Teach Me

by Lola Darling

  “No, you’re early,” I point out. “You said seven thirty. What’s the occasion?” I wave a menu at her pointedly. This place is way out of her usual paycheck-to-paycheck budget.

  “All in good time.” She flashes a grin at me. “Order whatever you like. On me.”

  Now I’m worried. “Is everything okay? Did something happen at your job?” She gets like this during crises sometimes. A horrible thought occurs to me. “Is Mum alright?”

  She snorts. “Mum’s fine. And so’s the job, thanks for asking. But me, I’m better than fine.” She wiggles her menu again, like it’s supposed to mean something.

  No, not the menu. Her hand.

  Her left hand.

  “Oh god,” I say before I can stop myself.

  Kat bursts out laughing even harder now. “See, I knew I’d have to tell you solo. That is not the appropriate reaction to your baby sister’s engagement, Jackie boy.”

  “It is when you’ve only been dating the guy for six months!” I can’t help it. My voice shoots up an octave. The gooey couple oozing love eyes at one another at the table beside us (who smell like a garden full of patchouli, it must be noted) turn to glare daggers in my general direction. I lower my tone. “Kat, are you sure about this?”

  “What do you have against Raul?” She quirks an eyebrow at me, totally unperturbed by how much I’m freaking out.

  “Nothing. I mean, besides the fact that I think I’m supposed to be vaguely threatening toward any dude who looks at you twice, he seems like a nice guy. But, you’re only twenty-seven . . . ”

  “Twenty-eight,” she corrects. “Mr. Wise Old Man of Thirty. Please, bestow the dating and relationship wisdom that those extra two years have imparted to you and you alone.”

  She has a point, nags a voice at the back of my mind. You did just go down on an undergrad who’s probably, what, a maximum of 20 years old? I force myself to roll my eyes, keeping that thought suppressed. “It’s not that. It’s common sense. You’re supposed to try living with someone before you go off marrying them.”

  She brushes that off with a roll of her own eyes. It’s the signature move in our family. “We’re apartment-hunting now. Look, just because you are a complete commitment-phobe, doesn’t mean I have to be.”

  “I am not.” What is it about siblings that makes you instantly regress a couple dozen years?

  “Oh really? Where should I start on the list, let’s see . . . Sara for two years in college, fair enough, you were young; Bethany for four years while you were at uni, had to dump her the minute you graduated, naturally. After that, was it Kim or Carly? I always get them confused. Anyway, two more years each, then jump overboard the second they mention rings. And now your latest.”

  I brace myself, even though I know what’s coming.

  “Hannah. Butler.”

  “That’s not fair, Kat.”

  “What’s not fair is you acting like the best thing that has ever happened to me is a complete and total mistake.” She shoves away from the table, and to my surprise, I notice genuine tears in her eyes.

  I am such an idiot. “Kat, I’m sorry.” I make a grab for her hand, but only manage to catch her wrist as she rises, aimed for the restrooms. “Seriously, I’m happy for you. Raul is great.”

  “Damn right he is.” She glares down at me. More people than just the patchouli duo are staring at us now. I ignore them.

  “You just scared me, okay? Forgive your dumbass brother. I’ve had a really long day, and this . . . I just didn’t expect it.”

  Slowly, she lowers herself back onto her seat. “I love him, Jack.”

  That, at last, makes me smile. “I know, Kat.” Because I do. I can see it on her face every time she’s with him. The way she gazed at him at Mum’s birthday party this summer, three months ago now, I knew deep down they were going to wind up together. She’d found her match, and Raul’s stoic, steady personality perfectly balanced my sister’s zaniness.

  I guess I just didn’t expect them to move so fast. She is my little sister, after all. Here I am, the bachelor black sheep of the family. And . . . Okay, maybe a tiny little part of me wants to know how she can possibly do it. How she can look at him and think rest of my life right here and not run screaming for the hills. If she can do it, what’s wrong with me that I’ve never been able to?

  The waiter finally approaches our table with a look of trepidation on his face. He probably thinks we’re about to blow up again.

