“So now I’m pathological?” Julie clenched her hands. Good Lord, Matt was exasperating, particularly because he had an annoying grin plastered on his face and seemed to delight way too much in being difficult. Great. She finally had the annoying brother she’d never wanted.
“No, you’re not pathological, but acrophobia is pathological in the sense that your reaction to heights deviates from the norm.”
“Why do you have to correct everything I say?” Julie glanced at his FTW! shirt. “Out of the two of us, I don’t think I’m the one that deviates from the norm.” The train slammed to a stop. “You’re the one who seems to get off arguing.”
“You sound exactly like Finn. We’re exchanging ideas. Debating.” Matt looked down at his shorts. “And so far I haven’t gotten off.”
“Don’t be rude. Then let’s call it a draw, and we’ll agree to disagree. Come on. I don’t suppose I can get a Coolatta around here? I need caffeine if I’m going to regroup and find an apartment today.” Julie stepped onto the platform with Matt close behind her.
“Watch it,” he warned. “Make sure you get on the stairs here. This station also has a really steep escalator.”
They took the stairs and emerged in the center of Harvard Square. Matt directed her to a community board where people had pinned information about everything from bands and jobs to lecture series and free film nights. Julie liked it here, where a diverse crowd could make anybody feel comfortable: Students, professors, parents with toddlers, and punked-out teens skipping school all crowded the brick sidewalks. Groups of people were clustered on concrete steps; musicians were playing instruments and singing James Taylor songs; and a puppeteer across the street was making elaborate marionettes dance while little kids laughed. Even the man in a floral dress on roller blades who was shouting a profane version of The Declaration of Independence seemed to fit in. There was an energy here that she found enthralling.
“What about this one?” Matt pointed to a flyer advertising a one-bedroom apartment.
“First of all, I can’t afford that. Second of all, this ad looks really old. All the phone number tabs have been torn off.”
“You never know. Maybe they had a slew of undesirables and lowered the price hoping someone normal will call. I bet the last applicant was a wealthy but deranged middle-aged clown who tried to juggle the roommates.”
Julie raised an eyebrow. “Or it was an unhinged M.I.T nerd who wanted to take over the apartment with his techie gear, leaving little room for necessary things like furniture.”
Matt tapped the side of his head. “Now you’re thinking.”
There were a few ads that looked like possibilities, so Julie stored the numbers on her phone. Matt had to get home to get the car and pick up Celeste from school, so they grabbed sandwich wraps to-go from a place on Mt. Auburn Street and then Julie set her sights on locating her coveted coffee beverage as quickly as possible. “I need a Coolatta, Matt. Please tell me we can get one here? I may accidentally reenact the escalator scene if I don’t find one soon.” Julie tripped on the cobbled sidewalk. “See? I’m already beginning to derail.”
“Yes. Right away.”
Matt led them across the Square to a quieter side street, then back down Mass Ave, then down a shorter one-way street, occasionally glancing at Julie.
Julie followed him obediently, wondering why he’d passed three Dunkin’ Donuts without heading in to any of them. She stopped him and dropped her head to the side. “Oh, you poor thing. You don’t know what a Coolatta is, do you?”
Matt actually appeared to squirm a bit. “Well, no. I don’t.”
“Hold on, I have to mark this event.” Julie whipped out her phone and updated her Facebook status, which she read aloud to Matt.
Julie Seagle Have discovered noticeable gap in know-it-all’s knowledge base. Will celebrate enchanting news with Coolatta.
She was unable to stifle a grin.
Matt put his hands on his hips. “Hysterical. I never said that I knew everything. I’m just confident that I’m well-informed on many subjects.”
“Apparently not important subjects.” Julie marched ahead. “And, by the way, there’s a difference between confident and cocky. Look, there’s a Dunkin’ at the top of this street. Do you know how far I have to drive at home to find one? And here you are, surrounded by one on every street corner! This is obviously the best city in the world. And the reason you’ve never heard of my favorite drink is because you’re probably an uptight coffeehouse, double-espresso, no-sugar kind of guy?”
“I’m miserably transparent, huh?”
“No. I’m a coffee psychic. You have that bitter double-espresso look about you. But today you’re joining up with the masses and getting a Coolatta.”
A few minutes later, Julie was happily inhaling her large frozen coffee drink while they headed out of the square.
Matt looked less than thrilled and made an exaggerated disgusted face after his first taste.
“This is a very popular drink, you know,” Julie informed him. “There’s no reason to be making such an expression.”
“This must be why I’m not a social icon. You’ve finally pinpointed it. I don’t blindly follow popular culture’s love for overly sweet, pseudo-coffee, ice crystal concoctions. It’s a relief to finally understand why my social status is on a downward course.”
“It’s either that or the shirts,” Julie muttered. “Hey, can we walk home by the river?” Julie could just glimpse the blue water from where they walked and was aching to stroll back to the house along the picturesque path that ran through the grass.
Matt brushed his shaggy hair from his face. “Unfortunately, we don’t really have time right now. It’s faster to cut directly through the Square, and I have to get Celeste.”
