5. In Which Aiden Spots a Spud
IN WHICH AIDEN SPOTS A SPUD
S omeone is following me.
I have done nothing attention-worthy in my life, and definitely nothing that merits being followed. But I’m almost positive that the car I just watched drive by the food bank is the same car I saw parked outside my house yesterday when Juniper moved in.
I noticed it first from the kitchen window. I’m not in the habit of spotting cars, but this one had several of the bumper stickers we sell at the high school. That’s the only reason it grabbed my attention.
Except now that same car just drove past the food bank, looking like every sketchy car in every mystery movie ever—the slow pass, the window rolled down just slightly at the top, the sudden speeding away when I stepped out the front doors to get a better look.
“Hey,” I say now, settling myself on the top step and pulling my blazer tighter around me to ward off the chill. I press my phone more firmly to my ear, talking to my colleague.“Do you know when we stopped selling those dancing potato bumper stickers?”
Rocco Astor is the gym teacher at the high school, but like me, he also wears more than one hat.
Where the higher-ups have me teaching English along with my counseling job, Rocco teaches gym, coaches track and field, and operates the school store—where we sell our merchandise—during lunch hours.
If anyone will be able to answer my question, it’s him.
“Hmm,” Rocco says from the other end. His voice is thoughtful as he goes on, “Two years ago, maybe? I think we replaced it with the Spud Nation one. The dancing potato sold better, though. Why? Want me to dig around and see if I can find one for you?”
I snort, shaking my head. Autumn Grove High School is the unfortunate home to one of the lamest mascots I’ve ever heard of: Solomon the Spud.
A potato.
That’s our mascot: a potato. ? *
It’s because Autumn Grove is a residential pocket surrounded by farming communities, most of which grow that famed Idaho crop.
We produce roughly one-third of the nation’s annual potato supply, and they’re a way of life here, seeping into everything we do.
Schools let out for a week near the end of September and early October for harvest break so that all hands can be on deck for the harvest; the legal driving age is fifteen so that teenagers can drive tractors and other farm equipment, though I’d bet my bottom dollar that we’ve got kids younger than that behind the wheel in some places.
So I guess it was only natural that since this area is kept afloat by potatoes, a potato would be the high school’s figurehead, too.
When I was there, though, and even when I was tutoring Juniper, the potato mascot hadn’t been named yet.
Solomon came later, and I’m not sure if it was a step in the right or wrong direction.
“I’ll pass,” I say to Rocco, my eyes scanning the road as far as I can see in both directions. The car doesn’t reappear, though.
Rocco laughs, a deep barking sound that betrays a hint of a wheeze.
Rocco’s got something like eleven or twelve years on me, and according to him, he used to smoke half a pack a day.
He quit after his wife left him—though as he tells it, it didn’t do him much good, since she didn’t come back anyway—and now you’d never know except for that wheeze that creeps in sometimes.
I give Rocco a few vague excuses about why I wanted to know, hoping he doesn’t ask anything else, before hanging up. Then I check the street one last time, going as far as the edge of the small parking lot and craning my neck to look in both directions. As expected, though, the car is gone.
It definitely had the dancing potato bumper sticker, but I think I spotted the Spud Nation sticker too.
Autumn Grove High isn’t a huge school, but it’s not so small I can easily narrow down something like this, either.
Plus the car was a white sedan of some kind; I couldn’t even begin to count how many of those there are in town.
So it looks like I’m just going to have to keep my eyes peeled or chalk the whole thing up as coincidence.
I’m not sure I believe in coincidence. It’s running rampant in my life at the moment, though. How else could I explain Juniper Bean showing up as the new tenant?
Juniper Bean of the Christmas Eve mistletoe mishap that could have gotten me in absurd amounts of trouble when I was working on my undergrad.
Juniper Bean of the tumultuous childhood that I only know bits and pieces of, though some aspects are still apparent even now.
I know for a fact that her mother drank too much; I’m also pretty sure Juniper was hungry a lot, based on the way she hoards food.
It’s something I spotted a few times all those years ago when I tutored her; she’d open her backpack to pull out her books, and I’d see leftover lunch items wrapped carefully inside.
She hasn’t changed, either, judging by the scones she saved yesterday.
