The Big Crunch (7 page)

She imagined what was waiting for her outside. Wes — floppy-haired Wes — all apologetic and concerned, and that horrible counter woman — she had never liked that woman. But there was no avoiding it. She couldn’t stay in the restroom until the end of the universe.

June checked herself in the mirror again. Definitely a black eye coming.

She took her broken glasses from her pocket and tried to put them on her face, but the frame was completely twisted, and the broken lens was worse than nothing. With a sigh, she walked back out into the store. Wes was still standing by the front counter.

“Your OJ,” he said, holding up the carton of juice.

Wes wasn’t sure what to expect. Would she be mad at him? Would she be crying? Would she have to go to the emergency room?

June took the orange juice from him, put it on the counter, dug in her jeans pocket, and came out with a five-dollar bill. The
counter woman rang up the sale and gave her change. Wes stood by helplessly.

“I’m really sorry,” he said.

June turned to him and held up her broken glasses.

“I can’t see. You have to drive me home.” She didn’t seem angry.

“I don’t have a car,” he said.

“In
my
car.” Not angry, but she wasn’t smiling.

If anything, it was even colder and windier outside. They got into the car.

“I’ve never driven a BMW before,” Wes said.

“It’s just a car.”

Wes turned the key in the ignition.

“I don’t know where you live.”

“On Twentieth.”

“Oh.” That was where he thought she lived. He backed out of the parking space, then stopped. She was shaking. “Are you okay?” He realized she was laughing.

“I can’t believe that happened!” she said between gasps.

Then Wes cracked up too, and a second later he realized he’d let his foot off the brake and they were about to roll into one of the gas pumps. He hit the brake just in time, and June started laughing even harder.

“You … almost … wrecked … the car!” she said, her eyes tearing up.

Wes, caught between embarrassment and laughter, put the car in drive and pulled out onto the street.

“That would have been perfect,” June said, then hiccupped.
Wes thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard and had to pull over. He bumped the curb.

June looked at him in mock shock, one eye wide, the other one beginning to swell shut. Her eyes were a pale, icy blue, not the aqua he remembered. “You are the worst driver
ever,”
she said, and for no reason at all, that set them both off again.

It was only about a mile to June’s house. On the way, June told him about her mom’s Cold from Hell and of her urgent demand for orange juice.

“I just hope my mom appreciates I got a concussion for her orange juice,” June said.

“Everybody appreciates a good concussion.” Wes put a hand to the lump on his forehead.

“It’s the house with the ginormous Santa.”

Wes pulled into the driveway. There was a sparkly wreath on the door and a six-foot plastic Santa Claus guarding the front steps.

“Nice Santa,” Wes said.

“I know. It’s embarrassing.” She leaned across him and activated the garage door opener clipped to the visor. “Can you pull into the garage?”

They drove into the garage and got out.

“Thanks for driving me home,” June said. She looked him over and frowned. “Is that all you’re wearing?”

“I live pretty close to here.”

“Yeah, like a
mile.”

“You know where I live?”

“You told me you lived on Fourteenth. When we were walking home.”

“I did?” That she actually remembered made him feel warm inside.

“Give me a minute to OJ my mom and put in my contacts and I’ll drive you home. You want to come in? I have to warn you, my mom has been filling the entire house with cold virus.”

“I’ll risk it,” said Wes.

N
ATURALLY, HER MOM FREAKED.

“Oh my God, what happened?” She sat up in bed. “Are you okay?”

“Obviously not,” June said, setting the glass of orange juice on the bedside table. “I have a black eye.”

“I mean — oh my God, did you have a car accident?”

“Your car is fine,” said June. She told her mom what had happened.

“Junie, you have to be more careful.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

“Let me see.”

June leaned closer and let her mom examine her injury.

“You have to get some ice on it.”

“I know. I had to bring you your orange juice first.”

“Oh, Junie!” Her mom picked up the glass of orange juice and sipped. “There’s a bag of frozen peas in the freezer. Use that.”

Wes was sitting on one of the stools when June got back to the kitchen. She opened the freezer and found the peas. She held the bag to her cheek and sat down next to Wes.

