June (8 page)

By the time June neared Front Street, they had started shooting, the imperative “Quiet on the set!” reverberating through the crowd. Nearly everyone in town had flocked to the other end of Center Square, where they could get a better view. Hidden as the St. Judians were by the elms, hushed as they were by their handler, and distracted as June was by her imminent reunion, she saw that day only as her mother had planned it. She paced herself on the sidewalk. Scanned down over her body filling out the new dress; she was not a girl in pigtails anymore. She found the part of her that liked that truth, and clenched it.

With fifteen minutes until the bus arrived, June was already at Center Square. She’d take a walk around it once, and keep herself on a slow tread. She crossed Front Street gingerly, hardly noticing the particular emptiness of the sidewalks and brushing aside the occasional bubbling murmur from the far side of the elms. Something was going on down there—a burst pipe maybe, or a fender bender—but it was none of her concern. She had to focus all her goodness on Artie’s arrival; she couldn’t let anything get in the way of this stroll. She held her head high and pasted a smile across her lips, so everyone in St. Jude would see how happy, how ready, she was to become Mrs. Artie Danvers.

“Ma’am? Ma’am? You’ll have to go around.” A bespectacled stranger holding a clipboard stood in her path. He was young, but already a man. He scowled.

June stepped to the left and he matched her, blocking her from moving forward. She stepped to the right and there he was again. “Excuse me,” she said briskly, pointing toward the end of the green. “I’m on my way to meet my fiancé’s bus.” She noticed then that Mrs. Dammeyer’s lawn down on the end there was filled with neighbors, all jostling for a glimpse of something June didn’t understand.

Once again she tried to edge around the man, if you could call him that. Once again, he stopped her. “You’re right in the middle of our shot.”

The movie—she’d forgotten all about the movie. The memory of Lindie’s excitement over those ridiculous magazines flushed June with frustration, and this imperious little man blocking her way made it worse. All she wanted to do was meet Artie’s bus.

“Well, you’re right in the middle of the bus stop,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “and my fiancé is due to arrive on the nine o’clock bus from Columbus.”

He shook his head triumphantly. “The bus has been diverted.”

“Where?”

“Hell if I know.”

June could see he was actually enjoying this, enjoying swearing at her and making her wait. His colleagues behind him were starting to get restless. They were calling to him, removing the caps from their heads.

June crossed her arms. “Well I’m going nowhere until you say where the bus is stopping, since you’re the reason it’s not where it’s supposed to be.” She could feel the eyes of the crowd, the crew, and the extras turning in her direction, noting her haughty air. But she thought she might cry if she couldn’t get Artie’s arrival over with, once and for all.

Just then, Darlene Kipp emerged, wailing, from Memorial High. She was a sight—tearstained face, hair a-tangle, the overlong skirt of her costume gathered in her fists. She spotted June with the man and redoubled her sobs, running toward him. He blanched at the sight of her, and June felt momentarily triumphant, until Darlene was upon them and wailing, “They attacked me! They attacked me!”

“Miss, please,” the little man said distastefully, “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

Darlene shuddered under a forced sob. “That horrible little seamstress-man stabbed me with a pair of scissors, and that awful little friend of yours Linda”—here she turned on June—“was his accomplice.”

The man sighed down over his clipboard, shaking his head. “I’ll be back soon, ladies.” He headed over the bridge and toward the crew, who, along with the rest of the town, was watching June and Darlene with a great deal of interest. The crew formed a huddle around the man, heads shaking, fingers wagging, shoulders raised in consternation.

June turned on Darlene, who had stopped crying the instant the man walked off. Darlene’s frown had been replaced by a satisfied smile that June wanted to smack right off her face.

“How do you have room for all that meanness? You’re such a scrawny little thing,” June said in a low voice.

“I have witnesses”—Darlene sniffed—“so you shut your mouth right now, June Watters. Besides, you know as well as I do that you’re only going to make it worse if you try to help that wretched Linda Sue.”

“What I know,” said June, who’d had it up to her eyeballs with this day, “is if you want to come dance with dumb old Charlie Philips at my wedding, you’ll keep your own mouth shut, leave my friend alone, and get off this set at once.”

Darlene’s hand was on her hip, her lips pursed tight. “If that freaky little friend of yours comes near me one more time I swear I’ll gut her like a—”

In an instant, Darlene’s eyes went from flashing at June to jumping to something right behind June’s head, which, at once, caused her ugly little face to melt into extraordinary softness, as though her true self had flitted out from behind a dark mask she’d been wearing her whole life. A doughy smile brightened her wide mouth.

