The Edge of Juniper (10 page)

I squinted to get a closer look at the trophies.  “Oh, indeed.”

“Well, don’t be.  Those are my grandfather’s.  Not the crazy-funeral grandpa my mom told you about.  This was my dad’s dad.  He was a champion goat showman.”

“There’s such a thing as that?”  I smiled up at him.

“Yes, right here in Juniper, in fact.  He had a goat farm.  He sold raw goat milk, and also made soap and lotion and stuff out of it.  He loved to travel all around to shows and fairs, collecting trophies.  When he died, Grandma told me he wanted me to have them.  I’m not sure why. I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t like goat milk.  But maybe it was because when I was very small, like three, there was this one goat named Glenda that I used to ride.”

“That is amazing.”

He nodded.  “It was.  Glenda the Good Goat was her full name.  She was ancient, and I pretended she was a horse.  That always annoyed Gramps.  He’d say, ‘She’s better than a horse, Malcolm.  Don’t insult her like that.’”

“You lucked out in the fascinating grandparent department.”

“You’re right about that.  Moving on.  There’s my desk.”

“Is that where you sit to compose your poetry?”  I couldn’t help laughing a little, and rubbed my fingertips over the balled up napkin still in my pocket.

“Are you laughing at my poem, Fay?”

“It was a terrible poem.  Really, truly bad.  I loved it.”

“Well then, I suppose that’s pretty good for a first attempt.  That’s the only poem I’ve ever written.  Unless you count the ones they make you write your mom in elementary school.”  He turned and looked at me, his eyes smiling but the rest of his face serious.  “That makes you special.”

Though he was only teasing, and I knew it, heat bloomed inside my chest and rose until it stained my cheeks.  Blushing goes against my very principles, yet I couldn’t figure out how to make it stop.

I cleared my throat.  “So, your desk?”

“Just for homework and computer stuff.”

“Games?”

“No, I don’t play video games much.  Just not my thing.  Sometimes I play at Paul’s house if he bugs me enough about it.”

“What is your thing, if you’re not a gamer?  I saw you sanding some wood on your porch that day.”

“I waved, but you walked on by.”

“Celia made me.  What were you making?”

“I’m still making it.  It’s a chair for my desk.  That one’s junk.”  He gestured to the rolling office chair that looked like any old chair to me.  “I made the desk too, and it needs a chair to match.”

“I knew you were a lumberjack.”

He laughed and knocked his knee into mine.  “A carpenter, not a lumberjack.”

“Where do you get your wood?  Do you just wander back into those trees behind your house and chop down a nice walnut?”

“Are you kidding?  My mom would kill me if I chopped down one of her precious trees.  I buy my wood at the home improvement store like everyone else.  Beside the desk you’ll notice the gigantic pile of laundry.  That’s clean.  I just don’t like to put it away. It’s too boring.”

I nodded.  “I have a similar system at home.  What’s that poster?”  I pointed to a poster above his desk.

“That’s a movie poster for an independent film my brother was in.  He moved to California three years ago to try to be an actor.”

“With a name like Wolf, can you blame him?  Wolf is the name for a star.”

“I think you’re right.  Wolf’s good at everything he does.” He sounded proud, not jealous.  I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, but I could tell just from his voice that he really loved his brother.

“Want to play Slapjack?” he asked.  “Wolf and I used to play all the time.”

“Sure.”

He got up and pulled a deck of cards off his desk.  He sat back down, facing the middle of his twin bed.  I scooted back so we were facing each other, and he dealt the cards into two even piles.

We kept flipping cards and the elusive jacks kept hiding.  It was getting ridiculous, and I couldn’t stop laughing each time we revealed cards and they weren’t jacks.  We were about twenty cards in when I finally turned over a jack.  We both made a mad dash to slap it, and he won, though he was in such a mad rush to slap it, that his pile of cards slid onto the floor and I bonked my head on the wall.

He toned it down after that, but he got the next jack too. I propped myself up on my knees, poised like a lion ready to pounce on a wildebeest.  The next jack came and I got my hand on it first, quickly followed by his on top of mine.

“Ha!  It’s mine!” I said, laughing, and I looked up into his face.  His brown eyes gazed back at me, and that was when I realized he hadn’t moved his hand away.  I looked down at our hands, stacked on top of the cards.  His was huge and warm, and I could feel his calloused palm on the back of mine.  “I’ll just take these,” I said, casually, and dumped his hand off mine, grabbing up the small pile of cards.  I secretly took note, though, of the spectacular way my stomach was spinning.  Like a wobbly top whirring fast, about to tip over.

