Chapter 14
“Oh, honey, is that what I think it is?–” Gloria interrupted herself by flicking a finger right to left indicating Juniper to move. “Scoot to the side.”
Holding an unopened coffee box that had originally been the target of Gloria’s questioning, Juniper sidestepped over with a confused look on her face.
Gloria lowered her voice conspiratorially. “So you have gotten to know that mystery woman. I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks, Juniper.”
Juniper’s eyes widened as she followed Gloria’s line of sight as it bounced from the unopened coffee pot box to Rowan scratching the back of her neck behind her. Juniper set the box down on the counter and pulled Rowan forward.
“Funny story, Auntie. We’ve known each other since we were kids.”
Gloria narrowed her eyes at Juniper. “And now you’re coming to work on a Monday morning at the same time as each other?”
Deadly, that woman.
“We just happened to arrive at the same time.”
After planning it that way over the fifty text messages we’ve sent each other since 11pm last night when we finally forced ourselves to stop making out.
“Hmm.” Gloria tilted her readers down her nose slightly to assess Rowan. “So this is the infamous heartbreaker.”
Juniper quickly looked at Rowan whose uncomfortable gaze met hers then back at Gloria. “Well, yes, but we’re moving past that.”
The weekend had been full of rekindling, but her feelings were still so very messy. And intense. And as much as they were based on feelings from the past, they were also unnervingly new.
“Good morning,” Rowan said awkwardly. “Oh,” she added as if remembering her own name, “I’m Rowan. Birdsong. Though… I guess you might already know that. Victor’s my Dad, if you know him too.”
“Ahh,” Gloria chuckled and clucked her tongue against her teeth. “I see the family resemblance. You might look like his younger twin if you had a long braid down your back.”
“Yeah.”
Gloria smiled warmly at Rowan’s endearingly quiet response. “You look an awful lot like your Mama too. Pretty girl, she sure was.”
Rowan shoved her hands in her pockets and rocked back on her feet. “Thank you.”
Juniper caught herself staring at all the little idiosyncrasies she found so mesmerizing.
Instead of listening to her intrusive thoughts urging her to crawl out of her skin and into Rowan’s just to get as close to her as inhumanly possible, she decided to change the subject.
“We have our Tribal Council presentation tonight.”
“Oh, that’s right. You two have to march in front of Council to present your case for expanding the Tribal gardens tonight, huh?
” Gloria beckoned them closer with a finger, and they leaned in as she raised her eyebrows to nearly meet her hairline.
“I saw Councilwoman Lightfoot printing out a big ol’ stack of papers in Council Chambers last week.
Make sure you know that proposal forward and backward. ”
Rowan turned to face Juniper with a similar raised eyebrow look as Gloria, although this one had the fear of a deer in headlights. Juniper laughed quietly and covered her mouth to muffle her voice.
“Councilwoman Lightfoot is kind of a hard ass. I’ve been to a hundred of these meetings, and she always asks the toughest questions.
Each Councilperson leads the discussion of a different proposal, which is why we had to submit it last week so they can prepare.
Looks like she’ll be doing that for ours. We call her the General, by the way.”
Rowan lowered her voice and her raised eyebrows moved to crease in the center. “Got it. The General. Sounds tough.”
“Remember though, this is mostly an opportunity to answer Council’s questions. And even if they vote no, they’ll give us feedback, and we can get back on the schedule for the next meeting. No need to be nervous.”
“Then why are we whispering?”
“Good point.” Juniper straightened up.
Gloria chuckled and tapped the coffee pot box to redirect their attention. “That’s my girl, taking matters into your own hands.”
“Who even makes the coffee in the break room? That’s nice and all, but it’s actually awful.”
Gloria made a retching sound as a joke. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, I have a gift for you two.”
Gloria dropped her readers, and they swung from the pearl chain around her neck as she got up and sashayed her hips through the open door behind her. When she returned, she had three mugs looped around the fingers of her left hand.
“One for you. One for the former heartbreaker.” She winked at Rowan and counted out the mugs as she set them on the counter between them. “I guess the third gift is a gift to me,” she chuckled as she tapped the third one. “I’m taking my coffee upstairs from now on.”
Juniper twisted a mug around to take in the design.
Runapewak Indian Tribe encircled their official governmental seal featuring a rendering of their waterways and plant and animal life found alongside it.
Even though a mug seemed like an insignificant thing to get emotional over, Juniper smiled at all the little and big things alike that had changed over the last few years.
It showed their unity as a government, as a people.
Rowan grabbed the mugs. “Thanks, Gloria. These are really cool. If there’s extra, can I pay for one to give to my Dad?”
