Juniper Limits (The Juniper Series Book 2) Read online

  “You were right, anyway, Celia,” he said, speaking softly, gently. “I was working up to telling you that you looked beautiful before fixing yourself up, and that you didn’t need to change anything, especially not on my account.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t assume I do anything on your account. And if you want to tell someone they’re beautiful, you just say those words. Not the other crap about how they look good without makeup.”

  He nodded, still trying to catch up. Should he say it now? Now didn’t seem like the time.

  She sighed and lifted her arms up and wrapped them around her middle, like she was protecting herself. “I seem to be making you pay for Ronan’s mistakes. And I broke up with Ronan last night.”

  Paul’s heart kicked up some dust in his chest. He coughed to settle it down. “You broke up with him?”

  “I broke up with him, but truthfully? I think he broke me.” She sat down in front of him again, knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them.

  “You’re not broken. Not even close.” His chest swelled, feeling tight as he thought about paying for Ronan’s mistakes. If there was a debt Ronan owed, Paul would gladly pay it. He’d put in the time, take the heat, do whatever it took to pay it off, so she was free and clear to move on.

  She lowered one hand and sifted her fingers through the grass beside her. “I’m sure you imagine that I’ve never had any trouble speaking my mind.”

  He nodded. He did think she was very candid.

  After a moment, she continued. “Sometimes it’s true, but mostly I just pretend it’s true. And sometimes, with some people, I can’t speak at all.” She looked at him with wide eyes, as if surprised by the admission.

  His instinct was to reach out and hold her hand, to comfort her physically. He was a toucher—a hugger, a hand-holder, a cheek-kisser. But she wouldn’t want that, and it wasn’t the time for his other go-to solution—trying to make her laugh by acting like an idiot. He cleared his throat and tapped his fingers on his leg, waiting out her silence.

  “Ronan used to tell me what to wear, how to do my hair. Stuff like that. I wore this very lipstick to work once, and he came in to see me. He took one look at me and told me girls wear red lipstick when they’re trying to catch a new guy. Then he got in my face and demanded to know who I was expecting to come in that day.” She looked up at Paul, mischief in her eyes. “I wore it last night when I broke up with him, just to piss him off. I think I’m going to wear it every day for the rest of my life.”

  He smiled, and hoped she’d never stop talking.

  “So basically, don’t mention my lipstick. It’s kind of a sensitive subject.” She half-laughed, trying to make light of it, ready to change the subject. “Give me a drink of that.” She pulled the cup from his hands and took a sip. She handed the cup back, complete with a red lipstick smudge on the side, just above his dirty fingerprints. He pointed to it with a grin, and she rolled her eyes.

  Paul wanted her to talk more about what a jerk Ronan was. He wanted to slide down into the muck of it, hear every terrible thing, so he could understand. He wanted to learn everything about him she hated, so he’d know what not to do. “That’ll be the last time I mention it.”

  It got quiet again.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry,” she said, finally.

  “What for?”

  “I’m like the raccoon that lives in the woods behind our house,” she said.

  A perplexed smile played around his lips. He leaned forward. “How so?”

  “If we have too many trash bags to fit in the garbage can, we pile them up beside it. There’s this raccoon that comes sometimes, and rips open the bags and spreads the trash out all over the yard. I just did that. I just scattered my garbage all over your yard. But listen, I don’t expect you to pick it up. It’s not your trash.”

  “Maybe I’m the raccoon. I’m curious about your trash.”

  She looked away from him then, hiding the smile that drew up one side of her mouth. “There’s nothing good to find in my trash, Paul. It’s all rotten, leftover meatloaf.”

  He studied her profile. She looked so sad, so defeated. A car drove by, and once it was gone, he opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it again. He didn’t want to tell her he understood, because he didn’t want the raccoon to rip open his own trash bags and spread his trash out on her yard for her to examine. At least not right now, when she was hurting.

