5. Go Your Own Way #9
From that day forward, the two of them argued about everything.
Fuel mixtures, nozzle geometry, the thermodynamic limits of chemical propulsion.
Joss fought with data and theory, clean proofs and elegant math.
Charlie fought with instinct and experience, the years in Frank's garage, and the things machines had told her with their sounds and vibrations and heat.
They were almost never on the same side.
But they were almost always the last two talking after everyone else had packed up.
Charlie knew as the weeks went on that something different was happening.
She told herself the reason she kept showing up early to that seminar was because she liked the material.
She told herself the reason she spent forty-five minutes choosing outfits on the mornings the seminar met was because she wanted to ensure she made a good impression on the graduate students.
She told herself the reason her pulse jumped whenever Joss walked into the seminar course, immediately found Charlie's gaze, and her gaze lingered longer than expected was because their arguments were intellectually stimulating. Charlie told herself a lot of things.
She believed approximately none of them.
One night towards the end of the seminar course, they were walking back to the parking lot after a late session in the lab.
The campus was quiet and the air was cool.
Their conversation that evening had drifted from propulsion theory to music, because Joss had noticed the Fleetwood Mac tee Charlie had been wearing that night.
"So you're a fan of 'The Mac,' I see," Joss said. Charlie looked down at her shirt.
"I guess you could say that."
"I am saying that."
Charlie gave her a look. "Then yes, I'm a fan."
"Now see, was that so hard?"
"What?"
"Answering a question without a biting retort."
"I'm just a bit off my game tonight. You sideswiped me with a question about something near and dear to my heart."
"Oh? Fleetwood Mac is near and dear to your heart, huh?"
"I guess you could say that."
Joss laughed. "God, you're stubborn."
"I prefer 'committed to my position.'"
"I bet you do."
They walked in silence for a minute before Charlie made a decision.
"My Dad."
"Pardon?"
It had come out with that word before she’d thought about it. But Charlie realized that it was the first time she’d called Frank exactly who he was.
"My Dad introduced us to them when I was a kid.
He had the 8-track in his garage, and we'd listen while we worked on his car together.
Then he bought Rumours on vinyl and played it for me on his record player.
" Charlie slowed as they reached her car.
The Plymouth, faithful and dented, parked under the one light in the lot that buzzed at a frequency Charlie had recognized as a problem for weeks.
"My sister and I have been fans ever since.
When I left home to come here to Caltech, she gave me a mixtape.
There were more Fleetwood Mac songs on it than any other band. "
"Your sister made you a mixtape when you left home?" Joss asked, sweetness in her voice that Charlie rarely got to hear.
"She did," Charlie said, a smile spreading across her lips at the thought of Katie and her mixtape; mixtapes now.
"She gives me a new one every Christmas, a set of songs we've talked about or listened to together, even if we're only on the phone.
" Joss looked at Charlie, her eyes moving between Charlie's own.
"That's incredibly sweet."
"Well, she is incredibly sweet. She's probably my favorite person in the whole world.
" A pause settled between them as they continued to look at one another.
Charlie broke the eye contact by looking up at the sky.
"Katie's the one that's always believed I would go to the stars," Charlie returned her gaze to Joss.
"Or at least build the rockets to get there. "
Joss gazed at Charlie. "She sounds like an incredible person."
"An understatement. But, yes." Silence passed between them again before Joss spoke.
"Charlie."
"Yeah?"
"I want to tell you something, but I need you to do your absolute best to not argue with me about it for once in your life, as difficult as that may seem."
Charlie opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it. Joss took a step closer.
"I wasn't wrong about the telemetry," Joss said. "The pressure sensors are calibrated to a tighter tolerance."
Charlie blinked. "Are you seriously bringing up the combustion chamber problem right now, in a fucking parking lot, at eleven o'clock at—"
Joss kissed her.
It wasn't long, and it wasn't dramatic. It was just Joss's hand on the collar of Charlie's flannel, pulling her forward, and then enveloping warmth.
