English as a Second Language

  Reason prevailed.

  So I just smoked a cigarette and talked about the wonders of life in Manhattan.

  I stood in the shower with my eyes closed and let my brain try to work through the overload. The shower stall I shared with the entire house was what I imagined a gas chamber would be like. It was just a large rectangle with tile. Fluorescent lighting and no fan. You shut yourself in and hoped for water.

  I let the water run over my face and thought about Evan and Suzanne, which made me snicker, and then about Toby and Suzanne, which didn’t. I allowed myself thirteen seconds to think about Toby that way and thought: Whatever, may he and his crazy new girlfriend live happily ever after. I thought about that kiss of Toby’s and then I thought about Toby kissing Suzanne, and then, in defiance, I thought about kissing Sean. Hot, delicious Sean, who was having me over for dinner and who would never in a million years consider the likes of Suzanne. Sean, who would know how to kiss someone in such a way that there would be no pretending it had never happened. That was so much fun that I ran with it until my skin pickled up.

  Back in my room, I was faced with a serious clothing issue. What exactly did you wear to have dinner with your gorgeous and mysterious professor, when it definitely wasn’t a date and he’d already seen you doing your impression of Night of the Living Dead and anyway he thought you were an idiot and anyway you really couldn’t dress up to impress him because what would impress him anyway and you certainly didn’t want to give off the impression that it had ever crossed your mind that this was a date or even date-like and in any case he was only feeding you because you’d looked like some lost stray and he probably wandered around the countryside feeding stray dogs and alley cats with exactly the same total lack of romantic intention—

  “Oh my God,” I said aloud, and called Michael.

  “Jeans and a casually hot top,” he said immediately. I heard his pen tapping against his desk. “Or black pants and one of those V-neck sweaters you like so much. Boots, of course, and your hair down. No jewelry, minimal eyes, sheer lip gloss.”

  “No black trousers,” I said. “That’s too dressy for a casual campus dinner, don’t you think? This is someone who sees me in what I wear to class.”

  “Oh, good point.” Michael thought for a minute. “But you said you just got back, so obviously you just pulled on whatever was on top of your bag.”

  “No.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “Then I’ll just be desperate to slide that into conversation and will be obsessed with it and will end up shrieking it at some totally inappropriate moment. He’ll say hello and I’ll maniacally scream that I just yanked on whatever was on top . . . Not worth it.” The scene was all too vivid for me. I shuddered.

  “Jeans, then,” Michael said. “And that black thing you wore that night at Robin and Zack’s housewarming thing. You looked great in that.” He transferred the phone from one ear to the other. “Are you okay? You sound a little stressed.”

  “Michael!” I almost dropped the phone. “Why do you suppose I’d be stressed?”

  There was a sudden knock at my door.

  “That’s random,” I muttered. “I didn’t think anyone else was around.” I peered through the peephole and sighed. “I have to go. It’s Toby, and this is probably going to be an annoying conversation.”

  “Call me the minute you get home,” Michael ordered. “I want to know every single detail about the un-date.”

  I hung up and hurriedly yanked on some jeans and the nearest bra. “Hold on,” I yelled, as I looked around for something I hadn’t worn on the plane and pulled it over my head.

  Toby raced right past me the minute the door swung open.

  “Thank God you’re back,” he said. He flung himself into the desk chair and stared at me. “I’ve got myself in a terrible mess.”

  “Hello, Toby,” I said dryly. “I’m great, thanks. And how are you?”

  Toby had spent entirely too much time on campus over the holidays, thinking he’d get a head start on our next paper and also avoid too much time in his own childhood home, a small village in Devon. These plans, he told me now, were foiled by the library’s lack of reasonable opening hours during the holiday and his own lack of motivation.

  “Once everyone left, this place was well depressing,” he said.

  “So you should have gone home,” I told him. I had brushed my wet hair and was sitting cross-legged on the bed.

  “Thank you, Brennan,” he snapped. “Do you mind?”

  He’d gone home for Christmas and spent New Year’s Eve with a pack of disreputable blokes with whom he’d spent his equally disreputable undergraduate years.

  “A load of drunken louts,” Toby said, his dark eyes bright with laughter. This from a man who drank ten pints and considered himself only mildly tipsy.

  He’d returned to university and had attempted to impose a strict work schedule upon himself.

  “I got up every morning and had a brisk jog along the lane, ate a healthy breakfast, and then cracked the books.” He glared at me as I snickered at this image.

  And then one day he’d run into Suzanne.

  “Who I think might have been spying on me, actually,” he confessed. He looked a bit pink around the cheeks at that.

  “Spying on you?” I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Well.” He cleared his throat.

  Every time he’d left the house, she had appeared. Which he realized she could do if she was sitting in her kitchen and keeping a watchful eye on the courtyard beyond. After the first few times when they’d run into each other—“or when she stalked me, call it what you like,” he said—they’d had a nice cup of coffee and walked together to the library, and then Suzanne had asked if he fancied a drink.

  “Which I have to say, I did.” Toby sighed. “I do fancy Suzanne, you know. She’s really lovely.”

