A/N: Hi! Happy Easter! As you've all figured out by now, I love period pieces. I don't know why. Maybe it's the clothes or the music. I can't really say. In any event, this is another period piece, inspired in part by a very brief anecdote in The Bell Jar. It's college Olitz, set in the spring of 1960.

Connecticut, 1960

Olivia stood before her mirror, brushing her freshly relaxed hair back before securing it with a light blue headband, when her roommate Quinn flitted out of the bathroom, half-dressed. "Can I borrow your brown pumps?"

Olivia looked at her best friend in the mirror and smirked. "I suppose so since you're wearing my dress."

Quinn stopped fiddling with her pearl earrings and looked down at her yellow sleeveless sundress. "This is yours? It's been in my closet forever."

"You borrowed last spring. It looks better on you," Olivia replied, putting on a little blush. "You're awfully dressed up to go to lunch with your brother."

Quinn looked up from Olivia's brown point-toe pumps. "Shit! I forgot about Fitz! I'm supposed to meet him in 10 minutes. Can you go by The Blue Plate and tell him I can't make it? I'm finally going out with Capote Duncan!"

"Capote Duncan?" Olivia scowled. "What on earth could you want with that Neanderthal?"

"He's a little…primitive, I'll admit that. But he's got a glorious pedigree. And he's on the short list for getting into Yale's medical school in the fall. Plus he's handsome as sin." Shoes on, Quinn joined Olivia at the mirror and put on red lipstick. "I don't have any grand aspirations since he's nearly 25 and no one's tied him down yet but wouldn't it be marvelous if it was me?"

Olivia just looked at her best friend. Quinn bit the inside of her bottom lip. "I know you two had a bad time, but you and I don't have the same type so maybe it'll go differently."

Olivia had ended up on a date with Capote Duncan, who was working his way through the roster at Mount Sacred Heart College for Girls, out of mutual curiosity. He had never gone out with an African American girl. She thought he was cute though terribly boring. It had been a failure from start to finish. She didn't like his jokes. He resented her intelligence. She kissed him on the cheek though he was going for her lips while they were dancing. They ended the night with another exchange of cheek-kisses and decided they were better casual acquaintances. Olivia looked at her best friend. "What do I tell your brother?"

"That I'm so sorry and I'll call him to reschedule." A horn honked and Quinn jumped. "Oh! That's probably him. Fitz is at The Blue Plate. He's tall and dark-haired with blue eyes. He's probably wearing his Yale sweater. You'll know him when you see him. I'll see you later! Wish me luck!"

She rushed from the room and Olivia looked at the empty doorway. She wondered how she was to spot Fitz when he was apparently every guy at Yale, and how she was supposed to get all the way to the diner between the two campuses in time to keep him from waiting forever. Not to mention that she had been planning to go to the library to hang recruitment fliers for her magazine. She sighed as she adjusted her tweed jumper dress, smiling when she realized it was Quinn's, then straightened the starched collar of her light blue short sleeved oxford. She reached beneath the dress's mini skirt and pulled on the shirt's hem, straightening it out completely, then went to her closet and stepped into the dark brown penny loafer-style pumps her grandmother had sent her. She grabbed the dark brown leather satchel-style purse that matched them then put her red lipstick inside and left.

She found herself smiling at the warm breeze blowing around the old campus, happy that winter seemed to have finally released their small Connecticut town from its clutches. She decided she would wear sandals the next day, and maybe shorts if it was really warm. The walk to The Blue Plate only took about 10 minutes and she was surprised to find the place so empty on a Wednesday evening. Normally, it was so packed that she and Quinn had to squeeze into a booth with whoever had room to spare. While Olivia would admit that she'd had fun with Quinn when they were lucky to get stuck with a few guys from Yale or Dartmouth, she usually preferred that they got their table. As progressive as some guys claimed to be, she had found they were nothing more than curious about her blackness, as if it made her so inherently different from them that she had to be fascinating.

Looking around at the clusters of students at tables, Fitz easily stood out to her. He had dark thick hair like Quinn, combed neatly so that the curls lay uniformly against his head. He sat alone reading a book, underlining every few lines. He wore his sweater, a Yale blue cardigan, buttoned over a white oxford with the sleeves rolled up and coral shorts. Olivia noticed his tan arms and legs, muscular and covered in a thin layer of dark brown hair, and wondered how she'd missed him when she went home with Quinn on long weekends. Quinn had certainly noticed her cousin Harrison while he was mowing the lawn at their grandmother's house. She walked over and stopped before his table with a smile.