“I don’t think I can drive with one eye,” she said.

Wes leaned closer and looked straight into her face. She moved the ice pack aside to show him.

“They’re different colors,” he said.

“What?”

“Your eyes. Your right eye is aqua colored, and the other one is more like light blue.”

“Which do you like better?”

“I like both.”

“The right one is my contact. It’s tinted. The other contact I can’t get in.”

“How did you get that little scar?”

“Snakebite.”

“Really?”

“Stray bullet. Knife fight. Grizzly attack. Stray meteorite.”

Wes imagined each event.

“Exploding clown shoes.”

That was when he kissed her.

Later, Wes would wonder what had made him do it. But at the time, it was as if an enormous soft hand had pressed him toward her, and their lips had touched, and he heard his heart beating, once, twice, three times. He heard the bag of peas fall to the floor, and then it was over and they were staring at each other from about four inches apart. Her pupils were so big they nearly filled her irises, and the smell of her was making him dizzy.

“Oh no,” said Wes.

They pulled farther apart.

June said, “I didn’t …”

Wes stood up clumsily, knocking the stool over. He picked it up and set it back in place, then he picked up the bag of frozen peas and handed it to her.

“It’s okay,” said June.

“Look, I didn’t mean to —”

“It’s
okay
,” June said. “Just …” She fluttered her hand, as if waving him off. Wes turned to go, but she said, “Don’t go.”

Wes didn’t know what to do, so he stood there, halfway to the door, looking back at her. She returned the bag of peas to her face.

Wes stared. The dirty, mussed-up hair, the swollen, discolored cheek, the two different-colored eyes — none of it mattered.

“You look nice,” he said, and he meant it.

June’s mouth stretched and her eyes squeezed shut and she was laughing and her eyes were watering. Wes stood helplessly by as she brought herself under control.

He said, “I don’t think I ever knew anybody who could do that. Laugh and cry all at once.”

“It hurts to laugh.” June wiped her good eye with the back of her hand. “Please don’t be funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

“That’s what made it funny.”

“I think I should go.”

“I know. Only I’m afraid you’ll freeze to death.”

They heard the side door open. A man’s voice called out, “Who left the garage door open?”

“My dad,” said June.

A few seconds later June’s father, a tall, handsome man with graying temples and an unseasonal tan, stepped into the kitchen.

Mr. Edberg looked from Wes to June, then back at Wes, then smiled, showing a vast number of brilliant white teeth, and said in a booming voice, “Well, hello, Jerry! Good to see you again, son.”

“Daddy, this is
Wes
.”

“Wes!” He gave Wes another look over. “You look like that young man Jerry.”

“No, he doesn’t, Daddy. He’s nothing like Jerry at all.”

Wes held out his hand. “I’m Wes Andrews, sir.”

“Wes! Wes! Of course! Elton Edberg.” They shook hands.

Mr. Edberg looked at June and frowned. “Junie, why are you holding peas on your face?”

June took the bag away from her eye and showed him.

W
ES SAT QUIETLY IN THE PASSENGER SEAT
as they backed out of the garage. He had the feeling he was about to have an awkward conversation. Mr. Edberg did not disappoint him.

“So, Wes,” he said, “you gave my daughter a black eye.”

“It was an accident,” Wes said.

“There are no accidents, son. Only the unforeseen consequences of reckless behavior.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re very polite. I like that.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Edberg laughed. “I’m just messing with you, Wes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Elton. Or El.”

“Okay.”

“Tell me again where you live?”

“On Fourteenth.” Wes gave him the address.

“What do your folks do?”

“My dad’s a manager at Anderson Distributing. My mom’s a part-time teacher over at St. Mary’s.”

“Your mother is a nun?”

“No. She —”

“Just messing with you, son.” Mr. Edberg laughed again.

Wes did not like the man.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Please, call me El.”

“Okay.” There was no way.

“So, Wes, are you the new Jerry?”

Wes didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

“Or has my little girl got a stable of young studs in waiting?”

Wes said, “Mr. Edberg, sir, June and I bonked heads at the SA, and she couldn’t see, so I drove her home. That’s all.”