Confused, June turned to discover a tall, broad man standing just behind her, hand poised to tap her shoulder. She recognized him at once, but she couldn’t quite make sense of him. It was as if each part of his face disappeared as she glanced at the next bit of him—nose, eyelashes, ears, smile. She tried to place his name, but her mind churned too slowly. She knew, with certainty, that she’d never seen him in her life. And yet she also had, which was impossible, until she thought of the stack of Lindie’s movie magazines now lying on her floor.

Jack Montgomery. Could it be? The man standing before her looked everything and nothing like the Jack Montgomery in Lindie’s magazines.

June’s limbs were numb, her mouth was dry. She felt suspended in time as she watched the man tip his hat and utter words she couldn’t quite comprehend, bending to kiss Darlene’s hand and apologizing for any unpleasantness that might have occurred in the costume area.

Darlene waved her hand breezily. “It’s no trouble,” she gushed.

The movie star suggested Darlene might want to go back for a proper fitting before shooting began for the day; he insisted she push to see Ethel and Ethel alone. “Ethel’s the best there is,” he said. “Which is why she’ll be hard to get. But you, my dear, deserve the very best.” He kissed Darlene’s hand, winked, and offered a playful bow. Darlene nodded a dreamy assent and practically floated off toward the high school, turning more than once to wave and giggle.

Once Darlene was out of earshot, he turned to June, who had caught up to herself. Jack Montgomery was just a man standing before her, like any other man, handsome, yes, smelling of Brylcreem, but also weathered, real, with a touch of tobacco, and the salty dusting of leftover sweat. His eyes were an extraordinary, odd, violet—the color of the sky just before a summer shower, although his hair was as jet-black in real life as it appeared on screen. It was odd to discover she felt calm, now that he was close to her. That he felt familiar.

“That should get rid of her for a while,” he said brightly.

“I beg your pardon?”

He leaned in as if they shared a joke. “There is no Ethel.”

“Oh,” June managed, wondering how much of her conversation with Darlene he’d overheard. Where had he come from? She felt a little dizzy, a little strange, as if under a spell.

“I liked how you stood up for your friend,” he said.

Could it be that Jack Montgomery was just plain nice? Just the kind of person who’d help out someone he didn’t know? She was about to ask how he liked St. Jude when he lifted a finger.

“So I heard you want to be in my picture.”

She felt herself blush. “No,” she said. “I want to know about the bus.”

“I can get you a speaking part.” Was he teasing her? Or did he mean it? He pointed toward the man with the clipboard, who was watching them, along with a lot of other people, from the other side of the canal. “I know the guys in charge.”

June felt the eyes of her neighbors and the movie people darting all over her curve-hugging number. The rouge on her cheeks that had seemed fresh at home now felt brazen. “I’m sorry to trouble you.”

“Not very sorry. Not sorry enough to give up.”

She blinked back hot, embarrassed tears. “Well, if he’d only told me where to—”

A wary kindness softened Jack’s stormy eyes. “Don’t let old Danny get to you. He’s a sad little fellow with a sad little job.” He did his best impression of a gatekeeper, frowning over a clipboard, wagging his finger.

“What’s it going to be,” he said quietly, intimately, “you in or not? You drive a hard bargain but my final offer is a supporting role.”

June felt her embarrassment recede now that Jack’s eyes were on her. The world had hushed around them; everyone was waiting to see what he’d do next. And he seemed to be waiting on her.

She shook the cobwebs from her head, forcing herself to think of Artie. “I just want to know about the bus.”

“Right,” he said, wagging his long, straight finger in recognition. “The fiancé. Someone mentioned a fiancé.”

In the same moment, Lindie emerged from the high school, having narrowly avoided Darlene, and spotted June standing just inside Center Square, flirting with someone who looked impossibly like Jack Montgomery. Lindie backed up behind the overgrown hydrangea and whistled. She couldn’t have dreamed this up, not in a million years, not the way June and the movie star seemed to match each other, how each curved toward the other, how they already appeared to be keeping each other’s secrets.

“Danny!” Jack called, without moving his eyes from June’s.

Danny started coming their way. “Yessir, Mr. Montgomery.”

