“Mmmhmm.”
“Ah.” She goes back to reading. The phone rings and I pick it up.
“Autumn?” Aunt Angelina’s voice says after I say hello.
“Hey, I’ll get Mom,” I say. My mother looks up.
“No, actually, Autumn, I wanted you.”
“Oh.” My immediate thought is that something has happened to Finny.
“I’m going to tear down my classroom today and my good-for-nothing son canceled on me. Do you think you can help me? I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Oh, sure,” I say. It’s been a long time since I’ve been inside our elementary school. I’m curious, and spending time with Aunt Angelina can be fun.
“Really? Can you be over in fifteen minutes?”
“Easy,” I say. She thanks me and reiterates the promise of making it worth my while.
“What was that?” my mother asks.
“Aunt Angelina needs someone to help her tear down her classroom,” I say.
“Where’s Finny?”
I shrug. It is unlike Finny to cancel on his mother, but I felt odd asking. I have a fear of someone suspecting how often I wonder about Finny. I always try not to show too much interest, just in case.
***
Finny opens the back door when I knock. His face is blank; he doesn’t look startled to see me, and even though I’m sure that I do look surprised, he does not react to my face.
“Oh. Hi,” I say. “I thought you were gone.”
“I’m about to be,” he says. His voice is as sterile as his face. Aunt Angelina comes in the room with a bundle of portfolio books and canvas bags.
“How long will you be?” she says.
“I don’t know,” Finny says. “I’ll come by if I can. Sorry.”
“It’s fine, kiddo, get going.”
“Bye,” Finny says. He sidesteps me and leaves out the back door. His step is quick on the stairs. I look up at Aunt Angelina. I wasn’t intending to ask, but it must be plain on my face. She knows I know Finny well enough to see when something is wrong.
“He didn’t say,” she says, “but it’s something with Sylvie.”
“Oh,” I say. I hope that my face and voice give no more away. Aunt Angelina hands me some of her things and we go outside. I glance at the spot where Finny parks in the driveway, even though I know he won’t be there. We don’t talk as we load up the trunk and pull out of the driveway. It’s a short ride to the school; less than a minute later, we are only a few blocks away.
“So Finny tells me you’re thinking of teaching,” Aunt Angelina says to me. I shrug and then nod.
“Gotta do something practical,” I say. “I think it could be fun.”
“It is,” she says. She pauses as she makes a left-hand turn down the side street next to the school. “But it takes a lot of dedication.” I don’t say anything. She parks the car and turns off the engine. “You have time to decide though,” she says.
We unload the car and walk through the side door of the school where Finny and I grew up. It’s an old building from the 1920s, dark brick, high ceilings, long, narrow windows on every wall. Whenever I see or hear the word “school,” this building is the picture that comes to my mind.
As I cross the threshold, I think how I don’t have as much time to decide as I once did. When I was a student here, anything in the world seemed possible. It hadn’t seemed like a dream to move far away and write books; it had seemed like a plan. At ten, I hadn’t thought wanting to be a writer was impractical; wanting to be a pirate princess was impractical and I had put that dream aside.
But I’m older now, and I realize that a career of nothing but writing stories all day is as likely as marrying my dream pirate prince. I’ve done the research; getting published is nearly impossible, and of those few who make it, only a fraction can live off their work. If it was just about me, I could wait tables in the day and write all night and be happy.
But there is Jamie now, and he wants to buy a house and raise children with me. He says I’m perfect. He says I’m all he wants. I can’t disappoint him.
Aunt Angelina unlocks the door to her classroom and we step inside. I realize now why she wanted me and not my mother. The room is even more disorganized and lively than Aunt Angelina’s home. There is a half-finished mural on the wall that was a quarter-finished when we graduated four years ago. Prints from both famous and obscure artists line every other wall and cover the entire ceiling. The window ledges are lined with sculptures and various three-dimensional arts. On her desk is an asymmetrically shaped vase filled with flowers made of newspaper. I know from asking years ago that the newspaper is from the day Finny was born. On the wall behind her desk is the only framed art—a drawing we did together in third grade of a landscape littered with unicorns, soccer balls, explosions, and puppies.
The soccer balls and explosions are much better drawn than the unicorns or puppies; Finny was always better at drawing than me. I loved art class anyway though. Every year, Aunt Angelina made her seating chart so that we sat together at the smallest table in the corner that was only big enough for two. Most of our other teachers thought Finny and I were too focused on each other; they wanted us to make other friends and often sat us on opposite sides of the room. It never worked.
“If you could start wrapping up the sculptures at the window,” Aunt Angelina says, “I need to clean out this desk.” She sighs and eyes the mounds of paper spilling over the surface. We’ll be here awhile.
At the window, I can see the hill I used to sit on and read while Finny played kickball or soccer with the boys. I didn’t mind that he played with them for that half hour; I always wanted to read at recess, and we would be together after school anyway.
Sometimes I put down my book and watched him play, and I would try to send mental messages to him. Look up now, I would think, or, That was a good kick. I was convinced that he could hear, because sometimes he would look up at me watching him and smile. I never mentioned our secret telepathic conversations though. I knew that if we spoke about it out loud the magic would stop working.
Aunt Angelina turns on the radio. I wrap the sculptures up in tissue paper and fill the canvas bags with them. Aunt Angelina hums along with the music. I think about the story I started this morning. I’m proud of it. I’ll print it off tonight and give it to Jamie tomorrow.
Only the top of the desk is cleared off by the time I’m done; the drawers are all open and files are spilling out. Without being asked, I begin to take the posters down off the wall, making a blue ball of sticky-tack that gets larger and larger as the minutes pass. I go one wall at a time, standing on a chair when they get too high for me. Aunt Angelina sighs just as I am almost done.