The Opposite Of Tidy (31 page)

“Of course not—”

“I’ve got pyjamas. For both of us.”

Wade laughed. “I’m not wearing some pink flannel capris with puppy dogs on them.”

Humour. Thank God. It was what she needed to get back on track. She slapped him playfully and pushed herself off the bed. She went to her bureau and pulled open the drawer where her pyjamas were neatly folded in sets. She pulled out a black-and-green-checked flannel bottom and a big black T-shirt. She tossed them at Wade.

“That’s as unisex as I can find.”

“You said ‘sex.’” Wade pointed at her.

Junie had to laugh. Then so did Wade. And just like that, it got easier by another notch again.

She rummaged through the drawer, wishing she had something a little cuter than her usual ratty old cotton sets. She settled on a purple pair of short bottoms with lace on the trim, and a white tank top that was a little snug on her.

“I’ll change in the bathroom,” Wade offered.

When he came back, he asked if she could put their wet clothes in the dryer, and Junie had to admit that their washing machine and dryer hadn’t worked in several years.

“I take laundry to Tabitha’s house once a week or so. My stuff, anyway. My mom just wears the same thing over and over. And when it gets really bad, I take a load of her stuff to the laundromat.” From the look on Wade’s face, Junie got the idea that taking your laundry to the neighbour’s was just one more thing that didn’t fit within the box called “normal behaviour.”

Junie hung their wet clothes on the shower rod in the
bathroom instead. When she went back to her room, Wade was already under the covers. He’d pulled a book off the shelf and was thumbing through it.

“I thought I’d read you a bedtime story. Better than crib. Serves the same purpose, right?”

Junie climbed in beside him, her heart thumping so loudly she could barely hear herself speak. “What’s the book?”

“
Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
‘Rabbit’s Bride.’
”

He started reading. “‘There was a woman and she had a daughter and they lived in a beautiful cabbage garden.’”

“Who knew there was such a thing?” Despite the fact that she was lying in bed with a boy, Junie yawned. It had been a very, very long day.

Wade kept reading. Junie knew it was a very short story, only a couple of pages long, but even still, she was asleep by the end of it. Her night was busy with dreaming, in which Wade was a rabbit with long whiskers and tall, soft ears, and she was the girl he talked into coming into his hut. And she went, happy to leave the cabbage garden behind her.

TWENTY-ONE

The front door slammed and Junie woke with a start. For a moment, she was confused. This was her room. This was her bed. But there was a boy in it, which did not make any sense whatsoever. And then all that had happened the night before thundered into her thoughts like an earthquake. She sat up with a start, clutching the blankets to her, even though she was wearing pyjamas and had nothing to hide—except for the events of the night before, from her mother. Wade slept soundly beside her, tucked against the wall. He lay on his stomach, his hands shoved under the pillow, as comfortable as if he’d slept there all his life, while Junie had spent the night tossing and turning and dreaming of marrying rabbits.

Loud voices drifted up the stairs.

“Oh my God.” Junie suddenly realized the severity
of the situation. There was no way Wade could get out of there without everyone finding out. “Get up!”

Wade sighed and rearranged his limbs and pulled the covers up higher. But he didn’t wake up. Junie thought she heard Kendra’s assistant’s voice.

“Wake up, Wade! They’re here! The
Kendra
people!”

He sat up, groggy. “Huh?”

“
The Kendra Show
people.” Junie leapt off the bed and pulled a pair of jeans over her pyjama bottoms. She tugged on a sweater, fetched Wade’s clothes and chucked them at him. “Get up! We have to get you out of here.”

“Wha—?” Wade rubbed his eyes. “Okay. I’m up. I’m on it. Operation Hide the Evidence.” He flung the covers off and was on his feet, wrestling himself into his clothes.

They crept to the top of the stairs. “They can’t know that I was here, either,” Junie said. “I’m supposed to be at my dad’s, remember?” The two of them crouched as the boom operator brought his gear in through the front door. Charlie Falconetti came in behind him, BlackBerry to her ear.

“Gotcha, babe. Understood. Hang on, Kendra . . . disaster pending.” She pulled the phone away from her ear and hollered at the boom guy, “What the hell you doing with that? Take it downstairs.” She returned to her call with Kendra. “So yeah, Marla’s a friggin’ mess. A total train wreck. I don’t know what kind of television you’re going to get out of this, babe. It’s bad, Kenny baby.”

Junie and Wade exchanged a look.

“Yeah, well,” Charlie continued, “you’re a friggin’
saint, then. Because I’m not so sure I agree. This place is the worst I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying a lot.”

Junie wished she could cover Wade’s ears. She didn’t want him to hear Charlie talking about her mom, her house . . . her life like that. Wade caught the pained expression on her face. He gave her a wink, and then stood up.

“Hey!” Wade called down the stairs. “We can hear you, in case you give a shit.”

Charlie looked up the stairs. “Oh, Christ. Disaster pending, part two. Gotta go, babe.” Phone still in hand, she started up the stairs. “Hey, Junie. Good morning! And you’re Wade, the guy who stormed off in a huff, right?” She reached out her free hand, but Wade didn’t shake it. With a calculating glance at the two of them, their tousled hair and the open bedroom door behind them, Charlie grinned. “Well. Looks like you know a little something, and I know a little something.”

“You can’t tell my mom!” Junie blurted. “Please, Charlie. Don’t tell her we were here.”

“What is she going to tell?” Wade put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “That we got here before the crew? Big deal. You’re an early riser. Me too. We both got up early and met here. What’s wrong with that?”

