So I noticed it. Out loud. A couple times. And so today he is barbecuing, Mom got a nap, and I’m getting ribs. Everyone wins.
BIANCA: You’re a Capricorn, aren’t you?
JO: I don’t know what my birthday has to do with this.
But yes
The spring-break carnival—a PTA fund-raiser slash please don’t get so bored that you try meth stopgap—spanned the inside of the main building, including the gym. The setup looked the same as it had for as long as Autumn could remember: every inch of wall space packed with all-ages games, G-rated dares like “hot coals” made of Lego bricks, and water-bottle flip contests. Complimentary coffee and lemonade flowed all day, depending on one’s just-add-water preference. Tinny pop music blasted out of the speakers Autumn and Flo had helped carry in at sunrise.
“Spin the wheel, win a piece of candy!” Autumn called to a passing group of carnival goers, her barking only slightly louder than anyone else’s. So much for all those vocal-projection lessons.
The candy wheel might not have been as exciting as one of the skill games, but Autumn counted herself lucky not to be running one of the more thankless booths—like being in charge of rotating kids in and out of the bounce house at the other end of the gym. The line was already starting to wind in front of the emergency exits.
“Spin the wheel, win a piece of candy!”
“Two tickets for a miniature candy? You scammer, that’s like a dollar per piece!” said Jo, appearing with a fistful of tickets and—to Autumn’s surprise and delight—Bianca.
“Is it a carnival if you aren’t being ripped off?” Bee asked, arching one of her dramatically drawn eyebrows.
“It’s a fun-size candy, which is bigger than a mini and you know it!” Autumn jumped down off her stool to scoop Bee into a hug. “What did I do to deserve a tag-team visit from both of my favorites? Bee, you’ve never surprised me before!”
Normally, Bee texted a preface to every phone call. That was still an improvement from college when she would email Autumn to let her know that there would be a text notification before she left her dorm two doors down to knock on the door. She’d never shown up unannounced to anything a day in her life. She needed more invitations than a vampire.
Bee laughed in her ear as Autumn swished the two of them side to side. “Surprise, sweets!”
Autumn stepped back but kept her hands on Bee’s shoulders. “How did you slip away?”
“Birdy is taking Lita to get a pedicure. We had a nail-clipping incident this morning that almost tore our family apart, but, good news, hi, I’m free!”
“We ran into each other in the front yard,” Jo told Autumn. “I told her I had to stop for cash to get in and she flashed me a twenty.”
Autumn’s heart soared. Her dream of her friends being friends was coming true.
Next stop, three-part harmony!
“So, this is the spring carnival?” Bee asked, caught up reading the banner over every station. She tucked in her elbows as a gaggle of kids ran by on their way to the Frisbee and football toss. “It is so much more popular than I imagined. And more indoors. I was picturing the last scene in Grease.”
Autumn beamed at her. “Because you are my friend and you are perfect.”
“I can’t believe you’ve never been to the spring carnival before!” Jo said to Bee.
“Believe it!” Bee said with a laugh. “While you guys were playing laundry-hamper Hungry Hungry Hippos—we passed it on the way in, I have to go back—I was being quiet and out of the way somewhere. Or secretly listening to Lita’s records with headphones on. If only I’d known that I would be forced to hear ‘Black Magic Woman’ every morning for the rest of my life, I could have spent my time on something worthwhile.”
Autumn had known in the larger sense that Bianca hadn’t really participated in any extracurricular fun things when she was a kid. There were very few town events that Autumn could name that Bee had attended. Imagining tiny Bianca, alone and friendless, made Autumn want to cry. More so because she could perfectly picture baby Bee, in the too-tight French braid she’d worn through high school and pristine white tights. It wasn’t that she hadn’t liked Bianca when they were kids. She’d just never noticed her at all, which felt like an even greater sin. If Autumn could change anything about the past, she would tell her younger self to take a chance on the prissy kid who spent recess staying clean and practicing penmanship.
Not that she thought her younger self would have been able to slow down long enough to listen. Baby!Autumn had only been interested in things that could make her a Broadway starlet or seem cool to Flo.
