“Good,” shemurmurs. “I love you, baby.”
“I love you too, Mama,” I say, smiling.
* This scene was really, really important for me to get right. I don’t even know if I did, to be honest. But human beings aren’t black and white. A neglectful mother can still be genuinely loving, and a young child might never even know the difference. I wanted to portray Nora Bean and like this—not evil but broken. Not necessarily selfish but lost inside herself.
8
IN WHICH AIDEN AND JUNIPER FIND A VERY DEAD BODY
My mother is fond of saying that the Good Lord will never give us more than we can handle.
Usually she says it when we’re all seated around the table at one of the few family dinners we have each month, and it usually comes up because Caroline is griping about this problem or that. My mother is a woman of faith—in a higher power, yes, but also in things sheshouldn’thave faith in, like infomercials and clickbait articles—and most of the wisdom she imparts can be traced directly back to the Bible.
My father, on the other hand, doesn’t have time for any of that. If you ask for his advice, you’re going to get the gospel according to Bernard Milano, and it’s probably going to be expletive-laced. He’ll tell you you can get through anything if you’re patient and you never give up.
This evening, I think both my parents are wrong. Because I don’t know what any higher powers are thinking, and I don’t know what kind of faith they have in me, but Icannot handleJuniper Bean wearing that dress.
And no matter how patient I am, I don’t think it’s going to get any easier.
In her most boundary-defying move thus far, Caroline showed up at the house at five-thirty. She brought a camera with her, and she was wearing a smile so big I thought it might sprout wings and fly right off her face.
“Absolutely not,” I said when I opened the door to find her there. I tried to shut it before she could get inside, but she was expecting this; she darted past me before I could stop her.
“You are such a little liar,” she whispered to me, looking around—I assume to check that the coast was clear. “You said she wasn’t pretty. But she’s gorgeous!” Then she and her totally unnecessary camera went to the couch, where she’s been waiting for the last ten minutes.?*
Juniper has just appeared at the top of the stairs, though, and Caroline is already snapping picture after picture, like she’s a proud mom sending her little girl to prom for the first time. She gushes on and on about the dress, and Juniper replies modestly that it’s just something she wore to a wedding one time—which I think probably ended up making the bride look dull in comparison.
It was my sincere hope that I wouldn’t find Juniper attractive this evening. I was counting on the fact that maybe part of me still viewed her as that teenager who tried to kiss me all those years ago. But no matter how Iusedto think of her, it seems that my mind is now very clear on one fact: Juniper Bean is no longer a teenager. She’s a grown woman, and she’s beautiful.
I shouldn’t be noticing thesethings, and I definitely shouldn’t be feeling attracted to her. She’s not someone I’m interested in romantically, and that’s usually a determining factor for whether my body reacts to a woman. But Juniper seems to be a fluke, one I can’t quite categorize. All I know is that I’m feeling things I usually don’t.
I’ve never seen a dress like the one she’s wearing, but I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing another sometime. It seems to fit her perfectly—a corset-looking top in deep red leading to a frothy, voluminous skirt in some sort of pink fabric that reaches just past her knees. There’s a sheer overlay on the skirt in the same red as the top, dotted with little pink flowers. The whole thing is held up by two ribbon straps, each tied in a delicate bow over her shoulders.?*
It’s those bows that have my thoughts trying to stray. Because the problem with tied ribbons is that my mind automatically picturesuntying them—a very unhelpful mental image in this scenario. So I direct my attention elsewhere, noting Juniper’s easy smile as she chats with Caroline, who’s still taking pictures.
“Caroline,” I say with a sigh. “That’s enough.” It could not be clearer that my sister is planning my wedding to Juniper in her head at this very moment, and it needs to stop. “It’s time for us to go.”
Caroline sighs too, but hers is more theatrical than mine. “Fine,” she says dramatically. “Go on, then. I just wanted to take pictures to commemorate your first date?—”
“Not a date,” I say, and Juniper grins.
“He says he doesn’t want to date me,” she says to Caroline, “but our couple name would be Aidiper. Doesn’t that feel like a wastedopportunity to you?”
“Definitely,” Caroline says with a decisive nod. “It’s a great couple name.”
“I know,” Juniper says. She looks wistfully at me. “Too bad.” She comes the rest of the way down the stairs, her heels clicking against the hard wood as she walks.
“That dress,” Caroline says, and I swear I can see hearts blooming in her eyes. “It’s gorgeous.”
“It makes me feel like an autumn flower fairy.”
“To the car, flower fairy,” I say grumpily.?*
“Oh, Aiden,” Caroline says, rushing over to me. She reaches up and pinches my cheeks. “Are your feelings hurt because we didn’t tell you how handsome you look?” she coos in a high-pitched voice, like she’s talking to one of her four-year-old daughters. “You’resohandsome. Such a big, strong boy?—”
I swat her hands away, and she cackles as Juniper laughs along.
Once a big sister, always a big sister.
