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25 Years Ago
It was difficult to demand a stretch of good weather in Maine, particularly this early in May. Today, on graduation day of all days, the University of Maine architecture graduates stood out beneath shadowed skies and prayed the rain would hold out a little longer. Even still, as the northeastern wind ruffled their cobalt-blue graduation gowns threateningly, they stood with the resilience of students who’d taken the brunt of Maine weather the previous four years and lived to tell the tale. Rain, sleet, buckets of snowfall— it had all come after them. They’d still made it to graduation day. They’d still made it through.
Casey Harvey stood at the front of the line in preparation to be called out as the Top Architectural Student of the Graduating Class of 1996. Behind her, her rival, Gregory Pent, flashed her a sinister glare as he struggled to make peace with the few GPA points that separated them. The war was over. Casey was number one, and forever, Gregory would remain number two. That was that.
“It is my great pleasure to introduce you to a particularly gifted student here at the University of Maine.” This was Casey’s favorite professor, Professor Margorie Reynolds, a woman who’d single-handedly guided Casey over the previous four years to ensure she made appropriate decisions and joined the correct architectural programs — all in pursuit of the best-possible career. “She’s been a stellar student and a remarkable young woman to know. We here at the University of Maine know she’s off to create beautiful things. In the words of Frank Gehry, ‘Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.’ Casey knows her place in the timelessness of architecture— despite the finite nature of her time with us.”
Casey shook her professor’s hand as the crowd erupted with applause. Her eyesight blurred with tears, but she still managed to peer out to find her Aunt Tracy and sisters, Nicole and Heather, in the front row. Heather had declared her plan to arrive at the ceremony three hours early to get the “best seats in the house.” It seemed like she’d managed it.
Casey lifted her diploma and waved it ever-so-slightly toward her beautiful family. Years before, they’d lost their mother, and their father had never been in the picture prior to his suicide. The foursome they’d created after their deaths, made up of Tracy, Casey, Nicole, and Heather offered all the love in the world they needed. Casey’s heart lifted with love for them.
After the ceremony, Casey fell into the Harvey Girls’ arms as they shrieked with excitement. Just above, the clouds burst apart, just as they’d promised they would, as raindrops fell over them. Heather yelped and leafed around her bag for an umbrella as Aunt Tracy beckoned them toward the nearest doorway for cover. The University of Maine graduates rushed toward the closest shelter, their cobalt blue gowns ruffling out behind them. Heather burst into giggles at the sight.
“They look like panicked Smurfs,” Heather teased.
“Four years of hard work, and all you can do is make fun of their outfits?” Nicole asked.
“A girl after my own heart,” Casey returned brightly as Heather laughed even more. “Hey, I have to run back to the architecture office to pick up my backpack.”
“Then we’re going out to dinner, right?” Heather asked.
Casey rolled her eyes playfully. “I swear, you only came for the food afterward.”
The hallways of the Architecture Building were grey and shadowed and quiet, a direct contrast to the previous four years of bustling students, wild gossip, and harried words of, “Did you get everything done on the homework? I need help!” Casey’s heart lurched with sorrow. At no point throughout those four years had she thought any of it would ever be over. That was how time went.
Now, she had to figure out what came next. She’d applied to several jobs and had a range of job interviews over the next few weeks. None of them particularly illuminated her, although she knew she needed to count her blessings. Many of her co-graduates hadn’t received so much as a telephone call back from their applications.
Once at the offices, Casey removed her graduation gown (although she had a hunch Heather would force it back on her at the restaurant if only to tease her more) and stuffed it in her backpack. She then donned her coat and swept out her dark brown locks across her back and shoulders. She recognized her own mother’s face within the mirror on the far side of the architecture office and shivered at the sensation of always seeing Jane Harvey, just a little bit, within the creases of her aging face as time passed by.
“Casey? Is that you?” Professor Reynolds stepped out from her office with a mug of steaming tea. Her nose was ruby-red from the early May chill.
