My Oxford Year
My Oxford Year
Julia Whelan
She could never have guessed what the year would hold…Gazing up at the dreaming spires of Oxford, American student Ella Duran can’t believe it: she has finally arrived at Oxford University.A new life starts, and not even Ella’s handsome lecturer Jamie Davenport can distract her from her classes. But, as the term goes on, Ella can’t deny the growing attraction between them – an attraction that soon turns to love.And when Ella learns of Jamie’s life-changing secret, their relationship becomes deeper than Ella could have ever anticipated.As Ella’s Oxford year draws to a close, she must decide whether the dreams she arrived with are the same ones with which she will leave…
Copyright (#ulink_2095586c-a1fd-5caf-8f64-8c7ac6bd3de6)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Julia Whelan 2018
Cover design and illustration by Nathan Burton © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Julia Whelan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008278717
Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9780008278724
Version: 2018-06-13
Praise for MY OXFORD YEAR (#ulink_06a4bd63-df39-548d-a7b9-24ede3b922be)
“My Oxford Year is a pure delight with unpredictable depths. Julia Whelan has crafted a story that is as fun and charming as it is powerful and wise. Ella Durran is a breath of fresh air and her story will stay with you long after you’re done.”
—Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
“Full of humor and romance, My Oxford Year has it all—I loved it!”
—Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author
“My Oxford Year is a funny, tender, heartbreaking coming-of-age adventure.”
—Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author
“My Oxford Year is an achingly beautiful debut.”
—Robinne Lee, author of The Idea of You
“Vivid, smart, and utterly charming, My Oxford Year is a heartfelt journey.”
—Allie Larkin, author of Why Can’t I Be You
Contents
Cover (#u7a626339-fce3-5469-9655-19cc56043667)
Title Page (#uba44f7be-8a2e-5317-8fe3-ffa510690c13)
Copyright (#u36e2e0df-49f9-5658-9c06-b40e8fac7e79)
Praise for My Oxford Year (#u605cebd3-19c6-5d62-94d8-7fe60db17e93)
Dedication
Epigraph (#u46aa745d-93f2-5235-85aa-668c86e6d8c0)
Chapter 1 (#ua58f9e91-68fc-5d31-820c-1990dff25557)
Chapter 2 (#u20120624-fb74-5cc9-bb82-1fe2cd0291b9)
Chapter 3 (#u05829d62-69e9-505f-a9d8-9f03849f1525)
Chapter 4 (#ueeab4f1d-1683-5dee-ba61-1aaf520173cb)
Chapter 5 (#ud738ff61-1097-59c3-8f5e-8e496043e245)
Chapter 6 (#u383130ce-7fbb-5b47-a0b9-16070605ad77)
Chapter 7 (#u14232fc3-77e7-51e5-a492-5a58789540f4)
Chapter 8 (#ucb8cdd80-37be-56fc-b40f-b371a81f2b82)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Behind the Book Essay (#litres_trial_promo)
Reading Group Guide (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#uf30af038-98fd-54c5-8bca-d0b6c62f0378)
To those we have lost.Particularly fathers.Particularly mine.
Epigraph (#ulink_06a4bd63-df39-548d-a7b9-24ede3b922be)
I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one’s life. One sees the shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon’s head, and one suffers, because it does not turn one to stone.
Oscar Wilde, letter to Louis Wilkinson,
December 28, 1898
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_49372cb4-0b29-5ac4-b591-d1fb9cf8ddb7)
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!
Robert Browning, “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad,” 1845
Next!”
The customs agent beckons the person in front of me and I approach the big red line, absently toeing the curling tape, resting my hand on the gleaming pipe railing. No adjustable ropes at Heathrow, apparently; these lines must always be long if they require permanent demarcation.
My phone, which I’ve been tapping against my leg, rings. I glance at the screen. I don’t know the number.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Is this Eleanor Durran?”
“Yes?”
“This is Gavin Brookdale.”
My first thought is that this is a prank call. Gavin Brookdale just stepped down as White House chief of staff. He’s run every major political campaign of the last twenty years. He’s a legend. He’s my idol. He’s calling me?
“Hello?”
“Sorry, I—I’m here,” I stammer. “I’m just—”
“Have you heard of Janet Wilkes?”
Have I heard of—Janet Wilkes is the junior senator from Florida and a dark-horse candidate for president. She’s forty-five, lost her husband twelve years ago in Afghanistan, raised three kids on a teacher’s salary while somehow putting herself through law school, and then ran the most impressive grassroots senatorial campaign I’ve ever seen. She also has the hottest human-rights-attorney boyfriend I’ve ever seen, but that’s beside the point. She’s a Gold Star Wife who’s a progressive firebrand on social issues. We’ve never seen anyone like her on the national stage before. The first debate isn’t for another two weeks, on October 13, but voters seem to love her: she’s polling third in a field of twelve. Candidate Number Two is not long for the race; a Case of the Jilted Mistress(es). Number One, however, happens to be the current vice president, George Hillerson, whom Gavin Brookdale (if the Washington gossip mill is accurate) loathes. Still, even the notoriously mercurial Brookdale wouldn’t back a losing horse like Wilkes just to spite the presumptive nominee. If nothing else, Gavin Brookdale likes to win. “Of course I’ve heard of her.”
“She read your piece in The Atlantic. We both did. ‘The Art of Education and the Death of the Thinking American Electorate.’ We were impressed.”
“Thank you,” I say, gushing. “It was something I felt was missing from the discourse—”
“What you wrote was philosophy. It wasn’t policy.”
This brings me up short. “I understand why you’d think that, but I—”
“Don’t worry, I know you have the policy chops. I know you won Ohio for Janey Bennett. The 138th for Carl Moseley. You’re a talented young lady, Eleanor.”
“Mr. Brookdale—”
“Call me Gavin.”
“Then call me Ella. No one calls me Eleanor.”
“All right, Ella, would you like to be the education consultant for Wilkes’s campaign?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Yes!” I bleat. “Yes, of course! She’s incredible—”
“Great. Come down to my office today and we’ll read you in.”
All the breath leaves my body. I can’t seem to get it back. “So … here’s the thing. I—I’m in England.”
“Fine, when you get back.”
“… I get back in June.”
Silence.
“Are you consulting over there?”
“No, I have a … I got a Rhodes and I’m doing a—”
Gavin chortles. “I was a Rhodie.”
“I know, sir.”
“Gavin.”
“Gavin.”
“What are you studying?”
“English language and literature 1830 to 1914.”
Beat. “Why?”
“Because I want to?” Why does it come out as a question?
“You don’t need it. Getting the Rhodes is what matters. Doing it is meaningless, especially in literature from 1830 to 19-whatever. The only reason you wanted it was to help you get that life-changing political job, right? Well, I’m giving that to you. So come home and let’s get down to business.”
“Next!”
A customs agent—stone-faced, turbaned, impressive beard—waves me forward. I take one step over the line, but hold a finger up to him. He’s not even looking at me. “Gavin, can I call—”
“She’s going to be the nominee, Ella. It’s going to be the fight of my life and I need all hands—including yours—on deck, but we’re going to do it.”
He’s delusional. But, my God, what if he’s right? A shiver of excitement snakes through me. “Gavin—”
“Listen, I’ve always backed the winning candidate, but I have never backed someone who I personally, deeply, wanted to win.”
“Miss?” Now the customs agent looks at me.
Gavin chuckles at my silence. “I don’t want to have to convince you, if you don’t feel—”
“I can work from here.” Before he can argue, I continue: “I will make myself available at all hours. I will make Wilkes my priority.” Behind me, a bloated, red-faced businessman reeking of gin moves to squeeze around me. I head him off, grabbing the railing, saying into the phone, “I had two jobs in college while volunteering in field offices and coordinating multiple city council runs. I worked two winning congressional campaigns last year while helping to shape the education budget for Ohio. I can certainly consult for you while reading books and writing about them occasionally.”
“Miss!” the customs agent barks. “Hang up the phone or step aside.” I hold my finger up higher (as if visibility is the problem) and widen my stance over the line.
“What’s your set date for coming home?” Gavin asks.
“June eleventh. I already have a ticket. Seat 32A.”
“Miss!” Both the customs agent and the man bark at me.
I look down at the red line between my sprawled feet. “Gavin, I’m straddling the North Atlantic right now. I literally have one foot in England and one in America and if I don’t hang up they’ll—”
“I’ll call you back.”
He disconnects.
What does that mean? What do I do? Numbly, I hurry to the immigration window, coming face to face with the dour agent. I adopt my best beauty-pageant smile and speak in the chagrined, gee-whiz tone I know he expects. “I am so sorry, sir, my sincerest apologies. My mom’s—”
“Passport.” He’s back to not looking at me. I’m getting the passive-aggressive treatment now. I hand over my brand-new passport with the crisp, unstamped pages. “Purpose of visit?”
“Study.”
“For how long will you be in the country?”
I pause. I glance down at the dark, unhelpful screen of my phone. “I … I don’t know.”
Now he looks up at me.
“A year,” I say. Screw it. “An academic year.”
“Where?”
“Oxford.” Saying the word out loud cuts through everything else. My smile becomes genuine. He asks me more questions, and I suppose I answer, but all I can think is: I’m here. This is actually happening. Everything has come together according to plan.
He stamps my passport, hands it back, lifts his hand to the line.
“Next!”
WHEN I WAS thirteen I read an article in Seventeen magazine called “My Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience,” and it was a personal account of an American girl’s year abroad at Oxford. The classes, the students, the parks, the pubs, even the chip shop (“pictured, bottom left”) seemed like another world. Like slipping through a wormhole into a universe where things were ordered and people were dignified and the buildings were older than my entire country. I suppose thirteen is an important age in every girl’s life, but for me, growing up in the middle of nowhere, with a family that had fallen apart? I needed something to hold on to. I needed inspiration. I needed hope. The girl who wrote the article had been transformed. Oxford had unlocked her life and I was convinced that it would be the key to mine.
So I had made a plan: get to Oxford.
After going through more customs checkpoints, I follow signs for the Central Bus Terminal and find an automatic ticket kiosk. The “£” sign before the amount looks so much better, more civilized, more historical than the American dollar sign, which always seems overly suggestive to me. Like it should be flashing in sequential neon lights above a strip club. $-$-$. GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!
The kiosk’s screen asks me if I want a discounted return ticket (I assume that means round trip), and I pause. My flight back to Washington is on June 11, barely sixteen hours after the official end of Trinity Term. I have no plans to return to the States before then, instead I’m staying here over the two long vacations (in December and March) and traveling. In fact, I already have my December itinerary all planned. I purchase the return ticket, then cross to a bench to wait for the next bus.
My phone dings and I look down. An e-mail from the Rhodes Foundation reminding me about the orientation tomorrow morning.
For whatever reason, out of all the academic scholarships in the world, most people seem to have heard of the Rhodes. It’s not the only prestigious scholarship to be had, but it’s the one that I wanted. Every year, America sends thirty-two of its most overachieving, über-competitive, social-climbing, do-gooder nerds to Oxford. It’s mostly associated with geniuses, power players, global leaders. Let me demystify this: to get a Rhodes, you have to be slightly unhinged. You have to have a stellar GPA, excel in multiple courses of study, be socially entrepreneurial, charity-minded, and athletically proficient (though the last time I did anything remotely athletic I knocked out Jimmy Brighton’s front tooth with a foul ball, so take that criterion with a grain of salt). I could have gone after other scholarships. There’s the Marshall, the Fulbright, the Watson, but the Rhodies are my people. They’re the planners.
The other finalist selected from my district (a math/econ/classics triple major and Olympic archer who had discovered that applying game theory to negotiations with known terrorists makes the intel 147 percent more reliable), told me, “I’ve been working toward getting a Rhodes since freshman year.” To which I replied, “Me too.” He clarified, “Of high school.” To which I replied, “Me too.”
While, yes, the Rhodes is a golden ticket to Oxford, it’s also a built-in network and the means to my political future. It ensures that people who would have otherwise discounted me—this unconnected girl from the soybean fields of Ohio—will take a second, serious look. People like Gavin Brookdale.
Going after things the way I do, being who I am, has alienated my entire hometown and most of my extended family. My mom hadn’t gone to college and my dad had dropped out after two years because he’d thought it was more important to change the world than learn about it, and there I was, this achievement machine making everyone around me vaguely uncomfortable. She thinks she’s better than everyone else.
Honestly, I don’t. But I do think I’m better than what everyone, besides my dad, told me I was.
I WAKE UP in a moment of panic when the bus I’d boarded back at Heathrow jerks to a stop, sending the book on my lap to the floor. Hastily retrieving it, I force my sleepy eyes to take in the view from the floor-to-ceiling window in front of me. I chose the seat on the upper level at the very front, wanting to devour every bit of English countryside on the way to Oxford. Then I slept through it.
Pushing through the fog in my head, I peer outside. A dingy bus stop in front of a generic cell-phone store. I look for a street sign, trying to get my bearings. My info packet from the college said to get off at the Queens Lane stop on High Street. This can’t be it. I glance behind me and no one on the bus is moving to get off, so I settle back into my seat.
The bus starts up again, and I breathe deeply, trying to wake up. I jam the book into my backpack. I’d wanted to finish it before my first class tomorrow, but I can’t focus. I was too excited to eat or sleep on the plane. My empty stomach and all-nighter are catching up to me. The time difference is catching up to me. The last twelve years spent striving for this moment is catching up to me.
Inside my jacket pocket, my phone vibrates. I pull it out and see the same number from earlier. I take a deep breath and preemptively answer, “Gavin, listen, I was thinking, let’s do a trial period of, say, a month, and if you feel that I need to be there—”
“Not necessary.”
My throat tightens. “Please, just give me thirty days to prove that—”
“It’s fine. I made it work. Just remember who comes first.”
Elation breaks through the fog. My fist clenches in victory and my smile reaches all the way to my temples. “Absolutely,” I say in my most professional voice. “Thank you so much for this opportunity. You won’t be disappointed.”
“I know that. That’s why I hired you. What’s your fee? FYI: there’s no money.”
There’s never any money. I tell him my fee anyway and we settle on something that I can live with. The Rhodes is paying my tuition and lodging and I get a small stipend for living expenses on top of that. I decide right then that what Gavin’s going to pay me will go directly into my travel budget.
“Now go,” he says, “have fun. You’ve clearly earned it. There’s a pub you should visit in the center of town. The Turf. See where one of your fellow Rhodes scholars—a young William Jefferson Clinton—‘didn’t inhale.’”
“Ha, got it. Will do.”
“Just take your phone with you. Your phone is an appendage, not an accessory. Okay?”
I nod even though he can’t see me. “Okay. It’s a plan.” Just as I say this, the bus rounds a bend and there she is:
Oxford.
Beyond a picturesque bridge, the narrow two-lane road continues into a bustling main street, lined on each side by buildings in a hodgepodge of architectural styles, no room to breathe between them. Like the crowd at the finish line of a marathon, these buildings cheer me on, welcoming me to their city. Some are topped with sloped, slate roofs, others with battlements. Some of the larger buildings have huge wooden gates that look as if they were carved in place, a fusion of timeless wood and stone that steals my breath. Maybe those doors lead to some of the thirty-eight individual Oxford colleges? Imagining it, dreaming of it all these years, doesn’t do it justice.
I look skyward. Punctuating the horizon are the tips of other ancient buildings, high points of stone bordering the city like beacons.
“The City of Dreaming Spires,” I murmur to myself.
“Indeed it is,” Gavin says in my ear. I’d forgotten he was still on the line.
That’s what they call Oxford. A title well deserved. Because that means, before it was my dream or Seventeen magazine girl’s dream, it was someone else’s dream as well.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_1bbce57e-4cff-59f7-b3d2-00d6dab5669f)
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
What’s the best thing in the world?
—Something out of it, I think.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Best Thing in the World,” 1862
I wish I could say that Oxford smells like parchment and cinnamon or something poetic, but right now it just smells like city: bus diesel, damp pavement, and the aroma of French roast wafting from the coffee shop across the street.
The sidewalks are narrow on High Street, edged by tall stone walls on one side and low, worn curbs on the other. The narrowness heightens their crowdedness. Students rushing, tourists lingering, the former annoyed by the latter. Those who speak English are almost as incomprehensible to me as those who don’t. My ear hasn’t yet adjusted to the accent and passing dialogue is entirely lost on me.
It’s just another day in Oxford, but to me it’s magical.
As the bus pulls away I gather my luggage and try to sidestep a large family bowed over a map, their voices agitated and overlapping. After a moment, the father’s head pops up and he lifts the map into the air, out of reach, his patience snapping. “Awright, awright, step off it now, wouldya? We’re goin’ this way!”
Before I can steer clear of the family, a flock of bicycles, a veritable swarm, goes flying past, grazing my luggage and whipping my hair in its wake. Their riders wear some kind of sporting attire (rugby, maybe?), smelling of boy-sweat and new-mown grass as they go by, hooting and hollering. Boys are boys in any country, apparently. The last rider snatches the map right out of the father’s hand, lifting it victoriously, crying out, “Et in Arcadia ego!”
Oxford: where even the jocks speak Latin.
THERE’S NOTHING I have to do for the Rhodes, per se. It’s not a degree or title in its own right. What I do—or don’t do—at Oxford is between my academic department and me. Also, between my college and me.
The college I’ll be affiliated with is Magdalen, which, for reasons unknown to me, is pronounced “maudlin.” Founded in 1458, it boasts a great hall, a deer park, an iconic bell tower, medieval cloisters, and approximately six hundred students. I did not request Magdalen because of some heavily considered academic reason; I requested Magdalen because it was Oscar Wilde’s college.
I approach the gate, carefully navigating the people streaming in and out, and lug my baggage into a portico. In front of me, straight out an open Gothic-style door, I glimpse a cobblestone courtyard with a charming three-story sand-colored dormered building in the distance. On the portico’s flagstones, sandwich boards announce the times of day the college is open to visitors and advertise a tour of the fifteenth-century kitchens. To my left are glass-enclosed bulletin boards with notices and reminders posted haphazardly: “Have you paid your battels?” “Get all your uni gear! New Student Discount at Summer Eights on Broad, show your Bod card.” “Fancy a nip before Hilary’s first OKB bop? 8, Friday noughth week, JCR.” Seeing the words in writing, I realize the accent isn’t the only obstacle. To my right, wood paneling and two arched glass windows cordon off a sort of office, like an Old West bank just asking to be held up.
I round the corner and spy, behind the glass, an older man in a red, pilled sweater, white collared shirt, and tie. He stands over an archaic copier the size of an SUV, his shoulders hunched in consternation, long neck and mostly bald head giving him the appearance of a Galápagos tortoise. He mutters something and kicks the bottom of the machine. It whirs like a propjet engine and slowly spits out sheets of green paper.
“Hi!” I chirp.
“Help you?” he asks, not looking up, paging methodically through another stack of papers, occasionally licking his finger.
“I’m …” I hesitate. “Checking in? I guess?”
“Student?” he asks.
“Yeah. Yes.”
“Fresher?”
I have no idea what he just said. “What?”
“Fresher?”
I don’t answer. I’m afraid to answer.
Finally he looks up, exasperated, and I realize he’s been counting the papers and, more, that I’ve interrupted him. “First year. Are you a first year?”
“I’m a graduate student. But I’m flattered, sir.”
He sighs. “American. Name?” He goes back to counting.
“Eleanor Durran. But, please, call me Ella.”
He does no such thing. He moves to a long wooden desk and hands me a piece of paper and a pen. I glance at it. It’s a contract that says I can’t burn down my room. I sign. He slides an envelope the size of a playing card across the counter to me, my initials written on the front. He walks around the long desk and comes out a side door, moving to a wall of small cubbyholes, similar to the kind in a kindergarten classroom. As he speaks, he bends one green paper into each hole.
“This is your pidge. Check it daily for post. You’re room thirteen, staircase four. That’s Swithuns staircase four, mind you. We don’t make a habit of housing graduate students inside walls, but there’s a shortage in graduate housing this year. Besides, I’ve found Americans rather enjoy being ‘behind the gates.’ Something to do with that boy wizard?”
“Harry Pott—”
“Meals are at your discretion. We have Formal Hall on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Gowns must be worn. Nip into a shop on Turl for one. Boiler won’t come on till October fifteenth, no heat till then, so don’t ask for it. You’ll find two keys in the envelope; the electronic card will get you in the gates and any of the public rooms after hours, the other is a proper key for your room. It is irreplaceable. Don’t lose it.”
I understand maybe half of what he’s said. “Thanks. What’s your name?” I ask.
His turtle neck recedes. “Hugh,” he grunts, turning back to the pidges.
“I’m Ella.”
“We’ve established that, Miss Durran.”
“Well,” I say, grabbing the handle of my suitcase, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Hugh.”
“Of all the gin joints, Miss Durran,” he mutters. But I can see the hint of a smile. I mean, it’s reluctant and has a rusty, unused quality about it, like an old bicycle pump, but it’s there. “You’ll be finding staircase four just outside the lodge—” I open my mouth to speak, but he forges on, “This is the lodge, and you will exit through that door there, cross St. John’s quad, turn left at Swithuns, and then you will pass, on your left, staircase one, and then you will pass, also on your left, staircase two, and if you persevere you shall invariably come to staircase four.” I try again, opening my mouth to speak, but he deftly continues: “At which point, your room will be on the left of the uppermost landing, at the very top.”
The words “the very top” give me pause. I’m once again reminded that I haven’t eaten since I left the States.
“Hugh, would you mind if I left my bags here and got some food first?”
“As you will, Miss Durran.”
“I’ll be quick,” I assure him, but Hugh’s turned back to his copier. “Any recommendations?”
“Plenty of options on the High.”
The High. So much cooler than High Street.
I wheel my bag next to the copier, take my book out of my backpack, turn to go, and stop abruptly. A boy pokes his head around the entrance to the lodge and tentatively steps forward. He moves like a mouse. He’s pudgy around the middle and his hair is styled in two pointed fans on the top of his head, resembling ears. He looks like Gus Gus from Cinderella.
I’m so tired.
“Yes,” Hugh snaps at the boy, instantly impatient.
He looks as if he wants to flee, but says, “Yes, erm, sorry, sir, I’m going to, erm, uh, Sebastian Melmoth’s room?”
“Not again,” Hugh mutters. “Posh prat.” I can’t help but smile. Someone actually said “posh prat” in real life, in real time, right in front of me. Hugh then barks at the boy, “Don’t just stand there, come in, come in.” Gus Gus scurries past us. As Hugh shakes his head, I walk back out to the High.
Taking an arbitrary right, I journey back the way I came, glancing at my watch. As if on cue, a clock tower somewhere begins belting out five resounding chimes. Goose bumps crawl up my arms. If I weren’t exhausted I’d probably start crying.
I glance across the street and stop.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The sign still looks exactly like it did in the magazine.
THE HAPPY COD CHIP SHOP.
I look left and move to cross the street, dropping one foot off the curb when the sudden bleat of a horn makes me leap back onto the sidewalk. I clutch my book to my chest, keeping my heart from falling out. A classic silver convertible, like something out of a Bond movie, flies past, nearly running me over. I catch a glimpse of the careless driver, whose longish brown hair swirls in the wind as he zooms off. In the passenger seat, an equally windswept blond woman turns around to stare at me, her mouth wide open in a shocked, but unabashed, laugh.
“Not funny!” I want to shout after them, but they’re already well past me. As my heart begins beating normally again, I take a deep breath and step off the curb once more. This time, making sure to look right.
A TINY BELL jingles as I enter the Happy Cod. The proprietor, a stocky, red-nosed man with a white towel slung over his shoulder, glances up cheerfully. “Hallo!”
The small, charming room has a row of wooden booths on one side and a bar with stools on the other. The man stands at the back, behind a small service counter. There’s a stool there as well. He pats the counter in welcome. “What can I get you?”
“Fish and chips!”
“Comin’ right up.” He turns to his fryer as I settle in, running my hands along the old, worn wood and moving around on the squishy black vinyl seat. Everything feels just as I imagined it would. Smells just as I imagined it would. Even the proprietor is exactly as I imagined.
“I’m Ella, by the way.”
He spins back, ceremoniously wipes his hand on his towel, and offers it to me. “Simon.” I take his hand, meeting his firm shake with one of my own. He grins. “Where you from, Ella?”
“Ohio, originally. But I live in D.C. now.” Simon nods vaguely and leans his elbows on the counter, looking down at the book I’ve put there.
It’s a meager hardcover, bound in that linen material that only academic books are covered in. It cost me eighty dollars on eBay; the price of these books is inversely proportional to the size of their audience. He reads the title aloud, picking over each word as if he’s selecting ripe tomatoes: “The Victorian Conundrum: How Contemporary Poetry Shaped Gender Politics and Sexuality 1837 to 1898, by Roberta Styan.” He glances up at me dubiously.
“It’s a real page-turner,” I say, and he guffaws. “No, I’m doing a master’s.” I tap the author’s name on the cover. “Mostly with Professor Styan. Do you know her?” Simon shakes his head and a beeping noise comes from the fryer. He moves to it. “She’s, like, a deity in the lit crit world. Her specialty is Tennyson, which isn’t exactly my area. Not at all, actually. I work in politics. American politics. But this whole year for me is about pushing boundaries, and exploring new things, and basically just, like, leveling up. As a person?” Why am I rambling? Why do I feel like a fog is rolling into my head? Oh. Jet lag.
Simon wraps my whole meal in a cone of brown butcher paper surrounded by newspaper and offers it to me like a bouquet of roses. “Tradition,” he boasts. “Some other chippies use them plastic takeaway containers. Flattens me.” He hands me a paper plate, saying, “For sauce,” and gestures to a counter full of condiments at the front of the restaurant. “That’s me own twist on tradition. Used to be you’d come in here and get curry or peas or tartar and that was that. Give ’em a go. Promise you won’t be disappointed.” He winks at me.
Before I can reply, the bell jingles, and Simon turns his attention to the door. “JD!” he exclaims with a bright smile, opening the hinged counter and moving toward the entrance.
