Commencement (Becoming Jane)

by Adare, Alexis

  “Oh, that sounds exciting. What’s the pavilion?”

  “Well, it’s like a party area, for having get-togethers on the beach. My dad had it built when we were very young. This house is one of just a handful on Cape Annabel Harbor that has its own private beach.” I continued talking as I came to the last few steps of the staircase. “The pavilion is partly covered and partly open,” I said, setting down the picnic basket on the lounge beneath a long wooden awning. “It has an outdoor kitchen, and fire pit”—I held up my phone and panned around the pavilion to the beach beyond— “and Claremont beach.” I stepped out onto snow dusted sand.

  “Wow,” I heard the Professor whisper from my palm.

  Wow indeed, I thought. The sun was just beginning its descent under the horizon. Colors danced across the water, bright orange, pale teal and lavender. It was a view that always warmed me, no matter the season or the climate, but tonight, in this moment, standing here, sharing it with the Professor — I shivered. The breeze that coasted in from the sea was no colder than any other winter picnic I’ve taken, but still goose bumps broke out along my down-covered arms. I shook it off and walked back to the lounge area to light a fire.

  “Oh, you’re a pioneer woman,” said the Professor enthusiastically.

  “Not quite,” I said, flipping the switch on the fire pit that started the gas. “American ingenuity. We like our fires operable by remote control.”

  “Oh, that’s just cheating.”

  “Absolutely.” I propped the phone up on the lounge seat next to me, facing the beach, then set to work opening my bottle of wine.

  “This is truly spectacular, Jane. It’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with me. I feel like seeing this has given me some precious insights into you, a deeper understanding.”

  “Don’t go getting all sentimental on me now,” I said as I poured wine into my glass and lifted a slice of pizza to my lips. Tears welled in my eyes, and I wiped them hastily, grateful the Professor couldn’t see my face at this moment.

  I was so enjoying his company, and yet, it was making me somewhat melancholy at the same time. The strange half-nature of his presence, was messing with my head. He was here, his voice, his face on that small mobile screen, and yet he wasn’t, not really. It made me feel lonely.

  You’ve been lonely for ages, girlfriend. Really, really, really fucking lonely. I took another bite of pizza and a big swallow of wine, willing myself to shake off this nonsense.

  “It is beautiful,” I said. “Wait till the sun goes down. The stars and the moon over the water, it’s really something, Professor.”

  “Jane?”

  “Yes?”

  “Please call me Thomas.”

  * * *

  Thomas, I thought, trying his name out in my head. We’d talked for an hour on the beach, and during that time the Professor had tried to coax me into calling him by his first name. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. At first it just felt awkward, and I was uncharacteristically shy about the whole thing, but the more he pushed the more I enjoyed holding out on him. Turn around is fair play as far as I’m concerned, and if the Professor was inclined to play games then I felt free to do the same.

  “Not yet,” I’d said. “I haven’t graduated yet, so you’re still the Professor.”

  “Oh, that’s just indefensible, that is. Giving me a taste of my own medicine?”

  “Absolutely. Be careful how you treat the patient, Doctor, lest you end up the one in the bed…er…I mean…”

  “Ha!’ he laughed, slapping a hand to his chest. “Got away from you at the end there, didn’t it?”

  “A little bit.” I laughed along with him.

  We’d said our goodnights and I’d walked back to the house alone, put away my picnic basket and settled into my childhood room for the night. I unpacked my clothes, plugged in my laptop and checked my email, then sat for a few minutes, staring idly at the lavender calico bedspread.

  Good Lord, Mom, I thought. That thing has been here since I was sixteen. Time for an upgrade.

  It was getting late, and I was wide awake, restless and foolishly replaying my dinner conversation with the Professor in my mind ad nauseam. I decided to take a long bath to soak his voice out of my head, but fifteen minutes later, my body was still anxious and my mind still chattering. I’d moved on from saying his name over and over in my head to whispering it to the bubbles that were quickly fading in the tub.