"Fitz?" He looked up from the book and gave a friendly smile. "I'm Quinn's roommate, Olivia. You probably don't remember me. She was supposed to meet you for lunch but something came up and she told me to tell you she's—"

"Terribly, honestly, truly sorry. She'll never do it again. She's going to call me and fix it," he interrupted with a wry smile.

Olivia smiled and shrugged. "Well you know Quinn."

"My sister is flaky as hell but surprisingly predictable," he replied.

Olivia fumbled for something else to say to him. Finding nothing, she finally said, "I'm sorry if you waited here for a long time."

"No. I just got here." He gestured to the chair opposite him. "Would you like to join me? I don't eat here much but I've heard the food is pretty good."

Olivia shyly sat down. "It is. Quinn and I eat here all the time."

Fitz smiled as he picked up the menu. "Anything you recommend?"

"I like the pancakes and Quinn likes the chicken fingers." Olivia wondered how she had ended up on a lunch date with her best friend's brother, or if he even thought it was a date. She decided that he definitely didn't, that he was just being nice since Quinn had sent her.

"Sounds good. I think I'll get both." He looked up at her and smiled. "You changed your hair since the last time I saw you."

Olivia blushed, thinking perhaps she was wrong if Fitz remembered what she'd looked like the last time she was around him nearly a month before during spring break. "I cut it. It had gotten so long that I could hardly braid it."

"You look really pretty. I mean, you did before too, but now…" He blushed, his ears turning red, and cleared his throat. "Let me try that again. You're very beautiful."

"Thank you." Olivia blushed, looking down at her lap.

A waitress with a stiff red beehive approached. "What can I get you two?"

Olivia looked up at Fitz and he gestured for her to go first. "I'll have a pancake plate and a Diet Coke."

The woman wrote down her order then looked at Fitz. "And for you?"

"I'll have the chicken fingers, an order of pancakes, and a Coke," he replied. She wrote down his order then disappeared. Fitz looked at Olivia. "So are you a no-major student like Quinn?"

Olivia laughed. "No. Although she attended a seminar on the economics of developing countries and she's apparently quite interested so maybe she's finally found something. I'm an English major."

"Really? That's interesting. What do you want to do with that?"

"I'm not really sure yet. I'd very much like to move to Paris and write novels. I'd also like to start my own magazine for black women. I wouldn't mind teaching either." Olivia blushed, realizing how scatter-brained she must have sounded. "I'm sorry. I'm rambling."

"I don't think it counts as rambling if your audience is interested."

Her cheeks would surely fall off from smiling so hard. "What are you studying?"

"Physics and astronomy." He grinned proudly.

Olivia laughed. "I get anxious just hearing those words. I was never much of a math student. What do you want to do?"

"I want to be an astronaut."

"An astronaut? I suppose you took it literally when your parents told you to shoot for the stars."

Fitz chuckled. "Honestly, I don't care about the possibilities or the discoveries or any of that. I want to walk on the moon."

"Well a dream like that makes Paris seem awfully unambitious."

Fitz shook his head, smiling. "I couldn't do what you do. I can't write worth a damn. It's all up there in my head clear as day, and I could tell you anything you wanted to know about something I read, but I can't sit there and put it on paper."

"I'm the exact opposite. I can't talk about things I'm passionate about. I always end up crying and it's the worst thing to cry when you're trying to make a point. Especially when you're a woman. So I write. No one's knows whether or not I'm crying then."

Fitz chuckled. "Fun fact about crying: you can't do it in outer space. It's physically impossible."

"Really? Why?"

"Something to do with the lack of gravity and oxygen. You can't sweat either."

XXXXX

"So this was fun. I'd like to do it again," Fitz said as he and Olivia walked back to her dormitory. They had spent the whole afternoon together, wandering around the town. Olivia had taken him to a used bookstore and given him a list of books to read. Fitz had in turn taken her to a record store and given her a list of records.

She smiled shyly, acutely aware of their arms brushing. "I'd like that too."

"I'm always free on Wednesdays. We could do anything you want."

There was something about the shyness of his offer that made her insides warm. "Anything I want? What if I want to do something ridiculous like jump out of airplanes?"

Fitz smiled. "Well I don't have immediate access to an airplane but I could scare something up if that's what you'd like to do."

"Fortunately for you, there's nothing I would like to do less. But I would like to see Psycho and Quinn refuses to go with me. I never pegged your sister for a scaredy cat but she absolutely will not go see it with me."

The idea of seeing a movie at the drive-in, especially one that was so scary she'd undoubtedly end up cuddled close to him during the first hour, sounded like the perfect first date to Fitz. He smiled at her as they reached the dorm's stone front steps. "That sounds like a good plan to me. So can I call you?"