Jo stood on the toes of her gray suede loafers, scanning the handwritten signs over the many booths.
“Is there an age limit for the bounce house yet?” she asked.
“No way!” Autumn said. “PTA invested in the deluxe bouncer for sober grad nights. It has a two-thousand-pound weight limit. Just wait for an adult jump session. They happen every nine minutes. Or whenever a Pitbull song starts, whichever comes first.”
“Bianca.” Jo turned to Bee, breathless with excitement. “We have to bounce. I took a class at an inflatable gym once. It’s so fun.”
“I don’t know if I’m wearing a bounce-house bra.” Bee rubbed one of her straps through her sweater.
“And I don’t think my mattifying foundation will hold up.” Jo laughed. “But I’m gonna try!”
Over Bee’s finger-waved hair, Autumn could see Pat Markey charging toward them. Her stomach sank down to her red glitter sneakers. Pat never charged toward her with good news.
“Good morning, Jo, Bianca,” Pat said pertly. Her recall for past student names put Autumn to shame. Autumn had to check her roster before second-period freshman drama every day. There were simply too many Kaydens and yet no one looked like a Kayden. “Aren’t you both lovely today?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Markey,” Jo and Bianca intoned. Autumn tried not to look down at her flannel shirt. It was never warm enough in Sandy Point for the clothes bought in Los Angeles. Standing near Bee’s immaculate hair and makeup and Jo’s expensive fabrics made her glitter sneakers seem costume-y.
“Miss Autumn,” Pat said with syrupy softness. She still hadn’t gotten the hang of calling Autumn by her surname. “There was a coffee spill over on the floor where your Broadway Club is setting up for their performance. I told you that putting them in the main room would be a problem. Now, I don’t know where the custodians are, they’re so busy today. If you could be a dear and—”
“Autumn, do you have the keys for the custodial closet? Or a mop?” Jo asked, popping the P at the end of the sentence pointedly to stop Autumn from running to clean the spill.
Autumn pressed hard into the balls of her feet. She thought she could hear the glitter crunching. “No. I parked next to our head custodian Jim this morning. I know he’s on campus—”
“Great!” Jo said. She squinted a sarcastic smile at Pat. “Then, Mrs. Markey, you should track down Jim the head custodian. Is the Broadway Club safe in the meantime?”
“Y-yes,” Pat stammered, visibly unnerved. It was rare for her to fail at forced delegation. “I’ll go check the front office and see if Jim has his radio.”
“Bye, Mrs. Markey!” Bianca said cheerfully.
Jo whirled on Autumn. “Don’t let that vest beat you up! You’re not her personal complaint department!”
I kind of am, Autumn realized. She took all of Pat’s complaints, whether they were about the theater, the PTA, or Autumn’s classes being too loud on the other side of the accordion wall.
“It’s a PTA event,” Autumn said. She jammed a miniature Snickers in her mouth and chewed sadly. “I’m the staff liaison.”
“So you have to go mop the mystery puddle?” Jo asked.
“She doesn’t have real authority over you, does she?” Bee asked. “She can’t fire you or give you an F?”
“I’m sure she hasn’t forgotten how many Fs she gave me. Algebra was not my subject.”
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“It wasn’t hers either,” Jo snapped. “She’s a fucking choir teacher.”
“She hates all of my ideas,” Autumn said. “I didn’t think she hated me in high school. But maybe that’s why she and Mr. Hearn cast me as Ado Annie and not Laurie. She doesn’t think I’m protagonist material.”
“You were too funny not to be Ado Annie,” Jo comforted her. “The rest of that show was boring as hell.”
“Speaking of people who hate us, Jen G just walked in with her kids,” Bee said.
Jo snuck a glimpse. “Yikes. They sure got her head size, huh?”
“Huge noggins,” Bee agreed.
“People watching is the best part of spring carnival. Wait until you see the crowd of mommies that follows Flo around.” Autumn giggled. She shooed her friends away. “You two go have fun! The Broadway Club performance starts across the gym in forty-five minutes!”
An hour if I have to find a mop, she added silently.
“We’ll meet you there!” Jo promised.
“I’ll set a reminder on my watch,” Bee said.
