzing in his pocket.
His thigh is literally vibrating. I clench mine together because my mind goes in a filthy, wonderful direction.
He punches the answer button, brows furrowing together as he asks, “Dad? What’s wrong?”
My heart zooms up my throat. But Nick’s tense shoulders relax at Don’s reply.
“Oh, my bad. I actually haven’t looked at the app. Thanks for letting me know about the time change for Friday,” Nick says. I rub my hand across his lower back, and he shoots me a smile. “No, it’s not a problem.”
He turns away from me, murmuring, “I said it’s not a problem. I always drive you.”
After a moment, his next reply is louder, disbelief coloring his tone. “Don’t bother?” The tension in his shoulders creeps back up as he listens, then says, “You shouldn’t have to. I’ll be there.”
A pause, then, “Bye, Dad.”
He clicks his phone so the screen goes dark, sighing.
I want to hold him when he looks like this—sad, but also like he expected disappointment. I can do that now. Put my arms around him whenever I want. My lower belly heats. Because I’m his girlfriend, or girl whatever . We haven’t put a label on it. “Come here.”
He walks right into my arms, wrapping his around me too. His face dips to the spot where my neck meets my shoulder, and he inhales deep. “My dad’s PT appointment changed this week, the time’s earlier.”
“That’s not so bad,” I hedge, knowing that can’t be what’s bothering him.
“I think he assumed I was annoyed? He told me not to pick him up. Not to bother,” his voice cracks on that last word.
“Woof,” I mumble.
He shrugs, releasing me. “It’s fine.”
I want to challenge him on that, but Willow’s car honks at me across George Street.
So I run my fingers through his hair, brushing the charcoal waves off his forehead and study him. His worry melts to a smile that tugs at me, right behind my belly button. “Go have lunch.”
I kiss him quick, hard, then press my lips to his a second time because I can’t get enough. With a sigh of my own, I say, “Fine.”
And cross the street to settle in Willow’s rusty old car.
Nick stands at the curb as we pull into traffic. I twist in my seat, watching him until we turn at the first intersection.
“So, it’s either Ambrosia for lunch, or Mom told me she’s making pierogi today.”
I shift in my seat, studying Willow’s face for the sarcastic twist of her lip. “You would willingly choose Ambrosia over homemade pierogi?”
“How dare you assume that because I dress in black, I wouldn’t enjoy a cafe that looks like Hello Kitty threw up all over it.”
“A thousand apologies.” I laugh.
“The cinnamon buns, Junie.” Wils literally licks her lips. “I would commit murder for one of those.”
“Maybe we can do both? Help with pierogies and grab some cinnamon buns for the road?”
“You’re lucky I love you, making me wait for my bun,” she grumbles, but drives to our childhood home.
Willow parks in the driveway, and I jog up the short steps to the porch. Once I open the front door, Mom calls, “My girls! I knew I’d get you home with pierogi.”
“Did I miss pinching duty?” A few times a year, Dad gets everyone in the house to spend an entire day making pierogi—pinching them shut is always my job.
“You’re right on time. I just set up the assembly line.”
“Where’s Dad?” Wils asks.
“He helped this morning making the dough and the filling, but he’s teaching a class at the university this afternoon.”
The kitchen is steamy warm and flour dusts every surface.
Dad usually boils and mashes the potatoes in one giant, battered stock pot, then divides it up to make different fillings.
Three pots of mashed potatoes sit on the stove, so I sniff each one.
The sauerkraut and mushroom potato filling is the easiest to identify, and the grossest, in my opinion.
The next one smells tangy—traditional pierogi with farmer’s cheese.
I scoop a spoon into the last—potato, bacon, and cheddar. “Yum.”
“Let’s pinch a dozen or so quickly and I’ll make them for lunch, then we can work on the rest,” Mom suggests as she fills a pot with water to boil.
Willow and I wash our hands and grab aprons, while Mom cuts circles out of the dough. Wils adds the filling, and I pinch them shut, lining up the fork tines perfectly.
As we work, Mom asks, “How’s Conservatory going? Do you love being back?”
