The Opposite Of Tidy (7 page)

“There are worse things!” Tabitha added for good measure.

But were there? Her mother was definitely one of the Worst Things right now. She hadn’t always been this bad. Junie remembered when she was little, and her mother would make cupcakes for her whole class on her birthday, and come along on field trips, and help out in her classroom on special days. Sure, it seemed like it cost her way more effort than the average mom, but she did it anyway. She’d make costumes for the school plays and come to all her soccer practices and take her out to lunch for a
special mother-daughter day at least once a month. But even while she was busy being Supermom on the outside, everything was piling up at home. Even then. And it had slowly got worse, year by year. And her mother had got fatter, year by year, as if her weight reflected the sheer mass she’d hoarded and collected and squirrelled away since Junie was little. There were pictures from back then, ones where the rooms looked almost normal on Christmas Day or Junie’s first few birthdays. The house was cluttered, but in a warm, homey kind of way. Not like now. By the time her fifth birthday rolled around, the house was bad enough that her mother booked the community room at the nearby library and held the party there. Junie had not had a birthday party at home since. After fourth grade, she didn’t have a party at all. Just her and Tabitha at Tabitha’s house, with pizza and cake and more than a couple of presents from Mrs. D. to make up for the sad state of affairs.

In Art class, Junie glanced down at her sketchbook. Forty-five minutes had passed, and all she had to show for it was an angry-looking mess of charcoal that kind of looked like a monster in a box. Surprise, surprise. Wouldn’t want the school psychologist to get a hold of that.

Lulu leaned over. “What is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Junie glanced at what Lulu was working on: an elaborate pen-and-ink drawing of a fairy perched gracefully on a toadstool. It might as well have been a self-portrait. Lulu was a tiny, elfin girl, with fine
features and big green eyes. Her long, dark brown hair hung halfway down her back, and her flowy skirts and shimmering tops and sandals all year round made her appear altogether otherworldly. “What’s yours?” Junie said, hoping to shift the subject off of herself and her disturbing work of art. If you could call it art.

“Your drawing looks very, very angry.” Lulu shook her head a little. “That’s not healthy, Junie.”

“Duly noted, Lulu.”

Junie considered Lulu a friend—a really good one, actually—even if she didn’t know a thing about her life at home. She was Ollie’s girlfriend—if you could believe that a geek like him could find true love in the tenth grade. They were both super-smart, he was dorky, she was whimsical, and together they were sickeningly sweet. Junie considered Ollie a friend too, and he was yet another one who had no idea about the mess she went home to every day.

Junie and Lulu stopped by their lockers and then made their way to the cafeteria, where Tabitha was waiting for Junie just outside the door. Lulu went ahead to join Ollie, leaving Tabitha and Junie behind.

“Look.” Tabitha pointed to their usual table through the open doors. There was Lulu, just sitting down beside Ollie, and there was Wade Jaffre, too.

“Wow.” This was an interesting new development. Junie didn’t know what he’d done during his lunch hour until now, but there he was, in the flesh, at her table. “He must really like you.”

“After this morning? Highly doubt it. More likely you. He probably thinks I’m a total goody-goody.” Tabitha
yanked her arm, forcing Junie’s attention back on her. “Either way or neither way, you have to come clean about your parents.”

“But you agreed to play along!”

“That was before you were so awful!”

“Tabitha, that isn’t fair.” Another glance at the table. Wade was looking their way. He waved. Junie and Tabitha both broke from their argument to each give him a flirty little wave back. And then they went back to it.

“Isn’t it?”

“Don’t go all parental on me, okay? You can’t honestly tell me that you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing as me.”

“I can so.”

“Oh yeah?”

He was still looking at them, only now he was waving them over. Tabitha held up a finger, gesturing that they’d be another minute.

“What would you have done, oh Holier Than Thou Tabitha, who is—in fact—a total goody-goody?”

“Told him to stop in front of the house and let me out so I could go referee my deeply embarrassing parents.”

Junie thought that that was actually a pretty good response. But then Tabitha had had a long time to come up with it. It was infinitely easier to come up with a witty retort after the fact.

“Well, it’s too late. I can’t go back in time, as much as I’d like to for a zillion reasons, so here we are. I’ve got a good little lie going, and don’t you go messing it up. Or I’ll trump you.”

“You would?” She looked genuinely hurt. Since they were old enough to know what “trump” meant they’d had trump power over each other. It was a little like doubledog-dare-you, only it was even more binding. Junie could trump her, and Tabitha could trump Junie, but never at the same time. Whoever got there first. And Junie just had.

“I would. So this is me officially trumping you on this matter, Tabitha Faith Dillard. You have to play along with my lie.”

Tabitha clutched her lunch bag to her chest, horrified. “I can’t believe that you just did that, Junie.”

“Well, I did.” Junie headed for the table. “Now come on. Your boyfriend is clearly requesting your company.”

“Or your boyfriend,” Tabitha said, catching up.

“Or Ollie’s,” Junie suggested. This sent them into a fit of giggles, just in time for both of them to look like ditzes by the time they got to the table.

Ollie and Lulu and Wade were talking about the bottle drive. Who knew one little charity fundraiser could command such time and attention? Ollie and Lulu were sitting side by side on one side of the table, with Wade all by himself in the middle of the bench on the other side. Tabitha and Junie looked at each other, silently daring the other to sit first. With a defiant arch of her eyebrow— payback for trumping her—Tabitha helped herself to the spot on Wade’s left. Not to be outdone, Junie slid in on his right side.

