The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones Read online

  The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones

  Daven McQueen

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  June 2015

  June 1955

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  July 1955

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  August 1955

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  June 2015

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Dedication

  To my younger self and all the kids like her, wishing for books they could see themselves in. This is for you.

  Author’s Note

  The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones is a story about friendship, family, and growing up. It is also, first and foremost, a story about race. It’s a story about the struggle that it was and is to be black in America. And because that is a hard thing, this story deals heavily with racism in the attitudes and languages of certain characters.

  In this book, white characters use racial epithets such as nigger to refer to black characters; this was not a language choice that I made lightly, but one meant to show the historical (and continuing) use of the word as a slur. If you are not black, please be thoughtful about the harm this language causes when used by non-black people, and use abbreviations like the n-word instead.

  Sometimes, content like this is kept away from teens and younger readers because it might be hard to handle. It is hard to handle. But even though this book is fiction, antiblackness is an undeniable reality. These characters have lived it; I’ve lived it, and maybe you have too. That’s why it was important to me to tell this story as honestly as I knew how—in hopes that one person might read it and empathize with someone different from them, and that another might read it and feel seen.

  June 2015

  As seems to be the custom, bad news comes with the afternoon mail: the news that his granddaughter was rejected from her top-choice college, then a call to jury duty. Today, though, it is much worse. The death of someone he knew many years ago, accompanied by an invitation to the funeral in Ellison, Alabama. When he reads the name, typed in curled script, he knows that he will be attending.

  It has been sixty years.

  Frozen on the front stoop with the door wide open, Ethan leaves the rest of the mail discarded on the doormat. His fingers, gnarled and spotted with age, shake as they cling to the ornamented piece of paper. Slowly, he stumbles back into the house. He stops when he knocks into the kitchen table but doesn’t feel the pain.

  A mug tips over and spirals to the floor. The blue porcelain shatters with a sickening series of cracks, sending sharp fragments skidding about Ethan’s feet. His wife comes down the stairs.

  “Honey?” she calls, appearing in the doorway in her slippers. She sees the mess and tsks quietly, shaking her head as she tiptoes over the pieces and retrieves a brush and dustpan from the cupboard.

  “What happened?” She groans with the effort of crouching down. Her hair is pulled into a wrap, but a few stray curls slip out and fall around her face. Ethan watches as she sweeps up the mess, leaving the checkered tiles clean, but he doesn’t know where to start. As she tips the dustpan into the trash and returns to his side, he holds out the letter to her without a word.

  She takes it from him gently as one thin hand pushes her glasses up her nose. He watches her lips move as they always do when she’s reading something to herself; he watches her face change, her lips droop, and her eyes widen as she continues down the page.

  “Oh,” she murmurs, finishing the letter and letting it drift from her hand and onto the kitchen table. “I see.” That is Eleanor—always matter of fact. It’s how she has always been. It’s how she was, all those years ago, when he first told her about what had happened to him in Ellison, Alabama. But she is compassionate too, and just like that, she is holding him, shielding him from that town thousands of miles away.

  When she pulls away, he is surprised to find that her eyes are damp. Ethan touches his own cheek and feels no tears. He is numb.

  “I have to go,” he says hoarsely. They both stare down at the piece of paper as if it might catch fire at any moment.

  “You don’t.” Eleanor’s voice is sharp. “You don’t owe that place anything.”

  Ethan shakes his head. “It’s not for them. It’s for me.”

  She places her hands on his arms, squeezing tightly. When she looks at him, he knows she understands. “Closure,” she says, and he nods.

  “After all these years.”

  Eleanor sighs. “Fine. But you don’t need to do this alone.”

  “I know.” He squeezes her hand. “And I’m so grateful to you for that. But I think it’s better if I do.”

  Eleanor strokes his cheek. She looks just as beautiful now—gray hair, wrinkles, and all—as she had in college, when he was just a wide-eyed freshman and she was only a sophomore. She had been president of the Black Student Union, and he had fallen in love with her at that very first meeting. Nearly fifty years of marriage and she still challenged him every day—but right now, she takes a step back. She looks at him with a sad, understanding half smile and nods—because she knows what he can handle. And so does he. After everything, this is nothing.

  “Okay,” she says. “But if you change your mind . . .”

  He nods. “I know.” He smiles at her and picks up the letter, tucking it into his pocket. He remembers, then, the pile of mail that fell from his fingers, and goes out to pick it up. As he opens the front door and looks out into the summer afternoon, he can’t help but think of Ellison.

  He never thought he would find himself going back there again, after what happened. Sometimes, when he closes his eyes at night, he still sees them in his mind, taunting, teasing, screaming. From conversations with his cousin, Henry, he knows that things have gotten better, but there’s still work to be done. Ethan knows that when he steps back into Ellison, he won’t be witnessing a complete transformation. He will be grateful for what has changed, but nevertheless, it will be a painful return.

