June (24 page)

“Is he like this?” he asked.

A shy smile danced across June’s face. “Like what?”

He lifted June’s hand then, slowly, carefully, until it was an inch from his lips. He turned her arm, exposing her soft wrist. He rubbed his thumb there, his eyes closing at the softness of her skin. He opened them again, and met her gaze. Then bent to kiss her inner wrist. Once. Twice. Three times.

A dreamy bliss overtook June as Jack’s lips pressed her flesh. She lost all composure; even her hair seemed to loosen. Lindie believed she could hear June’s heart hammering until she realized it was her own.

Jack was the one who ended it. With visible restraint, he lowered June’s hand. “You’re young,” he said. “You think this might be what happens every time. But I promise you, this”—and his voice swelled with emotion—“this is extraordinary. To be such friends, already.”

June withdrew her hands and folded them into her lap. The possibility dissipated the second she said, “I gave my word.” Jack sat back onto his heels.

They watched each other for a long time, only their breath tangling. Jack wanted to touch June again, and she wanted it too, Lindie could see that. But June had an aggravating willpower beyond Lindie’s understanding. Why not forget stupid old Artie when you had the most famous man in the world sitting before you, offering himself up?

But June told Jack it was best for them to stop meeting like this. “Don’t you think so?” she asked, her voice masking a swell of tears. How could June say one thing and so obviously feel the opposite? Lindie wanted to fling herself up and insist, demand, that June stop lying to herself, that Jack not let her ruin everything. But nosing in would only make it worse, so Lindie lay there, listening, instead.

Jack begged June to come back the next night. He promised he’d respect her wishes and try to never speak like that again, to never touch her that way, even though it seemed impossible to promise such things when what he felt was so undeniable. June replied that it was time to wake Lindie.

On the bicycle, June reached her hands around Lindie’s waist. The night had quieted with the promise of dawn. Jack stayed inside. Lindie called out good-bye. Then Jack was running toward them, his dark form desperate in the night.

“Please,” he begged. Lindie could hardly bear the ache in his voice. “Please come back tomorrow.”

“I shouldn’t,” June said. “You know it. I don’t know what I was thinking, Jack.” Her voice trembled as she said his name.

“Don’t do this,” he said.

“I’m doing what’s right.”

“Sunday, then. Come back Sunday. Promise? You won’t regret it. I’ll be good.”

June’s arms clutched around Lindie. She told Lindie to go.

“She’ll be here,” Lindie said. “I promise.”

“He loves you,” Lindie said, after a mile on the open road.

“Men only want one thing,” June replied angrily. So that was it? She was afraid of how Jack had touched her? He hadn’t even touched Lindie and she could feel his lips shimmering on her skin. Wasn’t that the whole point of this—to feel that powerful urge?

Lindie braked. She turned to look at June. Her friend’s features were murky in the thick night. “Artie’s not a saint just because he doesn’t seem to want it. And Jack’s not the devil because he does. You want it. You want him. You want him so bad it hurts.”

“And what would you know about it?” June sniffed. Lindie inhaled the damp, dewy sourness of June’s armpits. The girl’s lashes curved against the swell of her full cheeks. Her lips were bee-stung, her nose small and precious as a shell.

Lindie couldn’t bring herself to answer. All she could manage was to pedal June into the last of the night.

June was different on Sunday night, which was midnight black and moonless. She clambered onto the back of Lindie’s Schwinn. She wore saddle shoes and a simple cotton dress; no pretty frock. But it hadn’t been very hard to convince her to come, even if June hadn’t been exactly friendly about it.

When they got to Idlewyld, lit up with its now-familiar kerosene glow, June set her shoulders and took a long breath, stepping onto the porch with her jaw tight.

As soon as they stepped inside, it was obvious that the place had been transformed. First of all, it was clean—no clouds of dust to set them coughing, no spiderwebs hanging from above. An Oriental rug lay on the floor, and the broken windows had been covered with plywood so the breeze no longer whistled in. But that was just the beginning. The broken furniture had been replaced by a new armchair, a sturdy, wide table, and a giant easel. And there were canvases and tubes of oil paint, paintbrushes, watercolors, reams of paper, and colored pencils. And books. Books stacked everywhere. Heavy, expensive, colorful art books. Chagall and Picasso and Monet and van Gogh, and, of course, Pollock.

In the middle of it all stood Jack, grinning. June couldn’t help herself—she gasped in delighted wonder, then turned, slowly, through the space, lifting each new object with her delicate fingers. She opened the slim Pollock monograph, eyes drinking in the photographs of the splattered paintings. Then closed it again as though she couldn’t bear its pull. She stepped back, one step, and said to Lindie, “Please wait outside.”

There was no point arguing. Lindie took one look at Jack before slinking out. He offered a grim smile.

Of course she eavesdropped. Plywood could do its best to cover a window, but sound leaked out, and there were plenty of cracks to peek through around the edges. Lindie planted her Keds in the milkweed and peered in.

“How did you do all this so quickly?” June was asking.

