Autumn's Wish

by Bella Thorne

  When I start the plan, I’m a little worried the store managers won’t like me sitting around outside and will make me go away. They don’t bother me, though. Instead, a disturbing number of people—and more every day—come up to me on their way in or out and ask me if I’m the YouTube girl with the Kyler Leeds song. I can’t escape it anywhere. A bunch of the people who stop know me by name. Some even ask for my autograph. I try to smile and be nice, but it’s completely mortifying, especially when they want to chat. They laugh about the video like it’s a movie they saw instead of my actual life, or say things like, “So how did it feel at the exact moment you realized he meant no?” And of course they all want to know where I stand with J.J. now.

  It’s a massive testament to how much I love my mom that I don’t run to my room, hide, and never come out again.

  Over the weekend, Mom recruits Erick and me to put in some work on the new location of Catches Falls, which severely cuts into my stalking time. I’m back at it the next week, though, and I’m in the store trolling for snacks when an overweight middle-aged balding guy in a Hawaiian shirt with a Manager name tag pulls me aside. I assume I’m in trouble for loitering or something, but he just wants to know if the whole YouTube video was a setup.

  “ ’Cause my buddy and me, we think it’s some kind of viral campaign for a new TV show, and maybe you’re here every day to do publicity,” he says. “Like there’s a hidden camera watching to see how people react to you. ’Cause if there is, I thought, you know, maybe I could appear on camera. Do some kind of funny bit with you. I was in a theater group in sixth grade, you know.”

  “Did not know that,” I say. He has this happy, expectant grin on his face. He’s so excited I almost lie and tell him he’s right, but then he’ll expect to be in a viral video and I can’t help him there. “Sorry, but it’s not a publicity thing. The video was real.”

  “Aw, come on,” the guy goads. “No one would do anything that embarrassing unless it was a setup. You can tell me the truth.”

  I blush bright red, but no matter how many times I tell him the truth, he doesn’t believe me. “Even if it was real,” he insists, “you must be doing some kind of follow-up. Why else would you be here every day for a whole week?”

  I see no way to shut him up except the truth. “I’m looking for a guy,” I begin.

  “J.J.?” he asks. “Or another one?”

  My face burns. I grimace. “Another one. Not for me, though, for my mom. And no,” I add when he opens his mouth, “it’s not for a video.”

  I tell him the basics: that I got in the way of my mom’s relationship, I regret it, and I really want to get them back together again. “But honestly,” I conclude, “the only real thing I know about this guy is that he shops here. So I’m looking for him.”

  “Every weekday afternoon?” the manager asks.

  “It’s all I’ve got,” I say.

  “But what if he shops in the morning? Or on weekends?”

  It’s an obvious question, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought it a million times myself, but it suddenly makes me so exhausted and overwhelmed I want to cry. It must show, because the manager looks stricken.

  “No, no! It’s okay!” he hurriedly says. “I just meant you should have told us here and let us help!”

  “Let you help?” I echo.

  “Sure! We’re pretty good with all the regulars here. Tell me what the guy looks like and I’ll let you know if I’ve seen him. We can ask everyone else on duty too. Even if he doesn’t shop during my shifts, maybe he shops on theirs. Then you’ll know exactly when to find him.”

  Suddenly this overweight, balding manager looks like an angel from heaven. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Course we would. You’re a celebrity!”

  I don’t know about a celebrity, but if my personal mortification helps me get Glen and Mom back together, maybe it’s worth it. I describe Glen to the manager, whose name turns out to be Earl. The description doesn’t ring any bells with him, but a couple cashiers and the woman handing out taster samples all think they’ve seen him before. He usually shops in the late morning, and usually on weekdays, but he hasn’t been in yet this week. I’m seriously considering skipping school for the rest of the week to stalk in prime Glen-time, but Earl has a better idea. He takes my cell phone number and says he’ll share it with the rest of the staff, along with a physical description of Glen. Whenever Glen does show up, someone on duty will call me. I’m incredibly grateful but also a little dubious. Are they actually going to help, or did Earl just engineer a way to get the phone number of “the YouTube Girl”?