“Hi!” Casey’s voice was overly bright with surprise. She swept a strand of hair behind her ear. “I thought everyone had already gone.”
Professor Reynolds pressed her teeth onto her lower lip. “I’m glad to catch you. I just got a particularly interesting phone call. I thought of you immediately.”
“Another job?” Professor Reynolds had been instrumental in pointing out the various Maine-based firms particularly interested in hiring new graduates like Casey.
“Not quite,” Professor Reynolds affirmed. “I’ve noticed your lack of... shall we say... excitement? Surrounding these job interviews. I know you want to sink your teeth and talent into something particularly validating. And I think... well. I think this project is right up your alley.”
Professor Reynolds showed Casey the notes she’d taken throughout the phone call. The gist was this. A very wealthy rancher in Montana wanted to build a brand-new, state-of-the-art ranch and mansion, one that suited his needs and illustrated him as the top rancher in at least the entire Western United States, if not the world.
“His name is Quintin Griffin,” Professor Reynolds explained. “And he has a real love for great architecture. He references Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Jonson and Gaudi, to name a few.”
Casey chortled as her heart buzzed with excitement. “So you’re suggesting I head over to Montana and build a Gaudi-inspired ranch?”
Although Casey’s words had been in jest, Professor Reynolds nodded and said, “Why the heck not? It’s never been done quite that way, has it?”
Casey arched an eyebrow as her curiosity mounted. “How would this even happen?”
“It’s a contest,” Professor Reynolds explained. “Entrants have the next four weeks to create their dream vision for the ranch. You then send the blueprints and a brief essay to Quintin Griffin, who will decide the winner. I can’t possibly highlight just how excellent this opportunity is, Casey. The winner wouldn’t just have the opportunity to build a truly spectacular architectural feat. Rather, the winner would be featured on countless architectural magazines and assuredly be touted as the next up-and-comer in the architecture world. You wouldn’t be just another new face in the architecture world. You would be someone special. And if there’s anything I truly believe about you, Casey, it’s that you’re something extraordinary.”
Over the next two days, Casey went against her Aunt Tracy’s suggestions and canceled every one of her upcoming architecture firm interviews. When they asked her why, she informed them that another opportunity had come up; this was, she supposed, truthful— although risky, since it wasn’t like she was a shoo-in to win the contest. Thousands and thousands of other architecture rivals planned to enter. Why on earth would Quintin Griffin select her blueprints over theirs?
Due to money constraints, Casey returned to Aunt Tracy’s house in Portland to remain honed in on the blueprints. Over the next three weeks, she fell into a state of hyper-focus, taking all her meals in her bedroom and visualizing her architectural plans at all times, even as she slept. During these weeks, she saw no friends and hardly accepted phone calls. Aunt Tracy once marveled, “How are you ever going to meet someone and settle down if...” But at this, Casey had countered, “Right, Aunt Tracy. After what my mother went through, it’s not like I have any illusion that men are the secret ingredient to happiness.” This had shut Aunt Tracy up for good.
Heather and Nicole both lived out on their own at this point but weaved in and out of Aunt Tracy’s at-will. Frequently, they popped their heads into Casey’s bedroom to say hello, but were usually met only with the hollowed-out eyes version of Casey. Heather called her the “architecture zombie.” Nicole suggested she make herself sick if she didn’t treat her mind and body better. Casey felt singularly focused on her mission.
The ranch itself spread out across her glorious page, with inspiration from countless of her favorite architects, yet with flairs all her own. Nobody could look at the blueprints and say, “Oh, this is a rip-off.” No. They would look at it and say, “This is unique. This is never-before-seen. This is something truly spectacular.”
The night before she sent off the blueprints and essay, she stumbled into the kitchen to find Heather, Nicole, and Aunt Tracy finishing up a beautiful home-cooked meal. Vegetarian was their frequent way when together (something Heather had started as a kid when she’d learned that meat came from animals), with homemade falafel and hummus. Casey’s knees clacked together as she collapsed at the table and placed her cheeks in her hands.
