Autumn's Wish (24 page)

As halftime nears, I excuse myself, ostensibly to hit the restrooms, but instead I head to the A/V booth. I find Tom inside with three other people from the A/V group, all of whom hoot and applaud when I walk in.

“You've got guts, girl,” says Emma Stubens, a girl in a red-checked romper and thick-rimmed glasses. “I like that.”

Emma walks with purpose in my direction, getting so close I think she wants to hug me. I awkwardly put out my arms, but she ignores them and clips a small microphone to the spaghetti strap of my turquoise tank. Then she hands me a little box. “The mic is wireless. The box goes in your back pocket. When you hear the music start, flip the switch.” She shows me a tiny “on” switch on the box. “Then you're live.”

“Ben Yates is already down there with a camera,” Tom says. “He's got a great zoom, so he can stay far enough away that he won't spoil anything. You ready?”

I take a deep breath and blow it out. “Yeah,” I say. “I'm good.”

“Sweet,” Tom says. “You're up right after the marching band. Better get in place.”

I nod, then thank everyone and rush out of the booth. I check my phone and look once more at the text Jack sent me with his and J.J.'s section. It's on the other side of the stadium from where I am now, but I have time. The air horn signaling halftime just blew, and I can hear the marching band make their way onto the field. I swim upstream through an endless river of people heading for the bathrooms and snacks, then take a position a few rows back from Jack and J.J.'s seats. I tuck myself behind a support beam so they won't see me if they turn around. I peer out to check on them…but Jack's there alone. For just a second I freak out and I'm about to call Tom and cancel everything when I realize Jack would have told me in his text if J.J. wasn't there. He's at the game; he just got up for halftime.

I shift anxiously from side to side as the marching band plays and I watch for J.J. What if he doesn't come back before it's time? I can't do this if he's not there. I'll have to call the whole thing off.

Finally, I see him coming back toward his seat, his arms full of a giant tub of popcorn and two sodas. He sits next to Jack just as the band finishes their final note and the stadium erupts with the kind of hoots and applause the marching band never gets unless there's a giant board with graphics telling everyone to “Scream! Real! Loud!”

My heart is thumping so loud it echoes in my ears. There's just two minutes left of halftime, and they're all me.

“And now,” Emma Stubens's voice echoes through the stadium, “a special message of love and reconciliation from one of our own. You go, girl!”

I freeze. Why did she say that? I didn't tell her to say that! But now I hear the music, and I see everyone in the whole stadium looking around and craning their necks and twisting in their seats, and I see the big screens filled with
me.
Or more specifically, the pole I'm hiding behind, with wisps of my orange hair and purple-and-turquoise clothes peeking out from it.

The box,
I think.
I need to turn on the box.

I dig it out of my back pocket and manage to flick it on, but my hands are so shaky I drop it, sending a massive
SQUEE
of feedback through the loudspeakers.

“Sorry!” My voice echoes through the crowd as I retrieve the box and slip it in my back pocket. The music has already moved slightly ahead of where I was supposed to start. I have to jump in
now
or I never will. I step out from behind the pole…and sing.

“Your eyes on mine, the day we met…”

It's the opening line of Kyler Leeds's “As You Wish,” the song he wrote to help me express how I feel about J.J. I downloaded the karaoke version and sent it to Tom, so that's what I'm singing to. At the time Kyler wrote it, the song was all about how much I loved J.J. as a friend. For this occasion, though, I tweaked some of the words to make it clear that it's not just friendship I want anymore. Now it's a song that says loud and clear that I've seen the light, and J.J. is the one I want forever.

As I sing, I walk slowly down the aisles, making my way to J.J., and I quickly realize a few things:

All these things combine to make the next minute not
quite
what I had in mind. I'd kind of imagined everything would stop and the whole stadium would hold their breath while they watched me make this grand gesture that any one of them would die to have happen to them. Instead I'm pretty sure no one can hear my tweaked-out lyrics because they're drowned out by people booing, laughing, or shouting helpful notes like “Go home!” and “Train wreck!”

