by Carrie Mac
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.
The Got Junk boys were using shovels on the bottom third of the basement. They all wore hazmat suits tucked into rubber boots. They wore the hoods of their suits up and cinched around their faces, and with the bulky gas masks on top of that, they looked like aliens doing hard labour. Charlie asked Junie and her mother not to wear the suits and masks for a few minutes, “because it distances you from the audience,” so Junie was breathing through her nose while she and her mother sorted through a stack of mouldering boxes at the far end of the basement, with latex gloves on. The boxes were all filled with stuffed animals, whose tired plush fur was matted and festering from years of being in the damp basement.
Junie’s mother let her chuck the contents of the first box into the large black garbage bag, although she was quietly looking away and wringing her hands as she did. Bob stood behind them, his camera levelled at them. Wade stood beside him, operating the boom with a huge grin on his face, which Junie knew was there even if he was wearing a big mask and she could only see the smile in his eyes.
Halfway through the second box, her mother lunged forward, grabbing a flattened panda bear from Junie’s grasp.
“Not that one. We’re keeping him.”
“Why?” Junie snapped. “It’s mouldy, Mom.”
Her mother patted the bear, smoothing his fur. “Your father won him for you at the fair. Don’t you remember?”
Junie shook her head and grabbed the bear back before stuffing it into the garbage along with the others.
Her mother glanced at the cameras, the garbage bag, Junie, and then hollered, “Nigel!”
Bob peeked around his camera and mouthed, “He’s getting a coffee.”
“Go get Nigel,” her mother instructed.
“Go get him yourself!” Junie threw down the bag.“What do you need him for?”
Behind them, Bob was gesturing for one of the Got Junk guys to go fetch Nigel.
“He’s going to remind you that I’m in charge here, not you. Things go only if I say they do. He said that I can say yea or nay when I want. That I can have a say about each and every single thing in this house.”
“But Mom . . .” Junie sighed. “Why would you want to keep a soggy, rotten old stuffie of mine that I don’t even remember?”
“You might want it later.” Her mother fished in the bag and retrieved the bear, setting it in a box marked Keep beside her. It was already full, as were several more labelled the same way, circling her feet like puppies. Two other boxes were marked Toss and Donate, but there wasn’t much in them. “In fact, you might want the giraffe, too.” She fished in the garbage bag and pulled out a small giraffe.
Junie sighed again. She was trying to be patient, but it wasn’t going very well. If the cameras hadn’t been there, she’d have been stran
gling her mother right about now. But then again, if the cameras hadn’t been there, they wouldn’t have been nearly done clearing out the basement in the first place. “And why, Mother, would I want that stinking, filthy, musty, crusty old giraffe?”
“We bought it for you the day of your grandfather’s funeral—”
“Which I was too young to remember. So why would I want a stuffie from the occasion? I don’t even remember the man!”
Nigel minced his way down the stairs and through the piles stacked on the floor. “I understand that I might be of assistance, ladies?”
“Yes,” they both said at once.
“Tell her that I’m in charge.”
“This is true.” Nigel smiled at Junie. “Your mother is in charge.”
“Over my things?”
Nigel paused, considering. “Hmm. Marla . . . do these stuffed animals belong to Junie?”
Junie’s mother reluctantly nodded. “But we got them for her, some of them, anyway. Doesn’t that count as mine, then?”
Junie winced. Her mother sounded like a kindergartner bargaining her way into an extra turn with a prized toy.
Nigel put a hand on her mother’s arm. “Remember what we talked about? How to let go? How to invite not only real space, but mental space into your life, too? Imagine what you can do with that space . . . is it worth giving some of it up for the sake of a couple of stuffed animals that, frankly, need to be professionally sterilized? Is it worth the cost of that? The hassle? When your daughter doesn’t even want them?”
Junie’s mother clutched the panda bear and giraffe to her bosom.
Junie shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
“Talk to me, Junie.” Nigel nodded, coaxing her to continue.
“Those mouldy, maggot-ridden stuffies are more important to her than her own daughter.”
“Good, good. Feeling is good. This is what you’re feeling right now . . .” Nigel spun his hands in front of him, rolling with it. “Tell me more.”
Junie glanced at the camera. At Wade. But she didn’t care. They’d already seen so much. There was no taking it all back now. “She’s choosing those over me.”
“I’m not,” her mother protested, still clutching the bear and giraffe to her.
“And we still have six more big boxes to go. And she’s going to keep choosing her shit over me. Over and over, like she has done my entire life.”
“Not true.” Junie’s mother dropped her chin to her chest and rolled her shoulders forward, as if trying to fold herself inward and away from the moment, taking the bear and the giraffe with her.
“Then put the damn stuffies into the garbage bag.” Junie held the bag open and stared hard at her mother.
Her mother glanced up. She blinked away tears. Shook her head. “Just these two. I promise you. You can throw away the other boxes without even opening them.” Even as she said it, Junie didn’t believe her. It was one bargain after another for her mother. She would never let them just chuck everything. If she would, the house would have been cleared out by now.
“Put them in the bag, Mom.”
“No.”
“Marla. Focus.” Nigel gripped her shoulder and looked her in the eye. “Take a moment, Marla. Okay? Deep breath in, let it out nice and slow. In through the nose, hold it, out through your mouth. That’s it. Close your eyes, deep breath in. Let it out, nice and slow. Think. Think about your choice. You are in charge. No one here is arguing that fact. You need to be on board with each and every decision being made here today. Deep breath in, let it out. Nice and slow. Let the calm come over you like a warm blanket. You’re safe. You’re loved. You’re strong. You can do this.”
