The Opposite Of Tidy (22 page)

“Save it.” Wade shook his head. “I don’t want to be on
The Kendra Show
, thanks. I wouldn’t even watch that crap, let alone be on it.”

Junie took a step back, defeated. “Oh,” she bleated, the tiny, useless word all that she could think of. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Right. ‘Oh.’ That’s a wicked explanation, Junie.

A simple ‘oh’ will take care of a month of lies. Sure.” With that Wade got into his van and took off, gears grinding angrily, leaving Junie stranded in the three-ring circus going on in her front yard.

Tabitha gently tugged her back toward the house, which was the last place Junie wanted to go.

FIFTEEN

Inside, Junie and Tabitha found Junie’s mother giving Kendra a tour of the house. Kendra took mincing steps over the garbage-strewn floor and between the heaps of junk. One cameraman filmed them from the front, walking backwards and tripping often. Another cameraman followed alongside.

“This must be very, very hard for you,” Kendra said, her slight Southern drawl sweetening her words, one arm across her mother’s shoulders. “To have us in here after keeping it a secret for so long.”

Junie’s mom nodded, tears streaming down her face. This was the stuff
The Kendra Show
was made of, emotional breakdowns and televised rock bottoms. It was awful. Junie had to stop it.

“Get out!” she shouted suddenly.

Kendra turned, her rock-solid hair hardly moving. “Honey?”

“Get out of my house right this minute!” Junie grabbed the boom operator and shoved him outside. She reached for the first cameraman, but he dodged out of her way.

“You getting this, Bob?” Kendra pointed at Junie.

“Yes, ma’am.” Bob aimed his camera in her face.

“Get out,” Junie growled. She covered the lens with her hand and then said it again, as menacingly as she could. “Get the hell out of my house. Now.”

“Honey, let me talk to you, one on one.” Kendra picked her way back to Junie and put a hand on each of her shoulders, ignoring Tabitha. Junie could smell her perfume, something flowery and subtle. Kendra gave her a warm smile. “Now, we both want the same thing here, I’m pretty sure. You want your mama to get better, right?”

“Of course, but not like this—”

“Well now, you don’t even know what ‘this’ is yet, do you, hon?”

Junie shook her head.

“So how about I tell you what we’ve got going on? Okay?”

Her voice was low, almost hypnotic. Junie could see how she made a living from talking. Junie had to admit that she did want to hear more. Especially if it meant fixing her mom.

“This is an intervention. You know what that is?” Kendra turned Junie around and steered her outside and into the fresh air, where she set her arm across Junie’s shoulders as she had with her mom. Tabitha followed, and so did the cameraman, and the boom guy right behind him. “You’ve seen my show?”

Junie nodded. “Of course. Who hasn’t?”

“Then you’ve seen us do these before for people in trouble. With alcohol, or gambling. There was that one woman who hoarded cats. Did you see that one?”

Junie had. They’d removed seventy-six cats from her crumbling double-wide, along with twenty-two dead ones in various state of decay. Hazmat suits all around.

“My mom’s not that bad.”

“She is, honey.” Kendra gave her a squeeze. “She is.

And you know it. And if I know anything about anything at all, you know it better than she does, I bet. Right?”

Junie didn’t answer. Until Kendra gave her a tight little hug across the shoulders.

“Maybe,” Junie admitted with a whisper. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s okay for the whole world to know it too.”

“And I understand that. I do. But you’ve got to think about it this way,” Kendra said. “This way, we help a whole lot of people just like your mom. And as for your family, we’ll take care of everything. We pay for the aftercare therapy, the organizers and the trash removers. We do it all. Now, why don’t you go on down to catering and get yourself a hot drink and a sandwich? Give it all a big think.” Kendra pointed to a shiny black food truck on the street with a silver awning sticking out. “We’re going to send a camera with you, understand, but try to act like he’s not there, okay? Take Tabitha with you. I know how important a best friend can be at a time like this. I’m going to go back and visit with your mama. Okay?”

Was it okay? Junie wasn’t sure. But there was little else
to do in that exact moment. Either she could run screaming down the middle of the street in a panic, or do just what Kendra had suggested.

“Okay.”

“All right, then. I like a girl with a head on her shoulders.” With that, Kendra went back inside, while Junie slumped onto the top step, her legs suddenly weak. Tabitha sat beside her, leaning her head in close.

“Junie, this is a good thing. Right?”

“No, it’s not good! Everyone will know, Tabitha! Everyone at school.” Junie couldn’t look at Tabitha or she’d cry. She didn’t want to cry. Not with cameras everywhere. “Everyone in the whole wide world will know how bad it is. Absolutely everyone.”

“Look at me, Juniebean.”

Junie shook her head. “Can’t.”

“Then just listen.” Tabitha grabbed Junie’s hand. “This is a chance to make your mom better. How can that be a bad thing? Kendra’s got millions and millions of dollars. She’s got millions and millions of people who can help. You’ve seen the show. She actually does make a difference. You’ve got to admit that much, right?”

“But what’s the price?” Junie shook her head. “It’s not worth it, is it? What if my mom can’t handle it? What if she ends up locked in the loony bin? And what about Wade? What if he never talks to me again? And what if everyone laughs at me? I never wanted anyone to know, and now the whole world will see it all. Everyone will know!”

“But maybe it will get better. Maybe the price is worth it? For your mom? For you?” Junie could hear the
kindness in Tabitha’s voice, and she knew there was some truth in there too, but she didn’t want to listen. “You and Wade have been together for a month. You and your mom will be together forever. And you would’ve had to tell Wade sometime, right? Right, Junie?”