“Simon, my good man,” a male voice replies.
I focus on the culinary perfection in front of me. God, the smell. I take a bite. Heaven. I have to restrain myself from moaning.
I hear the man say, “Two fish and chips and two fizzies. Cheers, mate.” His voice is so melodious, so low and soothing, it should be accompanied by choral music.
Then a female voice says, “No chips for me. And make mine diet.”
Peripherally, I sense them settle in at a booth near the door as Simon comes back around. I take another mouthful of the perfectly prepared fish and this time am not so successful at stifling my moan. Simon, tending to the fryer, throws me a grin over his shoulder.
I hear the woman behind me murmur, “I thought you were taking me to the best place in Oxford.”
“And so I have,” the man says.
Pulling another chip out of the cone, I’m absorbed in trying to read pieces of the paper’s stories and advertisements, but the fog keeps rolling in. A few minutes later, Simon pops the countertop once more and lumbers over to the couple, delivering their meals. “Cheers,” the man says, then, as Simon comes back through the counter, “Behold the potato! Divine tuber. Staple of the gods. How we adore thee!”
“They give you a fat arse,” the woman replies.
“No, no,” the man argues, “The oil does. The oil! Yet the potato takes the blame. It’s a bloody outrage, I tell you.” He laughs. She doesn’t.
Simon catches my eye and rolls his. I roll mine back and we smile, comrades-in-arms. He nods toward the condiment station, whispering, “Really, give ’em a go.”
“Oh, right! I forgot.” I pick up my plate and walk to the counter to survey the many options.
I hear the man continue, “Now, the Irish! They knew the value of the potato. Did you know that when the Irish were deprived of the potato for just a few years, a million people died?”
There’s a pause. “Why didn’t they just eat something else?”
My hand punches the tarter sauce pump and the thick paste overshoots my plate, splattering onto the counter.
“What, like cake?” the man asks dryly.
“Sure,” she answers, immune to sarcasm.
I pick up a bottle labeled Brown Sauce (not exactly descriptive) and pour that onto my plate, too. Then I take a squeeze of mustard, a dollop of mayonnaise, something that looks like chutney but I’m not sure. I feel obligated to take a little of everything, not wanting to disappoint Simon. The plate looks like a painter’s palette.
I hear Golden Voice get out of the booth. “Why didn’t they just eat something else? Excellent question! Let them eat cake! But, see, they’d run out. Not a slice of cake in the entire country. Bloody awful. What was the Empire coming to, eh?” Dry British wit on full display. Always entertaining and yet somehow thoroughly obnoxious. “Now,” he continues, “there’s a home-cooked meal in it for you—”
She cuts him off, using a low, come-hither voice. “I’d rather those earrings we saw earlier.”
“You’ll have to do a bit more than trivia for diamonds, love,” he says offhandedly. The jerk. “A home-cooked meal if you can tell me the year the Potato Famine occurred. You have ten seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight—”
I realize I’m just standing there in my encroaching fog, listening to this ridiculous conversation, letting my fish and chips get cold. Snapping out of it, I turn around to head back to my seat and crash spectacularly into Golden Voice. Two planets colliding. The entire plate of condiments flips backward into my chest and I teeter, about to go down. A knightly hand reaches out and clutches my forearm, steadying me. My other hand grabs his shoulder.
Maybe he’s not a jerk, after all.
Righting myself, I catch sight of the woman he’s been talking with. Long blond hair. Windswept. Mouth open wide in a shocked laugh.
My gaze whips back to him, just as his head pops up, brown hair mussed.
Our eyes lock.
The fog lifts and I blurt, “You!”
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_2df92535-8e64-5a3e-b83a-2d0baadce7be)
He sits in a beautiful parlor,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
Edward Lear, “How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear!,” 1871
Me?” he inquires, a deer-in-headlights look in his eyes.
“You!” I repeat.
We’re still facing each other. He’s still grasping my forearm, I’m still clutching his shoulder. We’re right up against each other, face to face, eye to eye, plate to breasts.
His stare activates. He comes to life. “Right, okay, here’s what we do. Simon?” he calls, but Simon’s already tossing the towel from his shoulder and You deftly snatches it out of the air. “Lean forward,” he encourages. I bend at the waist and he peels the plate away. I watch the myriad sauces plop from my chest to the linoleum floor, a poor man’s Jackson Pollock.
The blonde laughs.
I stand upright as the man sets the plate on the counter, then moves toward me with the towel, heading for my chest.
My hand shoots out. “Don’t. I got it.” With my bare hands, I rub at my shirt like a finger-painting toddler, making it ten times worse. The clamminess is starting to seep through the fabric onto my skin. I feel him staring at me. “What?” I ask, all contained calm.
“Do we know each other?”
“You almost hit me with your car!”
“Was that you?”
I grind my jaw, keeping my mouth shut.
“May I … assist?” the man lilts with a tone that only ever means one thing.
I freeze.
He can’t be.
I look up at him.
He is.
He’s flirting with me. Holding the towel poised and ready, all dashing smile and twinkling eyes.
My head explodes. “Are you kidding me?”
“I would never dare kid about such matters,” he charms.
“You’re flirting? You should be apologizing!”
“For flirting?”
“For nearly running me over!”
“You’re suggesting I apologize for something I didn’t intentionally do? I’d rather apologize for the flirting.” He’s smiling.
“Y-you … you posh prat!”
“Ooh. Posh prat. Nice choice of alliterative spondee.” He’s still smiling. “So you’re American. Right, here’s the one thing I know about Americans: they tend to get themselves run over in this country by stepping directly into oncoming traffic.”
“So it’s my fault?!” I shout.
“Another thing I know about Americans: they tend to shout. Here.” He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a brightly colored wad of money. He peels off a bill. He holds it out to me.
“What is that?” I seethe. Quietly.
“Specifically? It’s a fifty-pound note.”
“I don’t want your money! I want … I want—” What do I want? The fog is thickening again.
“Oh, don’t look so outraged. Take it. You said it yourself. I’m the posh prat.” He holds the money out again. “The unemotional cad who—absent any genuine remorse or feeling—can but only buy the regard of others.”
I jerk my head to the blonde. “So I see.”
This strikes him. His face changes. The open, breezy, devil-may-care smile drops away and a curtain closes behind his eyes. The show is over. He actually looks hurt. Good. “Keep your money,” I say, capitalizing on this moment of clarity, of the tables having turned, seizing a parting shot. “Buy the historian some carbs.”
Walking back to the counter, I pick up my book and coat, digging in the pocket for some cash. I plop down twenty pounds, grab what remains of my fish bouquet, catch Simon’s smiling eyes, and head for the door. “See you later, Simon!”
“Looking forward to it, Ella from Ohio!” He chuckles.
“Bonne chance,” the man calls dryly, clearly having rallied. Then, adopting an even plummier, more clichéd British accent, adds, “Keep calm and look right!”
Ignoring him, I open the door. The bell jingles and I pause at the threshold. I can’t resist. I turn back to him. “The Potato Famine was in 1845. Asshole.”
SO THAT WENT well.
Foggy, filthy, and suddenly exhausted, I hoof back to Magdalen, shoving fried fish into my mouth as I go. It’s not my imagination that people give me a wide berth.
Now that I’m out in the fresh air, the beginning twinges of embarrassment set in. Yes, I’m jet-lagged, out of my comfort zone, but still …
I hate guys like that. I went to college with guys like that. I interned on the Hill with guys like that. Guys who think they can buy respect with Daddy’s money, and then seal the deal with a wink and a smile. Guys who play a game, who set their trap as if it’s the most ingenious feat of engineering ever devised and expect you to fall all over yourself congratulating their effort.
Look. I’m not drop-dead gorgeous or anything, but with the right lighting, the right hair and makeup effort on my part, I’ve been known to turn a few heads. I have this wild Irish hair that goes everywhere, a wide Julia Roberts mouth, and big, round eyes that make me look more innocent than I actually am. The approachable, girl-next-door type. The type who might be flattered, for instance, by your flirting after you’ve nearly run her over and then destroyed her shirt.
Unfortunately for guys like that, looks can be deceiving.
I stumble through the Magdalen gates and into the lodge. No Hugh. I continue on through the other door and into the courtyard. The sun dips in the sky and the sandstone buildings are hued pink. I wobble across the cobblestones and try to follow Hugh’s directions in my clouded head.
A large L-shaped building appears, embracing a giant lawn so finely coiffed it would shame a golf course. Every thirty feet or so, little staircases, bordered by mullioned windows, ascend into the depth and darkness of the building. I find number four and start my climb with the single-minded determination of the proverbial horse returning to the barn.
The first few stairs are granite, but they soon become old slabs of stone, each step worn into a bowed smile from centuries of shoes. The stairway continues to spiral and soon narrows into planks of rickety wood. It’s so steep that I find myself climbing the steps as if they were a ladder, ending up on hands and knees on a small five-by-five landing, a door on each side of me.
I’m about to stand and dig in my pocket for the key Hugh gave me when it occurs to me that my bags are still downstairs in the lodge. I tip over onto my side with a loud groan. I could sleep right here. I just might.
The door on the right opens and Gus Gus quickly emerges, stepping over me casually as if I’d been there as long as the staircase, and disappears down the stairs. A voice from the open door calls after him, “Your beauty will fade, as will my interest. Be gone with you!”
A figure appears in the doorway and recoils at the sight of me. It’s wearing a red dressing gown and holding a tumbler of amber liquid. Its free hand finds the gap in the robe and clutches it closed, like an aging Tennessee Williams heroine.
“Hello!” I croak.
“Hel-lo,” it replies haltingly, a small, willowy male with wavy, chin-length, chestnut hair. He peers at me then murmurs, almost to himself, “Is it lost?”
Hey. When I use a dehumanizing pronoun, I only think it. I don’t say it right to the pronoun’s face. I stumble to my feet. “I live here.” I gesture to the door behind me. “I’m Ella.” He looks me over, nose crinkling at either my appearance or smell, I can’t tell which. Both are on par with a county-fair trash can at the moment. I soldier on, remembering who Gus Gus told Hugh he was looking for, back in the lodge. “And you’re Sebastian Melmoth, right?”
Now he gives me the side-eye, suspicious. “That’s right. It’s a family name. But how—”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he drawls, mocking my accent. “Goes back centuries. But how did you—”
“I didn’t know that was possible.”
“What?”
“To be descended from someone who didn’t actually exist.” He side-eyes me from the other direction. “Correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I read his stuff, and I’m tired, jet-lagged, and, you know, American, but Sebastian Melmoth was Oscar Wilde’s pseudonym. Right?”
Admittedly, I’m getting a certain perverse pleasure from this.
Called out, the guy just glares at me, then heaves a condescending sigh, turns on his heel, and goes back into his room, slamming the door for good measure.
I take a stabilizing breath, retrieve the ancient-looking key from my pocket, and assess the antique keyhole lock. I slide the key into it and turn. It sounds like I’m unlocking a vault. I push open the tired hinged door and enter the room. My room.
The sun has almost set, so the room is dim. So dim that I fail to see my luggage in the middle of the floor and trip over it. Still, Hugh is my hero right now. I fumble for a light switch and find it to the right of the door.
The room is quaint, with an A-frame ceiling and exposed wooden beams. Between the beams, the ceiling is painted white and the walls are Victorian-era plaster, even peeling romantically in places. Pushed up against the far wall is a single twin bed centered to the apex of the roofline. There’s a functional dresser on one wall and a low built-in bookcase beside it. To the left there’s a little bathroom with an RV-size shower and Barbie doll sink, and to the right is a single, double-paned dormer window. I go to it.
The light is fading, but I glimpse the outline of a spectacular view. I can see Magdalen Tower from here, and slate-shingled rooftops in between and beyond. The top of one of the oak trees in the quad below fills in the bottom border of the window.
I could get used to this.
I quickly shower off, reluctantly throw away my shirt, change into some sweats, connect to the college Wi-Fi, and check my e-mail.
Four sequential messages from my mother greet me.
Just checking in. Let me know when you land.
Let me know when you get settled.
Are you settled? Is something wrong? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?
Ella please respond. I would call the college but I don’t know how to call international and the Skype thing you set up for me says I need money to call. I thought the point of it was that it’s free??? Anyway, just let me know you’re safe because in my bones I think something might be wrong.
I heave a sigh. Now is not the time for her to go all Chicken Little on me. I type:
Tell your bones to relax. I’m fine. Just exhausted. Will write more tomorrow.
I hesitate, as I always do at writing “I love you,” so I just write, XO, E.
I glance at a few more e-mails in my inbox, but everything is becoming one big blur. I look at the clock on my computer: 6:30. A totally reasonable bedtime.
For the most part I sleep soundly, but every time the clock tower chimes, my dreams change like slides in a projector. At the seven o’clock chime, the door to my room opens.
It takes me a moment to realize I’m no longer dreaming.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_bd828c78-6d4b-59f8-bc00-9d3689217393)
Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight …
Edward Fitzgerald translation, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859
I bolt upright. A squat, white-haired woman wearing a functional gray apron walks into my room, humming.
I scream.
She screams.
We look at each other.
“Oooh!” she exclaims, grabbing her chest. “You put the heart crossways in me, love!” She shuffles farther into my room. “Go back t’ sleep, don’t mind old E.”
My eyes begin to clear and I notice she’s carrying a bucket. She waddles into the bathroom.
I get out of bed and stagger after her. She’s bent over the toilet, scrubbing and humming away. “Oh, y-you don’t have to do that,” I stammer.
“Bless you.” She keeps right on doing it.
I hold out my hand. “I’m Ella.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off the task at hand. “Eugenia, love.”
I drop my hand. “So, you’re a maid? We get a maid?” I cringe. “I mean, a housekeeper? Or room attendant, or—”
She stands upright and looks at me sternly, a schoolmarm in a past life. “I’m yer scout, dearie.” Then she moves to the shower, wiping it down with a rag. “Did that muddleheaded porter of a Hugh not tell ya you’d be havin’ a scout?”
“How often do you come?” I ask.
“Why every day, o’ course!” She turns to the sink, polishes the knobs. “’Cept for Saturdays. And Sundays. And bank holidays, fer certain. Seven sharp, on the chime.” She grins at me. “But don’t worry, love. Quiet as a church mouse, in and out in two minutes without anyone knowin’ the wiser. Just ask yer neighbor. Been cleanin’ his rooms for four years now and I only ever seen him with his eyes open but once, and that was comin’ home after a night out.” She laughs to herself. “He’s a jolly one, he is.” She changes the trash bag with a magician-like flourish of the wrist.
This whole arrangement is very Upstairs, Downstairs. And she’s no spring chicken. My midwestern side is uncomfortable having a septuagenarian in service to me, no matter how much pride she seems to take in her job. “Eugenia, you really don’t have to come every day.”
She’s already at the door, bucket in hand. She smiles, grabs the doorknob, and says, “Right then, see you tomorrow, love.” And she’s gone.
AFTER CUTTING THROUGH some texts and e-mails (three from Gavin), I shower, twist my hair into a messy topknot, slap on some mascara and lip gloss, and slip into one of my more responsible-looking blazers. I’m out the door by nine with an unearned sense of victory. I thank Hugh for his very Remains of the Day baggage-delivery service last night and get a distracted grunt in reply.
With an hour to spare before the Rhodes orientation, I grab a bottled Frappucino and some cookie-like thing called a flapjack from some bodega-like thing called a newsagent’s and start wandering.
The High is quiet this early, the shops’ gates still down, the restaurants dark. But a simple right turn, just before a medieval church, puts me in a cobblestone alleyway that opens up to a city alive. I’m in Radcliffe Square, and I stop to take it all in. The iconic, cylindrical Radcliffe Camera stands before me, with its neoclassical architecture and golden walls. It’s as if I’ve stumbled onto an anthill. Students and tourists go in and out of gates on the square’s periphery, disappearing into the basement of a church, emerging with coffee and pastry bags. Interesting. I regret my bottle of newsagent’s coffee.
I’m just turning around like the second hand of a clock, taking it all in. The architecture, the landscaping, the way people are dressed, the way they sound. The constant tring-tring of bicycle bells. I move through the square, past the Bodleian Library, and around the Sheldonian Theatre, its surrounding pillars topped with thirteen stone busts of nameless men. Across the street, tourist shops hawk Oxford gear next to a couple of charming-looking pubs and a few gated colleges. The stores are painted in cheery blues and reds, yellows and whites. A couple of Union Jacks fly out over the sidewalk, where a smattering of café tables and chairs waits for patrons in the dewy early-morning chill.
It’s a more cosmopolitan environment than I expected. It feels old, yes, but it’s thriving. History with a pulse. Warm-blooded ruins. I hear Mandarin, Italian, French, Arabic, and an assortment of English accents. There’s a startling number of Americans. It’s as if this city belongs to everyone. If you’re here, you belong here. It’s like a timeless, ramshackle International Space Station.
At the end of Broad Street, in front of Balliol College, there’s an innocuous-looking cobblestone cross embedded in the street. A memorial, it turns out, for the three Oxford Martyrs, Protestant bishops who were burned at the stake by Queen Mary in the 1550s. I realize, with a start, that one of these men was Thomas Cranmer, the man responsible for annulling the marriage of Mary’s parents, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.
My brain tries to reboot. I’m standing on the spot where Thomas Cranmer died. It’s not blocked off, no one’s charging admission. It’s barely even marked. It’s just part of the Oxford landscape. And not thirty feet away, I can buy Oxford University sweatpants and TARDIS cookie tins.
A chill goes up my spine. This moment of cognitive dissonance is just the beginning. Toto, we’re not in Ohio anymore.
Gauging distance in this town is impossible. Maybe it’s the uneven, cobblestoned terrain. Maybe it’s the pods of tourists taking up every inch of sidewalk. Maybe it’s the meandering streets and alleys. I love every cobblestone, pod, and meander, but I misjudge how long it will take to get to the Rhodes House and I end up finding it with less than a minute to spare.
I race up the steps. Just as I grab the door handle, my phone rings. Shit. Even though it’s only five A.M. in Washington, apparently we’re open for business.
“Gavin, hi!” I answer.
A chuckle greets me from the other end of the phone. “Sorry to disappoint, but this isn’t Gavin.”
I freeze, still holding the door handle. “Senator Wilkes,” I manage. “W-what a nice surprise.”
“Ella Durran. I’m a fan.”
I can’t believe this is happening; I’m here, I’m there, I’m—starting to hyperventilate. Chill. “I’m a huge fan of yours,” I gush. “I’m so excited to—”
“Excuse me?”
I spin around. I’m blocking the entrance. “Sorry,” I whisper to the woman trying to get around me. I glance inside the building as she opens the door. The place is packed. I’m two minutes late. They’re starting.
There’s no way I’m hanging up on the next possible president of the United States, who says breezily, “Well, let’s get to it. Education is going to be the cornerstone of my campaign and you are a key part of the strategy. I loved what you wrote. I had three boys in the Florida public school system while trying to put myself through grad school in my thirties. Trust me, I get it.”
Through the door, I hear the squeal of a microphone coming to life and then an amplified British voice saying, “Everyone, please take your seats …”
“Senator—”
“Call me Janet.”
“Thank you, I just want to say …” Breathe. Speak. “Anything you need, anything at all, I’m here for you and Gavin. It’s an honor to be working for you.”
“Working with me, Ella. This is a partnership. We’re going to do great things together. That said, we’ll try to bother you as little as possible. We want you to enjoy your time at Oxford. Right, Gavin?”
“Absolutely,” I hear him say in the background in a tone of voice I haven’t heard from him before. It’s patient and ingratiating. Just as he’s my boss, she’s his.
The door to the Rhodes House opens from the inside, and a man steps out, bending his head and bringing his cell phone to his ear. He answers it lowly. “This is Connor.”
We glance at each other with mirrored looks of chagrin. He has a really nice face: chiseled jaw, sloped nose, bright brown eyes, and Stephanopoulos hair. This is what I used to imagine a Rhodes scholar looked like. The prep school quarterback from a J. D. Salinger novel.
“Well, Ella, I won’t take up any more of your time. I just wanted to say welcome aboard.”
“Thank you. I won’t let you down.”
“Never crossed my mind. Wait, Gavin wants to say something. I’ll hand you over.”
Do I tell him I’m missing orientation? Do I tell him I’ll call him back? Do I have a choice? Gavin’s voice comes on the line. “You have a minute? I can get Priya Banergee right now for a conference call. You in?”
Priya Banergee is a pollster. I should hear what she has to say. I look wistfully at the Rhodes House door even as I say, “Of course.” They patch Priya in as I plop down on the top step. My partner in cell-phone purgatory takes up residence on the other side of the stair. We give each other a resigned grin. As he speaks into his phone, I find myself assessing him.
Jesus. That is one attractive Rhodie.
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, after listening to an endless stream of data and contributing almost nothing to the conversation, we wrap up. I disconnect and take a breath, then glance over at the guy, who’s also just hanging up.
Smiling, he says, “Can we just agree that anything either of us might have overheard doesn’t leave this stoop?”
I snort. “Deal. But can I ask who you work for? Lobbyist?”
He nods. “Health care.”
“Which group?”
“PMR?” Public Medical Relations. The biggest healthcare lobbying group in D.C., and he says it as if questioning whether I’ve heard of it. Like when you ask someone where they went to college and they say, “Harvard?”
“You’re inside the Beltway as well?” he asks. I nod. He leans over, bracing a palm on the cool marble step and extending his other hand to me. “Connor Harrison-Smith.”
“Ella Durran.”
God, he has a killer smile. Wouldn’t that be just my luck; I come all the way to England and fall for a guy who probably lives a block from me in D.C. He gestures toward the door. “You wanna?” I nod and we both stand, collecting our things. “So, not that I overheard anything, obviously, but this is a new job for you?”
“Yeah. You?”
“No. I quit. I’m just helping out until the new guy’s up to speed.”
I make a show of contemplating this. “Interesting. So you’re just gonna, like, study for the year?”
“I’m just gonna, like, drink a lot of really good beer, is what I’m gonna do.” We both chuckle. “I’m doing a master’s in global health. You?”
“Literature.”
“Really?”
Everyone always sounds surprised when I say this. “Yup; 1830 to 1914.”
We move toward the door. “Huh.” A wrinkle appears on his brow as he puzzles this out. He’s adorable. “Where’d you do your undergrad?”
“Georgetown. You?”
“Harvard?”
I smile.
He opens the door and holds it for me. A gentleman.
After getting an abbreviated orientation from a harried administrator (go here, do this, see this person for this thing, don’t do this, sign this), I glance at my watch, and I only have ten minutes to get to my first class at the English faculty building. I seem to be the only person rushing out. I think I’m definitely the only one doing a master’s in English. Whenever I say what I’m studying, people tilt their heads at me. What is this literature of which you speak?
I head outside only to be slowed by Connor’s voice calling, “Ella, wait.” I turn back, see him standing on our stairs. “Why don’t I give you my number? In case you wanna drink some beer.”
I smile at him and take out my phone. “It’s a plan.”
THE ENGLISH FACULTY building is a blocky, midcentury cement blight. Not exactly what I had expected. One of the linear, unimaginative departments should have this building. Something like chemistry or mathematics or, well, global health.
I arrive at the designated lecture room ten minutes after the class’s start time, once again a day late and a pound short in this city. Collecting myself, I softly open the door, fully expecting to interrupt the class.
I don’t.
A group of about ten people is scattered around a horseshoe table, some murmuring to each other, others reading, others looking at their phones. No one is at the lectern.
I cross to a cluster of empty seats. As I pass behind one of them, a girl mutters, “Sorry! This doesn’t need to be here,” and quickly lifts her bag off the seat directly in front of me. I keep moving toward another empty chair, opening my mouth to tell her it’s okay, but she keeps talking. “So sorry. My apologies, really. Selfish.”
In America, there’d be a good chance her apologies were sarcastic. From the corner of my eye, I take her in. She’s dressed conservatively (boat-neck tweed sheath dress under a canary-yellow cardigan, ballet flats), and her hair is styled in an intricate sixties beehive. Only, it’s pink. She appears innocent of any sarcasm.
I consider introducing myself to her, but she looks as if interaction with a stranger might push her over the edge. I guess this must be the famous British reserve.
Just then the door bangs open, causing everyone to jump, and a guy, outfitted like Robert Redford in The Sting, strides in. “I have arrived,” he announces. “We can begin.” So much for British reserve. With a start, I realize that I know him.
“Sebastian Melmoth!” I say.
He stops and peers at me. The girl’s pink head swivels from him to me, eyes bulging, before whipping back to him. “Charlie! You swore you’d stop doing that!”
He drops his head theatrically to his chest and sulks toward us.
The girl turns back to me, doe-brown eyes sympathetic. “How did you meet this git, then?”
“We share a staircase,” I answer as he drops into the chair on the other side of her.
She spins back to him, smacking him on the arm. “And you didn’t recognize her?”
“In my defense,” he begins, “she was disguised as a vagrant. The old crone in a Breton lai who is actually a beautiful sorceress. Clever bitch gets me every time.” He looks past the girl, to me. “So, having failed the moral aptitude test, what shall it be, eh? Seven years as a toad? Eternity as a Tory? Or shall we dispense with further discord?” He extends his hand. “Charles Butler, veritas et virtus.”
I can’t help but smile. “Ella Durran.”
He drops my hand and settles back in his chair. “Come to mine tonight.” It’s not an apology, but it’s clearly a peace offering. “We’ll have a dram.”
“Will do. Thank you.”
He nudges the girl. “Join us.”
“All right.”
“Bring your Scotch.”
The girl rolls her eyes, but just then, Professor Roberta Styan walks in. Everything stops. She typifies the absentminded professor, stumbling up to the lectern, arms overflowing with paraphernalia. Briefcase, papers, umbrella, jacket, muttering as she walks, “Hello, hello, sorry, apologies for the delay.”