Jack held up his hand to tell Danny to stay where he was. “The bus stops where?” he called again, twinkling eyes never leaving June’s face. He was putting Danny in his place for June’s sake.

“Cherry Street, sir,” Danny yelled back. “Cherry and Pine.”

“Cherry Street.” Soft, and private, as though she hadn’t just heard the other man yell it, as though it was just the two of them. “Cherry and Pine.” Only a block away, off the green, in front of the library. If she hadn’t been so hotheaded, she’d have guessed it herself.

“Well, thank you very kindly,” June managed, waiting for him to go back to set. Instead, he stood back and bowed, gesturing to the walkway before him. His violet eyes danced over her. She realized the movie star was planning to watch her walk away.

June’s feet took on a life of their own. It was a delicious sensation, walking under the gaze of this man. She felt herself flush, but she couldn’t keep her hips from swaying as she stepped away from him.

Lindie had never seen June walk like that. It was more than the walk, though. It was that she no longer looked like she was playing dress-up. She looked like she’d been made for that tight blue dress, with her hair done up and her lipstick brighter than an apple. Lindie’s collar felt tight as Charlie Philips, racing by to catch a bit of the movie action, stopped to tip his hat. He turned and stumbled and watched June go, so taken with the sight that he didn’t even notice Jack Montgomery standing there beside him. Everyone was watching June. No one had seen a thing like it.

It was 9:06 when June finally dashed around the corner of Cherry and Pine, and 9:07 when Lindie slipped around it and hid behind Mrs. Holcomb’s boxwood hedge. The back of June’s sharp black heel had started to chafe, forming a blister she knew would punish her for weeks to come. But she pressed through, hiding her limp.

She looked like herself again, a little hesitant, a little careful, and Lindie felt a relief she didn’t know how to name. Seeing June so altered by that famous man had made her far less predictable in Lindie’s eyes, which was why Lindie couldn’t resist following her. She figured as long as she came back to set jogging, Casey wouldn’t know she’d been slacking.

They heard the roar of the bus before they saw it. Would Artie Danvers kiss her? Did she want him to? June straightened herself as the bus turned the corner before braking to a sigh at her feet. Would she kiss him back? The doors pushed open. The sun was hitting the windows, so it was hard to make anyone out, but the tall figure fourth in line was sure to be him. First was Mrs. Royce, back from her regular Friday night visit to her daughter’s down in Lancaster. Next, a mother and young son who passed June by, noses in the air, as if she didn’t exist. So the next person off would be Artie.

But it wasn’t. It was the strange, lanky boy who always wore a baseball cap and whom the girls had once seen throw a tin can at a stray dog. After him came a middle-aged woman gathering up her knitting.

June leaned forward after the knitter stepped off the bus. Surely, surely Artie was coming. He had simply let the ladies go out before him. June realized the bus driver was reaching to shut the doors and heard herself shout, “Wait!”

The driver frowned.

“My fiancé’s on this bus,” June said, realizing how unsure she sounded. “Arthur Danvers? He’s tall…he’s, he’s handsome.”

The driver smiled wryly. “No one handsome on my bus today.” He closed the doors in her face, gunned the engine, and rolled off into the morning, leaving her in a cloud of fumes.

June watched the bus go. Artie had fallen asleep on it. Any moment he’d wake up and yell, “Stop this bus!” and it would come screeching to a halt, and he’d dash off and come running toward her, arms outstretched, like something out of a Jack Montgomery movie. Lindie didn’t want June to marry Artie Danvers, but she wanted that grand romantic gesture for June’s sake. She couldn’t bear to see the way her friend’s shoulders slumped, how small she had so quickly become in the large and disappointing world.

The bus drove off.

June stood in front of the library until Mrs. Wilson, who held weekday Bible study in the main reading room—and was apparently of the belief that the St. Judians would rather study Proverbs 31:30 (“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”) than watch Jack Montgomery film the first scene of
Erie Canal
—unlocked the front door and asked June if she’d like to come inside. June said no—she knew better than to be sucked in by Bible study—but neither could she stomach going home, or back to the movie set, or anywhere else in that godforsaken town, and so she hooked her shoes over her fingertips and headed west, letting her stockings fray along her soles, lifting her eyes at Lindie as she passed without a word.