“Sure. No problem.” Julie took another sip of her drink. “Thank you for helping me out today. I’m sure this was a huge drag, but I really appreciate it. This was incredibly nice of you, and I’m sorry if I’ve been grouchy. I didn’t expect to start off my freshman year in such flux. You’ve become a social icon to me,” she teased.
“Yeah, right. You haven’t been grouchy. You’ve been expressive and feisty. Both of which I like. Considering that your first days in Boston are far from what you were expecting, I think that you’re doing great. I’m happy to help.”
They walked quietly for a few minutes, and Julie noticed that despite the lull in conversation, there was nothing the least bit uncomfortable about being with Matt.
“So, do you pick up Celeste every day?” She hoped that he wouldn’t bite her head off for this Celeste-related question.
He nodded.
“And do you stay with her after school, too, until your parents get home?”
“I do.”
“How do you get your schoolwork done? I imagine you’ve got more homework than the average student.”
He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I stay up late, which I like. Sometimes I go back to school at night if I need to use one of the labs. It works out fine.”
“Is that why you don’t live in the dorms? Or an apartment?”
“It would be rather silly to pay rent when my parents’ house is so close to school.”
“I guess so.”
Matt took another sip of his drink. Aha! Julie smiled to herself and kept walking. He did like the Coolatta. Everyone did.
Chapter 6
Julie tapped her foot anxiously as she listened to the outgoing message. She had just called the last number from the group of potential apartment rentals and was hoping this would be it. A girl’s chipper voice said, “Hi! You’ve reached Sally, (that’s me!) and Megan, Barb, and our newest roommate, Chelsea! Leave us a message, and if we’re not too busy having fun, we’ll call you back!” Julie growled and hung up. She didn’t know if she was jealous of that fourth roommate or not. That Sally sounded an awful lot like the perky-yet-vacant crowd she’d left behind at home. On the other hand, there was something to be said for a cor
e gaggle of girls who would love nothing more than to order pizza, do each others’ hair, and watch tawdry reality shows.
Julie left her mom a falsely optimistic voicemail saying that she had some very strong housing possibilities and would likely be happily settled into a new place by the weekend. It could happen, right? Except that it was becoming apparent to Julie that she and her mom had been grossly naïve about what living in Boston would entail. Julie swore under her breath. Now she was another step closer to having to call her father for money. It was Wednesday night, so that gave her a few days to make good on her white lie. She had orientation tomorrow, and she’d just have to interrogate everyone she met for apartment leads.
Julie turned on her computer and checked the rental sites that she had bookmarked. Nothing new had come up. Even though her first few days in Boston had been a bit unsettled, she couldn’t complain. At least she had a good place to stay, even if it was temporary. Finn’s room was comfortable, and it somehow felt natural for her to be in here. Things would work out.
Plus, she was getting a kick-start to her undergraduate education just by eating dinner with the Watkins clan.
Dinner tonight had been Indian take-out complemented by a themed discussion about the religious diversity of India, arranged marriages, and the cash-for-votes scandal of 2008. Not that Julie had had much to contribute, since her knowledge of Indian culture and politics was embarrassingly limited, but she’d enjoyed the heated discussion. Erin had banged the table a number of times when making a point, Roger had thoughtfully tilted his head and delivered soft-spoken comments that sympathized with the people of India, and Matt had referenced several historic events, citing the year and exact date. Even though she had mostly just listened during the meal, Julie had found the conversation thoroughly enjoyable.
This is what she hoped her college classes would be like: dynamic, thought-provoking dialogue, piles of new information, and everything opposite from the dull, rote classroom teachings of her high school. Although presumably there would be no Flat characters in the college classrooms.
Right now Celeste was asleep with Flat Finn standing next to her headboard, Erin and Roger were back at work again, and Matt was holed up in his room. He’d applied and been accepted to be a research assistant for one of his professors, and so tonight he was pondering “effective decomposition strategies for certain nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problems.” Whatever the hell that meant. According to Matt, his work involved lots of coding and testing of some new algorithm and then doing numerical experiments on the performance of said scintillating algorithm. This was apparently about as exciting as it got for Matt. Maybe he had a nice mainstream hobby that she didn’t know about?
Julie’s email notified her that she was now Facebook friends with both Matt and Finn. Oh, and that Finn had commented on her status about never being too rich or too Finn. Best. Update. Ever, he’d written. So he had a sense of humor. Although Julie wondered if he even knew who she was. Had anyone in his family let him know that she was a guest in their house? She sent him a quick private message:
Dear Finn,
Despite appearances, I am not in fact some weirdo who befriends strangers on Facebook and works their names into status updates. At least not on a regular basis. Our mothers went to college together, and I’m in Boston starting Whitney in a few days. My housing fell through, and your parents were nice enough to let me crash in your room while I figure things out. Not sure if anyone had told you about me…
Any booby traps in here that I should know about? I wouldn’t want Flat Finn to have an accident should he stop by to chat.
