You Are Here(7)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

Down the street a man with a trumpet began to play a bluesy song, and Emma closed her eyes to listen, the notes trembling out over the dampened block. When she opened them again, the sun was already beginning to split the clouds, and the world had gone from gray to silver.

“Ready to go?” Patrick asked, and Emma thought of the car parked uptown, of all the miles ahead of her, the many states and roads and possibilities, and she nodded.

She was ready.

Chapter four

Cutting through the broad state of Pennsylvania, Peter couldn’t help noticing the many green signs pointing off toward various colleges and universities. Some were bigger than others, some with fancy reputations, some he’d read about and some he hadn’t. Growing up just down the street from a college, it was sometimes easy to forget there were so many others out there. He rarely managed to get much farther than the hilltop campus, where each autumn students from across the country filtered into the stately buildings, books in hand and ready to learn.

Peter had been waiting for years to join their ranks. Not there, of course, but somewhere like it, a place with an impressive name and a reputation to match. He felt he’d been ready to go off to school since at least the fifth grade, when he first saw an article about Harvard in the New York Times and swore to himself that he, too, would one day stroll across an unfamiliar campus, passing beneath ivy-covered arches in the company of thousands of other kids, all of them just as smart, just as odd, just as full of potential as Peter himself.

But he’d also known from a fairly young age that if he were to leave things up to his father, he’d probably end up at the community college a few towns over, getting lifts to class from the town’s police force and clipping coupons for the rest of his life. Money had always been an issue for the Finnegans, a problem so constant that it had almost stopped seeming like a problem at all. It was just the way things were. But Peter was smart, and he knew it. And it was this—his ability to recite the first fifty digits of pi, to list all the countries of the world in alphabetical order, to calculate the square root of any number almost instantly— all this, he knew, was his ticket out of here.

But one night recently, when he’d first brought up the subject of applications over dinner, the sounds of the chapel bell ringing out from the campus just up the hill, he’d been shocked to discover that Dad actually hoped he’d choose to go there, of all places. It was true that the school had plenty to offer: history and philosophy, football games on October weekends, weathered stone buildings, and a national ranking high enough to suit Peter’s lofty standards. But more important—and a fact not specifically mentioned in the glossy brochures—was that it was right down the street.

“It’s just as good as the Ivy Leagues,” Dad told him that night, arranging the pasta on his plate into a stringy volcano. It was one of those rare evenings when both his uniform and the TV were off, and he’d managed to assemble a dinner that didn’t require the microwave. “And they offer a lot of scholarships for kids like you.”

Peter narrowed his eyes at him across the table, but Dad seemed to be focused on his plate, pouring an additional helping of red sauce straight from the jar into the heart of the pasta volcano and then staring at it as if he expected an eruption. Peter couldn’t help wondering if this was a punishment of some sort—this unforeseen effort to keep him close to home—or a cruel form of torture. Was Dad trying to put him in his place? Remind him of his roots? Be sure he knew that the socially challenged and motherless kid of a small town cop didn’t belong at a place like Harvard or Princeton or Yale?

Because if he could get a scholarship here, couldn’t he get one at any number of other schools? Places scattered across the country, in towns he’d never seen, states he’d never visited. It was no secret that he and his father barely understood each other, but it seemed hard to believe Dad actually thought that—given the choice—Peter would want to stay home for college.

The only thing harder to believe was that Dad even wanted him there in the first place.

Peter tried to imagine being the only one in the freshman dorms whose father was not an investment banker from Manhattan, or a doctor from LA, or a lawyer from Chicago, but the town sheriff, the one who might very well be responsible for arresting his new friends when they got drunk and went streaking into the mucky pond at the foot of the hill.

No, Peter had other plans, bigger plans. And they certainly didn’t include ending up down the street from his dad and their dingy little house with its fading palette of greens and its smell of stale beer. He hadn’t read every single book by Charles Dickens or memorized the map coordinates of every state capital for nothing.

His dad, however, didn’t seem to understand this, which is why Peter often preferred spending time with the Healys. Even though they both taught at the college, they’d also been professors at a handful of other universities, had moved around and seen the world before figuring out where they wanted to be. In fact sometimes he felt they understood him better than anyone—better than his father, and certainly better than Emma.

The first time he’d met the Healy family was just after they’d moved in, the summer that he and Emma both turned eight. Peter had fallen off his bike in front of their house, and Mr. Healy—who was perched on a stepladder in the openmouthed garage—rushed out to help him up. He led him in through the front door, a reassuring hand on the back of his neck, then disappeared to find the first-aid kit. Left alone in the coolness of the entryway, Peter bent to examine his knee. A moment later the professor returned with a Band-Aid, humming to himself.

“‘Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, straight and swift to my wounded I go,’” he sang out, dabbing at the cut.

Peter recognized the words from a book about the songs and poems of the Civil War, a narrow volume he’d recently checked out from the library.

“Walt Whitman,” he announced with a quiet authority, and the professor paused to look up at him, amused.

“Ah,” he said with a grin. “A prodigy, huh?”

“No, sir,” Peter said, shaking his head solemnly. “Just above average.”

Mr. Healy seemed to find this funny, the entire barrel of his chest shaking with a raspy, well-used sort of laughter, and once he’d smoothed the bandage into place, he stood and wiped tears from the corners of his eyes.

“Above average,” he said. “Nothing wrong with that, don’t you think?” This last part he directed over his shoulder, and Peter glanced up to see a girl sitting poised on the staircase, looking at him through the banister like a monkey at the zoo. She had long brown hair and the palest eyes he’d ever seen, a nearly colorless gray that settled on him lightly, and there was something in her manner—a casual lack of interest, a complete failure to be impressed by his knowledge—that made him wish he hadn’t spoken in the first place.