Juniper gave herself just a moment with her back turned to collect the book and flip through the binder of songs and activities that Cora had gathered. She was sure India wasn’t the only person she knew in the crowd, but she was grateful that no one else had come forward. At least, not yet. After the finger-puppet play and the rhymes, and the lap bounce Juniper had picked out about bunnies, others would want to say hello. To poke around for some gossip to go with their lunch dates that would surely take place post–Mom & Tot Hour.
You can do this, Juniper told herself.
But when she turned around, a smile affixed to her face like an accessory and a benign introduction on her tongue, she knew she had been wrong.
Ashley sat front and center.
It had been almost fifteen years since Juniper had seen her former best friend, but Ashley was still immediately recognizable as the girl Juniper had known. Her hair was streaked platinum and longer than she had worn it in high school, and she was soft in all the places a mother should be. But she was Ashley through and through, from the fine line of her graceful jaw to the way she tilted her head just a degree to the right. Ashley had a little dark-haired girl balanced on her crossed legs, and her eyes were glittering with cold fury. The fact that Ashley had remained at the library when she realized Juniper was hosting story hour, and that she had taken the closest seat so she could stare Juniper down, spoke volumes to the scope and intensity of her ire. Clearly it hadn’t abated in the years that Juniper had been in exile.
Juniper was horrified to feel her cheeks begin to redden, her eyes grow hot and damp. The children’s section was small, and there were easily a dozen women with their kids seated on the floor in front of her, so she looked away from Ashley and made an offhand excuse about an overactive boiler. There were some polite chuckles and one of the little boys sneezed, setting off a flurry of “God bless yous” that gave Juniper the few seconds she needed to gather herself. She wrestled her emotions into submission, then proceeded to fill an entire hour with expressive book-reading and the kinds of nurturing, sensory-rich activities that she had rarely had the chance to do with Willa.
“That was amazing!” India told her when it was all over and the mothers were helping to put hand puppets and carpet squares back in their designated places. “One of the best classes we’ve ever had. You’re a natural, June. I hope you plan on staying!”
Juniper was shaky and weak, as drained as if she had just finished running a marathon instead of reading books with babies. She could feel a sheen of sweat cooling along her hairline, and she was sure she looked like an absolute wreck. But she mustered a flimsy smile for India and a few of the other women who lingered. Ashley was not among them.
As if she could read Juniper’s mind, India said, “And how great that Ashley Patterson came today! You two were BFFs in high school, right? I bet you have a lot of catching up to do!”
A noise from the entryway made everyone look toward where Ashley was struggling to pop her daughter’s arm through the puffy sleeve of a quilted coat. She scoffed one more time, just to make her derision crystal clear. “June and I were never friends,” she called over the space between them. “And it’s Ashley Tate, India. I haven’t been a Patterson in over twelve years.”
How could anyone forget it? Ashley had married Sullivan Tate in a ceremony that had made a mini-splash in the tristate wedding community when it was touted as The Perfect Prairie Wedding and picked up by a handful of bridal sites. Juniper hadn’t been invited, of course, but that didn’t stop her from furtively searching the internet for evidence of their nuptials. It had been gorgeous. Ashley in a dress the color of fresh cream, Sullivan in a gray tux that he somehow managed to render both casual and sharp. They posed in front of a wind-washed red barn and at the apex of an unmaintained gravel road with nothing but the sunset blazing like a wildfire behind them. It was exquisite, all of it. The stuff dreams were made of. In the end, Ashley’s dream came true.
Juniper felt flayed open, her heart shuddering with each vulnerable, exposed thump. Ashley had known the real Juniper, the girl on the cusp of womanhood who had been simply, earnestly June. And Ashley loathed her. She dissected Juniper with a look, glared at her across the polished floors and the stacks of books and the shocked gathering of young moms. Then she swung her daughter into her arms, spun on the heel of her lambskin boot, and stalked out of the library. The door slammed behind her.
* * *
“She took a picture of you, you know.”