by Lola Darling
“What about Patrick?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.
“No boys except Patrick, and definitely no not having fun.”
She accepts the bag of makeup with the best attempt at a smile she’s going to muster right now, and then we both suck it in so we can squeeze out of the stall, through the crowd of girls glaring at us for occupying the bathroom for so long, and take a stand near the sinks to finish putting ourselves back together.
#
“One month left,” Stacey points out as I sit curled in our dorm room window watching snowflakes drift across the pavement outside. “Can you believe it?”
“No.” I bite my lower lip. “I really can’t.”
It’s Christmas in three days. After that, a week of holidays, two weeks until we receive our finals results, and then I’ll be on a plane back to Philadelphia to finish up my last three semesters at Penn.
I went to my last lecture with Professor Jack Kingston today. I sat up front this time, and I watched the way he kept pushing his hair, which has grown just long enough to fall in his eyes, back off his forehead every few seconds. I watched, and I noticed that the bags under his eyes weren’t quite so dark, and his hands don’t hesitate when he writes quotes for us to follow on the board.
He sent me another email last week. A follow-up, to let me know how things went with the Eliot paper. He’s sending it around to publishers, and he’s planning to list me as a co-author. I didn’t reply, though I have to admit, it did make me smile. The idea of my name on an actual real-life published article, in my field, on such a groundbreaking subject.
The idea of our names on it together.
Plus, knowing that he still thinks about me helps. Especially the way he signed off on that email. I’ve told you this before, Harper, but not in so many words. Not plainly. I’m sorry for everything I did to hurt you.
I only wish that were enough. I watched him pace across the classroom this morning, and for a second our eyes met, and everything sparked between us again. But I made myself look away, stared at my textbook until I knew he’d passed on to the next person, and it was gone again, just like that.
It was never real, I tell myself. He never wanted me. But only part of me actually believes that.
There’s a knock at the door, and some stupid distant part of my heart still jumps at the sound, because it wants it to be him. Instead, Patrick’s head appears through the door frame, grinning at us both. “You girls ready for dinner?”
“Do we have to go out?” I point at the snow swirling past the window. “We could order instead. Eat takeout in here.”
“Where would we all sit? Besides, Mary Kate wants to introduce us to someone.” He emphasizes someone in a way that tells me exactly who it’ll be. This mystery man she’s been talking about nonstop ever since things with Nick cooled. Graeme. She won’t tell us his last name, or anything more about him. It’s almost like she’s dating a spy.
Or her professor, points out the wry, annoying part of my brain.
“Fiiiine, fine, just let me find my coat,” I say.
“Oh, by the way,” Patrick adds, in a very not-by-the-way tone of voice. “I swung by the student mailboxes earlier.”
“I told you to stop picking mine up for me,” I grumble.
“Yes, but a gentleman never listens to ladies’ complaints about their chivalry. Plus, I’m nosy.” He catches my eye when I turn around, an envelope extended in his hand. “Trust me. I really think you should open this.”
I glance from the envelope to him and back again. “Why?”
“Will you never just trust me blindly, Harper Reed?” he complains.
“Not on your life,” I reply as I snatch the piece of mail from his grasp. The moment my eyes land on the return address, I feel like I’ve just swallowed a live snake. The Society for the Advancement of British Poetry Studies’ logo is emblazoned across the upper left-hand corner.
I heft the envelope in my hand, but it’s impossible to tell anything from its weight. It’s small. Maybe too small? Definitely not college acceptance letter sized.
Just open it Harper, I tell myself. Stacey and Patrick both echo similar sentiments, so finally, I take a deep breath and tear into the package. The letter is single-sized, one page. The snake wants to strangle me now. It’s too short, it’s bad news, it must be.
I clear my throat of nerves and snakes alike, and read the first sentence out loud, just because, at least if it’s bad news, I’ll have immediate support from my friends. “Dear Ms. Reed. On behalf of the Society for the Advancement of British Poetry Studies, we are thrilled to inform you . . . ” I trail off, failing to finish the line.
“Read it, read it!” Stacey and Patrick chant, practically jumping around the room. Someone downstairs thumps on the ceiling, clearly angry at all the racket we’re making.
“We are thrilled to inform you that you have been selected as the recipient of our tuition grant this year. The grant funds will be applicable toward your senior year of study, and can be put toward any accredited university, college, or institution with a poetry, creative writing, or English major with a focus on poetry studies. All costs will be paid in full and additionally, winners will . . . ” I pause to clear my throat hard, blinking to fight the tears that threaten to spill down my cheeks. “ . . . Winners will receive a stipend to fund living expenses in whatever location they plan to attend.”
When I finish reading, the room fills with shocked silence. I look up to find both Stacey and Patrick beaming at me, unable to control the expressions on their faces.
“Guys,” I say. “I can come back.”
Harper
Time flies when you most want it to hold still. One moment it’s Christmas morning, and I’m unwrapping the presents my parents and sister sent me over webcam, then catching the train into London to Mary Kate’s family’s house, while her parents force-feed me sprouts and Sunday roast and I finally learn what the heck Yorkshire pudding is (not a pudding at all, but pretty damn delicious).