  But it wasn’t the town that hurt, not really. That summer almost sixty years ago was just a blink; one of many summers spent in many towns. It will be painful because of her. The girl who breezed into his life with confidence and wonder, who took one look at him and knew he was the friend she needed. The girl who changed everything. He closes his eyes and, even now, so far removed, he sees her smile.

  She had forest-fire hair and hurricane eyes, and when he met her it was as if his world had been set aflame. She hit him in the best way, like a rainstorm after five years of drought, healing the parched earth with a gentle touch; and in the worst way, like an unexpected earthquake, leaving dust and debris in her wake. She was, in equal parts, a gift and a natural disaster.

  Her name was Juniper Jones.

  June 1955

  One

  The dust here never settled. When Ethan thrust his suitcase onto Aunt Cara’s driveway, a lazy cloud of dirt meandered into the humid air and lingered, lapping gently about hi
s ankles. Like everything else in this town, even the ground seemed half immersed in slumber.

  Ethan stood still with his thumb on his brow, squinting at the afternoon sun and the white-paneled house below it. His muscles, tight and tired from a long drive spent crunched into the passenger side of his dad’s Mercury as his younger twin siblings kicked at his seat, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. His stomach, on the other hand, was twisting with pent-up adrenaline. He fought the urge to run.

  “Give me a hand with this, would you?” Ethan turned to see his dad, knees braced against the bumper, drops of sweat inching down his forehead as he struggled to haul a box of records from the trunk.

  “Were these really necessary?” he asked, dropping the box onto the sleepy earth.

  Ethan winced, but stepped over his suitcase and lifted the records with ease. He looked down at his dad in annoyance. “You’re shipping me off to Nowheresville for three whole months,” he reminded him, an edge in his voice. “I need these or I’ll go crazy.”

  His dad exhaled loudly. “If you didn’t want to be here, you shouldn’t have punched that boy in the face. It’s that simple, Ethan.”

  Ethan felt his face grow hot with rage. It wasn’t the first time on this trip or in these past few months that his dad had said something to that effect. In his mind, no amount of explaining could justify Ethan’s behavior. Ethan quickly learned that the best response was a deep breath and a change of subject. They stared at each other for a long moment, green eyes meeting brown. Then Ethan let out a sigh.

  “Anyway,” he muttered, hefting his record collection in his arms. “I’ll go ahead and bring this inside, make sure they’re home or whatever.” No sooner had the words left his lips than the front door was flung open. A woman with blond hair and wide eyes stepped onto the porch with a wave and an unsteady grin. Her stomach made a wide curve beneath her flowy top, revealing the final months of her pregnancy. The baby was due at the end of the summer.

  From behind him came a sudden chorus of “Aunt Cara!” and then Anthony and Sadie leapt from the car, their tornado legs kicking up a storm of dust. The last time the twins had seen their aunt was nearly seven years ago, when they were still in diapers, but they clung to her legs as if they had missed her all this time. Ethan, who had been eight back then, had all but forgotten her face.

  “Hey, hey.” Aunt Cara laughed, her eyes softening. Her voice rolled out in that smooth southern accent that her brother had lost after two decades on the West Coast. She pressed Sadie’s mousy hair back from her forehead and detached herself from their grips. “Hey, Andy.”

  “Cara.” Ethan’s father had made his way onto the porch and leaned over to pull his sister into an embrace. “Great to see you again.”

  “Hi, Aunt Cara,” Ethan murmured but stayed where he was.

  His aunt’s smile slipped as she cleared her throat, pausing for too long with her fingers on her stomach before saying, “Come in, come in, and bring all that, Ethan.”

  The kids immediately dove toward the house, but their father’s warning tone reined them back. “Anthony, Sadie, back in the car,” he said firmly, pointing to the blue sedan. “I told you we wouldn’t be long.” They peered up at him with rosy cheeks so like his own, their bottom lips already beginning to tremble. He silenced a chorus of protests with a kind but pointed look, and the twins moped their way back to the driveway.

  “Trust me,” Ethan muttered as they passed him, “I’d trade places with you in a second.” Then he shook his head, repositioned the box, and forced himself onto the front porch.

  “Oh, but don’t you want to stay for dinner?” Aunt Cara asked. “I made enough casserole for everyone.”

  “Thanks, but we really shouldn’t,” his dad replied. “It’s a long drive back. Besides, the twins start summer camp in a few days and . . .” He trailed off, a frown coming to his lips as a pickup truck came bouncing down the road, slowing in front of Aunt Cara’s driveway before continuing out of sight. Ethan briefly locked eyes with the driver, a man about his dad’s age with a scowl on his lips. “Anyway, I want to get back as soon as possible.”

  Ethan frowned, noting his father’s suddenly shifty eyes. Aunt Cara tilted her head.

  “If you insist,” she said, holding open the screen door. “Go ahead and bring that inside, Ethan.” Sticking her head back into the house, she called, “Rob, the Harpers are here! Show Ethan to his room, would you?” A grunt sounded from somewhere inside. Aunt Cara’s smile grew painfully wide as she turned to Ethan. “Go on in,” she said.

