Autumn Falls (5 page)

Amalita links her arm with mine and starts to walk me through the mall. “She’s in love with Sean. Everyone knows it except him. Or maybe he does, but he must not be into her.”

I find myself hoping he is really, really not into her.

“Sean likes keeping everything peaceful and no-conflict,” she carries on. “Like asking us to dinner. He’s not an idiot; he knows about me and Tee and Reenzie. He knows it’s not going to happen.”

“So he didn’t mean it?”

I try not to sound anxious, but Amalita grins, and I know I do.

“Oh, no, he wanted us to come. Or more specifically, he wanted
you
to come.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “He’s just one of those people who think if you ignore the awful stuff, it’ll all go away.”

I consider that for a second. “That’s … kind of sweet.”

“You think?” Amalita didn’t look convinced. “You can close your eyes to a problem, but when you open them, it’s still there, whether you want it there or not.”

Unlike Sean and his crew, Amalita and I do hit the food court, but we opt out of Blackbeard’s in favor of chili cheese fries, combining vegetables, dairy, and protein into
the perfect, well-rounded meal. I’m not all that hungry when I get home, although the enchiladas Mom made for dinner smell ridiculously delicious.

“How was school?” she asks, looking up from her tablet.

“It was great,” I say. I pour myself a glass of water, then rummage through the pantry, looking for a dessert I can take up to my room for later.

“I’m glad,” Mom says. “I know it was a tough morning.”

“Mm-hmm.” Found it. Chocolate graham crackers.

“Do you have a second?” she asks. “I need to talk to you.”

There’s something in her voice I don’t like. I sit across from her at the kitchen table.

“I want you to hear something.” She gets up and presses a button on the answering machine. A reedy, Cuban-accented voice plays out of it.

“Autumn,
mi corazón
, it’s Eddy, your grandmother. Your mother promised me she’d play this for you if I called back. I need to see you,
querida
. I miss you, but it’s not just that. I have something
muy importante
for you. Something that could change your life.”

There’s an extended breathy silence, as if she wasn’t sure how to end the message; then the phone beeps into silence.

“ 
‘Eddy, your grandmother
’?” I say.

“I know. And I know she’s a little dramatic. But we’ve been in Florida three weeks. I visit Eddy almost every day. Erick comes with me at least twice a week. You’ve gone once.
Once
.”

“I’ve been busy!”

Mom looks at me like that’s the most exasperating thing I’ve ever said.

“Plus, she’s crazy,” I add when Mom doesn’t lose the stare. “I know she had a stroke and she can’t help it, but listen to her: ‘something that could change your life’? Who says that?”

“Can I tell you what I think?” Mom asks in her handling-with-kid-gloves voice. “I think you blame Eddy for what happened to Daddy.”

Really? Is that supposed to be some kind of psychological breakthrough?

“Of course it’s her fault,” I say. “If she hadn’t gotten sick, Dad wouldn’t have been down here and he wouldn’t have gotten in the accident. That’s just a fact.”

Mom looks surprised. “Okay. But it’s nothing she intended. You can’t blame her for it.”

Pretty sure I can, but all of a sudden I’m so tired I can’t keep my eyes open. I need to get upstairs, so I promise Mom I’ll go see Eddy tomorrow after school. I’ll stay long enough to get whatever life-changing wonder she has to give me, then get out of there.

I can all but guarantee the life-changing gift will be a new ceramic pot.

I leave early for school the next day. I’ll be the first to get to the spot where J.J. and I converged, hang out until
he
falls into step behind
me
, then wheel around on him and tell him stalking is a federal offense punishable by life in prison without possibility of anagrams. I even giggle to myself as I turn the corner and near the side street where he emerged yesterday, because there’s no sign of him up ahead.

Until he steps casually out of a hedge and falls into step right next to me.

“You really shouldn’t walk too close to these bushes,” he says. “You never know what secrets they conceal.”

He actually scared the hell out of me, but I manage to sound cool despite my thumping heart.

“This is what we do now?” I ask, secretly overjoyed that I have a friend to walk with.

“It could be,” he says, brushing shrub off his body as we
walk, “but unless I blow off all my other work and start building evil-genius-worthy plans with detailed blueprints, I’m going to run out of interesting ways to cross your path in about five days.”

“You have five more days mapped out?”

“Which I’d like to save for special surprise occasions. Halloween, maybe, or your birthday. Neither of which I’ll actually use since I mentioned them and they’d no longer be surprises. Unless I’m just saying I won’t to throw you off. Which I’m not. Or
am
I?”

“How about I just text you when I leave in the morning so you know when to meet me?”

“Better.” We exchange numbers.

“Your head looks better,” he notices. “Less—”

I hold up a hand. “No need to elaborate. Thanks.”

When we get to school, J.J. and I branch off to our lockers, but mine won’t open.

I figure I dialed the combination wrong. I try it again. Nothing. I yank harder.