I decide not to hear any of it. I concentrate on J.J. I see him, just a few rows down from me. He's staring, jaw dropped, clearly impressed by what I'm willing to go through just to prove how I feel. I lock eyes with him—which makes me trip even more as I make way to his tier, but whatever, can't be helped—and emphasize all my changed words so
he
will hear them, even if no one else does, and he'll know exactly how much he means to me.

I get to his row—of course he's sitting in the middle—and have to skip a few bars of the song to sidle past everyone else. “Excuse me…excuse me…coming through…sorry, excuse me…” But then I'm at his side. He's in his seat, I'm smiling down at him, and I finish the last line of the song (the shortened song—I cut it down since I knew I had limited time):
“Aaaaaas youuuuuu wish.”

Even with everything, I still kinda expect thunderous applause. It doesn't come, but nobody's booing either. It's like now that I've reached my target, the whole stadium really
is
holding its breath, waiting to see what'll happen next.

“J.J.,” I say, and the words echo back to me a million times over. I know what I want to say next, but it's hard. Not because I don't feel it, but because I feel it
so
much I don't even know if I can get the words out without crying. To help me, I think about the moment I saw in the future, with him proposing. I smile and the words spill out easily. “I'm in love with you. I was in love with you even when I thought I wasn't. You're my best friend in the world. And I came out here to tell you that in front of everyone. And to ask you, ‘Can iguana wet goo?' ”

J.J. looks at me blankly, as does I'm pretty sure the entire stadium.

“It means—”

“ ‘Can we go out again?' ” J.J. says.

Explosive fireworks of happiness erupt inside me. “Yes!” I shout. “We can!”

I lean down to throw my arms around him, but he jumps up and recoils away.

“No,”
he says firmly, and he's close enough to my mic now that his words echo through the stadium. “I was saying I get the anagram—‘Can we go out again?' But I'm not insane, Autumn. I'm done. The answer is
no.
” He turns as if he's going to walk away, then changes his mind and leans close again. “And if you really want to do ‘as I wish'?
Never
make me hear that song again!”

The stadium erupts into cheers and applause.
Now
J.J. turns his back on me, pushes his way through the aisle, and storms out of the stadium, the camera on his back the whole way. I'm still staring after him in shock when the air horn blows and the football teams race onto the field to start the second half.

“Sit down, loser!” shouts some burly guy who doesn't even go to our school. “I'm trying to see!”

“Sorry,” I say. My voice does
not
echo through the stadium this time. I guess Tom cut the power to my mic. I slip into the seat next to Jack that J.J. just vacated and try to make myself as small as possible.

“I wish you'd told me ahead of time,” Jack says. “I'd have told you it was a bad idea.”

I nod, staring down at my lap. In my peripheral vision I see the people next to and in front of me laugh and stare, but if I don't focus on them, I can drown them out a little.

“Want to get out of here?” Jack asks.

I do, desperately, but I feel like standing up would just get everyone's attention, and I can't take that right now. I shake my head.

“ 'Kay,” Jack says. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

He turns his attention to the game, and I keep mine in my lap. It's torture to sit here. I wish I could just close my eyes and blink myself home so I could pull an Amalita and burrow under my covers for three weeks.

Then I realize. I
can
close my eyes and go away. Maybe not home, but someplace else. Maybe someplace that'll show me things don't turn as bad as I think. I wait until the group right around me turns back to the game, then pull the locket out from under my shirt. I open it but keep it cupped in my hand and don't look when I fidget with the dials. I know Dad will make sure I go someplace I need to see. After a few seconds, I close the locket, squeeze it in my hand, and think only about my dad, reaching out his hand to guide me.

Dad is truly looking out for me. I open my eyes in a super-clean, white-and-stainless-steel modern-looking kitchen, and right in front of me are two flat computer screens, built into the wall. The one on top shows a calendar. It's early December, same as when I left, but it's fifteen years in the future.

“No wonder the kitchen looks modern,” I say. “Or since I'm in the future, is it actually retro?” I lift both cupped hands to the sides of my head and make an explosion noise while I stretch my fingers out and move them in either direction: Mind. Blown.

