Autumn's Wish (5 page)

I'm still thinking about the problem at lunch, and my plan is to bounce it off all my friends. But when I see them sprawled out in a circle on the lawn where we always eat, all I can think about is them at my mom's wedding. Sean in particular. He's sitting there next to Reenzie with his arm draped over her shoulders, but he's looking across the lawn at a bunch of way-too-cute freshman girls wearing tiny tanks and shorts.

“Seriously, Sean?” I ask as I plop down between Taylor and Amalita with my tray of barely edible cafeteria food. “Your girlfriend's right next to you. Stop looking at those girls.”

Sean's blue eyes get scattered and confused. “What girls?”

“Belly shirts and navel rings? Hot new blood? It's totally not cool for you to scope out when you already have the hottest girl on campus.” As an exclamation point I chomp into my hot dog.

Sean crinkles his forehead in a way that is empirically completely adorable, regardless of the fact that he's off-limits and a cheating cad.

“What are you talking about?” he asks. “I'm watching those guys throw the football.”

He nods across the lawn and I see that just beyond the girl-candy are indeed a couple of freshman jocks tossing a football back and forth.

“I like that
you're
checking the belly shirts, though,” Jack says with a wicked leer. “And I
really
like when you talk about how hot Reenzie is. Reminds me of a dream I had last night.” He waggles his eyebrows lasciviously.

“Oh please,” I shoot back. “Like you actually—”

I stop myself before I inadvertently out him right here at lunch. Truthfully, I think he'd be happier if he just told us all the truth and stopped pretending so hard, but it's his choice and his timing and it's not my place to push him into anything. Instead I play along and grin right back. “Like you actually could handle Reenzie and me in the same dream.”

“Ew. Tell you what. You stop dreaming about me,” she says to Jack. “And
you
…,” she adds to me, “you can go ahead and remind Sean how hot I am anytime you want.”

“You don't have to remind me how hot Carrie is,” J.J. says, smiling down at his girlfriend.

“Awww,” Carrie coos, “because you already know?”

“No,” he deadpans. “ 'Cause you keep reminding me yourself.”

Carrie gasps, offended, and stomps across the field. J.J. has to chase her down and beg her not to leave. “It was a joke, Carrie! It was a joke! I'm sorry! I love you! You're gorgeous! You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen!”

I lean over to Amalita and speak softly. “You know she left her bag here.”

Amalita rolls her eyes. “She was never going anywhere. She just likes him to chase her.”

Ames takes a big swig from her water bottle.

At least, I think it's a water bottle. It's hot pink and I can't see what's inside it.

“Whatcha drinking?” I ask.

Ames grins. “Cosmopolitan. Want some?”

My jaw drops and I look around before I lean closer and hiss, “Amalita! The school has a zero tolerance policy! You could get expelled!”

“Relajese,”
Ames laughs. “It's
agua.
You think I'm insane?”

J.J. and Carrie plop back into their spot, but this time Carrie uses J.J. as a human lounge chair, resting her back against his chest and her arms on his knees while J.J. wraps his arms around her.

“In case it wasn't clear,” J.J. tells us all. “I was joking. Carrie never reminds me that she's beautiful. I know it for myself.”

“Good boy,” Carrie says, like J.J.'s a well-behaved pooch.

“So here's something interesting,” I say as lightly as possible. “I read this thing in the newspaper about underage drinking. Sobering stuff.”

“Why are we having this conversation?” Reenzie asks.

“Why are you reading a newspaper?” J.J. asks. “Who are you and what have you done with Autumn?”

His voice is playful, and my heart jumps a little. It's been a long time since J.J.'s teased me about anything. We used to go back and forth all the time, and we knew each other so well we could say a million things with just a look. I catch his eye and he smiles, but it only lasts a second before Carrie senses his attention isn't completely on her and leaps in with a subject change.

“So, Autumn, I saw you come out of Mr. Winthrop's office this morning,” she says. “What's up?”

Jack snorts. “Did you see the ‘aging toad goon' on the wall?”