  I kept myself from an eye roll with the iron control I’d always suspected I had in there somewhere. She must have done a lot of hair flipping, I thought.

  This was, Toby said, the night before last. “Recently,” Suzanne had said. I’d had no idea just how recent. They’d met up and walked to the pub, and as Suzanne talked, Toby got shitted.

  “I didn’t make a conscious decision to get wankered,” he said. “It just sort of happened.”

  The more intense Suzanne got—“and I have to say, she was getting well into it,” he said—the quicker Toby drained his pint. He’d started having a shot at the bar with each newly ordered pint—“for extra strength and charm, of course.”

  “Of course.” I sighed.

  By the time they called last orders he was seeing triple—

  Toby sighed heavily. “And would have happily snogged a dog’s arse if it were presented to me.”

  Which is how he reckoned he found himself snogging Suzanne.

  “I don’t really know how it happened,” he said.

  “But you’re a couple now,” I replied, with relish. I was congratulating myself for never alluding to our own drunken snog by word or deed. Obviously, this was something the guy just ran around doing. Jackass. Toby looked sick.

  “It’s all a bit hazy to me,” he said. “And much as I fancy her, I don’t want anything serious. Not with anyone. It’s really not her. I think she thinks we’re . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Oh,” I said, eyebrows high, “she definitely does.” I gave him a look. “You must have done more than snog the girl.”

  “I swear I didn’t.” His eyes were wide. He blinked. “Well, it was quite a bit of snogging, actually, and possibly a grope—”

  “You’re such a guy, Toby.”

  “—but that’s it, I swear it. No clothing was removed. No skin was involved. Certainly no fluid—”

  “Okay, stop. Enough.” Ew. I lit a cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke, pensively. “You’re fucked,” I said. “She thinks you’re dating. More than dating. She came over here so she could be the first to tell me that you two were together and I wou
ld have to prepare for the new group dynamic.”

  “The new group dynamic?What?”

  “Whatever. Why are you telling me all this, anyway?”

  He looked a little sheepish. “I thought you could sort it out.”

  “What can I do?” I laughed. Why should I do anything for a serial snogger?

  “You’re both American, aren’t you?”

  “There’s no national consciousness concerning dating disasters, Toby,” I said. “I can’t wave the flag and have her stop thinking there’s something going on between you. Only you can.”

  He slumped in the chair and made a face.

  “Do you do this kind of thing a lot?” I asked, grinning. “Didn’t you tell me that you behaved like a shithead to every girl you ever knew?”

  Toby grinned. “I don’t think I said ‘shithead,’” he replied. “But I have a certain reputation, it’s true.”

  “And you’re sure you don’t want to just . . . give it a go?”

  He made a face. “Not really, no.”

  “Why not?” I was curious. I was uncomfortable with Suzanne, but I’d always thought men lapped up her kind of thing like cream. Her whole I’m helpless and yet sexy thing.

  “I don’t like her that way,” Toby said. He laughed. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind having a go in one sense, but not as a girlfriend.”

  “You wouldn’t mind having a go.” I shook my head. “You’re a horrible little shit, Toby.”

  “I’m not trying to be horrible.” He shrugged. “I just don’t want a girlfriend right now. You know what I mean?”

  I shrugged. “Then just tell her you were incredibly drunk, events got out of control, and you apologize if you gave her the impression that you wanted anything more.”

  “As if I can just say that,” he scoffed.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “As an alternative, you can employ the tried-and-true dickhead method and just avoid her until she corners you, at which point you can act like she’s insane, hoping to confuse her into thinking she hallucinated the entire event.” I smiled. “But I warn you, that way lies madness and the possibility of angry poems.”

  Toby just shook his head. “I would never do something like that,” he said piously. But there was a little smile on his face. I wondered if what he would do might not be even worse.

  I saw that it was nearing seven o’clock. It was time for Cinderella to go to the ball, but I definitely didn’t want Toby to know where I was going. I didn’t want him to know I was going out in the first place. He might choose to run around having a soap opera life involving the entire university, but I preferred to be a little bit more cagey.

  “I’m really tired,” I said. Which was true, if irrelevant. “I’ve had you and Suzanne and too many stories today, on far too little sleep.”

  Toby looked nonplussed. “Don’t you want to go to the pub?” he asked, almost plaintively.

  “After the story you just told me?” I laughed. “I may never go to the pub with you again.”

  He slumped his way out of the house, and as I heard the heavy outside door thump shut I wondered if I should be offended that kissing me had led Toby directly to drunken shenanigans with Suzanne. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be on any list of conquests that included Miss Hair Flip. Who would be next?

  I moved over to my window and watched Toby cross the courtyard. He glanced up and grinned at me, and then performed some kind of 007 maneuver past Suzanne’s window before sneaking into his own house. I stood there for a moment, and had to shake myself out of it.