At the podium, she doesn’t set anything down, just stands behind it looking out at us. Then she says, “Right, so: tragic news, I’m afraid. I’ve just been named head of graduate studies. Which means I’m far too important to be teaching you lot.” Before we can respond, she continues, “Please, shed no tears! Rend not your garments! My replacement is more than able. In fact, he’s my most brilliant JRF. After two minutes with him—not to mention his skinny jeans—you’ll forget I ever existed.” She takes a breath, then smiles. Off our lack of reaction, she quips, “You were meant to scoff at that. Ah well. Without further ado, meet Jamie Davenport. Jamie?” She gestures toward the door.
Wait. Hold on. The person I came to Oxford to study with is leaving? But I’ve read all of her books, all of her papers. I watched all three of her YouTube videos. (It’s not her fault. Victorian sexuality and linguistics is a niche market.) This isn’t happening. She was my Oxford destiny, my Gandalf, my Mr. Miyagi, my whatever-Robin-Williams’s-Character’s-Name-Was-in-DeadPoets-Society. What does she mean she’s not teaching?
Styan hobbles away from the podium, and the TA gives her a squeeze on the shoulder before taking the lectern. “Sorry to disappoint, my skinny jeans are at the cleaners.” He smiles charmingly at the group and everyone responds with an appreciative chuckle.
Except for me. I can’t respond. I’m too busy having my world reordered.
The new professor is the posh prat.
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_20f2e808-6cea-53c6-b0c4-24ce840dc6f7)
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott,” 1831–1832
Jamie Davenport takes his time spreading his notes out on the podium. Then he looks up at the class and smiles impishly. “Please, be gentle.”
What would happen if I left? This is only one of my courses and it only meets once a week. Maybe I can join another group. Maybe I can track down Styan and convince her to work with me privately. I refuse to allow this teaching assistant to be my only option. This cannot be my “Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience.” That’s supposed to be a good thing.
“Five years ago,” he begins, “I sat right where you are now. Styan walked in and I thought, ‘So this is who’ll bore me to tears for the next two months?’ I mean, I love poetry—why else would I be here, eh?—but bloody Victorian? Could anything be worse? Ghastly old men in top hats, big bellies, muttonchops out to here, banging on about the glory of foreign wars and the sanctity of the marriage bed? Frankly, I wanted to slit my own throat.”
Peripherally, I see the other students smile. I don’t.
“Never in my wildest dreams,” he continues, looking out into the room, “did I expect to find in the work of the Victorians such despair. Lust. Terror.” He makes eye contact with a different person at each word, a politician “connecting” with his audience. “Wisdom. Love.”
And bam. His eyes lock with mine and there’s a whisper of hesitation in his voice, like the momentary skip of an old record. No one else notices. But I do. And he does. He quickly looks back out to the group. “Do you believe me?” he asks.
Not on your life, I think.
He claps his hands. “Any questions, then? Before we start?”
I raise my hand.
“We don’t raise hands here. Forty lashes and no grog for you.” He smiles at me. The gall.
“Do you have a syllabus we can look at?” I ask, sure he doesn’t.
“A syllabus?”
There’s a titter somewhere in the class. He cocks his head at me. “Yes,” I continue. “A document in which you outline the weekly reading, due dates, grading standards, expectations?”
“Ah, good question,” he says easily. “You don’t need to prepare any of the material ahead of time, and I don’t foresee any papers, but if we do have one it’ll be set at your convenience, and lastly, I’m not responsible for marking. So …”
By the snickers from some of the other students I glean that this is common knowledge. I look down at the table, realizing that I might be on the verge of embarrassing myself. “Okay. No syllabus is an Oxfordian thing that I’ll just have to get used to.”
A voice pipes up across from me. “Oxonian, actually.”
I glance over. A girl who looks like an English rose cameo you’d find on an antique pin scribbles something in her notebook, not looking at me.
“Tomato, to-mah-to,” I reply, with forced geniality.
“It’s not a matter of pronunciation, of dialectology,” she counters in a low, luxuriant voice. She keeps writing. “It’s not a linguistic schism from the colonies, it’s quite simply and literally a different word.”
My face heats. “Oh yeah?”
She deigns to look up. “‘Oxfordian’ refers to the theory purporting that the seventeenth Earl of Oxford authored the works of Shakespeare. A theory that has fallen predominantly out of favor amongst most legitimate academics.”
The way she says “legitimate academics” feels like a slap. “Okay, cool,” I say. “Thanks for the tip.”
She smiles tightly and looks back down at her notebook. I bury my face in mine as well. If I could disappear right now I would.
“All right, then, Oxonians,” Jamie Davenport says buoyantly, “Onward!”
EVERYONE IN THE class is obviously smart. The pink-haired girl next to me hasn’t said anything, but has at least ten pages of notes. Charlie, who never even pulled out a notebook, rattles off crisp and cogent comments with about as much effort as a yawn. And the English Rose drops her observations quietly yet deliberately, with perfectly chosen words and no extraneous “uhs” or “likes” or “you knows.” How is that possible?
I haven’t said anything.
I wasn’t an English major in undergrad. I was, perhaps unsurprisingly, poli sci and history. I took English classes for fun, and am well read, but I didn’t live, breathe, and eat it the way these people did. They are here, doing a master of studies in English at Oxford University, because they earned it.
I basically won a contest.
No disrespect to the Rhodes, but it’s true. I got the scholarship because of the overall applicant I was, not because the committee knew I would excel in the study of English literature and language, 1830–1914. How could they know I’d be good at this? They were all hedge-fund execs and mathematics professors and social entrepreneurs.
What am I doing here?
A thought runs screaming through my mind like an escapee from an insane asylum: if I had actually applied to Oxford, I probably wouldn’t be here.
Somehow this fact never occurred to me until just now while someone says, “Yes, but as Stanley Fish would have us believe,” and another person says, “Harold Bloom would disagree with you there,” and another replies, “Well, Bloom,” as if that’s retort enough, and then there are just words: “Derrida” and “Said” and “New Historicism” and “Queer Theory” and everything is “Post” (Post-Modernism, Post-Feminism, Post-Christian), until I honestly don’t know what we’re talking about anymore.
I realize that as much as I’d like to get out of this class and ask Styan about other options, I have no right to. The political operative from Ohio thinks the posh prat of a TA is beneath her? Because the truth is, all my anger, embarrassment, and hurt pride aside, I have to admit he’s giving a damn fine lecture. He hasn’t looked at his notes once. He’s fielded questions with ease, moderated discussion with finesse, and managed with tact to tell certain people, “That’s an interesting point, but have you evidence?” when he obviously means, “That’s stupid, shut up.”
Jamie Davenport comes around to the front of the podium, nodding along to whatever English Rose is saying. “Right, Cecelia, exactly. There’s a theory that Shakespeare’s plays taught us how to be human, how to understand ourselves. I believe that poetry teaches us how to feel.” He looks out to the rest of the group, and says:
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.”
Then he smiles cheekily at us. “Author?”
The class is silent. No one knows. I’m so surprised no one knows that it takes me a moment to realize that I do. I know this! My hand pops into the air like a marionette.
He smiles, and with that mellifluous voice says, “Remember? No raising of hands.”
I immediately drop it. The class chuckles. I join them. See, I’m a good sport, and then go in for the kill. “Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1920.”
He inclines his head in surprised approval. “Well done. Dates are most definitely a strong point. Ella from Ohio.”
Potato Famine, 1845. Against my will, my cheeks flush. Charlie and Pink Hair’s heads (and every girl’s in the room, actually) whip toward me. I don’t look at anyone.
“So,” Davenport continues, heading back behind the lectern and looking at his notes, “I know this is your A course and all we’re meant to do is reconnoiter the selected reading each week, but where’s the fun in that, eh? The English faculty cocked up and gave me teaching responsibilities, so by God I’m going to teach! When I was doing my master of studies here, I often felt a bit adrift, so here’s what I propose: I’ll only do this once, don’t worry, but I’d like to have everyone dash off a quick paper for me, and we’ll have a chat about it.” He looks, again, at me. “I forgot to mention I have the right to change my mind at any given moment. Apologies.” To the rest of the class, he says, “The paper will serve to educate me, your humble Strand Convener, about your perspectives and predilections and help me guide you to the appropriate adviser for your dissertation in Trinity Term. I know, seems far off, eh? ‘Miles to go before I sleep …’” He looks to me and extends his hand, begging an answer to his unspoken question.
“Robert Frost, 1922,” I say. Without raising my hand. Nailed it.
“A little-known American poet.” He grins at me again. “Dates. Definitely a strong point.”
English Rose lifts her head. “Didn’t he write those quaint little children’s songs?”
I take a fortifying breath while Jamie Davenport says, “I don’t actually know,” then looks out at everyone else. “I’d like you to pick a poem, and give me a page on it. Don’t explicate rhyme scheme, meter, et cetera—this isn’t sixth form. Speak of it as you would a friend. Describe its charms and quirks, its faults, how it achieves its intended effects. Does it flirt, offend, mislead? How does it make you feel?”
Besides the fact that he might as well be talking about himself right now, this assignment actually excites me. This I can do. I will write the ever-loving shit out of this. I will redeem myself. I glance around the room. Everyone else looks very British about it, like this is where fun comes to die.
“Send them to me via e-mail and we’ll schedule a tute. Have a great week, everyone.”
He begins collecting his papers. The Jamie Davenport Show is over. As I slip toward the door, I feel Charlie next to me, questions wafting off him like cologne.
“Ella?”
I stop and look back at the lectern.
He’s not looking at me; he’s still fiddling with his papers. “A word, please?”
Charlie gives me a slight push forward and then he and Pink Hair slip reluctantly out the door. I gather myself and step in front of the podium. Davenport looks up and nails me with his eyes and suddenly I’m a boat caught in a current. What is it about those eyes?
“Yes?” I ask.
“Was it ruined?” he murmurs. “Your blouse?”
“Among other things.”
His face is open, receptive. The smugness from last night is gone, the performance of the last hour is gone. He is startlingly focused. We continue to look at each other. “Apologies,” he finally says. “For every bit of it. I won’t make excuses, but I will explain. I’d had a spot of bad news earlier and I’d had a drink and I was entirely too slow to recognize the affront I’d caused.”
My reply is quicker than my thoughts. “It’s not necessary—”
“Please, I understand if this apology comes as too little too late, and I have no expectation of forgiveness, nor do I, arguably, deserve it, but do know that I acted without malice and my idiocy was nothing more than that. Sheer idiocy. You simply got tangled up in it. It was, invariably, an act of treason against my own better judgment, and … well,” he concludes. “There it is.”
I’ve got nothing. I was sure I’d have the perfect, cutting retort, but that was a Mr. Darcy–caliber speech. Not to mention his voice makes me feel as if I’m lying in a hammock. He’s waiting for my response. I’m having trouble talking.
Finally, the words “apology accepted” drop out of my mouth. I can’t stop staring at him. He has a classically proportioned face. Strong forehead, protractor jawline, straight nose, full lips. The kind of face that on anyone with less personality might seem benignly handsome. I like guys with something distinctive, a crooked nose or a scar across an eyebrow, something that hints at a story. Jamie Davenport’s face is a blank page. Except for those eyes, that is.
Still staring. It’s starting to feel like a contest.
I break the spell and nod once, turning to go, but then I hear, “You could have waited.”
I spin around. “For what?”
“Blurting out ‘1845’ like that. She had seven seconds left,” he deadpans.
I can’t help the smile that pulls at my lips. “I don’t think either of us believes time was the issue.”
He grins, a knowing, appreciative grin. My stomach inexplicably flops and I realize I’ve barely eaten today. That must be it. “Anything else, Professor?”
“No, that will be all,” he murmurs. “Ella from Ohio.”
“Okay, then … posh prat.” I turn and walk to the door. Glancing back (the kind of glance you can always disavow if necessary), I see he’s shuffling papers again and biting his bottom lip, as if to keep from smiling. Someone brushes past me into the classroom. English Rose. She approaches the podium and I find myself pausing in the doorway to adjust the strap on my bag.
I hear her say, “Congratulations, Professor.”
“Shh,” he replies. “The real professors will hear you.”
“You’re quite wonderful, Jamie. I was well impressed.”
“Cheers, Ce.”
“If my being here is too distracting, surely I can switch out—”
“Come now, don’t be daft, Ce. I love looking out at a sea of dubious faces and finding yours.”
My bag slips from my hand and thuds to the floor. They both turn at the disturbance. “Sorry,” I mutter, grab my bag, and escape.
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_be3f3bd1-4151-5202-834e-2b465221a21c)
I took my scrip of manna sweet,
My cruse of water did I bless;
I took the white dove by the feet,
And flew into the wilderness.
Richard Watson Dixon, “Dream,” 1861
Outside I am greeted by the sight of my two classmates huddled in a pocket of sunshine, arguing quietly. She shakes her pink head while he throws his back and groans.
“Hey,” I say, stepping forward.
They break apart and give me two big, fake smiles. “Hello!” she squeaks. “I’m Margaret Timms. Sorry, Maggie, actually. You made quite the impression in there. With those dates. And whatnot.” She has the most adorable baby voice, a little husky, but high and bright.
I stick out my hand. She looks surprised, but takes it. “Thank you. Ella Durran.” I worry I’m crushing her thin little bird fingers, but she keeps smiling.
The three of us stand at the precipice of an awkward silence until Charlie, putting on sunglasses, says, “Maggie was actually wondering …”
I turn to Maggie. She looks as if she’s being held at gunpoint. “No, I—sorry, I was just—” she stammers. I quirk my head. After one more excruciating moment, she bursts. “I was just wondering if you know that ‘Oxfordian’ also happens to be the geologic designation for the early stage of the late Jurassic period?”
Charlie and I stare at her with Tweedledee/Tweedledum looks of confusion.
“It’s science,” she adds, wringing her hands together. Then, looking at her feet, “Sorry.”
Charlie slowly shakes his head. “I should have never let you shag that geologist.” He turns to me. “Maggie was attempting to ask you to join us for tea this afternoon.”
“Charlie,” Maggie groans, “I was getting there.”
“Had we waited for you to get there we would have missed tea altogether.”
I can’t help but ask Charlie, “Is this invite from just her?”
He stiffens slightly, cocks his head back, and assesses me. “I would not wish to be mistaken for having any carnal intentions.”
Seriously? I try not to laugh. “I wouldn’t have.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you’re gay?”
He side-eyes me. “You don’t think I’m just eccentric and terribly British?”
“Definitely. And gay.”
Maggie gives me a grateful look and then, vindicated, pushes Charlie. “See?” She turns to a cool, vintage bike (that is, yup, pink) and unlocks it from the rack. “We call him the closet door.”
Confused, I glance between the two of them. Charlie sighs. “They go through me to come out.” A laugh erupts from me, but Charlie is unfazed. “So. Tea?”
Smiling, I nod. “I’d love to. Thanks.”
“Huzzah. The Old Parsonage in a half hour. Maggie has to … collect something.”
She gives me the same repentant smile as before. “Sorry.”
She climbs on her bike, demurely smoothing her dress over her legs, and is about to push off when I say, “A bike. Now, that’s something I could use. I hate being late to everything.”
She smiles. “It’s essential. Everyone has one.”
“Some travel under the power of our own dignity instead,” Charlie mutters.
Maggie ignores him. “Actually, a friend happens to be selling one for a pittance at the mo. I’m off there now. Fancy joining me?” She pats her handlebars.
“Great!” Having said that, I approach Maggie’s handlebars cautiously. I’ve never done this. How do I do this? I straddle the front tire and inelegantly struggle into position while Maggie—showing a surprising amount of upper body strength—holds the bike still.
I hear Charlie murmur, “You are not to speak of anything without me,” and Maggie mutters back, “Oh, shut it.” Then, cheerily, to me, “Settled?”
“I think so!” I reply, all feigned confidence. Charlie gives us a reluctant push and we’re off.
WE RIDE THROUGH the city for about five minutes, over lots and lots of cobblestones, until we reach a large park. Across the street from it, Maggie pulls up to a curb and I hop off, letting the blood flow back to my cobblestoned ass. Maggie locks her bike to a lamppost and bounds up yet another ridiculously steep staircase. They should really just call staircases ladders in this country and be done with it. I join her as she presses a key on a call box, eliciting the sound of static, which then crescendos into a loud screech before cutting out entirely. She glances at me. “Sorry.”
A voice calls out from behind the door, “Coming, coming!” When it finally opens, a gangly boy stands on one leg like a stork, holding his other shin and grimacing. “Bugger and blast, banged my shin on the brolly stand,” he informs us by way of introduction. His golden-brown face is framed by black caterpillar eyebrows at the top and a wispy, scraggly, little-beard-that-could at the bottom. Shaggy midnight-hued hair spouts from his head in every direction.
“Hello, Tom!” Maggie chirps.
“Hello, Mags,” he exhales, dropping his shin. Then he sees me. “Oh! New person!”
“This is Ella,” Maggie informs him. “She’s American.”
“Ah! Well, then!” Beaming, Tom raises a fist to me, inviting a bump. As if it’s the way one greets Americans? Gamely, I raise my fist and meet his. He pulls his back and jazz-hands it, making an exploding noise. Then he giggles. “Always wanted to do that.”
Maggie smiles brilliantly at him. “You’re looking good,” she effuses. “I like your new haircut—”
Tom turns back into the vestibule and exclaims, “Come in! Come in! Just mind the—” I’m sure he would have said “rug” had he not, at that moment, tripped over it.
Maggie and I enter a small hall filled with boxes and an overflowing umbrella stand. He forges ahead, leading us through an open door.
Into a closet. We’re standing in a big closet with a small bed. The “room” is completely occupied, floor to ceiling, with books. “Make yourselves comfy,” Tom says. Options limited, Maggie and I perch on opposing arms of a chair. I glance at the end table next to me. Peeking out from under a book, a framed picture shows a young, beaming Tom in Mickey Mouse ears standing between a tall man with Tom’s jovial, wide-eyed face, wearing a Sikh dastar, and a squat blond woman wearing a cat sweatshirt. I look up to find Tom staring at me. Grinning.
“So,” I say, because there’s nothing else to say.
“So!” he exclaims. “Which are we destined to be? Friends or lovers?” Still grinning.
“Friends.” It’s a knee-jerk response.
“Take your time. If you need to have a think—”
“No, I’m … good,” I say with a smile, trying not to offend him.
He just shrugs, unfazed by my rejection. “Alas, the good ones are always taken, eh, Mags?” As if the only grounds for my rejection would be the existence of a boyfriend.
Maggie stares at the book-covered floor. She mutters, “Not always.” Then she glances up at him, looking annoyed, frustrated, and something else that I can’t—
Oh. I get it. Oh dear.
Oblivious, Tom continues to stare at me. Maggie stares at him.
“So,” I push forward, “word on the street is you’re selling a bike.”
“Indeed I am! Who told you?”
Maggie huffs in affectionate exasperation. I playfully twirl a finger at her. Tom follows my finger.
“Oh, Mags! Right! Jolly good!”
There’s a silence.
“So?” I prod, trying to get this ball—or bicycle—rolling.
“So?”
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what now?”
Fortunately, Maggie takes charge. “The bike, Tom, can she see the bike?”
“Why, s’right there!” He flails his hand at a space behind us. Next to the door, camouflaged by an array of papers, more books, and coats, is an adorable beach-cruiser bike, banana seat and all. I walk over to it. It’s in good shape. Surprising for this guy.
“Duchess.” Tom sighs. “A fitting name for the gal who got me through the thick and thin of my first six years.”
My head snaps up. “You’ve been here six years?”
“Sorry,” Maggie chimes in. “Tom came here to read philosophy, then started over in maths, then … well, I believe it was classics, wasn’t it?” Her brow furrows. She looks to Tom.
“Linguistics, philology, and phonetics.”
“Then classics?”
“Bang on, Mags.”
Maggie beams. Definitely into him.
“Which college are you at?” I ask.
“He was at Magdalen with Charlie and me!”
I glance back to Tom. “And now?”
“Oh, no one will have me now.” He leans in and nudges my shoulder with his knobby elbow. “Story of my life, eh?”
I think I’m understanding this. “So you don’t go here anymore?”
“He’s actually become quite the popular tutor!” Maggie enthuses. “Helping people apply to Oxford!”
Tom’s open face turns wry. “I can teach ’em how to get in, just not how to get out.”
He laughs, Maggie reciprocates, and I nod, murmuring, “Cool, cool.” I look back to the bike. “So what are you thinking?”
“At present? In general?”
This is what happens when you’re the book equivalent of the crazy cat lady. “The price. What do you want for it?”
He chews his lip. “Forty quid.” I pause, considering. I open my mouth to accept and Tom blurts, “All right, all right, you drive a hard bargain. Thirty.”
I smile. “Done!” I dig into my pocket for cash.
He claps his hands and jumps up. “Spiffing!” I hand him the money and he clears a path so he can wheel the bike out into the vestibule, down the stairs, and onto the street. We follow him. I look back at Maggie. I have to do something. “Tom?”
“Yes?” He’s bent over the bike, examining some invisible flaw. He licks his finger and wipes at it.
“Maggie and I are meeting Charlie for tea. Would you like to join?”
His face lights up. “Spiffing!” He swings one long giraffe leg over Duchess, mounting her like a prize stallion. “Parsonage?”
Maggie and I look at each other. Maggie takes this one. “Tom. Ella would like to ride her bike now.”
“Right!” He guffaws. “Just warming the seat.” He dismounts and gallops up the stairs, calling, “I’ll just grab Pippa!”
As he disappears inside, Maggie crosses to her bike and begins unlocking it. There’s a silence. She clearly wants to say something. She doesn’t.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I say. “It’s perfect.” She nods and smiles politely as we climb onto our bikes. She seems to be avoiding my gaze. I wonder if I’ve overstepped something. “Sorry if I … I probably shouldn’t have just invited him to tea, considering—”
But Maggie shakes her head. “No, no. That’s why I was coming here in the first place. To invite him. The battery on his mobile always dies, you see. He can go days without realizing no one’s called him.” Her tone is easy, but she still doesn’t look at me.
I test the waters. “I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s very … unique.”
She finally looks at me, chewing her bottom lip, seemingly on the verge of a confession. “I don’t know quite what it is. He’s a bit doglike, really. As you saw, ready to be loved by anyone willing to give him a pat. It can be quite annoying, actually.”
I smile, understanding where Maggie’s coming from. “He did the same thing to you when you first met him?”
There’s a moment of silence and something crosses Maggie’s face. “No.”
“No?”
“No. He didn’t.” She looks away. “Sorry. He just … gets to me.”
Now I really understand where Maggie’s coming from. “I can tell.”
She sighs, reddens. “He does it with everyone! Literally everyone! Just not me. It’s baffling. And maddening. And embarrassing! Sorry.” She straightens her back, aligns her dress, smooths her cardigan, regathers her pride.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Charlie says I should consider myself lucky. I mean, don’t misunderstand, he loves Tom, but—”
I shake my head. “It’s not about anyone else. If you want it, you should go for it.”
“Oh God, no.” Her eyes bug. She pauses, shakes her head, and groans, “He’s just so damn sexy.”
While that wouldn’t be my takeaway from an encounter with Tom, to each her own. We look at each other again and both of us smile. I like this girl a lot. We already have each other’s back. To protect, not stab. That’s universal sisterhood, no matter which country you come from.
Tom returns while Maggie’s describing the adjacent park to me. I notice him staring at her. It’s the first time I’ve seen him really look at her. She looks lovely right now, lit by the dappled late-afternoon sun filtering through the oak tree above her.
“Mags?” Tom says.
She turns from the park. “Yes, Tom?”
He considers her. “Your hair.”
Her hand primps the right side of her pink beehive, and she flushes. I could make some popcorn and watch them all day. “Yes?” she gently prods.
This is it. This is where he takes the plunge and asks her out, and I will tell this story in my toast at their wedding.
Tom leans in and peers at the left side of her head, almost quizzically. “You’ve a spot of bird shite in your hair.”
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_0f94ab19-c122-5d3e-8c8f-6036cd32cc1c)
This love, wrong understood,
Oft’ turned my joy to pain;
I tried to throw away the bud,
But the blossom would remain.
John Clare, “Love’s Pains,” 1844
Given the lovely turn of your figure, it’s quite gratifying you’re not one of those dreadful American girls who subsist entirely on lawn clippings and glacier water,” Charlie says.
My mouth is too full of sco ne to reply.
The four of us—Maggie, Tom, Charlie, and I—are settled on the charming patio of the Old Parsonage Hotel, having tea. This is Tea with a capital T. There’s a three-tiered china platter filled with sandwiches on the bottom, scones, preserves, and cream in the middle, and bite-sized desserts on top. I haven’t had afternoon tea since Ashley Carmichael’s obsession with Alice in Wonderland forced me to spend her eighth birthday sipping pink tea out of tiny plastic cups, wearing a stupid hat, and being creeped out by a middle-aged guy in a dirty White Rabbit costume. This is better.
Tom, picking cranberries out of his scone, looks up, his attention drawn to something beyond our table. “Say, Charlie? Isn’t that your rower?”
We follow Tom’s gaze to one of the waiters (a strapping, square-jawed guy), refilling water glasses three tables over.
“In time.” Charlie sighs.
Maggie’s forehead crinkles. “But you fancied him last term,” she says, as if it were another lifetime. “Surely you—”
“He’s not ready.”
“As if that’s ever stopped you!” Tom guffaws.
Charlie shakes his head. “No, I need must tread carefully with this one. He still fears condemnation from his awful rower mates. He has months yet of realizations and dire haircuts. He’s only just begun experimenting with colored trousers. So …” Charlie puts down his teacup and looks at me. “Considering you’ve been here all of twenty-four hours, and as I witnessed a sordid portion of them and can assume that they were not amongst your finest, how do you already know our delectable lecturer Mr. Davenport?”
I smirk at Charlie. “Is this why you asked me to tea?”
“No!” Maggie assures me just as Charlie says, “Obviously.”
It starts drizzling, but no one seems bothered. Maggie slides the tiny bowl of clotted cream farther under the protection of the dessert plate. Priorities.
“Well, first, he almost hit me with his car.”
Charlie nods. “You were looking the wrong way, of course.”
