Time of Our Lives

by Emily Wibberley

  I cross the room, shutting off the music and then turning to face Tía, who’s watching me expectantly. Even though I call her Tía, she’s really my great-aunt. She’s sixty-six and never married or had children of her own, so she’s been like a third grandmother to my brothers and sisters and me. Which means one more source of worry about whether I’m eating enough, where I’m going to college, and, of course, how sex is forbidden until I’m forty.

  I walk up to her, waiting for the memories to come. Every time Tía’s wrung her wrinkled hands while watching me from this very table or compulsively checked whether her charcoal hair is contained in the tight bun on top of her head.

  I know exactly what Tía’s going to say. Whenever we’ve had this conversation, she introduces the topic without changing a word. Only when we get into the thick of it and she starts anticipating what I’m going to say do the variations emerge. It’s like she’s writing a novel or a play, rewriting drafts of this scene until she gets it perfect.

  Today, I’m not playing. I preempt her. “Did you take my college binder?” I ask brusquely. Tía blinks, thrown, while I search the counter and the table for signs of my heavy three-ring binder. I know exactly where I left it—next to my suitcase on my bed. When I got home after running the student government ice cream stand to celebrate the official start of winter break, the binder was gone.

  “No, chiquita, I haven’t seen it.” She grimaces, worry lines creasing her forehead. “This trip, I don’t think you should go.”

  I grit my teeth. That only took Tía two seconds. Now it’s just a matter of getting away quickly. “I have to visit the schools sometime.” I sigh, circling the table and quickly searching the counters. Hoping for signs of my binder, I glance into the living room. “One of them will be my home for the next four years.”

  I don’t need to look at Tía to know her expression has soured. “This is your home, Juniper. Those are schools.”

  “What, then, you’d rather I just not go to college?” I challenge.

  Tía’s face tightens. “Of course you’re going to college. We live close to some of the finest colleges in the country. Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, UMass Amherst, and—”

  “—Mount Holyoke. I know.” The day Tía found my Fiske Guide to Colleges and discovered we lived thirty minutes from the Five College Consortium, my life got way harder. I wander to the couch in the living room and begin rummaging through piles of my siblings’ homework, everything from coloring to calculus. I hear Tía get up slowly from her chair, her slippered feet following me into the living room. Right then and there, I take a small, selective vow of silence. I’m done trying to convince her. She’ll never understand. All I need to do is find my binder and get out the door.

  “Never mind that,” Tía says gently behind me. “A road trip like this? What will you even eat?” I blink and round on Tía, incredulous. This is an argumentative reach, even for her. My vow of silence flies out the window.

  “There are a thousand restaurants between Boston and Virginia. We’re not going to starve, Tía.”

  She shakes her head, her frown deepening like I’ve committed some grave sin. “Take some tamales.”

  I laugh despite myself. Memories of tamale birthdays and Christmases waft from my subconscious to my nose, the smell of masa, chicken cooking, and steaming chili. “Tía, I can’t just bring tamales on a road trip.”

  Before Tía has the chance to refute me with what will undoubtedly be a well-reasoned defense of bringing tamales on road trips, my mother walks in wearing the harried expression she’s never been without since my brothers were born. Coffee in one hand, she’s vainly trying to pull her straight blonde hair into a ponytail with the other. I seize my chance. “Mom, have you seen my college binder?”

  “It’s entirely possible, but I can’t even remember if I changed my underwear this morning, so I’m not much help.” I watch her eyes run over the room, looking for stuff out of place or things she needs, and I can practically read the to-do lists forming behind her blue eyes.

  I didn’t get those blue eyes from my mom, whose fair skin looks even paler behind the dusting of freckles I did inherit. I resemble my dad more, with my darker complexion and thick, wavy tresses. It’s my younger brothers who ended up with Mom’s delicate features and light hair.

