Given the information John had provided about Jon’s personality, June wasn’t disappointed by the fact that everything from service to food to entertainment at Jon’s party was perfectly arranged. It was also obvious, though, that it hadn’t been done single-handedly, but that the outcome had been a team work. A two-people team work. Jon’s wife was the perfect counterpart to her husband, and equally charming, both took turns to tend to each individual guest and make them feel perfectly comfortable.
“The usual stuff for you…” Jon handed a scotch on the rocks to John “and…sorry, no alcohol for the young lady”, he grinned unapologetically.
June rolled her eyes and smirked sideways. “I don’t drink alcohol”.
Jon noticed her self-sufficient expression and aspired to ask a question, but before he could even open his mouth, June burst into an unstoppable flow of words, as was her usual style when something ignited her.
“Well, that really kicked me in the balls, why should I lie to you. Brings out my killer instinct”
John and Jon almost spit out their drinks simultaneously. “Really? And what do you want to kill today?” Jon amusedly humored June.
“Everyone that takes for granted what I’m supposed to think and like and want according to the cliché of a standard teenager. Everyone that imposes rules on us but actually act on double standards, complete assholes. Everyone who is capable of breaking all the moral standards in the most outrageous ways and then think they can get away with it because they tell other people how they should behave. Everyone that can’t think outside the clichés, yeah…basically. Please, if you feel remotely identified with this description, keep away from me. Run for your life”. By the time she got to the last word, June was breathless, but the relief it provided encouraged her to finish her exposition. Once done, she took a deep breath and grinned with an angel face that bore no relation whatsoever to the tone of her monologue.
John was used to this kind of outburst from his sister, she’d done it since entering adolescence and though uncontrollable at first, she’d finally found the way of channeling it through writing her column. Whenever something bothered her tremendously, she’d usually write it down right away, but it wasn’t unusual that from time to time her tongue was quicker that her pen. Her writing was as abandoned and full of energy as the verbalization of her thoughts.
Jon was speechless and despite the brotherhood that linked him to Jon, John still was unsure about how Jon would react to his sister’s insolence, so he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and quickly tried to figure out a way to start explaining. He spoke with a tint of apology in his voice.
“I told you she’s a writer - didn’t I?”, he chortled. Before he was able to continue, Jon’s baffled face suddenly gradually changed from wide-eyed astonishment to sparkling eyes and cocky smirk, chortling at first and soon after erupting in a throaty laugh as June’s words sunk in.
“That’s hilarious, actually”, he spoke between mild laughs, “that’s what you write about? It’s cute”
June felt as good as new after relieving herself so she was able to continue in a perfectly polite and correct manner “That’s just my column, yeah. It’s so easy, you know, to find things that upset me on a daily basis. The others are just stories…not worth sharing anyway”
Jon frowned slightly as he listened carefully and drank from his glass of wine. “And where do you get your inspiration from?”. Inspiration wasn’t a topic he took lightly.
“Real life, dreams, the way I want things to be like, whatever…I’m sure you’re familiar with the process”
“Of course, yeah…I get your point, it’s-”, as if he had eyes on the back of his head, he looked over his shoulder and saw his wife approaching the group. On her arrival, he put an arm around her shoulders. June and Dorothea had been previously introduced, so June addressed her naturally.
“Thanks for everything, your home is lovely…and so is your dress”.
“Thank you, sweetheart” Dorothea accepted the compliments with a coy smile and spoke to John. “She’s stunning, John, good luck trying to keep her away from the vultures”, she tipped her head towards the crowd and winked at June, she’d already noticed how some younger boys had been giving June the eye since she’d arrived.
“Yeah, where’s the lucky guy by the way?”, Jon remembered having seen her with a boyfriend, but his face was but a blur in his mind.
“Hiking with friends” June nodded and wrapped both arms around her brother’s waist and grinned proudly. “But I got my own personal bodyguard, don’t worry”
John agreed with an equally proud wide grin.
“Now if you excuse us…” Dorothea pulled her husband’s arm encouraging him to tend to other groups of guests at the party. During the rest of the party June had barely any chance to engage in conversation with Jon again, not only because Jon himself was busy entertaining his guests, but also because John kept June busy introducing her to his circle of friends and co-workers, though June couldn’t quite tell the difference.
June left for home the other day, but from that day on, even when she didn’t see him in person, Jon became, through John’s stories, part of her ordinary every day life. That year and the next brought a good harvest of well-deserved success for Jon in his solo endeavor, success that she was able to share with her brother who was equally pleased. The more she heard John’s anecdotes, the more difficult it became for June to realize that the honestly committed and caring guy John talked about was the same charismatic, confident to the point of arrogant, rockstar. There seemed to be much more to Jon than what he let the public see.
The band, on the other hand, was apparently going through growing pains. June learned about this and got to experience it in the flesh one weekend when John went back to his hometown to “clear his head”, looking terrible and in serious need of some fresh air. His family wasn’t even close to relieved when he left on Monday afternoon, so they followed closely all the band’s comings and goings, the new situation and conditions, the pact they had made and how they were going to face the new decade. After crashing and burning, in the end they were finally able to be reborn from the ashes.
June’s attention to the matter, regardless, was only partial since she had her own issues to tend to, however welcome they might be. One day she woke up and as some kind of miracle, an idea was conceived in her head that she was able to put into words with almost no effort. It took barely over two months to finish, but it felt so right that June decided it was time to give publishing a go. Through all the attention she got, she was able to keep her feet on the ground: it wasn’t a best seller nor did she expect it to be, but it allowed her to put her name on the spotlight and receive more than decent criticism.
In the midst of the marketing campaign, she was invited by the public library to do a reading and Michael accompanied her. On their way out of the building, Michael’s invitation to have dinner “some place nice” caught June off guard. Michael cherished having home-made food for dinner - usually over a movie -, so eating “some place nice” was completely out of character. But it was also true that June loved surprises.
