Field Notes on Love

by Jennifer E. Smith

  He nearly texts George, the other big football fan in their house. But then he realizes he still hasn’t written back to the group message about housing from last night, and the reminder makes his stomach churn.

  When the match is over, he asks the barman for the Wi-Fi password and finds that an email from Nigel Griffith-Jones arrived hours ago, just after they got off the train. Hugo takes a long swig of his drink before opening the message.

  Dear Mr. Wilkinson,

  Thank you for the note inquiring about your scholarship to the University of Surrey, but I’m afraid we cannot agree to defer it at this time. As I’m sure you know—and will see if you refer to the original agreement with the late Mr. Mitchell Kelly—this offer has always been contingent on having all six of you attend the university together. In accordance with his wishes, we’ve organised a great deal of publicity surrounding your upcoming matriculation. Because of these special circumstances, I’m sure you can understand why we must insist you all begin in the same academic year.

  If there are other factors I should be aware of with regards to this request—any medical or mental health reasons, for example—please do let me know, and we can talk further. Additionally, if you’d like to consider the possibility of all of you starting in the next academic year instead of this one, that’s something we can discuss. But as it stands now, I’m afraid that if you were to refuse to comply with the terms of your scholarship, certain contractual provisions mean we’d have to reevaluate the other five as well.

  Please feel free to call my office with any questions. Otherwise we’re looking forward to having you and the other members of the Surrey Six with us this autumn!

  Sincerely,

  Nigel Griffith-Jones

  Chair of Council University of Surrey

  Disappointment blooms inside Hugo, and for a while he just sits there, his future closing in around him again. For a brief moment, it had been all dusty train stations in far-flung towns, endless blue oceans, and mountain vistas. Now, once again, it’s something smaller than that: interviews in which the six of them explain how much they love being at uni together, a tiny room shared with George, dinners at home on the weekends.

  It’s like a light has been switched off, and where there was just a series of brilliant colors, there’s now only black and white.

  His first instinct is to text Mae, but she has bigger things to worry about right now. He knows this is no great tragedy, being forced to go home and attend a top-notch university for free. So instead he writes to Alfie: No go.

  A few minutes later, the reply comes through:

  Alfie: What did they say?

  Hugo: All for one and one for all.

  Alfie: Sorry, mate. It’s rubbish sometimes, being a musketeer.

  Hugo: It could be worse.

  Alfie: How?

  Hugo: We could be septuplets.

  Alfie: Or octuplets.

  Hugo: Did you tell any of the others?

  Alfie: No.

  Hugo: Don’t, then.

  Alfie: It won’t be so bad, you know.

  Hugo: I know.

  Alfie: You can travel next summer. Or after we graduate. The world isn’t going anywhere.

  Hugo: I’ll see you in a couple of days, okay?

  Alfie: See you soon.

  He opens a new message, then heaves a sigh before writing to George:

  Hugo: I call top bunk.

  George: Really? You’re in?

  Hugo: I’m in.

  George: Brilliant! It’ll be fun. Trust me.

  Hugo: Can’t wait.

  He pauses for a moment before sending this last text, wondering if he should add an exclamation mark instead. But in the end, he can’t bring himself to do it.

  Afterward, he goes for a walk, trying to unscramble all the thoughts that are whirling around in his head. He makes his way down to the river, past the station where they’ll be catching the train tomorrow morning, and the baseball stadium, which sits hushed and quiet beneath the late-afternoon sun.

  The streets are lined with old warehouse buildings, and when he passes a western shop, he can’t resist stopping in to try on a cowboy hat. “I don’t think it suits me,” he says to the saleswoman, squinting at the too-tall hat, which makes him look like a cartoon character.

  She scrutinizes him in the mirror. “Maybe you just need some boots too.”

  He laughs at this, but it reminds him that he still has no money, so he stands outside on the street and texts his mum, who writes back immediately.

  Hugo: The credit card didn’t show up in Denver.

  Mum: Maybe it’s holding out for the beach.

  Hugo: Very funny. Would you see if they’ll send one to my hotel in San Francisco?

  Mum: Will do. Are you getting on okay? Do you miss us? Do you still have all your other belongings?

  Hugo: Yes, yes, and yes.

  Mum: You’re loving it, aren’t you?

  Hugo: I really am.

  He wants to say more. Wants to tell her about his note to the dean and the disappointing response. But it doesn’t matter anymore; it’s already over, and telling her what he’s been thinking—how reluctant he is to return home—would only make her worry about him.

  Instead, he sends one quick text to his dad: I miss you too. But not as much as I miss Mum’s cooking. Then he pulls up a map, trying to decide where to go next. But in the end, he’s too distracted for sightseeing, so he heads back to the hotel instead.

  As he makes his way through the lobby, he spots Mae in one of the overstuffed armchairs, headphones in and computer balanced on her knees. For a second, he just watches her, the way she bends over the screen with a look of intense concentration, and he feels a surge of affection so strong that he isn’t sure whether he should be running to her or running away.

  As he approaches, he’s startled to see that her eyes are filled with tears.