  “Thomas….Thomas,” I said to the suds, giggling at my own idiocy.

  I pulled the plug on the bath, and rose, reaching for my towel just as I heard an incoming call ringing on my laptop. Wrapping the towel around me, I sprinted into the bedroom and saw the alert flashing on the laptop screen. Dr. Thomas Grayson was calling me.

  “Can’t get enough of me, huh?” I said as I sat in front of the computer screen.

  The top of the Professor’s head, tousled, covered by both his arms, filled my field of view.

  “Professor? Are you okay?” I asked.

  He shook his head no.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  He shook his head again, and answered, a pained muffled sound. But I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  “Seriously, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

  “Cousin Matthew,” he wailed, his face still buried under his arms.

  “Oh no!” I said, trying to sound sympathetic as I laughed. “Oh no, you watched the last episode, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said, lifting his head. He ran a hand over his face, shielding his eyes from my view. “After we got off the phone I cued up the last few minutes of the Christmas episode, because the suspense was killing me. And now I’m too devastated to sleep.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” I giggled, and then clapped my hands over my mouth trying to stifle the sound. “Have you been crying?” I asked.

  “Not crying,” he said, taking off his glasses. “Just a little misty.” He rubbed his eyes and then replaced the lenses, looking up at me for the first time. “Whoa.”

  “What?”

  “Hang on, the evening is looking up for me now. Are you in a towel?”

  “I am,” I said, looking down at my barely covered cleavage as if I’d suddenly forgotten. “You caught me just getting out of the bath.”

  “Oh, how delightful.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and rubbed one hand over his jaw thoughtfully. “You know…I think could survive the sudden and tragic demise of Cousin Matthew, if only I had something lovely to distract me.”

  “Something lovely?”

  “Something resplendent, even.”

  “Ah,” I said, rising from my chair. I tilted the screen of my laptop, adjusting the angle of the camera slightly. I took a few steps back, and plucked at the top of the towel. “So, you’re hoping for a show, are you?”

  “A man always hopes, sweet Jane.”

  “Well, let me see…” I pulled at the front of the towel, untucking the top. I opened it just a fraction and slipped my leg out to the side. “Maybe…” I whipped off the towel and threw it at the laptop. It landed square on its target, covering the camera completely and blocking me from the Professor’s view.

  “Bad form, Claremont! Bad form!” His shouts and laughter rose muffled from under the towel.

  “Just a second,” I called. “Just one second.”

  “You’re not getting dressed, are you?” he said, his tone laced with horror.

  I pulled lace panties, a short night shirt and a pair of knee-high striped socks from a dresser drawer and whipped them on in a flash. Then I darted to the laptop and freed the Professor from his terry cloth prison.

  “Oh no,” he sighed when he saw me. “Wait.” He leaned into the camera. “Are those stripy socks?”

  “Yes, they are.” I popped my foot up onto the chair and leaned over to my ankle, dragging my fingers up my leg as I smiled.

  “Oh, those are hideous—” he said.

  “Hey! I love my rainbow so
cks.”

  “And yet,” he said, staying my objections with a raised hand, “bewilderingly arousing.”

  I danced back from the camera, and did a little twirl, showing off my unicorn nightshirt and stripy socks to their best effect.

  “Oh God, you are awakening every adolescent fantasy I’ve ever forgotten, ” he said, sighing heavily and leaning his chin on his fist.

  “Ooo, how fun,” I cooed. Turning my back to the camera I lifted the hem of my night shirt and bent over, flashing him a peek of lacey panties. When I turned back around, his eyes were wide and the smile on his face even wider.

  “Hey,” he said, a gleam in his eye, “let’s have a slumber party.”

  * * *

  “Alright, Professor.” I grinned at him. “I’m game. Put on your jammies, grab your teddy bear, a bottle of whiskey, and a shot glass. Meet me back here in five.”

  “I don’t have a teddy bear.” He grimaced with feigned offense.

  “Whatever—get moving.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and disappeared from my screen.

