He’s carrying a duffel bag, and he waves to me and my dad. “I was serious about you getting out of here,” Dad says. “Sofi’s on the warpath. Don’t worry, I’ll cover for you.” He winks again and walks forward to meet Matt. “Don’t do any stupid shit on this trip, got it?” he says, shaking my boyfriend’s hand.
Matt swallows. “Of course, sir.”
Dad claps him on the shoulder. My dad and Matt have a relationship of their own born of baseball and Die Hard movies, even if Dad likes to pull his “intimidating father” act every now and again. “Tell Mom bye for me,” I say, opening the rear door while the guys load the luggage into the trunk.
Instantly, I’m hit with an unmistakable smell, the smell of every Christmas since we moved to Springfield. Memories of Abuela blindside me until I push them away. I notice a foil-covered platter on the back seat.
“Tía,” I groan.
I stow the box on the floor behind the driver’s seat and close the door, waving to my dad as I get into the front. Matt gets in the passenger seat, and we pull out of the driveway.
“Whoa,” Matt says, eager curiosity crossing his perfect features. “What’s that smell?”
I nod to the back seat. “Tía’s stubbornness. Also known as tamales.”
Matt reaches between our seats and pulls out the platter. He opens the glove compartment where—of course—he finds a plastic fork. I roll my eyes. Tía’s thought of everything. Matt takes a bite of tamale and groans in ecstasy. “Oh my god,” he moans through a mouthful, “I love your family. When can I marry into them again?” he asks casually, giving me a sideways look.
I feel my eyes widen. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
Matt shrugs. “Seventy percent,” he says.
I shake my head, silently scolding. Yet I can’t help stealing a glance in his direction. He’s wearing his Springfield High baseball T-shirt. I remember how, when they went to the state playoffs, the whole team threw a huge house party. But even though he was co-captain, Matt told me he wanted to celebrate by going to get ice cream with me.
The best thing about Matt isn’t his smile or his shoulders (a close second). It’s the way our memories make me feel. They make me feel like me.
I nod at the plate of tamales. “I’m relying on you to finish them before we get to Boston.”
Matt raises his fork like a conquering hero on a hilltop. “Challenge accepted.” I feel his eyes on me from the passenger seat. “Hey, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” he continues, his voice gentler. “This is really happening. We’re really going.”
I fix my eyes on the road, on the future, on places where I won’t be constrained by the expectations of my family. Where I’ll have the distance to discover who I want to be.
“It is.”
Fitz
ON THE MBTA bus to Boston University, I text Mom.
Tell me where you and Dad met?
I get the reply I was expecting.
Fitzgerald . . .
I wait. A couple of moments later, the typing bubble appears, and then her reply.
We were both doing our postdocs. He was studying French literature, and I was focusing on American. I was coming up the steps of the university’s administration building, carrying a cup of coffee, and he was coming down the steps. I ran right into him, dumping the entire contents of my coffee down the front of his shirt. He opened his mouth to yell and instead asked me to dinner.
It was an epic move on Dad’s part, honestly. He could give classes in Advanced Getting-Spilled-On. I’ve heard the story before, but that wasn’t the point. I send her a “thanks” and put my headphones in. With the Shins playing, I watch out the window. Boston’s a nice city, even though I have no intention of coming here for college. People bustle on every corner. In the gaps between streets of coffee shops and Chinese restaurants, I catch glimpses of the Charles River, a frozen sheet spanned by stone bridges. Every sidewalk is coated in exhaust, a newspaper bin on each corner.
I thought I understood why Lewis decided to go to Boston, even though he never talked about college with me. He’s interested in finance, and Boston is a hub for consulting and banking, and yada yada yada. Once Lewis had started at BU, I was convinced he chose Boston because he remembered the days Dad would bring us into the city for Italian food and cannoli in the North End.
Until Lewis’s calls home became less and less frequent. Until Dad asked one Christmas if Lewis ever went to Mike’s for cannoli, and Lewis didn’t remember the place, or pretended not to. Dad’s pretty hard to offend, but I caught the hurt in his eyes then. I decided I must have been wrong—it was dumb to guess Lewis chose a college for family.
I get out when I reach my stop, then walk the blocks between Boston University buildings toward the towers on the riverbank. Lewis lives in a building called StuVi2. While I walk, I watch people on the street, students spilling out of university dorms and lecture halls. I wonder what they’re doing, what they’re passionate about. What they worry about. I watch a group of guys in coats and ties come out of a brick building and cross the street toward an Indian restaurant. I wonder if one of them will collide with a fellow postdoc holding a cup of coffee.
When I reach the curb in front of what my phone tells me is StuVi2, I double-check the directions. This couldn’t possibly be right. The building on the riverbank would fit right into downtown Boston or New York or Chicago. It’s a modern high-rise, twenty floors or more—a conservative estimate. Walls of brick and window soar into the night sky. It’s nothing like the college dorms I’ve found while halfheartedly paging through pamphlets Mom leaves on my desk. It’s definitely a far cry from my two-story home in New Hampshire.
I walk in with a group of students. In the lobby I pause, watching kids in BU sweatshirts studying in the chairs and couches in the common area. For a moment, I imagine myself in one of those chairs, or in one of the groups laughing by the elevators, before the thought is gone.
I ride the elevator to the twenty-third floor, confirming I wasn’t far off in my estimate. The doors ping open onto a carpeted and well-lit hallway. I’ve known that Dad pays for Lewis’s dorm and a good portion of his tuition—I didn’t know he’d sprung for this. I’ve hardly ever stayed in hotels this nice, not that I’m some experienced traveler. With mom’s single-parent salary from the university, we’ve only gone out of town once or twice in the past few years. In Maine, I liked the scenery but discovered I couldn’t keep lobster down. In New York, Lewis was busted for trying to push a penny over the edge of the Empire State Building. I don’t love family trips.