That was good. But Junie had already blown it, and Charlie knew it.

“So I take it that your mom doesn’t know about you two being here all night. And I take it that she wouldn’t take it so well. Correctamundo, kids?”

“We just got here,” Wade insisted.

“Right.” Charlie raised her eyebrows. “Look, I’m
taking my leverage where I can get it. We all know that Marla has no idea that you spent the night with Mister Lover Boy here. Come on, fess up. Let’s not waste time.”

“Of course she doesn’t know,” Junie said. She sank down onto the top step. “Please don’t say anything. She’d kill me.”

“She probably would,” Charlie said. “So I won’t tell Marla if you don’t tell her what I said to Kendra. And you don’t tell Kendra that you heard me at all. Deal?”

“Deal.” Junie sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

“I don’t know what you’re thanking her for. I still say we just got here.” Wade shrugged. “But okay. Deal.”

Wade shook Charlie’s hand, and Junie followed suit. They all went downstairs together, and whether the crew didn’t care or didn’t notice, no one said anything and there were no fishy looks, even though it wasn’t even seven o’clock in the morning.

Wade and Junie made their way to the catering truck, which was already in full swing, with carafes of coffee and baskets of muffins and doughnuts and those little boxes of cereal, bowls of fruit salad, and a menu board with a list of hot food that they could order.

“What do you want?” Junie asked Wade, but he was distracted, watching the crew bring in the cameras and lights and the rest of the gear. “Wade?”

“Do you think I could hang out here today?” The question was for her, but his eyes were locked on the gear truck and the folding table outside, where the crew was checking out their equipment for the day.

Junie wasn’t so sure she wanted him there, but there
wasn’t any real way of saying that without making it into a big deal. He sensed her reservations, though.

“Not in a watch-the-freak-show kind of way,” he added. “To be here for you.”

“Yeah, right.” Junie laughed. “You want to see the whole behind-the-scenes business, don’t you?”

“I won’t lie. It’s true. But the bigger reason is that I want to be here for you.”

Junie grinned at him. “If I recall correctly, you called
The Kendra Show
‘crap.’”

“Sure, I totally think it’s crap. But it fills a niche, you know? She’s figured out what the people want. I can admire that, even if I don’t like how they work, or how they edit, or how they produce the whole package.”

“You think they’ll make my mom look bad?”

“Yeah.” Wade nodded. “Really bad. But you know how it works. The first part of the show is how awful it all is, and then the second part of the show is how Kendra made it all better. Maybe that’s what makes it different from documentaries.”

“Well, even if you put it that way . . .” Junie thought carefully about what he’d said. She knew he was right. “If Kendra can make her better, then I’m okay with it.”

“And I can stay and watch what’s going on?”

“Sure,” Junie said. “And I’ll be here anyway. There’s no way I’m going back to school today. Or possibly ever again. I’ll introduce you to Bob.”

Just then, the black SUV pulled up and the driver opened the door for Junie’s mother. She climbed out, her face pale, clutching her purse to her chest like an old lady
worried about it getting snatched. Junie could tell just by looking at her that her mother had had a hard night. She didn’t like being away from her chair in the living room, for one, let alone the house. Add to that the reason why it was all happening, and Junie was pretty sure that her mother was mere degrees away from a complete and total meltdown. Her house was being gutted, along with all its clutter—which defined her life—so in essence, her life was being gutted. And all on one of the most popular shows in the history of modern culture. Junie felt a genuine pang of sympathy for her mother, something that she hadn’t felt for a very, very long time.

“Mom!” Junie ran over and gave her a big hug. “Dad said I could come back. How are you?”

“Morning, sweetheart.” Her voice was flat, almost robotic. She let Junie hug her, while she stood and stared at the house and didn’t say anything at all about the argument with Junie’s dad. She didn’t even notice Wade standing right there in front of her, beside Junie. Instead, she pulled away from Junie and dug in her purse. She pulled out a pill bottle, undid the cap and popped one under her tongue. She caught Junie’s disapproving look. “Ativan. Just to get me going, okay? You’ve got to admit this is a pretty big deal. I think I have the right to feel some anxiety over it. Nigel prescribed this for me, but I’m only taking one in the morning.” She tucked the bottle away. “He’s counting them. He says I have to feel the emotions, difficult or not.”

Junie rolled her eyes. “That sure sounds like
The Kendra Show
to me.”

“She’s coming today. Just for a bit while they take
away my chair.” Her mother chuckled to herself. “I suppose that sort of thing makes ‘wicked good television,’ to quote Charlie.”

Junie could already imagine it. Kendra holding one of her mother’s hands, Dr. Nigel holding the other, as the Got Junk boys carted away her precious chair, where she’d been stuck for years. Charlie was right. It would make exactly the kind of television Kendra was famous for. That should make the Falcon happy.

When Bob arrived, Junie introduced him to Wade, and he agreed to let Wade follow him around for the day. Junie’s mother was so overwhelmed with everything going on that when Junie reintroduced them, she hardly blinked. Just shook his hand, murmured a quiet apology for how it had gone before and then shuffled inside to face the day.

“Is she going to be okay?” Wade asked, watching her disappear.

“I don’t know,” Junie said. “I don’t know.”

Clearing out the house was a most unglamorous process, despite Kendra being one of
People
magazine’s “Most Beautiful People of the Year,” every year. Junie figured that she maintained her Most Beautiful standing by making herself scarce during the dirtiest, foulest parts of her show.