11. Cambridge Has Changed You
CAMbrIDGE HAS CHANGED YOU
PRESENT
Do I lie down in the bed Lucas vacated and fall asleep clutching the still-smells-like-Lucas blanket to me?
Yes, yes I do.
Do I also wrap myself in his old Pasadena City College sweatshirt that’s been washed to within an inch of its life?
Also yes.
Somehow, I can’t find it in myself to feel ashamed. Most days, I try not to think about Lucas, but between his sudden arrival at UCLA, his seeming interest in my project, and the upcoming wedding, I feel as though I’ve earned the right to wallow.
And as long as I’m wallowing, I might as well go all in, right?
I grip the pillow and try not to think about his note or how much he might have overheard.
I wake to a slew of text message notifications. First, there are my Grad or Die girls, who just want every detail I don’t have to share.
DAISY: We’re kind of dying for an update here, L. Did you go to Lucas’s talk?
GWENDY: Ha! The talk was sooooo yesterday.
DAISY: Yes, literally, it was yesterday.
GWENDY: Yesterday as in old news. b/c Lucas spent the night. That’s the lede I’ve buried.
DAISY: What?!?
GWENDY: That’s what you get for moving to Cambridge.
GWENDY: News on a three-hour delay.
DAISY: L? Lorelai? Are you around?
DAISY: Maybe he’s got her locked up in a secret sex dungeon?
GWENDY: Cambridge has changed you, Daisy.
GWENDY: All I’ll say is L’s door was closed when I left. Couldn’t see more without snooping.
DAISY: Since when do you not snoop?
GWENDY: I’ve matured so much since you left.
I give the last comment a HaHa! reaction without otherwise answering. This, of course, sparks a flood of new messages, but I tell them I can’t talk yet, and thankfully, neither pushes.
There are also texts from my sisters that I slept through. I never mute them, even though Harper and Wren (who, given that they’re eleven and ten, shouldn’t be trusted with smartphones yet) mostly send memes I don’t always understand on the phones my mother bought them.
Aurora, at sixteen, is another kettle of fish.
AURORA: This is your weekend. I have a competition and Mother wants her private time.
AURORA: Also, you said you wanted to see my college list. I finalized and shared it.
AURORA: You know my school provides counselors, right?
AURORA: Separately, we need to talk.
I’m not sure when my relationship with Aurora went off the rails.
There was a time, especially before I left for college, when it was me and Aurora against the world.
She was the only one old enough to remember our life before our father left for good.
And especially during my undergraduate years, I relied on Aurora and my neighbor to keep me informed.
It always felt like too much responsibility to put on Aurora, but there just wasn’t an alternative.
When she was younger, she seemed to almost relish her role.
She’d tell me when our mother wasn’t doing well, helped me keep track of parent/teacher meetings my mother would have let slip through, learned to cook at really too young of an age, but again . . . what choice did we have?
Yet sometime between my last couple of years at Caltech and the beginning of my time at UCLA, even though our financial situation improved, even though we were able to reenroll Aurora in a new private school and give her every private lesson or tutor she could possibly want, I became . . . Aurora’s Enemy #1?
These days, if I ask her about her day, I get a snippy reply that varies between Like you care and I don’t have time for this. Even on good days, her tone is never friendly. On less good days? It’s mostly curse words and half-bitten-off curse words.
I type back a carefully worded acknowledgment. I thank Aurora for reminding me (even though I’ve never forgotten a weekend), and though she reads my message I get no acknowledgment besides the read receipt (and I only get that much because I’ve asked her, specifically, not to turn those off).
The next message arrives an hour later, right after I shower.
UNKNOWN: This is my new number.
I tell myself it could be anyone, from a less-than-savvy recruiter to a disgruntled undergrad who hacked the UCLA system and got my number, hoping I’ll regrade their exam.
It’s not Lucas, who knows I blocked him, who could have (but hasn’t) tried to get in contact with me for almost six years.
Then, a moment later, my phone pings again.
UNKNOWN: You’ll have to explain your Sagittarius A* reasoning at some point.
UNKNOWN: I have theories.
Because I know Lucas is baiting me, because I’m nearly six years older and capable of resisting temptation, I manage (just barely) to not reply.
“You looked over my list?”
Aurora is dressed for travel and is double-checking her backpack, not looking at me, because this is just how we greet each other now.
“It’s a great list.” I’m trying to ease into it—
“But?”
“Nothing.” I bite my lip. “I mean, I do wonder if you should have a few safeties. You’re applying to mostly Ivies and—”
“I’m top of my class. Captain of the speech and debate team. Editor of my school newspaper. I qualified for the American Invitational Math Exam, and I’m a top USACO coder. I’m as well rounded as you were, but I have more awards than you ever did.”
I think but don’t say: That’s because I had to work, to help support you.
Also: My public high school couldn’t afford things like away speech and debate tournaments, ones that required transportation and lodging.
Instead, I count and take a deep breath. “Yes, but—”
“You applied to a third as many universities.”
I barely manage not to yell: Because I had no choice. I had to stay close.
My voice is almost calm as I tell her, “If I hadn’t gotten in, I would have started at community college.”