-Julie
Julie clicked on Finn’s profile page. He had a bunch of online albums, and she browsed through tons of photos of him in one picturesque spot after another: posing in the foreground of a mountain range; wading through a river; surrounded by tropical foliage; bundled up in ski gear during blizzard conditions; and kayaking on a pristine lake. And then there were pictures documenting his volunteer work showing him unloading boxes of food from the back of a rickety truck, huddling with a group of children in a bare-bones classroom, and balancing on a ladder as he hammered nails into the beam of a house under construction. And her personal favorite, a tan Finn emerging from the ocean with a surfboard and wearing only a pair of swim trunks. She couldn’t help it. Finn was decidedly gorgeous, and anyone would have drooled a bit. Rugged, lean, perfect hair, adorable smile…
Her email alert sounded. She had a message from Finn.
Hi, Julie-
Truthfully, I’m a little disappointed that you’re not a stalker. I’ve been doing what I can to lure one in, and I thought I’d finally succeeded. Oh, well. I’ll keep trying. Hope the monsters under my bed haven’t been keeping you up at night. (They tend to enjoy late night keg parties and loud doo wop music.) If they give you any trouble, I suggest singing anything from 2000-2006. They don’t care for those years because it was during that time that the monster economy crashed, and they all had to cut back. Try a little Green Day (monsters don’t respond well to any pop rock anthem). John Mayer used to work, but after he said something about, “the Joshua Tree of vaginas,” the monsters couldn’t stop laughing. Noisily. If all else fails, there’s a baseball bat in my closet. Don’t be afraid to use it.
So Flat Finn hasn’t freaked you out too much? He’s a cool guy. Keep an eye on him, though. He likes to take the car out once in a while, and he never refills the tank.
-Finn
Julie laughed and wrote back.
Finn-
Thanks for the heads up. I had a feeling FF might have a sneaky streak. He has that look about him. Something about the way he refuses to make eye contact.
I appreciate the tips. Ohio monsters can only be banished by showing reruns of “According to Jim,” but I’ve never been able to make myself do that.
-Julie
She clicked on Facebook’s news feed. Both Matt and Finn had recent updates. Oh, good Lord. These were some weird brothers.
Matthew Watkins I like Facebook more than I like conversations with real people, because here I don't have to wait until someone has finished talking before I say something else that's really inane and tangential.
Finn is God They say if your ears are burning then someone is talking about you. Is that true? Because I have a question about what it means if it's a different body part.
Julie could play weird, too.
Julie Seagle has a word in her status that doesn't really flugh anything.
She checked her Gmail account. Finally there was a message from her father.
Dear, Julie:
What do you think about a trip to California for your winter break? Three weeks up and down the coast. Send my secretary your vacation dates, and we’ll spend Christmas together. Your mother said this would be acceptable to her, so I hope that you’ll agree.
Dad
Julie reread the email. This would be more time than she’d spent with her dad since she’d been a little kid. But what about her mother? She would be upset not to have Julie home for the holidays, although she’d obviously already talked this over with Julie’s dad and agreed. Of course Kate had understood that this opportunity couldn’t be passed up. She was that kind of mother. Julie wrote her father back.
Hi, Daddy! So happy to hear from you! Yes! The trip sounds perfect. I’m so excited to see you! Call me and tell me more. I love you. Julie
She sent her father her cell number in case he’d misplaced it, as well as the Watkins’ home phone number.
Julie closed the computer and picked out her outfit for tomorrow. Orientation started with coffee and bagels at eight-thirty and ran until two-fifteen. She stuck a notebook, pen, a map of the school, and the directions Matt had given her into an oversized purse. As she fumbled to get everything into her bag, a paper slipped to the floor. Julie picked it up and laughed. Matt had slipped a map of the Boston T system into her things and had put gigantic skull and crossbones symbols nex
t to T stations with escalators. Near the map’s key he had added an identifying description: Horrifying threat awaits. Be on high alert. Julie laughed. But see? She really had no business questioning Flat Finn when she couldn’t even get on a damn escalator without having a total collapse. Of course, she’d rather faint in public than cart around a flat person.
She turned off the overhead light and crawled into bed, pulled the cool sheet over her, and easily fell asleep. For a few hours.
The noise from the two-fifteen train in Ohio used to wake her up. Even from across town, Julie could hear the horn and the rhythmic clacking as the train drove its course. It took months after the train schedule changed for her to get used to the sound and be able to sleep through it. She remembered when the sleep issues had started, because it’d been around the same time that her father had moved out. Right now she missed that noise, and the silence woke her up.
Julie turned on the small lamp by the bed and took her book from the nightstand. Usually she could read until it was impossible to keep her eyes open any longer and falling asleep became inevitable. But tonight she was wide awake and unable to focus. It had less to do with being nervous about starting school and more about feeling antsy to get going. She dropped her book and picked up the picture by the lamp. She smiled at the image of Finn running across the backyard while carrying a young Celeste on his back. She had her hands over his eyes and her head thrown back as she screamed with delight. Julie guessed she’d been about five years old and was just as beautiful then as she was now.
Julie turned off the light and spent thirty minutes tossing and turning. She had to shut down her brain and get some sleep, but there was so much swirling through her head: college, where to live, strange and wonderful Celeste with her cardboard brother, Matt’s nerdy shirts, her pathetic near-collapse on the escalator, Roger’s shrimp, Erin’s strong opinions on nearly everything…