I pull the phone from my pocket. It’s my dad. With gloved fingers, I clumsily pick up and press it to my ear. “Hi, Dad.”
“Found your dream college yet?”
It’s exactly what my dad would say. Instead of the introductory pleasantries of conversation, he loves just jumping to the point. It’s probably—no, definitely—where I got my own directness. I hear the clatter of kitchen prep over the phone. He’s getting ready to open the restaurant for dinner, chopping vegetables and frying tortilla chips.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I did BU and Harvard. They were both great, but Boston is a bit close to home.”
“Yeah,” he says thoughtfully. “Big city, though.”
Dad and I both love big cities. He went to college in New York City, and I could fill books with the stories he’s told of getting ramen with friends past midnight, living with five roommates in a loft meant for three, his yearlong quest to determine the greatest pizza in the city. The way he describes them, cities exist in perpetual reinvention, sparked by constantly changing populations of constantly changing people. They’re places where the strangers you meet on the street could derail your life in wonderful, unforgettable ways.
“Boston is great,” I reply. “I’m going to the North End right now to meet Matt before we drive to Providence.”
“The North End,” he repeats, excitement jumping into his voice. “Oh man. You can’t come home without grabbing cannoli from Mike’s Pastry.”
“Twist my arm, why don’t you?”
He laughs over the clang of pans in the kitchen. “How were the hotel rooms?”
“The rooms were good.” I emphasize the plural, which I know my dad detects, because he chuckles.
“Uh-huh,” he says. “You know, I was Matt’s age once.” I permit myself a small laugh, understanding this is one of those things we won’t be discussing with Mom and Tía. “I trust you to be responsible, Juni,” he continues, “and to never, ever tell your sisters about this.”
I laugh. “Promise,” I say resolutely. I know full well that I, the oldest daughter, provide precedent for my siblings. If Marisa knew I shared a hotel room with my boyfriend, she would be clamoring for the exact same within weeks. It’s part of why the idea of leaving home for college is contentious with Tía. If I do, every one of my siblings can, and probably will.
“I have to finish prepping,” Dad says. “Enjoy the city.”
“I will,” I say.
I hang up, wondering if I caught wistfulness in my dad’s voice. He’d probably be living in Boston or New York if he could. We both know why he isn’t. We moved to Springfield because of Abuela’s heart trouble. We stayed because she died. The guilt kept my parents rooted to the restaurant, to Springfield, to the house of fraught memories and family history.
But I won’t spend my college tour ruminating on old wounds. I lift my head and keep walking, fixing my eyes forward.
Fitz
ENTERING MIKE’S PASTRY, I breathe in the sweet smells of dough and sugar. Everything is exactly the way I remember. The brown tile floors, the glass display cases on three walls of the room, the warm brilliance of the overhead lights. Behind the counters, women in black uniforms, universally gruff and wordless, point to customers for their orders. They pull white string from overhead spindles and deftly wrap cardboard boxes of every kind of cannoli imaginable. The place is packed, the crowd incessantly moving up to the counters and exiting with white-and-blue packages.
I love Mike’s Pastry. When I was in elementary school and my parents were still together, my dad would drive Lewis and me into Boston for pretty much the greatest day a ten-year-old could imagine. We would catch the Sox in Fenway or visit the New England Aquarium, then head to the North End for Italian and finally, Mike’s for dessert.
I text my dad a photo, knowing he probably won’t respond for a couple of hours. He went into academia like my mom—archaeology, Grecian art and history in particular—and now he’s his university’s department chair. He has office hours for undergrads in the evenings. I’ve dropped in on them once or twice in my life, giving him the chance to recite Euripides and Sophocles to me, eyes bright behind his glasses. While I don’t know what I want to study in college, I know it’s not Grecian art or history. Despite the ancient pottery shards on my dad’s shelves and his trips with students to Athens or Crete—not to mention his irrepressible passion describing some statute or discovery—I never found the enthusiasm for the subject he did.
I don’t exactly know what pulled my parents apart. I do know the change was not abrupt or unexpected. I had felt continents shifting under my feet for years, and then one day the marriage was over. I felt them shift again when my mom told us her test results, and again when Lewis left home. I feel them shifting now, shaking the foundations of the life I know. I just want the ground under me to settle.
Lewis doesn’t mind the shifting, doesn’t reach for familiarity the way I do. Familiarity that today takes the form of cannoli dusted with powdered sugar, ricotta spilling out the ends. When I extended the invitation to Lewis to head uptown with me on the Green Line and revisit Mike’s, he declined, his flippancy betraying no cognizance of the childhood trips we would take with Dad. Instead, he suggested I join him for drinks with three friends whose names I obviously didn’t know, but who Lewis rattled off like I did. He wanted to hang out with Bruce, Trevor, and Amir before leaving for the week with me. I said no.
I don’t care, honestly. I’m content to visit Mike’s completely on my own. It’s probably better this way, because the week to come will be nearly nonstop time with my brother. For now, cannoli and solitude will be the panacea for the frustration of this trip.
I join one of the lines in front of the counters, although “lines” suggests an orderliness lacking here. While nobody is pushing or shoving, I find myself jostled in the gradually moving pilgrimage to the registers.
Eventually, I notice a girl next to me craning her neck, rising onto her toes to look over the heads of the crowd, checking her place in line a little obnoxiously. Wobbling, she tilts in my direction, her shoulder bumping mine. She glances toward me, and our eyes connect.
Which is when I recognize her.
Juniper, the girl from this morning. She’s holding her parka, and I notice she’s not wearing the coffee-stained cardigan from earlier. I search the shop for signs of the Hemsworth boyfriend, but he’s not here. Maybe they broke up, and she’s here to find someone to help nurse her heartbreak. I’m reaching for some small talk when she speaks.
“You were in the BU information session today.”
“I—yeah,” I stammer, startled she remembers me.