I open my mouth to argue, but think better of it. “Then, later, he succeeded in nailing me—”
“There it is!” he cries.
I hold up my hand. “In the chip shop. With a plate of sauces.”
Realization dawns in Charlie’s eyes. “Davenport was responsible for that haute couture experiment of yours, was he?” I nod. “Excellent.” He narrows his eyes. “But that can’t be all. Because in class—”
I put my hand out again, hoping to abbreviate the inquisition. “He was an ass and I lost my temper. He just wanted to apologize. And he did. And it’s fine.”
Charlie glances at Maggie, assessing my story, seeming to weigh its narrative value. “But we must know exactly what he said. Words hold the clues.”
Luckily, Maggie leans in and hisses, “Look!”
We all follow her gaze. On the other side of the low hedge, at a bus stop, stands Cecelia the English Rose.
“Cecelia Knowles,” Tom murmurs reverently, as if he’s caught a glimpse of a rare bird in the wild.
Behind his sunglasses, Charlie studies her. “I was surprised to see her in class. Starting over, perhaps?”
“Huh?”
“She did her undergrad here,” Maggie explains to me. “Was a third year when Charlie and I were freshers. We’d notice her in lectures—”
“How could one not?” Tom and Charlie say in unison.
Maggie rolls her eyes. “But she was never here at the weekend, so I never got to know her well. Then she returned the following year to start her master’s—we spent a short time together doing a bit of research—and about halfway through term … she simply disappeared. It was all a bit odd, really.”
“She dropped out?”
Maggie shrugs.
“Obviously,” Charlie begins, drawing the word out, “she found herself unexpectedly enceinte, stole away to the comforting bosom of an eerily-similar-spinster-aunt on the continent for her confinement, and entrusted the infant to the local farmer and his barren wife with the understanding that at the age of ten the child would be sent to England for her schooling under the care and protection of a mysterious patron. Obviously.”
I love book nerds.
Cecelia glances at her watch as I take an obscene bite of scone, then she spots Maggie, who gives her a polite wave. Then she heads in our direction. Great. Tom drops the sandwich bread he’s been scraping mustard off and attends to his frazzled hair, trying desperately to smooth it down.
Charlie can’t help himself. “That’s the way forward, Tom. Nothing like being well groomed.”
Cecelia glides up to our table, smiling serenely. “Hello, Maggie.”
“Hi!” Maggie bleats, a little too brightly.
“How are—” Cecelia begins, but Tom jumps up, as if just realizing he was sitting on a tack. Cecelia starts. He gestures to the chair next to him, imploring it to offer itself to her. Neither he nor the chair speaks.
Maggie saves him from himself. “Sorry. Care to join us?”
“Thank you, no,” Cecelia says in her low, elegant voice. “I thought I’d nip in for a cuppa before I catch my bus. I was so very pleased to see you in class, I’d always rather hoped you’d continue—”
“Thomas Singh!” Tom finally says, thrusting out his hand. “Of the Yorkshire Singhs. Dirt farmers since the days of the Norman Conquest.” He sees my confused look. “On my mother’s side,” he clarifies.
Cecelia inclines her head. “Cecelia Knowles. Of the Sussex Knowleses. Who resisted the Norman Conquest.”
We all chuckle, trying to maintain the appearance of normalcy for Tom’s sake. He still hasn’t released Cecelia from his grasp. “So, which are we destined to be, friends or lovers?”
Cecelia smoothly withdraws her hand. “Friends will do quite nicely, thank you.” The puppy, once again, has had its nose slapped.
“And, of course, you know Charlie Butler,” Maggie says, trudging on. “And this is Ella.”
Cecelia’s eyes pop to me. “Oh dear,” she says. “It is you. I wasn’t sure.”
She was sure.
I swallow the last piece of scone as I reach out a hand. “Ella Durran. Missed the Norman Conquest by a millennium.” I smile. I don’t have any animosity toward her. Honestly. But she seems to have taken an immediate disliking to me.
Cecelia smiles politely and briefly takes my hand. “Sorry, I must dash, I’ll see you all next week in Jamie’s class.” Before I can say anything else, she disappears inside the lobby.
I take a casual sip of tea then ask, in a not-that-it-matters-in-the-slightest tone, “Do you think they’re together? She and Davenport?”
Maggie shakes her head. “If they are, it won’t last, I’m afraid.” She says this the way a soap opera devotee talks about the love lives of the fictional characters.
“What do you mean?”
“Jamie Davenport’s a legend,” Maggie says, eyes wide. “The road between Oxford and Cambridge is positively littered with broken hearts.”
Charlie considers this. “More like dropped knickers. The man invented the three-date rule.”
“So just be careful there,” Maggie says.
It takes me a moment to realize who she’s saying this to. “Wait, me?”
She nods. “Sorry, but there was an undeniable bit of chemistry going between—”
“No there wasn’t!” I leap to my own defense. “I’m not remotely attracted to Jamie Davenport.”
They all just look at me. Together. As if they’d rehearsed it.
I reach for another scone. “Besides, I’m only here until June. It’s all about Oxford. And travel! The last thing I need is a relationship.”
“Then maybe he’s perfect, after all.” Charlie smirks.
Maggie leans in. “I, we, just thought you should know. His reputation does in fact precede him.”
I nod. “I appreciate that.” And I do. But I had seen enough in the chip shop to convince me to stay away.
I TAKE A three-hour jet-lag nap back in my room and wake up groggy, disoriented, and weirdly thirsty. I pound two glasses of water and glance at the clock: 9:00 P.M. I’m wide-awake.
Might as well do some work.
I grab a huge anthology of poetry off my desk and climb back into bed. The book is a monolith, printed on those thin Bible pages. After tea, we all went to Blackwell’s (coolest bookstore in the world) and picked up some of the texts that Jamie Davenport recommended for the term. Tom, who isn’t even in our program, bought all the books, too. Unlike Maggie and Charlie, who just have a certain air about them, I can tell Tom doesn’t come from money (besides the fact that Maggie paid for his tea). His accent is different from theirs, “oohs” instead of “uhs,” “boos” instead of “bus.” He had mentioned that his dad owns a shop—“knickknacks, odds and ends.” A dad who pulled his patronage somewhere between maths and classics and begs Tom to come home so he can retire. Tom named at least three part-time jobs in addition to the tutoring—admin, shelving at the Bod, even coding for the university website. There’s something timeless about him, as if, in the entire history of Oxford, there has always been a Tom, living in a closet of books, bicycling though the city in all weather, sneaking into lectures he doesn’t belong in, changing courses a year shy of completing them.
Charlie, too, seems iconically Oxford to me. I have no idea where he might hail from or, as my mother would say, who “his people are.” He likely just appeared as an infant in a basket of reeds at the Magdalen gates to be molded by Hugh and Eugenia, forged by the ghost of Oscar Wilde.
Maggie mentioned a father who clearly has something to do with banking and a mother who recently moved to France. She boarded somewhere Swiss-sounding for high school (or secondary school), mentioned doing theater in undergrad (though I can’t imagine timid, baby-voiced Maggie treading the boards), and is obsessed with Thomas Hardy.
Now, tucked under my covers, I leaf through the poetry anthology, hoping something jumps out at me. Davenport asked us to describe how a poem makes us feel, so I do a quick scan for the words “feel” or “feeling” or “emotion,” just as a starting point. My eye stops on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “A Man’s Requirements” and I begin to read.
Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.
It goes on to enumerate all the ways in which a man requires a woman to love him. Mentally, spiritually, eternally, completely, whatever. Then it takes a turn:
Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,
Woman’s love no fable.
I will love thee—half a year—
As a man is able.
Damn, EBB. Telling it like it is, like it’s apparently always been, all the way back in 1846.
I have my poem. Even better that it basically describes the person who assigned the essay. Do with that what you will, Davenport.
Two hours later, I have five pages of double-spaced, twelve-point Times New Roman, elucidating everything this poem represents. I dig my notebook out of my bag, find the page where I wrote down Jamie Davenport’s e-mail address, and type it into a new message window. There are three more e-mails from my mother in my inbox. Later. I attach the assignment and then pause over what to write in the body of the e-mail. I settle for:
Prof. Davenport,
Attached, find the essay you requested.
Best,
Ella
I consider adding “from Ohio,” but I don’t want him to think we have an inside joke. As the whoosh sound carries my essay across town to wherever Jamie Davenport is, I turn my attention to my mother’s e-mails.
I saw Marni Hopkins in the store today and did you know that Bradley is doing graduate school at some place in Spain? Maybe you two
I preemptively delete it.
Next e-mail:
Hi honey why haven’t you called yet? Just check in when you have a moment. You know Marni was very impressed that you got into Oxford. She showed me a picture of Bradley. I think his ears
Delete.
Last e-mail:
Why does my computer do that color wheel spinning thing. What did you tell me to do the last time this happened?
I fire back immediately:
Restart it.
I sit back and stare at my computer. I could Skype her. It would be, what, five P.M. there? The e-mails came in an hour ago, I know she’s around. But I really don’t have anything to say.
Well, okay, I did get a bike, and found the Happy Cod, and I have a scout, and a Hugh the Porter, and I made friends, and I had a class, and there were scones. Not to mention a dream job.
But let’s not forget that I called my unbeknownst-to-me professor an asshole (to his face), won’t be studying with Styan, and have concluded that I’m not academically competitive here and will probably end up embarrassing not just myself, but also the Rhodes Foundation.
A lot has happened since my passport was stamped. I take a deep breath. It’s okay. I have redeemed myself with this essay. Everything will get back on track. I just don’t want to talk to my mother until it has.
I know her. Much better than she will ever know me.
My mother lives in a constant state of fearful anxiety. She thinks everything is falling apart, all the time, all at once, when there is nothing in her life that could possibly fall apart. She’s had the same job for twenty years, she doesn’t travel, she doesn’t date, the house is paid for, she has two carbon monoxide detectors, she goes to the doctor, like, three times a year, and she avoids any public place where someone might (“you never know, Ella, the world has gone crazy”) have a gun. Literally, unless a sinkhole opens up under her Volvo on her two-mile drive to work, nothing’s going to happen to her.
She wasn’t always like this. But it’s been so long that it feels like always.
I’m just tired.
I just miss my dad.
The ding of incoming e-mail distracts me from this rabbit hole of familial failing. I lean forward to look, sure it’s my mother saying she restarted the computer, but now the screen is looking at her funny—
My stomach flips when I see the sender: James Davenport.
Looking forward to reading. Have a good night.
Not “Surprised to see your work so soon”? Not “Very impressive, Ella from Ohio”?
He’s being professional. As he should be. Because he’s my professor now, not some mystery-eyed guy in a chip shop who looked at me as if I were the most delicious thing on the menu.
I’m not going to reply. What would I say? “You too? I hope you enjoy it? What are you doing tonight?”
I also won’t Google him. And while I have to maintain a professional Twitter account, I’m not on any other forms of social media. Not only do I find it too much of a time suck, but it also provides too many opportunities to embarrass myself in front of potential clients; if they never see you do anything wrong, you never have to apologize.
I look back at the e-mail, my eyes inexplicably drawn to it, as if, instead of two innocuous sentences, there were a naked, beefcake picture of the sender. He’d be Mr. September in the Hotties of Oxford calendar for sure. Welcome back to school, ladies. Jamie Davenport on a library ladder, rippling abs all oiled up, inevitably holding a book in front of his junk.
At least I can still make myself laugh.
THE NEXT FEW days fly by faster than I can account for them. I finally feel like I’m in the right time zone and I can understand the accent now. Although I would have been happy to misunderstand the drunk guy who walked past me last night, then turned to his mate and loudly slurred, “Oi, that’s a tasty bit.” I’ve also managed to sleep through Eugenia’s arrival three mornings in a row, and I’ve had my two other classes, but the professors didn’t assign any work.
No, only Mr. Jamie Davenport does that, apparently. Then never reads it. Apparently.
I spend my days cutting through the course’s suggested reading and fielding Gavin’s requests. His e-mails come in at all hours. He calls at least once a day.
In the late afternoons, Maggie and I get on our bikes and she shows me the city. Maggie comes from London (she mentions an area and then apologizes in a tone that has me suspecting it’s an embarrassingly posh neighborhood), but she did her undergrad at Magdalen, so she knows every corner of Oxford. She takes me through narrow, winding stone paths and special little places she’s discovered over her years here. Now she lives in Exeter College’s graduate housing complex, where she shares a kitchen and living area with four other students: two Chinese guys, a Rubenesque British girl who insists on only speaking Italian, and an older Middle Eastern woman who—as far as Maggie can tell—is never actually there. As a result, Maggie spends a lot of time with me.
At the end of our rides, we tend to join Charlie and Tom for dinner, so I’ve also been getting familiar with Oxford’s hit-or-miss cuisine. I’m ashamed to admit that I already miss American food. I’d exchange sexual favors with anyone who could direct me to a decent cheeseburger.
Today Charlie and I are standing in the upper reading room of the Bodleian Library. Charlie gives me a tour, clutching a book on rowing to his side and whispering Oxford trivia. “The Bodleian has a copy of every book ever printed in the UK since 1611.”
I silently repeat the way he pronounced it (Bod-lee-un), understanding why everyone just calls it “the Bod.” The room is beautiful and cavernous, mostly filled with reading tables and chairs. I notice only a few stacks. “Where do they hide them all?” I whisper.
Charlie points down at the hardwood, seeming to indicate rooms and floors that live beneath us. He tosses a glance over his shoulder, then slips behind the unattended front desk. He reaches under the counter and pulls out a glossy magazine with the word “TATLER” in bold print. He hands it to me. “There’s always a new issue stuffed under here.”
I leaf through it and see picture after picture of people I don’t recognize. It’s like an alternate universe. It seems Britain has its own version of Kardashians. “You know what’s interesting,” I begin. “These people are totally interchangeable with—” but I’m interrupted by the sound of a book dropping down onto the counter next to me.
I look at the book. There’s more to read, but it’s blocked by the hand splayed across the cover. It’s a nice, masculine hand. Long and tapered fingers, just the right amount of wrist hair, clean fingernails—
“Ella?”
Startled, I glance up and find the stabbing blue eyes of Jamie Davenport looking down at me. “My rooms, if you will. Today. Half three.”
Not hearing what he says, I nod. He glances down at the Tatler. Raises an eyebrow. “Research?” he says, oozing sarcasm. Then he looks back at me, smiles tightly, and is gone.
“Masterful,” Charlie breathes.
Wherever I just was, I come back to Charlie and the Bod. I’m completely lost. Maybe I overestimated my grasp of the British language. “What did he just say?”
Charlie’s eyes are wide. “He wants you.”
CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_5f6eeab0-0903-5bb4-b2b4-cde5ad93772e)
Did he not come to me?
What thing could keep true Launcelot away
If I said, Come?
William Morris, “The Defence of Guenevere,” 1858
I’ve made my way to Lincoln, a small medieval college with a converted church for a library in the middle of town on Turl Street. Maggie explained to me a few days ago that each professor is affiliated with a specific Oxford college, where they have an office and often teach undergraduates. Lincoln is where Jamie Davenport hangs his skinny jeans.
After making a right on Turl from the High, I step through a cutout door in a wooden gate and into a small portico. Beyond the portico’s flagstones is a manicured quad surrounded on all sides by ivy-covered buildings. The college is smaller than Magdalen, but quaintly elegant and feels older (if that’s possible). I go into the lodge, ask the porter for Professor Davenport’s office and he directs me to staircase eight, off Chapel Quad, and up two flights of stairs.
Near the second-floor landing, I hear raised voices coming from behind a closed door. I stop climbing. Forgetting my nervousness for a moment, I find myself eavesdropping. Two men. One of them, I realize, is Jamie Davenport.
“I’m not interested in your opinion.”
“James, this is absurd—”
“Add it to the list, then.”
“We are your family!” the older voice yells.
“By birth! Nothing more, nothing less,” Davenport shoots back, half as loud but doubly cutting. Then, more muffled, “Excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
“I came to you, in the middle of my workday—”
“Were you asked to come? Leave.”
“You are, without a doubt, the most ungrateful—”
Now Davenport shouts. “Sodding hell, get out!”
I peek around the corner, and seconds later, the arched wooden door flies open and a barrel-chested older man storms through it. He stops and turns back toward the room. I press myself against the wall. “You’re arrogant, my lad, and mark my words, it’s going to be the end of you—”
“Christ, must I throw you out myself?”
“Speak to me as you will, I don’t care, but if you dare hurt your mother any further, I swear—”
“No one can hurt her more than you already have!”
The door slams. From inside or out? I’m about to peek around the corner again when a silver-haired force of nature blows past me down the stairs without so much as a glance. His rage rolls over me like a tangible thing and I grab the banister to steady myself. I wait, holding my breath, trying to be silent. I give it a good ten seconds and then approach the door, knocking softly.
“Yes?” Davenport calls calmly.
I tentatively open the door and poke my head in. He’s standing behind an antique desk, shuffling papers. He appears as if nothing’s amiss. “Hi. Is this a good time?”
I fully expect him to slam the door in my face. He glances up. “Yes, of course. Take a seat.”
I walk into what looks like a parlor in an old English manor. Or at least what movies have led me to believe a parlor in an old English manor looks like. High ceilings partitioned with beams, insets painted in a Tudor pattern. A herringbone wood floor covered by a plush muted red carpet, rough stone walls, paned windows, and a massive stone fireplace. Two well-worn leather club chairs oppose each other in front of the fireplace, and a threadbare red love seat sits behind them. The desk sits in front of a bay window overlooking the quad.
I walk over to a club chair, trying to think of something clever to open with. “This is really nice. Homey,” I say, missing the mark entirely.
He’s still at his desk, riffling through the papers and books strewn there. “Well then, make yourself at home,” he says.
I can’t read his tone. No need to panic, I assure myself. Whatever just happened has nothing to do with me. I’m probably here because he wants to congratulate me on my first paper, or maybe further discuss one of the points I made that’s piqued his curiosity. My being here will probably be good for him. Distract him from whatever that fight was about. Keeping the conversation alive, I say, “Do you live here?”
“No. Although it’s set up for it.” He finally turns, slips out from between the desk and chair, and crosses over to me. He’s wearing a tucked-in charcoal-gray button-down with the sleeves pushed back to his elbows, and oxblood-colored pants that appear to be—can that be right?—velvet. The weirder thing? He looks incredible in them.
He’s speaking. “Historically, teaching contracts here provided accommodations, as most of the lecturers were clergy. Or had to leave if they got married. Couldn’t have a fellowship and a wife. God forbid she proved too distracting.”
Why is he telling me this? Why can’t I stop looking at his pants?
He sits down in the chair opposite me, runs a hand through his hair. Then he gestures behind him at one of the closed doors. “There’s a bed in the back.”
Why is he telling me this? Why am I still looking at his pants?
He looks down at his knees. “Good for those all-nighters, I suppose,” he mutters, making it even more awkward. “So. Of writing. ‘A Man’s Requirements.’ What do you think of your paper, then?”
This catches me off guard. He’s supposed to tell me what he thinks of my paper. “Um,” I begin, and then clear my throat. “Well, since you’ve asked … I think I made some significant insights, observations, and analyses.” He just looks at me. He has this ability to go still, as if he’s stopped breathing. Like a vampire. Which makes me realize I’m not breathing. I look away and force myself to take a breath. “But enough about me, what did you think of my work,” I joke.
“‘Work’ is a most appropriate word,” he answers smoothly.
I stiffen. He’s thrown my word back at me. I recognize the rhetorical technique and hold my ground. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment,” I reply, in what I hope is an equally smooth manner. “Did you find something wrong with it?”
“Wrong with it? No,” he answers, shrugging, his casualness somehow stinging more than his criticism. I notice that he doesn’t even have my essay in front of him. As if, after reading it through once, quickly, he’s committed its mediocrity to memory. “In roughly twenty-five hundred words,” he goes on, “you managed to explore the birth of feminism, the breakdown of arranged marriages, the celebration of the Peter Pan syndrome from an historical perspective, and the persecution of women’s sexuality reaching its apex in the Salem witch trials.” He pauses, but his eyes stay with me. Maybe he did commit it to memory. Maybe he wants to use it as an example for the class. Then he continues, “Extraordinary.” I beam. “You managed to do everything other than the assignment.”
I stare at him. The wrong kind of example for the class, then. He leans in. “Describe the poem as you would a friend. How does it make you feel?”
I blink at him, realizing the gravity of my error. “Oh,” I say lamely. “I guess I … digressed.”
“Digressed? Ella,” he says, leaning fully forward, “you failed to do what was asked. You went wildly, tangentially astray. Impressively astray, but astray nonetheless.”
I blink at him. This was my Hail Mary attempt to prove myself here, and I failed. His word. Failed. I’ve never failed. At anything.
I think Davenport must see the embarrassment on my face, because he shrugs and changes his approach, sitting back again. “Look, Ella. I wanted to chat with you about this before the full term gets under way.” Horribly, I know what he’s going to say. “You have the opportunity to—”
“Get out now and run back to the States?” My voice is as controlled as I can manage.
He quirks his head at me. “Why on earth would you suggest such a thing as that?”
“Well, clearly my work isn’t up to par. The American is obviously out of her league.” I can feel the defensiveness spewing out of my mouth. I mean, who does he think he is? I’m working for the presumptive nominee for the presidency of the—
“Why would you think you’re out of your league?”
“Are you a shrink?” I snap. “Or is this just part of the Socratic method, answering-a-question-with-a-question teaching style here?”
“Sorry, was there a question in there?” He is completely calm, genuinely curious.
My eyes shift to the floor, but I can feel him peering at me. I take a breath, realizing I’ve stopped breathing again. I swallow, but something is stuck in my throat. My dream, probably. I think I’m choking on my Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience. My Oxford.
He’s somehow managed to outmaneuver me.
Softly, he says, “Ella, this has nothing to do with …” He pauses, choosing his words. “The paper was terribly well written.” I’ve noticed that Brits use negatively connotated words in a positive context and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. “It was dreadfully insightful. But, here, it’s not about displaying one’s knowledge or academic prowess, or how convincing the argument may be. There are only ideas to discuss. The ideas are the wheat of the mind. Everything else is chaff, better left for the consumption of the sycophants who fancy themselves academics. For a thousand years, that’s what this place has been about. Is it antiquated? Yes. Stodgy? Absolutely. Seemingly pointless? It would seem so in this new world order, and yet, Oxford is Oxford, and we persevere.” He reaches over to the table sitting between us, picks up the poetry anthology. He ruffles its pages. “Tell me, Ella, why, out of all the poems in this book, did you pick this one?”
“Because it speaks the truth about men.”
“Ah, right. So men are only capable of loving a woman for six months?”
“I think she rounded up.”
This gets a small chuckle out of him. Then he sets the book on his lap, pauses, and looks up again. He does it methodically, deliberately, taking time for each movement. So unlike the freewheeling jerk I first encountered at the chip shop. “So, this what? Reminds you of an ex-boyfriend? You’ve most certainly had your heart broken. At least once?”
I snort. “I’ve never had my heart broken.”
“Right. Sorry. How could you? Believing a man is only capable of loving a woman for six months.”
“Oh, and you don’t? Because from what I’ve heard, you’re the poster child for—” I stop myself. That’s too far.
His crazy-blue eyes flash with excitement, galvanized. “Poster child, really? How intriguingly scandalous. Please, do continue.”
All I can do is shake my head.
He smiles. “So, we know each other, know all about each other.” He sits back, grinning. “We sized each other right up in the chip shop, didn’t we? Weighed and measured. Had someone of lesser intellect declared their knowledge of either one of us, he would be thought prejudicial or quick to judgment. Can’t tell a book by its cover and all that. But we’ve sped-read each other, and, luckily, we’re the clever ones. After all, we’re Oxonians.”
This wrings a tight smile out of me.
He looks up at the ceiling and appears to pluck his next words out of the air there, reciting from recent memory. “‘Dismantling arts curriculum at such a crucial time both sociologically and solipsistically stunts the adolescent’s complex comprehension skills, ultimately ushering in an electorate that only thinks in black and white at a time when, if we are to survive, we must think in Technicolor.’” Now he looks at me. “I quite like that.”
He Googled me. The bastard Googled me after I purposely didn’t Google him. I don’t know whether to feel flattered or betrayed. But now I look like a hypocrite, the Education Evangelist who can’t even follow a simple assignment.
“Now I would have thought,” he continues, “that the woman who wrote that article would have quite a bit to say, actually, about how a poem makes her feel.”
I throw up my hands. “It was one article. I’m not even a writer. I’m not saying I know how to build an arts curriculum, just that it’s a necessity, not a luxury!”
He leans forward, excited. “Exactly. It doesn’t define you. But it is a first impression, isn’t it? You’re the hypercompetitive American, a Rhodes scholar no less, who sees Oxford as a series of hurdles to clear like levels in some video game, and I? I’m the hypocritical poetry scholar, espousing grand theories of love whilst shagging a different wench every night. Brilliant, glad we got that sorted. But who are we, really, eh? We’ve told each other what we think, but we’ve no idea what we feel. That requires a conversation. Having words, having language, to connect us to ourselves and each other.”
He looks down at the book again and opens it. His rhythm has changed. He flips through it with excited purpose, some destination in mind. “To truly experience a poem,” he mutters, almost to himself, “you need to feel it. A poem is alive, it has a voice. It is a person. Who are they? Why are they?” He sticks his finger in the book, and closes it, holding his place. Then he looks back to me. “Hearing her words, as she speaks to you, you think and feel certain things. Just as, hearing my words now, you think and feel certain things. Reading poetry is a conversation of feeling between two people. It shouldn’t answer anything, it should only create more questions, like any good conversation. What did she make you feel? That’s what I wanted you to examine.”