  Right on cue—like the mere thought of them summoned their presence—a double-voiced chorus of “Mom!” rings out from the back of the house. I wonder with a twinge of worry what Xan and Walker have gotten into now, remembering the time they had a water-balloon fight in my parents’ bedroom, or when they bathed our cat, Malfoy, in the toilet bowl, or both times they tried to cook macaroni in the toaster. With a seven- and ten-year-old brother who incite whatever mischief they can, nothing is out of the question. From the way my mother’s head whirls, I know she’s imagining similar possibilities.

  “Did you talk to Rob about opening early on Monday?” Tía asks, bringing Mom’s attention back to the kitchen. I guess no one’s safe from her interrogations this morning.

  Mom grimaces. “No, I forgot. I can’t imagine how,” she says, sharing a wry look with me. “I’ll do it tomorrow, first thing.”

  Mom and Tía run a restaurant together. Dad cooks, while Mom does the books and Tía oversees the rest. Rosalita’s is the only place to get authentic Mexican food in the city. It’s sort of a local sensation, whatever that means in midsized Springfield, Massachusetts. When it was featured on an Eater.com list, my parents were beside themselves. Tía, too, once we explained to her what blogs were. I used to do homework in the restaurant’s expansive sunken dining room when I was in elementary and middle school, before I had calc and chemistry and AP US History and real studying. There were days I could hardly concentrate with the clatter of the kitchen and the heavenly smells of homemade tortillas and machaca. Tía and her sister, Rosalita, my grandmother, opened the place nearly forty years ago. Mom and Dad filled in when—

  I shut off my thoughts, not wanting to dwell on that.

  “Why don’t you help your mother remember a couple things around the house?” Tía asks me. “It’d be a better use of that memory of yours.”

  “Better than my perfect grades?” I snap back. While I do have an exceptional memory—good enough to ace every one of Mrs. Karis’s infamous AP European History exams and never forget friends’ birthdays—Tía only thinks it’s useful when it helps the family. But I catch Tía giving me a stern look and regret my sarcasm. “Of course, Tía,” I amend, looking imploringly at my mom, hoping she’ll jump in and save me.

  She doesn’t, her expression distant and distracted. It’s a familiar response. I’m decently close with my mom, close enough to have semi-regular Disney movie nights just us two. But my mother divides her time and focus evenly among her six kids. My dad, on the other hand, plays favorites, to my obvious benefit.

  “Now, your trip,” Tía prompts. She turns her skeptical eyes on Mom. “I don’t know why you’re letting her go alone with a boy.”

  I roll my eyes, hoping neither of them notices.

  “You know Matt’s responsible, Sofi. Gabriel and I trust him. And we trust Juniper,” Mom replies, giving me a small smile, but I hear the don’t prove me wrong behind her confidence. I return the smile reassuringly. “Besides, we’ve worked it out with Matt’s parents to give them money for separate hotel rooms.”

  Even though she’s emphasized this every chance she gets, I hold my tongue and keep from rolling my eyes this time.

  “It’s not about the hotel rooms,” Tía protests. “She’s too young to spend so much time with a boyfriend. You know what happened when Luisa took up with what’s-his-name.”

  His name was Chris. And by “took up with,” Tía’s referring to how Luisa ditched her high school graduation so she could road trip to California with her boyfriend, which, for the record, I thought was badass. But of course, in my family, I’m bound and rest
ricted by whatever has happened to everyone who shares my last name.

  “This is our call, Sofi,” my mom replies firmly. “We’re her parents.”

  Tía frowns. “Well, this trip could wait until you, her parents, could go with her. Instead of some boy—”

  “Some boy?” I interrupt. “You know his name is Matt. Remember, Matt, who helped you rearrange the furniture in your bedroom and drove you to urgent care when you caught pinkeye from Anabel?”

  “I did not,” Tía says, “catch pinkeye.”

  Mom cuts me off before I can correct Tía in irrefutable detail. “We postponed this trip once,” she reminds Tía, which is true. Matt and I were going to go during Thanksgiving break until Tía convinced my parents not to let me skip school. “Juniper and Matt will be fine.”