After Malcolm won the game, and I grumbled sufficiently about it, he had to leave to go mow two more yards.  I stood by the kitchen table holding onto the back of a chair.  “Did you make this chair, Malcolm?” I asked him.

“I didn’t make every wooden thing in this house.”

“But this?”

“Yeah, I made that chair.”

“I knew it!”  I had known it.  Something about it was similar to his desk, perhaps the stain was the same.

“Bye, Fay.  Thanks for coming to lunch.” He laid his index finger on the back of my hand, which still rested on the back of the chair. “Can I get your cell phone number?” When he removed his finger, I looked down where he had touched me and watched the white pressure dot on my skin return to its natural color, like any proof of him was now invisible.  I suddenly wondered if I carried his scent in my hair, or the scent of his mother’s candles on my clothes.

“I don’t have a cell phone,” I told him.

His shoulders slumped.  “But I can’t call you at your uncle’s house.”

“Yeah.”  He was right.

His mom handed him something wrapped in foil, then reached up to hug him around the neck.  I could see him smile as he hugged her back.  “Now go, and let me have a turn with her.”  She shooed him out the door.

“Now, Fay, it is time for us to make some candles.

We traipsed to the back yard, and I wondered if Malcolm had talked to her about my family.  They seemed like they might have that kind of relationship.

Marigold showed me how to identify the honeysuckle plant.  The delicate petals of the flower reminded me of long fingers reaching upward.  When I said as much to her, she was delighted.  “I’ll think of that every time I pick them, as though they are reaching back for me as I reach for them.”

Back in the kitchen, we laid the flowers out to dry.  “The longer you spend making the candles, the more potent their scent.  Time strengthens.  True for most things, I believe.  Lucky for us, I have some dry petals that have been steeping in oil for a couple of days already.”

She showed me how she had crushed the dry petals and stirred them into jojoba oil.  When she took the lid off the jar, my nostrils stung with the pungent aroma.  We spent another hour straining oil, melting wax, and dipping wicks into the mixture to form the taper candles.

The dipping was a long process, but relaxing and peaceful.  My mind felt pliable and open, and Marigold seemed to understand I was ripe for giving information.  She plucked facts from me, asking question after question.  I began to wonder if she’d put me under a spell.

“Do you do crafts or things like this with your parents?”

“Not really.  My mom knits, and I’ve always liked to sit next to her and read while she does.”

“What do you like to read?”

I thought of the romance novel of Celia’s I’d finished the other night.  Claudio and Jasmina had a very happy ever after.  “Mostly mysteries.  I have enjoyed a good romance now and then, though.”

She smiled at me.  “It’s wonderful you have a romantic soul.”

“I like to think I’m romantic.  My dad tells me I’m practical like him.  He’s not the only one to think so, Celia said the same thing.”  I thought of the way Malcolm had made me feel with the quickest of looks and the slightest of touches.  Was it possible to be both romantic and practical?

“People are never just one thing.  And sometimes parents want so badly for their children to be like them.” Marigold said.  “It feels affirming to have aspects of yourself reflected back to you in a person you love deeply.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“I’d love to hear about your parents.”

It must have been the scent, or the repetitive dipping motion, along with the pliable brain.  But my eyes brimmed with tears and the words burst out of me.  “They might get separated.”  My voice choked before I could explain further.  It was a direct contrast to the hope I’d felt after talking to Freya yesterday.  I didn’t understand why I was getting worked up, when I was so certain things would work out.

Marigold laid her hand on my arm and waited.  I gave myself a mental kick and forced a smile.  “Actually, I’m sure that won’t end up happening.  They’re on a service trip, building a school in Haiti.  It’s eight weeks long.  That’s why I’m here.  They met and fell in love on a service trip when they were college students, so they’re rekindling their flame.”

She moved her hand to my hair, and petted my head.  It was sort of weird that she was touching me in such a personal way, but it was also soothing.  I felt a bit like a child, or maybe a baby kitten, and I was glad to have her mother me.  “It sounds a little like a retreat.  I’ve been to many retreats in my day.  Writing retreats, womanhood retreats, meditation retreats, and more.  Every time, I’ve come back more centered and sure of what I want.  The mental break works wonders.  Maybe the same will happen for your parents.”

