Page 77 of Again, In Autumn

“Okay, baby, we’re going to start.” Francesca says, “Caroline, music please.”

Just then, Kate gets on her tiptoes on the other side of Adam and adjusts the brim of his ball cap. “There.” Her face lights up. She tips the side her hat. “And we’re matching. We can be partners for Vienna’s weird game.”

“It’s very sensual. Watch out,” I mutter.

Adam steals a look my way before we all cover our horrified ears. Angry, vengeful sounds emit from the speaker resting atop the van, and I’ll need a second pair of hands to shield myself from the profanity.

“Caroline!” David shouts.

She panics, dropping the phone in her hands. “It’s Fran’s phone, she told me to play music!”

“I told you to pick something fun,” Francesca argues. “Not assault us!”

Kate slow claps. “Mother of the year, ladies and gentlemen.”

Adam walks forward and picks up the phone from the grass. “Here, I got it.” Within seconds, the music changes to eighties rock. He admits, “There might be a drop or two in the swear jar later, but at least no one’s going bankrupt tonight.”

“Aren’t you tempted to just play your own songs?” I say when he returns beside me.

“You wouldn’t know if this was my song or not,” he responds.

I brush imaginary dirt off my shoulder. “This is The Rolling Stones.”

“Oh, color me impressed,” he jokes. In a way that no one other than myself would find suspect, he leans closer to me. “And how would you know that?”

I try not to get lost in his brown eyes. “Someone played it for me once.”

He smiles. “Or a million times.”

We pull back, the question in both of our eyes: is this okay? We’re talking to each other in the location of last night’s screaming match and the tearful good-bye fourteen years ago. We agreed to act as strangers but sharing a joke or a word or a look even feels like we’re breaking the rules.

Wanting to be near him at all should break the rules.

Francesca’s whistle blows and I jolt, watching everyone take off toward Alice’s toys. Adam and I hang back a little too long. It’s unnatural for us to be paired off, it would set off alarm bells or, god forbid, another whistle-and-point.

I trot off toward a napkin and pick it off a dried bush. Adam goes the other way. I notice Kate making a beeline in his direction, dangling a one-armed stuffed doll in her arm. He smiles at her, laughs at something she says.

I pick up a plastic baby bottle and Francesca blows the whistle.

“Ally says that’s all of the toys.” She grimaces. “Or so we’re going to believe the three-year-old. Alice, who wins this round?” She leans away as spit is whispered into her ear. “Okay… Auntie Vee is the winner! For somehow knowing that napkin was a toy.”

I wave my little white flag of victory.

Maggie giggles and says, “I didn’t know I was playing to win.”

“You’re always playing to win if Francesca is involved,” David sighs.

His wife cups her hands around her mouth and announces. “Let the games continue!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Caroline, David, Diego and Adam stand around holding homemade mallets, waiting for Grayson to hit his wiffle ball into the thyme plant marker.

I sit on the porch stairs with a plate of garden snacks – cheese and sliced green apple – watching them play. Adam twirls his plastic baseball bat in the air and gives it a swing. I smile, watching him patiently wait, knowing he could have abandoned the game like the rest of us.

Just like that, everything is so much lighter. This imagined weight that pressed into my shoulders is picked off like tugs from a swath of cotton candy, making me wonder how much of my feelings are full of hot air.

Every time Adam looks at me – tug. Every time I laugh at something he says – tug. Every time I think about him sprawled in the yard when we were alone, watching me perform a cheer routine – tug.

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