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Julia Whelan
She could never have guessed what the year would hold…Gazing up at the dreaming spires of Oxford, American student Ella Duran can’t believe it: she has finally arrived at Oxford University.A new life starts, and not even Ella’s handsome lecturer Jamie Davenport can distract her from her classes. But, as the term goes on, Ella can’t deny the growing attraction between them – an attraction that soon turns to love.And when Ella learns of Jamie’s life-changing secret, their relationship becomes deeper than Ella could have ever anticipated.As Ella’s Oxford year draws to a close, she must decide whether the dreams she arrived with are the same ones with which she will leave…
Copyright (#ulink_2095586c-a1fd-5caf-8f64-8c7ac6bd3de6)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Julia Whelan 2018
Cover design and illustration by Nathan Burton © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Julia Whelan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008278717
Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9780008278724
Version: 2018-06-13
Praise for MY OXFORD YEAR (#ulink_06a4bd63-df39-548d-a7b9-24ede3b922be)
“My Oxford Year is a pure delight with unpredictable depths. Julia Whelan has crafted a story that is as fun and charming as it is powerful and wise. Ella Durran is a breath of fresh air and her story will stay with you long after you’re done.”
—Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
“Full of humor and romance, My Oxford Year has it all—I loved it!”
—Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author
“My Oxford Year is a funny, tender, heartbreaking coming-of-age adventure.”
—Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author
“My Oxford Year is an achingly beautiful debut.”
—Robinne Lee, author of The Idea of You
“Vivid, smart, and utterly charming, My Oxford Year is a heartfelt journey.”
—Allie Larkin, author of Why Can’t I Be You
Contents
Cover (#u7a626339-fce3-5469-9655-19cc56043667)
Title Page (#uba44f7be-8a2e-5317-8fe3-ffa510690c13)
Copyright (#u36e2e0df-49f9-5658-9c06-b40e8fac7e79)
Praise for My Oxford Year (#u605cebd3-19c6-5d62-94d8-7fe60db17e93)
Dedication
Epigraph (#u46aa745d-93f2-5235-85aa-668c86e6d8c0)
Chapter 1 (#ua58f9e91-68fc-5d31-820c-1990dff25557)
Chapter 2 (#u20120624-fb74-5cc9-bb82-1fe2cd0291b9)
Chapter 3 (#u05829d62-69e9-505f-a9d8-9f03849f1525)
Chapter 4 (#ueeab4f1d-1683-5dee-ba61-1aaf520173cb)
Chapter 5 (#ud738ff61-1097-59c3-8f5e-8e496043e245)
Chapter 6 (#u383130ce-7fbb-5b47-a0b9-16070605ad77)
Chapter 7 (#u14232fc3-77e7-51e5-a492-5a58789540f4)
Chapter 8 (#ucb8cdd80-37be-56fc-b40f-b371a81f2b82)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Behind the Book Essay (#litres_trial_promo)
Reading Group Guide (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#uf30af038-98fd-54c5-8bca-d0b6c62f0378)
To those we have lost.Particularly fathers.Particularly mine.
Epigraph (#ulink_06a4bd63-df39-548d-a7b9-24ede3b922be)
I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one’s life. One sees the shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon’s head, and one suffers, because it does not turn one to stone.
Oscar Wilde, letter to Louis Wilkinson,
December 28, 1898
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_49372cb4-0b29-5ac4-b591-d1fb9cf8ddb7)
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!
Robert Browning, “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad,” 1845
Next!”
The customs agent beckons the person in front of me and I approach the big red line, absently toeing the curling tape, resting my hand on the gleaming pipe railing. No adjustable ropes at Heathrow, apparently; these lines must always be long if they require permanent demarcation.
My phone, which I’ve been tapping against my leg, rings. I glance at the screen. I don’t know the number.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Is this Eleanor Durran?”
“Yes?”
“This is Gavin Brookdale.”
My first thought is that this is a prank call. Gavin Brookdale just stepped down as White House chief of staff. He’s run every major political campaign of the last twenty years. He’s a legend. He’s my idol. He’s calling me?
“Hello?”
“Sorry, I—I’m here,” I stammer. “I’m just—”
“Have you heard of Janet Wilkes?”
Have I heard of—Janet Wilkes is the junior senator from Florida and a dark-horse candidate for president. She’s forty-five, lost her husband twelve years ago in Afghanistan, raised three kids on a teacher’s salary while somehow putting herself through law school, and then ran the most impressive grassroots senatorial campaign I’ve ever seen. She also has the hottest human-rights-attorney boyfriend I’ve ever seen, but that’s beside the point. She’s a Gold Star Wife who’s a progressive firebrand on social issues. We’ve never seen anyone like her on the national stage before. The first debate isn’t for another two weeks, on October 13, but voters seem to love her: she’s polling third in a field of twelve. Candidate Number Two is not long for the race; a Case of the Jilted Mistress(es). Number One, however, happens to be the current vice president, George Hillerson, whom Gavin Brookdale (if the Washington gossip mill is accurate) loathes. Still, even the notoriously mercurial Brookdale wouldn’t back a losing horse like Wilkes just to spite the presumptive nominee. If nothing else, Gavin Brookdale likes to win. “Of course I’ve heard of her.”
“She read your piece in The Atlantic. We both did. ‘The Art of Education and the Death of the Thinking American Electorate.’ We were impressed.”
“Thank you,” I say, gushing. “It was something I felt was missing from the discourse—”
“What you wrote was philosophy. It wasn’t policy.”
This brings me up short. “I understand why you’d think that, but I—”
“Don’t worry, I know you have the policy chops. I know you won Ohio for Janey Bennett. The 138th for Carl Moseley. You’re a talented young lady, Eleanor.”
“Mr. Brookdale—”
“Call me Gavin.”
“Then call me Ella. No one calls me Eleanor.”
“All right, Ella, would you like to be the education consultant for Wilkes’s campaign?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Yes!” I bleat. “Yes, of course! She’s incredible—”
“Great. Come down to my office today and we’ll read you in.”
All the breath leaves my body. I can’t seem to get it back. “So … here’s the thing. I—I’m in England.”
“Fine, when you get back.”
“… I get back in June.”
Silence.
“Are you consulting over there?”
“No, I have a … I got a Rhodes and I’m doing a—”
Gavin chortles. “I was a Rhodie.”
“I know, sir.”
“Gavin.”
“Gavin.”
“What are you studying?”
“English language and literature 1830 to 1914.”
Beat. “Why?”
“Because I want to?” Why does it come out as a question?
“You don’t need it. Getting the Rhodes is what matters. Doing it is meaningless, especially in literature from 1830 to 19-whatever. The only reason you wanted it was to help you get that life-changing political job, right? Well, I’m giving that to you. So come home and let’s get down to business.”
“Next!”
A customs agent—stone-faced, turbaned, impressive beard—waves me forward. I take one step over the line, but hold a finger up to him. He’s not even looking at me. “Gavin, can I call—”
“She’s going to be the nominee, Ella. It’s going to be the fight of my life and I need all hands—including yours—on deck, but we’re going to do it.”
He’s delusional. But, my God, what if he’s right? A shiver of excitement snakes through me. “Gavin—”
“Listen, I’ve always backed the winning candidate, but I have never backed someone who I personally, deeply, wanted to win.”
“Miss?” Now the customs agent looks at me.
Gavin chuckles at my silence. “I don’t want to have to convince you, if you don’t feel—”
“I can work from here.” Before he can argue, I continue: “I will make myself available at all hours. I will make Wilkes my priority.” Behind me, a bloated, red-faced businessman reeking of gin moves to squeeze around me. I head him off, grabbing the railing, saying into the phone, “I had two jobs in college while volunteering in field offices and coordinating multiple city council runs. I worked two winning congressional campaigns last year while helping to shape the education budget for Ohio. I can certainly consult for you while reading books and writing about them occasionally.”
“Miss!” the customs agent barks. “Hang up the phone or step aside.” I hold my finger up higher (as if visibility is the problem) and widen my stance over the line.
“What’s your set date for coming home?” Gavin asks.
“June eleventh. I already have a ticket. Seat 32A.”
“Miss!” Both the customs agent and the man bark at me.
I look down at the red line between my sprawled feet. “Gavin, I’m straddling the North Atlantic right now. I literally have one foot in England and one in America and if I don’t hang up they’ll—”
“I’ll call you back.”
He disconnects.
What does that mean? What do I do? Numbly, I hurry to the immigration window, coming face to face with the dour agent. I adopt my best beauty-pageant smile and speak in the chagrined, gee-whiz tone I know he expects. “I am so sorry, sir, my sincerest apologies. My mom’s—”
“Passport.” He’s back to not looking at me. I’m getting the passive-aggressive treatment now. I hand over my brand-new passport with the crisp, unstamped pages. “Purpose of visit?”
“Study.”
“For how long will you be in the country?”
I pause. I glance down at the dark, unhelpful screen of my phone. “I … I don’t know.”
Now he looks up at me.
“A year,” I say. Screw it. “An academic year.”
“Where?”
“Oxford.” Saying the word out loud cuts through everything else. My smile becomes genuine. He asks me more questions, and I suppose I answer, but all I can think is: I’m here. This is actually happening. Everything has come together according to plan.
He stamps my passport, hands it back, lifts his hand to the line.
“Next!”
WHEN I WAS thirteen I read an article in Seventeen magazine called “My Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience,” and it was a personal account of an American girl’s year abroad at Oxford. The classes, the students, the parks, the pubs, even the chip shop (“pictured, bottom left”) seemed like another world. Like slipping through a wormhole into a universe where things were ordered and people were dignified and the buildings were older than my entire country. I suppose thirteen is an important age in every girl’s life, but for me, growing up in the middle of nowhere, with a family that had fallen apart? I needed something to hold on to. I needed inspiration. I needed hope. The girl who wrote the article had been transformed. Oxford had unlocked her life and I was convinced that it would be the key to mine.
So I had made a plan: get to Oxford.
After going through more customs checkpoints, I follow signs for the Central Bus Terminal and find an automatic ticket kiosk. The “£” sign before the amount looks so much better, more civilized, more historical than the American dollar sign, which always seems overly suggestive to me. Like it should be flashing in sequential neon lights above a strip club. $-$-$. GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!
The kiosk’s screen asks me if I want a discounted return ticket (I assume that means round trip), and I pause. My flight back to Washington is on June 11, barely sixteen hours after the official end of Trinity Term. I have no plans to return to the States before then, instead I’m staying here over the two long vacations (in December and March) and traveling. In fact, I already have my December itinerary all planned. I purchase the return ticket, then cross to a bench to wait for the next bus.
My phone dings and I look down. An e-mail from the Rhodes Foundation reminding me about the orientation tomorrow morning.
For whatever reason, out of all the academic scholarships in the world, most people seem to have heard of the Rhodes. It’s not the only prestigious scholarship to be had, but it’s the one that I wanted. Every year, America sends thirty-two of its most overachieving, über-competitive, social-climbing, do-gooder nerds to Oxford. It’s mostly associated with geniuses, power players, global leaders. Let me demystify this: to get a Rhodes, you have to be slightly unhinged. You have to have a stellar GPA, excel in multiple courses of study, be socially entrepreneurial, charity-minded, and athletically proficient (though the last time I did anything remotely athletic I knocked out Jimmy Brighton’s front tooth with a foul ball, so take that criterion with a grain of salt). I could have gone after other scholarships. There’s the Marshall, the Fulbright, the Watson, but the Rhodies are my people. They’re the planners.
The other finalist selected from my district (a math/econ/classics triple major and Olympic archer who had discovered that applying game theory to negotiations with known terrorists makes the intel 147 percent more reliable), told me, “I’ve been working toward getting a Rhodes since freshman year.” To which I replied, “Me too.” He clarified, “Of high school.” To which I replied, “Me too.”
While, yes, the Rhodes is a golden ticket to Oxford, it’s also a built-in network and the means to my political future. It ensures that people who would have otherwise discounted me—this unconnected girl from the soybean fields of Ohio—will take a second, serious look. People like Gavin Brookdale.
Going after things the way I do, being who I am, has alienated my entire hometown and most of my extended family. My mom hadn’t gone to college and my dad had dropped out after two years because he’d thought it was more important to change the world than learn about it, and there I was, this achievement machine making everyone around me vaguely uncomfortable. She thinks she’s better than everyone else.
Honestly, I don’t. But I do think I’m better than what everyone, besides my dad, told me I was.
I WAKE UP in a moment of panic when the bus I’d boarded back at Heathrow jerks to a stop, sending the book on my lap to the floor. Hastily retrieving it, I force my sleepy eyes to take in the view from the floor-to-ceiling window in front of me. I chose the seat on the upper level at the very front, wanting to devour every bit of English countryside on the way to Oxford. Then I slept through it.
Pushing through the fog in my head, I peer outside. A dingy bus stop in front of a generic cell-phone store. I look for a street sign, trying to get my bearings. My info packet from the college said to get off at the Queens Lane stop on High Street. This can’t be it. I glance behind me and no one on the bus is moving to get off, so I settle back into my seat.
The bus starts up again, and I breathe deeply, trying to wake up. I jam the book into my backpack. I’d wanted to finish it before my first class tomorrow, but I can’t focus. I was too excited to eat or sleep on the plane. My empty stomach and all-nighter are catching up to me. The time difference is catching up to me. The last twelve years spent striving for this moment is catching up to me.
Inside my jacket pocket, my phone vibrates. I pull it out and see the same number from earlier. I take a deep breath and preemptively answer, “Gavin, listen, I was thinking, let’s do a trial period of, say, a month, and if you feel that I need to be there—”
“Not necessary.”
My throat tightens. “Please, just give me thirty days to prove that—”
“It’s fine. I made it work. Just remember who comes first.”
Elation breaks through the fog. My fist clenches in victory and my smile reaches all the way to my temples. “Absolutely,” I say in my most professional voice. “Thank you so much for this opportunity. You won’t be disappointed.”
“I know that. That’s why I hired you. What’s your fee? FYI: there’s no money.”
There’s never any money. I tell him my fee anyway and we settle on something that I can live with. The Rhodes is paying my tuition and lodging and I get a small stipend for living expenses on top of that. I decide right then that what Gavin’s going to pay me will go directly into my travel budget.
“Now go,” he says, “have fun. You’ve clearly earned it. There’s a pub you should visit in the center of town. The Turf. See where one of your fellow Rhodes scholars—a young William Jefferson Clinton—‘didn’t inhale.’”
“Ha, got it. Will do.”
“Just take your phone with you. Your phone is an appendage, not an accessory. Okay?”
I nod even though he can’t see me. “Okay. It’s a plan.” Just as I say this, the bus rounds a bend and there she is:
Oxford.
Beyond a picturesque bridge, the narrow two-lane road continues into a bustling main street, lined on each side by buildings in a hodgepodge of architectural styles, no room to breathe between them. Like the crowd at the finish line of a marathon, these buildings cheer me on, welcoming me to their city. Some are topped with sloped, slate roofs, others with battlements. Some of the larger buildings have huge wooden gates that look as if they were carved in place, a fusion of timeless wood and stone that steals my breath. Maybe those doors lead to some of the thirty-eight individual Oxford colleges? Imagining it, dreaming of it all these years, doesn’t do it justice.
I look skyward. Punctuating the horizon are the tips of other ancient buildings, high points of stone bordering the city like beacons.
“The City of Dreaming Spires,” I murmur to myself.
“Indeed it is,” Gavin says in my ear. I’d forgotten he was still on the line.
That’s what they call Oxford. A title well deserved. Because that means, before it was my dream or Seventeen magazine girl’s dream, it was someone else’s dream as well.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_1bbce57e-4cff-59f7-b3d2-00d6dab5669f)
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
What’s the best thing in the world?
—Something out of it, I think.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Best Thing in the World,” 1862
I wish I could say that Oxford smells like parchment and cinnamon or something poetic, but right now it just smells like city: bus diesel, damp pavement, and the aroma of French roast wafting from the coffee shop across the street.
The sidewalks are narrow on High Street, edged by tall stone walls on one side and low, worn curbs on the other. The narrowness heightens their crowdedness. Students rushing, tourists lingering, the former annoyed by the latter. Those who speak English are almost as incomprehensible to me as those who don’t. My ear hasn’t yet adjusted to the accent and passing dialogue is entirely lost on me.
It’s just another day in Oxford, but to me it’s magical.
As the bus pulls away I gather my luggage and try to sidestep a large family bowed over a map, their voices agitated and overlapping. After a moment, the father’s head pops up and he lifts the map into the air, out of reach, his patience snapping. “Awright, awright, step off it now, wouldya? We’re goin’ this way!”
Before I can steer clear of the family, a flock of bicycles, a veritable swarm, goes flying past, grazing my luggage and whipping my hair in its wake. Their riders wear some kind of sporting attire (rugby, maybe?), smelling of boy-sweat and new-mown grass as they go by, hooting and hollering. Boys are boys in any country, apparently. The last rider snatches the map right out of the father’s hand, lifting it victoriously, crying out, “Et in Arcadia ego!”
Oxford: where even the jocks speak Latin.
THERE’S NOTHING I have to do for the Rhodes, per se. It’s not a degree or title in its own right. What I do—or don’t do—at Oxford is between my academic department and me. Also, between my college and me.
The college I’ll be affiliated with is Magdalen, which, for reasons unknown to me, is pronounced “maudlin.” Founded in 1458, it boasts a great hall, a deer park, an iconic bell tower, medieval cloisters, and approximately six hundred students. I did not request Magdalen because of some heavily considered academic reason; I requested Magdalen because it was Oscar Wilde’s college.
I approach the gate, carefully navigating the people streaming in and out, and lug my baggage into a portico. In front of me, straight out an open Gothic-style door, I glimpse a cobblestone courtyard with a charming three-story sand-colored dormered building in the distance. On the portico’s flagstones, sandwich boards announce the times of day the college is open to visitors and advertise a tour of the fifteenth-century kitchens. To my left are glass-enclosed bulletin boards with notices and reminders posted haphazardly: “Have you paid your battels?” “Get all your uni gear! New Student Discount at Summer Eights on Broad, show your Bod card.” “Fancy a nip before Hilary’s first OKB bop? 8, Friday noughth week, JCR.” Seeing the words in writing, I realize the accent isn’t the only obstacle. To my right, wood paneling and two arched glass windows cordon off a sort of office, like an Old West bank just asking to be held up.
I round the corner and spy, behind the glass, an older man in a red, pilled sweater, white collared shirt, and tie. He stands over an archaic copier the size of an SUV, his shoulders hunched in consternation, long neck and mostly bald head giving him the appearance of a Galápagos tortoise. He mutters something and kicks the bottom of the machine. It whirs like a propjet engine and slowly spits out sheets of green paper.
“Hi!” I chirp.
“Help you?” he asks, not looking up, paging methodically through another stack of papers, occasionally licking his finger.
“I’m …” I hesitate. “Checking in? I guess?”
“Student?” he asks.
“Yeah. Yes.”
“Fresher?”
I have no idea what he just said. “What?”
“Fresher?”
I don’t answer. I’m afraid to answer.
Finally he looks up, exasperated, and I realize he’s been counting the papers and, more, that I’ve interrupted him. “First year. Are you a first year?”
“I’m a graduate student. But I’m flattered, sir.”
He sighs. “American. Name?” He goes back to counting.
“Eleanor Durran. But, please, call me Ella.”
He does no such thing. He moves to a long wooden desk and hands me a piece of paper and a pen. I glance at it. It’s a contract that says I can’t burn down my room. I sign. He slides an envelope the size of a playing card across the counter to me, my initials written on the front. He walks around the long desk and comes out a side door, moving to a wall of small cubbyholes, similar to the kind in a kindergarten classroom. As he speaks, he bends one green paper into each hole.
“This is your pidge. Check it daily for post. You’re room thirteen, staircase four. That’s Swithuns staircase four, mind you. We don’t make a habit of housing graduate students inside walls, but there’s a shortage in graduate housing this year. Besides, I’ve found Americans rather enjoy being ‘behind the gates.’ Something to do with that boy wizard?”
“Harry Pott—”
“Meals are at your discretion. We have Formal Hall on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Gowns must be worn. Nip into a shop on Turl for one. Boiler won’t come on till October fifteenth, no heat till then, so don’t ask for it. You’ll find two keys in the envelope; the electronic card will get you in the gates and any of the public rooms after hours, the other is a proper key for your room. It is irreplaceable. Don’t lose it.”
I understand maybe half of what he’s said. “Thanks. What’s your name?” I ask.
His turtle neck recedes. “Hugh,” he grunts, turning back to the pidges.
“I’m Ella.”
“We’ve established that, Miss Durran.”
“Well,” I say, grabbing the handle of my suitcase, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Hugh.”
“Of all the gin joints, Miss Durran,” he mutters. But I can see the hint of a smile. I mean, it’s reluctant and has a rusty, unused quality about it, like an old bicycle pump, but it’s there. “You’ll be finding staircase four just outside the lodge—” I open my mouth to speak, but he forges on, “This is the lodge, and you will exit through that door there, cross St. John’s quad, turn left at Swithuns, and then you will pass, on your left, staircase one, and then you will pass, also on your left, staircase two, and if you persevere you shall invariably come to staircase four.” I try again, opening my mouth to speak, but he deftly continues: “At which point, your room will be on the left of the uppermost landing, at the very top.”
The words “the very top” give me pause. I’m once again reminded that I haven’t eaten since I left the States.
“Hugh, would you mind if I left my bags here and got some food first?”
“As you will, Miss Durran.”
“I’ll be quick,” I assure him, but Hugh’s turned back to his copier. “Any recommendations?”
“Plenty of options on the High.”
The High. So much cooler than High Street.
I wheel my bag next to the copier, take my book out of my backpack, turn to go, and stop abruptly. A boy pokes his head around the entrance to the lodge and tentatively steps forward. He moves like a mouse. He’s pudgy around the middle and his hair is styled in two pointed fans on the top of his head, resembling ears. He looks like Gus Gus from Cinderella.
I’m so tired.
“Yes,” Hugh snaps at the boy, instantly impatient.
He looks as if he wants to flee, but says, “Yes, erm, sorry, sir, I’m going to, erm, uh, Sebastian Melmoth’s room?”
“Not again,” Hugh mutters. “Posh prat.” I can’t help but smile. Someone actually said “posh prat” in real life, in real time, right in front of me. Hugh then barks at the boy, “Don’t just stand there, come in, come in.” Gus Gus scurries past us. As Hugh shakes his head, I walk back out to the High.
Taking an arbitrary right, I journey back the way I came, glancing at my watch. As if on cue, a clock tower somewhere begins belting out five resounding chimes. Goose bumps crawl up my arms. If I weren’t exhausted I’d probably start crying.
I glance across the street and stop.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The sign still looks exactly like it did in the magazine.
THE HAPPY COD CHIP SHOP.
I look left and move to cross the street, dropping one foot off the curb when the sudden bleat of a horn makes me leap back onto the sidewalk. I clutch my book to my chest, keeping my heart from falling out. A classic silver convertible, like something out of a Bond movie, flies past, nearly running me over. I catch a glimpse of the careless driver, whose longish brown hair swirls in the wind as he zooms off. In the passenger seat, an equally windswept blond woman turns around to stare at me, her mouth wide open in a shocked, but unabashed, laugh.
“Not funny!” I want to shout after them, but they’re already well past me. As my heart begins beating normally again, I take a deep breath and step off the curb once more. This time, making sure to look right.
A TINY BELL jingles as I enter the Happy Cod. The proprietor, a stocky, red-nosed man with a white towel slung over his shoulder, glances up cheerfully. “Hallo!”
The small, charming room has a row of wooden booths on one side and a bar with stools on the other. The man stands at the back, behind a small service counter. There’s a stool there as well. He pats the counter in welcome. “What can I get you?”
“Fish and chips!”
“Comin’ right up.” He turns to his fryer as I settle in, running my hands along the old, worn wood and moving around on the squishy black vinyl seat. Everything feels just as I imagined it would. Smells just as I imagined it would. Even the proprietor is exactly as I imagined.
“I’m Ella, by the way.”
He spins back, ceremoniously wipes his hand on his towel, and offers it to me. “Simon.” I take his hand, meeting his firm shake with one of my own. He grins. “Where you from, Ella?”
“Ohio, originally. But I live in D.C. now.” Simon nods vaguely and leans his elbows on the counter, looking down at the book I’ve put there.
It’s a meager hardcover, bound in that linen material that only academic books are covered in. It cost me eighty dollars on eBay; the price of these books is inversely proportional to the size of their audience. He reads the title aloud, picking over each word as if he’s selecting ripe tomatoes: “The Victorian Conundrum: How Contemporary Poetry Shaped Gender Politics and Sexuality 1837 to 1898, by Roberta Styan.” He glances up at me dubiously.
“It’s a real page-turner,” I say, and he guffaws. “No, I’m doing a master’s.” I tap the author’s name on the cover. “Mostly with Professor Styan. Do you know her?” Simon shakes his head and a beeping noise comes from the fryer. He moves to it. “She’s, like, a deity in the lit crit world. Her specialty is Tennyson, which isn’t exactly my area. Not at all, actually. I work in politics. American politics. But this whole year for me is about pushing boundaries, and exploring new things, and basically just, like, leveling up. As a person?” Why am I rambling? Why do I feel like a fog is rolling into my head? Oh. Jet lag.
Simon wraps my whole meal in a cone of brown butcher paper surrounded by newspaper and offers it to me like a bouquet of roses. “Tradition,” he boasts. “Some other chippies use them plastic takeaway containers. Flattens me.” He hands me a paper plate, saying, “For sauce,” and gestures to a counter full of condiments at the front of the restaurant. “That’s me own twist on tradition. Used to be you’d come in here and get curry or peas or tartar and that was that. Give ’em a go. Promise you won’t be disappointed.” He winks at me.
Before I can reply, the bell jingles, and Simon turns his attention to the door. “JD!” he exclaims with a bright smile, opening the hinged counter and moving toward the entrance.
“Simon, my good man,” a male voice replies.
I focus on the culinary perfection in front of me. God, the smell. I take a bite. Heaven. I have to restrain myself from moaning.
I hear the man say, “Two fish and chips and two fizzies. Cheers, mate.” His voice is so melodious, so low and soothing, it should be accompanied by choral music.