“I do.” I don’t need to focus so much on sealing the pierogi, but I’m smart enough not to make eye contact with Mom as she works up to grilling me about Nick. After nearly thirty years on this earth, I know when a parental interrogation is coming.
It’s not that I mind, I’m usually fairly up front about my dating life with her. My cheeks heat because Nick’s the reason I’m having so much fun at Conservatory. But this thing between us is so fragile, so new, that I won’t have answers to her intense questions.
Well, I have answers to some of them, they just depress the fuck out of me.
“Your dad told me Nick’s the music teacher at River Valley High. What does he play?”
“Piano,” I say.
Her eyes sparkle as her gaze goes distant. “Are you two going to perform together? I love performing with your father.”
“Yeah, we’re going to do the cabaret tomorrow night.”
“Oh, I wish we could watch, but I’ve got a private lesson and Tom’s got choir rehearsal that night.” She wipes her hands off on her apron, then grabs the plate of pierogi I’ve assembled and drops them into the now-boiling water. “How are things going with Nick, anyway?”
Wils takes up cutting out circles, while I switch to dolloping the filling in the center, and we both pinch them shut. I try for the same casual tone, but apparently my mother’s the better actor today. My reply is terse. “Good.”
“He was so sweet to you at the fair. Good guys are hard to find.”
I nod, because I can’t disagree. “Believe me, I know.”
“Of course you do, sweetheart,” she says. “But it gets even harder as you get older.”
Is she for real? Mom lures me here with carbs and goes in for the kill. “Why? Because my biological clock is ticking?”
“Not at all. But the good ones get snapped up left, right, and center. I’m surprised Nick isn’t married already.”
All the air punches out of my lungs. I grip the edge of the counter, bowing over like someone’s actually hit me. Because it hurts; her words fucking hurt.
Willow’s eyes flit to mine, and she pulls out her trademark sarcasm to diffuse the situation. “Yeah, Junie, are you going ring shopping yet?”
Mom turns to her, gesturing with her wooden spoon. “Would it kill you to take something seriously?”
“Would it kill you to leave June alone?”
“Wils,” I cut in, but my sister keeps going.
“Isn’t there anything you want to criticize me for, Ma? My wardrobe? My job?” She waves her fork around. “How I have no direction in my life?”
“You’re young yet, Wils. You have time.”
My spine snaps straight. “And I don’t?”
“I didn’t say that.” She uses that overly patient voice reserved for children and the elderly.
Which one am I today? Elderly, probably.
Mom blinks fast. Great. I’m about to make her cry. “Your father and I worry about you.”
I rub my lips together, inhaling the biggest breath I can even though my chest is tight. She’s pressing on every single sore subject, but it’s not intentional. It doesn’t stop all my defenses from soaring up my throat, though. “I know you care, Mom.”
“I don’t understand, Junie.” She drowns the pierogi in butter and onions and sets the plate in front of us. “You like being here, and you’ve found a good partner. You’re going to go back to the city and lose both of those things. And for what? The possibility of another tour?”
Maybe her button pushing is intentional, and maybe it’s working. “I have an interest and availability check,” I bite out.
But Mom’s a performer too, so she knows what that means. “It doesn’t guarantee an audition, though, does it?”
“And the musical director at Conservatory lives in the city. I’m networking?—”
Mom sighs and mutters, “Networking.”
“Mom,” Wils admonishes. Great, so I wasn’t imagining my mother’s patronizing tone.
She throws her hands up. “Even if you book it, what then? You flit from place to place, no direction, no goals?—”
My fork clatters to my plate, stomach in no shape to hold food. “What the hell? I’ve worked hard my entire life to get to this point. Just because I don’t dream of settling down and crapping out kids doesn’t mean the dreams I do have are less valid.”
“I didn’t say that.” She heaves a long-suffering sigh.
“I never said anything about kids. You did. You need to look at why that is. What I’m saying—” She pauses, cutting a pierogi with too much vigor and the knife scrapes against her plate.
“Is that as you get older, you need a community, a family, whatever that looks like for you. Are you going to find that if you’re always on the road? ”
I open my mouth to argue but snap it shut.
