June, Reimagined (72)
“We know you think this story is almost finished.” Eva pulled a piece of paper from her notebook and handed it to June. “But maybe it’s just the beginning.”
“What is it?” June asked.
“Your inciting incident, perhaps,” Eva said. “Should you choose to accept it.”
June opened the paper, a printed email.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Art show
Hiya Eva—
Thanks so much for sending me a sample of your mate’s work. You’re right. It’s brilliant. I’d like to offer her a spot in our upcoming summer art show. It runs from June 1 to August 31. The gallery takes a 25% commission on all sales, but it’s a good opportunity to showcase her photography and get exposure around Edinburgh. We see a lot of foot traffic during tourist season.
If you would, please share my contact information with June. I look forward to hearing from her.
Cheers!
Ronan Gill
The Corner Artist
Leith, Edinburgh
“I know you told me to stay out of your business, and I know I didn’t,” Eva said, “but I just had to try.”
“How did you . . .” June couldn’t find her words.
“I stole some of your negatives when I was in your room a few weeks ago and had them reprinted. I tried to tell you about Ronan then, but you were . . . occupied with other things,” Eva said delicately. “Your work is bloody gorgeous, June. And Ronan is really dialed into the Edinburgh arts scene, so who knows what could come of it. The gallery might be small, but it’s a start, right?”
Tears stung June’s eyes. “Why would you do this for me?”
David wrapped his arm around her. “Because artists survive on the love of other artists.”
“We love you, June Merriweather,” Eva added. “Now, say you’ll join the ranks of the highly sensitive, most introverted, always anxious, best most-fucking-brilliant nobodies you’ll ever meet, and come with us to Thailand.”
June spoke the only words that came to her. “I don’t want to be a teacher.”
The declaration released pent-up tension June didn’t even know she was carrying. She didn’t want to gut out a major she had no interest in. She didn’t want to abide by and appease the members of the Women’s Club of Sunningdale, in their Talbots outfits and Charlie Red perfume. The only reason she had applied for the scholarship in the first place was to escape Josh and his addiction, but that was moot now. June didn’t want to go to Stratford College and live in a house with Allison and three other girls she barely liked. She didn’t want to go to fraternity parties every weekend and drink crappy beer and waste her precious life settling for a mediocre future she didn’t even want.
June didn’t want to go home.
She wanted an inciting incident.
She wanted to be one of the best most-fucking-brilliant nobodies.
“Imagine the pictures you’ll take in Thailand.” Eva smiled.
Thailand. Temples, long-tail boats, crowded markets. Kelly-green rice terraces, aqua-blue water, saffron-robed monks. June could capture it all.
Just then the pub door burst open, sending a chill through the crowded room. Hamish rushed in, panting like a tired dog. Sweat dripped down his forehead. He ran up to June and grabbed her arms. “Where’s Angus? We need help.”
“What the hell is going on?” June asked. And then a smell she had grown intimately familiar with followed Hamish into the pub. The scent of a cozy fire after a long run in the Scottish rain.
Eva gasped, her pint slipping from her hands and shattering on the floor. Her face was sheet white. “Bloody hell. I forgot to blow out the candle.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
It had been a perfect storm: an unseasonably warm day, a cracked window, a slight breeze. One sheet came loose in a room decorated with paper, fell like a dried leaf, swaying with gravity and grace, and landed on the flame of a lavender candle. As the fire caught, it burned more paper, then clothes and towels and bedsheets, then wood.
June ran from the pub, toward the inn. Unknowingly, she had trained for this moment. Her legs were strong. Her breath was steady. The alcohol buzz dissolved into clarity and focus. June should have been thinking about her pictures or clothes or passport or the stash of pound notes carefully zipped in her backpack that she needed for a plane ticket. But all she saw was the shelf in a dark corner of her closet, the urn hidden in the shadows.
As many times as June had considered lifting the lid and taking out Josh’s remains, prying open the plastic bag, and letting her brother go to the wind, she had never followed through. She couldn’t let go of Josh until her guilt was absolved. Until then, her burden remained.
June’s chest pulled tight, her lungs squeezing the life out of her, as she ran toward the inn, where the Knockmoral Fire and Rescue crew, mostly volunteers, tried to contain the blaze. Extensive damage already scarred one wing of the building. Red, yellow, and orange flames clawed out of Eva’s window like the hand of a demon trying to get loose.
June reasoned that she could be in and out within a minute. She mapped her course in her head: up the main staircase, down the hall to the left, four steps into her room. She might even be able to hold her breath. With the fire on the other side of the house, she could make a safe exit. She would crawl if she had to.