My Oxford Year

She was sure.

I swallow the last piece of scone as I reach out a hand. “Ella Durran. Missed the Norman Conquest by a millennium.” I smile. I don’t have any animosity toward her. Honestly. But she seems to have taken an immediate disliking to me.

Cecelia smiles politely and briefly takes my hand. “Sorry, I must dash, I’ll see you all next week in Jamie’s class.” Before I can say anything else, she disappears inside the lobby.

I take a casual sip of tea then ask, in a not-that-it-matters-in-the-slightest tone, “Do you think they’re together? She and Davenport?”

Maggie shakes her head. “If they are, it won’t last, I’m afraid.” She says this the way a soap opera devotee talks about the love lives of the fictional characters.

“What do you mean?”

“Jamie Davenport’s a legend,” Maggie says, eyes wide. “The road between Oxford and Cambridge is positively littered with broken hearts.”

Charlie considers this. “More like dropped knickers. The man invented the three-date rule.”

“So just be careful there,” Maggie says.

It takes me a moment to realize who she’s saying this to. “Wait, me?”

She nods. “Sorry, but there was an undeniable bit of chemistry going between—”

“No there wasn’t!” I leap to my own defense. “I’m not remotely attracted to Jamie Davenport.”

They all just look at me. Together. As if they’d rehearsed it.

I reach for another scone. “Besides, I’m only here until June. It’s all about Oxford. And travel! The last thing I need is a relationship.”

“Then maybe he’s perfect, after all.” Charlie smirks.

Maggie leans in. “I, we, just thought you should know. His reputation does in fact precede him.”

I nod. “I appreciate that.” And I do. But I had seen enough in the chip shop to convince me to stay away.

I TAKE A three-hour jet-lag nap back in my room and wake up groggy, disoriented, and weirdly thirsty. I pound two glasses of water and glance at the clock: 9:00 P.M. I’m wide-awake.

Might as well do some work.

I grab a huge anthology of poetry off my desk and climb back into bed. The book is a monolith, printed on those thin Bible pages. After tea, we all went to Blackwell’s (coolest bookstore in the world) and picked up some of the texts that Jamie Davenport recommended for the term. Tom, who isn’t even in our program, bought all the books, too. Unlike Maggie and Charlie, who just have a certain air about them, I can tell Tom doesn’t come from money (besides the fact that Maggie paid for his tea). His accent is different from theirs, “oohs” instead of “uhs,” “boos” instead of “bus.” He had mentioned that his dad owns a shop—“knickknacks, odds and ends.” A dad who pulled his patronage somewhere between maths and classics and begs Tom to come home so he can retire. Tom named at least three part-time jobs in addition to the tutoring—admin, shelving at the Bod, even coding for the university website. There’s something timeless about him, as if, in the entire history of Oxford, there has always been a Tom, living in a closet of books, bicycling though the city in all weather, sneaking into lectures he doesn’t belong in, changing courses a year shy of completing them.

Charlie, too, seems iconically Oxford to me. I have no idea where he might hail from or, as my mother would say, who “his people are.” He likely just appeared as an infant in a basket of reeds at the Magdalen gates to be molded by Hugh and Eugenia, forged by the ghost of Oscar Wilde.

Maggie mentioned a father who clearly has something to do with banking and a mother who recently moved to France. She boarded somewhere Swiss-sounding for high school (or secondary school), mentioned doing theater in undergrad (though I can’t imagine timid, baby-voiced Maggie treading the boards), and is obsessed with Thomas Hardy.

Now, tucked under my covers, I leaf through the poetry anthology, hoping something jumps out at me. Davenport asked us to describe how a poem makes us feel, so I do a quick scan for the words “feel” or “feeling” or “emotion,” just as a starting point. My eye stops on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “A Man’s Requirements” and I begin to read.

Love me Sweet, with all thou art,

Feeling, thinking, seeing;

Love me in the lightest part,

Love me in full being.

It goes on to enumerate all the ways in which a man requires a woman to love him. Mentally, spiritually, eternally, completely, whatever. Then it takes a turn:

Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,

Woman’s love no fable.

I will love thee—half a year—

As a man is able.

