“You weren’t interested, though.” It’s a statement spoken like a question. Her eyes burn into me, holding the intensity I remember from this morning in front of the dorm. It’s intimidating when that intensity is directed at me, even if she looks curious, not accusatory.
“What makes you say I wasn’t interested?” I ask, puzzled I’m even having a conversation with this girl, and that this is the topic.
“I saw you reading. You didn’t even know when the presentation ended,” she replies, undaunted. Her hair remains in the uncompromising ponytail it was during the tour, and I’m beginning to learn there’s no halfway with this girl.
“You were watching me read?” I say, surprising myself with temerity.
For the first time I catch the force in Juniper’s eyes flicker. “I wasn’t watching you, watching you,” she explains. “You just stood out because you weren’t listening to the presentation,” she continues, recovering quickly.
We’ve nearly reached the registers, and I wonder if she’s going to question me through the entire ordering process. I know the women behind the counter don’t have a profusion of patience.
“I was listening,” I protest weakly.
Juniper faces me, a hint of playfulness in her eyes. “Well, are you going to apply to BU?”
I sigh. I could lie, but the directness in her gazes makes me rethink it. Besides, in a couple more questions, she’d probably corner me into admitting the truth. “Compunctiously, no, I’m not,” I say, and her eyebrows—her perfectly shaped eyebrows—rise. I wince internally. Once again, the pretentious word choice just slipped out. I know from experience that obtuse and antiquated vocabulary generally doesn’t go over well with the girls I try to talk to. With anyone, really.
The woman behind the counter gestures in my direction, and I order quickly. Plain ricotta with chocolate chips. She throws together the familiar package of wax paper, cannoli, and enough powdered sugar to leave the dough beneath barely visible. Juniper orders Oreo.
Handing the woman a rumpled twenty over the counter, I’m conscious of Juniper’s silence. I probably put her off with the weird word choice. Or—a worse thought hits me. Boston University is probably her dream school, and I’ve just implicitly insulted her with my indifference. She receives her cannoli. “Look,” I say before she can turn to leave, “it’s not only BU. I’m on a college tour this week, and I’m not planning on applying to any of the schools I’m visiting.”
Juniper’s eyes widen. “You’re—what?” Gentle understanding settles on her features. “Oh, it’s okay if you don’t have great grades,” she says encouragingly, if a little patronizingly. “Colleges consider lots of other factors in their decisions. I’m certain you could get in if you wanted to.”
I blink. “What? No,” I rush to clarify, wanting with startling urgency for this girl not to think I’m unintelligent. “It’s not that I don’t think I could get in. I have fine grades and a practically perfect SAT score.”
God, that sounded douchey. But Juniper doesn’t look bothered, only curious. The people behind us push forward, breaking our eye contact for a moment. Our shoulders brush, her chestnut curls swinging with the movement. Glancing over the crowd, I see an open table for two in the corner, near the long window.
“Want to sit?” I venture uncharacteristically. Years of lunches and weekends spent with the same three or four friends don’t generally lead to spontaneously inviting random gorgeous girls for cozy cannoli dates. Of course, I have absolutely no expectation she won’t produce a flimsy excuse for why she needs to return to her hotel because she remembered I’m a complete weirdo who she never wanted to have a conversation with in the first place.
“Okay,” she says.
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. But incredibly, I keep it together and nod toward the table under the window. We push into the crowd, cannoli boxes held in front of us. We’re pulling out chairs when Juniper eyes me again.
“What do you want to do instead of college?” she asks.
“Oh, I’m going to college.” I open the white flaps on the box and pull out the cannoli, powdered sugar sprinkling down like snow. “I just don’t want to go to any of the colleges on my tour. They’re too hard to travel to.”
“Compunctiously, I have to tell you that’s a dumb reason,” Juniper replies. There’s lighthearted confrontation in her eyes, and I get the feeling she’s proving she knew exactly what the word meant when I dropped it earlier. She’s probably trying to put me in my place. Instead, I can’t help leaning a little closer over our window nook. If this girl intrigued me before, now I’m fascinated. “We’re on the East Coast of the United States, not the moon,” she continues. “There are buses, trains, flights wherever you want to go.”
I don’t really want to get into my reasons for wanting to go to college near home. Besides, I want to know about her. “Where do you want to go?” I crunch into my cannoli. It’s heaven, exactly the way I remember. “What’s your top choice?”
If Juniper notices my deflection, she doesn’t comment—but I’m guessing she doesn’t notice, because I can tell she’s the type who, when she wants to know something, pursues it until she does. “Everywhere,” she says easily. I tilt my head, curious. But her eyes have wandered out the window, her expression faraway and hungry. “I mean, if there weren’t application fees, I would apply everywhere,” she adds. “I’m on a college tour this week too. Already I can tell there are so many great schools out there. It’s going to be impossible to decide. Part of me hopes I’ll only get into one and I won’t have to. I’ll probably end up on the East Coast for undergrad because flights cost money I don’t have. But maybe I’ll get a master’s or PhD in California or London or wherever. It’s exciting to imagine myself in other parts of the country, even on other continents.”
We both realize she’s rambling. I think it’s awesome. She doesn’t. Her embarrassment is evident in the way she turns quickly to face me, tugging that tight ponytail, her cheeks heating.
“What about you?” she asks. “Why go on a college tour if you’re not planning to go to any of the colleges on the tour?”
“I’m on this trip because my mom’s forcing me,” I explain. “But I’m committed to Southern New Hampshire University.” Even saying the name gives me a rush of reassurance. Memories flit through my mind of the wide lawns, the brick buildings, the expansive windows, and the elegant columns of the modern library. “I practically grew up on the campus because my mom’s a professor there,” I continue. “It’s close to home. Familiar.”