  Ethan silently obliged, kicking his sneakers against the doormat before stepping inside. He found himself standing in a small, neat living room with a TV near the window, running a game show on low volume. The powder-blue love seat was empty. He glanced back over his shoulder only to find that his aunt had already vacated the porch and was waddling over to help his dad unload Ethan’s record player and luggage.

  “Um,” he said to the silent room.

  “Ethan,” muttered a deep, accented voice. A tall man emerged from a doorway to Ethan’s left with the Sunday paper in one hand and a glass of beer in the other. He slouched in a casual button-up shirt, the barest beginnings of a potbelly stretching forward over the edge of his pants. There was no expression on his unshaven face and no shine in his blue eyes as he looked his nephew up and down.

  “Uncle Robert?” Ethan asked, hesitantly.

  “That’s me,” the man replied. “Come on.”

  Ethan had never met his uncle. When Aunt Cara had announced her engagement two years prior, only his father had made the trip from Washington to Alabama for the wedding. He was expecting someone at least mildly cheerful—not this grunting, stoic man. Nonetheless, Ethan followed his uncle through a bright kitchen and into a hallway, where a door stood open in front of him.

  “Your room,” Uncle Robert said, gesturing inside. He disappeared into the kitchen once Ethan was through the doorway.

  Lowering the record box carefully onto the carpet, Ethan surveyed the room that would be his until September. It was simple: twin-sized bed, window seat, desk, dresser. Not quite as much space as his room back home, but he figured he could lock himself up with some records for hours on end and survive.

  Back in the living room, there were sounds of conversation as his dad greeted Rob. Moments later, the two of them, along with Aunt Cara, appeared in Ethan’s doorway. His dad held the turntable in both arms, and Uncle Rob carried the suitcase behind him.

  “Hope this is all right,” Aunt Cara said, poking her head into the room. “Not too big or anything, but I’ll tell you, it’s comfy as can be.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Ethan and his father assured her in unison.

  Ethan took the record player from his dad’s quivering arms and set it gently on the desk as Uncle Rob placed his suitcase next to the bed. Aunt Cara surveyed the space with satisfaction. “Now, I know y’all can’t stay long,” she said, turning to her brother, “but do you want something to drink before you hit the road again? We’ve got some Cokes in the fridge if you want ’em.”

  “Well, I might just have to take you up on that.” He followed his sister out of the room, leaving Ethan and his uncle alone. For a long moment, they just stood still, neither willing to meet the other’s eyes.

  Finally, Uncle Robert cleared his throat. “So,” he said. “Hear you got in a little trouble back home, got yourself sent down here.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Ethan muttered, examining the floor.

  “Right. Well, this town’s got a history of trouble with . . . with your folk, and we don’t want to see any more of that.”

  Ethan frowned, eyeing his uncle in confusion. “Sorry?”

  “All I’m saying is, we expect you to behave. The rest of the folks in town should barely know you’re here.”

  Ethan remembered the sign they’d passed on the way in:
Ellison, Alabama. Population 734. From Aunt Cara’s driveway, Ethan had had to squint to see the next house, which was about half a mile down the road. Ellison seemed like the kind of town you only stopped in if you were desperately low on gas. He almost scoffed and said, “What folks?” but forced himself to nod instead. “Yes, sir.”

  Uncle Robert jerked his head in approval. “And another thing.” He cleared his throat. “You’ll be working for me this summer. Monday through Friday, nine a.m. to one at the malt shop downtown. Earning your keep, and all.”

  Ethan groaned, the anger in his stomach set suddenly ablaze as he cursed his bad luck, his overreacting father, and stupid, nasty Samuel Hill. Ellison, Alabama, could rot in hell for all he cared; all he wanted was to be back in Arcadia, catching a movie with that cute girl from down the block or running at the park to train for track. Back home, the sun didn’t try quite so hard, and when the dust was disturbed, it always found its way back to the ground. He didn’t want to spend his summer in Ellison going stir crazy and bussing tables at some job that wouldn’t even land him a paycheck. He wanted to run and run and run until the worn soles of his sneakers found their way back home.

  But he managed a weary smile and repeated, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” Uncle Robert said. There was still something hard about the look in his eyes.

  Just then, Aunt Cara stuck her head back in with a smile on her lips and a frosty bottle of Coca Cola in her hand. “Are you boys bonding?” she asked loudly. “That’s great. Well, sorry to interrupt, but Ethan, your dad’s just about to head out. Here, want a Coke?”

  Ethan accepted the fizzing brown drink and followed her out the door. His father was waiting on the porch, clutching his own drink tightly in one fist. He stared at Ethan for a long moment before holding out his free hand.

  “Be good, Son,” he said. Ethan’s eyes begged to go home, but his father kept his troubled gaze firmly fixed on the ground.