“You look great,” Heather joked as she poured a dollop more of olive oil into the hummus.
“Gee. Thanks,” Casey returned.
“Seriously, Case, are you okay?” Nicole demanded.
“I don’t know about this.” Aunt Tracy scuttled back and forth at the countertop and then clacked four forks and four knives together at the kitchen table. “I read more about this rancher, Quintin.”
“What about him?” Heather asked, her voice suddenly bright with the promise of gossip.
“Did you read that he could propel my career to the next level, just like that?” Casey asked as she snapped her fingers in the air.
“No. I read that he’s the richest man in all of Montana and that he has an even bigger ego, to boot,” Aunt Tracy returned.
“Not everyone can be completely kind and compassionate and good all the time. The world would be so boring,” Casey snapped back. There it was again: her hot-headed tendency, which so often got her into trouble with her sisters, her aunt, and whatever boyfriend she had around at the time. Not many men stuck around, probably due to Casey’s almost religious devotion to architecture (that and her sudden bursts of anger, which she couldn’t fully control all the time).
Professor Reynolds had said Casey’s anger was proof of her passion. But when it reared its ugly head and belittled people like her Aunt Tracy, who’d been nothing but generous and loving throughout Casey’s entire life, Casey detested her propensity for anger and herself.
“Gosh, I’m sorry,” Casey muttered immediately afterward as Aunt Tracy turned back toward the fridge.
“Come on, Casey. You need to eat a real meal and get a good night’s sleep,” Nicole offered softly.
“Did they tell you when they’ll announce the contest results?” Heather asked.
Casey puffed out her cheeks. She detested the horrible, crashing weight of reality and preferred to be above a blank sheet, a pencil poised over it as she fleshed out a brand-new world within the realm of an architectural design.
“They didn’t tell her,” Aunt Tracy recited from the fridge.
Heather’s eyes widened. “They’re just going to make you wait?”
“Professor Reynolds told me about it,” Casey grumbled. “She wouldn’t lead me astray and besides. I have something here. I can feel it.”
Heather and Nicole locked eyes over the table. Casey’s stomach churned with anger. She yearned to ask just exactly what they shared within that exchanged glance, but decided instead to head back to her bedroom and finalize the last elements of the piece. Dinner could wait.
Heather walked Casey to the post office the following morning so that Casey could send the blueprints off with First Class Post. Heather dropped a quarter in the gum ball machine at the post office while Casey paid the exorbitant mail fare. When Heather returned to the counter, she flicked a yellow gum ball to and fro in her mouth like a child.
“Can’t believe this yellow tube you’re mailing across the country might be the key to your entire future,” Heather said flippantly.
The postal worker eyed Casey and arched a brow toward her hairline. “Have you considered insurance?”
Casey cursed herself inwardly, considered the cost, and said, “No.” After all, if the tube that held her blueprints didn’t make it to Montana, then she’d be too late to enter the contest, anyway. It would be fate.
Heather had dreams of becoming a children’s fantasy writer. On their walk back to their Aunt Tracy’s place, she gabbed playfully about a story she wanted to write about a young woman who lived in a swamp and had dreams of grandeur. “You know, marrying the prince or going off to become a witch or something like that,” Heather continued. “But when she leaves the swamp, her skin grows wrinkled and she becomes depressed and somber. She never imagined she’d miss the big, fat frogs or the ugly, twisted trees. Now, in the bright sun of the Montana plains...”
Casey stopped short at the intersection mere blocks from their house. “Heather, I know you’re ridiculously creative and all that, but don’t make me a sad, lonely woman on a Montana ranch in your story.”
Heather grumbled inwardly. “I think you should have taken that job at the Portland architecture firm. What good is the rest of the world if your family isn’t there with you?”
Casey bucked forward as a big truck barreled toward the intersection. The driver blared his horn as Casey and Heather shuffled forward. Heather cried out wildly as Casey shot her an angry look.
“Can you at least look for traffic?” Heather demanded.
