Time of Our Lives

by Emily Wibberley

  Fitz frowns. He opens his mouth like he’s about to reply, but then closes it, his expression flattening. Whatever he wanted to say, it’s gone, hidden where I have the feeling he’s hidden his words for a while. I don’t have to know Fitz and Lewis well to see everything they’re not saying to each other. It’s a weight pressing down on them both.

  I want to encourage them to speak up. Fitz should know Lewis worries about him. Lewis should hear how his hopes and dreams in New York make his brother nervous.

  Except then I remember how I didn’t tell Marisa what happened with Matt. Why I’ve hidden the end of my relationship and the start of this new friendship with Fitz from my own family. Sometimes honesty in families is worse. Sometimes it doesn’t end with everyone coming together, commiserating or celebrating or understanding each other. Sometimes it ends on the floor of a hotel room in the dead of night, with tears and fighting and finally not talking for days. The way it worked with Tía, or didn’t. Honesty can bring you together, or it can drive you apart.

  “What’s going on tomorrow?” Lewis asks while we walk.

  “NYU,” Fitz replies.

  Lewis nods and doesn’t follow up.

  I could fill in the details. I don’t, deciding I trust the quiet.

  Fitz

  I’M DISAPPOINTED WHEN Juniper walks into the revolving door to her hotel. I knew I would be. Even though we’ve hung out for the past four hours, it doesn’t feel like enough. I could walk the High Line and discover new restaurants with her for the rest of the night. Limerence. It’s the strangest feeling, one I don’t remember ever having before and one I’ll never forget.

  I chew my lip, watching the cabs cycle in and out of the hotel driveway. Lewis stands next to me.

  “Should I have offered to walk her up to her room?” I finally ask.

  “It is generally date protocol.” Lewis grinds the heel of his Kenneth Cole oxford on the curb like he’s looking for something to do.

  I cut him a look. “We just gorged ourselves on fried chicken with my brother,” I remind him. “For the hundredth time, it wasn’t a date.”

  He shrugs. “Felt like a date.”

  I don’t realize I’m smiling until a second later. I’m not used to being the subject of Lewis’s easy optimism, and it’s welcome in the present context. “It did, didn’t it?”

  Lewis laughs. “You know,” he says, getting a very Lewis gleam in his eye, “I’d head back to BU and leave you both to it if I didn’t know Mom would kill me.”

  I nod. He’s right, she would, and without Lewis’s credit card, I couldn’t pay for hotels and food. What’s more, in a way I don’t exactly understand, Lewis’s presence keeps the idea of this trip with Juniper grounded. Juniper and I are teenagers, crossing paths in cities not our own. If we were to embark on this with only the two of us, it would be inconceivably impulsive. With Lewis, we’re just fitting her into a shape that already exists instead of drawing the outline of some new romantic odyssey.

  “By the way,” I say, “Juniper and I want to extend this trip a couple days of days. I don’t know what your schedule is. . . .” I trail off, not knowing how to ask for this.

  “It’s fine.” He shrugs. “I don’t mind traveling with you guys. But if it were up to me,” he continues, “I wouldn’t be here cockblocking you.”

  The warmth of my brother’s earlier friendliness frosts over. I register the joke for what it is. He’s decided what I’m supposed to want, to find important, and he’s implicitly judging me if I don’t.

  “It’s not like that,” I say. “Just—just, chill,” I finish fumblingly. The word feels weird and uncharacteristic.

  Lewis raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on it. “I’m chill, dude, I promise. In fact . . .” He nods in the direction of the hotel, the illuminated logo reflecting red on the nearby buildings. It’s similar to our hotel, just twists on the same template of business-casual rooms and unused rooftop bars. “I’m so chill, I won’t wait up if you want to follow her. You don’t have to,” he adds. “I’m just saying if.”

  If. The word is wonderfully open-ended.

  It has me looking up, weighing Lewis’s suggestion and wondering which one of those rooms is Juniper’s. It’s not like I’m considering the hookup he’s obviously insinuating—it’s very possible my brother literally does not understand the existence of other things you could do in a girl’s hotel room—but I won’t deny I’m contemplating other ways the night could go.

