Rubicon yet?” Kirsten Thomason leans back and fluffs up her hair. “That was my worst, so far, thirty.”
“Almost.”
“Almost thirty? What does that mean? This year? Next year?”
“Tomorrow.”
This, predictably, creates something of a hullaballoo. “It’s your birthday tomorrow, and you’ll be thirty? Why didn’t you say?” Erin is almost angry with me.
“Because it isn’t important! Really, guys, don’t…don’t make a big thing of it. This is nice, isn’t it? End of grading, yay!”
“SHOP!” Tim shouts. “SHOT! Down in one, please, Thirty-Years-Old-in-Three-Hours-and-Seventeen-Minutes!”
The evening progresses from there.
At midnight they congratulate me and sing for me, and the women hug me, and the men awkwardly shake my hand, all except Giles.
“Did you get any exciting birthday presents?” Eugenia asks. “I would have gotten you something, Anna, if I’d known!”
“I bought myself a seat on a plane. That’s my birthday present to myself!”
“Aaah! Where to?”
“London.”
“Of course, London! Nauseating anglophile,” Tim adds for good measure.
“Yes, I am,” I admit sadly. “I know I am.”
“Maybe one of these days Anna won’t come back from England,” Erin jokes. Almost.
“No, no, I’m here. I’m back,” I assure her, or myself, or my mom. I’ve had far too much vodka.
“Would you have stayed for a man?” she keeps needling me. “It usually hinges on that, doesn’t it?”
This question goes too far, and the others are beginning to be embarrassed by Erin’s insistence.
“I’m guessing that when Anna did her MA at Cambridge, she met more than one bona fide English toff or knob who would have kept her there. In England.” I’m surprised that Giles joins Erin in baiting me. Or maybe I’m just too drunk to decode his signals accurately.
“Not really. Jewish girls from New York tend not to hobnob with the nobs.” I have to giggle about my own pun. “Oh, wait—a friend took me to a party at Trinity College once, and there I, um, met an Etonian.”
“We shan’t enquire further,” says Giles.
“Oh, yes, we shall.” Tim grins. “Spill, baby.”
“Well, he was drunk, and he told me his uncle was a duke. I bet he told that to all the overseas students he wanted to pull.”
“Did it work?”
“Naaah. But he was cute, sort of.”
“You must have been drunk, too,” Tim decides. “Etonians are not cute. They are fearful oiks. Repeat after me—”
“—fearful oiks.”
“Would that not have appealed to you?” Giles asks, playing with his shashlik skewers. “A posh English boyfriend, meeting his nice parents in their nice house in Buckinghamshire, sailing off the Sussex coast where they have a nice little cottage, nights out at the theatre, tickets for all the exhibitions at the London galleries…”
“Shut up, Giles, you…rotter. I hate you. Anyway, he couldn’t kiss,” I splutter, so disoriented for a second or two that I lose control over my words. “And I was in love with somebody else, and all the posh English boys in the rough, rude sea could not have washed that love out of my heart. So there! There you have it.”
“There we have it.” Giles nods. “No posh English boys for you, then.”
“I’m okay,” I protest as we get up, several hours later, or so it seems to me. Here I am, on my thirtieth birthday, and it comes as a surprise to me that although sitting down I felt only slightly befuddled, standing up I’m reeling.
“Anna, you’re welcome to stay over, if you don’t mind the patter of tiny feet at six in the morning.” Erin hopes I won’t accept but feels obliged to offer.
“I’ll be okay! Just gimme a—second…”
Amidst the laughter—I am not drunk, and I demonstrate it by walking unaided into the hall and toward the coat rack—Kirsten Thomason comes up to me.
“Anna, we could drop you off. Do you live along the river or across?”
“Hm? Oh, thanks, but—I live—thataway.” I point into the direction of the kitchen, which I take to be roughly east. “Behind the college. I can take a cab.”
Several coats have buried mine, and it isn’t easy to put the wrong ones back onto the hooks, what with the loops so tiny and the light in the hall so painfully bright, after the candles in the living room.
“I’ll drive you.”
There is a pause of about two seconds. Or two minutes. I’m not sure. I have to think about this.
“Calderbrook is on my way.” Giles takes the pile of leather, quilted nylon, and wool out of my arms. “Which one’s yours?”
I know perfectly well that I can’t drive anymore. Instead, I must focus. Focus on walking straight, talking straight. Balance. Posture. Must. Not. Bump. Into. Him.