The tears spilled over, and Marigold pulled me into her arms.  “I want that to happen, but that’s also what I’m afraid of.  What if they come back more sure they want to be separated?”

“They might decide that.  But whether or not they stay married, their choice will be the one that’s right for your family.  And Fay, it isn’t up to you to carry the burden of figuring it out.  You don’t have to bear that.”

I knew she was right, but I was unable to fully let go of the idea that I might, in some small way, be able to convince them to stay together.  Giving them the space they needed, simply staying out of their way here in Juniper, was the only way I knew how to help.

In the yellow glow of the Dearing’s cozy kitchen, I felt safe and protected.  Marigold didn’t push me further about my parents, and though I didn’t want to leave the little cocoon, I knew I was supposed to get back and help with dinner.  “Thank you,” I told her as I wiped my eyes on the clean white handkerchief she handed me.  “I’m not usually so weepy.”

“Everyone has a little weepiness in them, Fay.  Sometimes it’s hidden in the corners of your heart, but when hearts are tilted, it spills right out.  Promise me you’ll come back and spend some time with me.  You don’t have to be friends with Malcolm to be friends with me.  You are welcome here any time.”

7

I
had never
been a good cook, but Aunt Donna was determined to turn me into one.  Every time she passed by the pot I was stirring, she’d tap the top of the sauce with the pad of her finger, lick it, and say the name of a spice.  I’d sprinkle a bit in, but she never told me how much, just said it needed to simmer before she could tell if the sauce wanted more.  I’d added oregano more times than I could count. Finally satisfied, she said she was going to take a shower and that surely Celia would be home any minute to help me layer the lasagna.  I hoped so, because I’d never made it before.

Sure enough, just as I heard the water start up in the bathroom, the kitchen door swung open.  It wasn’t Celia though, it was Esta.  She had sweat beads on her forehead, and she plunked into a chair to catch her breath.

“Did you run all the way here, Esta?”

“No, I’m just
that
out of shape, I guess.  And it’s too hot for movement of any sort.”

I laughed, and filled a glass with water and set it in front of her.  “Where’s Celia?”

“She’s not here?  That brat.  She told me to come over for dinner—that we could hang out while she cooked.”

“She isn’t here.  She had me tell her mom she had to work late, but she’s out with Ronan.”

Esta sighed.  “I’m trying to be understanding.  She has done a lot of things for me when it comes to boys.  A few weeks ago she told my parents I was staying the night here, when I was actually on a date.  That way I didn’t have to tell the guy my curfew was ten.  It wasn’t a complete lie; technically I
did
stay the night here.  He and I stayed out until twelve, and then he dropped me off here.  She’s done me so many favors like that, I feel like I owe her.  Ronan makes that
really
hard.”

“Who was the guy you went out with?”

“It was a guy named Derek.  I didn’t like him enough to bother with that kind of elaborate scheme again.  I guess since I’m here, we might as well get to work on this lasagna.”  She stood and dug around in a low cabinet, making a terrible racket as she shifted pans around, until finally she pulled out a huge metal pan.

Esta told me how to make the cheese mixture, and I set to work on that while she spread a layer of sauce and meat across the bottom of the pan.  When the ricotta was ready, I lifted a dripping noodle from the pot on the stove, and jiggled it to drain off the water.  “Esta?  Do you think I’m a bad person if I become friends with Malcolm Dearing?”

She laughed softly.  “Fay, you know Celia loves to boss people around. She makes it seem like the only choice is to do what she wants you to do.  And I’m just as guilty as anyone about letting her get to me.  It’s because she means well, and she’s so confident about what she believes.  I love Celia to death, but to her, there are no mole hills.  Everything is a mountain.  And she’ll tell you to calm down a million times while she freaks out.”

The pan full and heavy, I covered it with foil and opened the oven door.  Heat bit my cheeks and I slid the lasagna in quickly and slammed the oven shut.  “Is my hair on fire?”

She scanned my head.  “No, you’re good.”  She reached into a cabinet and lifted out a stack of plates.  “The point is, be friends with whomever you want.  Don’t worry about what standards of behavior Celia sets for you.  Set your own, and she’ll deal with it.  I promise she will.”

I took the forks out of the drawer and set them beside the plates Esta laid out, turning that over in my mind.  As a kid, you live your whole life trying to figure out what the grownups want from you.  You learn from them all the various tiny and huge guidelines that make up decent and acceptable human behavior.  You try not to disappoint them, and you try to make them happy because that feels good.

