Field Notes on Love

by Jennifer E. Smith

  “Well, I’d rather not be a spectacle, if it’s all the same.”

  “It’s not all the same,” Alfie says, more serious now. “It’s part of the deal. You know that.”

  “It’s like we’re circus animals.”

  “Circus animals who get to go to uni for free.”

  “I know,” Hugo says with a sigh. “And I realize how lucky that makes us. But haven’t you ever thought about what you’d do if things were different?”

  “Sure,” Alfie says. “I’d be starting fly-half for England.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Seriously? I don’t know. What about you?”

  The question needles at something in Hugo. “I don’t know either,” he admits. “Which is why I need to take this trip.”

  “To figure out what’s next?”

  “No, the opposite,” Hugo says. “Because I already know what’s next.”

  “And you want to see what it’s like to be on your own,” Alfie says, then grins. “Well, I can tell you this much: I won’t miss your snoring.”

  Hugo tosses a pen at him, but Alfie dodges it. They’re both silent for a moment, and Hugo gives his chair a spin. When it stops again, he looks down at his brother.

  “Do you think they hate me?”

  “A bit,” Alfie says, picking at a patch of mud on his knee. “So do I, for the record.”

  Hugo rubs his eyes, deflated. “I’m sorry. I really am. But you do realize it’s not actually about—”

  “I know,” Alfie says. “And they do too. It’ll be fine. We’ll get over it eventually.”

  “Even George?”

  “Well,” he says, “maybe not George.”

  “Brilliant,” Hugo says with a groan.

  “Oh, hey!” Alfie scrambles to his feet, walking over to open his sock drawer. He pulls out a small package wrapped in newspaper. “I think I was supposed to wait on this, but…sod it.”

  Hugo takes the package and unwraps it carefully. Inside is a brown leather passport case. He looks up at Alfie in surprise, his chest flooding with warmth again.

  “Mum wanted to get you neon orange so you wouldn’t lose it, but then Dad pointed out that would make it easier for someone else to find it, too, and then Poppy picked out this horrid red one that you’d have been embarrassed to carry around, and then George suggested camo—camo! like you’re going off to war!—and Oscar wanted to get you a flask instead, which would’ve been cool but sort of beside the point, and then I found this one, and Isla suggested getting your initials put on”—Hugo opens the flap to see a small HTW pressed into the soft leather—“and it seemed like we were in business. Do you like it?”

  Hugo runs his fingers across the smooth surface. “I love it,” he says, and there’s enough emotion in his voice that they both know what he really means, which is this: I love all of you.

  Exactly one week after receiving the email from Hugo W. telling her how much he enjoyed her video but explaining that he hadn’t chosen her for the train trip, Mae gets another message with the subject line “Funny story.”

  Dear Mae,

  I feel a bit sheepish writing to you again, but it turns out my travel companion needs to have bunion surgery next week, which means I’ve found myself in need of a Margaret Campbell who might still be up for an adventure (and who doesn’t have bunions). I know it’s poor form to ask this of you now, when the trip is only a week away and I already passed you over once. But I sincerely loved your video, so I hope you’ll consider it.

  Cheers,

  Hugo

  Here we go, she thinks, jangly with excitement. Though this, of course, is immediately followed by a list of all the reasons this probably isn’t the best idea: it’s impulsive and impractical and possibly unsafe; she has no interest in being anyone’s second choice; her dads would never let her travel cross-country with a stranger; and mostly—mostly—what kind of person would actually do this sort of thing?

  But then she thinks of what Pop said about how she has more living to do, and what Garrett said about making great art, and the way this town has always felt like a pair of jeans that’s a size too small, and she realizes she’s exactly that kind of person.

  She leans back in her desk chair and sees a small blue car parked in the driveway. Confused, she hurries downstairs and out the front door, bounding over to where Priyanka is sitting in the driver’s seat, the engine idling. Her long dark hair is pulled into a low ponytail, and she’s wearing the Cornell sweatshirt that her parents gave her when she found out she got in. She looks up in surprise when Mae appears at the window.

  “I thought we were meeting in town,” Mae says, and Priyanka adjusts her grip on the wheel.

  “We are.”

  Mae frowns. “Then why are you picking me up?”

  “I’m not,” Priyanka says, looking a little sheepish. “I just wanted to do this one last time.”

  “Do what?”

  “I don’t know. Drive from my house to your house. Wait in your driveway because you’re always late. I mean, how many times have we done this?”

  “I’m not always late,” Mae says with mock indignation. “But yeah. A lot.”

  “And this is the last time.”

  “It’s not the last time ever. We’ll be back at Thanksgiving.”

  “I know,” Priyanka says. “But still.”

  “Well, as long as you’re here, you may as well give me a ride.” Mae grins as she climbs into the car. “Lucky for you, that means you’ll have to drop me off, too, so you don’t have to say a tearful goodbye to my driveway just yet.”

  Priyanka rolls her eyes. “How can you be so entirely unemotional about all this?”