With that, he dropped his hands and took a step away and stared at her, like a hypnotist waiting for his victim to start clucking like a chicken, as ordered. Moments passed. Junie snuck a glance at Wade. She rolled her eyes. He nodded, his eyes agreeing.
Junie’s mother snapped her eyes open. “I’m keeping them.”
Junie gasped. After all that? She was going to keep them?
“You have got to be kidding me!”
Junie dropped the bag. She kicked over the nearest Keep box and stormed across the basement to the stairs. Bob and his camera followed her, Wade stumbling behind him, clutching the cumbersome boom. Another camera crew that had been filming the Got Junk guys swung their camera toward her mother.
“You’re still choosing all this crap over your own kid! Unbelievable!”
Junie took two steps up the stairs and then shook her head and turned. She stomped across to her mother, yanked the stuffed animals out of her hands and ran out the back door and up the steps to the yard, where a large bonfire was taking care of all the scrap wood and broken furniture and piles of old newspapers. Junie hurled the stuffies into the flames, feeling instantly better as she did. She could hear her mother lumbering up the stairs behind her, crying.
“No, Junie! Please don’t!”
Junie spun. “Too late.”
Her mother heaved herself up the last step and then crumpled down as Bob and Wade manoeuvred around her to reset the shot. Nigel squatted on the step below her and murmured quiet, comforting words to her, glancing up at Junie as he did.
“Junie,” he said as he stood up. “Would you like to come over here and apologize to your mother?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
Wade gave her a thumbs-up, and right then she wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him and beg him to take her away from all of this. But all of a sudden the crowd gathered on the street in front of the house erupted in cheers. No doubt about what that meant: Kendra herself had returned.
Junie sank to the grass in front of the fire. She stared at the flames, willing herself to throw herself onto them. Charlie appeared from the side yard.
“Marla! Junie! Come with me, guys.”
Junie didn’t take her eyes from the flames. She watched the giraffe melt onto the bear, and then the two of them twist and burn into a fist of hot, sticky ash.
“Come on, quick like bunnies, people!” Charlie marched straight to Junie’s mother and tried to haul her up, but she was stuck, sobbing, face buried in her hands. “For God’s sake. Then you, Junie. Come on!”
Junie didn’t argue. She let Charlie grip her arm and drag her around to the front of the house so that she could be front and centre and in the shots when Kendra emerged from the SUV.
TWENTY-TWO
Kendra had just celebrated her fiftieth birthday the month before. All the A-list celebrities had feted her, and the president of the United States himself had made an appearance in person at her Hollywood birthday bash to wish her Happy Birthday and thank her for her support during his campaign for office. Yet she didn’t look a day over thirty as she let one of her security guards help her out of the SUV. Even though she already had her television makeup on, she didn’t look overdone. And she’d sworn time and time again that she was against any kind of cosmetic surgery, so her youthful good looks were all her own . . . unless she was lying.
“Stay here.” Charlie propped Junie up against the front door and then muttered to herself, “Screw it, I’m going back for your mother. Kendra will shoot me between the eyes if I leave her back there.”
While she ran around the side of the house, Tabitha slid up beside Junie.
“Hey. You okay?”
“No.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Shoot absolutely everyone here—myself included— between the eyes?” Junie let out a big, defeated sigh. “Not you. Or Wade. You can be spared. Left alive to arrange to have my ashes strewn along the beach. That’s the done thing, right?”
“No can do, Junie. But my mom okayed me skipping. She said being your main support would be education enough for today.”
Kendra took a few steps, placing herself so that the crowd could catch a glimpse of her. The hundreds of people broke into a loud frenzy, thankfully distracting the camera crew from the ugly sight of Nigel and Charl
ie dragging Junie’s mother back around to the front.
“Kendra!”
“We love you, Kendra!”
“Sign my T-shirt, Kendra! Please!”
By the time Kendra was done with her brief session of royal waves and a few choice autographs for near-hysterical fans, Junie’s mother was looking a little less pale and woozy. She stood close to Junie, as she’d been instructed to, but didn’t say a word to her. Junie followed suit, the two of them ignoring each other with steely expressions and glares darkening their eyes. Until Kendra started her stylish stroll up the sidewalk and Charlie growled at the two of them to smile, godammit, smile.
“Ladies, Nigel,” she purred as she approached Junie, her mother and Tabitha. “How are things progressing?”
“Beautifully,” Nigel replied for them all, when it was clear that Junie’s mother was in no state to speak and Junie would only bark negatives at her. “Why don’t we step inside, away from all of this hubbub, and we can give you an update? Sound good, Kendra?” Nigel smiled warmly, well practised at the art of working the camera to his and Kendra’s advantage.
Nigel let Kendra and Junie’s mother inside, leaving Junie alone with Tabitha. Tabitha pointed at Wade, who was trailing behind Bob, boom wavering overhead.
“Explain.”
Junie got them coffee and brownies from the catering truck, and then led Tabitha to the front step so they could sit down. She told her about the night before.
“Did you—?”
“No.”
“Cribbage?”
“No, Tabitha. No cribbage, either.” Junie blushed deeply, and for the umpteenth time swung her head in each direction, checking for cameras pointing her way. This was one moment that she really did not want televised.
“Because that’s a little too much to be getting up to with everything else going on, and . . . AND . . . you’ve only been dating Wade for a few weeks. You’re not that girl.”
“Not the kind of girl to play cribbage alone with a boy?”
“Exactly.” Tabitha narrowed her eyes, giving Junie a stern look. “And you know exactly what I mean.” Junie and Tabitha sat for a moment, brownies perched untouched on their knees, until the front door swung open and Charlie popped her head out.