  Before Tía responds, there’s a heavy bang down the hall, followed by exuberant shouting. My mom briefly closes her eyes, and I wonder where she goes. Probably a tranquil valley between mountains, or a beautiful waterfall in the heart of a canyon. She opens her eyes again and gives me an apologetic look before darting from the room to stop Xan and Walker from causing any further damage.

  Tía eyes me, no doubt eager to continue the argument. It’s not the first time she and my parents have clashed in a small-scale parenting power struggle. Tía’s opinions and preferences carry weight in this household because she helps my parents, who both work full-time, handle their six children. When conflicts sprout, watered by guilt trips and stubbornness, and branch into towering trees of resentment, my parents are often too busy to chop them down, and their shadows cast darkly over everything.

  “I have to go,” I tell Tía. “I’m not missing school this time.” It’s only possible because my school purposefully gives three weeks of winter break to allow seniors time to finish college applications. “This is my only chance before college applications are due on New Year’s.”

  “I don’t understand why applications require spending nights unsupervised with your boyfriend,” Tía replies with frustrating patience.

  I should go scour every corner of the house and under the floorboards for my college binder. Yet there’s a part of me that wants to win Tía’s approval, even her support. She’s the grandmother I have, whether or not she’s my actual grandmother, and honestly, we don’t have much in common outside of family. Tía speaks Spanish with friends and relatives. I don’t. Tía goes to church every weekend. I only go for Christmas and Easter. Tía worries about every member of the family every minute of every day. I really, really don’t.

  Despite our differences, I want her to understand me. To want what I want, to respect what I choose. It’s that part of me that pulls me to reply.

  “When I’m in college next year, I could be spending all my time with boys and you wouldn’t even know,” I say.

  She fixes me with a faraway look. When she speaks, her voice is hard and gentle, like sculpted stone. “Next year is next year,” she says.

  I eye her uncertainly, my brows furrowing. Tía’s never been one for riddles. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  “Next year you’ll be eighteen.”

  “I’m practically eighteen now.”

  “Seventeen is not eighteen, Juniper,” she pronounces, like this mathematical declaration carries infinite weight. “When you’re eighteen, you get to make these choices for yourself.”

  I feel the color rise in my cheeks. “I’m old enough to make choices now.” We watch each other confrontationally for a long moment.

  Finally, she speaks, her voice settling decisively. “Separate hotel rooms . . . and you’ll take the tamales.”

  I scoff, because that’s the best I’m ever going to get with Tía. “I won’t take the tamales!” I call over my shoulder as I leave the living room and head for the stairs.

  “Juniper Ramírez,” I hear behind me, “you’re not getting out of this one.”

  Juniper

  UPSTAIRS, I ESCAPE into my bedroom, the only place where I have an ounce of privacy, despite sharing the room with my sixteen-year-old sister. Marisa is nowhere to be found, probably with her friends or the boyfriend she’s doing a terrible job hiding from the family.

  I hunt for the binder in desk drawers of student government flyers and physics homework, though I know I won’t find it. I would have remembered leaving it in my desk. I don’t even venture over to Marisa’s half of the room, which is explosively untidy. She could be hiding the bodies of her enemies or a pet Komodo dragon under her laundry piles, and I would have no idea. I do know she didn’t take my college binder. She’s the only other person in this house eager for me to go to college. She showed me a Pinterest board of her plans for my half of the room. It was . . . overwhelmingly pink.

  Right now my side is not pink. It’s cluttered but organized, with certificates and photos and watercolors tacked to the bulletin board next to my towering bookcases. I could draw every detail from memory. The collection of Nancy Drew books on my bookshelf, the photos of my friend Carolyn and me ice-skating in sixth grade, the Keira Knightley Pride & Prejudice poster over the bed—each a thread tying me to a time and place. The bedroom was my dad’s when he was my age, and he’s pointed out to me and Marisa the hole where he nailed his high school baseball medal to the wall.