“I did,” I said. “Quite lovely.” Then I decide as long as I have the group here, I'll get their help. “Here's the deal. If I want a college to love me, I need a lifelong passion that I can suddenly discover, cram into the next three months, and make colleges believe I've been all about it forever. Extra points if it's not wildly different from helping the elderly so I look all arrowy.”

“Pretty sure that's not how it works,” Taylor says. “A passion is a
passion.
Like me and theater. Or Sean and football. Or Amalita and—”

“Zander,” Ames sighs as she sprawls out on the lawn. “The way that boy dances,
Dios mio.
I can't believe none of you were there Saturday night.”

“That's good,” J.J. says. “Colleges would love it if Autumn's passion was some guy who cut all his classes and partied every night. She'd get in everywhere.”

“Don't mess, J.J.,” Ames warns, jangling as she points a finger at him. “I've known you too long and there's too much I could say.”

“Hey, back to me!” I say, breaking in before Ames blurts something hideous about J.J. and Carrie. “I'm serious. I need a stroke of extracurricular genius.”

“Join me on the Senior Social Committee!” Carrie says. “We plan all the parties and events for the year, and we could really use some help.”

I wince. Everyone I know of on the Senior Social Committee is like Carrie: perky people pleasers who get
really
excited about things like shiny confetti in cutesy animal shapes. Nothing wrong with that, just not really my style.

“Come on, Autumn, it's perfect!” Carrie says. “Colleges love the Committee Girls. They know we're responsible and motivated, and we can lead.
Plus
a lot of our events raise money for charity—including
elderly
charities—so it helps you with your arrow thing too!”

I'm not entirely sure I love the idea of getting more Carrie time, but she makes some great points.

“Okay,” I relent. “I'm in.”

“Yes!” Carrie screeches. “Welcome to the sisterhood! You'll meet me after school for your first meeting. We've only been back a week, but we're
deep
into Halloween dance planning—it's less than two months away—and we need some serious answers about which looks better: fake tarantulas or fake black widows.”

I think she's joking, but when I meet with the “sisterhood” that afternoon, I realize there is absolutely no humor in what they do. They discuss the pros and cons of candy corn versus mellowcreme pumpkins with the same intensity that my mom and Eddy bring to issues of human rights in Cuba…or the way Jack and J.J. debate the merits of the
Millennium Falcon
over the Starship
Enterprise
. There's also a guy in the sisterhood. Gus is gay, and I worry that lumping him in as a “sister” is completely insulting, but when I bring it up he scoffs. Not only am I being way too sensitive, he says, but we on the committee have bigger issues to deal with—like mylar versus paper streamers.

Seriously? This is what colleges are into?

Whatever. At least now I have a passion for them, and the sisterhood becomes part of my hard-core new schedule. It's kind of like where I was last spring, only this time it's better because I'm not keeping busy to avoid a suffocating boyfriend. Instead, I'm changing my life. School days are all about my classes, and I spend my free periods getting a jump on homework so I can go home after Committee and dive into SAT prep. When I realize I'm having major trouble with my American history class because I can't read all those dates without them getting jumbled in my dyslexic head, I don't do my normal thing and figure I can handle it myself. I don't even bring the problem to ADAPT, the group I go to for kids with learning issues. Instead I go right to my teacher, Mrs. Foreman, and ask her for help. Not only does she promise to find me a tutor, but she also says she's very impressed by my initiative.

“Thanks,” I say. Then, as I'm about to leave, I point to the water bottle she always keeps on her desk—the one decorated with the U.S. Constitution—and add, “I keep noticing your water bottle. It's so cool! Did you order it online?”

This leads to a ridiculously long conversation about the amazing things you can find on Amazon. It completely eats into my free period and a chance to do homework, but I leave knowing Mr. Winthrop would be proud. Kissing up to a teacher? Done. Mrs. Foreman will write me a killer college recommendation—especially when I use the tutor she recommends to kill it in her class.

