All my work between then and now was pointless at best. Motions and other legal documents for Jay Feldstein. Someone else’s idea of work, never mine—tasks to complete that had no bearing on me.
This dissertation, however, was supposed to be the pinnacle of my year. My greatest feat. So why did I feel like tossing it out the window and starting over from scratch? Or maybe not starting at all. Maybe doing something else entirely. The Peace Corps, for example. Or moving out to Seattle the way I’d always meant to during my grunge phase.
“Alexandra,” I admonished myself suddenly. “I believe you’re terrified.”
The bindery was located around the back of the library. Inside, strange little men in aprons moved gracefully between long tables piled high with all sorts of manuscripts. Next to all the pounds and pounds of paper, my puny sixty-page dissertation just looked a little sad. Like the geeky kid picked last for gym class games. I handed the man my blood, sweat, and tears—and watched him toss it carelessly on a different table. So much for the sort of divine respect I had accorded the thing myself. The man told me, in a forbiddingly thick accent I mostly had to guess at, to pick the thing up after ten the following morning.
Almost entirely finished.
“This is what happened,” Robin said, her voice scratchy with joy and excitement. “We were walking back from dinner, and he said he always wanted to check out those fountains by the Met, you know?”
“Oh my God—” I breathed.
“And so we sat on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and he said—” She stopped to let out a little excited laugh. “He said if he could, he would give me the city and all the lights and everything in all the museums, but really all he had to give me was his love, for a lifetime, for as long as we both lived.”
“He really said that?”
“He really did,” Robin said. “And then he said, ‘Oh, and I’d like to give you this,’ and he whipped out this box. Which I knew was a ring, and I freaked. And I couldn’t speak. And he said he loved me and he wanted to marry me and have my babies. So would I marry him.”
“And you said yes. Did you actually say yes?”
“First I screamed,” Robin said. “Then I cried. And much later, like hours later, we both remembered that I hadn’t actually said yes. So then I did.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “You’re engaged. Do you feel different? Is it like a state of being?”
“It feels right,” Robin said simply. Then she laughed. “It feels great.”
“Okay,” I said, settling back against my wall. “Describe the ring. In minute and exhaustive detail, so I can visualize it on my finger.”
“Hi,” I said. “You are speaking to someone who just completed a master’s dissertation.”
“Whoopee,” Michael said. “Do I have to be more excited now than I was three hours ago when you first told me?”
“No, but I just kind of enjoy saying that.”
“When are you handing it in?” he asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Are you scared?”
“Scared to hand it in?” I laughed. “I can’t wait. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I arrived in this country. I never thought I could write the damn thing, much less finish it. Much less actually hand it in. Can you believe that I actually did this? My ultimate grade is totally irrelevant. The major thing is that I did this. I picked up and moved here and knew no one and had this whole year and really did this.”
“You’re terrified,” Michael said in a flat tone.
“Well,” I said. “It’s a big thing. And what am I going to do next?”
“Whatever you want,” Michael said at once. “That’s the point, right? You can do whatever you want.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I can.”
I lay in the cradle of my little bed and let the afternoon flow over and around me. I felt adrift. Not in a bad way. I let my mind drift too. I thought of nothing and of everything. I thought about the tumult of Manhattan, the noise and the dirt and the effort it took to live there. I remembered the difficulty, the disconnection. The turning off, the tuning out, to avoid the reality of so many lives and histories thickening the air like heat. It was impossible to do more than wade through it all—a sort of dog paddle through humanity, keeping your head back and your hair dry. Thinking, Maybe no one is really happy here. Or thinking nothing at all.
I thought, You think too much.
I thought about nights under the stars or in the rain. I thought of my beloved friends at home, and my new ones here. The ones I’d made it through the madness with. I thought that even though it seemed chaotic and all over the place, it had been a good year. I was changing the way I thought about my father. Everyone around me was growing up. Robin was a fiancée. I was soon to be possessed of an MA. Adulthood was right here. It was happening. Even to me.
I thought, Being here has been a really good thing, after all. A necessary thing.
Here it was always quiet. Here there was always space for thought. Maybe too much space, and we filled it up with drink and intrigue. Here we had the wind and the rain to take the place of New York’s millions. Here we lay each in our single beds and dreamed of other things.
I thought about Suzanne, and how silly all of that had been, and how easy it was to focus on someone else’s madness. I thought about Sean, and how choosing to obsess about him had been such a convenient place to put things I didn’t really want to deal with, like all those messy emotions. Emotions scared me. I was better with words.
And then, finally, I thought about Toby. I realized that I had been trying not to think about him at all, for about a year now, and I thought about that. I thought about the way his eyes crinkled up when he laughed and the way he sometimes looked at me. I thought about the way he lounged and the way he walked. I thought about the first time he kissed me and that look he sometimes got that always reminded me of it. I thought about the night we slept together and then, a little breathlessly, the night we slept together. I thought about what a stubborn, irritating, full-of-himself—
And then it hit me.
