Chapter 19
In the quiet early dawn hours, the first glimmers of daylight painted the horizon in soft hues of orange and pink as Juniper and Rowan pulled up with the food truck on the powwow grounds of a nearby Tribe.
They parked under a canopy of tall pine trees, and from the moment they opened their doors to get out, they were flooded with the resinous scent of pine.
Juniper hopped out of the truck with Rowan following behind her. They walked around the back to open the doors, and Juniper drew in a deep breath in mental preparation. When she blew it out, her breath was visible in the cool morning air.
She rapidly rubbed the long sleeves of her shirt that covered her hands together. “Don’t let this temperature fool you. It’s getting hot today, and it will get even hotter in here.” She swung the back doors of the food truck open.
“I dressed in layers. You don’t have to keep worrying about me, Junie.”
Juniper gave her a skeptical look, but it was so softened around the edges it betrayed how grateful she really was to have Rowan there with her.
Juniper yawned. “Coffee before anything else.”
“Obviously,” Rowan chuckled.
“Who else can say they have a 30-year old percolator that works better than any other piece of equipment they own?”
Juniper pulled out a white ceramic percolator with ditzy blue flowers painted in a chain across the top. She plugged it in, filled it with water, then filled the basket with coffee grounds.
While they waited for the coffee to finish brewing, Juniper started to perform her very thorough pre-service inventory check. Rowan slid onto the open table area and leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees to watch Juniper.
“What’s first?”
“First, you need to get off of that. It’s where we prepare the food.”
Rowan slid right back off with a contrite look as she chuckled. “Already fucking up.”
“Cleaning supplies are underneath,” Juniper indicated to the shelves below with a head nod.
“Right.” Rowan slid her hands against her thighs as she bent down to grab a spray bottle and paper towels. She cleaned the area, replaced the supplies and turned to Juniper, who had a slow smirk creeping across her face. “What?”
Juniper cleared her throat. “You know how you said you were respectfully horny for me?”
Rowan raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”
“Well, respectfully, I am going to have a lot of fun with your eagerness to please.”
“Oh, Juniper Banks, I am your willing supplicant.” She paused in her approach as her eyes flitted around the space anxiously. “Though, I am nervous that touching you in here is somehow against the rules.”
Juniper closed the space that had narrowed between them. “Just as long as you don’t push me onto any of the food preparation areas.” She wrapped her arms around Rowan’s neck and slowly moved upwards to entwine her fingers into her hair. “Making out is definitely allowed.”
A low, drawing whistle forced both of their heads to snap to the open doors at the back of the food truck.
“You two, still?”
“Sam?!” Juniper bellowed in disbelief into the otherwise quiet morning air.
Leaning against a tree with one leg crossed over the other was Juniper’s brother Sam. He tilted his head to narrow his eyes at them with a grin, causing his long braid to fall over his shoulder and expose his fresh undercut.
“How nice of you to join us so we can watch you dance at the powwow all afternoon while we bust our asses inside here.”
Sam pushed off the tree and stalked toward the back of the truck. “Well, Juniper, I’m actually here to help too. Also, so nice to see you too. Good morning, big sister.”
Juniper rolled her eyes. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Junie, he’s right,” Rowan interjected.
Juniper shot a sharp questioning gaze toward Rowan. “How do you know?”
“I–”
“She called me last week and told me I needed to start pulling my weight and at least take half of the events with the truck. And I need to find a cousin or somebody to help out too.”
“What he said.”
“Are you serious?” Juniper asked both of them as she looked from Rowan to Sam.
“Junie, if you want, you can get phased out of the food truck. You’ve done it long enough.” Sam settled his boot against the bumper of the truck to lean forward and pour himself a cup of coffee.
Phased out? She ran the show. In fact, the show only went on because of her.
Made possible by self-sacrificing family members like you.
Like some PBS commercial thanking its patrons. It didn’t matter that Juniper also didn’t want to run the food truck for the rest of her life. She still wanted to kick his smug little boot off the bumper.
“What do you know about what I’ve had to do? Either of you?”
Sam sneered up the edge of his face. “Juniper, stop being such a–”
“Nope–” Rowan stopped him by placing a hand against his chest and pushed him away from the bumper anyway. “We’re not doing that either.
Juniper turned her defensiveness toward Rowan. “I’m not some damsel in distress, Rowan. Seriously. My life isn’t that tragic.”