  I force a grin, to show him we’re safe. “Can we get a bottle of champagne?” I ask.

  “We have several vegan options to choose from,” he says.

  I hoist an eyebrow in Kat’s direction. Seriously, wine is vegan now? But she lists the one she wants, and he disappears to fetch the bottle. I rap the table with a fist.

  “On me tonight,” I say.

  “It’s supposed to be my turn to treat.” She pouts.

  “Yeah, but I ruined your big surprise, so you’ll just have to suck it up. Okay? Now.” I eyeball the ring on her finger. It’s pretty sizable, actually. I knew Raul made good money at . . . whatever indecipherable financial-type job he performed back home in Newcastle, but I had no idea the money was that good. “Tell me how he asked.”

  Just like that, any remaining anger melts from Kat’s expression, and she launches into the full story.

  Two courses of tastier-than-I-expected vegan food later (and a couple bottles of vegan champagne, too), we’ve finished catching up on everything from the proposal (he took her out to eat at a nice restaurant in town—nothing special if you ask me, but hey, no one is) and their subsequent apartment hunt to Dad’s health, which Mum is freaking out about at the moment (“her usual overreaction,” Kat assures me). We rounded the list out with some bitching about Dean Pierson and Kat’s boss at the elementary school where she teaches, who sounds like a real piece of work.

  Finally, we settle into that pleasant, buzz-drunk state where I almost feel brave and/or stupid enough to ask her advice on how to handle this whole Harper situation. I mean, not that I would name Harper. Or mention the oops-I-pulled-a-student bit. But I could ask, in a roundabout way, how Kat would fairly handle having to pick a research assistant from a pool of people that included someone you absolutely could not work with one-on-one. For unnamable reasons.

  Before I can work the thoughts into order in my head, however, Kat hiccups thoughtfully. “Whatever did happen, though, with Hannah?” she says.

  Just like that, the pleasant buzz melts away. My stomach churns with a mixture of guilt and annoyance. A sensation I’m way too accustomed to when it comes to this topic.

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “It just . . . She wasn’t right.”

  To my relief, Kat doesn’t take the opportunity for another Kingston family eye roll. But she does lift her fist. “Let’s review.” She sticks up one finger. “The lady is hot.”

  I nod. There’s no denying that. It’s the reason I first asked her out two years ago, if I’m honest.

  Kat extends a second finger. “She’s totally in love with you, for some indecipherable reason.”

  “Oi,” I protest, but she’s on a roll now.

  “She just as big a nerd as you are. She works in the same profession.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly equate teaching medieval history with teaching poetry,” I say.

  “Case in point about the nerd bit.” Kat raises a fifth finger, her whole hand in my face now. “Mum adores her, I like her plenty, you guys have all the same friends here, everyone wants you to just get on with it already.”

  “Yes, thank you Kat, I’m well aware—”

  “So then what’s the big bloody problem already?” Now she’s the one raising her voice, although luckily the patchouli couple have departed by now, replaced by a hard-of-hearing senior who doesn’t even seem to notice we exist.

  “The big bloody problem is I don’t love her,” I hiss. My fists clench and unclench under the table.

  There. I said it.

&
nbsp; I’ve never actually admitted that out loud before.

  It’s stupid. I know that. We dated for a year, and it was on-again, off-again the whole time. Always me putting on the brakes, and her somehow sliding back into my life. Because she makes sense. Too much sense. We watch the same movies. Love the same books. Hang out with the same colleagues. Have absorbed one another’s friend groups, from that year of dating. She’s gorgeous. My family still ask me about her to this day, that’s how much they adore her. She loves me. Forgives me for all the shit I put her through, again and again, by turning her down.

  But when I’m with her, there are no sparks. No sense of the world clicking into place. No sudden awareness that it’s all right, that this is where I’m meant to be.

  Kat is watching me with something akin to pity in her eyes.

  My turn to push my chair back. I don’t need or want my sister’s pity.

  But she stops me with a hand resting on my forearm. “Sometimes real love isn’t all fireworks and butterflies.”

  I swallow hard past my instinctive grimace. “I know that, Kat. As you so kindly pointed out, I’m thirty now.”