Neither Junie nor Tabitha contributed much to the conversation; they were too busy having their own silent argument with each other. Junie couldn’t believe that
Tabitha was acting this way—she might have been the only person who knew the truth about Junie’s home and screwed up family, but she didn’t actually know what it was like to live there. To have that be her life.

When the bell rang, Junie pulled Tabitha aside. “Listen, don’t try to fix this, okay? Sometimes it’s okay to lie. Sometimes it’s even better to lie. This is one of those times.”

“It’s never better to lie.”

“Yes, it is, Tabitha.” Junie squeezed her arm. “You might not have had one of those times yet, but I have. Just trust me on this, okay?”

Tabitha pulled her arm away and held it to her chest, as if Junie’s touch had been scalding. “For now. I guess. But I don’t like it.”

“And I don’t like my life, but it is what it is for now. I’ll tell him the truth when the time is right. Leave that up to me, okay? You don’t have to worry about it. Just play along.”

“Fine. I’ll play along. But I’ll worry about it, too.”

Junie wanted to walk home with Tabitha after school, just to make sure that things were okay between them, but it was Wednesday. Wednesday was her father’s night to have her at his place. The current arrangement was that he got her every Wednesday and every other weekend. She usually agreed to hang out with her dad on Wednesdays, though she wouldn’t spend the night, and she rarely went otherwise. Partly because of That Woman, but mostly because of her mom. Junie didn’t think she should be left alone, and
her dad seemed to agree, as he didn’t do much to enforce the weekend visits.

Junie went out to the parking lot to wait for her dad and was relieved when Tabitha joined her, sitting beside her on the curb.

“Are we okay?” Tabitha asked.

“Mind-reader freak.” Junie leaned against her. “I think we’re okay. You think we’re okay?”

“I guess. Yeah.”

She and Tabitha had to leave it at that, because her dad pulled into the parking lot just then. Even before he stopped, Junie could see that That Woman was sitting in the passenger seat, and Princess Over All III—her prizewinning Weimaraner—was stretched out across the back seat, front paws regally set one atop the other. Junie said goodbye to Tabitha with a tight hug and then approached the car.

“Where am I supposed to sit?”

That Woman—Evelyn St. Claire, if Junie was being polite—turned and gave Princess a look. That was all it took and the dog sat up, now only taking up half the back seat. Evelyn looked at Junie, all smiles.

“There,” she said. “Better?”

“
Better
would be the dog in the very back, where dogs are supposed to be.” Junie opened the door. “That would be slightly better. Very slightly.”

Once Junie was in and the door was closed and they pulled away, Evelyn turned and said, “
Better
is a negotiable quality. We all have our own versions of what is better.” Another smile.

“Dad?” Junie put it out there in general, trying to fill that little word with all of her questions
why
. Why was he with That Woman, the life coach he’d hired to help her mom but who had only succeeded in breaking up his marriage and ruining her life even more than it was already? Why had he brought her along today, on
their
day? Why did he like her in the first place?

“I got off early, and Evelyn is done for the day, so we thought we’d go get ice cream before dinner. Live on the wild side. Dessert before the main course.”

Evelyn laughed. She turned to Junie again. “Your father is so funny, Juniper.”

Junie didn’t think it was funny at all.

“What if I don’t want ice cream?” This elicited small daggers from her father via the rear-view mirror.

They drove silently for a while. That Woman rested her hand on Junie’s father’s thigh. Princess Over All III stared at her out of the corner of her eye as she sat facing carefully forward, hardly moving a muscle as the car leaned into the corners and pulled to and from complete stops. That dog was not a dog. That dog was a robotic statue.

And That Woman was not a woman. She was an evil home wrecker. What kind of personal life coach would do that to a client? Especially a client as vulnerable as Junie’s mother. She’d lured her father away with her perfect ponytail and tailored suits. She’d charmed him away with her limegreen hybrid car and downtown loft. She’d weaselled her way into their lives by lying, saying that she could make Junie’s mom better when all she wanted was to snatch her dad away and make him her love slave.

Junie let her thoughts slide back to ice cream as her dad parked the car. She did not want ice cream. She did not want to be here with That Woman and her dog. She didn’t even particularly want to be with her dad. With a sigh, she climbed out of the car and trailed into the ice cream parlour behind her dad. That Woman waited outside. She didn’t eat ice cream, and didn’t want to leave Princess tied up.

Junie reluctantly ordered chocolate peanut swirl, which was, in fact, her favourite. But all that thinking about the state of her ruined family turned her stomach and she really, honestly, didn’t want the ice cream. She waited until her father and Evelyn strolled ahead of her along the river path, away from the ice cream shop, and then she dumped it in the garbage. Princess Over All III looked back just then, from her perfect heel at Evelyn’s side, as if to say she knew all, saw all. Which apparently she did. She even slept up in the loft bedroom, where her father and Evelyn slept, which meant that she was watching when they did it. That thought was the one that tipped Junie over the edge. Her stomach swirled and churned. A horrible image invaded her thoughts: her father’s naked, hairy butt plunging up and down between That Woman’s waxed stick legs. She doubled over and ran for the women’s washroom, where she threw up her lunch into the garbage can. Finished, she cupped her hands under the faucet and rinsed out her mouth with water. She spat, and rinsed again, but the taste of bile was still there. Welcome to another fabulous Wednesday night, brought to you by the home wrecker and the oblivious fool and their creepy omniscient dog.

FIVE