A Year Without Autumn (2 page)

Their house always smells of incense that they’ve brought back from some exotic vacation. I feel like I’m on vacation myself when I’m over there. It’s
so
different from our house. Nothing changes from one day to the next at home, and nothing’s ever a mess. Although I kind of like that, too. At least you know where you are.

I guess Autumn’s folks must like having at least one week of the year where life is a bit more ordered. I can’t think of any other reason why they’d come to Riverside Village — except to see us, of course! Although I don’t understand that one, either. Sometimes I wonder why Autumn would want me as her best friend. I’m nowhere near as interesting as she is. Whenever I tell her that, she just laughs and says I’m being stupid and we’re best friends forever. And even though I still don’t get why she chose me, I know it’s true. She’d never lie to me.

Mrs. Leonard peels herself out of the car and smiles at me. “Hello, Jenni love,” she says. “How’s your mom?” She comes over and kisses me on both cheeks.

“She’s fine,” I say, blushing at the exotic greeting. “She’s back at the condo with Craig.”

“Putting her feet up for once,” Dad adds.

Autumn’s mom and my mom are best friends, too. While Autumn and I were splatting paint at each other and sharing books way back in kindergarten, our moms were swapping recipes and gossiping about our teachers outside on the playground. Dad and Mr. Leonard have become friends as well.

Autumn and Mikey tumble out of the car. Mikey doesn’t look up from the video game he’s more or less attached to. Autumn runs around the car to me, red hair flying.

“Jenni!” she yells, and we fling our arms around each other and jump up and down.

Mr. Leonard gets out of the car and gently closes the door behind him. “Watch the car, girls,” he says, warding us away from his pride and joy. He reaches out to shake Dad’s hand and nods over at us. “Wouldn’t think this pair only saw each other yesterday, would you?” he says with a smile.

“Yesterday?”
Dad replies in mock horror. “But that’s a whole
day
ago. That’s practically a lifetime!”

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Autumn retorts. “For your information, there are a
million
things Jenni and I need to share since yesterday. Aren’t there, Jenni?”

I giggle and grin at Autumn. “At
least
a million,” I say. “Maybe even a million and a half.”

“Well, they’ll all have to wait because I need a hand with these,” Mr. Leonard says as he pulls the last of their suitcases out of the car.

I stare at the pile of matching designer suitcases next to the Porsche.

“How on earth did you get it all in?” I ask.

Autumn beams at me. “It’s a clown car!” she says, her eyes glinting with mischievous delight. She does a silly walk while humming circus music.

Mikey looks up for the first time. “A clown car?” he says. “Where?”

Mrs. Leonard strokes his cheek. “Your sister’s joking, sweetheart,” she says. “It’s not a clown car. It’s a Porsche. Otherwise known as a middle-aged man’s midlife crisis.”

Mikey screws his nose up and looks at his sister. “What’s that?” he says.

Autumn smiles affectionately at her brother. “Just boring grown-up stuff. Nothing for us to worry about, kid,” she says, ruffling his hair.

Mikey shrugs off the ruffle and goes back to his game.

“Little brothers,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “Don’t you just love them?”

She’s joking, but I know she means it, really. Mikey brings out Autumn’s love and protectiveness like no one else can, just like Craig does with me. We love them to death — but we wouldn’t tell them in a million years!

Mikey’s two years older than Craig, so they’re not best friends or anything, but they hang out a bit when we’re here, which makes Craig feel very grown-up. Although “hanging out” might be a slight exaggeration. It’s generally a case of Mikey sitting around playing his latest video game and Craig being given the privilege of watching. But it works for them.

“OK, come on,” Dad says, reaching for my hand and pulling me away. “Let’s leave so they can unpack. I’m sure the million and a half things can last till later. See you guys at the welcome meeting?”

