Time of Our Lives

by Emily Wibberley

  * * *

  We’ve been on the road now for nearly four hours, though it’s felt like less. I’m hardly paying attention to the outside world—trees, off-ramps, more trees, I’m guessing. I don’t even register the difference between the brilliant day and the illuminated darkness of the numerous tunnels we drive through under mountains in the Pennsylvania wilderness. We’ve talked about everything, the conversation flowing easily from our families to our friends back home, extracurriculars and irritating classmates. While the highway passes in the windows, it feels like the rest of the world is on pause.

  Finally, we pull over for gas. I noticed the meter on Juniper’s dashboard drop into the red an hour ago. Despite my repeated efforts to convince her to fill the tank, only now have I prevailed. She’s one of those people who claims she “knows her car.” I suspect she really just doesn’t want to stop when she’s on her way somewhere.

  We park, and I reach into the back seat for my parka. It’s fallen onto the floor and is covered in detritus I don’t recognize. Scraps of paper, bent photographs, and what looks like an unfinished knit scarf have tumbled from a large shoebox tipped over from the back seat.

  “What is this stuff?” I ask Juniper. I hold up the half-finished scarf.

  Juniper glances back, and her eyes darken with protectiveness and possibly melancholy when she sees what’s in my hands. “It’s nothing,” she says. She reaches in the open car door and starts returning the items to the shoebox with a care I don’t expect. I hand her the scarf, which she doesn’t exactly look happy to see, but she places the fabric into the shoebox like it’s precious. “They’re just, I don’t know, important keepsakes,” she explains. “Private stuff I didn’t want to leave home with my sisters.”

  She stows the box under the driver’s seat and shuts the door. We walk toward the convenience store. “So sentimental,” I say, teasing. “Juniper Ramírez holding on to pieces of the past?”

  Juniper rolls her eyes. “Caring about the past and wanting to live in it forever are completely different.” She shoves me playfully.

  “Ow,” I say.

  “Ow?” she repeats incredulously. “I hardly even touched you.”

  “I’m, uh . . .” I start, regretting the direction of this conversation. “I’m sore.”

  “We’ve been sitting in a car for four hours. How could your arms possibly be sore? Have you been sneaking to the gym in the middle of the night?”

  I feel myself flush. It’s not the nice kind of flush, either, the kind you get from compliments or a girl’s head resting on your shoulder. “No, I’ve just been doing push-ups in the morning,” I say, letting my voice get quieter with each word and hoping the subject vanishes into nothing.

  It doesn’t work. Juniper narrows her eyes. “Why?”

  “I don’t need a reason.” I walk quicker, entering the store ahead of Juniper, desperately fleeing this conversation.

  She cuts in front of me and spins to face me. Walking backward, she says, “I think you have nice arms.” She winks and darts into the snack aisle. “I’ll get chips. You get candy. Nothing without chocolate,” she calls over her shoulder.

  Not even trying to wipe the grin from my face, I pick up a handful of candy bars and head to the front. While Juniper fills up the tank, I notice the postcards on the rack next to the register. They read Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, with pictures of a house like none I’ve ever seen, stone columns and concrete ledges stacked in the midst of trees and small streams. Under the name, the postcard heralds the house as the greatest example of American architecture.

  I pull one out and show the clerk, who’s reading a magazine. “Hey,” I say. “Is this nearby?”

  “Thirty minutes,” the clerk says without looking up. “Take exit ninety-one.”

  I buy the postcard and candy and walk to the car, where Juniper is returning the nozzle to the pump. When we’re both settled in the car, I drop the postcard in her lap. “Think we have time for a detour?”

  Juniper

  FITZ IS TRYING to talk his way into a Fallingwater tour. Apparently, it’s a reservation system, and the next tour group is fully booked. Fitz refused to be deterred. He’s watching the woman behind the ticket counter while she types his name into the computer.

  “I’m afraid I’m not finding you,” she says with a put-on frown. “Do you have the credit card you used to purchase the tickets?”

