Eden Onpeng

A clump of brown leaves tumbled down beside Jenny and into the mud.

An icy breeze went through the fibers of her sweater, biting into her skin. She shivered and pulled her rust orange cardigan closer to herself. She had long lost feeling below her waist—the bench beneath her might as well have been carved from ice. She was sitting under one of only three trees in the park—and the other two had already gone bald.

Grumpily, she reached into her wicker basket purchased from Amazon and pulled out a plastic-wrapped apple butter sandwich. She had made sandwiches to enjoy with her grandmother after this but felt like eating something sweet to cheer herself up.

She unwrapped the sandwich and snuck a bite. It was…underwhelming. Cold, cloyingly sweet, sticky, and gummy. The bread stuck to the roof of her mouth as she chewed. It needed to be toasted but it was too cold out here.

She had planned for a week to experience this—a quintessential autumn picnic, the kind that Youtube influencers filmed themselves enjoying with a cup of pumpkin spice latte and twirling among the colorful leaves. Such glee. Such joy.

But here? It was cold as hell, and Jenny could have sworn she witnessed a drug deal between a guy in a green beanie and a couple of guys who pulled up in a pickup truck. A few feet away, a homeless woman kicked trash can over and cursed at the top of her lungs.

This wasn’t New England. It wasn’t even Colorado. But it was the closest thing to a fall experience she could get around here in her little town, in a tiny park the size of a six-car parking lot.

 This isn’t fun. Why am I still here?

Maybe fall would be more enjoyable in an actual fall town than her local drug dealer’s workplace. She could save up for a visit. What if she was more in love with the idea of fall than actual fall?

Her cell phone vibrated. It was her grandma. “Hello Gran,” she said. “I’ll be on my way soon. I made some apple butter sandwiches but to be honest they’re not very good.”

“Don’t worry,” said Grandma, laughing. “I’m sure they’re fine. I was wondering if you would be able to bring over some rice flour and green onions—I’m making your favorite croquettes and ran out.”

Her grandmother lived in an apartment on the other side of town and Jenny visited her once every two weeks. She would have invited her grandma to picnic here but her grandma preferred to stay at home.

“Of course, Gran.” Jenny’s stomach grumbled at the thought of eating her grandma’s croquettes, a combination of chewy rice flour, minced green onions, shredded carrots, and minced pork—it was more of a family recipe—it wasn’t anything she’d ever seen in a restaurant menu. They said their goodbyes and hung up. She stood up from the cold bench, pulled her wicker basket onto her elbow and strode out of the park to drive to the Vietnamese supermarket a few blocks away.

As she filled her basket with green onions and rice flour, she saw some pandan cakes—green stripes of pandan-flavored jelly interspersed with layers of mung bean—and decided to get some to enjoy with her grandmother later. Maybe the quintessential autumn for her didn’t have colorful leaves and New England scenery, but it had her grandmother, some delicious fried croquettes, and pandan cake. And maybe the apple butter sandwiches would taste better after she toasted them.