Damn, EBB. Telling it like it is, like it’s apparently always been, all the way back in 1846.

I have my poem. Even better that it basically describes the person who assigned the essay. Do with that what you will, Davenport.

Two hours later, I have five pages of double-spaced, twelve-point Times New Roman, elucidating everything this poem represents. I dig my notebook out of my bag, find the page where I wrote down Jamie Davenport’s e-mail address, and type it into a new message window. There are three more e-mails from my mother in my inbox. Later. I attach the assignment and then pause over what to write in the body of the e-mail. I settle for:

Prof. Davenport,

Attached, find the essay you requested.

Best,

Ella

I consider adding “from Ohio,” but I don’t want him to think we have an inside joke. As the whoosh sound carries my essay across town to wherever Jamie Davenport is, I turn my attention to my mother’s e-mails.

I saw Marni Hopkins in the store today and did you know that Bradley is doing graduate school at some place in Spain? Maybe you two

I preemptively delete it.

Next e-mail:

Hi honey why haven’t you called yet? Just check in when you have a moment. You know Marni was very impressed that you got into Oxford. She showed me a picture of Bradley. I think his ears

Delete.

Last e-mail:

Why does my computer do that color wheel spinning thing. What did you tell me to do the last time this happened?

I fire back immediately:

Restart it.

I sit back and stare at my computer. I could Skype her. It would be, what, five P.M. there? The e-mails came in an hour ago, I know she’s around. But I really don’t have anything to say.

Well, okay, I did get a bike, and found the Happy Cod, and I have a scout, and a Hugh the Porter, and I made friends, and I had a class, and there were scones. Not to mention a dream job.

But let’s not forget that I called my unbeknownst-to-me professor an asshole (to his face), won’t be studying with Styan, and have concluded that I’m not academically competitive here and will probably end up embarrassing not just myself, but also the Rhodes Foundation.

A lot has happened since my passport was stamped. I take a deep breath. It’s okay. I have redeemed myself with this essay. Everything will get back on track. I just don’t want to talk to my mother until it has.

I know her. Much better than she will ever know me.

My mother lives in a constant state of fearful anxiety. She thinks everything is falling apart, all the time, all at once, when there is nothing in her life that could possibly fall apart. She’s had the same job for twenty years, she doesn’t travel, she doesn’t date, the house is paid for, she has two carbon monoxide detectors, she goes to the doctor, like, three times a year, and she avoids any public place where someone might (“you never know, Ella, the world has gone crazy”) have a gun. Literally, unless a sinkhole opens up under her Volvo on her two-mile drive to work, nothing’s going to happen to her.

She wasn’t always like this. But it’s been so long that it feels like always.

I’m just tired.

I just miss my dad.

The ding of incoming e-mail distracts me from this rabbit hole of familial failing. I lean forward to look, sure it’s my mother saying she restarted the computer, but now the screen is looking at her funny—

My stomach flips when I see the sender: James Davenport.

Looking forward to reading. Have a good night.

Not “Surprised to see your work so soon”? Not “Very impressive, Ella from Ohio”?

He’s being professional. As he should be. Because he’s my professor now, not some mystery-eyed guy in a chip shop who looked at me as if I were the most delicious thing on the menu.

I’m not going to reply. What would I say? “You too? I hope you enjoy it? What are you doing tonight?”

I also won’t Google him. And while I have to maintain a professional Twitter account, I’m not on any other forms of social media. Not only do I find it too much of a time suck, but it also provides too many opportunities to embarrass myself in front of potential clients; if they never see you do anything wrong, you never have to apologize.

I look back at the e-mail, my eyes inexplicably drawn to it, as if, instead of two innocuous sentences, there were a naked, beefcake picture of the sender. He’d be Mr. September in the Hotties of Oxford calendar for sure. Welcome back to school, ladies. Jamie Davenport on a library ladder, rippling abs all oiled up, inevitably holding a book in front of his junk.

At least I can still make myself laugh.

THE NEXT FEW days fly by faster than I can account for them. I finally feel like I’m in the right time zone and I can understand the accent now. Although I would have been happy to misunderstand the drunk guy who walked past me last night, then turned to his mate and loudly slurred, “Oi, that’s a tasty bit.” I’ve also managed to sleep through Eugenia’s arrival three mornings in a row, and I’ve had my two other classes, but the professors didn’t assign any work.