As if a burst of stars happened right in the middle of Charlie's chest, it was then she understood all the songs and books and movies about what it felt like to have butterflies in your stomach, what it was like to feel romance. Every phrase and utterance and declaration made sense now.
And Charlie was experiencing all the thrills firsthand for the first time in her life.
When she pulled back, Charlie's brain had stalled out completely. Her mouth was open and no words were coming out of it, which was a first.
"Bu that," Joss said, "I can agree, is what happens when you stop trusting the data and get close enough to the machine."
Charlie stared at her. Then she laughed, a real, helpless, ridiculous laugh that came from somewhere she didn't know she had. Then Joss was laughing too, and the parking lot light buzzed above them like it had been waiting for this exact moment to finally make itself useful.
"You're impossible," Charlie managed.
"And you're an engineer who argues with her hands and references timing chains in a graduate seminar." Joss smiled. "We're a good match."
Charlie knew everything had changed, standing with her heart hammering and a woman who kissed with absolute conviction. But Charlie couldn't find a single flaw in the logic. And it was the first time the logic was measured by something other than data.
Charlie drove home that night with her windows down and the radio on. Her hands were shaking on the steering wheel and her lips were tingling with the warmth left there by Joss. Her brain was still somewhere in that parking lot, trying to catch up to what her heart had already decided.
"Hey all you night howlers out there in the great City of Angels on this Saturday night.
It's almost midnight, and we're helping you wind down and settle in, or get up and get your night going.
Either way, stick it here. Next up, we have a song for one of our listeners saying he's so happy he found you, Ellen, for you're the one he's been waiting for.
Here's 'Waiting for a Girl Like You' by Foreigner.
I'm Ted Ziegenbusch, and you're listening to KOST 103...
Continuous Soft Hits for a Saturday night. "
When the song came on, Charlie turned it up.
Charlie listened to it intently, the intro reeling her in.
As it moved through the first few bars, Charlie felt the beat move through her, thumping against her chest to match her heartbeat.
Charlie laid her arm against the window ledge, then held her hand up against the wind, dipping it up and down like a rollercoaster, riding the waves of fear and excitement.
She felt the wind lift and drag against her skin, the feeling of the cool air tickling against her fingertips and wrist.
The song continued and it spoke about waiting without knowing what you were waiting for, about the moment when someone walks in and the waiting stops.
It spoke about when you realize you were never incomplete, just unfinished.
The melody climbed and Charlie's chest opened with it.
When the chorus hit, Charlie felt the swell expand in her chest as she continued to drive through Pasadena.
She was startled to find she had tears streaming down her face, the sudden realization that they had nothing to do with sadness at all, but had everything to do with feeling the music feed her soul.
When she drove into her apartment driveway and made her way to the spot reserved for the Plymouth, the song ended, and Charlie was mesmerized. She vowed to go and find the album or, hell, even just the single, tomorrow. But for now, she sat with it, feeling its power pulse through her.
It was another rare song in her life that had ever spoken for Charlie.
The one that had found her in the garage with Katie, learning that love was worth fighting for, even for just one day.
The one on a garage floor at thirteen, heartbroken and alone.
But this one found her in a parking lot at twenty-two, properly kissed and properly terrified, but happy in a way she'd always wanted but didn't know she was allowed to be.
Joss ended up as Charlie's first real relationship.
In their time together, Charlie learned that Joss was brilliant, always argumentative, but laughed with her whole body.
Charlie loved her in the way first loves can fully capture our hearts.
Charlie would always remember Joss fondly for the rest of her life, and for all the firsts that they shared together.
One evening, Charlie put on Frank's copy of Rumours in her apartment and played it for Joss from start to finish.
Side A and then side B. Joss sat on the floor and listened, letting the album wash over her.
When "Songbird" came on, Charlie closed her eyes.
When it was over, Joss looked at her and said, "That one means something to you. "
"My Dad first played it for me when I was sixteen, the day we got this exact vinyl" Charlie said, holding up the Rumours cover. "To this day, it is still the most beautiful song I've ever heard."
Joss didn't ask any more questions after that. She just nodded.