  On Wednesday I find out. I’ve been sneaking my phone with me into every class and keeping it in my pocket on vibrate, just in case. I’m in the middle of physics when it goes off. Subtly, I check the text.

  It’s Amber at Trader Joe’s. He’s here! Exact description, plus I asked his name to be sure.

  Keep him there!!!! I text back.

  I hide my phone again, then start moaning. Loudly. And I double over in my seat.

  “Autumn Falls,” Ms. Grotnick snaps. “Contain yourself.”

  “Can’t!” I croak. “I think I ate something bad for breakfast. I think I might—”

  I start coughing and hacking like I’m about to throw up. I make the most hideous noises I know how to make. Everyone else in class stops making jokes and moves to lab desks far away from mine to avoid the splash zone.

  “Go!” Ms. Grotnick says. “To the nurse’s office. Now!”

  I grab my things and run and don’t stop until I get back to my house and on my bike. I might have a problem later if Ms. Grotnick follows up with the nurse, but I can always say I got sick outside and felt so bad I went home to bed. From the time I got Amber’s text to the time I arrive at Trader Joe’s, exactly twenty minutes have gone by. I run in the door a hot sweaty mess just as Glen is entering a checkout lane. Since breaking up with my mom, he’s let the blond fuzz grow back around the perimeter of his balding head, but his face is still clean-shaven.

  “Glen!” I shout.

  His eyes are magnified by his glasses and already look large, but they go cartoony when he sees me. Instant beads of sweat appear on his upper lip and head.

  I take a moment to marvel over this guy being the one who’s perfect for Mom, but hey, to each her own.

  I run to his cart and cling to the edge.

  “Glen, I need to talk to you.”

  I peer down at his cart. It’s filled with peppermint bark, dark chocolate candy canes, Merry Mingle candies, and pretty much every other red-and-white wrapped item in the store. “You are a man who loves seasonal merchandise,” I note.

  “You don’t need to talk to me, Autumn,” Glen says, and despite his instant fear response when he saw me, his voice is kind and reassuring. “I’ve stayed away from your mother, and I will continue to stay away from her.”

  “NO!” I wail.

  Then I realize other people in the store are grinning and pulling out their phones like they’re going to film me. Apparently once you make one mortifying video, people look forward to more. I take it down a notch and ask Glen to meet me outside the store so we can talk in his car. He looks around at the other customers and seems to get it immediately, which makes me think even he has seen my football game travesty.

  Once his bags are loaded and we’re in his car with the radio on, I tell him what I came to say.

  “Glen, I’m sorry. I messed up. It’s my fault Mom broke up with you. I was a brat. I told her you were nothing compared to my dad, and she’d be throwing away her time by spending it with you.”

  “Wow.” Glen blinks several times, then wipes his glasses on his shirt. “That’s…quite an argument.”

  “It’s a bad argument. My dad is the most incredible man in the world. That’s why I know he doesn’t want my mom pining for him. He wants her to be happy. And I really think you can make her happy.” I take a breath and add hopefully, “You do still like my mom
, right?”

  Glen smiles. “Autumn, I’m proud to say I fell head over heels in love with your mother. Nothing’s changed for me. But I’ve tried calling her. I understand how hard this is for you and Erick, and I was willing to back up and take things very slow. She wasn’t interested. She wanted a clean break.”

  “Because I got in her head,” I say, and I keep going when he opens his mouth to object. “Believe me, I don’t know what she said to you and I don’t care. I know she wants to be with you. I know you two can have a future together. A really good one. Just…will you give it another chance?”

  Glen shifts in his seat; he’s so tall the top of his head bumps against the ceiling. “I’ll call her right now if you want me to, but I’m telling you—”

  “No!” I shout. “A call won’t be enough. She’ll say no, but I swear it won’t be because she doesn’t want to be with you. If you’re going to get her back, we need to plan something bigger. Something she can’t possibly say no to.”