  I love home, I do. I love my bedroom and my family. It’s just, there’s a point where the changelessness of everything becomes enveloping instead of encouraging. There’s a claustrophobia in comfort. The threads become a web, confining the person I want to be to the person I was.

  I check again around my suitcase for my binder, but it’s not there. In case it fell off the bed or something, I drop to my knees on the carpet and begin searching the floor.

  Something’s out of place. On the floor is my box of old Halloween costume components—Disney tiaras and cat ears and a Ravenclaw robe. It should be sitting on the top shelf of my closet. I spring up from the floor and in two quick paces cross my half of the room to the closet, heart pounding. I check the shelf.

  The space behind the costume box is empty.

  Without hesitation, I’m bounding into the hall, little bombs of anger bursting behind my eyes. I throw open Callie and Anabel’s door and find my younger sisters on the floor next to their bunk beds. They’re giggling.

  “You went through my things?” I demand from the doorway.

  Anabel jumps up. Callie twists to face me, caught red-handed. On the floor in front of them is the shoebox I keep in my closet, behind the costumes, expressly hidden from my eight- and thirteen-year-old sisters.

  “That stuff is private,” I continue. “You’re not even supposed to go in my room without me or Marisa there.”

  The box holds the items most precious to me, and most private. Because with five younger siblings, my parents, and Tía in the house, I’ve come to expect prying eyes on everything. But there are things I don’t want examined and interrogated. And right now, they’re strewn across my sisters’ floor—a scarf Abuela never finished knitting, a dried flower from our apartment in Brooklyn, a letter from Carolyn after she moved to Ohio sophomore year.

  In Callie’s hands is my yearbook from last year, open to Matt’s page-long signature. Anabel drops a red marker onto the floor. It’s painfully obvious what was happening here—Callie was reading my private messages while Anabel was coloring on the pages. Coloring.

  Tears well in my eyes. The day Matt returned the signed yearbook to me, I was sitting in the wicker chair on the porch reading Anna Karenina. “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content” is the exact line I’d just read when I glanced up to find Matt walking up the driveway, yearbook in hand and a grin forming that perfect dimple on the left side of his face.

  He wore his light gray T-shirt and those scuffed Adidas he’d had since freshman year until I finally prevailed on him a few months ago to get a new pair. Even easygoing, confident Matt
’s cheeks had reddened when he handed me the yearbook, which he’d worked on the whole weekend. I read it right then and there, feeling like I’d never be that happy ever again.

  It was the first time he said he loved me.

  I snatch the yearbook from Callie’s hands. “This isn’t okay, you guys. You can’t just take people’s things and wreck them,” I say, hearing the waver in my voice.

  Callie crosses her arms, unperturbed. “Did you have sex with Matt?” she asks.

  I’ve learned to recognize the attitude she’s putting on. This is her “teenager” demeanor. I first noticed it—without realizing how prevalent it would become in my life—just days after her thirteenth birthday, when Mom offered to have Callie’s friends over for board games and cupcakes. Callie only rolled her eyes like she was too old for such childish things.

  “If you tell on us for going in your room,” Callie says, her voice sharp and bossy, “I’ll tell Mom about the ‘life-changing’ night you and Matt had after prom. He wrote all about it.”

  I feel flowers of fury and embarrassment unfurl in my cheeks. Without a word for Callie, I collect the other items my sisters have littered on their floor. Anabel watches with concern and curiosity. It’s just like Callie to drop the S-E-X word with her eight-year-old sister listening. “Touch my things again,” I warn once I’ve returned everything to the box, “and I won’t drive you to the winter carnival.” Callie’s face falls. “In fact, I won’t drive you anywhere. Ever again.”

  It’s an empty threat, not that my little sisters know that. Tía and my parents are always forcing me to drive my siblings places. I’m the only one with a license—Marisa’s failed her test twice—and since I’m the oldest, the extra parenting inevitably falls to me. Even with Tía helping out, there’s plenty left over. Playdates of Anabel’s to supervise and pre-algebra problems to correct on Callie’s homework. I’m needed to catch whatever falls through the cracks.