The next thing I know, I’m standing in line at the airport waiting to board my flight home.
Funny how time does that. The weeks between Christmas and the day we all received our results were the same length as the weeks before them. But now, looking back, it feels like someone pressed fast-forward on my life, made me speed through all the farewell drinks at our favorite pubs around town, skip over the day trips we took in Patrick’s car, just me, him, Stacey, and Mary Kate, visiting London one day and Birmingham the next, all of us reveling in having no classes, no coursework imminent, no schedules to our lives.
Patrick stopped hitting on me as much, and started flirting hardcore with Stacey. I should be happy about that, since I sure as hell wasn’t ready to make yet another mistake on British soil. But watching them together made me a little sad the last couple weeks. Not because I want Patrick.
Because I want what they have with someone else.
“Now boarding group C,” the flight attendant announces.
Unable to help myself, I cast a backwards glance through the terminal as I heft my bag higher on my shoulder and shuffle into line. Some stupid, overly hopeful part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d come and find me today. Chase me down in one of those dramatic airport parting scenes to beg me to stay.
I wouldn’t have been able to stay, of course. My classes at the University of Penn start up again in three days, and I’ll need to sleep off the jetlag for two of those.
But I would have been able to kiss him one last time. I’d have been able to leave England knowing that I wasn’t completely delusional. That our connection was as real as I believed.
Even if, yet again, it won’t work out for me.
Way to go, Harper. Fell for the completely wrong guy AGAIN.
I just thought it was different this time. I thought he was different. Like, yes, he was the wrong person to sleep with initially; I guess that’s always going to be my type. But he didn’t act like I was just an inconvenient
hookup. The way he talked, in his kitchen when he finally told me everything about his father, and what was going on with him . . . He sounded like he was serious about me. Like he felt more than just a physical connection.
Guess I’m just even more naïve than I thought.
I sidle into my seat on the plane—the window, so I can nap—and rest my head against the glass, staring out as we take off, watching England recede beneath me, and the Atlantic Ocean rise up to separate me from the city where I left my heart behind.
#
February in Philadelphia will bite your face off. I’m bundled up five layers deep in coats, scarves, sweaters, and my hat, but I can still feel the wind tearing at my cheeks, making my eyes water and my skin redden. It’s past goosebumps territory, straight on into the skin-cracking-in-half-like-a-lizard zone.
It’s been a month since I got back, and I still walk around campus like a zombie. The only thing keeping me going is the thought of my plans for next semester.
I spent most of the last month planning for it, to be honest. There were a lot of long-distance Skype sessions with the grant committee, and a whole lot of researching colleges and universities all around the globe, both inside and outside of the US.
Two weeks ago, I handed in my final request. I’ve still got a week left until the due date, but I don’t need to wait. I’m sure about this.
I’m not going back to Merton.
I duck inside the student center and go straight to my mailbox. Sure enough, I’m right about the date. It came.
I tear into the letter eagerly, feeling like a kid on Christmas—or me, way back in high school, tearing open the letter from Penn.
Sure enough, there’s a big fat “Congratulations” on the first line of the letter. The letter emblazoned with Balliol College’s logo.
So, yeah, I’m not going back to Merton, but I am going back to Oxford. Just, a different college in Oxford. Because when I started researching the best places to study poetry, both as an analyst and as a poet myself, I stumbled across a professor named Maria Smith, who has worked on some crazy unique theses with her doctoral candidates and undergraduates alike. She believes that in order to analyze poetry, you should practice writing it, and vice versa.
In other words, going there won’t just further my academic career. It’ll give me a chance to focus on my own writing, too.
Also, with Professor Maria Smith, I am in no danger of making yet another career-endangering fuckup, so that helps.
I wrote to Maria over email a few weeks ago, talking about my studies and the paper I worked on with Jack. Not only did she completely sell me on Balliol’s program, but she also offered to be my thesis advisor if I study there. Between the grant and already having a publication credit to my name, she was impressed.
She was even more impressed when she realized that she’d already read the Eliot paper I co-authored. The publisher that it was submitted to apparently asked her to review it for their journal, and she eagerly endorsed it. She had no idea I was only a third-year undergraduate working on a paper of this level.
I suppose I owe Jack a thanks for that much, at least. Whatever happened between us, he kept his word about the paper. He listed me as a co-author, and submitted it to a really well-known publisher. The publication credit looks amazing on my resume, and it couldn’t come at a better time to help boost my career standing.
It boosted it fast enough to get me this acceptance, after all.
Smiling, just a little, I tuck the letter into the pocket of my coat and brace myself to face winter’s onslaught once more.
As I push through the exterior doors from the campus center, ready to race the four blocks to my apartment complex, another gust of wind nearly blows me off-balance. I fight my way through it, head bent against the freezing air, and finally, three blocks of burning face skin and aching legs later, I duck into my apartment hallway, gasping. For a moment I just stand in the foyer hopping from foot-to-foot, trying to revive my poor overworked circulatory system.