J.J. comes back. Jack’s with him now, showing J.J. something on his phone. “Article,
New York Times
,” Jack says. “Mainstream frickin’ media. ‘Comic-Obsessed? You Are the New Cool.’ ”

“Bull,” J.J. says.

I now have one foot against my locker, I’m holding the combination lock, and I’m leaning back as hard as I can. If it does open, I’m going to go sprawling. I feel the prickle of flop sweat under my arms.

“You guys, I can’t get this open.”

“Did you dial the combination right?” Jack asks.

“Oh, right, I should have thought of that,” I say sarcastically. “I dialed it right
six times
. It won’t open.”

“Let me try,” J.J. offers. I let him take my place, then read him off the numbers. He dials them slowly, and then, in a sudden burst, he yanks down hard on the combination lock.

“Ow! I think I sprained my shoulder!”

Jack and I laugh while J.J. bounces back, shaking out his arm.

“Seriously?” he says to me. “I was doing that for you!”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I say, trying to compose myself. “You were just so cool about the whole thing, and then—”

“Hey!” Amalita marches down the hall in a bright purple stretchy dress and turquoise chandelier earrings. “Where have you people been? I’ve been out on the lawn by myself.”

“Autumn broke her lock,” Jack says.

“I didn’t break it, it won’t open,” I say.

“Leave it,” she says. “We’ve got to get to class.”

Sure enough, the halls are emptying around us. I’m starting to sweat again. “I can’t. My French textbook is in there. This is the only time I can get it between now and second period.”

“It’s okay,” J.J. says. “We’ll cut off the lock.”

I have no idea how he intends to do that, but he stays with me while Amalita and Jack head off to homeroom. In
the end, J.J. doesn’t actually cut the lock, but he does find the janitor. The man is watching TV in the custodial lounge and takes his own sweet time meandering down the hall, dragging a massive pair of bolt-cutters. The actual snipping takes about a second, after which I grab my books, say good-bye to J.J., and race down the hall to homeroom.

Late again, and this time a sweaty mess. Naturally, Sean is one of the many people who wheel around to get a good look.

“Autumn Falls … short of the mark again?” Ms. Knowles reads off the attendance sheet as I slip into the one open seat. It’s in the back row, but as everyone laughs at the oh-so-clever quip, Reenzie Tresca spins around in her seat.

And winks.

And I get it.

“She changed my lock,” I tell Amalita, J.J., and Jack at lunch. I take an angry bite of my cheese sandwich.

“I told you, you’re on her list,” Amalita says, shrugging.

“It’s possible,” J.J. says between bites of his pork roll. “She’d have had to come to school late yesterday or early today, snip off your lock, and put on a new one.”

“Usually they dumb-lock people. It gets old,” Jack says as he scrolls through Instagram photos.

“But I didn’t do anything. How come you’re not on her list?” I ask Amalita. “You’re in her face all the time.”

“She stole my best friend,” Amalita says vehemently. “
She’s
on
my
list.”

“What is it with these people and lists?” Jenna asks me later when I call her. School’s over and I’m on the bus that will take me to Eddy’s place. I considered blowing it off, but I promised, so I’ll go. Briefly.

“I don’t know,” I say as the bus passes a cherry-red Porsche with a Maltese hanging out the window. “You and I never had lists. No one we knew had lists. Now it’s like
Scarface
. They’re very vengeful here.”

“Must be the humidity,” Jenna says. We talk for a few minutes and then I realize I’m at my stop and we say good-bye.

The bus lets me out right in front of Century Acres. Despite its name, the place doesn’t sprawl over acres of land. It’s big, but it’s a single building, with high ceilings and three floors of apartments that branch off from the main lobby in two long wings.

When I walk inside, I’m assaulted by piano music. The lobby opens up to a spacious lounge, with couches plus rows of folding chairs. Every seat is filled, and elderly men and women smile and clap in time to the jangling music and the off-key but enthusiastic voice of a male singer belting out a medley of old standards.

I scan the white heads. From the back, any one of them could be Eddy.

Then I hear the voice. She’s crooning along with the singer, her heavy Cuban accent mangling every other word.

No. Way.

My eighty-year-old, pink-tracksuit-wearing grandmother is sprawled across the piano on her stomach, stretching to reach the microphone as she kicks her purple sneakers in the air. She presses her cheek against the middle-aged balding guy with Einstein-wild hair who’s playing the piano, and together they belt out the chorus.

“Everybody sing!” she shouts, sitting up. She holds her arms high above her head and sways from side to side.

That’s it. I’m out of here.

“Autumn!” she cries.

Crap. I haven’t even made it two steps.

“Eddy!” I say through the smile plastered on my face. “I didn’t see you up there.”

Eddy grabs the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, my granddaughter, Autumn! She has the voice of an angel! Come sing with us, Autumn!”

The whole room applauds. Why did I agree to come here?

I make my way to Eddy and she shoves the microphone in my face. “Hi, everyone,” I say, giving a wan smile. “I’m, um, not going to sing. I just came here to visit my grandmother.”

There’s a chorus of “Awwwws” and one angry “Then get off the stage!”