“God help us. More beeping.” Jo laughed. “Come on, Bianca. You’ve never played shoe-box Jenga, and we are going to fix that!”
An hour later, with the carnival in full swing, the gym filled to fire code. Autumn turned the candy wheel over to Glen from the science department. As she walked across the gym, she imagined herself in the opening number of Beauty and the Beast. There went Jen G with a scowl like always. The same old homemade soap for sale. Dr. Wiley was doing a victory dance beside the rubber-duckie race. Diane, the president of the PTA, had her face painted like a butterfly as she sank shot after shot at the football toss—her twin giants screaming her on shouting “QB MOM! QB MOM!”
Between the palatial bounce house and the selfie booth full of floating picture frames, there was an empty patch of gym floor that had been roped off after the spill. The sign overhead designated it Dance Party Central. Against the back wall baked goods were stacked for the impending cake-then-cookie walks beside the plastic Party City top hats Autumn had paid an exorbitant shipping fee on. Her four-person Broadway Club was outside, warming up away from the prying eyes of the audience that was starting to assemble in front of the empty booth. Including Bee, Jo, and Florencio, who had a stuffed snake—the grand prize for library mini golf—wrapped around his shoulders.
“Hello, I love the spring carnival,” Bee announced, handing Autumn a sleeve with two hand-warming pretzels.
“A convert!” Autumn exclaimed. She tore off a piece of pretzel with her teeth. The salty carbs provided a nice contrast to her bellyful of chocolate and caramel.
“There was an unforeseen tragedy at the fishbowl toss,” Florencio said.
“Yes,” Jo scoffed. “And that tragedy is that I am fucking garbage at throwing a Ping-Pong ball.”
Flo gestured toward a passing family with small children on their way to the Craft Corner. “And watching your language around kids.”
“Oops.” Jo covered her mouth and snickered. One of her fingers was splotched with paint. “Everyone, please meet my replacement very first pet, Rock Rockamore.”
In her palm was a rock hastily painted pale blue. Above a red marker smile—with U-shaped tongue—it had googly eyes resting on top of hot-glue blobs.
Autumn squinted at it. “Is it supposed to resemble Grover from Sesame Street?”
Jo gave an approving nod to the rock. “Grover is the best Muppet, so Rock Rockamore and I will take that as a compliment.”
“You’re going to say its full name every time?” Flo asked her archly.
“Don’t be bitter because I didn’t use your Rock the Rock Rockson idea, Coach.”
Flo pushed up his sleeves. “I should get the rest of the coffee cups out of my car. The beverage station was looking low when we came in.”
“But the Broadway Club performance is about to start!” Autumn said.
“I’ll catch the dances when Jo posts them!” Florencio said, bounding away from them, throwing deuces over his head.
“What a fucking Boy Scout,” Jo said. “Is his trunk just a huge emergency kit or what?”
“You’re kidding, but he literally has a bug-out bag packed for every season in there,” Autumn said.
Jo snorted in disbelief. “He is so his father’s son.”
Autumn couldn’t have agreed more. “Try telling him that, would you? He won’t listen to me.”
“There she is!” Autumn turned in time to see Ginger Jay skittering toward her with arms outstretched, stiletto fingernails wagging. “Our little triple threat! Is that Autumn Kelly or Bob Fosse?”
“I consider myself more of a Gwen Verdon type—Oof!” Ginger’s red-lacquered nails clacked together as she enveloped Autumn in a squashy hug.
Ginger Jay was all intense eye contact and zebra-striped polyester. She considered her pop of animal print to be her townie signature, adorably unaware that everyone in town thought of her as the puppet alter ego from her old ad campaign. She smelled like the height of suburban class: a Macy’s perfume counter and retinol cream.
Towering over most of the crowd, the Chief adjusted the sleeves of his flannel. Autumn noticed, in horror, that his blue checks matched her own. Instead of casual cosplaying Dorothy, she was dressed as her dad. Mortifying.
