Change Of Season (24 page)

“Love you too, Mom.  Give Pan lots of kisses for me.”

Goodbyes exchanged, Autumn hung up, groaning in frustration.  For reasons unknown, absolutely nothing was coming to her for her Creative Writing midterm.  Maybe it was the lack of defined parameters – it was entirely free choice, with a 3000-6000 word range – or perhaps pure bad luck.  Either way, Autumn had spent an hour staring haplessly at her notebook before calling her mother as a diversion. 

“Think, Autumn,” she snapped aloud.  “Pick something, anything, and go with it.”

Her notebook and pen seemed to be mocking her.

Music wasn’t working.  Nothing from her “idea pile” was coming to life.  It was already past eight and she had nothing to show for it, save a headache brewing within her temples.

Maybe I should write of a student driven mad by a ghost in her dorm, who finally decides to jump from her window and be a ghost, too
! Autumn thought bitterly. 
I bet Emma will have a blast analyzing that one
. 

The air in the room hung thick, cloying on her tongue.  There was no peace, no room to breathe here these days.  Nikki’s crying fits had grown sporadic, something that only worsened the sense of eggshells cracking beneath her bare feet.  The
not knowing
was hell.

You could always go write in the Media Studies building
.

Ah, yes:  the other ghost haunting her days and nights at Casteel.  Ever since their escape via the tunnels and subsequent banter, Autumn had been avoiding her prime refuge and, more importantly, Andrew Daniels.  It was part of her re-establishment of Operation Wallflower – and it sucked, tremendously.

“Argh!”

Desperate times called for desperate measures, as the cliché went, and a midterm short story crisis definitely qualified. 
Besides
, Autumn told herself, shoving her book into her purse,
you might not even see him.

A devilish voice added,
Like seeing him again would be such a bad thing!

“I’m losing it.  I’m truly flying over a nest belonging to a Mr. Cuckoo,” Autumn mumbled.

The trek to Media Studies was bitterly cold.  The weather had snapped frigid, as was Canadian tradition, after several balmy days.  Drawing her sweater tighter around her frame, Autumn slipped in through the atrium entrance, jogging lightly up to the second floor couches where she felt most at home.  Mercifully, they were vacant, and she immediately sprawled out, tucking her iPod onto her lap and queuing up her playlist of the week. 

Calm rolled over her body immediately. 
Home
.  The Muse would be here soon; she simply had to clear her mind and wait for inspiration. 

Pressing her body into the cool leather of the seats, her eyes closed gently and her breathing slowed.  In her ears, Lana Del Rey sang of video games and beer, and her mind unwittingly drifted to Andrew, to his blue eyes and flushed cheeks.  He had no obligation to bail her out that night, yet he’d led her to safety.  Plus, he was as quick to make a pun as she was, an admirable talent to be sure.

Would it kill you to make another friend?
  Autumn immediately answered herself: 
Maybe
.  Maybe it would kill
him
.

Her iPod shuffled up another track and to her disbelief, of 583 possibilities, it chose Elton John next.  Specifically, it chose the song she’d once noticed Andrew singing.

Coincidence was the refuge of those living in denial.  The universe was trying to tell her something.

Elton sang softly of princesses and electric chairs, and Autumn rose to her feet in frustration.  Maybe she should go talk to the poor guy, at least.  To ignore him was rude, even for a wallflower.

Her purse slung over her shoulder, she rounded the corner to the far right corridor. 
Just a quick hello, and then back to my story
, she decided. 
This’ll only distract me from writing until I do
.  Her hand hovered before his suite, as he’d called it, trembling slightly as her heart pulsed in her ears.  She willed herself to just
knock
already and get it over with, silently negotiating a count of five and action.

At
three
the door flew open, sending her stumbling back into the opposing wall.

“Autumn!  Jesus, you scared me!” Andrew exclaimed, startling backwards. 

“Technically you opened the door and thus, you scared
me
,” Autumn rebutted.