My eyes adjust slowly to the dim light of our hall. I moved out of the dorms and into this apartment share with some friends, but since it’s downtown Philly, it’s nothing glamorous. The best we can afford is a little bit beat up. Though, the old brownstone has charm if you know where to look, like the wrought iron staircase that leads up to our second-floor apartment.
Ugh, some jerk left a giant package in the middle of it, though. I keep telling the mailman to leave them off to the side, because the third floor apartment has complained a zillion times about all of my roommate’s Amazon purchases blocking her way upstairs, but they never listen.
I check the number on the label, already sure it’s for our apartment. Sure enough, 2F. But I do a double-take, confused. Because instead of my roommate’s name, I see my own at the top of the address list.
That’s weird. I definitely didn’t order anything.
Maybe Mom sent me a care package or something. It is Valentine’s weekend, after all, and she and Dad normally send me flowers whenever I’m single (thanks for the reminder, guys). I give the box an experimental nudge, and it moves easily. Whatever’s inside, it’s not too heavy.
So I scoop it into my arms and continue up the staircase. At the top, I balance it on my hip while I maneuver my keys into the door. My roommate’s cat greets me just inside, howling its face off like I’m going to feed it, even though I know she doesn’t feed the cat until she gets home at nine every night.
“Fat chance,” I tell the cat as I stagger past it into my room. Once there, I plop the box onto my unmade bed and root around in my drawer for a pair of scissors.
Apparently I’m fresh out of cutting implements, so I’m forced to go out and hunt through the kitchen instead. Along the way, I catch a glimpse of the decorations my roommate has strung all over the place: bright red and pink heart streamers all over the walls and a huge bouquet of roses on the dining room table, presumably from her boyfriend, though I don’t know how he afforded that bouquet when he makes her pay for every date they go on.
Whatever. Stop being bitter, Harper, I scold myself. It’s just this weekend making me grumpy. I’ll be fine again next week.
I finally find the scissors and abscond back to my room. At least whatever Mom and Dad sent should make me feel better. Maybe it’ll be cookies. Or chocolate. Yes, definitely chocolate.
I slice through the package, and peel back the flaps, only to stare in confusion. There’s another, slightly smaller package inside. I turn the box over, dump the smaller carton out, and cut open that one as well. Yet another box inside, only slightly smaller than the second one. I raise an eyebrow, unsure whether to be annoyed or amused.
I keep going, finding more and more boxes within boxes, like Russian nesting dolls, until my whole bedroom is covered in cardboard refuse. Finally, I slit open the last box, which is about 1/8th the size of the original one, and find a bed of wrapping paper inside.
From within the paper, I withdraw a length of fabric. No, not fabric. A dress. A gown, actually. Floor-length, black, backless, and completely stunning. The gown slides across my fingers, the smoothest silk I’ve ever felt, gently ruched in all the right places, so I already know it will look amazing on me.
A slip of paper flutters to the floor beside the dress. I bend to pick it up, assuming it will be a card. It’s not.
It’s a ticket to the Philadelphia Orchestra. A box seat. For tonight.
My hands shake as I turn the ticket over in my hands. But there’s nothing else. Even when I tear the remaining boxes apart and dig through the wrapping paper, there are no other clues. No return address on the box, either.
But my stupid, traitorous heart has started to beat again. Hope pumps through my veins, intoxicating. Dangerous.
Because I still remember everything he ever said to me. I remember sitting at dinner in the Cotswolds as he gaped across the table at me. You live right there and you’ve never seen one of the best orchestras in the world?
He
wouldn’t. Would he?
Only one way to find out, I suppose. I shut my bedroom door, pull off my shirt, and shimmy into the dress.
#
The Kimmel Center is gorgeous. Its huge glass dome dominates the block where it’s situated. And tonight, with night fallen already, it glitters like it’s made of gold, lit from within and without, by the light of the surrounding city.
I pull my roommate’s coat tighter around my neck as I step out of the taxi. When she saw the dress I’d put on, with my towering high heels to match, and a simple pearl necklace from my father, she refused to let me wear my normal old puffy down coat. She dug this gorgeous fur out of her closet and forced it around my shoulders, complete with matching sparkling handbag. I feel like a movie star, as if the taxi is a limousine.
I quick-step from the warm cab through the glass doors of the building. The lobby alone stands at least four stories high. From the base of it, I can peer up at the box seats, and watch other people pass by, some in furs and gowns and tuxes, others in jeans and T-shirts and sneakers. It’s a weird mix.
I check the ticket again, but the numbers don’t mean anything to me. I’m turning to look for a box office, somewhere I can stop to ask for directions, when a familiar warm hand rests on the small of my back.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
Even now, after all this time, after everything, his voice still makes my knees go weak. I spin around, and there he stands, towering over me, even taller than I remembered somehow. Dressed to the nines in a suit and black tie, his normally ruffled hair coaxed into mostly behaving. His eyes, dark and piercing as ever, catch mine the moment they meet.
For a solid minute, we don’t say a word. We probably look insane to anyone passing by, two people dressed for a ball staring each other down in the middle of the lobby. I don’t care.
The outside world fades away every time I’m with him.