By dinnertime, Lindie had learned a very rough whipstitch, and delivered the Cokes without incident, among a dozen other things. The crew had broken for the day, heading back to their housing on the other side of town. But Lindie didn’t go home. Eben was a believer in Vienna sausages eaten straight from the can, in anchovies and popcorn and the occasional slab of fried Spam; Lindie preferred to beg by Apatha’s kitchen door. Besides, that meant a glimpse of June, although she’d probably still be moping over Artie. Lindie could have walked the block to the far side of Uncle Lem’s house, but her cherry-colored Schwinn, with its bright headlight, sharp little bell, and a backseat carrier made of chrome, offered an irresistible swagger. She still couldn’t shake the sight of June walking saucily away under Jack Montgomery’s gaze.

Apatha opened the Two Oaks kitchen door after Lindie’s first knock. “She’s not with you?” she asked in a low, worried voice.

Lindie’s heart sank. “Artie wasn’t on the bus,” she explained. “And I was working all day.”

Behind Apatha, Lindie noticed a man eating the fried chicken dinner she’d hoped would be hers. His skin was lighter than Apatha’s, but it was dark enough that his presence would be noticed in town. He was younger than her father, but old enough to know better than to slouch over his food. He nodded in Lindie’s direction, but didn’t get up or even say hello.

“My nephew, Thomas,” Apatha explained, as if annoyed with them both. Lindie edged into the warm room, which smelled deliciously of hot oil. A single fly buzzed against the ceiling fan. The oven ticked with leftover heat; the linoleum tiles had been freshly mopped and offered up a lemony scent. The door to the foyer stood open, which was unusual; Cheryl Ann preferred to have her food appear on the dining room table without being reminded of the labor required to make it.

“I didn’t know you had a nephew,” Lindie said. She felt a twinge of jealousy; she’d never seen Apatha with her own blood.

“I didn’t know it was any of your business,” Apatha replied crisply. Now was when she’d usually open the china cabinet, take out a plate, and pile it with a crispy battered chicken thigh and a pillow of mashed potatoes, which would be followed by her special remedy to cure all that ailed: hot milk steamed with honey and vanilla. Instead she called out “Mrs. Watters?” toward the front of the house. She lifted her chin toward Thomas, who wiped his mouth on the napkin.

“Is that her?” Cheryl Ann called out from the front room.

“It’s not my fault,” Lindie griped. Apatha sniffed unsympathetically. Thomas stood in advance of Cheryl Ann’s entrance.

June’s mother marched into the room, fists balled tightly into her doughy hips. “Where is she?” She glowered.

Lindie explained that the younger Mr. Danvers hadn’t gotten off the bus. She left out the part about how this only proved her point that he was not a suitable husband.

But she didn’t need to speak out of turn to make Cheryl Ann’s lips tighten into an angry sphincter. June’s mother needed Lindie, and they both knew it, which only made things worse. “So Arthur missed his bus. That doesn’t excuse this kind of behavior. She’ll come home at once.”

As though Lindie was the one to blame. “I’ll tell her. If I find her,” Lindie added, though there was really only one place June could be.

Cheryl Ann shooed Lindie out the door. “Bring her home. Tell her I won’t tolerate this.” Lindie noticed Apatha rest her hand, briefly, on Thomas’s shoulder, and he sat back down to the half-eaten dinner. The screen door slammed shut. And now Lindie was outside again, empty belly growling. The first mosquito of the season landed on her wrist. She watched Thomas chew his hot meal as she boarded her Schwinn.

Lindie pedaled south, nearly out into the alfalfa fields that bordered that side of St. Jude. But before she reached them, she turned in to the Elm Grove Cemetery, speeding past those gray headboards of eternal rest. Cheryl Ann hadn’t been able to pay to bury Marvin in the cemetery in Lima; it was Uncle Lem’s charity that had afforded this patch of earth.

By the time Lindie got to her, June had weeded every inch of her daddy’s grave. She looked up at Lindie with dry eyes.

The night was hot; Lindie wished she’d brought her canteen. She could have gone for a can or two of Vienna sausages, come to think of it. Instead, she fished a limp Marlboro from her pocket and lit it from a flattened box of matches. Then she slumped down beside June. Their backs pressed up against Marvin Watters’s name. Lindie offered a drag. June took the cigarette with her dirty fingers and drew a long inhale. She was already in trouble with Cheryl Ann; might as well get her money’s worth.

June handed back the cigarette and ran her arm across her chapped mouth.

“Jack Montgomery,” she said. The name was hungry in her mouth.

And Lindie knew June was asking her, telling her, to get him.