Juniper Wiles, page 2
I’ve come to discover that only Jilly would do something like that for the fun of it.
“And obviously you got good at it,” I say.
She nods. “But it took a long time.”
She stands up and we take the drawing to the counter to show it to the barista during a lull in customers. His name tag says “Jason,” but I’ve been here often enough to know that the baristas wear random tags, so who knows what his real name is. This Jason is the usual hipster you’ll find in a coffee shop. Slender in his tight jeans, short-sleeved shirt buttoned at the collar, hair short on the sides, long on top, the almost-beard that you can tell has been perfectly trimmed to that length, glasses, moustache.
“Jason,” Jilly says as she holds up her drawing. “Do you know this guy?”
“Sure,” he says, taking the drawing to have a closer look. “That’s Ethan. He’s in here all the time.” As he hands the drawing back he adds, “That’s a good likeness.”
Jilly turns to give me a grin before she asks the barista, “What’s his last name?”
“Sorry, I wouldn’t know. We only write first names on the cups.”
“Well, when he comes in again could you give us a call?” Jilly takes a Half Kaffe Café business card and writes her phone number on the back as she speaks. “He’s a person of interest in an investigation we’re conducting.”
I roll my eyes.
“Are you guys cops?” the barista asks.
It’s plain he doesn’t believe it, and who can blame him?
But then he takes a closer look at me.
“Wait, I know you,” he says. “I’ve been trying to figure it out every time you’ve come in. You’re Nora Constantine. My sister loves that show of yours.” He frowns. “Except…”
“It’s fiction,” I fill in for him. “I know.”
“Fiction, schmiction,” Jilly says.
The barista looks from her to me, obviously confused, and I still can’t blame him.
“So, what’s going on?” he asks.
“My friend—” I jerk a thumb in Jilly’s direction “—thinks we’ve suddenly become private eyes. Like in the show.”
He nods. “And Ethan…”
“I was probably a little rude to him earlier today, so I wanted a chance to apologize.”
“Cool. Hey, can we take a selfie? My sister’s going to die when I post a picture of me with the real Nora Constantine.”
Who, I want to say, we just established isn’t real. But I manage to keep my mouth shut. Instead, I give him a high-wattage smile like you’d use in a headshot.
“Sure,” I say to Jilly’s obvious approval. “Why not?”
One selfie later, Jilly and I are out on the street. The rain’s stopped, but the sky is still a lowering grey.
“I’m going to the animal shelter to borrow a dog,” Jilly says. “Do you want to come?”
“Why would you want to borrow a dog?”
“To take him to St. John’s Home for the Aged. The people there love a visit from a dog. I mean, who wouldn’t?”
“What about those prints that need to be signed?”
“There’s plenty of time for that.”
She hooks her arm in mine and off we go to the shelter.
I learned a long time ago that Jilly’s idea of fun is to help people and interact with them. An outing with her might take you to the soup kitchen to prepare and serve a meal, to sort clothes and whatnots for a church bazaar, to the animal shelter to walk dogs or play with cats, to hang out at the Arts Court with the kids, or some combination thereof, which is what we’re doing today.
I have to admit that an old folks’ home is a lot more fun than I ever thought it could be. But this is the first time I’ve done it in the company of a couple of dogs. At the end of Jilly’s leash is Bobo, a wiry terrier/toy poodle mix. At the end of mine is a large but calm golden retriever named James, which is weird because that was the name of my boyfriend in the last season of Nora Constantine.
The staff and the residents know Jilly, but that’s not unusual. People seem to know her wherever she goes. It was the same at the animal shelter. Here, she’s like a purposeful whirlwind as she darts around the common room, Bobo in tow, but at the same time she has a Zen peacefulness when she stops to chat with the old men and women. She knows them all by name, naturally, and enough of their personal histories to have meaningful, if short, conversations with each.
I was worried about Bobo. At the shelter and on the way here he exuded an unbridled energy that Jilly managed to mostly keep in check. But he’s like a different dog now, following at Jilly’s heels, leash dragging, a calm presence in the wake of Jilly’s enthusiasm. By contrast, the formerly placid James tows me from one chair to the next, eager to greet each new face, then on to the next one. Thank heavens he never jumps up on any of the residents.
By the time we leave, the room is alight with smiles and I find that I don’t care about the prints waiting back at the studio any more than Jilly does.
As we near the shelter, Jilly’s pace slows. I think I know what she’s feeling. It’s like we’re putting the dogs back in jail, although the truth is, we’ve managed to break up the tedium of their day for a couple of hours so we shouldn’t be feeling bad.
Jilly stops outside the door of the shelter and sits on her heels, right there on the sidewalk. Bobo leaps up onto her lap.
“You know,” Jilly says, “I’ve been doing this for years, but it’s only just occurred to me that I’m no longer living hand-to-mouth. I’ve got a house. I can have a dog.”
“Are you sure about this?” I ask. To say that Jilly can be impetuous is like saying the sea is full of salt water. “It’s a serious commitment.”
