not come across as uneasy. Reserved, yes, that goes with the accent, introverted, intellectual, but also amusingly self-deprecating, which Loren doesn’t get at all. I think it is perceptive of Tim to have picked up on the vulnerability in Giles that alerts the praying mantises and the dominant bitches.
So where is the reason he has not told me he and his wife split up? Is she here? Who is she? I daren’t look around to see whether I can identify a woman in the audience who is watching him with that look of tender amusement that I am trying so hard to keep from my own face.
Jenna, the fan from the graduate seminar, has a question.
“I read on the IMDB website that the book is going to be turned into a film? That is so awesome!”
“Thank you—yes, since the hype of all things Tudor seems to continue, the BBC is thinking of jumping on the bandwagon and doing something similar. A mini-series, something along those lines. I say may.” Giles gives his answer in as neutral as voice as possible; not arrogant or condescending, just as if he were genuinely uncomfortable with it. Tim whistles under his breath.
“The sneaky fucker,” he murmurs. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
Tessa, too, turns round to us and makes the face of an astonished cartoon character. I roll my eyes and shrug back.
“That sounds wonderful,” Loren says, picking up her cue. “Is that something you will be involved in? Will you be writing the screenplay yourself?”
“Lead actors?” one of the ladies next to Tessa butts in. “Perhaps you might convey the preferences of the reading public to the casting officer!”
Giles smiles at her. “Well, what are the preferences of the reading public?”
This leads to cheerful palaver among the audience as they debate the question. The bookstore manager and her assistant appear next to Tim and me.
“I thought this one would be a dull Brit,” the manager says. “If I’d known he’d charm rings around them, I’d have put him last!”
I have to hide the delighted smile on my face from the store manager on my left, from Tim on my right, and from Dolph and Steve across the room, so I check my phone.
Know that bust of Abigail Adams?
“Oh, my God! Tim, I have to go. I think my friend is here, my friend from New York!”
I jostle my way out of the store, as eager and excited as if I were a freshman and my parents had come on a surprise visit. The campus is very crowded now; the smell of tailgate barbeques is wafting through the air (I fight down the memory of rotten fish), in the distance the band is playing the Ardrossan song; someone seems to have brought a banjo. I run across Library Square, and the tall figure with the glowing red hair sticks out a mile.
“Reenie! Irene!”
She sees me, and I could cry, I am so relieved to have her here, a familiar face, someone who knows me.
“But, Professor Lieberman! This is so sudden!” She grins and catches me as if I were her little sister. I know I am overreacting, but I can’t help myself.
“Oh, Ashley, take me away! I’m sick of it! I’m tired of it! Oh, Ashley!”
This makes us both laugh, and although she is playing it cool, I can see how pleased she is that her surprise was a success.
“That bad, huh?”
“No, no, it isn’t. Well, today is—wait, what are you doing here, anyway? You should have told me, I could have—”
“Didn’t know till Wednesday. Listen, I don’t want to rain on your parade, though. What were you doing when I burst onto the scene?”
“Never mind—you’re here! You’re here!”
We get one or two odd looks, Red Irene in her dark teal skirt suit, strutting at five foot ten inches in her heels, Anna-Banana in her white Ardrossan U t-shirt. We are both used to it. I can persuade her not to go back to the book store—I wouldn’t mind her meeting Tim, but there are other dangers—but to stroll along the river promenade toward the stone arch bridge instead.
“Gee, Anna, you were right. This place is beautiful!” I cue her.
“Well, it ain’t too bad.” She nods graciously.
“Thanks, that’s all I wanted to hear. So how are you? How is everyone? What are you doing here?”
She is accompanying Jacques on a business trip to Washington. He flew in on Thursday and has meetings all day today; she took the first flight to Shaftsboro