The panel below the calendar is a photo album, I guess. Or a screen saver that shows pictures. I watch the slideshow for a bit. It's mainly pictures of me and Erick as kids, some of us in my now. There's others of us older, like me graduating college in my cap and gown—it has to be college because the cap and gown are blue, not black like the ones we wear at Aventura. Plus I look older. Then there's one of me, Reenzie, Amalita, and Taylor. How old are we there, twenty-six? I do the math and figure I'm in my thirties in this future.

My
thirties.
How crazy is that?!

I keep watching the screen, and I see lots of pictures of kids. These two dark-haired toddlers crawling all over a grown-up Erick. Are they his kids? And the two redheaded girls…one who looks maybe seven holding hands with another who's maybe five. Could they possibly be mine?

This has to be my mom's place. No one else would have this many pictures of Erick and me and—I guess—our families.

“Autumn, it's ten in the morning,” my mom's voice rings out, as if to confirm my thoughts. “I don't need a drink.”

“Well, if we're having this conversation, I do,” I hear my future self say.

My instinct is to hide as I hear footsteps coming closer, but that would be ridiculous. I'm invisible to everyone here. I stand my ground as Future Me walks into the room.

“Holy crap, I'm gorgeous!” I shout.

I can't help it. It's insane, the body that walks into this kitchen. And I can see every inch of it because Future Me's wearing skintight jeans and a super-clingy black, low-cut top. I gape and move closer as Future Me opens Mom's fridge and brings out a bottle of champagne and a container of orange juice. “Sure you don't want a mimosa?” Future Me calls.

“Ten in the morning, Autumn,” Mom says again. “I only keep that stuff in there for you.”

Future Me rolls her eyes and mixes a drink. As she does, I check her out more closely. There's something off, but I can't quite figure out what it is. Then she lifts her head to look at the slide show of pictures. She's standing perfectly still now, facing me and smiling, and I gasp out loud.

“Oh my God, what did you do to us?!” I shout.

I wasn't wrong at first glance. Future Me has a
killer
body. But it can't possibly be real. I couldn't get that much cleavage if I shoved every sock I own into the strongest push-up bra in the universe.

“And what is up with your
face
?” I wail. “How are lip implants still a thing and why did you do them???”

Future Me doesn't answer. She just smiles with those balloon-animal lips that are seriously not attractive on anyone and certainly not on me. Even my hair, which at first glance looked gorgeous and natural, I can now see isn't my real color. It's some kind of crazy mix of orange and blond and spreads in waves down below my shoulders. It's pretty…kinda…but I know my hair doesn't grow like that. It has to be extensions.

“Autumn, for real?” I ask her, but of course she ignores me.

Future-Me leads me into the main room of what seems like a beautiful condo. One whole wall is glass, and through it I can see the ocean. We're right there practically on the sand, but judging from the view we're several floors up. The room is light and airy, and my mom is sitting on a puffy cream-colored couch. It's weird. If I'm in my early thirties, then she's in her late fifties, but she looks much older. Her brown curls are threaded with gray, and she's curled on the couch under a crocheted afghan. Surrounding her—on the walls, the end tables, and the coffee table—are framed pictures of my dad. Sometimes alone, sometimes with Mom, sometimes with all of us as a family. It's like she's built a little shrine to him and is all curled up inside it.

Future-Me sits on the other end of the couch and takes a big sip of her drink. “Okay, let's talk about it.”

“Is it true?” Mom asks. She nods to a magazine on the coffee table. I sit on the floor to get a good look at it. On the cover is a picture of Kyler Leeds, and I swear, I always thought he was hot now, but he is
smokin'
in fifteen years. Like, it's unbelievable. I guess he's a movie star now because the picture shows him looking lustfully at some equally gorgeous young woman and the headline reads:
KYLER LEEDS AND DINA FLORES
, with the subheadline
SPARKS FLY ON THE SET AND OFF—ARE THEY LEAVING THEIR MARRIAGES FOR EACH OTHER?