  “I can’t sing in a stadium, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Glen grins impishly. It’s the most personality I’ve seen out of the guy, and I kind of like it.

  “That was a rare failure in a history of life-changing genius,” I say. “Trust me on this one. I will come up with something brilliant, and you will sweep her off her feet.”

  “I’ll get my dustpan ready,” he says with a super-dorky eyebrow waggle that again makes me wonder for my mom’s emotional sanity, but at least he’s on board. We exchange phone numbers and I promise to be in touch soon with a genius idea.

  Unfortunately, I seem to be out of genius ideas. Plus Christmas break starts next week for Erick and me, and even though we haven’t booked any kind of trip, Mom wants to go away like we did last year. Since every day Mom and Glen aren’t together is another day that something can go horribly wrong, I’d love to do something before we go. I’m ready to settle for a romantic dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town when I get a phone call on my cell from a private number, which of course I answer because I’m too curious not to.

  “Hello?”

  “Autumn?” a guy says in an over-the-top sexy voice. “It’s me. Kyler Leeds.”

  I roll my eyes. “Jack, shut up. I’ve been really good to you lately, and—”

  “Autumn, for real,” the guy says in a far more normal voice. “It’s me. Kyler.”

  “Seriously?” I ask. “Then why are you talking in that breathy I’m-a-hot-pop-idol voice?”

  “Uh, because I’m a hot pop idol?” he asks.

  “Whatever,” I say. And then I scream into my pillow because, yes, he and I have been legit kinda-friends for a long time now and I can give him a hard time about things, but still. He’s Kyler Leeds.

  “You totally just screamed into your pillow, didn’t you?” Kyler asks, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

  “As if, Ego Boy.”

  “Uh-huh,” he says, clearly amused. “I called because I saw your video of my song.”

  “I’m not sure it was a video of your song,” I say.

  “Whatever. The video’s huge, everyone’s watching it, and it got ‘As You Wish’ back on the radio. It’s a hit all over again, and since I have you to thank, I thought maybe I could take you out when I come to town for Christmas.”

  For a second I tingle all over—Kyler Leeds wants to take me out! Then I remember my last future jump and I gasp. This is how it started. Kyler asked me out because of the video, we dated on and off through college, he proposed my senior year, we got married, had kids, and I became Plasti-Cheating-Victim Autumn Falls!

  “Autumn?” Kyler asks when I don’t say anything.

  “I am not going to marry you,” I say sternly.

  “O-kay,” Kyler says. “Did I ask you to?”

  “No,” I say. “And you won’t, because I’m changing the future.”

  “You are a seriously weird chick. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “It’s happened,” I admit, “but that’s not the point. The point is I have to change things up, so I can’t go out with you.”

  “You’re turning me down,” Kyler says, amazed. “No one turns me down.”

  “Look, it’s not you,” I say. “I just don’t want to get lip implants.”

  “That wasn’t going to be part of the plans,” Kyler objects. “You did me a solid, even if you didn’t mean to, and I want to pay you back.” He puts his super-sexy voice back on and adds, “Believe me, I can make you a night you’ll never forget.”

  Inspiration lights me up inside. “Yes!” I scream.

  “That’s more like it,” Kyler says.

  “No!” I say. “Not for me. If you really want to thank me, I need you to make an unforgettable night for my mom!”

  “You’re fixing me up with your mom?” Kyler asks. “Autumn, I—”

  I roll my eyes and explain everything, leaving out all things locket and time travel. “I need to send them on a super-romantic date that’s totally beyond anything they could imagine. Can you help me?”

  “Sure, just…you realize this is the second time you’ve given up a night with me to someone else,” Kyler says. “I’m either really impressed by your selflessness or I’m getting a complex.”

  “So what should we do for their date?” I ask. “I need something insane—the kind of thing I’d only see in a movie or on TMZ.”

  “You watch TMZ?” he asks, disgusted.

  “Shut up,” I say. “Not the point.”