They had both been so numbed by their routine as a couple that the change of setting required some adjustment from their part. They finally started discussing issues they hadn’t brought up in quite a while, or ever, for that matter.
Apparently, one surprise wasn’t enough, so while they were finishing dessert, Michael spontaneously asked for a bottle of champagne.
“Are you crazy? You know I don’t drink”
“I thought you could drink just a little to celebrate a special occasion”, Michael spoke with his usual confidence.
“What’s special about today? It was just a reading”, June replied with her equally usual modesty gesture: smiling and shaking her head. But her smile suddenly disappeared from her lips when Michael took her hand.
“June, I think we should get married”
...
It took June about a good hour to finally go through her mails, though she only opened those that seemed relatively important, and answered the ones that actually were. Her parents would be leaving in the afternoon and it wasn’t certain when it would be the next time she’d see them again, so it was only natural that she felt like spending time with them. As she walked past the living room on her way to the kitchen to fix herself a coffee, she found her father deeply engaged in a football match on TV, a glass of white wine in his hand. Her mother appeared to be in the kitchen, but since they’d had a very late breakfast she shouldn’t be starting to cook until a couple more hours later, or maybe they’d even go have lunch some place nice. Through the kitchen door that lead to the backyard, June spotted her mother sitting on an armchair, knitting diligently.
June sat on the armchair next to the one her mother was sitting on, put both her arms on the armrests, laid back and closed her eyes. “Lovely sunshine, huh?”. Silence. June could read her mother like a book, so she knew exactly what that silence meant. Her hands instinctively clenched as she prepared herself for what was about to come.
“If you’d married Michael this wouldn’t be happening”, June’s mother sternly stated.
Here we go. Perfect, that was just perfect. There was a high probability of this happening at some point before her parents left that afternoon, and in any case June had hoped it wouldn’t happen until at least a couple of hours before they left. But it wasn’t even noon yet, just a couple of hours after John had left.
June took in a deep breath and tried to speak as patiently as she could, “Mom, we’ve been through this before, do you really want to bring the subject up again?”
“Why do you have to go so far away? Why can’t you just stay here?”, her mother spoke in an almost pleading way, as she sat on the sofa but kept her eyes busy in her knitting.
“So this is not about Michael, is it?”, June inquired but she already knew the answer. She sat sideways now, supporting her head with her right arm, and waited for her mom’s words, though her sense of déjà vu was telling her that she knew what words would come out her mother’s lips.
“Well, yes, it is. Everything was going alright, you were so happy together. Why couldn’t you just say yes? Now what about my grandchildren? Who knows who you’ll end up marrying, which language your children will speak, or how often I will be able to see them”.
June already knew that her mother would play that card, too. Her mother being terrified by planes and therefore not being able to travel long distances had indeed in the past, slightly conditioned June’s decisions, even when she didn’t allow herself to admit so. It had always made June feel selfish, and this time wasn’t the exception, but she was prepared to deal with it, she’d been prepared since the day she’d made the decision of accepting a job on the other side of the world. It was her decision at first and in the end, and as much as she disagreed and expressed her disagreement, her mother would have to accept her decisions sooner or later. June rolled her eyes. Maybe if she repeated it just once more her mother would stop pushing, like she always did in the end. June secretly hoped it would be so, because she was already troubled enough with having to let go of other things in her life, and her patience level was dramatically reduced.
Michael and June had been over for years now, but the one that seemed to not have been able to let go was June’s mother. She’d never let it get in the way of their relationship, but she’d also never forgiven her daughter for pushing away someone that was for all purposes, her son. Too many years had passed without the two women really sitting down to talk about it without hurt or resentment, and now June felt it was time to finally let go. She was in the mood of letting go. Sort of.
June quickly organized the layout of her words in her head before she begun to speak.
“Mom, please let me talk and listen to me. I’ve never told you this, and I hope that we don’t have to discuss this again in the future”. She waited for a moment until her mother nodded silently, then she resumed her speech. “I loved Michael, there wasn’t something fundamentally wrong about him. However, something just wasn’t right, I couldn’t put a finger on it, but I guess we became too dependent on each other. We were so busy that I didn’t realize that the possibility of having the life I wanted was vanishing in front of my eyes, really fast. We could both feel that we were growing apart, but we didn’t know why. We thought that was what all relationships were about, and we both felt too lazy or scared to change, I guess, to make a decision, so we just kept playing along. Every time we had a problem we allowed ourselves to be convinced that it was normal and that we should move on, despite the fact that we weren’t 100% sure where it was going or if it was truly what we wanted. I took a chance, for both of us. And even when you don’t agree with the outcome, I think it worked pretty well for both sides. I’m at my happiest right now, and apparently he’s happy, too. I wish I could share that happiness with you”. June stopped when a lump in her throat prevented any further words to come out.
She noticed that her mother had put aside her knitting work and was wiping a tear from her cheek.
“I want nothing else than for you to be happy, June. In fact, I honestly never understood why it had happened …Michael was such a sweet boy…it didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t your decision I resented, it’s just that I thought that with him by your side this would never happen. Then whenever I tried to talk about it you were so defensive I thought you’d regretted your decision when it was too late and that was why you started doing all those crazy things like moving to another city, traveling constantly or never having another serious relationship: to get over him. It’s only now that I realize you’d end up doing it sooner or later, Michael or no Michael, because this is you, and I love you just the way you are. One thing’s not gonna change, though: I’m gonna miss you like crazy, every day, until you come back”. Thicker tears started running down June’s mother’s face.
Words were completely unnecessary. June stood up from her armchair and gave her mother the tightest hug she’d given her in a long, long time.
