Chapter Ten #2
“What’s that reaction?” Barrett asked before taking another bite of pizza and handing it to Iris again. She took it without seeming to realize.
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing. What’s going on?”
“I went to Cambridge.”
Barrett smirked, looking her over. How had that never come up in conversation? Penn had to know. How had they never mentioned it? “Did you, indeed?”
“Yes.”
“Fancy.”
“Right,” she sighed, but she took another bite of the pizza, bigger this time, and didn’t immediately launch it back at Barrett.
When Barrett thought about it, it made sense.
There was something about Iris that just felt like it would fit in those halls; something proper and educated, and all the things she’d heard about Cambridge and Oxford that may or may not be true once you were actually there.
“Kind of a bold move to go abroad if you knew you wanted to be an architect in New York.”
She nodded, handing the pizza back. “But I was only going to get that opportunity once and I just thought… why not?”
Barrett liked that about her a lot. “Why not, indeed. If I had a nickel for every time I did something for the hell of it, I’d be a rich woman.”
“I… might not be, but, you know, sometimes you’ve just got to go for it, I guess.”
“Like coming for a walk tonight.”
Iris looked at her, something surprised but grateful in her eyes. “Like tonight.”
“Well, Cambridge University isn’t a bad flight of fancy.”
Iris was quiet as they walked. Barrett held the pizza, sensing that it was important Iris didn’t have it at that moment, but she didn’t eat any of it.
“It wasn’t really a flight of fancy,” Iris eventually whispered.
“How so?”
“We, uh—my family and I went on a trip to the UK when I was a kid. It was good. The only vacation I ever really remember enjoying. The day we went to visit Cambridge…” She trailed off, facing the path ahead of them, lined with high-rise buildings and all the trappings of New York City, but it was obvious she was picturing another place entirely.
Barrett looked away, comfortable with the silence between them, giving Iris however long she needed to detangle what she wanted to say, what she was willing to share.
Oscar was walking slower now, running out of steam.
He was very small and they had been walking for a while.
But, still, he wagged his tail and checked on them both and continued moving forward.
Barrett would carry him if couldn’t go any further while they were still talking.
Iris clearly needed this and if walking helped her, that was what they were going to do.
“Have you ever seen pictures of the Mathematical Bridge?” Iris asked.
“No.” Barrett wished she had. It was clearly important.
Iris nodded like she’d been expecting that.
“It’s a wooden bridge at Cambridge. Basically perfect from an engineering perspective.
At first glance, it’s not as imposing as, say, the Bridge of Sighs—if you’ve seen pictures of Cambridge, you’ll have seen that one—but it’s perfect, old, and still standing.
Still functioning. And I stood on it, my family off looking at something else, and I felt…
free. Just me and that bridge and some people punting on the river. ”
“And you loved it,” Barrett said quietly.
“Yes. It was so far from the flat, uninteresting suburbia we’d come from. There was excitement and innovation, curiosity. The ability to walk places.”
“You were never going to go anywhere else after that.”
Iris shrugged, looking down. “Maybe not. It just… felt like the place to run to.”
“That makes sense.”
She jolted like she’d only just realized what she’d said, how much she’d given up of herself. She cast around desperately, her cheeks pink. “Well, it’s whatever. And it’s not like you didn’t go somewhere equally impressive.”
Barrett laughed. She wanted to know more. Above everything, she wanted Iris to know she was safe being open, but the moment had passed. Iris needed to talk about something else, that much was clear. “I guess I was in Cambridge, too. Just Cambridge, Massachusetts, instead.”
“Did you always know you wanted to go to MIT?”
“Ah. Complicated question.”
“Is it?”
“A little.” Barrett wasn’t against answering, but she wasn’t really sure of the answer herself.
Still, if anyone could understand, it would be Iris.
“I grew up in Section 8 housing. Single mother, four kids, no money. She worked, but the pay was bad, she was gone all the time, and I was the eldest. I had to help out.”
“Barrett. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” This wasn’t meant to be a pity party for her. It was just an explanation. And she’d made her peace with it long ago. The past was the past. There was no changing what happened. “I wanted to design buildings. More than anything, I wanted to design a better place to live.”
“That’s why you always like the community projects.”
Barrett smiled at her. “So glad you noticed, princess.”
Iris shook her head, but a ghost of a smile lifted her face as she gestured for Barrett to continue.
“When that’s your life, it’s hard to imagine you can leave.
I’d be moving across the country, abandoning them all.
And I felt guilty for how badly I wanted it.
I’d done so much research on different architecture programs, which ones were good, what you needed to apply, who had the best financial aid.
MIT was calling, but so were a million places that felt like impossible dreams to a kid back there.
We had so little and I wanted so much, you know? ”
“I’m really glad you got it.” The look in her eyes made Barrett’s lungs constrict.
She hadn’t been emotional talking about that to other people in years, but something about the way Iris felt her words ached. They might have had different backgrounds but they’d both been running away, running to this.
Barrett cleared her throat and handed the pizza back to Iris so she could scoop Oscar up. “Yeah, me too. Otherwise, I’d never have met this little guy.” She hesitated and looked away, ostensibly checking the street before they crossed. “Or you.”