  The possibilities play out in a montage in my head. I’d text Juniper, asking if I could come up. She’d tell me her room number and invite me in. We’d watch something dumb on TV and share the overpriced candy on top of the fridge. When we tired of TV, we’d talk, describing our friends, our hometowns, our high schools, our favorite movies no one else likes, our favorite childhood board games. I have a hunch she’s a Trivial Pursuit fiend.

  Except what if she’s not?

  I don’t know why Trivial Pursuit is the detail that does me in, but it does. In a horrible lurch I recognize I’ve constructed this entire fantasy in my head founded on nothing. While I feel like I know Juniper, I don’t. I’m enjoying embarking on this indefinable thing with her, but I don’t do well with unknowns. Juniper is enchanting and fearsome, and a huge freaking unknown.

  I decide not to follow her up to her room. It’s a fear-driven decision, just like not confronting my brother when I feel the tension between us pushing us further and further apart. Pusillanimous. Timorous.

  In a blink, I hate the dictionary-definition thing I do. The point of memorizing words is feeling a degree of control over the unstable, unforeseeable world. It hits me now—cataloging and describing every feeling in the world isn’t control. Having the word for cowardly doesn’t change me. It changes nothing.

  I turn and follow Lewis, feeling things I no longer want to name.

  Fitz

  THE NEXT MORNING, I shower early to meet Juniper for the NYU tour. When I step from the shower into the steamy bathroom, I overhear Lewis on the phone. “They said I’d hear from them this weekend. No idea when,” he says. There’s a pause. He’s recapping his job interview.

  For a moment I wonder if he called Mom like I mentioned. The possibility vanishes instantly. It’s probably Prisha.

  I ignore him. Wiping the mirror, I focus on my reflection.

  God, I’m pale. And skinny. I usually only glance into the mirror in the morning. Today I linger, viewing my appearance from Juniper’s potential perspective—in the unlikely event she ever sees me shirtless.

  I need to cut the red hair flopping onto my forehead. I have freckles everywhere. Not cute freckles like Juniper’s, either. I look like my entire body got splashed when someone dropped the world’s largest pot of marinara sauce. Instead of the six-pack and V-formation upper body everyone expects from TV, I have a flat stretch of stomach and shoulders devoid of definition except my collarbone poking out halfheartedly.

  Juniper is way out of my league.

  I wish I’d devoted even minimal effort to exercise of any kind in my entire existence. Even though I just showered, I drop to the floor and begin doing what could be considered push-ups.

  I do twenty and feel like my arms have been forcibly detached from my body. I only have stumps now. Excruciating stumps. I don’t understand why people do this frequently. Except I do. The Junipers of the world are why. I mean, I know other people exercise for personal pride and enjoyment. But my reason is five foot three, unfairly curvy, and infatuated with college.

  I hear Lewis through the door. “Babe,” he says chuckling. Definitely Prisha. “You know I’d hate San Francisco. The start-up culture and everything? Come on.”

  I scowl, nearly frustrated enough to do five more push-ups. It’s obvious Prisha wants him to consider a job close to hers next year, and Lewis couldn’t be more careless with his disinterest. He’s probably looking
forward to being single, free to follow through with girls like the one he danced with in the basement at Brown.

  I dress quickly and collect my jacket from the bedroom. Lewis is still on the phone, typing on the computer and giving only half his attention to whatever Prisha is saying. I wave quickly on the way out.

  Juniper is waiting when I reach the lobby. Her hair is in her characteristic ponytail, and when I walk up, she holds out the brown paper bag in her hand.

  “I didn’t know what bagel you like. I got you plain with cream cheese. Sorry if you hate it,” she says.

  I smile. She’s direct even when it comes to breakfast. “That’s my order, actually,” I tell her, digging the bagel from the bag. I unwrap the tinfoil while we walk out of the hotel’s revolving door.

