Page 3 of Again, In Autumn

“What? When?”

“You had the entire summer off.”

“Excuse me? That was months ago, and you know I don’t really get a whole summer off. That’s an insult,” I argue.

At least now she has my full attention, and I’m not thinking about Adam.

Damn. There I go again.

I insist, “I have no free time, you know that. Most of my nights are spent lesson planning, and I spend the summer tutoring, organizing leveled readers and watching your children. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.” She pauses. “So, are you finally going to tell me why you haven’t been back to the lake?”

She’s probably sitting on her couch, scrolling through Pinterest on her iPad, looking at images of Parisian capsule wardrobe influencers.

I could say anything and get away with it.

“It’s no big deal, Fran,” I breeze.

“It is, though.”

“It’s really not.”

“Are you wanted for murder in Highland County? Is that it?”

I respond, “Yes. That’s it.”

“I knew it. You’re so predictable.”

Unfortunately, I am predictable. For thirty-two years, I’ve done everything my big sister ever asked of me, something that won’t stop today, no matter how many times she mentions him.

That’s why I fish my toiletry bag from under the bathroom sink, my hands moving in slow motion while I fill it with toothpaste.

A hairbrush.

Floss.

One black hairband.

Fourteen years ago, I would have dragged my suitcase to the bathroom door and swiped my arm like a windshield wiper across the bathroom counter, taking out children and ruining crops, knocking over everything I own and rolling it into luggage.

Packing for the lake house was my favorite day.

On the last day of the school year, Francesca and I would rush home and clear our closets. She, four years older and four inches taller, would deny me access to the dresses, bathing suits and shorts crumpled on the ground until she had chosen a summer’s worth of clothes for herself. We would order pizza and eat candy and heat questionable frozen appetizers our seventy-year-old German nanny hid behind the ice.

Then, Francesca would initiate the trade.

She would ask to use the expensive hair straightener Heddy bought me for my birthday. I’d trade it for one day a week use of her blue bikini that looked better on me anyway.

He loved me in that bikini.

He said it made my green eyes pop.

Also, my boobs.

After Francesca went to college, we still made that night our ritual. Sure, we could keep clothes at Heddy’s lake house, in the rooms that had been ours since birth, but it was more fun this way. Soon, the soda became wine and the pizza became gourmet pizza and the candy became homemade opera cake and apple tarte tartin.

Thinking of it makes me nostalgic.

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