“Well, have fun. It was great running into you.”
Julianne gave Liz a hug goodbye.
“Yeah, good luck with the flooding stuff,” Liz said as she turned to go. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Jules—if worse comes to worst, you can always move into that glass castle thing that’s growing next to your house!” Liz giggled and waved as she walked off to find her mother. Julianne sighed and headed in the opposite direction.
The last few days, she’d been getting out of bed in the middle of the night, cleaning and dusting and straightening the house. She was fixing the things she knew how to fix before Dad got home and everything else fell apart again.
✦ ✦ ✦
When she got home from the hardware store, she beat out the rugs over the deck railing and sorted the wrapping paper in the living room drawer by color. Julianne couldn’t sit still, but she didn’t have any idea what to do with herself, either.
She was shocked that she could feel this lousy. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. She had completely destroyed everyone she loved. And, to top it all off, her mother’s painting was totally ruined. The paint had twisted into grotesque lumps of oil and plastic; even the canvas underneath had warped. She wouldn’t even know where to begin to repaint it. It had been so hard the first time, Julianne couldn’t imagine trying to reconstruct it now—what with most of the summer light gone, along with the view of the beach that had informed it in the first place, not to mention her ability to see anything beautiful in the world at all. She had somehow managed to lose every single thing she cared about. Julianne moved through the living room, trying to separate out cushions that were ruined from ones that were still usable. She had been planning on taking the now saggy, waterlogged ottoman out back to dry a bit before she left it on the curb, but it had started pouring again right after she returned from the hardware store. She set up fans to dry out the rest of the soggy furniture and mopped up the few puddles that had collected along the floor moldings when the rain picked up again. Frustrated at how little progress she was making, she sat on the window seat, looking out on the angry gray waves, her forehead pressed against the cold glass and her ruined painting sitting dejectedly at her feet.
Julianne felt the chill of the dampening windowpane sink into her forehead and settle behind her eyes. As the cold seared its way into her brain, she tried to see the ocean through the foggy window. In the periphery of her vision, she saw palm trees bending over themselves. It looked to her like they were trying not to break in two.
Julianne knew the feeling. She thought of all the times during the summer that she’d felt like everything was a mess and she just felt stupid. Deeply, profoundly stupid.
She wished she had appreciated how lucky she was before it all fell apart. Even though she was terrified that her family would lose their house, there had at least been something comforting to fall back on. Chloe had been her best friend. Dad had been tirelessly optimistic.
She’d been caught up in the whirlwind thrill of loving Remi. If nothing else, she’d had things to work toward.
Toward finishing her painting, toward saving the house, toward finding a way to be with Remi. Now there was nothing to run to. Chloe couldn’t even look at her without turning eggplant purple, and Dad would undoubtedly feel the same way when he got back. She’d misjudged Remi, and now the Moores were going to take her home. And, of course, there was the fact that her heart had been torn into millions of microscopic pieces.
Julianne pushed herself up off the cushions and paced through the musty living room, her footsteps keeping time with the raindrops outside the window.
She was moving so quickly that when she looked down, she saw nothing but a brightly colored trail of hot pink toenail polish. Swiping her tears away wildly, Julianne told herself, I will not cry. Not now. She gazed down at her pajamas, a black sleeveless T-shirt and drawstring pants printed with cartoon sushi rolls, and almost didn’t recognize them. Julianne felt strangely separate from the body they were hanging off of.
Outside, the rain was still pouring down in bucket loads and the wind was shrieking, but Julianne didn’t care. She couldn’t sit around with her racing thoughts for one second longer or something was going to snap. I just need to do something, she told herself. She sprinted up the stairs and made a beeline for her bedroom. Julianne threw on her grubbiest painting clothes. Then, without looking back, she rushed out of her room and bolted down the stairs, barefoot.
She threw herself into cleaning the house from top to bottom, keeping herself focused on the task at hand.
Before she knew it, she was sliding around on the wood floors, rags tied to her knees and feet like one of the orphans in Annie. She polished all of the candlesticks and the silver coffee percolator that probably hadn’t shined since her parents got them as wedding presents.
She even called to rent a steam cleaner for the water stains on the living room rug. Then she did all of her laundry.
Julianne stayed up all night, cleaning and scrubbing, and when the morning sun shone through the back windows, it was undeniable how beautiful her home was. It was bright and open, yet still cozy. When she scrubbed the windows of the balcony attached to her bedroom, she was literally breathless at the streaks of orange, pink, and lavender reflecting off the ocean as the sun was