  “Can we just pretend I didn’t say all that?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  Her shoulders relaxed a little and she smoothed her hands over the grass, laying it one direction and then the other, letting a few minutes go by.

  “You’re not bad to argue with,” she said.

  “Were we arguing?”

  She shrugged. “Probably. It’s what I seem to do with everyone.”

  “I think we were just talking. Discussing is different than arguing.”

  “You know what Fay told me once, Paulie? She told me I’m good at starting arguments, but that I don’t see them through. She’s right. Maybe I’ll work on that someday, but I’m having a terrible day, so it won’t be today.”

  He nodded and let it pass over them. Birdsong rang out above them, and he looked up into the tree. “Look, there’s a cardinal.”

  She tilted her head back and looked up into the tree, letting the breeze dance across her neck and sweep her hair off her face. The bird appeared to watch them, tiny feet clinging to the branch. “Woo. A cardinal. The state bird, imagine that.”

  Paul laughed. “Yeah, they’re all over the place, but I always think they’re neat. Birds seem like they’d be so fragile, don’t they? I bet they don’t think so—they probably feel so strong flying all over the place. Look, there’s his wife a few branches above him.”

  She tipped her head back farther. “How do you know they’re married?”

  “I was invited to their wedding.”

  Celia smiled softly. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Right this second, it’s not that terrible of a day.”

  “It’s pretty not-terrible for me, too.”

  The front door opened then, and Mrs. Young stepped out, a broom in one hand and a trash bag in the other. “There you are, Celia.”

  Celia’s posture grew stiff, and she turned her head slowly, deliberately, toward her mom, who was now looking at Paul with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

  “You’re Paul Martin,” she said. “Rebecca’s boy.”

  He stood up. “Yes, hello—”

  “Did you need something, Mom?” Celia interrupted.

  Paul watched as her right hand curled into a tight fist beside her leg, hidden from her mom’s view.

  Mrs. Young looked back and forth between the two, before settling her gaze on her daughter. She held up the trash bag. “This is for bagging up the clippings from the bushes.”

  Celia stood and went to the porch to take the bag from her mother. Mrs. Young held on to it though, and after Celia tugged and it didn’t release from her mother’s grasp, she said. “I was just taking a quick break.”

  “A break is fine,” Mrs. Young said quietly, tersely. “That’s not what concerns me.” She glanced at Paul again. He smiled and waved, hoping to put her at ease. She furrowed her brow and finally let Celia take the bag. “You can finish the bushes later. Right now, I need you to come in and help me move the refrigerator so I can clean under it.”

  People cleaned under refrigerators? Paul figured theirs probably had twenty-five years worth of dirt under it. He walked toward them. “I can help you move it.”

  Mrs. Young backed through the doorway and gave Celia a pointed look. “Take care of this, Celia,” she said, before closing the door.

  Paul was a little stunned. “Your mom doesn’t like me.” Moms always liked him.

  Celia waved her hand to dismiss his worry. “My mom knows you work with Malcolm, who isn’t winning any awards around here. But she’ll get over it. Things at home
are just…tricky right now. But still, I have to go.”

  She didn’t give their good-bye any time to be awkward; she just walked inside and softly closed the door. Paul sighed and shook his head, his insides all twisted up in knots and his brain scrambled. But there was also a small nugget of satisfaction burrowing around inside him. Celia broke up with Ronan! She also spent nearly an hour with him, alone. Unable to keep the feelings off his face, he left her yard grinning.

  2

  Cleaning under the refrigerator was just a ruse my mom concocted to get Paul to leave, but I went along with it because I didn’t want to push my luck. I closed the front door and leaned against it, eyes closed. A helium balloon floated in my chest. Soon I would pull out my pin and burst it by thinking through all the reasons I was delusional to wonder if Paul could be interested in me, but not yet. I’d let it float there for a little while, knocking against my ribs.

  I opened my eyes and pushed off the door. I found Mom in the dining room, leaning close to the window to see toward the front of the house. “What are you doing?”