The welcome meeting is when the Riverside Village people tell us what activities there will be during the week. There’s a little movie theater inside the reception building where they show a different film every night, and there are always lots of other things going on every day: everything from bird-watching to hot-air balloon rides.

“Absolutely!” Autumn’s parents say in unison.

Autumn jumps to attention and salutes. “Aye, aye, Cap’n. See you there,” she says, and blows me a kiss as she runs off to help her parents with their bags.

I can’t help wondering what crazy activity Autumn will rope me into at this year’s welcome meeting. She always tries to drag me off on some zany trip — and I usually end up going. I can’t imagine saying no to Autumn over anything. I think it’s got something to do with the gleam in her eyes and the smile on her face. You always know that if she suggests something, it’ll probably be half crazy, half goofy, but one hundred percent better than anything else — as long as you do it with her. She could even make bricklaying seem exciting! Don’t ask me how; she just could.

If it wasn’t for Autumn, I’d avoid any of the adventure trips. I prefer to visit museums. I know that sounds boring, but I don’t think it is. Museums open my mind, and my imagination runs away with itself. All those old objects and strange artifacts make me think about all the people who used them and wonder what their lives were like.

And Dad usually drags us out on at least two mammoth walks while we’re here. Walking is Dad’s big thing. That and writing. He’s — well, he’d say he’s a writer, but that’s just because he’s been going to this creative-writing class and the teacher told them they all have to call themselves writers. She says that’s the first step. Personally, I’d have thought the first step would be putting words to paper, but that’s just my opinion.

He’s really a math teacher. Assistant head of math at the same school I go to! How embarrassing is
that
? Actually, sixth grade wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t in his class, and as long as I never get him as my homeroom teacher, I don’t mind
too
much. Mom’s a therapist at the university in the next town. She doesn’t talk much about her work — she pretty much pleads the Fifth every time someone asks her anything about it.

Dad and I take a walk beside the river. A great big swan and two fluffy brown cygnets are paddling in the water, swept along sideways by the rush of the current. It’s flowing by faster than I’ve ever seen it.

“The river’s high,” Dad says, swinging my arm as we walk.

“It’s in a hurry,” I say.

Dad stands back from me and stares for a second. “That’s good,” he says. “I like it.” Then he gets out his notebook and scribbles down what I said. You have to be careful around Dad. When he’s in one of his “creative” moods, pretty much anything you say could get jotted down and saved up for the day he writes his best-selling novel.

I say “novel.” What it really is, if we’re honest, is a notebook that he’s had for years, stuffed with scraps of paper and napkins where he’s scribbled tiny half-ideas and the odd line of poetry.

He says that’s the mark of a real novelist, the fact that he carries this notebook around. I’ve tried telling him the mark of a real novelist is a real novel, but he just closes his eyes and smiles to himself in that way that means he knows the real truths about life and I’ll understand when I’m older.

I write, too, but only in my diary. I’ve never shown it to anyone. I’d die before doing that, although I sometimes read snippets to Autumn. She always points out hidden meanings in what I’ve written, picking up on every little thing to tell me something about myself that I hadn’t noticed when I wrote it. She makes me sound much more interesting than I really am!

Autumn doesn’t keep a diary. She wouldn’t have the patience. Everything she does has to involve moving, preferably outside, even when it’s raining. She can’t bear to sit still. She goes rock climbing with her dad and takes a weird dance class that a friend of her mom’s runs. She’s tried to get me to go to it with her, but I can’t dance. I’ve tried, but I just freeze up. I turn so stiff, I feel as though I’m wearing a suit of armor.

You might be wondering what exactly we have in common. I do, too, sometimes. But it’s as if we’re two different halves of one whole or something. I can talk to her about absolutely anything, and she’s the same with me. We never get bored of each other’s lives. We share everything — every last detail.

Dad and I stand watching the water foam and fight as it rushes to get under the bridge. A couple of boys in sneakers and shorts climb onto the wall, and we watch them prepare to jump into the swirling water.

