My Oxford Year

“It’s a plan!” I say, smiling back.

As we stand, Charlie pauses and drops his head to the side, gazing at the table as though it were a reflecting pool. “There was something else,” he mutters. “Something I wanted to—Maggie, some help. Do you recall?” He looks at Maggie. “Oh, come, I said we mustn’t forget to tell Ella.”

Maggie squints. “Tom, do you recall? I’m sure I told you to remind me.”

Tom puts his hands on his hips and looks up at the ceiling. “Bugger and blast, what was it? Wait! Might it have something to do with poetry?”

Charlie snaps his fingers. “Got it.” He looks at me. “I saw Davenport today.”

“Yes, that was it!” Maggie cries.

“Bang on!” Tom exclaims.

I swallow. “Oh yeah? When?”

“This morning, actually. But where?” Charlie turns his gaze contemplatively to the ceiling now. “Ah, right.” He drops his gaze levelly on me. “On our staircase landing.”

I move to say something.

“Coming out of your room.”

I freeze.

“Still wearing those velvet trousers.”

My mouth drops open. Charlie, Maggie, and Tom are grinning like three cats that ate all the canaries. Charlie reaches over and taps his finger under my chin, closing my mouth. “Careful, darling. You wouldn’t want to catch a foot in there, now, would you?”

They erupt in cackles. Maggie, at least, looks slightly repentant, her hands covering her laughing mouth as she says, “Sorry,” but Tom fairly bounces down the aisle, hopping and spinning about on one foot, an uncoordinated Pied Piper. Charlie simply strolls out, his jacket draped casually over one shoulder, the very posture of self-satisfaction.

I can’t tell which feeling is stronger: my mortification, or the relief that it’s out in the open. I take a fortifying breath, glancing once more at the front table.

Jamie is looking directly at me while everyone stands up. He wipes his mouth, shakes someone’s hand, and catches my eye again as he stands. He points covertly in the direction of the door. I nod.

I take a bracing gulp of my wine, then, before following everyone out, decide to finish it.

I STEP OUT of Hall and Jamie magically appears next to me. Barely touching my elbow, he guides me to a closed door marked BUTTERY. He opens it and sweeps me inside, closing the door quickly behind us. Cupboards and shelves are filled with glassware and other dining paraphernalia; napkin rings, candlesticks, saltshakers. It smells like a laundry room.

“Hi,” he says quietly.

“Hi,” I reply. “What are you doing here?”

He sighs, says in a rush, “Styan forgot she’d accepted an invitation to High Table, I stepped in. Ella listen . . .” He holds up a hand, looks me dead in the eye. “Last night was exhilarating. And surprising. Truly. All of it. I haven’t had that much fun in the devil of a long time and I didn’t adequately convey that this morning.” This comes out in one breath and with unblinking eyes. Then he disconnects, glancing around the pantry as if mentally selecting glassware for a dinner party. Finally he says, “Forgive my bluntness, but—”

“You want to do it again?”

“No, I would never—” But his eyes whip to mine, surprised. “Actually, yes.” He inhales. “But I can’t. Is the point.”

I look steadily into his eyes, making a decision. “Jamie,” I say carefully, “I have a shelf life here. I hand in my dissertation and I’m on a plane to Washington. No matter what.”

He shakes his head. “Those types of arrangements never seem to work out as planned.”

I shake my head back at him. “They don’t work because people don’t know what they want. We do. Or, we know what we don’t want. A relationship.” We look at each other. “One condition.” Instantly, he looks panicked, like a stray dog convinced that the food in my hand is just a ruse and I’m going to grab him by the scruff as soon as he comes near enough. “If we do this, we have to be honest with each other. If one of us is getting bored, or starting to have feelings they shouldn’t, no lying. We need to be honest about it.”

“You want honesty?” He looks me dead in the eye, eyes sparkling like they were last night. “When you dropped that sheet this morning it took every shred of my willpower to leave.”

We stare at each other until everything around us blurs away and all I can see is him. Those swimming-hole eyes. I moisten my lips. I stick out my hand with a challenging smile. “Whaddaya say?”

He considers my hand, tempted. But shakes his head instead. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Don’t think, Professor. Feel.”

He tips his head, touché, a rueful acknowledgment, but takes a step back from me and I find myself wishing he’d kiss me. If this is going to be it, I want to have an accurate, sober memory of what his lips feel like. Our kisses last night were a hurried, sloppy means to an end. I’m better than that, and I’d like to think he is as well.

But he turns away, faces the door.

He stops. He pauses.

He turns around, strides back to me, takes my waiting hand, pulls me toward him, drops his head, and proves me right.

And then some.

Chapter 12

Your gypsy soul did beckon

To my fetid heart and made

A fearful conflagration of

The meanest kind to tame.

“Fragment,” Unknown

Let’s say you’re not the most experienced of women. You can count the men you’ve been with on one hand. (Fine, both hands, but you know the exact number.) You’ve only had two one-night stands, but you’ve never had a “real” boyfriend either. By choice, mind you. You’re smart, safe, and in control of the one thing you’ve seen derail everyone else: love.

Maybe you were damaged a little bit (not a lot, let’s not overstate this). Maybe it has something to do with your family. Maybe someone left. Maybe someone died. Maybe the timing was arbitrary but critical and the fallout saw the normal adolescent goalposts suddenly moved in the night. Maybe boys became irrelevant. Maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about.

And then let’s say, just for argument’s sake, a decade later you meet this guy and he’s unlike any guy you’ve ever met before, except for one thing: he doesn’t want to be in a relationship. Which is just peaches ’cause neither do you. For you two, relationships are like decaf coffee: What, exactly, is the point?

So you ease into it.

Well. Relatively. He’s like early-morning Indian-summer sun on the back of your neck. Despite the chill, you know the day is shaping up to be a scorcher.

In the buttery, you’re interrupted by the college butler, who stares after you witheringly as the two of you flee, looking pious. When you join your friends for Scotch and chocolate a half hour later, you realize you made no plans to meet up with him again. Which is fine.

Then Monday rolls around and you have your weekly class with him. He’s professional; you’re poker-faced. But he asks you to stay after class and then whispers warmly in your ear that he couldn’t stop staring at your legs during his lecture. (You might have worn a skirt that day.) You suggest that the two of you have a tute about this matter. After all, you’d hate to be distracting in class. He tells you that’s a rather good idea and an hour later you meet in his rooms, where you will continue to meet after class for the next six weeks. Other than this Monday-afternoon ritual, you never know when you’re going to see him. You never make plans with him, because plans imply expectations, and for this thing to work between you, you can’t be beholden to each other. You text him: