June, Reimagined (30)



“I should have prayed for you, Josh.” June wrapped the urn in the hoodie and placed it in her suitcase. She finished clearing the room of her belongings for the new occupants, who were due to arrive in Knockmoral later that night, and grabbed the letter addressed to her parents off the dresser. Inside were pictures from around Knockmoral, snapshots of her life in Scotland.

June dragged her bag and backpack down the hallway, camera slung around her neck. She wasn’t sure what was heavier, her luggage or her being. Not only was she mourning and missing Matt, but now she had to spend five days under Lennox’s roof. Not wanting to leave just yet, she detoured down the long hallway toward Eva’s room on the other side of the house. She stopped and knocked on the door, and Eva beckoned her in.

David was sitting on Eva’s bed, still dressed like a Jacobite and sipping whisky.

June leaned against the doorframe. “Whisky sounds nice right about now.”

“An artist is never low on two things—booze and anxiety.” Eva held up the bottle and clinked David’s glass.

“And insecure conceit,” he said and slugged down a gulp.

Eva’s black glasses matched her black turtleneck and jeans and made the writer look like a proper beatnik poet. She handed a full glass of whisky to June. “Cheer up, love,” she said. “Will staying with Lennox really be that bad?”

“Is getting eaten by a lion one joint at a time really that bad?” June countered.

She lumbered into the room and sat next to David, who put his arm around her and said, “‘There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.’”

“At least he’s a hot lion,” Eva offered. “You’ll have a good view as he eats you.”

At that, June actually smiled.

Eva’s bedroom was scant, not unlike June’s: a bed, a dresser, a simple bathroom. A desk with a laptop sat at the large window overlooking the backyard. But the most interesting aspect of Eva’s room were the sheets of paper, fifty-two in total, lining her wall like a mismatched quilt of white rectangles and black words. Each was the last written page of one of Eva’s unfinished stories. The wall was a homage to ideas never seen to completion. With a few of them, Eva had gotten so frustrated she had stopped midsentence, printed the page, hung it on the wall, and never looked at it again—like a dangling conversation cut short.

June was mesmerized by the wall. So many unfinished stories on display would have paralyzed her. But to Eva, they were a reminder of a commitment to seeking out stories that meant something to her, and to not being owned by them out of obligation or fear that another might never come along. As June sat with her whisky in hand, the room came into focus. The light through Eva’s window cast the perfect highlights and shadows.

“Don’t move,” June said.

She saw the image in her head before she snapped the picture. Just yesterday she had bought a roll of black-and-white film, perfect for the shot. She moved around the room, capturing Eva and the wall of unfinished stories from multiple angles.

“Another artist in the house?” David said.

June felt she wasn’t skilled enough. “No. I’m just playing around. Lennox gave me the camera.”

“He did, did he?” Eva’s tone was too suggestive for June’s liking.

“He was getting rid of it,” June explained. “He would have given it to anyone.”

Eva turned to David. “What is the number one motivating factor for men?”

David said, “Sex.”

Eva looked at June with a smirk. “See.”

“Lennox does not want to have sex with me.” June put her camera back in the case and took a long pull of whisky.

“Lennox wants to have sex with you,” David said matter-of-factly.

June spit out a bit of her drink. “Did he tell you that?”

“No,” David said, “but one thing is true for all men. We want sex. Anytime. Anywhere. I’m just saying he’s considered the possibility of having sex with you. He’s probably imagined it, too . . . a few times.”

June slugged down the rest of her drink. Maybe it was possible Lennox had considered it, like he considered his wardrobe in the morning. A passing glance at a shirt hanging in a closet full of other shirts. No doubt the thought ended quickly and with a twinge of regret. June refilled her glass and tried to sound nonchalant. “I think he might be with someone already.”

That caught Eva’s attention. “Why?”

June shrugged. “I found an earring in his car.”

“So what? That’s nothing,” Eva stated. “It could be Amelia’s.”

“Believe me, it was not nothing.”

“In the six months I’ve lived here,” Eva said, “I’ve never even seen a woman come out of his house.”

June wasn’t about to tell Eva and David about her eavesdropping, but Isobel, whoever she was, meant something to Lennox. June was sure of that. “Maybe he only goes to her place,” she offered. “He is gone a lot.”

Eva bit her lip. “No. Doesn’t feel right. Something doesn’t fit.”

None of this was June’s business, anyway. The less she knew about Lennox, the better, but she couldn’t deny how intrigued she was, and his clear desire for privacy only captivated June that much more. She swirled the remainder of her whisky around the glass. “Do you know what happened to their parents?”

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