"Only if I can call you too."

They shared a small laugh, anticipation crackling between them like electricity. Olivia wondered if he would kiss her, hoping he would. It wasn't the perfect date without the perfect kiss. She smiled, her posture open, and gave him a gentle but expectant look. Fitz reached out and brushed a fallen eyelash from the apple of her right cheek. He held it up for her to see then held it to her lips. "Make a wish."

Please don't be in love with someone else. Please don't have somebody waiting on you. Olivia wasn't sure if it counted as two wishes as she blew the eyelash off his fingertip, her eyes flickering to his when it flew away.

"What did you wish for?" Fitz asked, stepping closer.

"I can't tell or it won't come true, and that would be a terrible shame for both of us," Olivia replied. Anticipation ran up her spine, sending electricity through her limbs when she realized he was going to kiss her. Fitz brushed his lips with hers gently until she responded with kisses of her own. Olivia wrapped her arms around his neck, reaching up to finger the curls at the nape of his neck. Fitz pulled her close, pressing her body to his, and held the back of her head, tilting it to deepen their kiss. He thought of slipping his tongue into her mouth but decided to wait. That was more of a proper first date occurrence.

"Bye," Olivia breathed when they finally stopped, when they couldn't go without air any longer.

"Bye." Fitz smiled, stuffing his hands in his pockets and turning to watch her ascend the steps. He gave a small wave when she turned back to look at him before she went inside.

XXXXX

*one week later—Thursday*

Olivia walked into her room and found Quinn setting her hair with hot rollers. "Another date with Capote?"

"No." Quinn wrinkled her button nose. "He's so ill-mannered. I'm going to dinner with Stephen Finch."

"The guy with the accent from Dartmouth?" Quinn nodded. Olivia whistled. "Nice catch."

Quinn grinned devilishly. "Don't talk to me about nice catches, missy. I know what you've been up to."

Olivia blinked at her best friend. She had been as vague as possible about who she talked to on the phone every night. "What?"

"Oh you're coy now? Is that the game you've been playing with my brother? Batting those eyelashes and giving him that princess smile?" Quinn giggled.

Olivia shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Alright." Quinn shrugged. "I'll just pretend he didn't spend our whole lunch yesterday talking about you, blushing and prattling like a schoolgirl."

"Prattling about me? I can't imagine why." Olivia smiled as she walked to her bed.

"Yes. You're apparently the best thing in the world. You're the most beautiful girl to ever breathe. He could listen to you talk for hours. And good Lord are you funny," Quinn replied. "Every other girl on earth might as well drown themselves because you're the end all be all of women. The sun shouldn't shine because it's nothing like your smile. The flowers shouldn't bloom because they'll never smell as good as you. The angels shouldn't sing because there's no sound more beautiful than your laugh."

Olivia smiled but said nothing. She picked up a white envelope laying on her bed and looked at Quinn. "What's this?"

Quinn grinned. "Open it."

Olivia sat on the bed and opened it, her eyes widening at the sight of the Yale crest on the card's front. She opened the card and gasped. "Your brother invited me to Yale's junior prom!"

"He's never gone to any of the proms before. He always said he never had anybody special to take. I guess that's changed." She grinned. "What are you going to wear?"

"I have no idea. I don't even think I have any formal gowns," Olivia replied, still staring at the gold leaf calligraphy on the stiff Yale blue cardstock.

Quinn hopped off her bed and went to her closet. "I have the perfect dress. I was supposed to wear it to Harvard's sophomore prom with Jake Ballard but he's a world-class ass."

"Oh I could've told you that. And he drinks like a fish, which you would think might make him loosen up and be a bit more tolerable, but he gets worse if you can believe it."

Quinn pulled out a pink garment bag then walked over and lay it on Olivia's bed. She unzipped it and pulled out a white strapless chiffon gown with a full skirt. "Now I don't know what I was thinking picking out white with my coloring but it should be gorgeous on you. Mama hemmed it so it's tea length so you can dance in it. And you can wear your hair up, and a string of pearls, and those silver pumps. You'll look like Cinderella."

Olivia laughed. "Have I ever told you how much you remind me of my grandmother?"

"Really? I love your grandmother!" Quinn climbed back onto the bed and resumed rolling her hair. "You know in way, this is all thanks to me. If I hadn't double-booked, you would never have met my brother."

"And how would you like to be repaid for flaking out on your brother and sending me to do your dirty work?"

"Name your first child Quinn."

"We've been on one date. You're miles ahead of us."

Quinn shook her head. "Nonsense. You know what Grandma Dianne says: 'Get that ring before spring!'"