  I picked up my laptop and grabbed a blanket from the foot of my bed, then headed to the living room, stopping by my mother’s liquor cabinet on the way, for a bottle of Maker’s Mark and a shot glass. The Professor popped back up on my screen as I was setting the laptop up on the coffee table.

  “Alright, what’s the whiskey for?” he asked.

  “Downton Abbey drinking game. No proper sleepover is complete without a drinking game.”

  “Oh no,” he said, clutching a bottle of Jameson to his chest. “You’re not going to make me go through that trauma again, are you?”

  “Of course I am! You cheated; you fast forwarded to the end. You didn’t go through the same agonizing emotional build-up that the rest of us did. As broken as you are, it’s nothing compared to how devastated you will be after we watch the full Christmas episode, in all its glory, combined with the depressing effects of far too much alcohol. Now man-up and get out your shot glass.”

  He loped off screen and returned with a shot glass, a bag of chips and a blue blanket draped over his shoulders. The edge of the blanket bore some writing and I knelt next to the coffee table, leaning into the laptop screen, trying to make it out.

  “P..O…L…Oh my God. Is that a Doctor Who blanket?”

  “No.” He rolled his eyes at me and huffed in offense. “It’s a TARDIS blanket, thank you very much.”

  “You know what I meant!” I protested. “So you don’t have a teddy bear, but you do have a TARDIS blanket.”

  “Guilty.’

  “That is seriously adorable.”

  “Adorable enough that we’ll be swapping a replay of Cousin Matthew’s demise, for a few hours, with The Doctor?”

  “Nope, not tonight.”

  “You are heartless.”

  “Definitely”

  “Which is your favorite Doctor?” he asked, opening the bag of chips. “I bet you’re strictly NewWho. Am I right? Ten’s your favorite, I bet, or Eleven?”

  “Now that is just insulting. I had PBS growing up; I’ve seen classic Who.”

  “Aha!” he yelled, pointing at me through the screen, “but you didn’t say you watched it, or that you like it, just that you’ve seen it.’

  “Alright, I admit, I didn’t really get into the show for real until they started casting a little eye candy.”

  “Eye candy? Oh that seals it, you’re a Ten fan. I knew it!”

  I laughed and picked the TV remote up from the coffee table. “Guilty as charged. Yes, I’m a devoted fan of the tenth Doctor. He’s my first love.”

  “Well, you know what they say?” he said, waggling his eyebrows at me, and popping a chip into his mouth.

  “What’s that?”

  “You never forget your first Doctor.” He grinned, eyes twinkling with mischief.

  “Har, har, har,” I said, groaning at his joke even as I felt my cheeks flush hot and pink.

  “Alright, enough stalling, we’ve got some serious drinking ahead of us.” I stood in front of the television and fired up the Blu-ray. “Cue up the episode on your TV and wait for my mark to start it so that we are synced up properly.”

  “Right, got it. Cue, sync, etcetera.”

  “Now, the rules of the game,” I began and then stopped when the Professor raised his hand. “Yes?” I asked.

  “I’d just like to go on record again as a fan of your jim-jams.”

  “Noted, moving on,” I said, throwing him a smirk. “Drink, one shot, every time the following happens…” I ticked off the list on my fingers. “When the Dowager calls Tom ‘Branson’, instead of Tom.”

  “Oh yeah, she does that a lot.”

  “When Robert is ridiculously out of touch about something and makes that fuddy-duddy face.”

  “Right, Robert being dense—got it.”

  “When Mrs. Hughes and Carson eye-fuck each other.”

  “Eye-fuck?”

  “You know that whole unrequited, prim and proper, Remains of the Day, love affair thing they’ve got going on.”

  “Oh yes, yes, I see what you mean.”

  “Drink every time O’Brien looks like she’s about to do something evil.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And then again when she does it.”

  “Good Lord, we’ll be drunk in the first ten minutes of the show.”

  “Drink when,” I said, ignoring him, “Edith looks sad.”