With widened eyes, Rowan blew out a deep questioning breath. “Wow, maybe we should totally start over.”
Juniper wrapped her arms across her chest. But then she made eye contact with Rowan, and her misplaced defensiveness was immediately disarmed.
“Sorry. I’m… dysregulated,” she grumbled.
Rowan drew her thumb across her cheek. “I see that. Why don’t we all sit down and chill for a minute over coffee.”
Sam, who was seated on the bumper staring into the hazy sunrise, made a flippant gesture with his hand above his head. “Already there.”
Juniper still wanted to use her foot to nudge him off the edge.
People always wanted to talk about the power of grit and resilience until they came face to face with a woman who had no choice but to force herself into being good at those things.
The Juniper the world saw now was the result of all it took to get to that point – for good and for bad.
Juniper waited for Rowan to settle into the middle before she took the far side from Sam. She leaned her forehead against Rowan’s shoulder and took a sip of her coffee. After Rowan took a sip of her own, she laid her cheek on top of Juniper’s head.
“I’m sorry,” Juniper whispered. “I know you’re just trying to help.”
“I messed up by not telling you first. I thought it would be a fun surprise. I didn’t realize.”
Juniper turned her face further into Rowan’s shoulder and breathed her in. Could it really be that easy to let everything go and be cared for so thoughtfully? Could two people really just understand what the other needed, sometimes without even needing to speak it?
Rowan nudged her face up so they could look at each other and winked. “I love you,” she mouthed.
“I love you more,” she mouthed back.
Rowan smiled and shook her head, then settled her cheek back down on Juniper’s head.
Sam stretched upwards and sighed back into his spot. “Freshly-brewed coffee mingling with pine trees. Now that is the smell of home.”
“Prepare to add a thick stench of frying grease to that, baby brother.”
Over the course of the next two hours, Juniper trained Rowan and Sam on the ins-and-outs of operating the food truck.
Anita would still show up later to take orders, but Juniper would concentrate her time on expediting; she’d handle customer interactions at the service window, keep their timing, and check each dish for quality, consistency, and presentation.
It was Rowan and Sam’s job to make the food.
She trained them on each item of the menu and was shocked at how not bad it was all going.
The next two hours saw a massive influx of powwow attendees before Banks Bites finally opened to the public an hour before grand entry was set to start.
Juniper looked to Anita at the back of the truck with a worried look. “Were they really expecting this many people?”
Anita whistled. “I don’t know, Junie. The only good news about this many people is we’ll probably sell out, which means we’ll get to catch at least some of the powwow at the end.”
Juniper nodded and braced herself. At least she had the help. She looked over at Rowan and smiled. Rowan adjusted her hat, smiled, and nodded back at her.
“Okay, lovebirds, I’m still here too. Maybe I need a pre-battle self-confidence boost too.”
“I’m sure you’ll find some woman to boost you up by the end of the day,” Juniper teased.
Sam stretched his arms behind his head conceitedly. “You know, you’re probably right, Juniper. I haven’t snagged a woman from this Tribe in a few years. Or has it only been a few months? I’m sure someone will remind me tomorrow morning.”
Juniper made a disgusted sound. “Was he always this irritating?”
“I’m not getting into the middle of any of that,” Rowan laughed.
The first two hours of operations went by quickly and without incident.
Juniper was relieved she could focus on chatting with the customers, which was her favorite part anyway.
Even when wait times got longer than she would have liked, they were still wildly better than when it was her alone.
And with her friendly, unstressed conversation, patrons didn’t seem to mind anyway.
“Wren, Wanchese, your order is up,” Juniper beamed from the service window.
“Is that Rowan Birdsong in that truck?” Wren asked as she approached.
“Yes ma’am, it is.” She leaned through the service window next to Juniper.
Wren gave Juniper a knowing look. Juniper felt her cheeks heat up, but she nodded her head in silent confirmation.
“Ooh, Amber and Alyssa are going to be so mad.”
Rowan furrowed her brows, and her lips downturned into a perplexed frown. “Amber and Alyssa?”
“Stop gossiping, Wren,” Anita called out.
Wren rolled her eyes and dropped her voice to a whisper so low even Juniper could barely hear it over the sounds of the crowd and drumming and singing.
“How can she claim her hearing’s bad and then somehow hear what I’m saying over all this noise?”