Up until this point in my life, I hadn’t encountered a situation in which my desires were so at odds with what the adults surrounding me wanted.  It felt like I had to either disappoint them, or disappoint myself.  I set a drinking glass next to Celia’s plate, and something else came to mind.  Celia had told me not to risk upsetting her parents, but she was, right this second, out doing things her parents didn’t know about, defying their expectations and risking their disappointment.  I didn’t see why I couldn’t do the same.

I stood at the fence by the bleachers, but there were only two people sitting there, a couple leaning close and talking in the dusky light.  “Hey, who’s over there?” the guy called out.

I hadn’t thought I was visible.  I stepped around the fence, and recognized the girl as Daisy.  “Oh, hi Fay,” she said.  “Are you looking for Malcolm?”

“Um, yeah.  I am.”  Until that moment, I hadn’t been sure I was going to publicly admit it.  I felt giddy.

“Ooh, Rose isn’t going to like that,” the boy said, a grin on his face.

“Shut up, Derek.”  Daisy whacked the guy on the shoulder.  “You have no manners, you know that?”

I wondered if that was the same Derek Esta told me about just hours earlier.  Then I homed in on what he’d said about Rose.  That was the first I’d heard of anyone called Rose.  A sick feeling passed through me—I sure had made a lot of assumptions regarding Malcolm’s feelings for me.  But surely he would have mentioned if he was dating someone.  Then again, he hadn’t even tried to kiss me at his house earlier.  Maybe he really did mean to just be my friend.  That was the word he’d used, after all.  Friend.  Or maybe he was the kind of guy who didn’t get serious with any one girl.  A dash of disappointment slid under my skin, but I decided not to ask about Rose.  “Do you know where he is?” I asked instead.

“Not for sure,” said Daisy.  “I heard talk of swimming at the town pond.  He might be there.”

“Thanks.  Maybe I’ll check it out.” I tried to be casual as I headed back the way I’d come, as though it didn’t matter to me if I found him or not.

As I walked toward the pond, keeping to the tree line, I was thankful Celia owed me one.  Not only had Esta and I completed Celia’s dinner chores for her, but Celia had made it home a few minutes late for dinner, and told her parents she’d been held up at work.  She threw me a look begging me to corroborate her story, which was kind of annoying—did she think I was the sort of person who would tattle?

After dinner, and after my aunt and uncle had gone to their bedroom for the night, I had eased open the window in our bedroom.  After our first sneak-out disaster, Celia decided that using doors wasn’t going to cut it, and that her window screen needed to go permanently missing.  She had popped it out and hid it behind an old headboard in the garage.  I missed the screen when we couldn’t open the window to let in a breeze at night, lest we be showered with bugs come morning, but I was grateful for its absence that evening.

I had made a decision.  I was going to see Malcolm.  I wasn’t exactly going to blast the news to my aunt and uncle, but I wasn’t going to play along anymore.  Celia could do it if she wanted to, but I didn’t want to be in charge of keeping the peace.

I stuck one leg out into the night air, and told Celia I wanted to go and find something to do. She had looked at me long and hard, and had somehow known right away that I was going to find Malcolm.

“What is your problem, Fay?  There are loads of other boys in this town that you could fall in love with.”

“Yeah, but only one lumberjack.”  I grinned at her.  “And who said anything about love?”  Doing what I was doing made me feel more like myself than I had in a while.  All this stewing and fretting about what people wanted me to do was peeling off my top layer.  My confidence layer.  I felt raw without it, and I wanted it back.

“You’re only doing this to infuriate me.”

“I am not.  That’s the type of thing you’d do, not me.”  I thought she would argue with me, but she didn’t.

“You’re right,” she said, and laughed.  When she continued, her voice was resigned.  “Fine, go ahead.   But know that you’re doing the one thing my dad would hate.  My dad, who is giving you a place to stay for the summer.  And he was in such a good mood tonight, bringing us that candy for after dinner.  This is how you thank him?  You could break any one of a hundred rules, and he’d forgive and forget.  Why this one?”

I had climbed all the way out the window during her speech, chanting inside my head,
this is a mole hill, not a mountain.  Mole hill.  Mole hill.  Mole hill. 
It was only ten o’clock, so I tried to worry more about alerting Todd and Donna to my activities than about Celia’s guilt trip.