"One: please don't quote my grandmother. She's always talking nonsense. And two: it's April. I'm already too late," Olivia pointed out.

Quinn shrugged as she secured her last roller. "The good thing about spring is that it always come back around."

"Oh hush." Olivia picked up the invitation again and placed it on her nightstand.

"Plus he's coming along in June when you come with us to Nantucket. And I'm sure I could talk him into joining me when I go with you to Hilton Head in August. Not to mention our week on Martha's Vineyard for the Fourth. That sounds like plenty of time to at least get pre-engaged." Quinn seemed quite pleased with herself. Olivia gave no reply as she took off her polka-dotted cardigan then her loafers. "The way I figure it, if you get engaged by November, you can have a May wedding. We can do it at the house on Martha's Vineyard. All the flowers will be in bloom and the beach will be clear because the tourists haven't come yet. I can wear purple. No peach! And you can get one of those hippie-dippy beachy dresses with the really gauzy skirt, and a flower crown made of peach roses. And Fitz can wear gray with a peach bowtie. It'll be the most beautiful ceremony!"

"Why don't you shelve those plans and I'll get back to you if he asks me on a second." Olivia sat on the bed, the mock-ups of her magazine's first issue tacked to a corkboard splayed before her.

"You say 'if' as if he won't. The way he was talking about you, I'll bet he's already beat me down the aisle." She looked at Olivia pointedly but Olivia didn't return her gaze. Instead, she glanced at the clock on their shared nightstand. It was nearly 7 and Fitz had been calling at 7 since they had lunch. She smiled when a moment later, the phone rang. Quinn snickered. "I wonder who on earth that could be calling like clockwork."

Olivia smirked as she got up to go answer the phone.

XXXXX

*one month later—prom night*

Quinn appeared in the doorway of their room, smiling at Olivia as she stood before the mirror securing her French twist with a pearl-encrusted hairpin. "You prince has arrived. And I know he's my brother so I'm partial, but he looks dashing. Like one of those guys in the J. Crew style guide."

Olivia smirked at her best friend though she didn't doubt that someone as handsome as Fitz cleaned up exceptionally well. Still, it wasn't even Fitz's looks that made her crazy about him. She had fallen for his mind. She was sure she loved him the night he called raving about the brilliance of Invisible Man. Olivia had done the same to him the night she finished Their Eyes Were Watching God. They had shared a mutual excitement over To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. Olivia insisted he read A Farewell to Arms. Fitz only agreed if she read Don Quixote. They exchanged music and political ideas the same way.

Checking her makeup one last time, Olivia left the mirror and went to pick up her silver clutch off the bed. She smirked at Quinn, still grinning in the doorway. "Do you have to do that?"

"Moon over my best friend in the world and my only brother falling in love? Yes. It would be irresponsible not to."

Olivia rolled her eyes and left the room. She descended the steps and smiled at the sight of Fitz waiting at the bottom. He wore a gray tux with a peach bowtie. Olivia looked back up at Quinn, following her down the stairs. "You had something to do with this, didn't you?"

Quinn smiled innocently. "I just told him you were wearing white and suggested an accent color. It was all innocent, I swear."

"You are the devil." Olivia looked back at Fitz, smiling at his smile. She stood shyly before him. "Hi."

"Hi." He couldn't stop smiling like a goon. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you. You look very handsome."

"Thank you. Quinn picked out my tux."

Olivia threw Quinn a look then smiled at Fitz. "I can see that."

He held out the little plastic box containing her corsage. "Quinn said peach roses are your favorite."

Olivia glanced at Quinn again. "Did she? I suppose that's not completely untrue. Tulips are my favorite but roses are a close second."

He helped her put the corsage on her wrist. Olivia smiled as she looked him over. "Your bowtie's a little crooked. Let me fix it."

She straightened his tie and Fitz grinned. "Do you know why I always wear bowties?"

"Tell me."

"Because I always make them crooked. I can't get it right. I think it's because I'm left-handed. Whatever it is, whenever my tie's crooked, a pretty lady will always fix it for me."

Olivia laughed, pinching his cheek. "You're a smooth devil, aren't you?"

"I try to be." He smiled. "Are you ready? The glee club is performing if you'd like to go early and see that, or we could have dinner. I made reservations at a few places—Chinese, Italian, French, and American—so we'd have options."

Olivia smiled. "Chinese sounds nice."

Fitz offered her his arm and smiled when she placed her little hand in the crook of his elbow. Quinn grinned at them from the stairs. "Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Well that's a short list," Fitz teased as they left the dormitory.

XXXXX

"You're a good dancer," Fitz complimented as he twirled Olivia around the crowded dance floor.

