Bang Plan

X

It's the quintessential warm fall day at Harvard. The sun bakes my skin ever so slightly, but I don't mind. The breeze smells nice, coming down the river and carrying the smell of dying leaves. Sandy and I lay upon the lawn by the Charles, sipping Prosecco and eating strawberries as if it's still summer. The juice stains the picnic blanket. Sailboats pass us, and children laugh as they fly kites behind us. We talk, and our long skirts flutter in the wind.

"I just realized how odd it is that I haven't been to your house! I want to visit!" Sandy says, squinting into the sunlight. I force a grin.

"Well, I haven't been to yours."

"Okay, but you live so close! And I'm all the way in New York!" She points out. She's right.

"I'm sorry. You know how my parents are," I tell her, and she nods. She knows they aren't the warmest figures in my life. It doesn't take a psychologist to figure that out.

"Yeah. At least they accepted you for you, in the end. Like, I can't believe they're paying tuition for your arts degree."

"Me neither," I tell her honestly. I think back to the evening in the ballroom where I cried onto my viola. I earned this win, I think to myself. I had to be myself on their terms, which were do it to Harvard, but I can't really complain too much.

"It's all my Grandmother's doing, really. She's the most supportive out of all them, she encouraged me to do music more than anyone. I wish she didn't isolate herself out on Nantucket year-round," I add, fondly reminiscing. I had similar picnics with her when she had her place in Boston proper. I was very little, and I was one of the children with the kites.

"I can't imagine my parents trying to control me in that way, but then again, I guess history isn't too objectionable. I'm not an arts major," she tells me. "I wonder if it'd be any different now if I'd listened my own heart, or whatever, back then. Like you did. I've always done what I should do, and I don't think I've ever even had time to think about what I might love."

"Don't you love history?" I ask, biting into a strawberry.

"It's what I'm best at, so I have to love it," she remarks.

We both watch the boats go by in silence for a few moments. It's very peaceful, but I can tell Sandy is lost in thought. The scene is quite picturesque, with the cornflower-blue sky and beautiful Cambridge and Boston spread out around us. It almost looks fake. Maybe Sandy could be an artist. She has an eye for goodness. She finds it in people, and in places, as they are. She chose this spot. I could see her coming here with an easel to paint the children with kites.

A voice rings out from a sailboat, interrupting the calm. It's quiet at first, but we both perk up. Sandy leans forward, trying to decipher what they're saying or who it is. I can't tell who it is, but it must be a Harvard student due to the big H on their sweater.

Eventually, what they're saying comes into focus. Sandy and I look at each other, faces scrunched up in confusion.

"It's them?" We repeat, and it clicks in both minds simultaneously. My heart stops.

"The... plan," Sandy stammers. We sit frozen like ice sculptures, left out to melt into the bank of the Charles. The sunshine and laughter that fills the air threatens our very existence, now.

"How... who..."

My thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of more boats, each carrying their own opinionated skippers.

"Bitches."

"Manipulators."

"Disgraces."

"A Winthrop!"