to get me a scholarship for school, and to work really hard and get the grades. And I have. I’ve developed both a perfect GPA and absolutely no desire to go to the school he thinks is best. And a rather strong desire to go somewhere else out of sheer spite.
And somehow Mom knows.
“I applied last week,” I tell her. “For early admission. I’ll hear back this winter.”
“How did you pay for it? Applications are expensive.”
“Um, a fee waiver. Mrs. Riley helped me.”
Mom is quiet for a moment, and I’m dying to know how she feels.
“Well, that makes our plans for today even more time sensitive,” she says. “So, get dressed. Comfy shoes. Downstairs in ten?”
I make it downstairs in three minutes, hair in its typically messy bun at the nape of my neck, jeans pulled hastily on, and an old oversized sweater pulled over the tank top I slept in.
“You are going to regret some of those choices,” Campbell says from the kitchen table, where she’s eating a bowl of cereal. Juniper laughs, dripping milk onto the table.
No one rushes to clean up the mess.
I feel like I’ve woken up in an alternate reality.
“No time to change,” Mom says. “Let’s go.”
And just like that, the girls are leaving their empty bowls in the sink and rushing me out to Mom’s car, which is already turned on and warmed against the autumn chill.
We get in and buckle, and I finally ask.
“What is going on?”
“We are going—”
“Wait!” Mom says. “Wait. Let’s surprise her.”
“She hates surprises,” Campbell says.
“I hate surprises,” I repeat.
“You’ll like this one,” Mom insists. “Okay, music. Juniper gets first choice.”
Campbell and I groan, and I reach for the travel mug of coffee I managed to grab in lieu of breakfast.
About ten minutes later we pull into the diner.
“Fun,” I say. “But why did the girls eat breakfast at home?”
“We aren’t here for breakfast,” Mom says. “We are here for that.”
She points to the far end of the parking lot, where a bus is idling.
“We are . . . going on an adventure,” she whispers.
“TO NEW YORK CITY!” Juniper yells, so loud I almost drop my coffee.
“Seriously?” I ask Mom, disbelief thrumming through me. We haven’t done anything like this in a really long time. “What about school?”
“Not going today. We decided that if you really want to live in New York, you at least have to spend a day there first, make sure you like it.”
“Fair enough,” I say. But I know I’ll like it. It’s the opposite of Auburn. What’s not to like?
“The bus takes us into the city and brings us home at five, so we have to fill the whole day,” Mom says. She makes sure Juniper has gloves and a scarf, and gives Campbell her own cozy hat. It’s windy today; we can hear it whistling outside.
“We haven’t had an Apple Day in so long,” Campbell says.
“What’s an Apple Day?” Juniper asks. Her smile is big and toothy.
Mom sips at her coffee, a gentle lift of her lips at Juniper’s question, and I think of the memories it brings.
“We used to miss a day of school and work every autumn,” I tell her. “And we’d all go to the orchards a town over, and we’d spend the entire morning picking apples, until—”
“Until the basket was so heavy that Dad was the only one who could lift it,” Campbell says.
“Dad went, too?” Juniper asks. Her confusion is a testament to how much things have changed. Of course he went, I want to say. But that was another lifetime ago, wasn’t it?
Campbell ignores Junie’s question altogether, keeps talking.
“And we’d also eat them the whole time we were picking them, so—”
“By the time we got home we were sick from them, so many apples!” Mom says. “But there were still so many left. So we’d bake for the rest of the day. Apple pies covering every surface of the kitchen. But of course by then we could barely look at another apple, let alone take a bite—”
“So we’d give them away,” I say. “We’d take two to Nana and Grandpa, and give them to the secretaries at school. We’d send a bunch to Dad’s work for the crew.”
“We’d keep one,” Mom says, “and get some vanilla ice cream, and eat it for dinner.”
“An Apple Day,” Campbell says.
“Mm,” Juniper says. “Apple Days sound delicious. Hey! Why don’t we have any Apple Days now?”
I can’t think of an answer to give her, and Campbell sits back into her seat again.
“We