  “He’s walking north. That’s not the way to his house, is it?” She flattened the side of her face against the glass, keeping tabs on Paul as he walked away.

  I knit my brow, considering it. “North, west, these things mean nothing to me. What does it matter where he’s going?”

  “Really, Celia. You have to start paying attention to basic directions. How will you ever get your driver’s license?” She pulled away from the window and went to the kitchen, and I followed. “And it matters because I want him long gone before your father gets home. Do you think he’ll stop by again today?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mom. I doubt Paul will be back.” Why would he? I’d absolutely embarrassed myself. Heat rushed to my face, and I tried not to think of all the things I’d said, not to mention that I’d almost cried in front of him. “But why would it matter if he did? Does Dad hate the Martins now, too?”

  She scolded me with a glower.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from rolling my eyes. “I don’t understand why you’re even worrying about it. Dad won’t be home for hours. Everything’s fine.” He didn’t usually get home until seven or eight in the evening. He got lots of overtime at the plastics factory in the summer.

  “This morning he hinted he might be leaving work before lunch.”

  I sucked in my lips as nausea rolled through my stomach. I couldn’t think of any good reasons why Dad would come home early.

  Mom must have read the worry on my face, because she lifted her apron over her head and hung it on the nail by the back door, and then came over and sat down at the kitchen table. “He’s just owed a little time off, that’s all. Something about not getting too many hours of overtime this pay period. He’s about maxed out.”

  I released a breath and sat down in the chair opposite her, trying to settle my stomach. “Well, that’s good, right? That means he got all the hours possible, plus an afternoon off.”

  “Yes, and I got all my chores done early today so he can come home to a clean house.”

  She was trying to make sure nothing displeased him—doing what she could to ensure he was in a good mood. I sighed. This again. What a waste of time.

  We were still raw and unsteady from Dad’s drunken rage two days ago. They hadn’t had such a big fight, or such a physical one, in months. We weren’t sure how it was going to play out. Unfortunately, Dad was the one who determined what happened next, and he was not a predictable person. I hated the way everyone, myself included, flitted around him, wrapping every spoken word in bubble wrap. I glanced at the scratches on my mom’s forearm, scratches my dad put there. They had scabbed over, and she wasn’t hiding them with long sleeves since she was at home and it was too hot of a day to bother.

  I still thought reality was going to slam into my dad, and he’d blow up over the fact that someone had called the police again. Fay was the one who called, but my parents didn’t know that, and I didn’t intend to tell them. Mom asked me again this morning if I’d heard who it was. I hoped she would let it go eventually.

  Mom stood and wiped imaginary crumbs off the spotless counters, keeping her hands busy. “I can’t seem to sit still, so I’ll go finish the bushes. Will you check and make sure Abe’s room is clean?”

  I went down the hall and peeked into my twelve-year-old brother’s room. It was spotless, as always, and devoid of any life. I hated that he felt like he needed to avoid his home, even as I knew it was probably best for him right now. I wouldn’t say it to his face, but I missed him when he was gone.

  I went to my room and shut the door, flopping onto my bed. My mind spun. Nothing was the way it had been just three days ago. I had no idea how anything would be three days from now.

  Fay was leaving in two weeks. She knew about my parents’ fighting. Esta did, too. And also Malcolm, and with the way information traveled in this town, that meant Paul probably knew too. Which could only mean today had been a pity visit. It wouldn’t surprise me if Malcolm or Fay had sent him to check up on me.

  And Ronan was history. I still couldn’t get enough air when I thought about that. Not because I was sad over it, but because if he wasn’t my boyfriend, what did my life look like? What did I do with all those hours? And mostly, who would be out there, thinking of me?

  I stared at a fixed spot on my ceiling, a place where the paint was chipped in the shape of a tiny, crooked star. I pressed my finger into the bandage on my palm, eliciting a sting from my blister. My racing thoughts slowed.

  I had some things I could count on, some things I did know. Fay loved me, loved my parents, in spite of everything. I had Esta, a best friend for life. I knew the song of the cardinal, and I knew the taste of lemonade from Paul’s cup.

