She turned her head and looked at him, smiled, and took another sip of wine. It was his birthday and twenty-two seemed like an old age to her because she was only twenty, soon to be twenty-one. She loved him and she loved his country and she loved his friends. The warm glow of too-much alcohol and living so far from home and in her fantasies made her smile and feel a little bit light-headed.
It was her Junior year of college, her semester of study abroad and she was truly experiencing life in England, she thought, as she held his hand under the table and chatted with the bloke across the way. She was writing magical papers about Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, that fused with her poetry and her burgeoning love affair and she hadn't truly been in love in so long. Everything was exciting and fun.
"Oh bollocks! You did not go punting on the Cam, not in March! There's still ice forming on the banks!"
"I did! Just for the experience. It was cold but it was tolerable, and besides what else do you do for fun around here at this time of year?"
They always made fun of her American accent but to her own perception she was becoming more and more English; taking on the accent just a bit, the intonation and colloquial expressions, the gestures and mannerisms. She was smoking more than she usually did, just from hanging around them, the alterna-boys of Jesus College, Cambridge.
"Can I have one of your cigarettes?" She leaned over and spoke in the birthday boy's ear. His party was raging all around them, with people yelling across tables (thanks heavens they had a private room), and stumbling over chairs as people will do, but she narrowed the chaos down to just the two of them.
"Of course. And how are you getting on? Are you having a passable time Michele?"
She just smiled and nodded. She loved him. She knew she could make him love her. If only she had enough time left.
Am I insane? Or just dopey? I didn't know you'd done a semester in England! At Cambridge? I had a friend there at the same time! I wish I'd known! She was there at Robinson College the whole year; I visited her. Wow! I'm learning a lot by reading this, Michele. :) Can't wait for more.
ReplyDeleteYou're not insane or dopey, I guess we just weren't in touch then? What year was it? Mine was Jan. to June of 1993, was she really there then and did you really visit? I'm amazed then, and saddened that we missed that opportunity! Oh well, I guess I was too busy being in love anyway :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and there will be more, for sure, next one might be the "why I'm not a mother" post, so tune back in when it happens!
Yes, she was there all year, and I visited in March '93! How ridiculous! I stayed with her in her dorm room for a night or two, and stayed in London for the rest of the week. I had another college friend who did that semester at UCL. Man, we woulda been KICKIN' IT!!! Damn! I think Cambridge was on break at the time, too--do you remember if you stayed at Cambridge for the break, or--?
ReplyDeleteWe had a long break, it's when we went traveling all over Europe and I think it was March, so I guess we maybe would have missed each other anyway. Still, wish we'd have known about each other - at a minimum we coulda maybe seen each other in London, where we started our journey. Oh well!
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