what you have to say, and I want to share my life with you!
“Talk now. I have time till the concert.”
“No, I can’t. I—have a friend waiting.” I will not introduce him to Irene.
“Right, then, let me know when it suits you.” Withdrawing almost imperceptibly.
“I will, thanks. I appreciate it, Giles!”
“Who is that?” Irene, a cup of coffee in hand, is staring past me across the crowded room as if she had seen a ghost.
“Who is who—oh. The gray-haired guy?” But she knows me too well. If anything, my harmless reply makes her more suspicious.
“Yes, the gray-haired guy! Are you sleeping with him?”
I know my face is flushed with the wine and the rush and the mayhem, but at this, my temples start throbbing.
“No! And will you please keep your voice down!”
Irene sets her jaw, but goes on staring.
“Who is he?”
Flustered, I turn my back to Giles, who is doing the agreeable with a group of parents.
“Giles Cleveland. Stop interrogating me, Reenie. And stop staring at him.”
“And who is Giles Cleveland that I have heard so little about him? Nothing, to be precise. Zilch. Zip. Nada.”
“A colleague.”
“I met him before.” I can hear the bombshell in her voice.
“Don’t be absurd. You can’t have.”
“Excuse me, but I have. Here, I can produce evidence: he has a thin scar that runs from the corner of his eye to his ear, like a crow’s foot, only longer. Sort of like a professor of literature who was in a bar fight. Sexy.”
“Yeah, I know.” My own voice sounds hollow to me. “Okay, tell me—where?”
“At that conference about whatever-it-was in London. When we were supposed to be on a girls’ trip around Europe and you schlepped me to school because you had to give a paper.”
“Anglo-American Writing Between the Wars?”
“That’s the one. I’d been sitting next to this cute guy—chap, don’t you know, something of a dish,” she says, imitating a posh English accent, “who was really impressed with your paper. Don’t you remember? I tried to point him out to you afterward, but he was gone, like Cinderella, and didn’t even leave a slipper.”
“That was Giles?” My stomach churns as if I had eaten rotten herring for lunch. “What was it he said? Something—wasn’t it something about young academics giving better papers than the big names?”
“Yeah, I outed myself as a totally clueless tourist, and he laughed at me for wasting my time at stupid conferences instead of going shopping or sight-seeing. Wise guy. Sexy smile, though.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Well, he said that your paper was the only worthwhile one he’d heard that conference, and that one could tell that you loved what you were talking about, unlike the old codgers who just do it because they have to and bore everyone stiff.”
My fingers are trembling so badly I have to set down my cup for fear of spilling the coffee.
“He said that?”
“Yes, I definitely remember he said ‘bore everyone stiff,’ because that made me wonder whether he’s the type who goes—what do you call that? Conference hopping. Mind you, he wasn’t hitting on me or anything. I sort of expected him to hit on you afterward, but apparently his pumpkin was waiting. Speaking of which, is he married?”
“Divorced. But—”
“And is he hitting on you now? Come on, I could totally see that he is!”
“Irene, he doesn’t even—I’m not even sure he—where are you going? Don’t!”
She storms past me, and before I can wrestle her to the ground and kick her under a table, Giles—who is momentarily between parents—has seen us. I think it is fear that I see flickering in his eyes for a few moments, and I don’t blame him.
“Hey, there!” Irene charges at him, hand outstretched. “Remember me? I guess not, why should you? London, the July before last? A conference on—what was it again?” She turns to me, pulling me closer by my sleeve.
“Queen Mary, Lockkeeper’s Cottage. I do remember,” Giles says, and I can tell that he does. A line from Lady Chatterley’s Lover comes into my head. Sir Clifford, her husband, says something—can’t remember which scene this is from—with the suavest English stiffness, for the two things often go together. I doubt Irene can tell, but Giles feels extremely uncomfortable, either because she is doing her loud-mouthed New Yorker, or because she caught him being complimentary about me. I can’t even process that yet, on top of all the other events of the day. Giles knew me? Well, not knew, but Giles heard me give a