  “Why does that not surprise me?” She takes a bite of her everything bagel. “Let me guess. You’ve never tried any other flavor.”

  “Don’t psychoanalyze my bagel preferences, Juniper.”

  We walk in the direction of NYU, following the map on her phone. It’s colder today, the sun smothered in gray. The hotel Mom picked for Lewis and me is a couple of blocks from the NYU admissions building. As we head along West Third, Juniper hits me with a barrage of information about the university. I find it intensely attractive. She details the number of dorms and dining halls, facts about financial aid, and the early decision process. I retain about half the information because while she’s talking, she unzips her jacket halfway, revealing a triangle of skin at her collar.

  We reach the admissions building five minutes early. A couple of teenagers and their parents are waiting under the purple NYU flags adorning every building, demarcating the university’s territory in the indistinguishable expanse of buildings. I notice one boy sitting on the ground, his back against the building’s stone. He’s reading a worn science-fiction paperback, its cover the rocky surface of some faraway planet. His dad stands over him, wearing an NYU sweatshirt and darting frustrated glances at his son’s novel. I recognize the expression on the boy’s face. He doesn’t want to be here.

  “NYU has over two hundred programs,” Juniper says, pulling my attention from the reading boy and continuing her college trivia.

  “I don’t know why we’re even going to the information session.” I tug Juniper’s ponytail playfully. It happens too fast for me to overthink the gesture. Days of admiring that ponytail, and I release it almost as soon as I touch it. “You know everything already.”

  She swats me away, but her lips curve upward. “I don’t know everything. Besides, haven’t you ever finished a book only to flip back to the first page and start over again? Knowing everything doesn’t take away the fun.”

  “Only you would compare a lecture about college statistics to reading an amazing book.” Her passion is irresistible, though. She’s kind of right. I’ve been listening to her rattle off facts all morning about a college that yesterday I wasn’t even planning to apply to, and now I’m genuinely looking forward to this information session. It’s an unfamiliar excitement. If I’d come here without her, I’d have my nose in my dictionary, counting down the minutes until I could resume my day—resume my life. “Do they have an architecture program?” I ask.

  Her eyes light up. I make a mental note to prompt her about architecture more often just to see that soft warmth settling her features. “Yeah,” she answers immediately. “It’s called the Urban Design and Architecture Studies program, and it looks amazing. Wait—” She stops suddenly and blinks, her focus returning. “What about you? I never asked what you want to study.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know why the question surprises me. Even when I was set on SNHU, I would have needed to pick a major eventually. I guess I never peered that far into the future. “I haven’t really thought about it. Undeclared, I guess.”

  Juniper looks scandalized. She grabs my arm, and I feel the contact everywhere. My toes, my stomach, the tips of my ears. She drops her hand almost immediately, but it doesn’t matter. Her touch reverberates through me. “After the tour let’s go to the campus bookstore. You can browse the course books for different classes. Maybe something will stand out to you. Literature, like your mom?” she suggests.

  It’s a great idea. A perfectly Juniper idea. But the thought of literature and my mom stokes the worry never far from my mind. I decided to tour these schools, to entertain a future I never envisioned, but making that choice didn’t erase my every concern. Everything I’ve worried about is still there, behind every thought, making me feel guilty for even thinking about leaving my mom.

  “I don’t know. I might,” I say.

  I’m spared having to continue the conversation when the door opens in front of us. We’re ushered inside by a woman wearing a crisp blue blazer, who looks unreasonably cheery for eight thirty in the morning. She directs us into the kind of large conference room with which I’ve become familiar over the past week. While we file in, I notice the boy with his sci-fi novel following his dad, who’s already deep in conversation with the admissions officer. Overhearing the guy’s father obnoxiously questioning the woman on Greek life—despite the fact that his son looks like he’d never in a million years pledge a fraternity—I catch the kid’s eye. I offer him a weak smile, which he doesn’t return.

  I sit down next to Juniper, recalling how just days ago I was envying Matt for being by her side in the BU presentation.