  “Are you all right?” he asks with alarm. “Is your grandmother…?”

  “No, she’s okay. Or she’s going to be.”

  Hugo exhales, relieved. “Good. That’s…great.”

  “I know,” she says, breathing out too. “I haven’t talked to her yet, but she’s going home with my dads tonight, and it sounds like she’ll be fine.”

  “So why the tears?”

  “Oh, I was just…” Mae laughs a little helplessly as she pulls out her headphones, then spins the computer so he can see the paused video. “I was listening to Ida.”

  “Ah,” he says, sitting down on the chair across from her. “That’ll do it.”

  There’s a harpist playing in the corner of the lounge, and the last notes of a song vibrate out across the room. The small audience claps appreciatively, and Hugo joins in. When he turns back to Mae, she’s smiling at him.

  “What?”

  She looks sheepish. “I sort of missed you.”

  “I sort of missed you too,” he says, his heart wobbling in his chest. He looks down at his hands. “I heard back from the university.”

  “And?” she asks, but there’s something muted about it, and he realizes she already knows. She probably knew from the moment he walked up.

  He shakes his head. “They said no.”

  “That’s it?” she says, already looking slightly fearsome. “Just no?”

  “They want all six of us for publicity purposes,” he says. “Which doesn’t surprise me, if I’m being honest. I just didn’t realize it was officially part of the deal, and I guess I was hoping they might—”

  “That’s absurd. They’re not buying hot dog buns. You’re six different people with six different personalities.” She pauses, narrowing her eyes. “The problem is they’ve got themselves a good story now. And if you don’t want to be part of it, you’ve got to tell them a better
one.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “What did you say in your email?”

  Hugo shrugs. “I asked if it would be possible to defer the scholarship.”

  “That’s it?”

  “More or less.”

  “Good grief,” Mae says, rolling her eyes. “Next time please do not send a potentially life-changing email in the middle of the night without consulting me, okay?”

  In spite of himself, Hugo laughs. “Okay.”

  “Look, this is what I do,” she says. “I tell stories. And stories are magic. Trust me on this. You can’t just tell them you want to skip out for a year. You need to explain why you want to go. Paint them a picture. Tell them all the things you want to do. Tell them how much it’s killing you to just blindly follow the same path as all your siblings. Tell them you need a year to figure out who you are, and then you’ll come back a better, more focused person, and it’ll be a win for everyone.”

  For some reason, he’s finding this all fairly amusing, and though he knows she’s serious, he can’t seem to wipe the grin from his face.

  “Hugo,” she says, leaning forward and putting a hand on each of his knees, “I’m not kidding. If you don’t believe this, why should they?”

  “All right.” He holds up his hands. “All right. I’ll give it a go.”

  Mae looks enormously satisfied. She stands up and thrusts her laptop at him. “Good. I’m gonna go up and take a shower. You stay here and get to work.”

  And then she’s gone. Hugo stares at the computer, wondering if she’s right. The email from the university seemed fairly final, but it couldn’t hurt to try explaining himself a bit better. He closes the window with the clip of Ida’s interview, his head already buzzing with his arguments. But just as he’s about to open a blank document, he notices a folder called rejects.

  He freezes, remembering their conversation the other day. It’s almost certainly in there, the film she submitted to USC, the one she never wants to talk about. And now that it’s only a couple of clicks away, Hugo is burning to see it.

  He lets the mouse hover over it a second, his curiosity overwhelming.

  But at the last minute, he sits back again. It would be too big a betrayal of trust.

  Instead he opens a new document, staring at the white screen for a few seconds.

  He thinks: Why I can’t go home just yet.

  He thinks: Please just let me do this.

  He thinks: Maybe a few seconds wouldn’t hurt.

  And then he clicks over to the rejects folder and opens it.

  There are easily two dozen files there, all with cryptic names like that one tuesday or typical weekend or snow day. There’s one called for dad and another for pop. One called groceries and another called you are here. He wants to watch them all, wants to dive straight into her head. But then he spots the one called usc and goes straight to that.

  When he opens it, the window is black, with a small title card that says mae day productions. He takes his earbuds out of his pocket and slips them in, glancing around the lobby to make sure nobody is watching. Then he presses Play.

  There’s a shot of clouds and some music, and then the camera pans down from above in an impressive sweeping shot and zooms in on a girl about their age walking toward a small yellow house.

  Hugo thinks: I should stop watching.

  But he doesn’t.

  She starts to reach for the doorknob, then changes her mind and sits down on the porch steps as two male voices drift out the window, arguing about whose turn it is to fold the laundry. The camera pulls in close to her face as she listens.

  The camera work is impressive, and the shots all look stylized in a way that’s truly distinctive, bright and glossy and uniquely heightened. But he can’t help noticing there’s something a bit hollow about it, too, something a little detached.

  Though maybe that’s how it’s supposed to feel. Hugo honestly isn’t sure.

