Page 112 of The Muse
I choose the cheaper option.
My days are spent as Minneapolis’s premier muse, exploring every museum and performing tasks like reorganizing Callie’s albums. I’m pretty sure she just wants me to see her collection of June’s music. At night, I sleep in a king bed and stare at naked angels on the ceiling. On the weekends, I take a side gig delivering food.
It’s been three weeks since I last saw June, and I fucking miss her. Instead of calling or texting, I drive past her apartment building a dozen times a day. I happen to catch a few glimpses of her roommate coming and going, but never June. The MINI Cooper is parked in a reserved lot on the north side of a building, but it’s always there and in the same spot.
Why doesn’t she get her license? Oh, that’s right. Rich people don’t need to drive. Yeah, I’m still pissed.
On a hot Saturday morning in late July, I get the nerve to buzz her apartment.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Ally. It’s Flynn.”
She doesn’t reply.
“Hello?” I say.
“June isn’t here.”
“Oh, okay. Is she working?”
“She went home last week for a family emergency.”
“Oh, is everything alright?”
“I’m not comfortable discussing this with you. Sorry.”
“That’s … fine. Thanks anyway.” I deflate, walking back to my car.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
June
Immunotherapy.
Targeted therapy.
Surgery.
Radiation.
Chemotherapy.
Grandma Juni rolls her eyes at the oncologist while my parents and I sit with her in the conference room with a team of doctors.
“It’s a mole,” she says about her stage-four melanoma, which has spread to distant lymph nodes.
“Mom …” my mom says, and she has never called Grandma Juni “Mom.” It’s always been “Juni” because they’ve been best friends more than mother and daughter.
“I’ll start wearing a hat and more sunscreen,” Grandma says, fiddling with the gold rings on her long fingers, including the eight-carat canary diamond she’s never taken off her left ring finger since Grandpa Zach died five years ago from a heart attack.
“Juniper, that’s a great idea,” the oncologist says. “But that’s not going to help the damage that’s already been done. We needto be aggressive with treatment because you have an aggressive form of melanoma.”
Grandma straightens her back, just as confident and beautiful as ever. “Did you know my granddaughter is a famous cellist? And she’s going back on tour.”
“Juni,” Mom says.
I bow my head. Grandma is simultaneously sure she’s dying and also in denial. And her “dying wish” is for me to push past my fears and “get back on the horse.” A term she used to get my dad on her side. He likes me either on a horse or with a cello between my legs.