Then a female voice says, “No chips for me. And make mine diet.”
Peripherally, I sense them settle in at a booth near the door as Simon comes back around. I take another mouthful of the perfectly prepared fish and this time am not so successful at stifling my moan. Simon, tending to the fryer, throws me a grin over his shoulder.
I hear the woman behind me murmur, “I thought you were taking me to the best place in Oxford.”
“And so I have,” the man says.
Pulling another chip out of the cone, I’m absorbed in trying to read pieces of the paper’s stories and advertisements, but the fog keeps rolling in. A few minutes later, Simon pops the countertop once more and lumbers over to the couple, delivering their meals. “Cheers,” the man says, then, as Simon comes back through the counter, “Behold the potato! Divine tuber. Staple of the gods. How we adore thee!”
“They give you a fat arse,” the woman replies.
“No, no,” the man argues, “The oil does. The oil! Yet the potato takes the blame. It’s a bloody outrage, I tell you.” He laughs. She doesn’t.
Simon catches my eye and rolls his. I roll mine back and we smile, comrades-in-arms. He nods toward the condiment station, whispering, “Really, give ’em a go.”
“Oh, right! I forgot.” I pick up my plate and walk to the counter to survey the many options.
I hear the man continue, “Now, the Irish! They knew the value of the potato. Did you know that when the Irish were deprived of the potato for just a few years, a million people died?”
There’s a pause. “Why didn’t they just eat something else?”
My hand punches the tarter sauce pump and the thick paste overshoots my plate, splattering onto the counter.
“What, like cake?” the man asks dryly.
“Sure,” she answers, immune to sarcasm.
I pick up a bottle labeled Brown Sauce (not exactly descriptive) and pour that onto my plate, too. Then I take a squeeze of mustard, a dollop of mayonnaise, something that looks like chutney but I’m not sure. I feel obligated to take a little of everything, not wanting to disappoint Simon. The plate looks like a painter’s palette.
I hear Golden Voice get out of the booth. “Why didn’t they just eat something else? Excellent question! Let them eat cake! But, see, they’d run out. Not a slice of cake in the entire country. Bloody awful. What was the Empire coming to, eh?” Dry British wit on full display. Always entertaining and yet somehow thoroughly obnoxious. “Now,” he continues, “there’s a home-cooked meal in it for you—”
She cuts him off, using a low, come-hither voice. “I’d rather those earrings we saw earlier.”
“You’ll have to do a bit more than trivia for diamonds, love,” he says offhandedly. The jerk. “A home-cooked meal if you can tell me the year the Potato Famine occurred. You have ten seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight—”
I realize I’m just standing there in my encroaching fog, listening to this ridiculous conversation, letting my fish and chips get cold. Snapping out of it, I turn around to head back to my seat and crash spectacularly into Golden Voice. Two planets colliding. The entire plate of condiments flips backward into my chest and I teeter, about to go down. A knightly hand reaches out and clutches my forearm, steadying me. My other hand grabs his shoulder.
Maybe he’s not a jerk, after all.
Righting myself, I catch sight of the woman he’s been talking with. Long blond hair. Windswept. Mouth open wide in a shocked laugh.
My gaze whips back to him, just as his head pops up, brown hair mussed.
Our eyes lock.
The fog lifts and I blurt, “You!”
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_2df92535-8e64-5a3e-b83a-2d0baadce7be)
He sits in a beautiful parlor,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
Edward Lear, “How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear!,” 1871
Me?” he inquires, a deer-in-headlights look in his eyes.
“You!” I repeat.
We’re still facing each other. He’s still grasping my forearm, I’m still clutching his shoulder. We’re right up against each other, face to face, eye to eye, plate to breasts.
His stare activates. He comes to life. “Right, okay, here’s what we do. Simon?” he calls, but Simon’s already tossing the towel from his shoulder and You deftly snatches it out of the air. “Lean forward,” he encourages. I bend at the waist and he peels the plate away. I watch the myriad sauces plop from my chest to the linoleum floor, a poor man’s Jackson Pollock.
The blonde laughs.
I stand upright as the man sets the plate on the counter, then moves toward me with the towel, heading for my chest.
My hand shoots out. “Don’t. I got it.” With my bare hands, I rub at my shirt like a finger-painting toddler, making it ten times worse. The clamminess is starting to seep through the fabric onto my skin. I feel him staring at me. “What?” I ask, all contained calm.
“Do we know each other?”
“You almost hit me with your car!”
“Was that you?”
I grind my jaw, keeping my mouth shut.
“May I … assist?” the man lilts with a tone that only ever means one thing.
I freeze.
He can’t be.
I look up at him.
He is.
He’s flirting with me. Holding the towel poised and ready, all dashing smile and twinkling eyes.
My head explodes. “Are you kidding me?”
“I would never dare kid about such matters,” he charms.
“You’re flirting? You should be apologizing!”
“For flirting?”
“For nearly running me over!”
“You’re suggesting I apologize for something I didn’t intentionally do? I’d rather apologize for the flirting.” He’s smiling.
“Y-you … you posh prat!”
“Ooh. Posh prat. Nice choice of alliterative spondee.” He’s still smiling. “So you’re American. Right, here’s the one thing I know about Americans: they tend to get themselves run over in this country by stepping directly into oncoming traffic.”
“So it’s my fault?!” I shout.
“Another thing I know about Americans: they tend to shout. Here.” He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a brightly colored wad of money. He peels off a bill. He holds it out to me.
“What is that?” I seethe. Quietly.
“Specifically? It’s a fifty-pound note.”
“I don’t want your money! I want … I want—” What do I want? The fog is thickening again.
“Oh, don’t look so outraged. Take it. You said it yourself. I’m the posh prat.” He holds the money out again. “The unemotional cad who—absent any genuine remorse or feeling—can but only buy the regard of others.”
I jerk my head to the blonde. “So I see.”
This strikes him. His face changes. The open, breezy, devil-may-care smile drops away and a curtain closes behind his eyes. The show is over. He actually looks hurt. Good. “Keep your money,” I say, capitalizing on this moment of clarity, of the tables having turned, seizing a parting shot. “Buy the historian some carbs.”
Walking back to the counter, I pick up my book and coat, digging in the pocket for some cash. I plop down twenty pounds, grab what remains of my fish bouquet, catch Simon’s smiling eyes, and head for the door. “See you later, Simon!”
“Looking forward to it, Ella from Ohio!” He chuckles.
“Bonne chance,” the man calls dryly, clearly having rallied. Then, adopting an even plummier, more clichéd British accent, adds, “Keep calm and look right!”
Ignoring him, I open the door. The bell jingles and I pause at the threshold. I can’t resist. I turn back to him. “The Potato Famine was in 1845. Asshole.”
SO THAT WENT well.
Foggy, filthy, and suddenly exhausted, I hoof back to Magdalen, shoving fried fish into my mouth as I go. It’s not my imagination that people give me a wide berth.
Now that I’m out in the fresh air, the beginning twinges of embarrassment set in. Yes, I’m jet-lagged, out of my comfort zone, but still …
I hate guys like that. I went to college with guys like that. I interned on the Hill with guys like that. Guys who think they can buy respect with Daddy’s money, and then seal the deal with a wink and a smile. Guys who play a game, who set their trap as if it’s the most ingenious feat of engineering ever devised and expect you to fall all over yourself congratulating their effort.
Look. I’m not drop-dead gorgeous or anything, but with the right lighting, the right hair and makeup effort on my part, I’ve been known to turn a few heads. I have this wild Irish hair that goes everywhere, a wide Julia Roberts mouth, and big, round eyes that make me look more innocent than I actually am. The approachable, girl-next-door type. The type who might be flattered, for instance, by your flirting after you’ve nearly run her over and then destroyed her shirt.
Unfortunately for guys like that, looks can be deceiving.
I stumble through the Magdalen gates and into the lodge. No Hugh. I continue on through the other door and into the courtyard. The sun dips in the sky and the sandstone buildings are hued pink. I wobble across the cobblestones and try to follow Hugh’s directions in my clouded head.
A large L-shaped building appears, embracing a giant lawn so finely coiffed it would shame a golf course. Every thirty feet or so, little staircases, bordered by mullioned windows, ascend into the depth and darkness of the building. I find number four and start my climb with the single-minded determination of the proverbial horse returning to the barn.
The first few stairs are granite, but they soon become old slabs of stone, each step worn into a bowed smile from centuries of shoes. The stairway continues to spiral and soon narrows into planks of rickety wood. It’s so steep that I find myself climbing the steps as if they were a ladder, ending up on hands and knees on a small five-by-five landing, a door on each side of me.
I’m about to stand and dig in my pocket for the key Hugh gave me when it occurs to me that my bags are still downstairs in the lodge. I tip over onto my side with a loud groan. I could sleep right here. I just might.
The door on the right opens and Gus Gus quickly emerges, stepping over me casually as if I’d been there as long as the staircase, and disappears down the stairs. A voice from the open door calls after him, “Your beauty will fade, as will my interest. Be gone with you!”
A figure appears in the doorway and recoils at the sight of me. It’s wearing a red dressing gown and holding a tumbler of amber liquid. Its free hand finds the gap in the robe and clutches it closed, like an aging Tennessee Williams heroine.
“Hello!” I croak.
“Hel-lo,” it replies haltingly, a small, willowy male with wavy, chin-length, chestnut hair. He peers at me then murmurs, almost to himself, “Is it lost?”
Hey. When I use a dehumanizing pronoun, I only think it. I don’t say it right to the pronoun’s face. I stumble to my feet. “I live here.” I gesture to the door behind me. “I’m Ella.” He looks me over, nose crinkling at either my appearance or smell, I can’t tell which. Both are on par with a county-fair trash can at the moment. I soldier on, remembering who Gus Gus told Hugh he was looking for, back in the lodge. “And you’re Sebastian Melmoth, right?”
Now he gives me the side-eye, suspicious. “That’s right. It’s a family name. But how—”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he drawls, mocking my accent. “Goes back centuries. But how did you—”
“I didn’t know that was possible.”
“What?”
“To be descended from someone who didn’t actually exist.” He side-eyes me from the other direction. “Correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I read his stuff, and I’m tired, jet-lagged, and, you know, American, but Sebastian Melmoth was Oscar Wilde’s pseudonym. Right?”
Admittedly, I’m getting a certain perverse pleasure from this.
Called out, the guy just glares at me, then heaves a condescending sigh, turns on his heel, and goes back into his room, slamming the door for good measure.
I take a stabilizing breath, retrieve the ancient-looking key from my pocket, and assess the antique keyhole lock. I slide the key into it and turn. It sounds like I’m unlocking a vault. I push open the tired hinged door and enter the room. My room.
The sun has almost set, so the room is dim. So dim that I fail to see my luggage in the middle of the floor and trip over it. Still, Hugh is my hero right now. I fumble for a light switch and find it to the right of the door.
The room is quaint, with an A-frame ceiling and exposed wooden beams. Between the beams, the ceiling is painted white and the walls are Victorian-era plaster, even peeling romantically in places. Pushed up against the far wall is a single twin bed centered to the apex of the roofline. There’s a functional dresser on one wall and a low built-in bookcase beside it. To the left there’s a little bathroom with an RV-size shower and Barbie doll sink, and to the right is a single, double-paned dormer window. I go to it.
The light is fading, but I glimpse the outline of a spectacular view. I can see Magdalen Tower from here, and slate-shingled rooftops in between and beyond. The top of one of the oak trees in the quad below fills in the bottom border of the window.
I could get used to this.
I quickly shower off, reluctantly throw away my shirt, change into some sweats, connect to the college Wi-Fi, and check my e-mail.
Four sequential messages from my mother greet me.
Just checking in. Let me know when you land.
Let me know when you get settled.
Are you settled? Is something wrong? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?
Ella please respond. I would call the college but I don’t know how to call international and the Skype thing you set up for me says I need money to call. I thought the point of it was that it’s free??? Anyway, just let me know you’re safe because in my bones I think something might be wrong.
I heave a sigh. Now is not the time for her to go all Chicken Little on me. I type:
Tell your bones to relax. I’m fine. Just exhausted. Will write more tomorrow.
I hesitate, as I always do at writing “I love you,” so I just write, XO, E.
I glance at a few more e-mails in my inbox, but everything is becoming one big blur. I look at the clock on my computer: 6:30. A totally reasonable bedtime.
For the most part I sleep soundly, but every time the clock tower chimes, my dreams change like slides in a projector. At the seven o’clock chime, the door to my room opens.
It takes me a moment to realize I’m no longer dreaming.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_bd828c78-6d4b-59f8-bc00-9d3689217393)
Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight …
Edward Fitzgerald translation, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859
I bolt upright. A squat, white-haired woman wearing a functional gray apron walks into my room, humming.
I scream.
She screams.
We look at each other.
“Oooh!” she exclaims, grabbing her chest. “You put the heart crossways in me, love!” She shuffles farther into my room. “Go back t’ sleep, don’t mind old E.”
My eyes begin to clear and I notice she’s carrying a bucket. She waddles into the bathroom.
I get out of bed and stagger after her. She’s bent over the toilet, scrubbing and humming away. “Oh, y-you don’t have to do that,” I stammer.
“Bless you.” She keeps right on doing it.
I hold out my hand. “I’m Ella.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off the task at hand. “Eugenia, love.”
I drop my hand. “So, you’re a maid? We get a maid?” I cringe. “I mean, a housekeeper? Or room attendant, or—”
She stands upright and looks at me sternly, a schoolmarm in a past life. “I’m yer scout, dearie.” Then she moves to the shower, wiping it down with a rag. “Did that muddleheaded porter of a Hugh not tell ya you’d be havin’ a scout?”
“How often do you come?” I ask.
“Why every day, o’ course!” She turns to the sink, polishes the knobs. “’Cept for Saturdays. And Sundays. And bank holidays, fer certain. Seven sharp, on the chime.” She grins at me. “But don’t worry, love. Quiet as a church mouse, in and out in two minutes without anyone knowin’ the wiser. Just ask yer neighbor. Been cleanin’ his rooms for four years now and I only ever seen him with his eyes open but once, and that was comin’ home after a night out.” She laughs to herself. “He’s a jolly one, he is.” She changes the trash bag with a magician-like flourish of the wrist.
This whole arrangement is very Upstairs, Downstairs. And she’s no spring chicken. My midwestern side is uncomfortable having a septuagenarian in service to me, no matter how much pride she seems to take in her job. “Eugenia, you really don’t have to come every day.”
She’s already at the door, bucket in hand. She smiles, grabs the doorknob, and says, “Right then, see you tomorrow, love.” And she’s gone.
AFTER CUTTING THROUGH some texts and e-mails (three from Gavin), I shower, twist my hair into a messy topknot, slap on some mascara and lip gloss, and slip into one of my more responsible-looking blazers. I’m out the door by nine with an unearned sense of victory. I thank Hugh for his very Remains of the Day baggage-delivery service last night and get a distracted grunt in reply.
With an hour to spare before the Rhodes orientation, I grab a bottled Frappucino and some cookie-like thing called a flapjack from some bodega-like thing called a newsagent’s and start wandering.
The High is quiet this early, the shops’ gates still down, the restaurants dark. But a simple right turn, just before a medieval church, puts me in a cobblestone alleyway that opens up to a city alive. I’m in Radcliffe Square, and I stop to take it all in. The iconic, cylindrical Radcliffe Camera stands before me, with its neoclassical architecture and golden walls. It’s as if I’ve stumbled onto an anthill. Students and tourists go in and out of gates on the square’s periphery, disappearing into the basement of a church, emerging with coffee and pastry bags. Interesting. I regret my bottle of newsagent’s coffee.
I’m just turning around like the second hand of a clock, taking it all in. The architecture, the landscaping, the way people are dressed, the way they sound. The constant tring-tring of bicycle bells. I move through the square, past the Bodleian Library, and around the Sheldonian Theatre, its surrounding pillars topped with thirteen stone busts of nameless men. Across the street, tourist shops hawk Oxford gear next to a couple of charming-looking pubs and a few gated colleges. The stores are painted in cheery blues and reds, yellows and whites. A couple of Union Jacks fly out over the sidewalk, where a smattering of café tables and chairs waits for patrons in the dewy early-morning chill.
It’s a more cosmopolitan environment than I expected. It feels old, yes, but it’s thriving. History with a pulse. Warm-blooded ruins. I hear Mandarin, Italian, French, Arabic, and an assortment of English accents. There’s a startling number of Americans. It’s as if this city belongs to everyone. If you’re here, you belong here. It’s like a timeless, ramshackle International Space Station.
At the end of Broad Street, in front of Balliol College, there’s an innocuous-looking cobblestone cross embedded in the street. A memorial, it turns out, for the three Oxford Martyrs, Protestant bishops who were burned at the stake by Queen Mary in the 1550s. I realize, with a start, that one of these men was Thomas Cranmer, the man responsible for annulling the marriage of Mary’s parents, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.
My brain tries to reboot. I’m standing on the spot where Thomas Cranmer died. It’s not blocked off, no one’s charging admission. It’s barely even marked. It’s just part of the Oxford landscape. And not thirty feet away, I can buy Oxford University sweatpants and TARDIS cookie tins.
A chill goes up my spine. This moment of cognitive dissonance is just the beginning. Toto, we’re not in Ohio anymore.
Gauging distance in this town is impossible. Maybe it’s the uneven, cobblestoned terrain. Maybe it’s the pods of tourists taking up every inch of sidewalk. Maybe it’s the meandering streets and alleys. I love every cobblestone, pod, and meander, but I misjudge how long it will take to get to the Rhodes House and I end up finding it with less than a minute to spare.
I race up the steps. Just as I grab the door handle, my phone rings. Shit. Even though it’s only five A.M. in Washington, apparently we’re open for business.
“Gavin, hi!” I answer.
A chuckle greets me from the other end of the phone. “Sorry to disappoint, but this isn’t Gavin.”
I freeze, still holding the door handle. “Senator Wilkes,” I manage. “W-what a nice surprise.”
“Ella Durran. I’m a fan.”
I can’t believe this is happening; I’m here, I’m there, I’m—starting to hyperventilate. Chill. “I’m a huge fan of yours,” I gush. “I’m so excited to—”
“Excuse me?”
I spin around. I’m blocking the entrance. “Sorry,” I whisper to the woman trying to get around me. I glance inside the building as she opens the door. The place is packed. I’m two minutes late. They’re starting.
There’s no way I’m hanging up on the next possible president of the United States, who says breezily, “Well, let’s get to it. Education is going to be the cornerstone of my campaign and you are a key part of the strategy. I loved what you wrote. I had three boys in the Florida public school system while trying to put myself through grad school in my thirties. Trust me, I get it.”
Through the door, I hear the squeal of a microphone coming to life and then an amplified British voice saying, “Everyone, please take your seats …”
“Senator—”
“Call me Janet.”
“Thank you, I just want to say …” Breathe. Speak. “Anything you need, anything at all, I’m here for you and Gavin. It’s an honor to be working for you.”
“Working with me, Ella. This is a partnership. We’re going to do great things together. That said, we’ll try to bother you as little as possible. We want you to enjoy your time at Oxford. Right, Gavin?”
“Absolutely,” I hear him say in the background in a tone of voice I haven’t heard from him before. It’s patient and ingratiating. Just as he’s my boss, she’s his.
The door to the Rhodes House opens from the inside, and a man steps out, bending his head and bringing his cell phone to his ear. He answers it lowly. “This is Connor.”
We glance at each other with mirrored looks of chagrin. He has a really nice face: chiseled jaw, sloped nose, bright brown eyes, and Stephanopoulos hair. This is what I used to imagine a Rhodes scholar looked like. The prep school quarterback from a J. D. Salinger novel.
“Well, Ella, I won’t take up any more of your time. I just wanted to say welcome aboard.”
“Thank you. I won’t let you down.”
“Never crossed my mind. Wait, Gavin wants to say something. I’ll hand you over.”
Do I tell him I’m missing orientation? Do I tell him I’ll call him back? Do I have a choice? Gavin’s voice comes on the line. “You have a minute? I can get Priya Banergee right now for a conference call. You in?”
Priya Banergee is a pollster. I should hear what she has to say. I look wistfully at the Rhodes House door even as I say, “Of course.” They patch Priya in as I plop down on the top step. My partner in cell-phone purgatory takes up residence on the other side of the stair. We give each other a resigned grin. As he speaks into his phone, I find myself assessing him.
Jesus. That is one attractive Rhodie.
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, after listening to an endless stream of data and contributing almost nothing to the conversation, we wrap up. I disconnect and take a breath, then glance over at the guy, who’s also just hanging up.
Smiling, he says, “Can we just agree that anything either of us might have overheard doesn’t leave this stoop?”
I snort. “Deal. But can I ask who you work for? Lobbyist?”
He nods. “Health care.”
“Which group?”
“PMR?” Public Medical Relations. The biggest healthcare lobbying group in D.C., and he says it as if questioning whether I’ve heard of it. Like when you ask someone where they went to college and they say, “Harvard?”
“You’re inside the Beltway as well?” he asks. I nod. He leans over, bracing a palm on the cool marble step and extending his other hand to me. “Connor Harrison-Smith.”
“Ella Durran.”
God, he has a killer smile. Wouldn’t that be just my luck; I come all the way to England and fall for a guy who probably lives a block from me in D.C. He gestures toward the door. “You wanna?” I nod and we both stand, collecting our things. “So, not that I overheard anything, obviously, but this is a new job for you?”
“Yeah. You?”
“No. I quit. I’m just helping out until the new guy’s up to speed.”
I make a show of contemplating this. “Interesting. So you’re just gonna, like, study for the year?”
“I’m just gonna, like, drink a lot of really good beer, is what I’m gonna do.” We both chuckle. “I’m doing a master’s in global health. You?”
“Literature.”
“Really?”
Everyone always sounds surprised when I say this. “Yup; 1830 to 1914.”
We move toward the door. “Huh.” A wrinkle appears on his brow as he puzzles this out. He’s adorable. “Where’d you do your undergrad?”
“Georgetown. You?”
“Harvard?”
I smile.
He opens the door and holds it for me. A gentleman.
After getting an abbreviated orientation from a harried administrator (go here, do this, see this person for this thing, don’t do this, sign this), I glance at my watch, and I only have ten minutes to get to my first class at the English faculty building. I seem to be the only person rushing out. I think I’m definitely the only one doing a master’s in English. Whenever I say what I’m studying, people tilt their heads at me. What is this literature of which you speak?
I head outside only to be slowed by Connor’s voice calling, “Ella, wait.” I turn back, see him standing on our stairs. “Why don’t I give you my number? In case you wanna drink some beer.”
I smile at him and take out my phone. “It’s a plan.”
THE ENGLISH FACULTY building is a blocky, midcentury cement blight. Not exactly what I had expected. One of the linear, unimaginative departments should have this building. Something like chemistry or mathematics or, well, global health.
I arrive at the designated lecture room ten minutes after the class’s start time, once again a day late and a pound short in this city. Collecting myself, I softly open the door, fully expecting to interrupt the class.
I don’t.
A group of about ten people is scattered around a horseshoe table, some murmuring to each other, others reading, others looking at their phones. No one is at the lectern.
I cross to a cluster of empty seats. As I pass behind one of them, a girl mutters, “Sorry! This doesn’t need to be here,” and quickly lifts her bag off the seat directly in front of me. I keep moving toward another empty chair, opening my mouth to tell her it’s okay, but she keeps talking. “So sorry. My apologies, really. Selfish.”
In America, there’d be a good chance her apologies were sarcastic. From the corner of my eye, I take her in. She’s dressed conservatively (boat-neck tweed sheath dress under a canary-yellow cardigan, ballet flats), and her hair is styled in an intricate sixties beehive. Only, it’s pink. She appears innocent of any sarcasm.
I consider introducing myself to her, but she looks as if interaction with a stranger might push her over the edge. I guess this must be the famous British reserve.
Just then the door bangs open, causing everyone to jump, and a guy, outfitted like Robert Redford in The Sting, strides in. “I have arrived,” he announces. “We can begin.” So much for British reserve. With a start, I realize that I know him.
“Sebastian Melmoth!” I say.
He stops and peers at me. The girl’s pink head swivels from him to me, eyes bulging, before whipping back to him. “Charlie! You swore you’d stop doing that!”
He drops his head theatrically to his chest and sulks toward us.
The girl turns back to me, doe-brown eyes sympathetic. “How did you meet this git, then?”
“We share a staircase,” I answer as he drops into the chair on the other side of her.
She spins back to him, smacking him on the arm. “And you didn’t recognize her?”
“In my defense,” he begins, “she was disguised as a vagrant. The old crone in a Breton lai who is actually a beautiful sorceress. Clever bitch gets me every time.” He looks past the girl, to me. “So, having failed the moral aptitude test, what shall it be, eh? Seven years as a toad? Eternity as a Tory? Or shall we dispense with further discord?” He extends his hand. “Charles Butler, veritas et virtus.”
I can’t help but smile. “Ella Durran.”
He drops my hand and settles back in his chair. “Come to mine tonight.” It’s not an apology, but it’s clearly a peace offering. “We’ll have a dram.”
“Will do. Thank you.”
He nudges the girl. “Join us.”
“All right.”
“Bring your Scotch.”
The girl rolls her eyes, but just then, Professor Roberta Styan walks in. Everything stops. She typifies the absentminded professor, stumbling up to the lectern, arms overflowing with paraphernalia. Briefcase, papers, umbrella, jacket, muttering as she walks, “Hello, hello, sorry, apologies for the delay.”
At the podium, she doesn’t set anything down, just stands behind it looking out at us. Then she says, “Right, so: tragic news, I’m afraid. I’ve just been named head of graduate studies. Which means I’m far too important to be teaching you lot.” Before we can respond, she continues, “Please, shed no tears! Rend not your garments! My replacement is more than able. In fact, he’s my most brilliant JRF. After two minutes with him—not to mention his skinny jeans—you’ll forget I ever existed.” She takes a breath, then smiles. Off our lack of reaction, she quips, “You were meant to scoff at that. Ah well. Without further ado, meet Jamie Davenport. Jamie?” She gestures toward the door.