  “Then you also know that real love is what comes after the fireworks and butterflies fade.”

  But what if there were never any to begin with? I want to say. What if I’m incapable of that? Instead, I slip my arm out of her grasp and rise to unfold my coat. “It’s getting late,” I say. “I still have to swing by the Bodleian and send an essay assignment out.”

  She agrees we should call it a night. But when I climb into the car outside and wave to her in her adjoining Mini Cooper, I can’t help noticing she’s still eying me closely, as if checking for cracks.

  Harper

  “You guys, this is so not helping.” I bend over my laptop, trying to tune out the frivolity around me.

  “When you invited me to a study session in the lounge, I didn’t think you meant actual studying,” Nick complains to Mary Kate, who’s poised on his lap, her sheaf of Heaney poems spread on the desk in front of her as though she’s actually reading him.

  It’s pretty obvious from the way she keeps wriggling in her boy-shaped seat that she’s not.

  “Studying is good for you.” MK taps the side of his skull. “Grows your brain.”

  “Pretty hard for that brain to grow when you’re diverting all my blood flow elsewhere,” Nick tells her with a wink.

  “Gross. Get a room already, would you?” I flip the page. Nothing. I’ve got nothing on this essay started, it’s due in two days, and I need to knock it totally out of the ballpark. No, not just the ballpark. Out of the whole baseball league. This needs to be the literal best essay I ever write in my life.

  My pencil taps anxiously on the blank outline. So far all I’ve managed to write is the word Outline across the top of the page.

  “You’re one to talk, Harpy.” Nick sticks out his tongue. I really regret that MK finally got around to telling him my name. “Maybe we should take a page out of your book and get a confessional booth instead.”

  My cheeks flame. I shove my chair back, about to slam my book shut and head to the library instead, where at least I can sulk about my total lack of inspiration in peace and quiet.

  That’s when a warm hand comes to rest on my shoulder, and squeezes gently. “Quit giving the girl at hard time, Schwartz. You’re just jealous.” The owner of the hand, a native Londoner to judge by his thick Cockney accent, slides into the seat beside me. Honey brown eyes lock onto my blue ones, and a warm, off-center smile follows. “I have to admit, though, I am a little jealous, too. The new girl is here for a grand total of two weeks and she steals my crown as reigning King of Daring Pulls.”

  I swallow hard. The way he’s looking at me is almost . . . hungry. I’m not sure if I like it or not. I lick my lips. “Um, what’s a pull?”

  He busts into laughter, and Mary Kate joins in. “You know, going out on the pull, pulling a hot gal—or guy, I guess, in your case.” I must still look blank, because he speaks even slower now. “Picking someone up. To hook up with them. Tell, us, who was the lucky bloke?”

  Now my cheeks could practically ignite a small forest fire. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” I say, even as I level a sideways glare at MK. I thought I knew enough about Brit-speak to get around here, but she definitely did not explain fancy dress or pulls in any of her emails.

  Great. Is this going to be my new reputation? Queen of Pulling?

  The new guy takes pity on me. “Don’t worry, love. I’ll steal my title back in no time. Confessional booths will be old hat soon enough, once I complete my plan to seduce a girl in the middle of Templars Square.”

  Now all of us snort at once. I really can’t imagine anyone allowing themselves to be seduced in the largest shopping center in Oxford. “Gee, thanks for your sacrifice,” I reply.

  “I dunno, though, King of Pulls,” Mary Kate interrupts. “Harper might have you beat there. I mean, if even half the things she writes in her letters are true . . . ”

  I kick her under the table. “Whatever happened to sisters before misters?” I grumble.

  “Hey, I’m just saying, your reputation’s as good as his.” MK winks.

  The King of Daring Pulls shrugs a shoulder. “Well, perhaps she and I should have a contest of wills. See who pulls the other one first.” He winks, so fast I wonder if I imagined it.

  “How about you two get a room instead?” Nick mumbles from across the table, probably not enjoying the way Mary Kate is still giggling from this guy’s last joke.