No, only Mr. Jamie Davenport does that, apparently. Then never reads it. Apparently.

I spend my days cutting through the course’s suggested reading and fielding Gavin’s requests. His e-mails come in at all hours. He calls at least once a day.

In the late afternoons, Maggie and I get on our bikes and she shows me the city. Maggie comes from London (she mentions an area and then apologizes in a tone that has me suspecting it’s an embarrassingly posh neighborhood), but she did her undergrad at Magdalen, so she knows every corner of Oxford. She takes me through narrow, winding stone paths and special little places she’s discovered over her years here. Now she lives in Exeter College’s graduate housing complex, where she shares a kitchen and living area with four other students: two Chinese guys, a Rubenesque British girl who insists on only speaking Italian, and an older Middle Eastern woman who—as far as Maggie can tell—is never actually there. As a result, Maggie spends a lot of time with me.

At the end of our rides, we tend to join Charlie and Tom for dinner, so I’ve also been getting familiar with Oxford’s hit-or-miss cuisine. I’m ashamed to admit that I already miss American food. I’d exchange sexual favors with anyone who could direct me to a decent cheeseburger.

Today Charlie and I are standing in the upper reading room of the Bodleian Library. Charlie gives me a tour, clutching a book on rowing to his side and whispering Oxford trivia. “The Bodleian has a copy of every book ever printed in the UK since 1611.”

I silently repeat the way he pronounced it (Bod-lee-un), understanding why everyone just calls it “the Bod.” The room is beautiful and cavernous, mostly filled with reading tables and chairs. I notice only a few stacks. “Where do they hide them all?” I whisper.

Charlie points down at the hardwood, seeming to indicate rooms and floors that live beneath us. He tosses a glance over his shoulder, then slips behind the unattended front desk. He reaches under the counter and pulls out a glossy magazine with the word “TATLER” in bold print. He hands it to me. “There’s always a new issue stuffed under here.”

I leaf through it and see picture after picture of people I don’t recognize. It’s like an alternate universe. It seems Britain has its own version of Kardashians. “You know what’s interesting,” I begin. “These people are totally interchangeable with—” but I’m interrupted by the sound of a book dropping down onto the counter next to me.

I look at the book. There’s more to read, but it’s blocked by the hand splayed across the cover. It’s a nice, masculine hand. Long and tapered fingers, just the right amount of wrist hair, clean fingernails—

“Ella?”

Startled, I glance up and find the stabbing blue eyes of Jamie Davenport looking down at me. “My rooms, if you will. Today. Half three.”

Not hearing what he says, I nod. He glances down at the Tatler. Raises an eyebrow. “Research?” he says, oozing sarcasm. Then he looks back at me, smiles tightly, and is gone.

“Masterful,” Charlie breathes.

Wherever I just was, I come back to Charlie and the Bod. I’m completely lost. Maybe I overestimated my grasp of the British language. “What did he just say?”

Charlie’s eyes are wide. “He wants you.”

CHAPTER 8

Did he not come to me?

What thing could keep true Launcelot away

If I said, Come?

William Morris, “The Defence of Guenevere,” 1858

I’ve made my way to Lincoln, a small medieval college with a converted church for a library in the middle of town on Turl Street. Maggie explained to me a few days ago that each professor is affiliated with a specific Oxford college, where they have an office and often teach undergraduates. Lincoln is where Jamie Davenport hangs his skinny jeans.

After making a right on Turl from the High, I step through a cutout door in a wooden gate and into a small portico. Beyond the portico’s flagstones is a manicured quad surrounded on all sides by ivy-covered buildings. The college is smaller than Magdalen, but quaintly elegant and feels older (if that’s possible). I go into the lodge, ask the porter for Professor Davenport’s office and he directs me to staircase eight, off Chapel Quad, and up two flights of stairs.

Near the second-floor landing, I hear raised voices coming from behind a closed door. I stop climbing. Forgetting my nervousness for a moment, I find myself eavesdropping. Two men. One of them, I realize, is Jamie Davenport.

“I’m not interested in your opinion.”