  Fitz hands over his card, which I know is actually his brother’s card. After we decided to take this detour, we called Lewis, who was only minutes behind us. He met us at the gas station, and we explained to him our new plan. With a knowing glint in his eyes, he gave Fitz the card and told us he would just head straight for Pittsburgh, giving us the afternoon to ourselves.

  Fitz steals a glance at me, and I hold in a laugh. It’s kind of impressive, though. Put a minor logistical hurdle between this boy and his early-twentieth century Prairie School house of choice and he becomes James Bond.

  “I’m not finding any purchases on this card,” the woman says. “Are you sure this is the one you used?”

  “Definitely.” Fitz nods. “It was months ago. Right, Juniper?”

  I plaster on a profoundly concerned expression. “Yeah. For my birthday in October.”

  While the woman continues typing, Fitz turns to me. October? he mouths.

  I hold up eight fingers. The eighth, I mouth back.

  He grins, and our eyes lock, and we’re held in this moment of heartbeats, improbabilities, and undeniable chemistry.

  “I don’t know what happened,” the woman says, her voice interrupting our connection. Fitz’s eyes flit to her. “I don’t have your name or your card. I’m so sorry. We have openings tonight if you’d like to purchase tickets for this evening?”

  “But I did purchase them,” Fitz insists. “For right now. We planned our whole day around this. I promised her.”

  I sigh in fake frustration. “It’s fine,” I say, enjoying the theatrics. “Let’s just go.” I step away from the counter.

  Fitz leans in toward the woman. “Please. My girlfriend is going to be pissed if I screw this up. It’s her favorite work of architecture.” I’m thrown by how natural the label sounds. The word girlfriend feels right, the expected destination of the road we’ve been traveling from perfect strangers to whatever we are now. Fitz continues, lowering his voice. I’m only able to make out what he’s saying thanks to years of Marisa and me eavesdropping on our parents. “Between you and me, it’s been a rough few months. We’re facing a long-distance relationship in college. This”—he gestures in the direction of the house—“could make the difference for me. For us.”

  He looks genuinely forlorn. I’m impressed with his performance—or perhaps he’s not acting. I wonder if he’s heard echoes of his words for the past few days. College. Distance.

  “All right,” the woman says, sighing. She hands over two tickets, and Fitz looks enormously pleased with himself.

  When he hurries back to me, he takes my hand without warning. I look down. “Nice cover story,” I say dryly.

  “It felt appropriate.”

  I shake my head, pretending I’m scornful instead of delighted. “She definitely wasn’t convinced. We’re way too platonic to pull it off.”

  “Right,” he says. “Feel free to drop my hand anytime now.”

  “I promise you, I will. When she’s not looking,” I fire back. “Wouldn’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

  I expect Fitz to reply with a joke. Instead, something complex comes over his face, and his lips part like he’s considering a question, but he doesn’t get the chance to ask it. The tour guide greets the group and ushers us in the direction of Fallingwater.

  I want to know what he’s thinking, how the electric humor of before shifted inexplicably into whatever just entered his expression. But we’re silent while the tour guid
e introduces the house and Wright’s work. Before I have the chance to make good on my promise, Fitz drops my hand.

  Juniper

  THE TOUR IS breathtaking. I walk up to Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic house with Fitz and the tour group, which is almost entirely middle-aged people wearing bulky cameras around their necks. The home emerges from the trees like it was meant to be here. Snow-covered branches embrace the wide windows overlooking the trees and boulders, where the cream-colored walls fit in like pieces of the scenery. The structure sits on top of an icy stream, the levels of the house mirroring the waterfalls beneath them.

  It’s not just beautiful. It’s the unique beauty of being in exactly the right place. This house could have been built in hundreds of forests, over hundreds of streams in the country, but Wright decided to design a masterwork on this one. This piece of Pennsylvania where it belongs. It reminds me of the schools we’ve passed through and what I’m hoping to find in them.