  “Alas, I’ve sworn off hooking up with guys before I’ve been properly introduced,” I say.

  “Patrick O’Brien, professional sexaholic,” he replies smoothly, jerking me into a handshake before I even realize what’s going on. “And you are?”

  Against my better judgment, I find myself grinning. “Harper Reed, stereotypical American screw-up.”

  He looks suddenly crestfallen. “Don’t tell me you regret your confessional détente. You’ll ruin all my preconceived notions of your grandeur. Also, can I still make a nun joke now, or should I save it for later, after we . . . ?” He winks again. Definitely not imagining it.

  “We are not—there’s not going to be a later,” I sputter, extracting my hand from his. MK and Nick are outright snickering now. Suddenly everything—the realization that half our class seems to know about me hooking up at that party, the fact that I’m going to get the same reputation that I used to have, not to mention this guy’s attitude, seeming to think our hookup is already a done deal, it all hits me at once, and I’m just so done.

  “I have to go.” I leap to my feet and toss my papers into my bag.

  “Harper, wait.” Patrick tries to follow me, but trips on his chair, and only manages to hop sideways on one leg. “I’m sorry, I was joking.”

  “Stay Harps, come on.” MK reaches for me, a pout on her wide lips. “We’ll work on the essay for real, I promise.”

  “We will?” Nick says, but she elbows him in the stomach.

  “Sorry, guys, I’m just not in the mood,” I mutter as I beeline for the nearest exit.

  #

  A ghost tour crowds around the Bodleian Library. The tour guide, dressed in a knee-length black cloak and carrying an old-school lantern, is in the middle of a story about some old king’s ghost that supposedly haunts the library. Yeah, sure. This library and about a hundred others across the country, I’m sure.

  I skirt around the tourists, my flats slipping on the cobblestones, still slick from the soft drizzle that fell earlier tonight. It’s still thinking about rain, though nothing is actually falling. “Mizzle,” my mother would call this. Thicker than mist, but not quite drizzle.

  Thinking about her sends a sudden pang of homesickness through me. I should call her. I haven’t in about a week—hard to when you’re in a different time zone, and you can’t just pick up a cell phone while you’re wandering around campus.

  Suddenly the library sounds less than appe
aling. I pause halfway up the steps, debating if I should just go back to my dorm and try to catch Mom on web cam before she goes to her evening SoulCycle class. I can work on my essay from there. I don’t need to be in the middle of this epic, awe-inspiring library just to write a simple paper. Right?

  Never mind that I still have absolutely zero ideas what to focus on about Heaney’s poetry. Or that I really need some place I can just zone out and focus—probably not my dorm room, with the roommate who comes crashing home drunk at 2:00 a.m., or the neighboring suite, which is inhabited by angry wild raccoons, as far as I can guess from the sounds we hear through the too-thin walls.

  I’m still standing there in the middle of the cobblestone square as the ghost tour floods around me, some still snapping photos of the library, even though all you’d be able to see on their low-res camera phone screens in the dark would be a few orange street lights and some building-shaped blurs.

  This is how ghost legends start. Bad cameras and suggestible minds.

  I sidestep the tourists, finally steeling myself. I’m going into the library, and I’ll call Mom later. First things first: finish this essay.

  Of course, as I whip around to make good on this promise, I collide with another ghost tourist headlong. At least, so I assume. Until I feel warm hands catch my shoulders, and a telltale baritone above me saying, “Whoa there.”

  This is not happening, I think in a panicked mental voice as I tilt my head back to meet his eyes.

  “On the contrary, it seems to be real,” Professor Kingston answers.

  Oh my god, did I say that out loud? I practically swallow my tongue I clamp my mouth shut so fast. “Sorry,” I say.

  He still hasn’t released my shoulders. His palms sear into my skin, so warm I can feel them even through my jacket. He seems to realize this at the same moment I do, and releases me so fast it’s like he’s burned himself. “My fault entirely,” he says, his voice as smooth and unflustered as ever. “The perils of dodging large groups of humans. You always wind up running into one of them.” He smiles, like this is nothing. “How was the tour?”