Andrew smiled, waving a coffee cup at her.  “I was just heading downstairs to the vending machine.  Want one?”

“I don’t drink coffee,” she replied softly.

“Hot chocolate, then.  Make yourself comfortable!”

He was gone before she could form her lips into words of protest, his pockets jangling with change as he jogged down the main stairwell that spilled into the foyer.  Nervously, she slipped into his suite and tugged hard at her hair in confusion.  It was as if he expected her – no, more than that, had expected her as a matter of custom, of routine.  Like old friends.

There was that bloody word again, dead set on ruining all of her best-for-everyone laid plans, which had, were she honest, long gone awry. 

Studying the room, Autumn quickly determined that Andrew was actively editing footage tonight, although the paused image of dusk and trees gave her little to go on.  A large backpack balanced haphazardly across an office chair, papers spilling over the edge and threatening to abandon their leather ship for the hardwood below.  Her head tilted to read them but the messy scrawl was even worse than her doctor’s pseudo-hieroglyphics.

“You know the building’s off limits after nine for those not in Film or Drama, right?”

Autumn spun around, surprised.  Andrew was grinning, his left hand outstretched with a paper cup.  She accepted it gingerly, the scent of chocolate wafted immediately to her nostrils.

“I kinda knew that,” she admitted. 

“No worries, you’re helping me with my film.  Gretchen will totally cover for you,” Andrew continued, settling into the captain’s chair at the editing station and sipping his coffee.  “It’s not Starbucks, but it does the job.”

“I’m sorry, but who’s Gretchen?”

Andrew nodded.  “Right, you’re new.  Gretchen’s my Film teacher.  Super awesome, blonde, wears a lot of black and red.  She’s kinda like a very cool mom figure.”

Autumn mulled this over, sipping at her own drink.  It was astonishingly good hot chocolate for a vending machine.  Casteel obviously spared no expense.  Well, except when it came to maintenance on service tunnels.

“Thank you, by the way,” she said quietly, lifting the cup in acknowledgement.

“No big deal.  Consider it a bribe for your company.  I’m totally screwed this week.”

“Why’s that?”

Andrew sighed, tilting back in his chair as he stared at the ceiling.  “I have a rough edit due Saturday of the first five minutes of my film, and I just can’t bring the footage together properly.  I have amazing shots to work with but I haven’t settled on the order within the entire thirty minutes, so I can’t even start with the five minutes.  And then, there’s the music issue.”

All anxiety and qualms flew immediately out the window.  “Music issue?”

Andrew gestured to the screen.  “I have some scoring done, courtesy of a friend, but I want an opening and closing montage set to a song that sort of captures the message of the film.  But finding the right song has been just… “

“Frustrating?” Autumn offered.

“I would say fucking tedious and exasperating, but that’ll do!” 

Autumn unceremoniously chucked Andrew’s backpack to the ground, dragging the chair closer to the monitors.  “Well, maybe I can help?”

“How so?”

Autumn shrugged.  “Music is my oxygen.  Unless you, too, have 15,000 songs on an iPod to draw from, maybe you should let me try.”

Andrew stared briefly then smiled.  “I am so grateful for your very existence right now.  I will buy you a lifetime of hot chocolate if you can help.”

Autumn shook her head, laughing.  “That is indeed the sound of midterm desperation!  Okay, start from the beginning:  what’s the film about?”

Hitting rewind, Andrew explained, “Well, I spent some time down at Occupy Toronto, interviewing people involved with the movement, police, local residents, the works.  I didn’t know what I wanted exactly, so I just shot everything.  But it was the interviews and time I spent with the homeless in St. James Park that stuck out more than anything.  The movement’s trying to nurture and support them for the most part, but there is such skepticism and this…  I guess a lack of faith in humanity.  They were invisible people, in their own words, so to suddenly be seen, it’s like, ‘What’s in it for them?’  Does that make sense?”