Watching her place them gently in her bag sent a wave of sympathy and pity through me, a twisting of my insides that I usually only feel when I come to the food bank.
Food hoarding often points to disordered eating of some kind, but in Juniper’s case I imagine it’s a trauma response.
I took several psychology courses as part of my social work major, but it doesn’t take higher education to realize that a kid who doesn’t always have meals to eat will hoard any extra food they come across.
Who knows, though; Grind and Brew’s scones are delicious enough that anyone would want to save leftovers, no matter what kind of childhood they had.
“Aiden!”
I jump at the sound of someone calling my name. I turn around, realizing with a start that I’ve just been standing here at the edge of the parking lot, staring blankly down the road while my mind wanders.
“Yeah,” I call. I hurry back across the lot and then up the stairs, taking them two at a time until I reach a perplexed-looking Rodriguez leaning halfway out of the front entrance.
“What are you doing?” he says, his bushy eyebrows lowering.
“Nothing,” I mutter. I rub the back of my neck and then slip past him. “Sorry. I’m here.”
“Okay,” he says, looking unconvinced. “Well, Sandra’s supposed to be out in front serving next shift, but she called to say she’ll be late, so?—”
“I’ll fill in until she gets here,” I say quickly, trying to remember who Sandra is.
Technically my shift ends in fifteen minutes, but I can be here longer.
I don’t have any grading to do. It’s Homecoming weekend; I didn’t give my students any homework, because I knew none of them would do it anyway.
“I can just stay and help you close after dinner.”
On any given evening, there are maybe half a dozen people who show up for whatever we’re serving, though that number goes up in the winter.
When we’re not actively serving or preparing food, we’re working on the storehouse part of the job; collecting, organizing, and distributing food items. We coordinate with several of the cities and towns nearby to do food drives; we process paperwork for families applying for the food assistance program, working with local stores and markets.
It’s a big, multifaceted operation, and I don’t envy Rodriguez the job he has making sure everything runs as smoothly as possible.
When I finally get in the car to go home later that evening, I’m tired and fighting another migraine. This time I don’t think it’s because we ran out of toilet paper again; I’m pretty sure my body is on strike, protesting the new tenant situation.
Almost like she knows how I’m feeling, Caroline’s name shows up as my phone begins ringing.
Which is great, because I have a bone to pick. Several, actually.
“Did she get moved in okay?” Caroline says as soon as I answer. Once again, she’s not wasting time on greetings.
“Did you know?” I say instead of answering her question.
“Did I know…what?” she says.
I pull to a stop at a red light, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I wait. “That I’ ve met Juniper before.”
“You’ve met her before?” Caroline says.
“Yes,” I say, rolling my eyes. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I tutored her, Care. She’s the one who tried to kiss me that one year at Christmas. That’s the girl you sold the contract to.” She’s not a girl anymore , my mind points out unhelpfully.
I ignore this, pressing down on the gas with a bit too much force when the light turns green again.
“No way,” Caroline breathes. She sounds just as shocked as I felt, which I can only imagine means her eyes are doing that bug-out thing they do sometimes. Caroline’s eyes are unnaturally big. It’s something I’ve always teased her about, usually in retaliation for her jibes about my crooked nose.
“Yes way,” I say, turning right on Center and heading down the smaller road that leads to the neighborhood. “The tenant now living in the loft once tried to kiss me. When she was underage, Caroline.”
“Wow,” she says. She’s silent for a moment, and then she says, “This must be fate, right?”
I shift in my seat, remembering with uncomfortable clarity that Juniper said the same thing. “It’s not fate,” I say. “There’s no fate.”
“Well, if it’s not fate, what is it?” Caroline says. “Is she pretty?”
“No,” my mouth says.
Maybe , my brain says.
“I don’t trust you. Send me a picture,” she says.
“Absolutely not.” I make a right turn, slowing down now that I’ve reached the neighborhood.
“Why not?” My sister should not sound this whiny, considering she’s nearing forty.
“Because,” I say, pulling onto Theabelle Lane. “A million reasons. It’s weird, for one. And I’m almost home, so I’m hanging up now. ”
“Come on, Aiden?—”
“Nope. Bye!” And with that I end the call.