1. Say Something
I’ve been watching Autumn Burke for weeks, waiting for a chance to talk to her. The first night I played one of my twice weekly sets at this coffee shop her smiling face caught my eye. I watched her the whole night as she served people coffee or tapped her foot absentmindedly to the music I was playing while she waited for orders to come out of the kitchen. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her, and it’s been the same every week since.
Tonight is just like every other night. I’m packing up my equipment after my set and she’s wiping down tables, waiting for the last few customers to leave so she can lock up. Neither of us says a word, but every now and then I catch her eye and she smiles at me. I know this is cheesy, but it’s the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen and every time I see it, I feel like a 14-year-old girl about to go on her first date. It’s kind of ridiculous. My buddy Don has been giving me shit about it for weeks and I would get pissed except that I know I would do the same if the tables were turned. I’m not really sure when I became such a pussy.
Eventually the few stragglers are gone and Autumn locks the door then disappears into the back just like she does every night. I’m finished packing up my stuff and there’s enough of it that I can make it out to the car in one trip once Don gets here with his truck, so I sit on the edge of the makeshift stage they make for me every time I play and start strumming random chords on my guitar while I wait for her to come back out. She always brings me the last of the coffee in a take away cup and says goodnight and that’s when I know I can leave and go to sleep happy. Ridiculous.
I soon become so immersed in whatever nonsense I’m playing that I don’t even hear her footsteps when she comes back and I’m a little bit startled when she’s suddenly standing beside me, her 5’3” frame weirdly towering over me since I’m practically sitting on the floor.
She smiles when I finally stop playing and look up at her and reaches out towards me, offering the obligatory cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” I say, taking it from her and taking a sip.
“Always,” she replies, that radiant smile still lighting up her face and the entire room. She sits down next to me, something that has never happened before. “That was really nice, what you were just playing. Did you write that?”
“Uhhhh, yeah.” I nod and laugh my most awkward laugh. “Well, if you can call it that. It was more just like random strumming.”
“Well, it was nice. It sounded like fall, which I love.”
She glances out the window, where the streetlamps are lighting up the colorful, naked trees as they often do in the middle of October. The phrase “it sounded like fall” will stick in my head for years to come, because while it seems like it shouldn’t make sense, it totally does. She’s right. Something about whatever it was I was just playing does sound like fall. It makes sense, since we do happen to be right in the middle of that season, and it just happens to be my favorite of all the seasons. It makes me nostalgic for some reason. It’s like everything important that’s ever happened to me has happened when the air is nippy and the leaves are falling.
“It’s my favorite,” she says.
“What? Fall?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s appropriate.” I smile at her and she laughs.
“Yeah, I guess. Lucky me, right? How many of us get to be named after our favorite season?”
“Very lucky,” I agree. “I can only wish that there was a season of Justin.”
She laughs again as she stands up, and I didn’t think that it was possible for anything to be more beautiful than her smile, but it turns out that her laugh has left the smile in the dust, struggling to take a distant second place.
“Well, maybe there is, you just don’t know it yet.” She gives me a playful wink and I really don’t know what that statement was supposed to mean, but I don’t bother asking as I watch her walk away back towards the kitchen area to gather her things and go home just like she does every night.
“Hey, Autumn,” I stop her before she can completely disappear again. She turns around to look at me, a quizzical look in her eye.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to go get some coff-“ I stop myself before I can say coffee, realizing how stupid it is to ask someone who works at a coffee shop to go get coffee. “Do you want to go get some dinner or something?”
“Oh.”
I can’t really read the look on her face right now. It’s something like disappointment, mixed with a bit of astonishment and another emotion that I can’t really decipher. I immediately wish I hadn’t asked, and I can’t help holding my breath while I wait for her answer.
“I already ate,” she finally responds. “Sorry.”
“Dessert?” The word comes out of my mouth before I even think about it as if my brain doesn’t realize that her rejection was of me, not the idea of dinner.
“Oh,” she says again and she pauses, closing her mouth, opening it again as if she’s going to say something, then closing it one more time. Finally she smiles that gorgeous, breath taking smile and says, “Yeah, that would be nice.”
* * *
“Can I get you something to drink?” a waitress whose nametag reads “Sheila” asks once Autumn and I are seated in a booth in a diner clear on the other side of the tiny mountain town where I play those twice weekly sets. I live in a much bigger town in the valley, but I like coming up here to play. The people are friendlier and I find it easier to be creative in this atmosphere. Plus, my buddy Don grew up here and his folks own the coffee shop I play at, so it was easy to get the gig.
“I’ll just have a coffee,” I say, despite the fact that I just drank a fair amount of the stuff at the coffee shop. Autumn gives me this look that says she thinks I’m some sort of addict, but there’s a distinct twinkle in her eye as she places her own order.
“I’ll have a coffee too, please. Decaf,” she adds.
“Decaf?” I ask. “What is the point of decaf coffee? It’s like drinking brown water.”
“I’m trying to cut down on the caffeine,” she laughs. “It’s not good for you.”
Sheila glances at Autumn, then gives me this look like she’s trying to tell me there’s something completely untrustworthy about a person trying to watch her caffeine intake, but she saunters off without another word to get our coffees.
“So, Don tells me you’re recording some demos right now. Trying to get your big break or something.”
“Oh, yeah.” I nod as I glance through the dessert menu, trying to decide between what seems like twenty different kinds of pie. I had always been under the impression that people in small towns were supposed to lead simpler lives, but apparently this does not extend to their pie choices. “Yeah, I’ve finally saved up enough money for some studio time, so I figure once I get some stuff on tape, I can start sending it out to record companies.”
“So you really are trying to make it big, huh?”
Before I can respond, Sheila’s returned with our coffees and is asking for our order. Autumn immediately asks for the apple crumble and I stare at her incredulously.
“You didn’t even look at the menu!” I exclaim, gesturing to the twenty types of pie which have me completely torn.
“Justin, I grew up here,” she laughs. “This diner has had the same dessert choices my entire life. I don’t need to look at the menu.”
“Do you know what you’d like, dear?” Sheila asks me.
“I have no idea.”
“He’ll have the apple crumble too,” Autumn says, taking the menu from me and handing it to Sheila with a smile. The waitress disappears and my companion turns her attention back to me.
“What if I don’t like apple crumble?” I ask.
“You’ll love it, trust me. Everyone loves it. Anyway.” She does this funny little hair flip thing every time she changes a subject, as if the vocal cues aren’t enough and she thinks I need a visual cue as well. “You’re really trying to make it in the music industry?”
“Oh.” I’d completely forgotten we’d been talking about this. “Yeah. Yes I am.”
“So what the hell are you doing playing sets up here in Wheat Ridge? We aren’t exactly going to get you a lot of exposure.”
“I just like the atmosphere here, I guess.” I shrug. “And any exposure is good, right? I have five other days in the week to play other places.”
“Well, I’m really glad you play here,” she tells me. I feel like she’s staring through me with those bright green eyes of hers and it gives me chills. “It’s the highlight of my week, watching you play.”
“Thanks.” I can’t help grinning at the compliment. “It’s the highlight of my week playing for you.”
She smiles and blushes a little, then stares down into her cup of coffee. Sheila comes back with our apple crumbles and she glances between us briefly before telling us to enjoy our dessert in this tone that makes it sound like it’s really very doubtful that we will enjoy it. I ignore it though and think there’s no way I could ever enjoy anything more.
That is until I walk Autumn home and she slips her hand into mine as we through the fallen leaves coating the sidewalk, the full moon lighting up the sky above.
Story Notes:
Lyrics from "From Where I'm Standing" by Schuyler Fisk
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