I don’t need sex tonight.
I need a drink.
A very tall, very stiff drink.
“You have your phone and email and all kinds of ways of keeping in touch with anyone you want to keep in touch with,” I say. “Who knows? You could go to college with someoneelsehere who wants to see California or the East Coast.”
“And that’s the other reason I don’t want you dating Coach Jackson,” she says, completely ignoring my very obvious solution to her objection to making good friends. “I’m leaving in a couple of years, and there’s so much work to be done on the ranch, and you like it, so you’ll stay, and then you’ll have people you’re avoiding because your relationships ended poorly.”
“Juniper.I have no intention of going through the entire single male population of Hell’s Bells in the next two years. What Iintendto do is to call Charlotte and a few other single PTA members and invite them over for book club meetings that aren’t actually about books so that I can make tighter friends with the singlewomenin town. And maybe I’ll move across the country to somewhere like an hour or two from wherever you go to school when you leave me.”
“Nope. You’re gonna fix up the whole ranch and make it an escape for women who are recovering from having spouses who treat them like shit, becausethat’s your mission, and that’s great. Youshouldhave a mission. Youshouldhave a life. And then you’ll also fix up the old cabinand put Grandma in it when she gets out of the slammer so that you can keep an eye on her and limit her internet access.”
It’s a really good thing we’re almost home.
My eyeball is twitching too much for me to keep driving.
“Bear!”she yells.
I slam on the brakes, sending both of us flying forward to get caught by our seat belts and making the truck shudder as the back end swerves and the antilock braking system kicks in.“What? Where?”
Freaking Earl strolls out from among some scraggly, dead underbrush on the side of the road and crosses three inches in front of my bumper, my headlights illuminating his dark fur and the look of disgust he gives us.
I’m gasping for air like I just ran a freaking marathon.
Junie’s audibly panting too. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. You can move when I move. Somewhere—somewhere without Earls.”
“Freakingbear.”
“He’s kinda cute.”
“He’s kindaalmost dead.”
She giggles.
My daughter, who’s had the most up-and-down experience of her life the past few months, and more so today, is giggling at our almost taking out a bear.
“If that’s funny, does that mean you’re willing to try driving sometime before you go to college?” I ask.
“Nope. Still holding out for you to get a sugar daddy that you’re not attracted to, who’s also old so he’ll die soon, too, and leave you enough money for you to afford for me to have a driver.”
“You know sugar daddies. I’d probably actually have to have sex with him.”
“Ew, Mom! Are you serious?Don’t say that to me.”
She’s laughing again, though, and it’s music to my soul.
“You really hate it here?” I ask her softly as I slowly press the gas to get us moving toward home again.
“No,” she replies, even softer than I asked it. “It’s pretty. The people are nice. And I wish you’d left dad before he started his stupid show and moved us here so I could’ve met your uncle and helped take care of Gingersnap and so everyone wouldn’t have to stop and explain every single inside joke to me ever at school, but they stop and explain it, Mom. They stop and explain it. I never would’ve done that for a new kid back in Cedar Rapids. But they do it for me, even when I don’t think I deserve it.”
I don’t dare take my eyes off the road again, but I reach over and squeeze her knee again. “Uncle Tony wouldn’t have picked a place to live if it was only populated with dicks.”
“Can we go back?” she asks as we approach our gate. “I think I want to go to the sleepover, after all.”
Yes!My heart yells.
Yes!My vagina joins in.