“Okay. So why can’t I do the same?”
And again, it is an effort not to argue, to tell her, plainly, that the entire point of putting her in private school was to make sure she’d have better options.
“It’s your life, and I will, of course, support whatever decision you make.” I hate how stilted my voice sounds, but I trudge along. “I’d be happy to look at any college essays.”
“I know how to write essays.”
“I never said you didn’t—”
Aurora is already looking at her phone, rolling her eyes in that patented teenager way. “You saw the calendar invite? You know I won’t be home until Sunday night?”
I nod, because clearly we’re in the stage of teenagehood where there are No. Right. Answers.
“And we do have to talk after my tournament.”
My head bobs up and down again as I try to think of something that might lessen the tension between us. “Good luck and—”
Aurora’s phone pings, and she smiles down at whoever she’s texting.
It’s the kind of joyful, carefree smile she used to (at least sometimes) direct at me.
I swallow the rest of my words as Aurora lifts her suitcase and slings her backpack over her shoulder.
At the door, she looks back briefly to shake her head at me (What is that, disappointment?) before waving a half-hearted bye.
So yeah . . . not sure how to fix that one.
I call for Wren and Harper, who should have heard me come in but were likely too engrossed in their smartphones.
Two sets of footsteps come pounding down the stairs before I’m engulfed in a hug that almost knocks me over.
“How long have you been here?” Harper’s squeezing me so tightly it’s hard to answer; I don’t bother trying because Wren is already speaking over her.
“Why didn’t you say you were here?”
“I have to show you my new project—”
“No.” Wren’s voice, still squeaky and 95 percent petulant, 75 percent I’ll-fight-you, breaks through. “First, I have to show you—”
And then they each grab a hand and lead me upstairs while talking over each other. It’s difficult to keep the details straight, but it doesn’t seem to matter. They’re at the age where they’re still just happy I’m here. It’s emotional whiplash to transition from Aurora to them, but I’ll take it.
I’m most of the way to Harper’s bedroom when I ask, “Where’s Mom?”
“Here.” My mother has a suitcase with her as she exits the master bedroom. She switches to Mandarin, because neither Wren nor Harper ever learned. “I’ve decided to go away for the weekend. You are here all weekend anyways.”
This isn’t unusual. My arrival signals to my mother that she can take a break—this has sometimes meant she keeps to her room, watching C-dramas, and sometimes she goes away.
Once upon a time she’d tell me where, but because she never felt as though I evinced enough interest (a wine-tasting weekend, so she could meet proper adults; a mahjong tournament, because she’d been invited; a country club getaway, just once), she’s long since stopped telling me the details.
I smile. “Sounds good.”
My mother’s eyes travel dispassionately down me, studying my baggy clothes and green hair. “Why do you wear those glasses? Your eyesight has always been perfect.”
“I think they’re cool,” Wren, always my staunch defender, announces.
“I think they’re cooler,” Harper says, still gripping my other hand and glaring at Wren.
My mother shakes her head. She’s never been particularly close to any of her children, but the fact that her other daughters (well, perhaps minus Aurora these days) have always been closer to me than her . . . hasn’t ever gone over well.
“I’ll leave you to your fans.” She’s back in Mandarin because she likely knows the girls will defend me if she says anything denigrating in English.
She’s at the top of the stairs when she turns back. “I assume you’ll be making more of an effort for the wedding?”
The only reason my mother knows about the wedding is because normally, I’d spend the entirety of my spring break here, to give her additional time away from her parenting duties. “I’ll be dressing up for the ceremony, of course.”
“And you’ll dye your hair back?” My mother, whose long, thick hair has been blow-dried to perfection, looks at me, her entire face a frown.
“Wasn’t planning on it.” I know she hates when I’m overly casual, but I’ve exhausted what little patience I had on Aurora.
My mother’s entire face scrunches up briefly, before settling back into the neutral, fewer-potential-eventual-wrinkles blandness that is her norm. “It’s such a silly color. And it does nothing to disguise the fact that you’re losing your hair.”
“You’re losing your hair?” This time both Wren and Harper speak as one.
“You’re not sick, are you?” This comes from Harper, and I know why even before she continues. “Kavita’s mother—”
“I don’t have cancer.” It’s been a fear of Harper’s ever since her friend’s mother was diagnosed. I give my mother what I hope is a quelling look.
“Your sister stresses herself out needlessly. She’ll give herself early wrinkles too, if she’s not careful.”
And with that, my mother goes down the stairs.
Lucky for me, the girls are easily distracted. They want to build a pillow fort, because they’ve been building magnificent ones with Aurora all week.
“The fort was Aurora’s idea?”
“She’s so good at it,” the girls say, in rare unanimity. “She’s always so busy now, but sometimes she still builds with us.”
They’re overflowing with two weeks of updates they haven’t texted me about, and no one asks about my hair for the rest of the weekend.
I’m kept so busy I don’t check my messages until far later, and though the Grad or Die girls have kept up a steady stream of updates that are mostly nonsense, there is one more from Lucas.
UNKNOWN: Don’t you want to ask about my theories?