"Thank you," Olivia replied. She was just thankful her feet were moving. The feeling of being in Fitz's arms, wrapped in his clean scent with his hand on her lower back, was almost too much for her.

"You know there's another party we could go to if this one's too stiff for you."

"What sort of party?"

"Some of the people from the physics department are throwing a get-together, an anti-prom sort of thing, in the department building basement. They've got better music if nothing else."

"That sounds like fun. Let's go." Olivia collected her purse and they left the prom. Fitz draped his jacket around her shoulders as they walked the quiet campus. Olivia looked around at the towering buildings bathed in the moonlight. "I can't imagine going to such a big school. I'd be lost every day."

Fitz chuckled, interlacing his fingers with her. "When you're a freshman, it's pretty tough. You're all over the place. But once you're an upperclassman, it's not so bad. When you get into your concentration, you only go to one or two buildings. I only go to the math building because that's where all my classes are."

Olivia looked up at a large circular building with a domed roof. "What's that?"

Fitz stopped. "That's the observatory. It's where we astronomy majors go to look at the stars."

"How do you do that?"

Fitz smiled. "Come on. I'll show you."

Fitz unlocked the building, having been gifted with a key for academic achievement, and held the door open for her. They ascended the marble stairs to the top floor and Fitz led Olivia to the north-facing part of the dome. "This glass is modeled after the real sky so we can see all the constellations all the time."

He pointed to a constellation. "This is the Big Dipper. It's the easiest to spot from anywhere. The biggest star is the North Star. Supposedly you can follow that star anywhere you want to go. If you're lost and you know your home is east, you just follow it east. I don't know how true that is but it's certainly a comfort."

Olivia pointed out another constellation. "What's this?"

"It's called Pegasus. Supposedly it looks like a horse but I don't really see it."

"Maybe it's supposed to be Hercules's winged horse like the Greek myth." Olivia tilted her head, squinting at the constellation. She didn't really see a horse either, and certainly not a winged one, but she figured there had to be something to it.

"Well this here's Hercules. Wouldn't he be close to his horse?" Fitz pointed out a constellation above and to the left of Pegasus.

Olivia frowned, unable to tell what Hercules was supposed to be. "That doesn't even look like anything."

"Well supposedly the shapes are much clearer up there in space." He smiled. "I'll let you know if I ever get there."

Fitz took her hand and led her to another group of constellations. "These are the zodiac constellations."

He pointed to one. "This is mine. It's Taurus, the bull."

Olivia read the labels and pointed to hers, located above Fitz's. "This is mine. It's Sagittarius."

"The Archer," Fitz replied. He moved his hand to hers, using it to trace the constellation. "This is supposed to be a bow and arrow and I guess I see it, but it's a little iffy sometimes."

Olivia blushed at his hand on hers, turning to look at him shyly. "Can you see these in space too?"

"Yeah. But these are way out there, beyond the moon they say. I'll get to them though." He smiled. He took hold of her other hand and they stood that way, cast in soft light from the half moon. Olivia could feel the electricity crackling again. She wondered if she would always feel that way when Fitz touched her. She hoped so. Fitz let go of her hands, taking hold of her waist instead, and pulled her close. His kisses had lost their shyness, taking on a sweet familiarity. His lips were more hers than his now, and vice versa. Olivia wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her toes. She could have spent an eternity kissing him, and hopefully, she would.

XXXXX

"You have the most beautiful skin," Fitz murmured, his lips on her shoulder. They sat on the observatory's carpeted floor, sharking a bottle of wine Fitz had brought from his car.

"You should see me in summer. I'm practically golden."

"I can imagine, and I plan to." He smiled, moving his lips to her neck. "This summer, I'm going to make you fall madly in love with me."

"Is that so? And do I get a say in this?" She ran her fingers through his hair.

He gently bit the curve of her jaw. "Not really. You're certainly welcome to object but I'm surprisingly persistent, and crafty as hell."

Olivia laughed as she sipped the wine. "Is that why you brought me here? So the stars and the wine could get me all flustered."

"I just wanted to show you what I do all day but this little setup has gotten me more kisses than I've had in a month's worth of dates." He nuzzled her skin, planting butterfly kisses on the hollow of her throat. "You smell incredible."

Olivia giggled. "Are you putting the moves on me?"

"Is it working?" Olivia turned to face him and Fitz wrapped his arms around her. He was surprised when she allowed him to pull her onto his lap. "Well hot damn. I must be better at this than I thought."

Olivia laughed again, taking hold of his face. "Will you kiss me breathless?"

"Only if you'll do it back."

A/N: Don't forget to review! XOXOXO