“Sorry we’re late,” the Chief rumbled. Birdy liked to say that Chuck Kelly was one of few men who had a mustache sound, even without the look. The Chief’s got a voice that could fight a bear. He searched around, obviously scanning for Florencio. His nostrils flared as he looked down at Autumn with hazel eyes that mirrored her own. “We didn’t miss the show, did we? Where’s your mother?”
“She went to spend Easter with Aunt Fred,” she said. She looked back at the door. “Flo popped out for just a second. I’m sure he’ll be right back.”
“I’m sure,” the Chief parroted. He looked down his long nose at Jo and narrowed his eyes. “That’s not little Jo Freeman behind you, is it? Where are your curls?”
“Heya, Chief Chuck,” Jo said. “I’ve never seen so much of your face before! Don’t you miss your flavor saver?”
The Chief touched his bare upper lip. “It’s been a cold spring, I’ll tell you that for free. Now, who do we have to bribe to get this show on the road?”
“Psst! Miss Kelly!”
The Broadway Club, in their matching black T-shirts and lightweight jazz shoes, were standing in a stiff line behind the velvet rope, doing their best to wave and whisper at Autumn without drawing the attention of proud parents and fellow students in the audience.
Autumn excused herself. She gave the signal to the kid at the bounce house and the music paused.
While the Broadway Club scrambled to look casual in their places, Autumn tapped on the cakewalk microphone. Her voice boomed out at the crowd.
“Hello, Point High Privateers! Yo-ho-ho!”
There was a return “Yo-ho-ho!”—although the loudest voices came from the club members lined up in tableau behind Autumn.
“I am Miss Kelly, the drama teacher here at Point High.”
There was a hoot from the crowd.
“This year we have a new club on campus for students who love to perform but don’t want to wait for Mrs. Markey and me to make up our minds about the fall musical.”
“Hadestown!” someone in the crowd shouted. Probably a Kayden.
“The Broadway Club is here to perform a couple of numbers we put together in just a few weeks of meeting after school. Any Point High student is welcome to come hang out with us after school Tuesdays and Thursdays onstage in the auditorium to learn Broadway dance numbers and sing harmonies or just talk about the joyful expression that is musical theater—”
Behind her, a throat cleared. Autumn was hogging center.
“And with that!” She clapped her hands together in a half bow. “Let me introduce to you, for the very first time: the Point High Broadway Club!”
The canned music kicked in, forcing the
folks in the bounce house to jump around to the faux-Motown sound of the Hairspray karaoke track Autumn had trimmed in GarageBand. She hurried out of the way, skirting the audience and sneaking in between Bee and Jo as the Broadway Club exploded into song and dance, introducing themselves as “The Nicest Kids in Town.”
Pat would never in a million years let Autumn stage a John Waters musical on the main stage.
The Broadway Club nailed the synchronized fan kicks in “9 to 5” and no one dropped their hat during “One” from A Chorus Line. At the last trumpet, the club hit their final pose, clutching the brims of their plastic top hats with perfect Fosse extension.
The crowd applauded, which caught the attention of the rest of the carnival goers and inspired them into applauding, too. Autumn stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled, the loudest expression of her joy she could muster. The Broadway Club was swarmed by parents with bouquets and friends with video.
“Wow, they’re really good,” Jo noted, clapping along with the crowd. “I am not going to be able to go from zero to A Chorus Line.”
“It’s just a little back, step, pivot, step,” Autumn scoffed. “Easy peasy.”
“We’ve done it, Bianca,” Jo said. “That’s everything spring carnival has to offer us. Unless you want to go back and join the line for band room Rock Band.”
Bee shook her head. “Birdy would be so sad if I played Rock Band without him. We fell in love crushing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”
“I wish we’d done this together in high school.” Autumn sighed. “I have to go back to the candy wheel. I want to play with my friends!”
“In high school, what would you guys have done next?” Bee asked.
“Go home, terrorize Florencio if he was around,” Autumn said, searching around the gym for any sign of her brother. “Instead of hiding from his dad like a loser.”
“I feel like spring carnival was the beginning of an entire week of sleepovers,” Jo said. “As long as neither of us was leaving town for Easter, we’d just go from my house to Autumn’s house and back again until our parents got sick of having an extra kid around.”
The Throwback List Page 18