Gloria shooed her like the request was silly. “Oh, please, I do the inventory around here.”
After procuring the fourth mug, Juniper and Rowan ascended the stairs.
“Please tell me she doesn’t hate me?” Rowan asked timidly, her eyes trained on Juniper’s.
“She doesn’t hate you. She just loves me a lot.”
Rowan sighed. “That’s easy to understand. You are the most lovable person I’ve ever known.”
Juniper kept her smile to herself and watched her feet walk down the hallway.
Rowan opened Juniper’s office door and let her pass through. “Oh, I wanted to ask you something.”
Juniper set the box and bag down on the middle table in her office. “Sure, help me move this table.” She nodded toward a smaller table in the corner that had previously been unused.
They aligned themselves on opposite ends of the table and lifted it to carry across the room.
“A few weeks ago I was asked to present at the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to share about what we’ve worked on here.
This year’s call to action is about climate change and our community-level solutions to what’s happening around us.
This year is going to be major and have high-powered people from all across the world, from what my friend Manny was telling me. ”
Juniper brought the box over to the table. “Okay, do you want me to help put the presentation together?”
Rowan stopped her movements by placing her hand in the crook of Juniper’s elbow and gently facing her body toward hers. She smiled and sighed out a laugh. “Can you stop working for two seconds?”
Juniper smiled and spread her arms through the air. “You have two seconds. One…”
Rowan shook her head and laughed again. “Oh my god, it’s like we’re twelve again. I wanted to ask if you’d go with me.”
“Like to support you?”
“No, Juniper, to present with me. They’re asking for final presenter details and bios, and I want to add you. It wouldn’t be right for me to say anything about this work without you.”
“Why would they want to hear anything I have to say?”
“Are you serious?”
“I mean, yeah. It sounds like you are all important, powerful people with lots of accomplishments.”
“You don’t think you’re important and powerful? That what you’ve accomplished isn’t worth sharing?”
Juniper shrugged. “I’m happy to share my knowledge, but I still don’t see why these high-powered people would care what an uneducated girl from the Rez has to say.”
Rowan’s eyebrows creased sharply in the center, and she closed the distance between them. Juniper looked up into eyes that searched hers and felt Rowan’s thumb tenderly trace the edge of her jawline.
“Because you’re exactly who they need to listen to. Your knowledge and expertise about our local environment, ecosystems, and sustainable practices is more than what some academics hope to learn in a lifetime.”
Juniper dropped her eyes. “I don’t know. It’s just a garden.”
Rowan nudged her face back up with the hand she still had on Juniper’s neck. “It’s so much more than a garden, and you know that. We used to only be able to buy canned vegetables at the dollar store. You’ve created something with the potential to touch every single life in our community.”
“Okay.”
“Will you at least think about it? If you decide you don’t want to present, I’ll respect that. This year it’s in New York City. I would love for you to at least go with me, so I can share some of that with you. I can take you on a date, you can meet some of my friends.”
“That part I can definitely do.”
“Yeah?”
Juniper smiled at the hopeful look on Rowan’s face.
Of course she wanted to get to know that part of Rowan.
She wanted to know all of her. Even though she was working on her confidence to feel safe in whatever this new thing turned out to be, the part of her heart that held all of her accumulated hurt still wondered if she could’ve fit into Rowan’s old life.
“Yeah.”
“Window seat or aisle?”
Juniper laughed. “What?”
“For the plane.” Rowan paused and slid her hands down Juniper’s arms to weave their fingers together. “Have you been on a plane?”
“Yes, I’ve been on a plane before,” Juniper protested with an eye roll. Once, she thought begrudgingly, for a trip to Miami with Wren. She’d saved for months.
“Sorry,” Rowan grimaced. “I didn’t know.”
Juniper sighed. “No, I’m being a defensive asshole. Window. Anything but the middle.”
Rowan relaxed. “I’ll take the middle.”
“You would take the dreaded middle seat for me?”
“I can’t exactly feel you up in secret across a sweaty dude’s lap.”
“Birdsong, I am not joining the mile high club.”
“Me either. I’m not trying to land myself in federal prison.” She chuckled before she got serious again. She pulled Juniper’s body flush with hers and leaned into her ear. “I would do so many things for you, Junie.”
They spent the rest of the day finalizing their presentation for that evening.
Before heading home to eat and change ahead of the meeting, Juniper checked her inbox one last time.
She bit the tip of her thumb in excitement as she smiled.
She had one new email from Rowan Birdsong with a round-trip ticket to New York City in three weeks.