“I know it is. I’ll have to talk it over with Geordie.”
I smile. Like he can say no to her.
“I wonder,” she adds, standing up again and holding Bobo against her chest, “if they’ll let him come home with me for the evening to meet everybody.”
Which is how, a half hour later, we’re walking back to the house, Bobo trotting beside Jilly. Every few steps he looks up into her face so adoringly that my heart just melts.
I feel a little pang—not for James, but for the idea of having a dog.
“I always wanted to have a dog,” I find myself saying.
“What’s stopping you?”
I shrug. “I don’t know that I’d be the best pet owner. They’re a big responsibility and they…” I don’t want to say it in front of Bobo, which is weird, but I lower my voice. “They don’t live long.”
Jilly gives me a radiant smile. “Ah, but you’ll never understand pure love the way you will when they are with you.”
“You’ve had dogs before?”
“Not really. But I know what it’s like to live your life and have every moment be precious.”
She glances down at Bobo. “Everybody’s going to love you,” she says.
I smile. That dog’s never going back to the shelter.
The deal is sealed when we get to Bramleyhaugh. As soon as we walk through the door and Jilly lets him off his leash, Bobo goes racing down the hall to where he can hear people in the kitchen. I get there just in time to see him standing on his hind legs, front paws on Geordie’s knees, wiggling his butt as Geordie strokes his head.
“And who’s this?” Geordie asks, looking from Jilly to me.
“His name’s Bobo,” Jilly tells him. “I thought we could use some dog energy in the house if everybody agrees. Otherwise he has to go back to this little cage at the shelter and lie there all by himself on this thin ratty blanket in the scary dark and—”
Geordie cuts her off with a laugh. “I don’t need the hard sell, Jilly. He can stay.”
“You’re sure?”
“We always had dogs when I was growing up. It’s one of the things that kept me sane back then.”
“What about everybody else?” Jilly asks the room in general.
There’s a chorus of agreement in response.
Geordie smiles as the happy-go-lucky pup drops back to the floor and makes the rounds of everybody sitting at the table. He’s joyous, tail up and wagging, until he gets to Mona’s boyfriend Lyle. Just like that, his body language changes. Ears down, tail lowered, he stands quivering until Lyle slides down from his chair and confronts the pup on all fours. He whispers something in the pup’s ears and Bobo perks up a little.
“That’s right,” Lyle says as he sits back on his legs. “You can be the boss of this house.”
Bobo slaps his front paws on the floor, butt in the air, and barks.
Lyle ruffles the hair on top of the pup’s head. “Don’t let it go to your head.” He stands up and returns to his chair.
I look at Jilly and say WTF with my eyebrows.
“Lyle’s always been the top dog in this house,” she tells me.
“Used to be,” Mona adds and everybody laughs.
I’ve been hanging around with these people for years now, but I still don’t get some of the jokes.
“It’s because he’s a werewolf,” Jilly explains.
I shake my head. “As if.”
Jilly just smiles. “Something smells amazing in here,” she says, heading toward the pot on the stove. Wendy made a vegetable stew and there’s still enough left for Jilly and me. As we eat, the conversation around the table bounces between books and music, social media and TV shows, politics and art. In other words, as much of a stew as what’s in our bowls, and a typical evening here at Bramleyhaugh.
Before leaving for home I go to collect my backpack in the studio. Sophie’s sitting at the long table that runs the length of one of the glass walls, sewing the binding on what I assume will be a new sketchbook. Some kind of fiddle music is playing softly, but I don’t know enough about that kind of music to be able to name the band.
Sophie looks up with a smile when she hears me come in. “Hey, Juniper.”
“Hey.” I glance over at the untouched stack of prints and feel a pinprick of guilt. “I tried to get those signed,” I tell her, “but what with one thing or another…”
Sophie waves off my failure. “Honestly, getting Jilly to do something she doesn’t feel like doing is like herding cats.”
“She says she’s going to work at the soup kitchen tomorrow morning.”
Sophie nods. “Maybe we can sit her down in the afternoon. I’ll get Geordie and Amy to entertain her with some music while she’s doing it.”
Tam’s sitting at the kitchen table when I get home. He’s got his earbuds in and he’s fingering chords, his right hand moving in a quick rhythm, though his pick isn’t actually hitting the strings. He doesn’t notice me until I put my backpack on the chair across from him.
“Hey,” he says, pulling his earbuds off.
“Hey, yourself. What’re you doing?”
The only light comes from a lamp in the shape of an old streetlight on the end of the counter. The air smells pleasantly of garlic, ginger and cilantro, so I know he made himself a stir-fry for dinner. Naturally, the dishes are still piled up in the sink.
“I’m just running over some accompaniment for Geordie’s tunes—for the gig at the FaerieFest,” he adds unnecessarily, because I’m the one who told Geordie about Tam when the band’s regular guitarist had to bail.
I drop into a free chair. “Without actually playing your guitar.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t want to bug the neighbours, it being a school night and all.”