Autumn nodded solemnly.  “Absolutely.  So are you still using other footage from the movement, or just a focus on the homeless and that intersection?”

“The latter.  It seems like the story that needs more attention.  But because I shot it over three days and nights, it’s kind of all over the place.  I didn’t know that was what I wanted to do, so there’s no straight narrative in the questions.”

Andrew hit play, and the monitors came alive with footage of an older male, perhaps late forties, speaking about begging for money in the financial district.  The way it was shot was raw but beautifully framed: the sun was nearly set, lending an ethereal glow to the subject.  Andrew had a gift for storytelling of another kind.

“Well, who says it needs to be coherent or linear?  Tarantino’s made a whole career of breaking that rule,” Autumn mused aloud.  “Maybe instead, you should focus on something that sums up the overall message of the piece.  Not the conclusion or final point, but the question the film’s asking the audience to consider.”

Andrew nodded slowly.  “That could definitely work.  Gretchen loves it when you toss convention out the window and go wild.  I thought of it, but I was worried it might be confusing to watch.”

Autumn shook her head.  “Not at all.  And hey, it’s a rough edit, right?  Meaning you could tweak it a bit later?”

“True…  So, what about music, then?”

Autumn bit her lip, staring at the footage for a moment.  “Well, you have to decide what you’re going for in terms of each song.  Are you looking for something a little darker in tone to open with, and something more hopeful at the end?  Are you going for dark and darker still?  Did you want instrumentals, lyrics or does it matter?  Canadian content or anything that works?”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up, music maven!” Andrew blurted out.  “I get what you were saying now about your expertise.  I’m honestly not sure.  I’ve just been playing my music while I edit, hoping something will jump out.”

“That’s the best way.  It’s how I approach writing – oh,
shit
!”  Autumn felt herself blanch as she remembered the whole reason she’d come tonight:  her short story.

“What’s wrong?” Andrew asked gently.

“Midterm crisis of my own,” Autumn groaned.  “I have a short story due Friday and haven’t a single freaking word of it done.”

“Oh hell, and I’m going on about my project!  I’m so sorry.  I should let you get back to it.” 

Autumn shrugged.  “Get back to what?  I was hoping coming over here would get things started, but it hasn’t worked out well.”

Andrew glanced at his wrist, wincing.  “Okay, look: you have about an hour before you should make tracks back to the dorms.  The couch is super comfortable.  You can stay here and write while I edit.  That way, security won’t hassle you.”

Autumn mulled his offer, sipping the hot chocolate as an excuse to remain quiet.  Had it already been, what, twenty minutes since she’d come to see him?  It felt like mere seconds had passed.  It was so
natural
talking to Andrew.  There was no pretense, no sexual tension overriding all intellectual discourse and casual camaraderie.  Not dealing with security was a huge boon, too.

“Okay, thank you.  Are you sure I won’t be distracting or anything?”

Andrew laughed.  “No way!  When I’m in the zone, I don’t notice much around me.  I’m pretty sure when the zombies come, they’ll catch me editing and take a chunk out of my neck without me blinking.”

“That’s a disturbing image,” Autumn replied, settling onto the couch near the door.

“I swear, the first person I’m going to eat as a zombie is Grant.  I hate that prick,” Andrew declared lightly.

“I’m going after Logan.  I want to see her fuss over blood on her pristine blouse,” Autumn countered, flipping open her notebook.

“Ooh!  That would be pretty awesome.”

It hit her then: a plot bunny.  Her Muse was back with a vengeance, and it was thanks to Andrew and his strange sense of humour.  Relieved, she began scribbling wildly, quickly jotting down an outline and character sketches before her inspiration was lost.  Instinctively, Andrew remained quiet, the clicking of keys and flipped switches the only sound from his side of the room.  Tucking her left ear bud in, she wove her comedic tale on the page, humming triumphantly at key moments and underlining words destined for a thesaurus upgrade later on.