  We tour the interior, stories of stone pillars and minimalist staircases. Every room feels sculpted, perfectly planned. We walk outside to view a staircase suspended over the icy water, and it’s one of those moments where the passion I have for architecture shifts from something I know about myself to something I feel with imperative. This is what I love.

  I catch Fitz studying the shelves and wooden furniture, and I’m hit with enormous gratitude. Everything about this detour is better because he thought of it. He knew me. He did this for me. While we wander the second story, I notice myself admiring him as much as the architecture. His inquisitively pursed lips, his blue eyes and their unreadable intensity.

  His hands. I’m done for.

  He glances my way, his expression questioning, hopeful. I know he wants to know if I’m happy, if this place captivates me the way he intended. I give him a smile I hope says, It’s perfect. He returns the smile, and I recognize the gift he’s really giving me, even if he doesn’t know it himself. He understands the person I’m becoming. He understands not only who I am now, but who I want to be.

  By the time the tour ends, his arm has wandered around my waist—a development to which I don’t object, letting my hip press to his. We grab lunch from the café and return to the car. We’re headed for Cucumber Falls, which the guide mentioned was a “romantic” destination ten minutes from Fallingwater. I jokingly suggested we go and then hid my delight when Fitz nodded decisively.

  We park in the small lot in front of the trailhead and stroll down the path into the forest. Finding our way through the trees, we climb over rocks my boots don’t handle well, clambering down to the base of the waterfall. Because it’s winter and it’s snowing lightly, there isn’t anybody else on the trail. The forest is quiet except for the crunch of brush and ice under our feet.

  Reaching the bottom, I come up beside Fitz in front of the frozen lake. It’s not large, the surface dark and glassy in the frigid day. The waterfall drops from the rocky ledge overhead into the water—or would drop if it weren’t frozen. Instead, it’s a wall of ice, suspended in perpetual descent. Icy rivulets ripple on its edges. Everything is coated in white powder.

  “It’s beautiful,” I breathe.

  “Yeah,” Fitz agrees. I feel his shoulder brush mine.

  I elbow him lightly. “Surely you have a better word to describe it.”

  He grins. “Several, actually.”

  “Tell me.”

  He walks to the edge of the ice, eyes roaming the clearing. From how he’s intently studying the waterfall, the snow, everything, I know he’s taking the request seriously. I don’t ignore the genuine excitement I feel welling in me. This boy and his words. They’re irresistible.

  “Riparian,” he finally says. “Being on the banks of a river. Quiescent. In a period of dormancy. Gelid. Extremely cold,” he continues.

  His eyes shift to mine.

  “Sublime,” he says.

  I feel my breath hitch, the cold captured in my chest.

  “Intimate,” he says, softer.

  My heart thuds, deafening in the empty forest.

  “Resplendent. Bewitching. Breathtaking,” Fitz concludes.

  He watches me for a moment more.

  “Juniper,” he says. “You’re looking at my lips again.”

  “So?” My voice is breathy. I know without a hint of doubt it’s not the temperature or the resplendent natural beauty holding the air from my lungs. I’m guessing Fitz knows too. His eyes fix on my lips, and I wait. I wait. I wait.

  “It’s giving me the wrong idea,” he says.

  The pull is undeniable. It’s a new definition for what I’ve felt between us during the past few days. It’s no longer a hint. It’s now a demand. Not from him, but from the universe, calling on us to decide here and now what we’re going to be. What we could be.

  I step forward. Our boots nearly touch. I could put a hand on his chest or reach up to his sculpted cheekbones and the stretch of his neck exposed to the cold. “Wrong isn’t the right word,” I say.

  “What is, then?” he asks, his face suddenly serious.

  “This.” I pull him close, lifting myself on my toes. For a moment, when I lean forward, I feel the warmth of his breath in the air.

  I kiss him.

  Fitz

  I KNOW HUNDREDS of words to describe kissing. In this moment, I forget every one of them.

