The Whole World: A Novel - By Emily Winslow Page 0,12

his birds. Gretchen overrode him. He looked pretty beaten down, so I said, “May I see them?”

His face widened, I swear. It had to, to fit a smile that big.

The bird room was at the top of the house, a converted attic. The fluffy Norwiches chirped and flitted in their cages when we entered. Maybe they were anxious about strangers, or happy to see Harry. It was hard to tell the difference.

Harry greeted them as individuals, recounting their pedigrees and awards. They were all linked. He narrated every connecting thread: That one sired that one; that one mated with that one. The relationships made a web of the room. It was like being inside a mathematician’s brain.

The three of us walked home. We were tipsy and happy. Nick was between me and Liv, and we had our arms linked with his.

Liv teased him about the poem he’d been made to read at dinner, and she joked about his perfect life. “My life’s not really perfect,” he said. “But I know I’ve been lucky.”

And she said “Lucky!” to emphasize the understatement.

He said she should talk to his sister about luck. She hated British weather and wearing a school uniform. She read teenage novels set in America.

Normally you’d hit Peterhouse first, but Nick took us up Queen’s Road to drop Liv off at Magdalene.

Then he and I walked through town, past St. John’s and Trinity. At Trinity Lane, Nick grabbed my hand and pulled me into a shadowy corner next to a cobbled wall. His mouth had the tang of port still in it. We kissed like mad.

That’s not the time I had to push him away. That time I was as into it as he was. It’s not like we were in private or anything. It’s not like anything else could happen there.

Someone came around the corner and Nick jumped back about two feet. “Sorry,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he was apologizing to them or to me.

“I’d forgotten where I was for a moment,” he explained, looking down. “They took me by surprise.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Is something wrong?”

“No.”

He didn’t kiss me again, but he held my hand. “I really like you,” he said earnestly. Everything flip-flopped: It wasn’t an insult that he’d jumped; it was a compliment that he’d been so carried away that he’d kissed me in public in the first place.

“Do you know,” he said as we moved on down King’s Parade, “I saw you once before. Before we met at Magdalene. It was at the Penrose lecture. I sat behind you.”

I remember that lecture. It was soon after I’d arrived in Cambridge. Even though I’m not up on theoretical mathematics, I’d attended because Penrose is famous. I’d expected his presentation to be polished and intimidating. But he used an overhead projector, like one of my old grade school teachers, instead of a laptop and PowerPoint. He’d made the illustrations himself, in a dozen different colors of magic marker, with underlines and squiggles, and dashes radiating out around the most important words. Each sheet was like the cover of a thirteen-year-old girl’s notebook. A thirteen-year-old who’s really, really good at math.

“You had a stack of library books in front of you. Some Muriel Sparks and Hilary Mantels, and then, on top and out of place, one of the Famous Five books. I thought you were charming.”

I felt ridiculous and foreign. I’d stuffed myself with British authors when I first arrived, mostly authors my mom used to read, right down to a children’s book on top. I didn’t think anyone would have noticed my silly burst of Anglophilia. “I just went kind of crazy with Englishness when I got here.”

“It was sweet,” he assured me. Our arms swung together as we walked. “Do you like it here?”

I stopped and looked around. I didn’t know. “I’m having a good time,” I said. The thumping in my chest sped up.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. He squeezed my hand.

I unhooked from him and pointed with the hand he’d held. I could have used my other hand, but I didn’t. “Oh! Look!” Fitzbillies had put new cakes on display. We crossed the street and stood in front of the window, arms touching. There was one with a pirate ship on top of a delicate icing sea. There were little white tips on the blue waves, to show how wild the water was.

“That’s why I’m here,” I said, still pointing. “That’s why I like science. It’s bigger than me. Like the ocean is bigger