Conservatory has proved how amazing a community can be.
When I tour, of course we’re a giant family.
But the tour doesn’t last forever. We all go our separate ways when it’s over.
Staying in one place for six weeks and experiencing a village of artists and students has shown me what I’m missing.
I force myself to pick up my fork again, even if I’m not in the mood to eat. “I understand what you’re saying.”
Wils asks, “You do?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “But my dream has always been Broadway. You know that.”
Mom looks at me across the counter, and her eyes widen as she presses on. “Your dreams are allowed to change.”
I shake my head, sucking my bottom lip between my teeth. What’s the point in arguing further? I meant what I said, my dreams aren’t changing to settling down and starting a family.
Mom’s never talked to me like this. Maybe it’s another delightful perk of turning thirty.
I stuff a pierogi in my mouth so I don’t have to answer, then wash my hands in the sink and take my apron off.
Is it a little petty to leave? Probably, but I don’t care.
My appetite is now nonexistent, and I’ve somehow got to wrangle my feelings into control before heading back to campus.
Otherwise, Nick will ask what’s wrong. And what could I say?
Oh, you know, I’m upset because my mom thinks I should marry you and have your babies.
I plop into Willow’s passenger seat, gripping the seatbelt like a lifeline.
She slides into the driver’s side a minute later. “I need a cigarette after that, Jesus.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. I don’t know why Mom chose right now to get on my case.”
“At least she cares enough to meddle,” she mutters, though it lacks her characteristic bite.
I gaze out the windshield, placing a hand on my diaphragm as I suck in a deep breath. “If you were the focus of that eye-opening conversation, I bet you’d feel differently.”
“But that’s it, Junie. She never meddles, never gets on my case. Nothing.” We both stare ahead as the car idles at a red light.
“You also live here all the time, though. I’m just visiting.”
“I’m not saying you can’t be frustrated. She said some real Little House on the Prairie shit. But maybe I’m not the person you complain to.”
“I didn’t know you felt that way.” I hate how small my voice sounds.
“Yeah, well, you never asked.”
The usual gap between us feels wider. Every one of our seven years’ difference hits me. When Wils went through her difficult teenage years, I was in my early twenties, touring. Laurel had been busy with her newborn son.
Whip smart and never afraid to speak her mind, Willow became a force to be reckoned with, all on her own. I bite the inside of my cheek. I want to tell her all this, but she’d brush it off, make a joke of it. So I hold back. For now.
“That’s fair,” I mutter, and we drive in silence.
Wils pulls up to the front entrance of Langford Hall, where we rehearse for Conservatory choir. “Break a leg tomorrow night at your singing thing or whatever.”
Singing thing . I laugh. “Thanks, I will.”
“I’d come, but I’ve got work at my super important job that my mother is incredibly proud of.”
“Hey, I also bartend. There’s nothing wrong with it.” I unclick my seatbelt, but I’m not quite ready to leave yet.
“It’s different for you. A job like that’s a waypoint.”
“It can be a waypoint for you, too.”
“I’d need a destination for it to be a waypoint.” Her voice cracks, weary, sad. Spending so much time with her this summer, I’m finally breaking through her caustic personality to the soft heart underneath.
I elbow her. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Maybe. For what it’s worth, Nick’s a really good guy. You could do a lot worse.”
“That’s oddly high praise coming from you.”
“I see how he looks at you. He’s all the way gone. Don’t throw that away because of what Mom said.”
“What do you mean?”
Her stare bores into me. “When I was little, I used to tell people all the time, my sister Junie’s gonna be on Broadway soon. It’s your whole life.”
“It’s not my whole life,” I grumble.
“I’m not Mom, relax. Don’t use that singular focus as an excuse to take a step back from whatever’s happening with you and Nick.”
My breath hitches when I inhale. “That’s … wow, okay. I need a moment. I’m feeling very perceived.”
She shrugs. “Oh, I perceive the fuck out of you.”
“That doesn’t feel like a compliment.”
“I didn’t say it was.” She laughs, and I join her. But I’m light-headed as I wave goodbye and enter Langford.