  “I’m sad to be saying goodbye to you,” Mae tells her. “But I’m pretty sure I’ll survive without seeing my garage door for a few months.”

  At the pizza place, they sit at their usual table. Just after they order, Priyanka’s phone buzzes, and even before she checks to see who it is, her whole face lights up.

  “Alex?” Mae asks, taking a sip from her straw.

  Priyanka nods, still smiling. Her boyfriend left last week for a pre-orientation camping trip and hasn’t had much cell service. “Only a couple more days till he’s out of the woods.”

  “I can’t believe you guys are actually attempting to do this.”

  “What?”

  “Stay together.”

  Priyanka looks up from her phone with a puzzled expression. “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Because you’re going to be in two different states for the next four years.”

  “Yeah, but I love him,” she says, as if it’s just that simple. “And he loves me.”

  Mae sips her soda loudly while Priyanka finishes her conversation with Alex. It’s not until the waiter brings their pizza—half veggie, half pepperoni—that she sets the phone down and they watch the steam rise off the cheese.

  “Love is like this pizza,” Mae says, sweeping her hand over the table. “It’s warm and gooey and delicious, but it doesn’t last.”

  Priyanka laughs. “Are we talking about Garrett now?”

  “I wasn’t in love with Garrett,” she says. “That was just fun.”

  “Did he know that?”

  Mae takes a defiant bite of her slice, which is still too hot. She winces and downs half a glass of water in one go. Priyanka shakes her head.

  “If you weren’t so careful—”

  “I’m not careful,” Mae says, practically spitting the word.

  Priyanka looks like she wants to laugh, but she manages to bite it back. “I don’t mean in life,” she says more gently. “I mean with your heart.”

  Mae—who was all set to argue—is stopped short by this.

  “You’re the least guarded person I know,” Priyanka continues, pressing forward. “To a fau
lt, sometimes. But when it really counts, you play it safe. The minute any guy starts to fall for you, there’s a Mae-shaped hole in the wall.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is,” Priyanka insists, gesturing at the pizza. “You’re afraid of the warm, gooey parts. You think I’m nuts for trying to stay together with Alex, but I’d rather take a chance and end up with someone I love than protect myself and end up—”

  Mae scowls. “Why are we even talking about this?”

  “Because,” Priyanka says, more softly now, “sometimes I think you’re more interested in making movies than living your life. Not everything is supposed to be material. It’s like you go out into the world with a camera and leave your heart behind on a shelf. But if you don’t ever truly risk anything—”

  “I do,” Mae says quickly, trying not to show how stung she is. “In fact, I was going to tell you—”

  “No,” Priyanka says, “I do not mean that kind of risk.”

  “What? You don’t even know what I was going to say—”

  “Mae,” she says, already exasperated. “Only you would hear that and take away that you should sign up to be murdered by some guy on a train.”

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “I sent that post as a joke, not a suggestion. Honestly, tell me you’re not actually thinking of going.”

  “I’m not actually thinking of going.”

  “Really?”

  “No, not really,” she says with a grin. “Come on. It would be amazing.”

  Priyanka shakes her head. “I literally just watched this show where a girl gets stalked by someone on a train, and—”

  “You watch too much TV.”

  “Well, you watch too many movies.”

  Mae laughs. “So what happened in the show?”

  “It was all a big mix-up,” Priyanka says, picking up a slice of pizza. “The guy turned out to be great and they fell in love and lived happily ever after.”

  “Really?”

  “No,” she says. “She got murdered. What do you think?”

  After lunch, Priyanka drives Mae home, steering her car into that familiar circle at the top of the driveway. For a moment, they just sit there staring at the blank face of the garage.

  “Okay, you’re right,” Mae says, tipping her head back against the seat. “Now I’m kind of sad.”

  Priyanka laughs. “See?”

  “We’ll talk all the time, right?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Promise you’ll call me more than you call Alex?”

  “Only if you promise you won’t get on that train.”

  “Let’s just agree to play it all by ear,” Mae says cheerfully. As she starts to unbuckle her seat belt, Priyanka puts a hand on her elbow.

  “Listen,” she says, her brown eyes searching Mae’s. “I don’t want you going off to college thinking that love is like a pizza.”

  “Would it be better if I thought it was like a calzone?”

  Priyanka ignores this. “Love is…I don’t know. Something bigger than that. It’s like the sun.”

  “In that you can get burnt by it?”

  “No,” she says wearily, but already her eyes have that starry quality they get whenever she’s thinking of Alex. “In that it makes everything brighter and happier. And it warms you from the inside out.”

  “So does pizza,” Mae says, and this time Priyanka swats at her.

  “You know what I’m saying. Just promise me you’ll be open to the possibilities.”

  Without quite meaning to, Mae finds herself thinking of the video she sent to Hugo W., and how easy it had been to answer his questions. She takes a deep breath and nods. “I promise.”

  Priyanka seems satisfied by this. She reaches for the door handle and gets out of the car, and Mae does the same. They hurry around the front to give each other a hug.

  “I love you like a pizza,” Priyanka whispers in her ear, and Mae laughs.

