The Opposite Of Tidy (35 page)

And all of a sudden, the day wasn’t so bad. Junie could admit to herself that she actually liked sitting in a fairly companionable silence with her father, while her mother’s mess raged on without her, halfway across town.

Inevitably, though, Junie was drawn back in. They decided to catch a movie, for the complete playing-hooky experience. Halfway through a matinee showing of
A Fistful of Dollars
, Junie got a text from Charlie Falconetti. It read:
Do I need to pull out the big guns in order to get your ass back here?

Junie glanced over at her father, who was intently watching the old spaghetti western unfold. Junie had been staring at the screen but hadn’t really been watching. She’d let her mind wander, and had no idea what was happening in the plot, other than that some dusty guy was about to
shoot another dusty guy in the middle of a dusty street in a tiny, dusty town. It was funny that Charlie had mentioned guns. Almost as if she were omniscient. Junie eyed the mostly empty rows surrounding them, half expecting to see Charlie herself waving at her in the half-dark.

“They want me back at the house,” she whispered.

“They aren’t the bosses of you, Junie.” He offered her the bag of popcorn. “It’s totally your call.”

Junie texted Charlie back.
Less than an hour. I’ll be there.
She had no doubt that Charlie would blackmail her, if that’s what it took.

When the movie was over, Junie’s dad took her home but dropped her off in the alleyway, not wanting to be on camera for even a minute.

Junie found her mom and Kendra in the muchimproved basement, going through yet another box of stuffed animals. Of course Charlie wanted her back for this, what with the tantrum it had caused the other day. As Charlie liked to say, it made for great television.

“Come join us, sweetheart,” Kendra called when she came down the stairs. A camera swung in Junie’s direction. Even though the crew had been there for three days now, it still was weird that this was happening in her house, to her and her mother. Junie wasn’t sure that it ever should feel normal to have a celebrity talk show host hanging out with one’s mother in a filthy basement that still smelled like shit.

Junie reluctantly made her way over to where a large folding table had been set up, to help with the sorting. The same three boxes again:
Keep, Toss, Donate
. This time,
though, the
Toss
and
Donate
boxes were more full, and the
Keep
box was almost empty. This stirred a small pool of hope in Junie. Perhaps her mother was getting better. Perhaps all of this was actually going to end up making things better.

Junie picked up an old doll from the box. It was one her grandmother had made, and Junie had forgotten about it until now. The doll wore a gingham dress with a white apron overtop, and had thick yarn hair in two braids and black felt shoes on her feet. The facial features had all been embroidered by her grandmother, and the eyes were an eerie turquoise blue because her grandma had let her chose the colour.

“You want to keep that one, hon?”

Junie wished that Kendra would just vanish. Just for a few moments while Junie had a private moment all to herself. Holding the doll now, she remembered wondering where it had gone. The morning she’d thought she’d lost her came flooding back, and all of a sudden Junie was eight years old and rifling through her toy box, looking for the doll, which she’d called Laura, after Laura Ingalls Wilder.

“You told me I’d lost this,” Junie said to her mother, an accusatory edge to her voice. “But you’d packed it away.”

“I guess I had.” Her mother shrugged her shoulders, not realizing the seriousness of the moment.

“You were always doing that. Sorting and moving and packing. Even
my
stuff! Without asking!”

Nigel stepped in out of nowhere, as if manifesting out of the ether. “Sometimes, hoarders need to control their belongings, categorize them in a certain way that only they understand.”

“You were always getting rid of your toys,” her mother said, petulant. “I wanted to make sure that I set aside a few things so that you’d have them when you had children of your own.”

“You could’ve asked me.”

“Well, I didn’t. Clearly.” She reached out to pat the doll, and Junie pulled away, clutching the doll protectively. “But here it is, in good shape, years later, for you to enjoy.”

“Ah, yes,” Nigel intoned, “but don’t present this kind of preservation as a good thing, Marla. It isn’t healthy to steal from other people for their own good.”

“Steal?” She pulled her chin in, offended. “I did no such thing.”

“What else did you take that was mine?” Junie set the doll in the
Keep
box and opened a box that was sitting to one side, waiting to be sorted through. She reached in and pulled out the first thing she grabbed. It was a soft, knitted blanket, blue. Not anything she recognized. She pulled out the next thing. A blue teddy bear, with the name “Thomas” embroidered on its little white T-shirt.

Junie’s mother let out a strangled cry. “No! Put it away!” She shoved Junie aside, grabbing the blanket and the bear and shoving them back into the box. She lifted the box into her arms and ran up the stairs, crying. Junie heard a distant slam. Her mother had locked herself in the bathroom.

Behind them, from where she’d been watching the scene unfold, Charlie Falconetti whistled. “That right there, folks, is good television turning into
great
television!”