  Part of my mind wants to find the right words to define Juniper’s lips on mine, a way to categorize and recall right now for years to come. The rest of me, though, isn’t thinking in words. Only feeling. The feeling of everything in my entire being rushing into the precise point where we connect. The softness of her skin, warm and electrifying and undeniably her. The cumulative charge of a week’s worth of unlikely crossings and surprising closeness. Instinctively, my hand finds the bend in her back, pressing her closer. Our lips part. The kiss deepens, and the world disappears.

  Eventually, we pull away. It was only seconds, but they’re seconds that could have been eternity for their irreversible impact on me.

  From the dizzied echoes of my brain comes one thought. I say it without thinking. “Kissing me isn’t a word.”

  Juniper frowns with flushed cheeks. “What?”

  “You said wrong wasn’t the right word,” I explain. “I asked you what the right word was, and you kissed me. Kissing me isn’t a word,” I repeat, aware of how dumb this sounds.

  Coyly, Juniper hooks her fingers in my belt loops and tugs me to her. “No,” she says. “It’s better, right?”

  “Considerably.” With her chin tilted up toward mine, I feel my mental faculties beginning to leave me once more. This time, it’s me who bridges the inches between us, brushing my lips to hers. It’s just like the first time, right down to the awe I even get to kiss this incredible girl. In this place frozen in time, the river poised on the edge of falling forever, I genuinely believe we could remain here forever too.

  Between kisses, my mind finally figures it out. The word to describe this moment.

  Perfect.

  Fitz

  WHILE I WOULD have welcomed the idea of spending the rest of the day making out by the waterfall, when we part, Juniper checks the time on her phone and immediately declares we have to go. I don’t press her to explain, knowing the interruption has to do with her itinerary, and nothing gets in the way of Juniper’s itinerary. We eat our cold, somewhat-squashed sandwiches in the car while Juniper drives the final hour to Pittsburgh.

  The city is thick with trees, ice hanging from their bleak branches in front of low concrete-and-stone buildings. The streets have the nonsensical, uneven directionality of colonial roads retrofitted for cars. We pull into the visitor parking lot for Carnegie Mellon University, a school Juniper must have chosen without telling me. It wasn’t listed on either of our original itineraries or the one we created together.

  I close the car door and then pull out
my phone. “Should I look up how to get to the admissions building?”

  “Nope,” she says quickly. She starts walking, and I follow her. “We’re not going to the admissions building.”

  “Then where are—”

  She silences me with a kiss. “Just follow me,” she says.

  I don’t object. She leads me through the wide-open fields cutting through the campus while she consults her phone for directions. We end up in front of a low beige building with arches over the green-trimmed windows. Wordlessly, Juniper opens the door for me. We file in, bumping shoulders with college students holding heavy textbooks and looking exhausted. Juniper turns corners in the hallways of white-and-burgundy brick until we reach the entrance to a large lecture hall. Students trickle in, taking seats spread out across the auditorium.

  Juniper stops by the door and faces me with nervous excitement. “I thought we might sit in on this class.”

  “Is that allowed?” I ask, stepping aside to let a short woman wearing a long dress and boots pass us. She walks right up to the podium and pulls a laptop from her bag.

  “I emailed with the department head, and he said we were free to audit whatever class we wanted,” Juniper says. “Since it’s the middle of finals here, the only classes are review sessions.”

  I lean past her to peer into the filling auditorium. The sight of students flipping through notebooks, halfheartedly typing in their computers, sipping coffee from Starbucks cups is striking in a way I can’t quite describe. There’s something distinctly quotidian about the scene. A day-to-day ordinariness I hadn’t anticipated. With every tour I’ve been on, I’ve built this perception of college as this huge event. Something we work toward and then achieve. The object of countless discussions and brochures meant to exaggerate and entice. But this review session, these somewhat sleepy students, this half-full hall—they’re nothing grand. It’s quiet and common and real. It’s one moment in thousands of nearly identical moments these students will have. I will have. If not here, then somewhere.