My frown deepens, and I abandon my course. I can get a drink in a minute. Instead I hold out my hand. “Can I see?”
She shrugs and passes me the purple envelope. Sure enough,Juniper Beanis written on the front in a round, loopy writing I don’t recognize. It looks innocent enough.
So why is there a thread of uneasiness niggling at the edge of my mind?
“Do you want to open it?” I say, passing the envelope back to her.
“Kind of no?” she says. Her face twists up as she goes on, “I mean, it’s kind of sketchy, right? What if it’s anthrax or something? Hang on.” Her eyes narrow on me. “This isn’t from you, is it?Did you send me anthrax?”
My lips twitch at this. “I did not, no. I don’t think I have access to anthrax.”
“Because you had no problem letting me plummet to my death yesterday on those stairs,” she points out.
“I feel like if you’d plummeted to your death, you wouldn’t be yammering so much right now,” I say over my shoulder as I pull a plastic cup from the cupboard.
Juniper gasps, holding one hand to her chest. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” she says.
“Just open the envelope,” I say. I refuse to be amused by her antics.?*
She mutters something unintelligible under her breath, but a second later I hear the sound of paper ripping.
I get some water from the tap and then turn back to Juniper. “What is it?” I say.
Her frown has deepened, her brows pulled low, blue eyes narrowed. “It’s…an invitation.”
“To…?” I say, taking a drink.
“To the Homecoming dance.” She looks utterly bewildered, and I don’t blame her.
“What do you mean?” I say, because she’s not making sense.
“Wow,” she says, looking over the piece of paper she’s holding. “So the high school hands out fancy-pants cardstock invitations to Homecoming now? Back when I was there, they just told us not to spike the punch and called it good.”
“We receive a decent amount of donations from the community,” I say vaguely. It’s just one of several reasons I don’t like Lionel Astor’s promise to divert funds away from welfare programs and toward schoolsif he becomes governor. That might be great for other places in Idaho, but Autumn Grove doesn’t need it.
I hold my hand out to Juniper, and she passes me the paper without hesitation.
“See?” she says. “Inviting me to Homecoming.”
She’s right. It doesn’t make sense, but she’s right. I recognize the invitation; I think every household with students got one. I’m pretty sure I threw mine away. I hold it up, looking it over.
“Oh,” Juniper says suddenly, moving closer until she’s right in front of me. “There’s something on the back.”
I turn the piece of cardstock over. There, printed in the same round, loopy writing, is one line:
Meet me at Solomon the Spud after the dance if you’d like to hear about your parents!
For one long second, both Juniper and I just stare at the invitation. The only sound in the kitchen is the steadyplunk, plunk, plunkof the dripping faucet; I reach over blindly and jam the handle more firmly into place, and the plunking stops. Then we’re left in complete silence.
There’s a tension that’s flooded into the room, though I’m not sure why; the quiet feels suddenly alive. So I turn my head slowly to look at Juniper—and immediately find the source of the tension I noticed.
Because she’s only lived here for a day, but Iknowshe wasn’t this pale when I walked in. Her mouth hangs slightly open, her lips parted, her brow furrowed.
I rack my brain, trying to remember what I know about Juniper’s parents. Search as I might, though, nowhere in my memories can I find anything about a father.
“I always got the impression your dad was out of the picture,” I say finally, when the silence haseaten away my last nerve.
“He is,” Juniper says faintly, sounding dazed. “I don’t even know who my father was.” Then she looks at me, wide-eyed, and says one more thing:
