My Oxford Year

“I’ll wait,” William says, looking back out, something ominous in that declaration. I wince apologetically, but he doesn’t see it.

Yes, it’s a Saturday night, and yes, I’m at a ball at a palace in England, but this is who I am. I’m the person who takes the call. Besides, I know what it’s about and it’ll be quick. “Gavin.”

“Did you see the numbers I sent?”

“I did.” In the limo on the way over here. “They’re great.”

“Just great?” He sounds so excited I have a feeling he might be a few Manhattans into his evening.

“A net positive favorable—even a net twenty—doesn’t matter when it’s hypothetical,” I say. I glance at William. He’s assessing the crowd, but I can practically see his ear tuned to me like a dog’s. “We’re basically asking people if they’d vote for Santa Claus over the Tooth Fairy. It’s fiction.” I catch the beginning of a reluctant grin on William’s face. Boldly, I raise my voice a little. Am I preening? Sure. “Come on, Gavin, you’re supposed to be the battle-worn vet who doesn’t count chickens, I’m supposed to be the doe-eyed idealist.”

Gavin laughs. “Oh, what do you know, you’re just the doe-eyed education consultant.”

“Then why’d you send me the numbers?” I fire back. “Why are you calling me?”

“Because you’re the only one I know will answer.” There’s a moment of quiet and I swear I hear ice clinking in a glass. It’s five P.M. on a Saturday and Janet’s probably in Florida with her boyfriend and youngest son. Thrice-divorced Gavin is calling me. “You’re doing good, kid,” he says. “Really. You’re doing good—no, you’re doing great—work for us.”

“Thank you,” I say, stealing another glance at William.

“We’re gonna need you in the administration.”

Weirdly, my ears heat. Just my ears, just a rush of anticipatory blood to a random part of me. I laugh it off. “Don’t start measuring the drapes for the Oval just yet.”

He chuckles. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I got a list of possible hires I wanna run by you.” Per usual, he doesn’t say good-bye. He’s just gone.

I slip my phone back into my purse. I turn to William and tap his arm, and he looks as if he’s surprised to see me there, as if he hasn’t been listening to my entire conversation. An actor, he is not. “Sorry about that.”

“Quite all right,” he says, and offers his arm to me. I tuck my hand into his elbow and we move to the periphery of the dancing crowd. William turns to me, taking my right hand lightly in his. My left immediately goes to his shoulder and his other hand finds my waist. I send a silent thanks to my mother for making me take ballroom dance as an elective sophomore year.

I scan the crowd for Jamie and Cecelia, but they must have drifted to the other side of the floor. I see that Maggie and Tom have inched closer, but they gaze in opposite directions, glancing at each other occasionally and then looking away quickly if they happen to meet the other’s eye. Needless to say, they don’t speak. I peer at William, hoping he’ll look back at me and smile. He does neither. So I study him. He’s quite striking for his age. He has Jamie’s jaw and shoulders. But his eyes are dark. Opaque. He begins rolling his neck, back and forth, like a boxer warming up for a fight. Before I can ask if he’s all right, he unclasps my hand and reaches for his bow tie. We pause in our dance as he struggles to loosen the knot without completely undoing it. “Damn constricting,” he mutters.

I smile at him and blurt, “You think that’s bad, try a bra.”

He narrows his eyes at me—it wasn’t funny, I know it wasn’t funny—and retakes my hand. We start moving again. In silence. Just as I’m about to say something to dispel the awkwardness, he beats me to the punch.

“Enjoying your time in Britain?”

“Yes, very much. I love it.” We dance. “This is a beautiful event. Thanks for letting my friends join in tonight. They’re having the best—”

“I fell in love with Antonia before I knew she was a Lady Duncan. She was just a uni girl in a disco who made me tea at three in the morning. We dated for six months before I found out her title went back fifteen generations and she had hundreds of thousands of acres and five estates spread over this godforsaken island. I thought I’d struck gold.” He’s not looking at me. He stares over my shoulder into space. I wait for him to continue. Clearly he has a reason for launching into this story. Not that I know what it is. “I was twenty-five then. I had nothing, all the money I was making went right back into the business. The first ball she took me to? I had to borrow her father’s suit.” A wry smile finds its way to his lips, but quickly disappears again. “We eloped. I gave her a ring I’d fashioned out of a crisp bag.”

I like this William, the young romantic.

“But the following year her father died and I discovered just how much hundreds of thousands of acres and five estates costs a person and just how much he didn’t have. We lived in the Argyll kitchens—that’s the house in Scotland—for two years because it was reliably warm. Which couldn’t be said for the rest of that pile. Toni gave birth to Jamie in those kitchens. Nothing but a bucket of boiling water, me, and Smithy banging on about putting a knife under our mattress to cut the pain. This is 1989, mind you, not 1389. Then my company went public. That fifty quid I’d stolen out my father’s till when I was sixteen had multiplied itself by a million. Oliver was born in a private suite at St. Mary’s in Paddington.”

Why is he telling me this? I’m not saying I’m not charmed, but why?

He looks at me for the first time since we started dancing. It’s riveting. “Do you know why Jamie won’t do the stem-cell replacement therapy again?” Jarred, I open my mouth to engage, but he continues. “Not because it’s painful and tedious and, according to him, futile. It’s you. He doesn’t want to isolate himself, unglue himself from you for a month. That must make you feel quite valued?”

I obviously disagree with his assessment, but I know he’s trying to get a rise out of me and I won’t take the bait. “It’s Jamie’s choice.”

The corner of William’s mouth lifts. I can’t tell if it’s a smile or a sneer. “I see. You’ve never loved anyone before.” I bristle. This is like when I criticize my cousin’s horrible kids and my mother pulls the you-don’t-know-what-it’s-like-to-be-a-parent card. Nothing irritates me more. Except for this. Once again, I open my mouth, but William says, “It’s all right. You’re young. Love is still firmly about hormones.” Everything this man says is rooted in criticism. “You’re a Rhodes scholar, yes?”

“Yes,” I reply cautiously.

“Good. I like dealing with clever people. You have a ticket back to the states on June eleventh, if I’m correct? You will be back in America, working twenty hours per day, in a different city every night, possibly, getting Janet Wilkes elected president.” I want to ask him how the hell he knows any of this, but I’m too stunned to speak. He charges forward. “Do you see yourself and my son gallivanting through Europe until then? Cruising the Seine? Skiing the Alps? Let me burst this bubble. He will either be too ill to travel or he will be dead. After you’re done with him, you will still have a life. He, very well, might not.”