  Walking over to Sean’s house some time later, I reasoned that it was unnecessary to work myself up into a state about the situation. It would be like dating George Clooney. So unimaginable and absurd that why not just relax into the fact that he would never in a million years ever find you even slightly attractive? Or even if he had a slight moment of finding you kind of appealing, like a dog, that would be that and he would be back to dating size zero supermodels by the end of the night. This, rather than being depressing, was freeing. There was no pressure. There wasn’t even anything to gain. And so there was really no need to be stressed. Might as well just have fun, shoot for that moment of being mildly appealing, and maybe at the end of it all he’d consent to a photograph you could show your buddies back home.

  Not that I’d spent a lot of time thinking about dating George Clooney.

  Sean had cooked chicken with vegetables and rice, nothing too exciting, and all of it surprisingly edible. He poured wine and we sat at the small table in his kitchen. Faculty housing was much nicer than student housing, I noticed. Sean’s kitchen was actually homey rather than institutional. He seemed to have no problem at all making nice conversation, almost as if our theory classes had been conducted by his evil cerebral twin.

  George Clooney, I hissed at myself. And sort of relaxed into the whole thing. Maybe it helped that I was so jet-lagged. I had a limited emotional range, which certainly cut down on possible ways I could embarrass myself.

  After dinner we sat and had some more wine, and talked.

  “So tell me,” he said, his hazel eyes warm. “What makes a New Yorker pick up stakes and come to a tiny city in the north of England?”

  What I usually say when people ask me that is something like, “Well, I thought that if I was going to go to graduate school I might as well go in England.” It seemed to be a crowd-pleaser back home, particularly among friends of my parents.

  So I opened my mouth to say it again and instead said, “Somebody told me I couldn’t.” I sort of grinned.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that that would motivate you,” he said.

  “What about you?” I dared to ask. “Why are you an academic?”

  He played with his wineglass and smiled. “Somewhat by default, I suppose. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I finished my undergraduate degree, so I just stayed on. And that led to the doctorate, which led here. Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid.”

  “How old are you?” I couldn’t believe I’d asked. His eyebrows arched up.

  “Thirty-four,” he said mildly. “Mephistopheles.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m twenty-six. That makes me the old lady compared to my classmates.”

  Sean laughed. “Not quite an old lady.” He topped up my wineglass and crooked an eyebrow at me. “Are you sure you want more? I’m not certain I can fend off another attack on postmodernism.”

  “I think you know how embarrassed I am by that,” I said, and I could feel myself turning pink.

  “You shouldn’t worry,” he said, grinning. “I won’t tell you some of my own embarrassing stories, but take comfort in the fact they exist.”

  “Sometimes,” I dared, “I think you take pleasure in scaring us all.”

  “Of course.” He agreed, and then sat back in his chair, his body lean and lazy. I reminded myself to swallow. “It’s a tutor’s prerogative.” He smiled again. “And what about the rest of your life here, outside the course. Are you settling in well?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  And maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was neither of those mundane things and I was just a little drunk on all that personal attention and how relaxed Sean was. Maybe it was because I felt safe there, cocooned in the kitchen with his wise eyes and a kind smile.

  Maybe I was just insane.

  I said, “Sometimes I think I’ll never really belong anywhere, or trust anyone. I think I need to learn how to stop caring about that.”

  “You can’t decide not to care,” Sean said. “You can only control your response.”

  “Is that really possible?” I asked.

  “It really is,” he said. “It even starts to get a little bit easier.”

  “Really?” My voice sounded like a stranger’s. “When?”

  There was a small silence. It seemed to fill the room.

  I felt prickling at the back of my eyes and realized with some horror that I was about to cry. I excused myself to the b
athroom and splashed water on my face. I stared at my reflection and could see the darkness in my eyes. And if I could see it, Sean and his laser eyes could no doubt read me like a Dr. Seuss book.

  “Time to go, jet lag,” I whispered at myself. “You can’t do this.”

  I smiled slightly when I returned to the kitchen. I began shifting my weight from one foot to the other, a nervous habit I thought I’d outgrown in the fifth grade. The moment I realized I was doing it, I locked my knees and stood straighter.

  “I should get going,” I said. Years of my mother’s tutelage sprang into use. By rote, I said, “Thank you so much for dinner, Sean. It was really nice of you to have me over. I would never have made something so delicious for myself.”

  Sean stood and gave me that half-smile of his. He reached over and touched my shoulder very briefly, then dropped his hand. I imagined I could feel the place he’d touched through my sweater, as if he’d branded it.

  “You’re welcome, of course,” he murmured, almost impatiently. He caught my eyes and held them. “Alex, I don’t know if it helps, but I have every faith in you and your abilities.”

  His eyes were so warm then, almost like some liquid near gold and twice as precious. I felt a lump in the back of my throat. His kindness was almost too much to bear. I thought maybe the sarcasm was better, in the long run. For my heart. It was protection from what he could do with a little tenderness.

  I stared at him for what felt like ages, as if I could crawl into his gaze or his arms and stay safe there for a very long time. It was a bizarre feeling, one I’d never experienced before, and it unsettled me. I even found it a little tough to breathe. He smiled again, and I returned it. I could have sworn that for at least that brief second I could read his eyes and I could see there his awareness of what I was afraid was written all over me.

  Don’t be an ass, I snapped at myself. This is your George Clooney moment.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly, and made myself walk away.

  Eight