So she did.
“Well, I got home, and Mom wanted to know how I called Auggie and why I did and why the teacher called him my stepdad.”
There was a pause before, “Why did your teacher do that?”
Yeah.
She’d taken that too far.
“Well, uh…I kinda told her he was. You know. Like, if it’s said out loud, maybe he’d get some ideas.”
Mr. Cisco sounded proud when he stated, “Brilliant tactic, Juno.”
“It didn’t work.”
“That’s all right, sweetheart. This kind of thing takes commitment and time.”
“Okay, but Mom was crying.”
“I’ll look into that.”
He didn’t sound proud when he said that. He sounded kinda mad.
Juno forged ahead.
“So, I got home, and when she asked, I told her my teacher got it wrong and I used a friend’s phone to call Auggie and got his number from Auntie Ryn’s phone, which was mostly all a lie.”
In the sense it was all a lie, except for the part she could have gotten his number from Auntie Ryn’s phone, she just didn’t. She got it from Mr. Cisco.
“Again, as we discussed, in your life, I hope there are very few times where lying is the way forward,” Mr. Cisco said. “But now is one of those times when it is. Have you heard the saying ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures’?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, they do. Do you understand that?”
“Kinda.”
“Okay,” he muttered.
She had to keep going or they’d run out of time. “So there’s the lying but also I…well, Mom doesn’t usually keep things from me. She talks straight. She doesn’t have anything to hide. So I hear things. But I don’t go trying to listen.”
Another pause and then, “What did you hear?”
“Mr. Cisco, it’s not right to listen when someone doesn’t know you’re listening.”
“You’re right. It absolutely is not. However, we’re in the middle of an operation here, Juno. And in every important operation, information is key. Are you with me?”
He was right.
This was totally an important operation.
“I’m with you.”
“So what did you hear?”
She swallowed again.
Then she said, real low, “My grandma has cancer.”
She actually heard him suck in breath.
Whoosh.
“Mom was talking to Auntie Lottie on the phone and she…she…”
Juno tasted tears again.
“It’s okay, Juno. I can guess how she was.”
“And then she got on the phone with Auntie Ryn, and she told her Auggie was super mean to her.”
“How mean?”
“She called him a…” Juno pushed up, looked over her shoulder and the bed to her door, saw it still closed, the light coming from under it uninterrupted by something like feet, then she sat back down and breathed out a word she wasn’t allowed to say, “dick.”
“Hmm…”
“And he called her a corktease.”
“What?”
His question was swift and very sharp.
So she was kinda scared when she said, “He called her a—”
“No, Juno. You don’t have to repeat it. I heard you.”
At his tone, Juno got quiet, though she didn’t get it, like she didn’t get why her mom was so upset Auggie called her a corktease.
And she didn’t get why he’d call her that.
Her mom liked wine but that just seemed weird.
But she couldn’t stay quiet, because, outside Grandma being sick, and her mom crying, there was another worst part she had to tell Mr. Cisco before she had to get off the phone.
“And Dad came over before I got home from school and he wants to get back together.”
Now Mr. Cisco was quiet.
That lasted so long, and it was teeth-brushing time, so she had to call, “Mr. Cisco? Are you still there?”
“I’m here, Juno.”
“Dad has a girlfriend.”
“I know, you told me.”
“He needs to stay with her.”
“Yes, you told me that too. She’s the mom of a child in your class, and if they broke up, that might make things unpleasant at school.”
Juno was feeling funny.
And not because her dad thought she didn’t know he was seeing Emma’s mom, and that didn’t feel good. It felt like he thought she was stupid or something. It also made her realize how her mom would feel if she knew Juno was lying, because her dad wasn’t lying lying by not telling her Paula was Emma’s mom. It was still kinda lying.
But now there were bigger things to worry about.
“No, I don’t care about that. He needs to stay with her so he’s not in the way so Auggie can be with Mom.”
“Okay, sweetheart. You’re right. That’s a curveball. I need to think on that one.”
She got on her knees, turned and faced the door, just in case she couldn’t hear Mom coming, and that funny feeling got funnier.
And she knew what it was.
It was what Mr. Cisco said it was.
Desperation.
“What are we gonna do?” she asked. “Grandma’s sick and Mom’s family is weird, but Grandma can be sweet, and Mom loves her. And Mom and Auggie didn’t talk for very long and Mom was crying. Did Auggie make her cry? Why was he mean to her? And why is Dad saying he wants her back when he has a girlfriend?”