Wait. Hold on. The person I came to Oxford to study with is leaving? But I’ve read all of her books, all of her papers. I watched all three of her YouTube videos. (It’s not her fault. Victorian sexuality and linguistics is a niche market.) This isn’t happening. She was my Oxford destiny, my Gandalf, my Mr. Miyagi, my whatever-Robin-Williams’s-Character’s-Name-Was-in-DeadPoets-Society. What does she mean she’s not teaching?
Styan hobbles away from the podium, and the TA gives her a squeeze on the shoulder before taking the lectern. “Sorry to disappoint, my skinny jeans are at the cleaners.” He smiles charmingly at the group and everyone responds with an appreciative chuckle.
Except for me. I can’t respond. I’m too busy having my world reordered.
The new professor is the posh prat.
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_20f2e808-6cea-53c6-b0c4-24ce840dc6f7)
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott,” 1831–1832
Jamie Davenport takes his time spreading his notes out on the podium. Then he looks up at the class and smiles impishly. “Please, be gentle.”
What would happen if I left? This is only one of my courses and it only meets once a week. Maybe I can join another group. Maybe I can track down Styan and convince her to work with me privately. I refuse to allow this teaching assistant to be my only option. This cannot be my “Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience.” That’s supposed to be a good thing.
“Five years ago,” he begins, “I sat right where you are now. Styan walked in and I thought, ‘So this is who’ll bore me to tears for the next two months?’ I mean, I love poetry—why else would I be here, eh?—but bloody Victorian? Could anything be worse? Ghastly old men in top hats, big bellies, muttonchops out to here, banging on about the glory of foreign wars and the sanctity of the marriage bed? Frankly, I wanted to slit my own throat.”
Peripherally, I see the other students smile. I don’t.
“Never in my wildest dreams,” he continues, looking out into the room, “did I expect to find in the work of the Victorians such despair. Lust. Terror.” He makes eye contact with a different person at each word, a politician “connecting” with his audience. “Wisdom. Love.”
And bam. His eyes lock with mine and there’s a whisper of hesitation in his voice, like the momentary skip of an old record. No one else notices. But I do. And he does. He quickly looks back out to the group. “Do you believe me?” he asks.
Not on your life, I think.
He claps his hands. “Any questions, then? Before we start?”
I raise my hand.
“We don’t raise hands here. Forty lashes and no grog for you.” He smiles at me. The gall.
“Do you have a syllabus we can look at?” I ask, sure he doesn’t.
“A syllabus?”
There’s a titter somewhere in the class. He cocks his head at me. “Yes,” I continue. “A document in which you outline the weekly reading, due dates, grading standards, expectations?”
“Ah, good question,” he says easily. “You don’t need to prepare any of the material ahead of time, and I don’t foresee any papers, but if we do have one it’ll be set at your convenience, and lastly, I’m not responsible for marking. So …”
By the snickers from some of the other students I glean that this is common knowledge. I look down at the table, realizing that I might be on the verge of embarrassing myself. “Okay. No syllabus is an Oxfordian thing that I’ll just have to get used to.”
A voice pipes up across from me. “Oxonian, actually.”
I glance over. A girl who looks like an English rose cameo you’d find on an antique pin scribbles something in her notebook, not looking at me.
“Tomato, to-mah-to,” I reply, with forced geniality.
“It’s not a matter of pronunciation, of dialectology,” she counters in a low, luxuriant voice. She keeps writing. “It’s not a linguistic schism from the colonies, it’s quite simply and literally a different word.”
My face heats. “Oh yeah?”
She deigns to look up. “‘Oxfordian’ refers to the theory purporting that the seventeenth Earl of Oxford authored the works of Shakespeare. A theory that has fallen predominantly out of favor amongst most legitimate academics.”
The way she says “legitimate academics” feels like a slap. “Okay, cool,” I say. “Thanks for the tip.”
She smiles tightly and looks back down at her notebook. I bury my face in mine as well. If I could disappear right now I would.
“All right, then, Oxonians,” Jamie Davenport says buoyantly, “Onward!”
EVERYONE IN THE class is obviously smart. The pink-haired girl next to me hasn’t said anything, but has at least ten pages of notes. Charlie, who never even pulled out a notebook, rattles off crisp and cogent comments with about as much effort as a yawn. And the English Rose drops her observations quietly yet deliberately, with perfectly chosen words and no extraneous “uhs” or “likes” or “you knows.” How is that possible?
I haven’t said anything.
I wasn’t an English major in undergrad. I was, perhaps unsurprisingly, poli sci and history. I took English classes for fun, and am well read, but I didn’t live, breathe, and eat it the way these people did. They are here, doing a master of studies in English at Oxford University, because they earned it.
I basically won a contest.
No disrespect to the Rhodes, but it’s true. I got the scholarship because of the overall applicant I was, not because the committee knew I would excel in the study of English literature and language, 1830–1914. How could they know I’d be good at this? They were all hedge-fund execs and mathematics professors and social entrepreneurs.
What am I doing here?
A thought runs screaming through my mind like an escapee from an insane asylum: if I had actually applied to Oxford, I probably wouldn’t be here.
Somehow this fact never occurred to me until just now while someone says, “Yes, but as Stanley Fish would have us believe,” and another person says, “Harold Bloom would disagree with you there,” and another replies, “Well, Bloom,” as if that’s retort enough, and then there are just words: “Derrida” and “Said” and “New Historicism” and “Queer Theory” and everything is “Post” (Post-Modernism, Post-Feminism, Post-Christian), until I honestly don’t know what we’re talking about anymore.
I realize that as much as I’d like to get out of this class and ask Styan about other options, I have no right to. The political operative from Ohio thinks the posh prat of a TA is beneath her? Because the truth is, all my anger, embarrassment, and hurt pride aside, I have to admit he’s giving a damn fine lecture. He hasn’t looked at his notes once. He’s fielded questions with ease, moderated discussion with finesse, and managed with tact to tell certain people, “That’s an interesting point, but have you evidence?” when he obviously means, “That’s stupid, shut up.”
Jamie Davenport comes around to the front of the podium, nodding along to whatever English Rose is saying. “Right, Cecelia, exactly. There’s a theory that Shakespeare’s plays taught us how to be human, how to understand ourselves. I believe that poetry teaches us how to feel.” He looks out to the rest of the group, and says:
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.”
Then he smiles cheekily at us. “Author?”
The class is silent. No one knows. I’m so surprised no one knows that it takes me a moment to realize that I do. I know this! My hand pops into the air like a marionette.
He smiles, and with that mellifluous voice says, “Remember? No raising of hands.”
I immediately drop it. The class chuckles. I join them. See, I’m a good sport, and then go in for the kill. “Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1920.”
He inclines his head in surprised approval. “Well done. Dates are most definitely a strong point. Ella from Ohio.”
Potato Famine, 1845. Against my will, my cheeks flush. Charlie and Pink Hair’s heads (and every girl’s in the room, actually) whip toward me. I don’t look at anyone.
“So,” Davenport continues, heading back behind the lectern and looking at his notes, “I know this is your A course and all we’re meant to do is reconnoiter the selected reading each week, but where’s the fun in that, eh? The English faculty cocked up and gave me teaching responsibilities, so by God I’m going to teach! When I was doing my master of studies here, I often felt a bit adrift, so here’s what I propose: I’ll only do this once, don’t worry, but I’d like to have everyone dash off a quick paper for me, and we’ll have a chat about it.” He looks, again, at me. “I forgot to mention I have the right to change my mind at any given moment. Apologies.” To the rest of the class, he says, “The paper will serve to educate me, your humble Strand Convener, about your perspectives and predilections and help me guide you to the appropriate adviser for your dissertation in Trinity Term. I know, seems far off, eh? ‘Miles to go before I sleep …’” He looks to me and extends his hand, begging an answer to his unspoken question.
“Robert Frost, 1922,” I say. Without raising my hand. Nailed it.
“A little-known American poet.” He grins at me again. “Dates. Definitely a strong point.”
English Rose lifts her head. “Didn’t he write those quaint little children’s songs?”
I take a fortifying breath while Jamie Davenport says, “I don’t actually know,” then looks out at everyone else. “I’d like you to pick a poem, and give me a page on it. Don’t explicate rhyme scheme, meter, et cetera—this isn’t sixth form. Speak of it as you would a friend. Describe its charms and quirks, its faults, how it achieves its intended effects. Does it flirt, offend, mislead? How does it make you feel?”
Besides the fact that he might as well be talking about himself right now, this assignment actually excites me. This I can do. I will write the ever-loving shit out of this. I will redeem myself. I glance around the room. Everyone else looks very British about it, like this is where fun comes to die.
“Send them to me via e-mail and we’ll schedule a tute. Have a great week, everyone.”
He begins collecting his papers. The Jamie Davenport Show is over. As I slip toward the door, I feel Charlie next to me, questions wafting off him like cologne.
“Ella?”
I stop and look back at the lectern.
He’s not looking at me; he’s still fiddling with his papers. “A word, please?”
Charlie gives me a slight push forward and then he and Pink Hair slip reluctantly out the door. I gather myself and step in front of the podium. Davenport looks up and nails me with his eyes and suddenly I’m a boat caught in a current. What is it about those eyes?
“Yes?” I ask.
“Was it ruined?” he murmurs. “Your blouse?”
“Among other things.”
His face is open, receptive. The smugness from last night is gone, the performance of the last hour is gone. He is startlingly focused. We continue to look at each other. “Apologies,” he finally says. “For every bit of it. I won’t make excuses, but I will explain. I’d had a spot of bad news earlier and I’d had a drink and I was entirely too slow to recognize the affront I’d caused.”
My reply is quicker than my thoughts. “It’s not necessary—”
“Please, I understand if this apology comes as too little too late, and I have no expectation of forgiveness, nor do I, arguably, deserve it, but do know that I acted without malice and my idiocy was nothing more than that. Sheer idiocy. You simply got tangled up in it. It was, invariably, an act of treason against my own better judgment, and … well,” he concludes. “There it is.”
I’ve got nothing. I was sure I’d have the perfect, cutting retort, but that was a Mr. Darcy–caliber speech. Not to mention his voice makes me feel as if I’m lying in a hammock. He’s waiting for my response. I’m having trouble talking.
Finally, the words “apology accepted” drop out of my mouth. I can’t stop staring at him. He has a classically proportioned face. Strong forehead, protractor jawline, straight nose, full lips. The kind of face that on anyone with less personality might seem benignly handsome. I like guys with something distinctive, a crooked nose or a scar across an eyebrow, something that hints at a story. Jamie Davenport’s face is a blank page. Except for those eyes, that is.
Still staring. It’s starting to feel like a contest.
I break the spell and nod once, turning to go, but then I hear, “You could have waited.”
I spin around. “For what?”
“Blurting out ‘1845’ like that. She had seven seconds left,” he deadpans.
I can’t help the smile that pulls at my lips. “I don’t think either of us believes time was the issue.”
He grins, a knowing, appreciative grin. My stomach inexplicably flops and I realize I’ve barely eaten today. That must be it. “Anything else, Professor?”
“No, that will be all,” he murmurs. “Ella from Ohio.”
“Okay, then … posh prat.” I turn and walk to the door. Glancing back (the kind of glance you can always disavow if necessary), I see he’s shuffling papers again and biting his bottom lip, as if to keep from smiling. Someone brushes past me into the classroom. English Rose. She approaches the podium and I find myself pausing in the doorway to adjust the strap on my bag.
I hear her say, “Congratulations, Professor.”
“Shh,” he replies. “The real professors will hear you.”
“You’re quite wonderful, Jamie. I was well impressed.”
“Cheers, Ce.”
“If my being here is too distracting, surely I can switch out—”
“Come now, don’t be daft, Ce. I love looking out at a sea of dubious faces and finding yours.”
My bag slips from my hand and thuds to the floor. They both turn at the disturbance. “Sorry,” I mutter, grab my bag, and escape.
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_be3f3bd1-4151-5202-834e-2b465221a21c)
I took my scrip of manna sweet,
My cruse of water did I bless;
I took the white dove by the feet,
And flew into the wilderness.
Richard Watson Dixon, “Dream,” 1861
Outside I am greeted by the sight of my two classmates huddled in a pocket of sunshine, arguing quietly. She shakes her pink head while he throws his back and groans.
“Hey,” I say, stepping forward.
They break apart and give me two big, fake smiles. “Hello!” she squeaks. “I’m Margaret Timms. Sorry, Maggie, actually. You made quite the impression in there. With those dates. And whatnot.” She has the most adorable baby voice, a little husky, but high and bright.
I stick out my hand. She looks surprised, but takes it. “Thank you. Ella Durran.” I worry I’m crushing her thin little bird fingers, but she keeps smiling.
The three of us stand at the precipice of an awkward silence until Charlie, putting on sunglasses, says, “Maggie was actually wondering …”
I turn to Maggie. She looks as if she’s being held at gunpoint. “No, I—sorry, I was just—” she stammers. I quirk my head. After one more excruciating moment, she bursts. “I was just wondering if you know that ‘Oxfordian’ also happens to be the geologic designation for the early stage of the late Jurassic period?”
Charlie and I stare at her with Tweedledee/Tweedledum looks of confusion.
“It’s science,” she adds, wringing her hands together. Then, looking at her feet, “Sorry.”
Charlie slowly shakes his head. “I should have never let you shag that geologist.” He turns to me. “Maggie was attempting to ask you to join us for tea this afternoon.”
“Charlie,” Maggie groans, “I was getting there.”
“Had we waited for you to get there we would have missed tea altogether.”
I can’t help but ask Charlie, “Is this invite from just her?”
He stiffens slightly, cocks his head back, and assesses me. “I would not wish to be mistaken for having any carnal intentions.”
Seriously? I try not to laugh. “I wouldn’t have.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you’re gay?”
He side-eyes me. “You don’t think I’m just eccentric and terribly British?”
“Definitely. And gay.”
Maggie gives me a grateful look and then, vindicated, pushes Charlie. “See?” She turns to a cool, vintage bike (that is, yup, pink) and unlocks it from the rack. “We call him the closet door.”
Confused, I glance between the two of them. Charlie sighs. “They go through me to come out.” A laugh erupts from me, but Charlie is unfazed. “So. Tea?”
Smiling, I nod. “I’d love to. Thanks.”
“Huzzah. The Old Parsonage in a half hour. Maggie has to … collect something.”
She gives me the same repentant smile as before. “Sorry.”
She climbs on her bike, demurely smoothing her dress over her legs, and is about to push off when I say, “A bike. Now, that’s something I could use. I hate being late to everything.”
She smiles. “It’s essential. Everyone has one.”
“Some travel under the power of our own dignity instead,” Charlie mutters.
Maggie ignores him. “Actually, a friend happens to be selling one for a pittance at the mo. I’m off there now. Fancy joining me?” She pats her handlebars.
“Great!” Having said that, I approach Maggie’s handlebars cautiously. I’ve never done this. How do I do this? I straddle the front tire and inelegantly struggle into position while Maggie—showing a surprising amount of upper body strength—holds the bike still.
I hear Charlie murmur, “You are not to speak of anything without me,” and Maggie mutters back, “Oh, shut it.” Then, cheerily, to me, “Settled?”
“I think so!” I reply, all feigned confidence. Charlie gives us a reluctant push and we’re off.
WE RIDE THROUGH the city for about five minutes, over lots and lots of cobblestones, until we reach a large park. Across the street from it, Maggie pulls up to a curb and I hop off, letting the blood flow back to my cobblestoned ass. Maggie locks her bike to a lamppost and bounds up yet another ridiculously steep staircase. They should really just call staircases ladders in this country and be done with it. I join her as she presses a key on a call box, eliciting the sound of static, which then crescendos into a loud screech before cutting out entirely. She glances at me. “Sorry.”
A voice calls out from behind the door, “Coming, coming!” When it finally opens, a gangly boy stands on one leg like a stork, holding his other shin and grimacing. “Bugger and blast, banged my shin on the brolly stand,” he informs us by way of introduction. His golden-brown face is framed by black caterpillar eyebrows at the top and a wispy, scraggly, little-beard-that-could at the bottom. Shaggy midnight-hued hair spouts from his head in every direction.
“Hello, Tom!” Maggie chirps.
“Hello, Mags,” he exhales, dropping his shin. Then he sees me. “Oh! New person!”
“This is Ella,” Maggie informs him. “She’s American.”
“Ah! Well, then!” Beaming, Tom raises a fist to me, inviting a bump. As if it’s the way one greets Americans? Gamely, I raise my fist and meet his. He pulls his back and jazz-hands it, making an exploding noise. Then he giggles. “Always wanted to do that.”
Maggie smiles brilliantly at him. “You’re looking good,” she effuses. “I like your new haircut—”
Tom turns back into the vestibule and exclaims, “Come in! Come in! Just mind the—” I’m sure he would have said “rug” had he not, at that moment, tripped over it.
Maggie and I enter a small hall filled with boxes and an overflowing umbrella stand. He forges ahead, leading us through an open door.
Into a closet. We’re standing in a big closet with a small bed. The “room” is completely occupied, floor to ceiling, with books. “Make yourselves comfy,” Tom says. Options limited, Maggie and I perch on opposing arms of a chair. I glance at the end table next to me. Peeking out from under a book, a framed picture shows a young, beaming Tom in Mickey Mouse ears standing between a tall man with Tom’s jovial, wide-eyed face, wearing a Sikh dastar, and a squat blond woman wearing a cat sweatshirt. I look up to find Tom staring at me. Grinning.
“So,” I say, because there’s nothing else to say.
“So!” he exclaims. “Which are we destined to be? Friends or lovers?” Still grinning.
“Friends.” It’s a knee-jerk response.
“Take your time. If you need to have a think—”
“No, I’m … good,” I say with a smile, trying not to offend him.
He just shrugs, unfazed by my rejection. “Alas, the good ones are always taken, eh, Mags?” As if the only grounds for my rejection would be the existence of a boyfriend.
Maggie stares at the book-covered floor. She mutters, “Not always.” Then she glances up at him, looking annoyed, frustrated, and something else that I can’t—
Oh. I get it. Oh dear.
Oblivious, Tom continues to stare at me. Maggie stares at him.
“So,” I push forward, “word on the street is you’re selling a bike.”
“Indeed I am! Who told you?”
Maggie huffs in affectionate exasperation. I playfully twirl a finger at her. Tom follows my finger.
“Oh, Mags! Right! Jolly good!”
There’s a silence.
“So?” I prod, trying to get this ball—or bicycle—rolling.
“So?”
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what now?”
Fortunately, Maggie takes charge. “The bike, Tom, can she see the bike?”
“Why, s’right there!” He flails his hand at a space behind us. Next to the door, camouflaged by an array of papers, more books, and coats, is an adorable beach-cruiser bike, banana seat and all. I walk over to it. It’s in good shape. Surprising for this guy.
“Duchess.” Tom sighs. “A fitting name for the gal who got me through the thick and thin of my first six years.”
My head snaps up. “You’ve been here six years?”
“Sorry,” Maggie chimes in. “Tom came here to read philosophy, then started over in maths, then … well, I believe it was classics, wasn’t it?” Her brow furrows. She looks to Tom.
“Linguistics, philology, and phonetics.”
“Then classics?”
“Bang on, Mags.”
Maggie beams. Definitely into him.
“Which college are you at?” I ask.
“He was at Magdalen with Charlie and me!”
I glance back to Tom. “And now?”
“Oh, no one will have me now.” He leans in and nudges my shoulder with his knobby elbow. “Story of my life, eh?”
I think I’m understanding this. “So you don’t go here anymore?”
“He’s actually become quite the popular tutor!” Maggie enthuses. “Helping people apply to Oxford!”
Tom’s open face turns wry. “I can teach ’em how to get in, just not how to get out.”
He laughs, Maggie reciprocates, and I nod, murmuring, “Cool, cool.” I look back to the bike. “So what are you thinking?”
“At present? In general?”
This is what happens when you’re the book equivalent of the crazy cat lady. “The price. What do you want for it?”
He chews his lip. “Forty quid.” I pause, considering. I open my mouth to accept and Tom blurts, “All right, all right, you drive a hard bargain. Thirty.”
I smile. “Done!” I dig into my pocket for cash.
He claps his hands and jumps up. “Spiffing!” I hand him the money and he clears a path so he can wheel the bike out into the vestibule, down the stairs, and onto the street. We follow him. I look back at Maggie. I have to do something. “Tom?”
“Yes?” He’s bent over the bike, examining some invisible flaw. He licks his finger and wipes at it.
“Maggie and I are meeting Charlie for tea. Would you like to join?”
His face lights up. “Spiffing!” He swings one long giraffe leg over Duchess, mounting her like a prize stallion. “Parsonage?”
Maggie and I look at each other. Maggie takes this one. “Tom. Ella would like to ride her bike now.”
“Right!” He guffaws. “Just warming the seat.” He dismounts and gallops up the stairs, calling, “I’ll just grab Pippa!”
As he disappears inside, Maggie crosses to her bike and begins unlocking it. There’s a silence. She clearly wants to say something. She doesn’t.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I say. “It’s perfect.” She nods and smiles politely as we climb onto our bikes. She seems to be avoiding my gaze. I wonder if I’ve overstepped something. “Sorry if I … I probably shouldn’t have just invited him to tea, considering—”
But Maggie shakes her head. “No, no. That’s why I was coming here in the first place. To invite him. The battery on his mobile always dies, you see. He can go days without realizing no one’s called him.” Her tone is easy, but she still doesn’t look at me.
I test the waters. “I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s very … unique.”
She finally looks at me, chewing her bottom lip, seemingly on the verge of a confession. “I don’t know quite what it is. He’s a bit doglike, really. As you saw, ready to be loved by anyone willing to give him a pat. It can be quite annoying, actually.”
I smile, understanding where Maggie’s coming from. “He did the same thing to you when you first met him?”
There’s a moment of silence and something crosses Maggie’s face. “No.”
“No?”
“No. He didn’t.” She looks away. “Sorry. He just … gets to me.”
Now I really understand where Maggie’s coming from. “I can tell.”
She sighs, reddens. “He does it with everyone! Literally everyone! Just not me. It’s baffling. And maddening. And embarrassing! Sorry.” She straightens her back, aligns her dress, smooths her cardigan, regathers her pride.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Charlie says I should consider myself lucky. I mean, don’t misunderstand, he loves Tom, but—”
I shake my head. “It’s not about anyone else. If you want it, you should go for it.”
“Oh God, no.” Her eyes bug. She pauses, shakes her head, and groans, “He’s just so damn sexy.”
While that wouldn’t be my takeaway from an encounter with Tom, to each her own. We look at each other again and both of us smile. I like this girl a lot. We already have each other’s back. To protect, not stab. That’s universal sisterhood, no matter which country you come from.
Tom returns while Maggie’s describing the adjacent park to me. I notice him staring at her. It’s the first time I’ve seen him really look at her. She looks lovely right now, lit by the dappled late-afternoon sun filtering through the oak tree above her.
“Mags?” Tom says.
She turns from the park. “Yes, Tom?”
He considers her. “Your hair.”
Her hand primps the right side of her pink beehive, and she flushes. I could make some popcorn and watch them all day. “Yes?” she gently prods.
This is it. This is where he takes the plunge and asks her out, and I will tell this story in my toast at their wedding.
Tom leans in and peers at the left side of her head, almost quizzically. “You’ve a spot of bird shite in your hair.”
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_0f94ab19-c122-5d3e-8c8f-6036cd32cc1c)
This love, wrong understood,
Oft’ turned my joy to pain;
I tried to throw away the bud,
But the blossom would remain.
John Clare, “Love’s Pains,” 1844
Given the lovely turn of your figure, it’s quite gratifying you’re not one of those dreadful American girls who subsist entirely on lawn clippings and glacier water,” Charlie says.
My mouth is too full of sco ne to reply.
The four of us—Maggie, Tom, Charlie, and I—are settled on the charming patio of the Old Parsonage Hotel, having tea. This is Tea with a capital T. There’s a three-tiered china platter filled with sandwiches on the bottom, scones, preserves, and cream in the middle, and bite-sized desserts on top. I haven’t had afternoon tea since Ashley Carmichael’s obsession with Alice in Wonderland forced me to spend her eighth birthday sipping pink tea out of tiny plastic cups, wearing a stupid hat, and being creeped out by a middle-aged guy in a dirty White Rabbit costume. This is better.
Tom, picking cranberries out of his scone, looks up, his attention drawn to something beyond our table. “Say, Charlie? Isn’t that your rower?”
We follow Tom’s gaze to one of the waiters (a strapping, square-jawed guy), refilling water glasses three tables over.
“In time.” Charlie sighs.
Maggie’s forehead crinkles. “But you fancied him last term,” she says, as if it were another lifetime. “Surely you—”
“He’s not ready.”
“As if that’s ever stopped you!” Tom guffaws.
Charlie shakes his head. “No, I need must tread carefully with this one. He still fears condemnation from his awful rower mates. He has months yet of realizations and dire haircuts. He’s only just begun experimenting with colored trousers. So …” Charlie puts down his teacup and looks at me. “Considering you’ve been here all of twenty-four hours, and as I witnessed a sordid portion of them and can assume that they were not amongst your finest, how do you already know our delectable lecturer Mr. Davenport?”
I smirk at Charlie. “Is this why you asked me to tea?”
“No!” Maggie assures me just as Charlie says, “Obviously.”
It starts drizzling, but no one seems bothered. Maggie slides the tiny bowl of clotted cream farther under the protection of the dessert plate. Priorities.
“Well, first, he almost hit me with his car.”
Charlie nods. “You were looking the wrong way, of course.”
I open my mouth to argue, but think better of it. “Then, later, he succeeded in nailing me—”
“There it is!” he cries.
I hold up my hand. “In the chip shop. With a plate of sauces.”