“James, this is absurd—”

“Add it to the list, then.”

“We are your family!” the older voice yells.

“By birth! Nothing more, nothing less,” Davenport shoots back, half as loud but doubly cutting. Then, more muffled, “Excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”

“I came to you, in the middle of my workday—”

“Were you asked to come? Leave.”

“You are, without a doubt, the most ungrateful—”

Now Davenport shouts. “Sodding hell, get out!”

I peek around the corner, and seconds later, the arched wooden door flies open and a barrel-chested older man storms through it. He stops and turns back toward the room. I press myself against the wall. “You’re arrogant, my lad, and mark my words, it’s going to be the end of you—”

“Christ, must I throw you out myself?”

“Speak to me as you will, I don’t care, but if you dare hurt your mother any further, I swear—”

“No one can hurt her more than you already have!”

The door slams. From inside or out? I’m about to peek around the corner again when a silver-haired force of nature blows past me down the stairs without so much as a glance. His rage rolls over me like a tangible thing and I grab the banister to steady myself. I wait, holding my breath, trying to be silent. I give it a good ten seconds and then approach the door, knocking softly.

“Yes?” Davenport calls calmly.

I tentatively open the door and poke my head in. He’s standing behind an antique desk, shuffling papers. He appears as if nothing’s amiss. “Hi. Is this a good time?”

I fully expect him to slam the door in my face. He glances up. “Yes, of course. Take a seat.”

I walk into what looks like a parlor in an old English manor. Or at least what movies have led me to believe a parlor in an old English manor looks like. High ceilings partitioned with beams, insets painted in a Tudor pattern. A herringbone wood floor covered by a plush muted red carpet, rough stone walls, paned windows, and a massive stone fireplace. Two well-worn leather club chairs oppose each other in front of the fireplace, and a threadbare red love seat sits behind them. The desk sits in front of a bay window overlooking the quad.

I walk over to a club chair, trying to think of something clever to open with. “This is really nice. Homey,” I say, missing the mark entirely.

He’s still at his desk, riffling through the papers and books strewn there. “Well then, make yourself at home,” he says.

I can’t read his tone. No need to panic, I assure myself. Whatever just happened has nothing to do with me. I’m probably here because he wants to congratulate me on my first paper, or maybe further discuss one of the points I made that’s piqued his curiosity. My being here will probably be good for him. Distract him from whatever that fight was about. Keeping the conversation alive, I say, “Do you live here?”

“No. Although it’s set up for it.” He finally turns, slips out from between the desk and chair, and crosses over to me. He’s wearing a tucked-in charcoal-gray button-down with the sleeves pushed back to his elbows, and oxblood-colored pants that appear to be—can that be right?—velvet. The weirder thing? He looks incredible in them.

He’s speaking. “Historically, teaching contracts here provided accommodations, as most of the lecturers were clergy. Or had to leave if they got married. Couldn’t have a fellowship and a wife. God forbid she proved too distracting.”

Why is he telling me this? Why can’t I stop looking at his pants?

He sits down in the chair opposite me, runs a hand through his hair. Then he gestures behind him at one of the closed doors. “There’s a bed in the back.”

Why is he telling me this? Why am I still looking at his pants?

He looks down at his knees. “Good for those all-nighters, I suppose,” he mutters, making it even more awkward. “So. Of writing. ‘A Man’s Requirements.’ What do you think of your paper, then?”

This catches me off guard. He’s supposed to tell me what he thinks of my paper. “Um,” I begin, and then clear my throat. “Well, since you’ve asked … I think I made some significant insights, observations, and analyses.” He just looks at me. He has this ability to go still, as if he’s stopped breathing. Like a vampire. Which makes me realize I’m not breathing. I look away and force myself to take a breath. “But enough about me, what did you think of my work,” I joke.

“‘Work’ is a most appropriate word,” he answers smoothly.

I stiffen. He’s thrown my word back at me. I recognize the rhetorical technique and hold my ground. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment,” I reply, in what I hope is an equally smooth manner. “Did you find something wrong with it?”