Mr. Edberg shook his head. “Wes, I make my living by reading people’s hopes and desires … turn here?”

“Yeah.”

“… and their fears. I know things about you that even you don’t know. You might think that you’re telling me the truth, but you would be wrong. Which house?”

“The one with the big oak tree in front.”

Mr. Edberg pulled into the driveway.

As Wes got out, Mr. Edberg smiled broadly and said, with utter sincerity, “Sorry I gave you a hard time, Wes. It’s my job.”

“Yes, sir,” said Wes.

Paula wanted to know why he had a bump on his head.

“Because I bumped it,” he said.

“Are you having a concussion?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Then how come you’re acting weird?”

“I’m not.”

“Are too.”

Wes tipped his head back and squeezed another rope of honey into his mouth.

“That’s gross,” Paula said.

“Tough.”

“Did you know honey is the same as bee spit?”

Wes twisted the cap back onto the squeeze bottle and put the honey back in the cupboard.

“I’m gonna tell Mom you ate all the bee spit.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m older. I know things about you that even you don’t know.”

“Do not.”

“Is Mom still at aerobics?”

“Yupper.”

“I’m going to my room.”

“That’s all you ever do. Mom says you’re like the Phantom of the Opera.”

“Whatever.” Wes bounded up the stairs to his bedroom and closed the door and sat on his bed. A few seconds later he heard the blare of the television. He and Paula used to watch a lot of TV together, Paula asking a thousand questions, Wes making up goofy answers. Sometimes, Izzy had been there, and Paula had asked her the questions. Izzy’s answers had always been better than his.

He imagined watching TV with June and Paula. Would Paula like June? Would June be patient and funny like Izzy? Would she call Paula “Paulalicious"? No, that would be too creepy. He moved Paula out of the picture and settled into an imaginary sofa in front of an imaginary TV with June by his side. He put an imaginary arm around her and looked into her one good eye and —
no!
He couldn’t go there, not even in his head. She was Jerry’s girlfriend — Jerry’s first girlfriend ever. It would kill him to lose her. Especially
to Wes. And even though Wes knew that Jerry and June could not possibly last much longer, he did not want to be the one to end it. The only way he could imagine himself with June was after a disaster. Say she broke up with Jerry and moved away, and then one day Wes was, um, flying to Hawaii, and June happened to be on the same flight, and the plane crashed, and the two of them made it to an island on one of the life rafts and built a hut on the beach….

Paula was right; he
was
being weird.

June was staring at her reflection in her bedroom mirror when Jerry called.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself.”

“What did you do today?”

“Nothing. I, um …” She didn’t want to tell him about her black eye. Even though he’d see it sooner or later. How long does a black eye take to clear up? A couple days? And why do they call it a black eye? It’s not really black. More like purple and violet and blue and red. Later, there would be yellow and green. Maybe she could cover it up with makeup. “This weather really sucks,” she said.

“I know. You have much homework this weekend?”

“Yeah, some.”
This is the most boring conversation I think I’ve ever had.
“I’m supposed to write that thing for English?”

“I have to do that too.”

“And a take-home quiz for science. I already did it. It was easy.”

“You want to do something tonight?”

No!
“I’m kind of tired.”

“I could probably get my dad’s SUV. Maybe I could come over and hang out?”

No, no, no!
“Um … remember I told you my mom has this cold? Actually, I think I might have it too.” She sniffed and cleared her throat.

“Oh. Okay. You want me to bring over some hot herbal tea? My mom swears by herbal tea.”

“I’ve got tea. I’d just as soon sit here with my Kleenexes and teddy bear.”

“You have a stuffed bear?”

“Yeah. Actually it’s just a little thing on my key chain.”
Please, God, get me out of this conversation.
“His name is Bernard.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Anyways, I don’t really feel like company.”

“Oh. Okay.”

After she hung up, June noticed that she was getting a little snuffly for real. The thought that she might be getting her mom’s cold cheered her — if she could skip the next couple of school days, her eye might clear up, and she wouldn’t have to deal with all the explanations. She wouldn’t have to see Jerry. Or Wes. She could just pretend that nothing had ever happened because, really, nothing actually had.