  Paul. I pulled out each thing he’d said and tried to remember the exact way he’d said it. He’d sort of said I was beautiful. If he could see into me, though, he wouldn’t think I was beautiful at all. There was too much blackness there, blotting out any loveliness.

  Other thoughts pushed their way in. Paul flirted with every girl he saw. I was nothing special to him. I knew it. It was stupid to think about him like this. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  The slam of the front door echoed down the hallway. I didn’t even flinch. I used to flinch. I used to either jump out of my skin or shrink down under my blankets. Now I just lay still as a stone, waiting to see what would happen.

  My bedroom door flew open, and Abe ran over to stand by my bed. “Guess what!”

  “You’re supposed to knock before you enter, that’s what,” I said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I could have been naked in here, Abe.”

  “But you have clothes on.”

  I gave him a look. “What is it, then?”

  “Dad’s home. He saw me walking back from Jeremy’s house, and he gave me a ride the rest of the way. He says we can go fishing this afternoon!”

  I pulled my body up and leaned against my headboard. “Really?”

  “Yep. I’m going to change my clothes and start packing up the stuff. Get ready, Celia. Even Mom is coming.” He dashed out of the room, leaving the door wide open.

  I got off my bed and went to shut it, chewing on the inside of my lip. How could Abe want to go fishing with him? I was glad Dad wasn’t hurt beyond a few stitches, and the bruise on his forehead—the one Mom applied defending herself with a meat tenderizer—made me sick to my stomach, but the sound of his shouting still echoed in my ears whenever it was quiet. I could still see him towering over Mom as I ran away. I still didn’t know how I had done that. Every time I looked at my dad, I thought about how I had run away and left her there with him.

  I had run away, and the mail kept showing up in the mailbox each afternoon, I still had to peel potatoes for dinner, Mom swept the kitchen floor, and Dad was home early from work to take us all fishing.

  Tears threatened again. Both he and Mom promised things were going to change. Maybe this t
ime would be different. Maybe what happened had jolted some sense into him. I still stood behind my door, when I heard a soft knock. I opened it a few inches, and peered out to see my dad’s face. It was the face from when I was a little girl. It was the face I saw on Christmas mornings, and when we carried out his birthday cake glowing with candles. It was the face he showed when my uncle visited, and when Abe brought him a garter snake he caught, and when I told him I got a job.

  “Get your shoes on, we’re going fishing.” He gave me a wide smile, big enough for me to see the two crooked teeth on the left side of his mouth.

  I’d told Fay I was done pretending everything was fine, that I’d finally see things for what they were. I was trying to change, instead of waiting for everyone else around me to do it. But the six-year-old Celia who still lived inside me smiled back at her father, her cheeks a little wobbly. That little girl wanted to take what she could get, when she could get it.

  I went to my closet and grabbed my tennis shoes. Dad’s shoulders dropped down and he blinked hard, relief evident in his expression. He never liked it when I was mad at him. He watched as I slipped my shoes on, and I stood up and walked to the doorway. “I’ll pack us lunch to take along,” I said, and he patted me on the arm.

  Hope, that dreadful, pointless flame, flickered in my chest. I stomped on the tiny ember until it went clean out. I would not let it burn through me again.

  3

  Paul gestured to the small wooden box Malcolm held in his hands. “Dude, I think it’s smooth enough.”

  “I want it to be perfect,” Malcolm said.

  “Aren’t you always saying there’s no such thing as perfect?”

  “That’s why I’m leaving this little knothole on the lid.” Malcolm picked up the lid and pressed his finger to the knothole. “But when I picture Fay holding this when she’s back in Perry, I want it to feel as smooth as pond water.”

  Paul swung his legs as he sat on the tall stool in Malcolm’s garage workshop, restless and too hot. “Smooth as pond mud, more like.”

  Malcolm smiled. “That, too. She likes mud.” He continued sanding the body of the box with renewed vigor.