Like a speeding train to the side of the head.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
The courtyard had never seemed so vast.
One of Toby’s housemates let me into the house, and I climbed the stairs to his room slowly. I knocked on his door.
I heard him call a slightly annoyed “Come in,” and when I did, he was wearing his glasses and looking pretty rough. That hair of his in little dirty-blond spikes and stubble along his jaw. He swiveled around in his desk chair and fixed me with a frigid glare, made more effective with the glasses.
He’d never looked better to me.
“Hey,” I said.
“I can’t imagine what you want,” he said in that arctic voice.
“I don’t actually know what I want,” I said, sitting down on the end of his bed.
“That,” Toby snarled, “has been blindingly obvious for some time.”
Seventeen
I really don’t like fighting with you,” I said. I slumped with my back against the wall and settled my gaze on him. I ventured a smile, which he ignored. “So go on then. Get it out, whatever it is, and let’s get it over with.”
His eyes narrowed. “You think you can just swan in here and everything will be fine?”
“I don’t actually understand what you’re so worked up about.” I shrugged dismissively. “So you caught me being a complete psycho. It wasn’t your window. No bunnies were boiled in your kitchen. Why should you care?”
“That isn’t the issue,” Toby snapped. “As if I care about your schoolgirl’s crush on Sean Douglas.”
“Oh, I can see how much you don’t care,” I murmured.
He yanked his glasses from his face and winged them across the desk. They bounced off the wall, but somehow didn’t break. The whole thing was violent enough to wipe the smirk off of my face.
“I just think you should think about how your
behavior might be perceived,” he said angrily.
“So you know I have a crush on Sean Douglas and that I resort to acting like a freak.” I shrugged. “Is that really news? Let’s talk about your behavior. You told Suzanne that we slept together, and then, after I told you how much that upset me—”
“After you thumped me!”
“—you went and had yet another discussion with her. Why? What game are you playing, Toby?”
“I told her to leave you alone,” he said. “Her issue is with me, and I asked her to confine her bile to me. If you like, I’ll be happy to nip round and tell her she can let loose on you.”
“She’s already loose on me,” I said. “Did you really think she’d back off just because you asked her to? She’s not entirely sane, Toby.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Fair enough,” he said at length. “I just . . .” He sighed suddenly, and shook his head. “I can’t figure you out, Alex.”
“You don’t have to figure me out,” I said lightly. “But why are you so furious with me? I didn’t actually do anything to you.”
“No,” he said. He stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s more what you don’t do. You’re the only girl I know who I can talk to. And who I also fancy. Usually it’s one or the other.” He glared at me. “And you don’t give a toss, do you?”
“Well—”
“After that first night with Suzanne,” he said in a low voice, cutting me off, “she clung and she demanded . . . proclamations. Which I’m not unused to, actually.”
I rolled my eyes. “You big stud.”
“That’s not the point,” he snapped. “The point is that you are the anti-Suzanne.”
“I certainly hope so,” I snorted. I could see his frown. “Toby, come on,” I said. “What is this? Would you be happier if I’d clung to your trouser leg wailing, ‘Please don’t leave me’?”
“No,” he said, disgruntled. Which meant: maybe.
“Then what?” I searched his face. “You think we should be together?”
He held my gaze, his eyes dark and unreadable.
“What if I did?”
I smiled. “Then I’d politely decline,” I said. “And I think you know why.”
“Enlighten me,” he said stiffly. He had a strangely vulnerable look about his face. I felt a rush of tenderness.
“You don’t want a girlfriend,” I told him. “And you know it. And even if you did, I don’t want you as a boyfriend. At least not now. Maybe when you’re about thirty-five.”
He looked away briefly, then returned his gaze to mine.
“Thirty-five?” he repeated, but I could see laughter creeping into his eyes. “You think eleven years will sort me out?”
“I think you won’t even start being sorted until you’re at least thirty,” I said, giving him a look. “And that might be overly optimistic as it is.”
I got up and hoisted myself up onto his high windowsill.
“Don’t smoke in here,” he said immediately, but without any heat.
“You’ll survive,” I retorted, and lit a cigarette. He let out a long-suffering sigh.
“You know I’m right,” I said, still in a light tone. “You told me yourself, repeatedly. You treat women like shit. Here I am your friend and you sold me out to Suzanne. And not to make her feel better, but to make her feel worse. You can’t be trusted, you have the morals of an alley cat, and you’re proud of it. You’re a nightmare.”
“Like you’re not a nightmare yourself,” he said, but his grin was back. I was so pleased to see it I grinned myself.
“I’m great,” I told him.
“You’re a complete nightmare,” he contradicted me.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “My life seems to be a little bit complicated.”
He came over and leaned a hip against the windowsill, so I was looking directly down into his face. Those marvelous dark eyes and his grin, the one that was just for me.
“You make your life complicated,” he said gently. “You enjoy it.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “Maybe I should stop drinking.”