“Think of me as Santy Claus.” Jack was clearly pleased with himself, if careful as he spoke.

“No one can know about our meetings, Jack. I hope you haven’t broken my confidence.”

“I told you,” he replied, “this time with you is sacred. I wouldn’t endanger it for the world.”

“I’m sure Diane would disagree.” June crossed her arms. Was that jealousy?

“Diane is none of your concern.”

“Isn’t she? She sleeps in the house right beside yours, and sometimes in your bed.”

“June, I assure you she’s been nowhere near my bed since I met you.”

“But she’s been in your bed before.”

Jack didn’t reply.

“It doesn’t matter,” June said crisply, as though he was the one who’d brought Diane up. “It doesn’t matter who you take to bed or who you love because I’m getting married in three weeks.”

“He isn’t even here,” Jack replied impatiently. “But let’s say he does come back. Do you really want to marry a man who’d abandon you until just before your wedding day? You don’t have to marry me, but please marry someone who can’t stand to be apart from you. Please marry a man who aches to hold you, who sees only your face when he closes his eyes.”

“And you’re that man?” June’s voice was bold.

Jack was quiet for a moment. Then: “I’d like to be.”

“It’s impossible.” June’s jaw tightened. “It’s impossible for you to do things like this.” She gestured toward the room’s transformation. “This is too much. It isn’t even my house. Someone will discover it. We’ll get found out.”

“So let them find out.” He had her now, hands on her shoulders. “Marry me, June. Marry me and come away and live the life you never imagined.”

“It’s too fast,” June said, her voice suddenly thin. “It’s too much. Don’t you see? I’m not ready. I had everything worked out.” She started to weep.

“Oh, June. June June June.” She let him pull her in against his chest. He soothed her, and Lindie leaned her face against the house and imagined he was comforting her too, that she could feel his heartbeat through the warm fabric of his shirt.

June’s tears abated. Jack took her face into his hands. “June June June,” he cooed. “I forget how young you are. This place has been your whole world. It’s not fair to assume you’re ready to leave it, not yet.” He kissed the tip of her nose. She blinked up at him as he pulled away. He seemed in control now, which Lindie liked. He’d speak reason. “I made it this way because you deserve to paint whatever you want. Not because I think you owe me something or even because I’ve grown to love you.”

June gasped.

“Paint the sky. Paint the night. Paint yourself. Just paint, please. I can’t bear to think of you stopping.” Jack let her go then, and stepped back and away. His heavy step carried him across the room. At the door, he stopped. “Every artist has the right to her privacy. So I won’t come back unless you invite me. But I won’t say I’m sorry for getting in your way. Maybe someday you’ll agree with me.”

He opened the front door. Lindie darted away from her eavesdropping spot, toward the first oak that lined the drive. Soon, she heard the crunch of Jack’s soles, the rocks skittering, and the sound of his voice, quiet: “She’s a hard nut to crack, Rabbit Legs.”

“I know,” Lindie said, but she couldn’t tell if he heard.

Lindie found June in the middle of the small room, arms crossed, brow furrowed.

“You’re not going to give him a chance?” She couldn’t help herself; she couldn’t believe, that after all that, June was just going to let Jack go.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“He’s a movie star, June. He wants to marry you. For all we know, Artie’s lying in a ditch somewhere.”

June’s lip curled. “You can go.”

“Don’t end it like this. You love Jack. You should be with him.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” June was mad now, mad enough to sound mean, Lindie realized in a satisfying wave of fury.

“I’m only trying to help.”

“Why do you care so much about helping me? I’m the only one who should care who I marry. It’s my business, not yours.”

“I care because you’re my friend, June.” Lindie was seized with regret. She didn’t want to fight. She only wanted June to be happy.

“You care because you have no life.” June’s mouth had formed a cruel line. She held up her fist and ticked her fingers off, one by one. “No mother. One friend. You dress like a farmhand. And people are going to start calling you ‘sir’ if you keep this up.”

Sticky tears bloomed in Lindie’s eyes.

“Go ahead, cry,” June said, coldly crossing her arms. “At least I have a future planned out. I don’t even know what yours looks like.”

Lindie tore her way outside, through the scratching branches. She found the cold metal of her Schwinn and pedaled off. June would have five lonely miles to walk before sunrise. She deserved it.

Lindie hardly slept those few remaining hours of darkness. When her alarm clock blurted its shrill instruction, she tried to ignore the heavy weight on her chest and completed her first morning ritual: checking Uncle Lem’s from the window. She was surprised to discover Clyde Danvers’s Chevrolet Bel Air—the car he drove himself—just pulling up out front.

In the blooming dawn, Lindie watched a tall man emerge from the passenger seat. He unfolded his arms and legs like one might an umbrella, then turned and took in the grand home. He removed his fedora at the sight just as Clyde clambered from behind the wheel. Clyde clapped the other man’s shoulder and pressed him toward Uncle Lem’s. The tall man dropped his head, like a captured prisoner in some western on the big screen at the Majestic.

Lindie’s heart sank. Artie Danvers was back in town.