  Someone walks up behind him, and he slams the computer shut so fast it almost goes sliding off his lap. When he turns to look, it’s just a middle-aged woman with a glass of wine. She gives him a funny look as she squeezes past his chair, walking over to a group of couples assembled near the harpist. His heart is pounding as he opens the computer again, exits the window, and closes the folder, covering his tracks.

  He looks once more at the blank document and decides he’ll work on the letter later.

  As he steps out of the elevator on the eighth floor, Hugo tries to compose his face in a way that doesn’t make him look as guilty as he feels. But his hands are sweaty, and his stomach is doing flips, and he thinks maybe he should tell her before he gives himself away.

  When he walks in the door, she leans out of the bathroom and smiles at him. She’s in her pajamas, and her hair is wet, and the whole room feels steamy.

  “Did you do it?” she asks, and he looks at her, startled, before realizing she’s talking about the letter.

  “I started,” he says. “But I’ll finish tomorrow.”

  She sets down her hairbrush and appears in the doorway again. “So that means you think it’s a good idea?”

  “I do,” he says, and her face brightens. She walks over to him smelling like soap and something else, something clean and lemony, and he’s about to confess it all, feeling powerless in the face of so much citrus. But then she circles her arms around his waist and stands on her toes and kisses him, and just like that, he forgets about everything else.

  The next morning, Hugo is still acting weird.

  Their train is delayed, so they’ve parked themselves on a couch at the station, which is clean and bright and filled with comfortable chairs and beautiful lamps and low wooden tables, making it feel more like a living room than anything else.

  Mae’s got her computer out, taking notes as she flips through the various interviews they’ve recorded so far. Hugo is sitting beside her, knee jangling. Outside, they can see the trains coming and going, and people keep streaming into the station, their voices bouncing around the cavernous space.

  “I’m gonna get a coffee,” she says. “Want one?”

  Hugo shoots to his feet with a suddenness that startles her. “I’ll get it,” he says, then promptly trips over the table in front of them, his long legs tangled. He barely manages to right himself before crashing into her laptop.

  “You okay?” she asks, but he goes hurrying off without looking at her. She watches, amused, as he disappears into one of the shops, then reappears a moment later and hurries back over. Before he can ask, she says, “A vanilla skim latte, please.”

  He nods sheepishly and wheels around again.

  But it only takes him a couple minutes to return.

  “I don’t have any money,” he says, and Mae hands over her credit card.

  “Buy yourself something nice,” she jokes, but he doesn’t even manage a smile.

  She frowns at the back of his gray sweatshirt as he heads into the shop again, wondering what’s wrong. Nothing really happened last night—they watched a terrible TV movie and then fell asleep—but maybe that was it? Maybe he was hoping for more. After all, he had a girlfriend for almost four years, which is practically a lifetime. It’s entirely possible that he expected to do more than just cuddle when sharing a bed with a girl. He didn’t seem upset, though. Maybe a little distracted. But then, they both had things on their minds. Besides, he was the one to fall asleep first, snoring so loudly that Mae had to keep turning up the volume before eventually giving up and switching off the lights.

  When he comes back, he’s holding two paper coffee cups, the words You Go written across the side of one of them, which makes her laugh. He hands over hers, then sinks onto the couch, his eyes on the clock as he swigs from the cup.

  “You okay, You Go?” she asks with a grin, but he only nods.

&nbs
p; With a shrug, she reaches for her phone and finds a text from Priyanka, who has been checking in about Nana: Any updates? Just as she’s about to write back, another message pops up, and her heart lifts at the sight.

  Nana: So you’re not the only one who had a big adventure.

  Mae: Hi! How are you feeling??

  Nana: I’m fine. Heading back home with your worrywart parents today. I tell you what, though…I’m going to miss these doctors. They won’t stop flirting with me.

  Mae: Sounds about right.

  Nana: How’s the train?

  Mae: Just about to get back on.

  Nana: And how’s the boy?

  Mae: Very cute.

  Nana: And how’s my favorite granddaughter?

  Mae: She misses you. A lot.

  Nana: I miss her too.

  Afterward, Mae feels calmer, the muscles in her shoulders finally relaxing. It doesn’t matter that she already heard from her dads; she needed to hear from Nana herself. And now that she has, the world feels right side up again.

  She sips her latte while scrolling through video files on her computer, trying to figure out what the shape of this film will be. The interviews are coming along well—they’re moving and emotional and so very real—but she isn’t sure yet how to string them together in a way that will make the film feel like a cohesive piece, rather than a collection of random parts.

  She doesn’t realize Hugo is watching over her shoulder until he sneezes, and then she whirls around, startled by how close he is, his face just inches from hers. She can see the astonishing length of his eyelashes and a little bit of stubble near his jawline, which he must’ve missed while shaving. She has a sudden urge to touch it.

  “Could I ask you a question?” he says, and she nods, curious. His eyes are golden brown in the column of daylight from the giant windows above them, and there’s a groove in his forehead as he frowns at the computer screen. Looking at him, she feels such a strong swell of—what? Fondness? Attraction?

  Maybe it’s just that she’s starting to miss him already.