  “Safe travels.”

  Priyanka steps back and gives her a long look. “You too,” she says finally.

  Up until that moment, Mae wasn’t completely sure. But right then, she realizes they both know exactly what she’s going to do.

  Afterward, she walks around the side of the house and finds Nana out on the porch, her favorite spot to nap these days. Her eyes flicker open as Mae jogs up the old wooden steps.

  “And then there were two,” Nana says with a melodramatic sigh. “I can’t believe Priyanka busted out of here before us.”

  Mae laughs. “Won’t be long now.”

  “Five days,” she says. “But who’s counting?”

  They tried to persuade Nana to stay permanently, arguing that the country would be more relaxing for her. But she made it clear she has no interest in relaxing, and now that she’s got a clean bill of health, she insists on moving back to her own apartment in the city.

  “You know what I will miss about living here?”

  “Giving my dads a hard time?”

  Nana laughs. “No.”

  “The burnt coffee?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?”

  “You,” she says, and Mae smiles.

  Out on the street, a red car that looks just like Garrett’s comes spinning around the corner, and for a second, Mae thinks maybe it’s him. But of course he’s already gone.

  As if she can see right into Mae’s head, Nana says, “You doing okay with everything?”

  This strikes Mae as funny, coming from someone who recently went through four straight weeks of induction chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia. But she doesn’t say so. “Yeah,” she says instead. “I’m doing fine.”

  “You know, the only way to get over a broken heart is to find someone new.”

  “This isn’t a broken heart, Nana. Honestly, I’m not even sure it’s bruised.” She thinks about what Priyanka said, imagining her heart packed carefully away, a tiny fence around it. Then she glances sideways at her grandmother. “Have you ever been on a train trip? Not the train to the city, but something longer.”

  Nana is quiet, but her eyes have a faraway look. “I was only a little older than you,” she says with a wisp of a smile. “Maybe nineteen or twenty. A friend and I took a train to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. She had some family down there, so we went on a lark. That first morning, I met a boy in uniform, and he bought me a cup of tea. My friend barely saw me for the rest of the trip.”

  Mae sits forward. “So what happened?”

  “What do you mean what happened? We talked. We flirted. We kissed.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course we did,” Nana says impatiently. “We were in love.”

  “People don’t fall in love that quickly,” Mae says, thinking this sounds suspiciously like one of the old romantic movies her grandmother loves so much.

  But Nana is adamant. “They can. And we did. We spent the whole weekend together, dancing and eating and listening to jazz. We were practically giddy. Couldn’t keep our hands off each other and couldn’t stop—”

  Mae hurries her along, eager to move past this description. “And then what?”

  “Then we said goodbye.”

  “But if you were in love…?”

  “He was on leave from an army base in Texas. I had a life in New York City. It wasn’t meant to be.” She shrugs. “Love isn’t magic. It doesn’t transcend time and space. It doesn’t fix anything. It’s just love.”

  “But—”

  “I was in love many times before I met your grandfather,” she says. “Some of them lasted a long time; some of them didn’t. The trick is not to worry about it. If you spend too much time thinking about when it will disappear, you’ll miss the whole thing.”

  “So what happened to him?” Mae asks,
suddenly impatient.

  “He was killed in Vietnam. But we kept writing postcards until the day he died.”

  Mae is quiet, trying to decide if this is memory or imagination. It sounds like it could be true, but so do most of the stories her grandmother has told them over the years. Nana, too, is silent for a while, thinking about her soldier, perhaps, or lost in the movies that take place in her head. After a moment, she sets her mug on the table between them and turns to Mae. “So,” she says, “tell me more about this train ride.”

  “What train ride?”

  “The one you’re deciding whether or not to take.”

  Mae looks at Nana in surprise. And then the story comes spilling out: the twinge she felt when she saw that post, and the video she sent zipping across the ocean; the way she felt when she watched her film again, like she was stuck, like she couldn’t figure out how to peer around the edges of her own life, and how it smarted when Garrett said the word impersonal; the message from Hugo W. and the questions he asked, which are still sliding around in her head like pinballs, even days later. When she’s done, Nana simply nods.

  “Your fathers will never go for it,” she says, and Mae’s shoulders slump, because she knows this too. But then, to her surprise, Nana winks at her. “Which isn’t a reason not to do it.”

  Mae tries to hide her smile, but she can’t. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” says Nana, leaning forward. “You said your new roommate is from Brooklyn, right?”

  Which is how, later that night, Mae comes to be sitting across from her dads at the diner—which is appropriately shaped like an old train car—and telling them that she and her future roommate, Piper, have hatched a plan to take a train to California together.

  “A train?” Dad asks, lowering his BLT with a look of horror. “You do know it’s faster to fly?”

  “I do,” she says. “Yes. But apparently she was gonna go with her mom, and then something came up, and she had already bought the tickets, so she needs a travel buddy.”

  “You’re going to be living together in a shoebox for the next nine months,” Pop says. “Are you sure you want to start it all a week early?”