Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 128742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
“To be clear,” Jack interjects, “I’d have chosen Fiona to stay.”
Jamie throws up his middle finger. “Cheers, mate.”
“She wasn’t an unpleasant girl,” Lee says in her defense. “Jamie just has that effect on people.”
“Right.” Jamie gets to his feet, clearly over this roast of his character. “If my presence is no longer required for this, I’ll be going.”
“Darling,” Lee calls after him, “don’t be angry with us.”
Then it’s just Jack and me on the sofa, still squished together, looking more conspicuous with the space vacated by Jamie. Lee’s full attention is now trained on me, as though he’s heard my pulse racing.
Or maybe that’s my guilty, lustful conscience talking. Which is nuts, because it’s not like I’ve done anything, nor would I. In fact, I’m totally jumping the gun here to assume Jack would take any interest in a somewhat awkward younger woman.
“Good,” Lee says once I’ve been tucked inside my own mind spiral so long I don’t know if either of them has noticed. “Glad we got that sorted.”
At that, Jack pats my head as he stands, like I’m a Labrador. “Dodged that bullet, eh?”
Stupidly, I smile and nod. But what does that mean?
Was Jamie the bullet? Was I?
Is Jack talking about himself?
I’m more anxious now than when this talk began. But Lee’s right. The secretive circumstances of this living situation are fraught enough without the added messiness of feelings. Better to banish any notions right out of my mind. Box ’em up and shove them in the attic with my childhood crushes.
This never would have been a problem if Jack had just been a girl like he was supposed to be.
4
THE TIME DIFFERENCE IS STILL WINNING THE WAR WITH MY internal clock. Couple that with anxiousness about my first day at Pembridge, and I’m up and dressed before the rest of the house has even hit their snooze buttons. I take advantage of the head start to walk the neighborhood, just down the street and around the corner to a café where I grab a muffin and coffee. There, I realize I’m still a little iffy on the difference between pence and quid, though thankfully almost everywhere accepts mobile pay.
I take my breakfast to go. It’s a two-mile walk to campus in Paddington. There are ample Tube stations to make the trip, but I want to get a sense of the place. Get my bearings and whatnot. I join the pedestrian brigade traversing the tree-lined sidewalks past row houses and hotels, centuries-old apartments and modern glass office buildings. I shuffle along the north end of iron-fenced Kensington Gardens among tourists and joggers and moms with strollers.
The skies are clear and the temperature mild when I reach campus. It isn’t the traditional self-contained compound of typical American colleges but rather a series of buildings tucked in among the urban environment, a hodgepodge of baroque architecture and shiny steel. Most of my classes take place in the newer Colburn College, which is home to general education requirement courses. My program-specific work, however, and my first class this morning are in the older Albert Hall, a French-inspired four-story building with ornate carvings over the heavy bronze-embellished doors. It’s breathtaking, really, ducking under the portico. Not the kind of thing we get much of in Nashville.
I’m early for my research and composition class. Basically, it’s an essential introduction to academic writing necessary for all history majors. I have to tamp down my eagerness as I stake out my spot at the end of the fourth row. Close enough to be engaged in discussion but not so close as to brand myself the try-hard on the first day. With the class filling up, eventually another girl scans the room, then makes eye contact with me as she tracks down the aisle.
“Mind if I sit?” she asks in a crisp British accent.
I tuck in my legs and scoot my bag out of her way. “Go for it.”
“Wasn’t sure I’d make it,” she says, dropping into a seat one over. “I wasn’t minding where I was walking, popped into a shop and looked around quite confused.”
I know the feeling. “I thought this building was a hotel at first.”
She introduces herself as Amelia, a recovering Russian lit major now transitioning to revolutionary France. She confesses that becoming obsessed with an Instagram photo of a dead author is no way to pick a major. I tell her I’m not sure it isn’t.
When class gets underway, our professor is a chic middle-aged woman in a scarf who looks like the type you might see at the ballet holding court in the lobby during intermission. Some retired prima ballerina who’s left kings and tycoons in her wake.
She explains the course will require us to propose a research topic and spend the better part of the semester preparing a paper on our subject. We have until the end of September to identify our topic and present a strategy. Simple enough, though the enormous breadth of possibilities has me somewhat paralyzed with indecision already.