Future-Me sighs. She dips her finger into her drink, then licks it clean. “It's true.”

I look back and forth between Mom and my Future Self. They both look so pained and sad I have to laugh out loud. “Seriously? We're this upset about Kyler Leeds? I don't even care this much about him
now
!”

“I thought you went through counseling,” Mom says. “I thought when the baby was born, he promised no more cheating.”

Future-Me laughs ruefully. “Mom, I married a superstar. Of course he cheats. It's part of the package.”

I literally fall over backward as I realize what they're saying. “Hold up—Kyler Leeds is my
husband
?! Those kids in the picture—they're mine and
Kyler Leeds's
?!” I gasp as something even more vital strikes me. “I've seen Kyler Leeds naked?!?!?”

“I just think you deserve better, Autumn,” Mom says.

“Are you kidding?” Future-Me says. “I have everything in the world. I have nothing but money, we go on fabulous vacations, I have great help for the kids…I bought you this condo, right? And I have a great home….”

I noticed the whole time Future-Me says all this, she can't meet Mom's eyes. When she finally does, she crumples and tears well in her eyes. When she speaks again, she sounds small and broken. “I don't know, Mom,” she says. “You say I deserve better, but I don't know that there's anything better out there. I mean, Kyler was supposed to
be
my something better. Remember how we started dating?”

“How can I forget?” Mom asks. “You framed the article. It's right there on the wall.” She gestures across the room.

“Are you kidding me?!” I shout. I leap up and run to the wall, where a huge glass frame holds a several-page feature from
People
magazine, detailing my great romance with Kyler Leeds. I immediately devour every word. Turns out it all started with my big performance at the football game. Apparently a lot of people filmed it on their cell phones, and it went so hard-core viral that Kyler saw it, and felt so bad for me he “rekindled a friendship sparked by their grandmothers.” Friendship turned to love, the article says, which reached a crescendo my senior year of college, when Kyler reenacted my big stadium moment and proposed to me in the stands. Unlike J.J. Austin, however, I didn't turn him down. We got married the summer after I graduated, we have two kids, and according to
People,
life has been a fairy tale since then.

According to the conversation between Future Me and Mom, however, he's been cheating on me the whole time.

“I worry about you, Autumn,” Mom says to Future Me. “The things you do to yourself to try to get his attention…” She gestures up and down my body, and Future Me's face grows even tighter than it surgically is. “Whatever I do to my body is for
me,
not him,” she says. “I like it.”

I snort. “Not unless you've had a brain transplant, you don't.”

Future Me shakes her striped mane and smiles. She puts a hand on Mom's knee. “Enough about me. I'm worried about you. You're in L.A., right on the beach. You're still young. There's a million things to do. I invite you to parties all the time and you never come. You just sit here by yourself unless your grandkids are around. You need to get out there and live, Mom. You could meet someone!”

Mom smiles and gestures to the pictures all around her. “I did meet someone. Your father.”

“Mom…,” Future Me starts, but Mom shakes her head.

“I had my time. I had amazing years with the love of my life. No one else will ever compare to that. You said so yourself, remember? When I tried to date that man Glen? Remember that?”

Future Me nods. Mom's eyes suddenly get wistful.

“I ran into him recently—did I tell you that? At Disneyland. I was with the girls. He was there with his wife and daughter. It was perfect, actually, because Maisy and Lily wanted to ride Tower of Terror and they didn't want to do it alone, but you know I can't do that one. Turned out Glen's family was going on it, so the girls went with them. Glen's not a thrill ride person either, so he stayed back and we talked. It's funny. He said he thought I was the one he'd marry. And he said he still thinks of me whenever he eats anything pumpkin flavored.”

Mom laughs, but it's sad, and I see her eyes are far away. Future Me must see the same thing, because she looks pained. “You really liked him, didn't you.”

There's a little too much silence before Mom answers; then she scoffs. “No! Besides, I'm perfectly happy with the way things turned out.”

As she gets to her feet and walks away, Future Me calls out, “Where are you going?”

“To make a mimosa!” Mom chirps. “I can't let you drink all alone, can I?”