But Beth started talking about me volunteering at the theater and Dad started rumbling about some mock trial program down south—leaving the door wide open for me to choose his career over Mom’s.
I didn’t want to go into law like my dad. I didn’t want to sell real estate. I didn’t want to enlist the second I left high school.
I wanted the one thing that would unite all of my parents against me. I wanted to go to Rayevich College, the only school in the country with a science fiction literature program. I wanted four years of classes on Octavia Butler and Sheri S. Tepper and biomechanics and astrophysics.
I wanted what both sides of my family would call “an expensive waste of time.”
Lawrences went directly into the air force. Gabaroches got degrees in something “useful,” like law or business. Beth didn’t get the military—in that way that a lot of people didn’t get it. Maybe someone somewhere in the tangle of her ancestors there’d been a great-grandparent who had been drafted, but her dad—who insisted that Ethan and I call him “Poppy”—had been a conscientious objector to the Korean and Vietnam wars. They both talked about the military like everyone would be better off if it just disappeared. Beth’s dream was for me to go to one of the local state schools.
“If you went to Davis, you could spend more time with your mother’s family,” she’d say, grinning with all of the ignorance of someone who had never had to watch Isaiah eat.
I’d given up hope of ever seeing Rayevich for myself, until the day that the Air Force Academy packet had shown up. I couldn’t go to Colorado, but I could go somewhere. I could go see Bunbury.
See, in the first act of The Importance of Being Earnest, Algernon tells his family that he has to visit a sick friend named Bunbury, whenever he needs to peace out from their bullshit.
For some reason, that really spoke to me.
Getting admission to Camp Onward wasn’t easy. I’d sat through a two-hour-long test while I was supposed to be at my last ACLU club meeting of the school year. I’d crafted an essay about why I was the perfect candidate for Rayevich College. I’d emptied my savings to pay for my train ticket. I’d changed all of my social media profiles to a picture of a sunset.
And then I’d spent weeks plotting out how to cover my ass. I’d learned from Algernon’s mistakes. I wasn’t looking for a comedy of errors to ensue. One fictional sick friend wasn’t enough.
Dad and Beth thought I was going to stay with the Lieutenant on base in Washington. Mom thought she was paying for me to take a CrossFit boot camp class. My cousins thought Dad and Beth were shipping me down south to mock trial camp at UCLA.
Elliot Gabaroche was everywhere and nowhere.
Ever Lawrence, seventeen-year-old girl and newly certified genius, was going to summer camp.
*
From my vantage point in the parking lot, Rayevich College seemed like so much more than it had in the pamphlet stuffed under my mattress. In person, the low brick buildings were concealed behind clumps of giant trees. The cement pathways that cut swathes through the tidy lawns were unscuffed and snowy white. Everything smelled green. Not fakey pine spray green like those cans in your friends’ bathrooms. Real fresh-and-alive green. The smell of things growing.
I leaned against the Prius and raked my hands over my hair. It didn’t seem to be possible for it to be both summer and not face-meltingly hot.
Did everyone in California know about this “north” thing? Why did we keep suffering through months of triple-digit hell when there was all this livable space above us?
“They close up most of the residence halls for summer,” Cornell-the-counselor said, popping the trunk and looping my laptop case over his shoulders before I could argue. He wheeled my suitcase over the sparkling cement. “So, it’ll only be other Onward kids with you. It’s better than it would be if class was in session. At least,” he shuddered, “that’s what I keep telling myself.”
I swung my backpack over my shoulder as I skipped to keep up with him. He might have been a bit shorter than me, but he wasn’t bothering to sightsee. “You’re in the dorms, too?”
“Supposed to be. I’m a townie.” The suitcase caught a crack in the cement and skidded onto one wheel. He shook it back into place without slowing down. “I mean, my parents live here. I technically live in New Hampshire now.” He plucked at his dark green shirt. “I go to Dartmouth.”
“Cornell,” I said slowly. “At Dartmouth?”
“Trust me, I know. My mom was so disappointed when I wouldn’t apply to my namesake. She thought it’d be cute. But my girlfriend and I agreed on Dartmouth, so that’s where we went. She has bets against all of us who signed up to work this session.” He said “girlfriend” with an apologetic weight. Like he was used to girls falling helplessly in love with him within seven minutes of shaking hands. Maybe Dartmouth girls went bananas over him blaring NPR in his hybrid car. But he had “future fed” written all over him. He would have been right at home with the interns that swarmed around the Capitol Mall back home.
And he was wearing loafers. I couldn’t get my swoon on for a guy who didn’t wear socks.
He cleared his throat and picked up the pace toward the tallest of the buildings. It had giant greenish glass panels built into the bottom, windows and doors blending together. “Well, she’s only betting against those of us who went to high school together. Half of the counselors actually go to Rayevich. But three weeks is a long time to go back to dorm life. Dining hall food and curfew and communal bathrooms—”
“Is this your version of a get-psyched speech?” I interrupted. “Because you kind of suck at it.”
He grinned again. “Sorry. You’ll be fine. You aren’t used to having your own apartment like we are.”
Brag.
We made it to the glass doors. I caught Cornell’s eye in the reflection as I darted forward to grab the handle. He was hauling all of my stuff. I didn’t need him proving what a gentleman he was. He frowned at me as he passed into the lobby and toward the elevator. He pushed a button and stood at attention in front of the closed metal doors.
“How much time do I have before the meet and greet?” I asked.
He swished my laptop out of the way of his pocket and checked his phone. He made a hissing sound of apology. “Two hours. Sorry, most of the out-of-towners are coming in from the airport shuttle.”
“No, that’s great,” I said.
“It is?”
The elevator dinged and we stepped in, my suitcase standing between us like another person. Cornell pressed the Three button and I leaned against the wall, bracing as the floor pushed against my feet.
“I’ve been on a train for twelve hours,” I said. “And now I have an entire campus to myself. I can get a run in before I have to get my Melee on.” He cut his eyes at me. I frowned in response, gripping the strap of my backpack. “What? Is my newb showing?”