  I’m happy. I really am. Happier than I remember being in a while, in fact.

  It’s just not what I’d define as pure, untainted joy. What interrupts the feeling is the sneaking suspicion I’m deserting what’s really important with every step I take into a future that’s distinctly mine.

  I wonder if I’m right to imagine more, or if I should bury my nose in a book of my own.

  Juniper

  IF THERE’S ONE thing you have to do in New York City, it’s find yourself some pizza.

  When we finished touring NYU late in the morning, Fitz and I grabbed unfulfilling café sandwiches, then took the subway uptown to Columbia. We’d scheduled two schools for one day, not wanting to miss either even though we knew it’d be exhausting. Finally, finished with Columbia and desperately hungry for dinner, we ducked into the hole-in-the-wall pizzeria we found near the campus. It didn’t disappoint, the way New York pizza never does. Dripping with delicious grease, scald-the-roof-of-your-mouth hot, with crunchy crust—the two, or it might’ve been three, slices Fitz and I each devoured were perfection.

  Lewis didn’t have dinner with us. He volunteered to drive ahead to Philadelphia and “make sure everything’s okay with the hotel.” It was a flimsy excuse if I ever heard one to leave Fitz and me alone and force us to carpool, considering we’d chosen the new hotel and called them this morning. While we finished off the pizza, Fitz explained he’s overheard Lewis have increasingly frequent phone calls with his girlfriend, Prisha, and Fitz suspects relationship stress combined with worries over his job interview have put his brother on edge. Lewis could probably use the time on his own, Fitz says.

  We check out of my hotel and hit the road. I can’t help the awkward disjointedness I feel every time I notice Fitz in the passenger seat, where Matt would sit. It’s like I’ve tumbled into a parallel universe. I keep glancing in Fitz’s direction because I feel like if I don’t, I’ll forget and say something to Matt. Which would be a level of uncomfortable with which I completely could not deal.

  “Do you want to listen to music?” I blurt while we head toward the interstate. I’m conscious of how direct and desperate the question comes out. It’s just, Matt would have reached for the radio while we were pulling out of the hotel. The newness of having Fitz in the passenger seat draws the differences from driving with my ex into unbearably crisp focus.

  “Up to you,” Fitz replies. “What do you usually listen to?”

  Matt would’ve started pressing for his eighties playlist he knows I can’t stand.
This is too weird. “Podcasts?” I suggest.

  “Cool. Let’s do that.” He’s holding his dictionary in his lap, lightly tapping his thumb on the spine in a steady pulse. The sound is booming, my brothers jumping in the upstairs hallway while I try to study. He picks up the tempo, the beat audibly anxious in the silence.

  I don’t know why things are suddenly so stilted between us. We’ve never struggled in conversation before. Words normally flow too easily. I remember texting him nonstop on the drive to New York, earning irritated glances from Matt every time my phone buzzed with one of Fitz’s replies. We weren’t even talking about anything and yet we had everything to say.

  Now something is different, and I don’t know what. It might have to do with this car ride being the first time Fitz and I don’t have distraction. There are no colleges to tour, no stars to watch, no definitions to trade. Just us. Fitz and me—and a two-hour drive. Cold sweat prickles my hands.

  “Which podcasts do you like?” I ask desperately. I’d put anything on at this point, even the show Anabel is obsessed with devoted entirely to American Girl dolls.

  “Oh, any of them.” Fitz doesn’t look pleased with his reply. He turns his gaze to his shoes. I fix my eyes on the highway.

  “Pick one.”

  “I, um, don’t know any,” Fitz answers. “I don’t actually listen to them. But put on whatever you like. I’m sure it’ll be interesting.”

  I almost take him up on the offer, but it feels like giving up. Like stalling the silence instead of breaking it.

  “We could talk?” I’m pretty much pleading.

  “Yeah,” Fitz replies. “Okay.”

  We proceed to not talk. The car fills up with quiet, like water rushing in following our plunge off the bridge of this conversation. It’s not long before the hushed hum of the road under my tires becomes unbearable.