“Wrong with it? No,” he answers, shrugging, his casualness somehow stinging more than his criticism. I notice that he doesn’t even have my essay in front of him. As if, after reading it through once, quickly, he’s committed its mediocrity to memory. “In roughly twenty-five hundred words,” he goes on, “you managed to explore the birth of feminism, the breakdown of arranged marriages, the celebration of the Peter Pan syndrome from an historical perspective, and the persecution of women’s sexuality reaching its apex in the Salem witch trials.” He pauses, but his eyes stay with me. Maybe he did commit it to memory. Maybe he wants to use it as an example for the class. Then he continues, “Extraordinary.” I beam. “You managed to do everything other than the assignment.”

I stare at him. The wrong kind of example for the class, then. He leans in. “Describe the poem as you would a friend. How does it make you feel?”

I blink at him, realizing the gravity of my error. “Oh,” I say lamely. “I guess I … digressed.”

“Digressed? Ella,” he says, leaning fully forward, “you failed to do what was asked. You went wildly, tangentially astray. Impressively astray, but astray nonetheless.”

I blink at him. This was my Hail Mary attempt to prove myself here, and I failed. His word. Failed. I’ve never failed. At anything.

I think Davenport must see the embarrassment on my face, because he shrugs and changes his approach, sitting back again. “Look, Ella. I wanted to chat with you about this before the full term gets under way.” Horribly, I know what he’s going to say. “You have the opportunity to—”

“Get out now and run back to the States?” My voice is as controlled as I can manage.

He quirks his head at me. “Why on earth would you suggest such a thing as that?”

“Well, clearly my work isn’t up to par. The American is obviously out of her league.” I can feel the defensiveness spewing out of my mouth. I mean, who does he think he is? I’m working for the presumptive nominee for the presidency of the—

“Why would you think you’re out of your league?”

“Are you a shrink?” I snap. “Or is this just part of the Socratic method, answering-a-question-with-a-question teaching style here?”

“Sorry, was there a question in there?” He is completely calm, genuinely curious.

My eyes shift to the floor, but I can feel him peering at me. I take a breath, realizing I’ve stopped breathing again. I swallow, but something is stuck in my throat. My dream, probably. I think I’m choking on my Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience. My Oxford.

He’s somehow managed to outmaneuver me.

Softly, he says, “Ella, this has nothing to do with …” He pauses, choosing his words. “The paper was terribly well written.” I’ve noticed that Brits use negatively connotated words in a positive context and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. “It was dreadfully insightful. But, here, it’s not about displaying one’s knowledge or academic prowess, or how convincing the argument may be. There are only ideas to discuss. The ideas are the wheat of the mind. Everything else is chaff, better left for the consumption of the sycophants who fancy themselves academics. For a thousand years, that’s what this place has been about. Is it antiquated? Yes. Stodgy? Absolutely. Seemingly pointless? It would seem so in this new world order, and yet, Oxford is Oxford, and we persevere.” He reaches over to the table sitting between us, picks up the poetry anthology. He ruffles its pages. “Tell me, Ella, why, out of all the poems in this book, did you pick this one?”

“Because it speaks the truth about men.”

“Ah, right. So men are only capable of loving a woman for six months?”

“I think she rounded up.”

This gets a small chuckle out of him. Then he sets the book on his lap, pauses, and looks up again. He does it methodically, deliberately, taking time for each movement. So unlike the freewheeling jerk I first encountered at the chip shop. “So, this what? Reminds you of an ex-boyfriend? You’ve most certainly had your heart broken. At least once?”

I snort. “I’ve never had my heart broken.”

“Right. Sorry. How could you? Believing a man is only capable of loving a woman for six months.”

“Oh, and you don’t? Because from what I’ve heard, you’re the poster child for—” I stop myself. That’s too far.

His crazy-blue eyes flash with excitement, galvanized. “Poster child, really? How intriguingly scandalous. Please, do continue.”

All I can do is shake my head.

He smiles. “So, we know each other, know all about each other.” He sits back, grinning. “We sized each other right up in the chip shop, didn’t we? Weighed and measured. Had someone of lesser intellect declared their knowledge of either one of us, he would be thought prejudicial or quick to judgment. Can’t tell a book by its cover and all that. But we’ve sped-read each other, and, luckily, we’re the clever ones. After all, we’re Oxonians.”