The sound of laughter and splashing pulled me from examining the memory.  I walked around a bend in the path, and the pond became visible in the moonlight.  There were several heads bobbing in the water, and a few more people sitting on the grass.  I edged closer, and located Malcolm in the water.  I stood beside the same tree we had fished under the other day, and observed.

Malcolm and Paul were standing in the water near each other, and a laugh burst out of Malcolm that made me chuckle just to hear.  Paul could be pretty funny.  I watched as a girl swam up behind Malcolm and put her arms around his neck.  I couldn’t hear what she said, but saw Malcolm turn around in her arms.  A cold stone dropped into my stomach, and I turned to leave.  When it came to fight or flight, I always thought I was a fight kind of girl.  Apparently when it came to boys, flight ruled.

I didn’t try to stick to the trees as I left, I just walked away.  I heard Paul shout my name from the water.  For half a second, I considered turning around and joining him in the water, to see how Malcolm would like it if I put my arms around Paul’s neck.  But I forced myself to push that idea away.  That would be using Paul, but it would also be a reaction, and I wanted to be a girl of
action
.

I heard fierce splashing, and then sloshing feet raced to catch up with me.  “Fay, wait!”  More sloshing.  My pulse pounded in my ears.  “Will you ever stop running away from me?”  Malcolm’s voice came from just a half-step behind me, and water droplets hit the backs of my legs.

“I don’t know.  I still haven’t decided.”  I
had
decided to stop running away, up until about a minute ago.  Now, once again, I wasn’t sure.  I didn’t look at him, because I also wasn’t sure if they had been skinny dipping or not.  The image of that girl’s breasts pressed against his back, possibly bare, made my feet move faster.

“I’m glad you came.”  He was breathing hard, spent from getting out of the water and catching up with me.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him struggle to roll a T-shirt on over his wet torso.  I glanced down and saw with relief that he did have on swim trunks.

“That girl isn’t.”  I nodded back to the water, where she was watching us.

He sighed, running his hand over his hair.  “That’s just Rose.”

“Oh, just Rose.  Sure.”  I was acting completely insane.  Totally ridiculous.  I knew it, but still I couldn’t stop this crazy, desperate feeling from creeping to the end of each of my limbs, causing me to walk faster and pump my arms harder.  I wanted the practical nature others saw in me to take over, but it was nowhere to be found.  I couldn’t think my way out of it.  It didn’t seem to matter that I had no reason to be acting this way, not to mention feeling this way.  He wasn’t my boyfriend.  I had no claim on him.

“Fay, stop.  Let me talk to you.”

I slowed a little, but the energy in my limbs wouldn’t let me stop completely.  “It’s okay.  Derek told me all about Rose.”  Well, he had told me her name.

“Derek?  What did he say?”  I watched water drip off his shorts, and disappear into the ground.  I wanted to follow it.  With that thought, I was immediately shaken from my stupor.  What had happened to my rush of confidence?  I was not a shrinking violet, and it was time to stop acting like one.

I stopped, and faced him.  “Nothing.  Just, never mind. It’s fine.”  I took a deep breath to slow my speech.  “I think I just got the wrong impression from you.”

“Fay, you didn’t get the wrong impression.”

“I didn’t?”

“You absolutely didn’t.”  He looked at my mouth, and I saw him lick his lips.  He closed his eyes.

“Are you going to kiss me?”

He opened his eyes.  “I thought I might.”

I reached my hand up and covered his mouth with my palm.  “Well, you better not.”

I felt him smile underneath my fingers.  I moved my hand away, but the memory of his lips on it lingered.  “Why not?” he asked.

“I’m not sure if I want you to.”

“Okay.  I won’t kiss you.”

“Good.  You need to work on your timing.  That would have been a terrible time to kiss me.  We were talking about Rose, who was very recently climbing all over you.”

He looked at me, his face serious.  “Let’s sit.”  He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the grass.  When we sat, the pond disappeared beyond the hill.  I could still hear the others, but it felt like we were alone.  “Rose is my ex-girlfriend.  I broke up with her a long time ago.”

“How long ago?”

His lips moved as he counted back.  “Almost six months.  She thinks she still wants me.”

“It looked to me like she
knows
she wants you.”

“Nah, she’s just bored.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say.”  I may not have liked that she embraced Malcolm, but it was still a rude thing for him to say about her.