“But not like this.” Junie’s head thumped angrily, trying to sort out what exactly was happening. She glanced up, seeing the media trucks, the police, the curious onlookers gathering like flies to the carcass that was her house. It was real. No hope that it had all been a terrible daydream. It was fact.
The Kendra Show
was doing an intervention on her mom. Was this a good thing? Or a bad thing? Wade had discovered her lies. Was this a good thing? Or a bad thing? Junie wasn’t sure. It just was what it was, and as it was, Junie had no idea what to make of it all. “I screwed up. I’ve never screwed up so bad in my life.”

“Junie?”

Junie looked up. Her mouth felt pasty and thick and the thumping in her head was shaping up into a wicked headache. “Yeah?”

“It’s not your fault that your mom is the way she is.”

“But it is my fault that I lied to Wade.”

“But life goes on. You know that, right?”

“Does it? Or does it all freeze and stay stuck on this horrible day forever?”

“You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Junie scowled. Laughed. “You really think so?”

“I know so. This is going to be a good thing in the long run. Maybe even the short run. I promise.” Tabitha fell into step beside her as Junie got up and aimed for the
catering truck. It wasn’t that she was hungry or thirsty, but it was what Kendra had told her to do, and Junie had no idea what else to do other than slash her wrists or run away, so she was doing what she was told until she could think of a better idea. The cameraman and mic guy followed them across the lawn.

“This’ll make everything better,” Tabitha urged. “Your mom will get help. They’ll clean up your house. It will be normal again, like when we were little.”

“But what if she doesn’t change?” Junie stopped short. “What if all of this happens and the house is cleaned and my mom gets help, but then it all goes back to the way it was?” When Tabitha didn’t answer, Junie kept voicing her worries, and there were a lot of them. “What if she can’t do it? What if she has a meltdown and ends up in a straitjacket? Everyone is going to find out. Everyone! And Wade! He’s totally going to hate me. What if he never wants to talk to me ever again because of how I lied to him?”

“The truth had to come out somehow,” Tabitha said gently.

“Oh my God.” All of a sudden, Junie remembered the camera. “Can you guys go away? Please? Just for a few minutes?”

Behind the camera, Bob shook his head. “No can do, kiddo. You know the rules.”

“Fine.” Junie clamped her mouth shut. And she’d keep it that way. She strode the rest of the way to the catering truck and asked for a hot chocolate. It came heaped with whipped cream, which only reminded her of the coffee date she was supposed to have with Wade tomorrow, on
their way out of town. Would he still want her to go with him? Not likely.

Tabitha thrust a ham sandwich into her hands and the two girls sat at one of the tables set out in front of the truck, the feet of the moulded plastic chairs sinking into the lawn. They munched slowly and sipped from their drinks. They didn’t talk at all, each of them casting occasional defiant glances at the crew standing off to one side, filming them.

“I get it,” Bob said after filming nothing but belligerent silence for several minutes. “You’re playing hardball. That’s fine. I’ll go get some exterior footage of the house, some shots of the garage. Leave you two girls alone for a few minutes. Okay?”

“That would be great,” Tabitha said on behalf of them both. “Thank you.”

The men turned their cameras back to the house and wandered off.

Junie took a deep breath and took in the spectacle before them. There were the trucks with
The Kendra Show
in tall, glittery vinyl letters on the side, and then the equipment trucks that weren’t marked. Then the seven vehicles from local TV stations, there to capture the event. The police cars, Junie figured, were there to manage traffic and fans. And it was a good thing, too, because in the time they’d been sitting there, the crowd had doubled. There had to be at least a hundred people there, gawking, cellphones to their ears, parasitically informing everyone they knew.

“I can’t believe this.” Junie set her sandwich down beside her. There was no way that she could eat anything at
a time like this. The few bites she’d taken were sitting like rocks in her stomach. “I cannot believe this.”

An excited murmur rustled through the people gathered on the street. Junie scanned the people for anyone she knew and didn’t, thankfully, see anyone. The crowd was made up of mostly older women with homemade signs that said things like
Make me beautiful, Kendra!
and
Your #1 Fan!
and lots of
I
♥
you, Kendra!
Junie glanced back at the house. The living room curtains had been opened for the first time in years, and there stood Kendra and her mother, looking out. Kendra lifted a hand to give the crowd a royal wave. That’s when the screaming started.

“Kendra! Kendra!” the crowd chanted. “Kendra!”

“This isn’t happening.” Junie felt like she was going to puke. She wanted to go back just a little bit, maybe an hour. Just long enough to refuse the ride home from Wade. But that wouldn’t have worked, because the whole city was going to know as soon as they turned on the TV, if not sooner. She’d have to go way back in time, to when it was still possible to avert all of this. Back to when her mom was healthy. How far back was that?

“Come on,” Tabitha said firmly. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Are we allowed?” Junie felt as if Kendra had to approve it, as if Kendra was in charge of everything now, including her.

“Who cares? Come on.” Tabitha pulled Junie up. “We’ll go through the alley.”

At Tabitha’s house, the girls sat in the middle of the floor in the living room with the curtains drawn, talking in whispers, as if that mattered.

“I can’t believe that she did this. I cannot believe that my own mother invited Kendra to come and do this. It’s insane. I can’t believe it.”

“I can.”

“What?”

“Do you know how many times I came
this
close—”