Kendra stood, her hands on her hips. “Zip it, Charlie.” She turned to the camera and spoke to it as if speaking to a
real person. “Obviously, we’ve stumbled onto a very painful part of Marla’s past just now. Stay with us as we uncover the story behind it.” She waited a few seconds, all the while gazing at the camera with her trademark sympathetic smile on her face. “And cut. Thank you, folks. Let’s give this a moment to settle before we go back to it.” She turned to Junie. “Honey? You know what this is about?”

Junie shook her head. She was as confused as the rest of them, and that did not feel good at all. She ran up the stairs and pounded on the bathroom door, demanding that her mother open up. But all she could hear was her mother, weeping, the taps turned on full to mask the sound, but failing to.

TWENTY-FOUR

Two hours later and Junie’s mother was still locked in the bathroom. She’d stopped crying but would not come out. She wasn’t even refusing to, she was simply not responding at all. Tabitha and Wade had joined Junie outside the bathroom door, from where Junie had not budged since coming up the stairs. Wade pulled her so she sat against him, his arms wrapped around her. Tabitha sat in front of her, one hand on the door, as if that would coax Junie’s mother out.

“Have you called your dad?” Tabitha asked. “He’d know what this is about.”

Junie had called her dad, and he was on his way over, very reluctantly. He’d been short with her on the phone, telling her to leave her mother alone and let it go. But Junie had insisted that he come, or else she was going to call the police to come and break the door down and haul her
mother away to the loony bin, where she clearly belonged. Junie had practically yelled all of this into the phone, so she could be sure that her mother heard every single word. But even the threat of being carried off to a mental institution hadn’t persuaded her mother to open the door and explain what was going on, and who Thomas was. When Junie had mentioned the name to her father, he’d fallen silent. After a long moment, and then an even longer, sad, sigh, he’d told her that he’d be over in ten minutes.

When he arrived, he headed straight for the bathroom door and knocked on it gently. “Open the door, Marla. It’s Ron.” When there was no response, he knocked again. “I know this is hard, but you’re right in the middle of it and you’ve dragged Junie into it now, and you’re going to have to come out eventually and tell, right?”

There was no response from Junie’s mother, just the sound of quiet whimpering. Her dad banged hard this time. “Open this goddamn door, Marla. I’m not going to explain this to Junie all by myself. That’s not fair, Marla. And you know it”

“Explain what?” Junie stayed on the floor, safe in Wade’s arms, not wanting to stand up but wishing instead for all of this to sort itself out without her for once.

The whole situation got worse, though, because Evelyn St. Claire came in next, a wide, pained grin on her face, proving that she knew what was going on while Junie did not. This got Junie up on her feet.

“What’s she doing here?”

“She came with me.”

“But why, Daddy?” Junie was surprised to hear herself call her father that. She hadn’t called him “Daddy” since she was a toddler, she was sure. This whole day was warped, and Junie was too. “What do you need her for?”

“Not your concern, young lady.”

“Kendra!” Evelyn chirped as Kendra and Nigel swept into the room, Charlie Falconetti at their heels, clipboard in hand. Kendra had gone to do a conference call in her trailer and was coming back, ready to make another try at getting Junie’s mother to open the door and talk. “And Nigel!” Junie hated that she was greeting the two of them like old friends. And they didn’t take too kindly to it either.

Nigel looked down his nose at her. “And you are?” Evelyn offered her hand.

“Evelyn St. Claire, certified personal life coach.”

“The one we hired to help my mom last year,” Junie added. “Who then had an affair with my father. He lives with her now.”

“Is that true?” Kendra fixed wide, horrified eyes on Evelyn.

“Well, their marriage had been in disrepair for some time, and so when I—”

“So it is true. I can smell your kind a mile away. No need to try to explain yourself. An affair. My, my, my.” Kendra shook her head. “Is that included on your list of services? Home wrecking?”

It was common knowledge that Kendra strongly disapproved of adultery. Her first husband had cheated on her, and she flayed him repeatedly, offering up his failings
on any show that touched even remotely on the subject. Had Evelyn been thinking, she might have thought twice about showing her face, Junie thought. But then, the lure of fame was a pretty compelling thing.

Evelyn’s face flushed red. “There are two sides to every—”

“I’m sure there are.” Kendra cut her off. “And right now, I do not care to hear yours.”

“But I—”

“Come here a minute, honey.” Kendra ushered Evelyn back to the front door. She pointed to the crew trucks lining the driveway. “See what’s written on the side of those trucks?
The Kendra Show
. . . in big sparkly letters. Right? See that there?”

Evelyn nodded. “And I’m a big fan, I really am—”

“It’s my show. I decide whose story we’re telling, and when. This is not your moment, honey. Understand?”

Evelyn nodded again, but it was much tighter, and her lips were pinched into a bleached, flat line. She was about to erupt, Junie was sure.

“So why don’t you head on over to the catering truck and get yourself a nice Venti skinny latte. Okay?” And with a little shove, Evelyn was on the front porch, looking at them with blank anger as Kendra shut the door in her face.

“She goes,” Junie’s father growled, “I go. That was totally uncalled for, lady.”