“We should all stop drinking,” Toby said, and smiled. “But not in the middle of writing a dissertation. That could be dangerous.”
I looked down at my cigarette. “And I should definitely quit smoking,” I said. “But I’m not really mentally or emotionally prepared to take on that project yet.” I looked at him. “We’re okay?”
“That depends on your definition,” he said. He reached over and pulled on the end of my ponytail. “We’re quite a pair, Brennan,” he said, his grin beginning again in the corners of his mouth. “You’d do well to cling to my trouser leg, because I’ve a suspicion we match.”
“You should be so lucky as to be my match,” I told him, but I was teasing and his eyes were warm. “And there will be no trouser leg clinging.”
“We can argue about it later, as I think you’ll eat those words.” He stretched, and then flashed me a cheeky grin. “A man has other, more pressing needs.”
“Did you really say that?” I asked, rolling my eyes. I finished my cigarette and flicked it out into the courtyard, then slid down from the windowsill and faced him.
“And what if you start a fire?” Toby demanded. “Did you ever think of that?”
“What makes you think I care if Fairfax Court burns to the ground?” I asked.
I was wearing flat shoes, which meant I had to angle my head back to look him in the eye. Suddenly, there was something in Toby’s dark gaze that made my stomach perform a backflip or two. This, I could read.
And I thought, Why not?
And then: What am I waiting for?
“So while we wait for me to reach thirty-five,” Toby said slowly, smiling, “I think it would be best if you monitored my progress closely.”
I tilted my head and looked at him. He slid his fingers into mine and tugged me closer.
“Very closely,” he murmured.
“I think that’s an excellent plan,” I said. I smiled. “But I don’t want you getting too . . . clingy. And there won’t be any proclamations, either. Think you can handle that?”
“Think you can?” Toby countered, grinning.
But he didn’t give me a chance to answer.
In the end, I walked very slowly from the bindery to the English department office. I held my three bound dissertation copies tight to my chest and looked neither left nor right. Once at the office, I signed my name on the appropriate sheet and slid the copies to the secretary. She smiled. I may or may not have returned the smile. I turned and walked back out.
And that was it. I was finished.
I wandered, dazed, down the stairs.
“Hail, Brennan! Well met!”
I looked up, saw Jason’s impish grin, and smiled.
“I did it,” I said.
“I saw you ascend the final steps,” he told me. He sketched a bow. “A thousand congratulations, Brennan, MA.”
“And you,” I said, laughing.
“And now, the world! Life!” Jason exclaimed. “The air is sweeter with the scent of our success!”
We walked out into the college’s courtyard, where I’d once seen Sean storm by in all of his grandeur. There was sun up there somewhere, trying gamely to break through the clouds. We both tipped our heads back and got facefuls of the gray.
“You both look complete prats,” Toby drawled.
He was coming toward us from the opposite direction.
“Excellent!” Jason cried. “The merry band reunited! To the pub!” He paused. “Although I’ll have to meet you there, as I have a last meeting with His Highness Sean Douglas, King of the Unintelligible. I want you both with pints in your hands. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He charged away.
“Are you finished? All handed in and signed away?” Toby asked. I nodded. “Your mad housemate accosted me on the way here.”
“Which one?” I asked.
His eyes crinkled in the cor
ners. “Cristina,” he said. “She’s headed down to the pub herself.”
“We’re finished, Toby,” I said. “Can you believe it?”
We looked at each other, and then around at the courtyard.
“Too bad the college is so appallingly ugly,” Toby said. “It spoils the moment.”
We fell into step together, headed in the direction of the pub. I thought about all the different things I’d done, or could do. I thought, I’m already on this path, which is half the battle. And it wasn’t such a bad path, either.
“Well?” Toby asked as we drew near the pub.
“Well what?”
“Have you decided?” He rolled his eyes when I stared at him. “What next? Are you going back to America? Don’t we have to move out of university accommodation soon? Don’t you have to make up your mind?”
“Don’t be such a drama queen,” I said, grinning. “I’m staying here. Cristina and I are going to rent a place. If you’re very lucky and on good behavior, we might invite you round.” And as I said the words, something clicked inside me, as if in agreement. Why not? And again: What am I waiting for?
“Really,” he said, looking at me with his dark eyes gleaming.
“Really,” I said.
“I have to tell you, Brennan,” Toby said with a smile, “I’m not entirely certain the country can stand it.”
“I’ll look forward to hearing you whinge about it at my deportation hearing,” I told him.
“Brennan.” Toby heaved a long-suffering sigh, but he was grinning. “Just shut up and kiss me.”
“Are you sure this is edible?” I asked, poking the food in front of me with a fork. Melanie snickered. Cristina fixed me with a glare.
“It is not only edible, you had better start eating it,” she snapped. Then grinned. “This way we will all get sick if I am wrong. As a shared experience.”
“I think it’s wonderful,” Melanie said loyally, forking in a big bite. “Alex is just jealous as all she ever cooks is pasta.”