When SAT day comes, I'm not even nervous. Mom drives me, since I'm the only one I know taking them right now. Reenzie's spring score was practically perfect, so she's concentrating on APs; Sean's was fine for his football scholarship, and Taylor's was fine for her theater schools, which are more about her audition. Amalita did okay but she says standardized tests give her hives, so she'll do what I once thought I'd do and just let it be. J.J., Carrie, and Jack
are
taking the tests again, but not until November.

Unlike me, Mom's insanely nervous. “I still can't believe they turned down our request for accommodation,” she snaps as she drives me to the test. “It's not right that you're penalized for working hard to keep up with your class!”

Since my dyslexia means reading can take more time for me than for other people, I applied for extra SAT time. They turned me down, on the grounds that I take tests with everyone else at school, so I should be fine. Mom's still furious about the injustice, but I'm over it. Plus I'm prepared. I could nail the SAT in
less
than the allotted time.

Okay, turns out that's a lie.

I end up not finishing, and I walk out of the test with a sore pencil hand and a raging headache, but I think I did really well. In fact, I kinda can't wait for the next two weeks to zip by so I can find out for sure.

I expect my mom to pick me up afterward, but instead it's her friend Amanda. She looks really young to me, and I can't figure out why until I remember the last time I saw her was at my mom's wedding…three years from now. “Sorry, Autumn,” she says. “Contractor emergency. Your mom had to run out and talk to them at the new place. Wanna come hang with me and the pooches?”

If Mom's out, I'm sure they're shorthanded at Catches Falls, and I can always use some puppy therapy, so I say yes, and the minute I see the place I'm thrilled I did. Catches Falls isn't huge. It's a single storefront in the middle of a strip mall, but Mom's a genius and put a puppy play area right by the big front window. People can't help it. They always stop, check out the pups, and most of the time come in. Even if they don't take a dog themselves, they volunteer or give a donation, so the place does really well. That's why she's working on the new location. It's not on a popular walking street like this one, but it can hold a lot more dogs, and it'll have a big outdoor area with a giant yard and a doggie swimming/wading pool shaped like a bone.

The current location isn't as plush, but it's still fantastic. It's clean and open, with separate play corrals for puppies and medium-sized dogs. The new place will be able to handle bigger dogs, too, but right now Mom finds foster homes for those. Between all the corrals is a retail area where Mom sells leashes, treats, and all kinds of other doggie merch that she totally admits is overpriced, but the profits go to the rescue dogs' care.

The minute Amanda and I get inside, I use the Purell wall dispenser and race into the puppy pen, then plop onto a low chair that would be right at home inside Mr. Winthrop's office. Immediately I'm inundated with puppies. Four of them jump onto my lap and jockey for space, while one keeps leaping into my face to lick my nose.

“Hi, babies!” I coo. “Yes, I love you too! I do! I love all of you!”

“Cute,” a man's voice says from the other side of the low puppy pen wall. I figure it's a potential adopter, so I put on a big smile and turn to him, ready to make the hard sell…but instead I scream.

The man looks alarmed. “Are you okay? Did one of them bite you?”

“No, no, it's not that,” I say. “It's…”

But then my mouth kind of hangs there, open, because I'm completely out of words.

I know this guy. I've seen his too-long body with its gangly limbs before. I've seen his shiny nearly bald head with the thin fringe of yellow fur that seems to cascade down his sideburns into his far-too-bushy blond mustache and beard.

He raises his yellow eyebrows and peers down at me. “Is everything all right?”

No,
I want to say.
No, it's not all right at all, because you're the guy my mom's going to marry in three years, and I'm not okay with it at all!

Then my heart starts thudding against my chest because I suddenly understand what's happening. This guy is here because
this
is the day he and Mom are supposed to meet! This is the moment I can change her future and make sure the wedding never happens! All I have to do is make sure the two of them never lay eyes on one another.

“Hey, everyone!” my mother's voice calls from the rear of the store. “I'm back!”

Seriously?!?!

Fate is moving faster than me, but it's not over yet. Mom will stop in the bathroom to wash up before she gets near the dogs. She always does that when she first comes in the store. That gives me about thirty seconds to make a move, because something tells me that if Mom and this guy even make eye contact, it's all over.