“You know, it’s been years since you lived in that little apartment. This place has thicker walls.”
He shrugs. “Old habits.” Closing the music app on his phone, he rests his forearms on the top of his guitar and leans forward. “What have you been up to today?”
“This and that. I went to the animal shelter with Jilly, and I’m pretty sure she’s adopting a dog.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t get one sooner.”
“That’s exactly what Wendy said.”
“Let me guess,” he goes on. “It’s young, small and full of energy.”
I pull back, surprised. “How would you know that?”
“Come on. It’s Jilly. Can you see her with some placid old retriever?”
I feel a twinge of guilt, thinking of James who’s still at the shelter, so I decide to change the subject.
“Question. What do you feel you owe your fans?”
He smiles. “Is Greta trying to get you to do another of those conventions?”
Greta Swirsky’s my agent. Even though I’m no longer working in the industry, all my residuals go through her and I’m happy to give her a percentage because without her, there wouldn’t be a percentage to take in the first place and I’d be vying to wear the Jason name tag at the Half Kaffe Café.
“You’re not answering the question,” I say.
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“The people who buy your music and come to your shows—when you’re off stage should you still have to be the guy who was up there, or do you get to be Tam Wiles again? Your ordinary self.”
Tam closes his eyes for a moment and drums his fingers lightly on the body of the guitar. “We are the same guy,” he says. “It doesn’t shut off.” He gives me a considering look. “Why are you asking about this?”
So I tell him about the boy in the coffee shop and how extreme he was.
“Wow,” he says when I’m done. “That’s a whole new level of fan drama.”
“I know. Over the top weird, right?”
“And tricky,” he says. “The whole point of your craft is to portray a character that your fans can fully believe and invest in. But the person you’re depicting isn’t the real you. And to have someone actually believe that you’re that fictitious character off-screen is…”
His voice trails off.
“Weird,” I finish for him.
“You don’t get a lot of that, do you? I mean, this extreme.”
I shake my head. “So long as I don’t listen to Greta.”
2
Tuesday
The next morning, as soon as I open the front door to Bramleyhaugh, Bobo comes racing from the back of the house barking his fool head off. He skids to a stop and dances around my legs until I give him a few pats. Mission accomplished, he races back the way he came.
I follow at a slower pace. There’s no one in the kitchen, so I continue to the studio where I find Jilly sitting on the sofa studying her latest painting. I set my backpack on the floor and drop down beside her.
“Hey, Juniper,” she says.
Bobo heads over to my pack, sniffs every inch of it, then jumps up on the sofa and settles between us with a sigh.
“Sorry, pal,” I say, ruffling the fur on his neck. “No goodies for you in there.” Then I look up and study the painting as well.
At first it seems like a landscape, some kind of a brambly hedge broken up by the trunk of a fat oak, with the suggestion of a big house rising up behind it. But looking closer, there’s a whole community of tiny people living under the hedge. The detail is incredible.
“That’s amazing,” I say.
“Mmm.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t not like it. But it has no narrative. It’s not saying anything to me.”
“It says there are little people living under a hedge.”
“Yes, it does say that. But how does it connect to us, the viewers? There’s no way in and no final destination where the eye naturally rests. It’s all just a busy clutter.”
I see what she means. I get up to look at it from another angle and that’s when I see this morning’s edition of The Newford Star, half hidden under her palette. A familiar face looks out at me. It’s obviously one of those images that newspapers pull from people’s Facebook or Instagram pages. I pull the paper out to give it a closer look.
“Oh, that’s an awful story,” Jilly says. “I don’t know why I look at the paper anymore.”
“This is him,” I say. “The boy from the café. Ethan.”
And just like that my head takes me back to yesterday’s encounter.
So it’s not like I enjoy being snarky, but really. The boy standing on the other side of my table in the coffee shop should realize that, laptop open, earbuds in, me ignoring him—these are all clear signs that I’m preoccupied and don’t want to engage in conversation. I suppose once he leaves I should make a “do not disturb” placard and prop it up on my table.
But he’s unwavering in his mission.
“You’re Nora Constantine,” he says.
“No, I’m not.”
He shakes his head. “You totally are.”
“You know she’s just a character, right? She’s not real.”
I could add that I’m only Juniper Wiles, the actor who played that part, but why bother? He’s already waving a hand to show the irrelevance of actual facts.
“What are you doing in Newford?” he asks. “Are you working on a case?”
I blame the internet for keeping Nora Constantine alive, and my family for the genes that keep me looking like the twenty-year-old I was when I played that role ten years ago. But the gullibility of people like this guy, who can’t tell the difference between reality and entertainment, that’s all on them.
Nora Constantine was based on a series of books by Emma K. Rohlin about a feisty, red-haired, green-eyed, teenage detective, solving crimes in between her classes at a community college. The show was a minor success, running three seasons before it got cancelled. Once upon a time that would have been it, but between DVD sales, streaming services, and the limitless ability of people to download whatever the hell it is that they want from the internet, it’s gained a huge cult following and a much longer life than anybody expected.
