Outside Max’s front door, I swept a hand over my shirt, dismayed at wrinkles from the drive over, and took a deep breath before I knocked. The fanciness of his house wasn’t in size—it appeared, at street view, to be a cheery bungalow. But the inside felt grander, with dark wood floors and sharp lines of white molding on every edge.
Max swung the door open. “Morning.”
“Morning.” I stepped inside to coffee and cinnamon, savory spices and maple. “Wow, smells great in here.”
“Ah, yes. The aroma of every food item available in central Indiana.”
“Oh, stop,” his mom called from the kitchen. “It’s only three things.”
“Fighting jet lag with burritos,” Max said. He ushered me in, where Dr. Watson stood at the stove in slippers and sleek workout wear. She’d once told me to call her Julie, but it sounded too casual even in my mind. “Ms. Watson” sounded disrespectful to her MD, but “Dr. Watson” too formal.
“Ah, sweetie.” She stepped away to give me a good squeeze, something she’d done even the first time we met. “So nice to have you here.”
I liked Max’s mom so much that I often went quiet around her. A funny, warm pediatrician who raised my favorite human being during her dozen years of school and residency? It was a lot. Sometimes, around her, my inner monologue spat out only: Please like me, please like me.
“I’m very glad to be here,” I said, because that seemed polite and demure. And then my stomach chose to groan, miserably and loud. My hands shot to my waist. “Um, clearly. Sorry.”
They both laughed, with eyes scrunched and wide, mirror-image smiles. Subtracting their shared features, I imagined Max’s dad must be tall with that same dark-roast brown hair. Max stood a head above everyone in his Oakhurst family—his mom, Ryan, Ryan’s sister and parents, all caramel blonds. I never asked about Max’s dad, who wasn’t much of a presence after Max’s mom got pregnant in college. But I wondered sometimes.
“Sit, sit!” she told me. “I’ve got eggs, chorizo, and roasted veggies for the burritos, and there are a few types of cheese.”
“Can you tell she missed me?” Max asked, nudging my elbow.
Dr. Watson looked my way, eyebrows raised. “My son tells me he missed big breakfasts while in Italy and this is what I get! After watching an entire slideshow of all the delicious food he ate this summer!”
Max grinned, and she shook a spatula at him, pure affection.
I figured he annoyed her in the usual teenager ways—Is your homework done? Is there still carpet in your bedroom beneath this layer of unwashed clothes? Can you cool it with the video games? But she genuinely liked him. My own mom always seemed more concerned with parenting me to even consider if she enjoyed my company. It simply wasn’t relevant. More importantly: Was I getting good grades? Making safe choices? Being respectful and polite?
“Wait,” I said, registering the entirety of what Dr. Watson had said. I slid my gaze to Max. “There’s a whole slideshow?”
He shrugged. “She requested one.”
“So I could live vicariously,” his mom added. “Start planning my own trip.”
“Do I get to see it?” I asked.
“You want to?” Max asked, surprised, and I gave him an extreme duh look that would have made my sister proud. “Well! I’m paranoid of being that guy who comes home from traveling and won’t shut up about it.”
“Excuse me.” Dr. Watson arched a thin eyebrow. “I didn’t fund your Italian summer for you to act like Mr. Cool Guy about it.”
“Huh.” Max sat back, like he was having a revelation. “The first time I’ve ever been called cool. It’s a strange sensation. Powerful.”
After breakfast, we went downstairs to the basement rec room, where a U-shaped couch faced the big-screen TV, complete with projector capability and all of Max’s video game stuff. My nerves shrilled—half with the realization that this was the perfect time to tell Max about my college plans, and half with mortification that his mom might have thought “watch the slideshow” was unsubtle code for “be alone to make out.”
But we really did watch the slideshow. He’d sent me some of the photos over the summer, but it was different on a giant screen, with his excited explanations. Lots of crumbling monuments. Alfresco tables with plants on the balconies above. The Cinque Terre, sherbet villages cut into the cliffs. Even the pasta plates were artful—fresh basil and dustings of Parmesan.
Around Milan, I started feeling sweaty, obsessing about how I’d break my news. What if he wanted to end things before we could get more attached, and this was the last time we were ever happy? Was I really going to risk that for a pipe dream? By the Roman basilicas, I was tracing my hands against the couch fabric, unable to be still.
When the last slide flashed “The End,” followed by the Italian translation, “Fine,” I made myself smile. “Incredible.”
“Okay,” Max said. “That was an obvious missed opportunity to make a pun about the slideshow being fine. Are you all right?”
All the saliva disappeared from my mouth. That content smile of his threw me—I didn’t want to ruin it. But I couldn’t keep carrying this around. Two crinkles appeared on Max’s forehead, right above the bridge of his glasses.
“I need to tell you something,” I said, and he angled toward me immediately. I forced a laugh and blew my bangs from my face. “Um, sorry, that sounded dire. It’s not. It’s that, um, I know I said, after I got home, that NYU wasn’t a possibility, but … I was boxing myself in, I think.”
All the blood from my face rushed to my chest, where my heartbeat tapped like frantic typewriter keys. I made myself stop talking so Max could react.
“You’re going to apply?” he asked. “That’s great! God, you scared me there.”
“That’s great?”
“Yeah! I mean, kinda figured you would, with the way you talked about NYU this summer.” He cocked his head, with a smile like C’mon. “I think I know what your face looks like when you’re falling for something.”
I glanced down, lips pressed in a sheepish smile. Yes, I supposed he did. When I looked back up, Max wore an expression I recognized from QuizBowl—any time he gave an answer he was only ninety percent sure of and heard the moderator say: Correct.
“I’m applying to some places in LA, too.”
He flinched in surprise, blinking quickly as he recovered. “Oh. Okay. California? Huh. Guess that makes sense—you didn’t mention the West Coast, though, so I … huh.”
“I didn’t consider it till recently.”
“Will you do school visits before then? Stay with Maeve?”
I imagined his brain circuitry, always so fast, zapping through the new information. “I will if I get in, which I probably won’t. But if I don’t go for it, I’ll always wonder.”
Would the next words out of his mouth be But what does that mean for us? I would certainly burst into tears, wailing that I had no idea. That I wanted to be with him but I understood if he thought we should return to friendship.
Mercifully, he gave me a slow, knowing smile—another expression I recognized. Since I’d met Max Watson, he’d looked at me, in turn, like I was the most perplexing, unexpected, delightful person on earth. Maybe my favorite, though, was this look right now—when he was thoroughly, blatantly impressed. “All right, then. Wow. Good for you, Janie.”