  “Well that’s always.”

  “And lastly, drink every time Mary is mean.”

  “So the first person to expire from alcohol poisoning wins?”

  “Exactly. Ready?”

  “Allons-y!”

  ***

  “Oh my God.” I grimaced through a smile and raised a hand to my head. “We’re both going to be a wreck in the morning. How many shots was that?”

  “I lost count somewhere after the eighth time O’Brien glowered at that other maid.” The Professor smirked at me while massaging his temples. “That was brutal. Who knew British costume dramas were the gateway to a life of indulgence and sin?”

  “I know, right?” I said, “We’d better stop here for the night, or we’re liable to end up in the streets, begging for biscuits and tea.”

  “But dressed elegantly, mind you. Tails and tasteful gowns. Aristocratic beggars must maintain higher standards of course, lest they become the target of gossip and vicious speculation.” He smiled at me, and winked. But there was something in his expression, some hint of discomfort around the edges of his eyes, that struck me.

  “You sound as if you speak from experience,” I prompted, curious what was on his mind.

  “A little.” He nodded. “My family isn’t nobility but I come from a version of that life. Private schools and dressing for dinner, chauffeurs, and polo and entertaining dignitaries.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Aw, you don’t like entertaining dignitaries?” I teased.

  “No, not particularly. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been very fortunate. But I’d much rather succeed or fail in this life on my own merits, and not those of my…. ”

  “Your father?” I said, finishing the sentence for him.

  “Yes.” He nodded, his mouth twisting into a cynical smirk.

  “But you have succeeded on your own merits. You’re a respected scholar with a doctorate in your field.”

  “Ah, but you see,” he said, reaching for the bottle of Jameson, “that worthy accomplishment is about to be usurped.”

  “That bad, huh?” I asked as I watched him fill the shot glass.

  “Worse,” he said, tossing it back.

  The quality of his voice was lower now, and a little slurred. “My father was made a baronet this year. An honor bestowed upon him by a grateful queen.”

  “Wow.” Why exactly is that bad? I wondered. “What was she grateful for?”

  “My father,” he said, pouring another shot, “is th
e foremost importer and manufacturer of luxury furniture and textiles in all of Great Britain. The houses of the aristocracy are full of his wares.” He stretched his arms, gesturing wildly. “The queen’s houses are full of his wares.”

  “Wow,” I said again, stunned. “Grayson Interiors? That’s your family?”

  “You know it,” he said blandly.

  “I do,” I said, and shifting in my seat, I lifted the laptop so he could catch a glimpse of the ornate cherry side-table next to the sofa.

  “Oh dear God, it isn’t.”

  “It’s a Grayson,” I said. “Mind you I only know this because my parents fought over it during their divorce. Apparently they bought it on their honeymoon.”

  “Your mother should consider it cursed and throw it in the fireplace.”

  “Never happen; she loves it.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said, waving a hand in surrender. “My great-great-great-grandfather was the one who started the company you know. Imports. Tea, textiles, gems.” He filled his shot glass yet again.

  “Easy there, tiger, you’re working on a world-class hangover.”

  “My great-grandfather,” he continued, ignoring my warning, “was the one who had the idea to start manufacturing furniture. But my father,” —he raised the shot glass in mock salute— “my illustrious father, he is the one who expanded the business, made it a worldwide brand, and raised the family fortune into the billions.”

  “Billions?” I said.

  “Billions.” He slammed the shot back and set the glass down hard, then swiped a hand across his mouth. “Not that that has ever mattered to dear old Dad,” he muttered, and I noticed that he was massaging his right hand distractedly with the other. His fingers traced the dark line of the tattoo that circled his wrist, raising a flush in the skin. “Because what my father really wants is power. And to him a title is just more power. It’s fucking stupid, meaningless nonsense. But you can be sure he’ll bandy it about as if a simple ‘Sir’ in front of his name suddenly infuses the entire family bloodline with magic and respectability. As if it erases every sin he’s ever committed. As if anything could.”