“I tell you,” Dad says, shaking his head as the first boy splashes loudly into the water, “if either of you kids ever thinks about doing that —”

“Don’t worry, Dad,” I say, laughing. “I wouldn’t dream of it!” We have the same conversation every year. How he even thinks I might consider it, I don’t know.

“GERONIMO!” Another splash as the next boy pounds into the river.

I shudder as we move on, down to the weir. One year we’d had a really hot summer, and the weir had completely dried up. You could see a wall running across the river, only a tiny layer of water covering it up. Autumn skipped across it and dared me to do the same.

I tried to say no, but like I said, Autumn doesn’t really do “no.” In the end, she held my hand and practically dragged me across. I clutched her hand so tightly, she had red marks from my nails in her palm for a week.

It felt amazing once we got to the other side, so I was glad she’d insisted — as I usually am. I’d never do something like that of my own accord, though. Never in a million years. It’s not that I’m a complete wimp. It’s just that, well, it’s dangerous! It might
look
safe, but you never know what’s underneath or how slippery it is, or if the river will suddenly change and you’ll get washed away and knocked unconscious on the rocks below. Too risky by half, and the Green family doesn’t do risky.

We like things to be ordered, safe, predictable. That’s why we come here. It’s
always
predictable here. At least it always has been up to now.

Dad
points to the mist swirling above the weir as we pick our way across moss-covered rocks. The water’s crashing down so hard, we have to shout to hear each other. It’s like Niagara Falls.

“Not surprising after all the rain we’ve had this summer!” Dad yells in my ear.

I stand back as some of the spray splashes a rock below us. “Let’s go back!” I shout.

We pass Mr. Andrews, one of Dad’s friends, on the way back to the condo. I study the woods on the other side of the river as they chat. Row after row of tall, sturdy trees — they look proud and aloof, as if they know more than we do. They’ve seen it all. The leaves on a group of them have turned red. The same trees every year, just one small section of the woods. How do they do it? How do they know?

“Come on, cupcake.” Dad nudges me, and I give Mr. Andrews a quick wave and an embarrassed smile as we set off. Will Dad
ever
realize I’ve grown out of his pet names? Will I ever have the heart to tell him?

We go into the rec center so Dad can book a squash court for him and Mr. Andrews. He never plays squash except when we’re here; I don’t know why he bothers. I watched a bit of his game once. He’s really thin and spindly. He looked like a spider on ice, slipping about all over the court, crashing into walls, and coming away purple with bruises. Mr. Andrews had hardly built up a sweat.

Dad books the court for tomorrow afternoon and then stops to talk to the receptionist. I look around the shop while they talk. There’s a rack of tiny workout clothes and skimpy swimsuits and six shelves of chocolates and candy. I’ve never quite understood how these go together.

“Just a little surprise for your mom,” Dad says, linking his arm through mine as he pockets a gift card for a facial.

It’s their wedding anniversary tomorrow. Fifteen years. They still get all gooey about each other, and they hardly ever argue. They bicker sometimes, of course. But only as much as anyone’s parents and about a hundred times less than Autumn’s.
Their
arguments are like volcanic eruptions. One minute they’re so laid-back they’re practically lying down, and the next they’re at each other’s throats. Autumn says it’s because they’re artists. It’s the creative temperament.

“If I could have your attention, please.” Mr. Barraclough taps the side of his glass with a spoon, and the room gradually quiets down. Mr. Barraclough’s the manager here. He’s really tall, with a wavy mop of gray hair and blue eyes that always seem to shine without sparkling, if that makes sense.

He wears sharp suits and always has his shirt collar turned up. I think he looks like a cross between an old rock star and a really cool principal.

Everyone’s at the welcome meeting, looking up at him and waiting to hear about the week’s goodies. Well, everyone except Autumn’s family. They aren’t here yet — but that’s no surprise. They’re late to everything. I think they like to make an entrance.