  The two of us plot together. Kyler knows some absurdly posh resort in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, and while I have to admit I have no clue where that is, Kyler tells me all I need to know is it’s about two and a half hours away from Aventura in his private jet. It also costs something like my entire college fund per night, but Kyler says he’ll make about a gazillion times that in publishing royalties now that “As You Wish” is so crazy huge again, so he’s willing to spring for a room, an incredible meal, and all their expenses for an overnight trip. It sounds perfect, but I have a slightly queasy feeling in my stomach.

  “Are we sure we want it overnight?” I ask. “I mean, we could just fly them out for dinner.”

  “Sure,” Kyler agrees, “if you want it to be way less than perfect.”

  “But I feel like I’m sending my mom and Glen to a Bachelor Fantasy Suite, and we all know what happens in those.”

  “How about a non-fantasy suite?” Kyler offers. “Two bedrooms. What they do with them, you never have to know.”

  I can agree to that without getting totally grossed out, so it’s a go. Kyler has “his people” make some calls, then texts me later and tells me the best day for it all to happen is December twenty-third, exactly one week away. Kyler will make sure she’s back by late afternoon the twenty-fourth, so we’ll have her for Christmas Eve. When I hop on the phone with Glen to tell him everything, he doesn’t believe it at all. He asks me at least eight times if I’m arranging some kind of viral video prank on him. I’m not sure he believes me when I say I’m not, though I assure him I will launch a viral prank on him if he’s too afraid to show up for the date.

  The next week is serious torture. Christmas break starts, so Erick and I are hanging with Mom a lot. We help with Catches Falls, we make a ton of Christmas cookies to wrap up as gifts for friends, and we put up and decorate our tree. It’s a total miracle I don’t spill.

  December twenty-third, while Mom is in the kitchen making breakfast, I sneak into her bedroom and pack a suitcase. I toss in a couple bathing suits, a casual and a fancy dress, two pairs of shorts and tank tops, sunglasses, sandals, heels, and a ton of toiletries and makeup.

  At exactly ten a.m. I peer out the window and see a limo pull up out front.

  At exactly ten-thirty a.m. I see Glen’s car pull up behind it. I run down the stairs to watch everything unfold.

  The doorbell rings.

  “Autumn, can you get it?” Mom calls. “I’m doing laundry.”

  “Can’t, Mom,” I say.
“I’m in the bathroom!”

  Erick, who’s on the couch and plainly sees me, looks at me like I’m an aardvark. I make a very clear “shut up” face to him and he shrugs.

  “Erick?” Mom calls.

  I frantically gesture to Erick, who calls, “Sorry, Mom! I’m”—he flounders for some excuse, then clearly gives up—“lazy.”

  The doorbell rings again.

  “Honestly,” Mom huffs as she stalks into the foyer. “You kids…”

  She throws open the front door.

  Glen’s there. He is wearing a tuxedo and carrying a bouquet of red roses. Points off for cliché, but points on for effort. He looks good…for Glen. His head is completely bald again, and something about his shirt collar makes his head look slightly less like a giant balloon about to fly away from his body.

  “Glen?” Mom says, confused. She immediately starts fidgeting with her rumpled hair, old capri sweatpants, and ancient rock concert tee. “What are you doing here?”

  “You wouldn’t talk over the phone, so I thought maybe we could work things out in person.”

  “Glen…I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Those are her words, but she’s blushing and smiling and keeps touching her hair like she wishes it looked better. She’s interested; I know it.

  “If that’s true,” Glen says, “if you’re really not interested and don’t want to see me again, I understand. I’ll go away and never bother you again. But before you do, you should know that limo outside is for our date. I believe it will be pretty remarkable. Especially since Autumn put it together.”

  “Autumn did?” Mom spins around. She’s surprised I’m right behind her.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “What did you do?” she asks.

  “I arranged a do-over,” I say. “But this time it’s all Autumn-approved. This guy’s pretty dorky, and he’s no Dad…but he’s also not a washcloth.”

  “Excuse me,” Glen says, “a washcloth?”

  “You’re not a washcloth,” I say. “It’s a compliment.”

  “Ah,” Glen says, rocking back on his heels.