Realization dawns in Charlie’s eyes. “Davenport was responsible for that haute couture experiment of yours, was he?” I nod. “Excellent.” He narrows his eyes. “But that can’t be all. Because in class—”
I put my hand out again, hoping to abbreviate the inquisition. “He was an ass and I lost my temper. He just wanted to apologize. And he did. And it’s fine.”
Charlie glances at Maggie, assessing my story, seeming to weigh its narrative value. “But we must know exactly what he said. Words hold the clues.”
Luckily, Maggie leans in and hisses, “Look!”
We all follow her gaze. On the other side of the low hedge, at a bus stop, stands Cecelia the English Rose.
“Cecelia Knowles,” Tom murmurs reverently, as if he’s caught a glimpse of a rare bird in the wild.
Behind his sunglasses, Charlie studies her. “I was surprised to see her in class. Starting over, perhaps?”
“Huh?”
“She did her undergrad here,” Maggie explains to me. “Was a third year when Charlie and I were freshers. We’d notice her in lectures—”
“How could one not?” Tom and Charlie say in unison.
Maggie rolls her eyes. “But she was never here at the weekend, so I never got to know her well. Then she returned the following year to start her master’s—we spent a short time together doing a bit of research—and about halfway through term … she simply disappeared. It was all a bit odd, really.”
“She dropped out?”
Maggie shrugs.
“Obviously,” Charlie begins, drawing the word out, “she found herself unexpectedly enceinte, stole away to the comforting bosom of an eerily-similar-spinster-aunt on the continent for her confinement, and entrusted the infant to the local farmer and his barren wife with the understanding that at the age of ten the child would be sent to England for her schooling under the care and protection of a mysterious patron. Obviously.”
I love book nerds.
Cecelia glances at her watch as I take an obscene bite of scone, then she spots Maggie, who gives her a polite wave. Then she heads in our direction. Great. Tom drops the sandwich bread he’s been scraping mustard off and attends to his frazzled hair, trying desperately to smooth it down.
Charlie can’t help himself. “That’s the way forward, Tom. Nothing like being well groomed.”
Cecelia glides up to our table, smiling serenely. “Hello, Maggie.”
“Hi!” Maggie bleats, a little too brightly.
“How are—” Cecelia begins, but Tom jumps up, as if just realizing he was sitting on a tack. Cecelia starts. He gestures to the chair next to him, imploring it to offer itself to her. Neither he nor the chair speaks.
Maggie saves him from himself. “Sorry. Care to join us?”
“Thank you, no,” Cecelia says in her low, elegant voice. “I thought I’d nip in for a cuppa before I catch my bus. I was so very pleased to see you in class, I’d always rather hoped you’d continue—”
“Thomas Singh!” Tom finally says, thrusting out his hand. “Of the Yorkshire Singhs. Dirt farmers since the days of the Norman Conquest.” He sees my confused look. “On my mother’s side,” he clarifies.
Cecelia inclines her head. “Cecelia Knowles. Of the Sussex Knowleses. Who resisted the Norman Conquest.”
We all chuckle, trying to maintain the appearance of normalcy for Tom’s sake. He still hasn’t released Cecelia from his grasp. “So, which are we destined to be, friends or lovers?”
Cecelia smoothly withdraws her hand. “Friends will do quite nicely, thank you.” The puppy, once again, has had its nose slapped.
“And, of course, you know Charlie Butler,” Maggie says, trudging on. “And this is Ella.”
Cecelia’s eyes pop to me. “Oh dear,” she says. “It is you. I wasn’t sure.”
She was sure.
I swallow the last piece of scone as I reach out a hand. “Ella Durran. Missed the Norman Conquest by a millennium.” I smile. I don’t have any animosity toward her. Honestly. But she seems to have taken an immediate disliking to me.
Cecelia smiles politely and briefly takes my hand. “Sorry, I must dash, I’ll see you all next week in Jamie’s class.” Before I can say anything else, she disappears inside the lobby.
I take a casual sip of tea then ask, in a not-that-it-matters-in-the-slightest tone, “Do you think they’re together? She and Davenport?”
Maggie shakes her head. “If they are, it won’t last, I’m afraid.” She says this the way a soap opera devotee talks about the love lives of the fictional characters.
“What do you mean?”
“Jamie Davenport’s a legend,” Maggie says, eyes wide. “The road between Oxford and Cambridge is positively littered with broken hearts.”
Charlie considers this. “More like dropped knickers. The man invented the three-date rule.”
“So just be careful there,” Maggie says.
It takes me a moment to realize who she’s saying this to. “Wait, me?”
She nods. “Sorry, but there was an undeniable bit of chemistry going between—”
“No there wasn’t!” I leap to my own defense. “I’m not remotely attracted to Jamie Davenport.”
They all just look at me. Together. As if they’d rehearsed it.
I reach for another scone. “Besides, I’m only here until June. It’s all about Oxford. And travel! The last thing I need is a relationship.”
“Then maybe he’s perfect, after all.” Charlie smirks.
Maggie leans in. “I, we, just thought you should know. His reputation does in fact precede him.”
I nod. “I appreciate that.” And I do. But I had seen enough in the chip shop to convince me to stay away.
I TAKE A three-hour jet-lag nap back in my room and wake up groggy, disoriented, and weirdly thirsty. I pound two glasses of water and glance at the clock: 9:00 P.M. I’m wide-awake.
Might as well do some work.
I grab a huge anthology of poetry off my desk and climb back into bed. The book is a monolith, printed on those thin Bible pages. After tea, we all went to Blackwell’s (coolest bookstore in the world) and picked up some of the texts that Jamie Davenport recommended for the term. Tom, who isn’t even in our program, bought all the books, too. Unlike Maggie and Charlie, who just have a certain air about them, I can tell Tom doesn’t come from money (besides the fact that Maggie paid for his tea). His accent is different from theirs, “oohs” instead of “uhs,” “boos” instead of “bus.” He had mentioned that his dad owns a shop—“knickknacks, odds and ends.” A dad who pulled his patronage somewhere between maths and classics and begs Tom to come home so he can retire. Tom named at least three part-time jobs in addition to the tutoring—admin, shelving at the Bod, even coding for the university website. There’s something timeless about him, as if, in the entire history of Oxford, there has always been a Tom, living in a closet of books, bicycling though the city in all weather, sneaking into lectures he doesn’t belong in, changing courses a year shy of completing them.
Charlie, too, seems iconically Oxford to me. I have no idea where he might hail from or, as my mother would say, who “his people are.” He likely just appeared as an infant in a basket of reeds at the Magdalen gates to be molded by Hugh and Eugenia, forged by the ghost of Oscar Wilde.
Maggie mentioned a father who clearly has something to do with banking and a mother who recently moved to France. She boarded somewhere Swiss-sounding for high school (or secondary school), mentioned doing theater in undergrad (though I can’t imagine timid, baby-voiced Maggie treading the boards), and is obsessed with Thomas Hardy.
Now, tucked under my covers, I leaf through the poetry anthology, hoping something jumps out at me. Davenport asked us to describe how a poem makes us feel, so I do a quick scan for the words “feel” or “feeling” or “emotion,” just as a starting point. My eye stops on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “A Man’s Requirements” and I begin to read.
Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.
It goes on to enumerate all the ways in which a man requires a woman to love him. Mentally, spiritually, eternally, completely, whatever. Then it takes a turn:
Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,
Woman’s love no fable.
I will love thee—half a year—
As a man is able.
Damn, EBB. Telling it like it is, like it’s apparently always been, all the way back in 1846.
I have my poem. Even better that it basically describes the person who assigned the essay. Do with that what you will, Davenport.
Two hours later, I have five pages of double-spaced, twelve-point Times New Roman, elucidating everything this poem represents. I dig my notebook out of my bag, find the page where I wrote down Jamie Davenport’s e-mail address, and type it into a new message window. There are three more e-mails from my mother in my inbox. Later. I attach the assignment and then pause over what to write in the body of the e-mail. I settle for:
Prof. Davenport,
Attached, find the essay you requested.
Best,
Ella
I consider adding “from Ohio,” but I don’t want him to think we have an inside joke. As the whoosh sound carries my essay across town to wherever Jamie Davenport is, I turn my attention to my mother’s e-mails.
I saw Marni Hopkins in the store today and did you know that Bradley is doing graduate school at some place in Spain? Maybe you two
I preemptively delete it.
Next e-mail:
Hi honey why haven’t you called yet? Just check in when you have a moment. You know Marni was very impressed that you got into Oxford. She showed me a picture of Bradley. I think his ears
Delete.
Last e-mail:
Why does my computer do that color wheel spinning thing. What did you tell me to do the last time this happened?
I fire back immediately:
Restart it.
I sit back and stare at my computer. I could Skype her. It would be, what, five P.M. there? The e-mails came in an hour ago, I know she’s around. But I really don’t have anything to say.
Well, okay, I did get a bike, and found the Happy Cod, and I have a scout, and a Hugh the Porter, and I made friends, and I had a class, and there were scones. Not to mention a dream job.
But let’s not forget that I called my unbeknownst-to-me professor an asshole (to his face), won’t be studying with Styan, and have concluded that I’m not academically competitive here and will probably end up embarrassing not just myself, but also the Rhodes Foundation.
A lot has happened since my passport was stamped. I take a deep breath. It’s okay. I have redeemed myself with this essay. Everything will get back on track. I just don’t want to talk to my mother until it has.
I know her. Much better than she will ever know me.
My mother lives in a constant state of fearful anxiety. She thinks everything is falling apart, all the time, all at once, when there is nothing in her life that could possibly fall apart. She’s had the same job for twenty years, she doesn’t travel, she doesn’t date, the house is paid for, she has two carbon monoxide detectors, she goes to the doctor, like, three times a year, and she avoids any public place where someone might (“you never know, Ella, the world has gone crazy”) have a gun. Literally, unless a sinkhole opens up under her Volvo on her two-mile drive to work, nothing’s going to happen to her.
She wasn’t always like this. But it’s been so long that it feels like always.
I’m just tired.
I just miss my dad.
The ding of incoming e-mail distracts me from this rabbit hole of familial failing. I lean forward to look, sure it’s my mother saying she restarted the computer, but now the screen is looking at her funny—
My stomach flips when I see the sender: James Davenport.
Looking forward to reading. Have a good night.
Not “Surprised to see your work so soon”? Not “Very impressive, Ella from Ohio”?
He’s being professional. As he should be. Because he’s my professor now, not some mystery-eyed guy in a chip shop who looked at me as if I were the most delicious thing on the menu.
I’m not going to reply. What would I say? “You too? I hope you enjoy it? What are you doing tonight?”
I also won’t Google him. And while I have to maintain a professional Twitter account, I’m not on any other forms of social media. Not only do I find it too much of a time suck, but it also provides too many opportunities to embarrass myself in front of potential clients; if they never see you do anything wrong, you never have to apologize.
I look back at the e-mail, my eyes inexplicably drawn to it, as if, instead of two innocuous sentences, there were a naked, beefcake picture of the sender. He’d be Mr. September in the Hotties of Oxford calendar for sure. Welcome back to school, ladies. Jamie Davenport on a library ladder, rippling abs all oiled up, inevitably holding a book in front of his junk.
At least I can still make myself laugh.
THE NEXT FEW days fly by faster than I can account for them. I finally feel like I’m in the right time zone and I can understand the accent now. Although I would have been happy to misunderstand the drunk guy who walked past me last night, then turned to his mate and loudly slurred, “Oi, that’s a tasty bit.” I’ve also managed to sleep through Eugenia’s arrival three mornings in a row, and I’ve had my two other classes, but the professors didn’t assign any work.
No, only Mr. Jamie Davenport does that, apparently. Then never reads it. Apparently.
I spend my days cutting through the course’s suggested reading and fielding Gavin’s requests. His e-mails come in at all hours. He calls at least once a day.
In the late afternoons, Maggie and I get on our bikes and she shows me the city. Maggie comes from London (she mentions an area and then apologizes in a tone that has me suspecting it’s an embarrassingly posh neighborhood), but she did her undergrad at Magdalen, so she knows every corner of Oxford. She takes me through narrow, winding stone paths and special little places she’s discovered over her years here. Now she lives in Exeter College’s graduate housing complex, where she shares a kitchen and living area with four other students: two Chinese guys, a Rubenesque British girl who insists on only speaking Italian, and an older Middle Eastern woman who—as far as Maggie can tell—is never actually there. As a result, Maggie spends a lot of time with me.
At the end of our rides, we tend to join Charlie and Tom for dinner, so I’ve also been getting familiar with Oxford’s hit-or-miss cuisine. I’m ashamed to admit that I already miss American food. I’d exchange sexual favors with anyone who could direct me to a decent cheeseburger.
Today Charlie and I are standing in the upper reading room of the Bodleian Library. Charlie gives me a tour, clutching a book on rowing to his side and whispering Oxford trivia. “The Bodleian has a copy of every book ever printed in the UK since 1611.”
I silently repeat the way he pronounced it (Bod-lee-un), understanding why everyone just calls it “the Bod.” The room is beautiful and cavernous, mostly filled with reading tables and chairs. I notice only a few stacks. “Where do they hide them all?” I whisper.
Charlie points down at the hardwood, seeming to indicate rooms and floors that live beneath us. He tosses a glance over his shoulder, then slips behind the unattended front desk. He reaches under the counter and pulls out a glossy magazine with the word “TATLER” in bold print. He hands it to me. “There’s always a new issue stuffed under here.”
I leaf through it and see picture after picture of people I don’t recognize. It’s like an alternate universe. It seems Britain has its own version of Kardashians. “You know what’s interesting,” I begin. “These people are totally interchangeable with—” but I’m interrupted by the sound of a book dropping down onto the counter next to me.
I look at the book. There’s more to read, but it’s blocked by the hand splayed across the cover. It’s a nice, masculine hand. Long and tapered fingers, just the right amount of wrist hair, clean fingernails—
“Ella?”
Startled, I glance up and find the stabbing blue eyes of Jamie Davenport looking down at me. “My rooms, if you will. Today. Half three.”
Not hearing what he says, I nod. He glances down at the Tatler. Raises an eyebrow. “Research?” he says, oozing sarcasm. Then he looks back at me, smiles tightly, and is gone.
“Masterful,” Charlie breathes.
Wherever I just was, I come back to Charlie and the Bod. I’m completely lost. Maybe I overestimated my grasp of the British language. “What did he just say?”
Charlie’s eyes are wide. “He wants you.”
CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_5f6eeab0-0903-5bb4-b2b4-cde5ad93772e)
Did he not come to me?
What thing could keep true Launcelot away
If I said, Come?
William Morris, “The Defence of Guenevere,” 1858
I’ve made my way to Lincoln, a small medieval college with a converted church for a library in the middle of town on Turl Street. Maggie explained to me a few days ago that each professor is affiliated with a specific Oxford college, where they have an office and often teach undergraduates. Lincoln is where Jamie Davenport hangs his skinny jeans.
After making a right on Turl from the High, I step through a cutout door in a wooden gate and into a small portico. Beyond the portico’s flagstones is a manicured quad surrounded on all sides by ivy-covered buildings. The college is smaller than Magdalen, but quaintly elegant and feels older (if that’s possible). I go into the lodge, ask the porter for Professor Davenport’s office and he directs me to staircase eight, off Chapel Quad, and up two flights of stairs.
Near the second-floor landing, I hear raised voices coming from behind a closed door. I stop climbing. Forgetting my nervousness for a moment, I find myself eavesdropping. Two men. One of them, I realize, is Jamie Davenport.
“I’m not interested in your opinion.”
“James, this is absurd—”
“Add it to the list, then.”
“We are your family!” the older voice yells.
“By birth! Nothing more, nothing less,” Davenport shoots back, half as loud but doubly cutting. Then, more muffled, “Excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
“I came to you, in the middle of my workday—”
“Were you asked to come? Leave.”
“You are, without a doubt, the most ungrateful—”
Now Davenport shouts. “Sodding hell, get out!”
I peek around the corner, and seconds later, the arched wooden door flies open and a barrel-chested older man storms through it. He stops and turns back toward the room. I press myself against the wall. “You’re arrogant, my lad, and mark my words, it’s going to be the end of you—”
“Christ, must I throw you out myself?”
“Speak to me as you will, I don’t care, but if you dare hurt your mother any further, I swear—”
“No one can hurt her more than you already have!”
The door slams. From inside or out? I’m about to peek around the corner again when a silver-haired force of nature blows past me down the stairs without so much as a glance. His rage rolls over me like a tangible thing and I grab the banister to steady myself. I wait, holding my breath, trying to be silent. I give it a good ten seconds and then approach the door, knocking softly.
“Yes?” Davenport calls calmly.
I tentatively open the door and poke my head in. He’s standing behind an antique desk, shuffling papers. He appears as if nothing’s amiss. “Hi. Is this a good time?”
I fully expect him to slam the door in my face. He glances up. “Yes, of course. Take a seat.”
I walk into what looks like a parlor in an old English manor. Or at least what movies have led me to believe a parlor in an old English manor looks like. High ceilings partitioned with beams, insets painted in a Tudor pattern. A herringbone wood floor covered by a plush muted red carpet, rough stone walls, paned windows, and a massive stone fireplace. Two well-worn leather club chairs oppose each other in front of the fireplace, and a threadbare red love seat sits behind them. The desk sits in front of a bay window overlooking the quad.
I walk over to a club chair, trying to think of something clever to open with. “This is really nice. Homey,” I say, missing the mark entirely.
He’s still at his desk, riffling through the papers and books strewn there. “Well then, make yourself at home,” he says.
I can’t read his tone. No need to panic, I assure myself. Whatever just happened has nothing to do with me. I’m probably here because he wants to congratulate me on my first paper, or maybe further discuss one of the points I made that’s piqued his curiosity. My being here will probably be good for him. Distract him from whatever that fight was about. Keeping the conversation alive, I say, “Do you live here?”
“No. Although it’s set up for it.” He finally turns, slips out from between the desk and chair, and crosses over to me. He’s wearing a tucked-in charcoal-gray button-down with the sleeves pushed back to his elbows, and oxblood-colored pants that appear to be—can that be right?—velvet. The weirder thing? He looks incredible in them.
He’s speaking. “Historically, teaching contracts here provided accommodations, as most of the lecturers were clergy. Or had to leave if they got married. Couldn’t have a fellowship and a wife. God forbid she proved too distracting.”
Why is he telling me this? Why can’t I stop looking at his pants?
He sits down in the chair opposite me, runs a hand through his hair. Then he gestures behind him at one of the closed doors. “There’s a bed in the back.”
Why is he telling me this? Why am I still looking at his pants?
He looks down at his knees. “Good for those all-nighters, I suppose,” he mutters, making it even more awkward. “So. Of writing. ‘A Man’s Requirements.’ What do you think of your paper, then?”
This catches me off guard. He’s supposed to tell me what he thinks of my paper. “Um,” I begin, and then clear my throat. “Well, since you’ve asked … I think I made some significant insights, observations, and analyses.” He just looks at me. He has this ability to go still, as if he’s stopped breathing. Like a vampire. Which makes me realize I’m not breathing. I look away and force myself to take a breath. “But enough about me, what did you think of my work,” I joke.
“‘Work’ is a most appropriate word,” he answers smoothly.
I stiffen. He’s thrown my word back at me. I recognize the rhetorical technique and hold my ground. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment,” I reply, in what I hope is an equally smooth manner. “Did you find something wrong with it?”
“Wrong with it? No,” he answers, shrugging, his casualness somehow stinging more than his criticism. I notice that he doesn’t even have my essay in front of him. As if, after reading it through once, quickly, he’s committed its mediocrity to memory. “In roughly twenty-five hundred words,” he goes on, “you managed to explore the birth of feminism, the breakdown of arranged marriages, the celebration of the Peter Pan syndrome from an historical perspective, and the persecution of women’s sexuality reaching its apex in the Salem witch trials.” He pauses, but his eyes stay with me. Maybe he did commit it to memory. Maybe he wants to use it as an example for the class. Then he continues, “Extraordinary.” I beam. “You managed to do everything other than the assignment.”
I stare at him. The wrong kind of example for the class, then. He leans in. “Describe the poem as you would a friend. How does it make you feel?”
I blink at him, realizing the gravity of my error. “Oh,” I say lamely. “I guess I … digressed.”
“Digressed? Ella,” he says, leaning fully forward, “you failed to do what was asked. You went wildly, tangentially astray. Impressively astray, but astray nonetheless.”
I blink at him. This was my Hail Mary attempt to prove myself here, and I failed. His word. Failed. I’ve never failed. At anything.
I think Davenport must see the embarrassment on my face, because he shrugs and changes his approach, sitting back again. “Look, Ella. I wanted to chat with you about this before the full term gets under way.” Horribly, I know what he’s going to say. “You have the opportunity to—”
“Get out now and run back to the States?” My voice is as controlled as I can manage.
He quirks his head at me. “Why on earth would you suggest such a thing as that?”
“Well, clearly my work isn’t up to par. The American is obviously out of her league.” I can feel the defensiveness spewing out of my mouth. I mean, who does he think he is? I’m working for the presumptive nominee for the presidency of the—
“Why would you think you’re out of your league?”
“Are you a shrink?” I snap. “Or is this just part of the Socratic method, answering-a-question-with-a-question teaching style here?”
“Sorry, was there a question in there?” He is completely calm, genuinely curious.
My eyes shift to the floor, but I can feel him peering at me. I take a breath, realizing I’ve stopped breathing again. I swallow, but something is stuck in my throat. My dream, probably. I think I’m choking on my Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience. My Oxford.
He’s somehow managed to outmaneuver me.
Softly, he says, “Ella, this has nothing to do with …” He pauses, choosing his words. “The paper was terribly well written.” I’ve noticed that Brits use negatively connotated words in a positive context and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. “It was dreadfully insightful. But, here, it’s not about displaying one’s knowledge or academic prowess, or how convincing the argument may be. There are only ideas to discuss. The ideas are the wheat of the mind. Everything else is chaff, better left for the consumption of the sycophants who fancy themselves academics. For a thousand years, that’s what this place has been about. Is it antiquated? Yes. Stodgy? Absolutely. Seemingly pointless? It would seem so in this new world order, and yet, Oxford is Oxford, and we persevere.” He reaches over to the table sitting between us, picks up the poetry anthology. He ruffles its pages. “Tell me, Ella, why, out of all the poems in this book, did you pick this one?”
“Because it speaks the truth about men.”
“Ah, right. So men are only capable of loving a woman for six months?”
“I think she rounded up.”
This gets a small chuckle out of him. Then he sets the book on his lap, pauses, and looks up again. He does it methodically, deliberately, taking time for each movement. So unlike the freewheeling jerk I first encountered at the chip shop. “So, this what? Reminds you of an ex-boyfriend? You’ve most certainly had your heart broken. At least once?”
I snort. “I’ve never had my heart broken.”
“Right. Sorry. How could you? Believing a man is only capable of loving a woman for six months.”
“Oh, and you don’t? Because from what I’ve heard, you’re the poster child for—” I stop myself. That’s too far.
His crazy-blue eyes flash with excitement, galvanized. “Poster child, really? How intriguingly scandalous. Please, do continue.”
All I can do is shake my head.
He smiles. “So, we know each other, know all about each other.” He sits back, grinning. “We sized each other right up in the chip shop, didn’t we? Weighed and measured. Had someone of lesser intellect declared their knowledge of either one of us, he would be thought prejudicial or quick to judgment. Can’t tell a book by its cover and all that. But we’ve sped-read each other, and, luckily, we’re the clever ones. After all, we’re Oxonians.”
This wrings a tight smile out of me.
He looks up at the ceiling and appears to pluck his next words out of the air there, reciting from recent memory. “‘Dismantling arts curriculum at such a crucial time both sociologically and solipsistically stunts the adolescent’s complex comprehension skills, ultimately ushering in an electorate that only thinks in black and white at a time when, if we are to survive, we must think in Technicolor.’” Now he looks at me. “I quite like that.”
He Googled me. The bastard Googled me after I purposely didn’t Google him. I don’t know whether to feel flattered or betrayed. But now I look like a hypocrite, the Education Evangelist who can’t even follow a simple assignment.
“Now I would have thought,” he continues, “that the woman who wrote that article would have quite a bit to say, actually, about how a poem makes her feel.”
I throw up my hands. “It was one article. I’m not even a writer. I’m not saying I know how to build an arts curriculum, just that it’s a necessity, not a luxury!”
He leans forward, excited. “Exactly. It doesn’t define you. But it is a first impression, isn’t it? You’re the hypercompetitive American, a Rhodes scholar no less, who sees Oxford as a series of hurdles to clear like levels in some video game, and I? I’m the hypocritical poetry scholar, espousing grand theories of love whilst shagging a different wench every night. Brilliant, glad we got that sorted. But who are we, really, eh? We’ve told each other what we think, but we’ve no idea what we feel. That requires a conversation. Having words, having language, to connect us to ourselves and each other.”
He looks down at the book again and opens it. His rhythm has changed. He flips through it with excited purpose, some destination in mind. “To truly experience a poem,” he mutters, almost to himself, “you need to feel it. A poem is alive, it has a voice. It is a person. Who are they? Why are they?” He sticks his finger in the book, and closes it, holding his place. Then he looks back to me. “Hearing her words, as she speaks to you, you think and feel certain things. Just as, hearing my words now, you think and feel certain things. Reading poetry is a conversation of feeling between two people. It shouldn’t answer anything, it should only create more questions, like any good conversation. What did she make you feel? That’s what I wanted you to examine.”
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Julia Whelan
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: She could never have guessed what the year would hold…Gazing up at the dreaming spires of Oxford, American student Ella Duran can’t believe it: she has finally arrived at Oxford University.A new life starts, and not even Ella’s handsome lecturer Jamie Davenport can distract her from her classes. But, as the term goes on, Ella can’t deny the growing attraction between them – an attraction that soon turns to love.And when Ella learns of Jamie’s life-changing secret, their relationship becomes deeper than Ella could have ever anticipated.As Ella’s Oxford year draws to a close, she must decide whether the dreams she arrived with are the same ones with which she will leave…