“Listen, Heather. I’ve worked myself to death at architecture school. This is what I was born to do. If that takes me to Montana or Paris or Timbuktu, then I plan to head there to pursue my dream. I don’t want you, Nicole or Aunt Tracy to hold me back. And I especially don’t want you to guilt-trip me into staying.”
Heather’s face contorted with sorrow. They stopped at the opposite side of the road as Heather gasped for breath.
“I’m sorry, Casey. I am. I don’t know why I said that.”
Casey scuffed her toe against the sidewalk. It was impenetrably hot, an unusual thing for Maine, especially now at the very beginning of June. It felt as though nothing could ever return to the way it had been before.
“It’s not like I want to leave my family,” Casey breathed finally. “I just want to see what’s out there. I want to see if I can make something of myself. Does that make any sense?”
Heather gripped Casey’s wrist with thin yet firm fingers. Heather’s ocean-blue eyes glittered with the soft light of the morning. “I’m being an idiot. I just want us always to be close. We’ve already lost so many people.”
“You won’t ever lose me,” Casey told her as her throat tightened. “You know better than to think that will ever happen.”
**
ON THE AFTERNOON OF the Fourth of July, Casey returned home from her summer job at the local pool, where she worked as a lifeguard in a bright-red swimsuit and an oversized baseball cap. She swept through the kitchen, where she found Heather, gabbing on the phone as usual, and Nicole painting her nails, a leg stretched out over the corner of the kitchen table. With Heather at age nineteen and Nicole at twenty, they still seemed to capture the perfect dynamic of American teenagers. Assuredly soon, the two of them would fall into whatever universe they would create for themselves— with men or careers or babies. Time had its way with you, no matter what you did to keep it all the same. Casey knew that well. She learned it first hand when she’d watched her mother die.
Casey slipped into the fridge to grab a Diet Coke and then sauntered back toward the back deck, where she hoped to read the next issue of Architecture Today in relative peace. But before she could open the door, Heather hung up the phone and hollered, “You had a phone call earlier! Casey? He said it’s urgent and wants you to call him back as soon as possible.”
Casey grumbled as she turned back.
Nicole hooted and said, “Is it that guy you met at the pool the other day?”
Casey had been asked out on approximately four dates a week since her first day at the pool. They’d created a list of the idiotic pickup lines Casey had heard since then, which included: “Hey there, Sunshine. You’re good enough to drown for. Reckon you could save my life?” and “Can I blow your whistle?”
“I never give these guys my number,” Casey returned as she stepped back toward the phone.
“Not even that cute one? The football player?” Nicole asked.
“Especially not him... Harvard Elite? No thanks,” Casey grumbled.
“Harvard Elite’s not good enough for our Casey,” Heather teased. “You know she’s better than the most intelligent and handsome men in the country.” She stuck out her tongue at Casey as Casey rolled her eyes into the back of her head.
Heather placed a finger on a little piece of scratch paper and pressed it across the counter for Casey to see. On the paper, Heather had written a phone number. “He had a hilarious accent. Like a drawl.”
“Cute!” Nicole cried.
Casey rolled her eyes again. How could she begin to translate just how far away the concept of “love” was from her mind? Career came first. Everything else could fall into place later.
“Did he say what he wanted?” Casey demanded.
“A date with our big sis, that’s what,” Nicole returned as she finished off the red paint on her pinky nail.
“Actually, not even close, but he did say he was calling long-distance,” Heather added as her eyes sparkled. “From Montana.”
Casey’s heart jumped into her throat. If there was ever a time for a full-blown heart attack, this was it. She gripped the paper and stared at the numbers before her, still in just her lifeguard swimsuit and a pair of ratty jean shorts.
Was this piece of paper her future?
Was this the next step of her life?
“Call him already!” Nicole cried from the kitchen table.
And so, Casey grabbed the receiver, lifted her finger, and punched out the numbers, one after another, until the phone rang out into the deep distance— across the Northeast, across the Midwest, until finally, it graced the gorgeous purple plains beyond.