Love from London (24 page)

“It’s an early Tarrant House,” Tobias explains to me as if I know what this means (note to self: Ask the Google gods). “Apparently, when the Coopers bought it, it was in dire need of refurbishment, but I tell you what — it’s lovely now. Just perfect for house parties.”

“Sounds nice,” I say.

Arabella turns around from the front seat and says, “They’ve got loads of space — so if you want, you can stay the night — I think we might. If not, we’ll drop you back at the train, k?” Her okays always sound like the single letter.

Nick’s house is as described: beautiful. Not in the overwhelming Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous way, like Bracker’s Common, not the posh rebuilds on the Vineyard, just a comfy (albeit very large and stately) country place.

We pull up to a double garage and park. A quick hello to Nick’s parents inside results in a self-guided tour (six bedrooms, two staircases, cozy library with photos everywhere) through the very lived-in house. Outside, I meet up with the rest of the “youngsters” as his mother called us, who are all getting liquored and fed in the summer house. Of course, it’s not summer, so everyone’s in layers of jackets and scarves, with rosy cheeks.

I proceed to air-kiss and double kiss a bunch of people I vaguely know and then some I don’t know at all and then cold-cheeked, humble, gorgeous Nick.

“Love, so glad you could join us,” he says. He hands me wine which I accept despite the fact that I’ve got more work to do when I get back to London later. “Come sit. Flask — move your arse and let the lady sit.”

Flask, with his namesake in hand, begrudgingly removes himself form the wicker chair and I sit down. Nick promptly brings over a woven blanket and drapes it across my lap. I smile at the special treatment but then notice that all the females have blankets either wrapped around their shoulders or on their legs like I do.

“Bukowski,” a bloke named Alex says. “Like the writer?”

“Spelled the same, yes, but I’m not related, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oy — Cooper!” Alex waves Nick over and accosts him as only the drunken will do. “This girl’s just like you, Cooper. A literary offspring. If not by heritage, then by name.” Alex then sees a tray of sandwiches and dives for them, leaving me with Nick. Again.

“I don’t know any writers named Nick Cooper,” I say.

“Oh, no — there aren’t — at least not whom I’m aware of…” Nick offers me a mini quiche which I accept and eat in one bite. Yum. “But my full name’s Nick Adams Cooper.”

I note the absence of roman numerals. Maybe he’s not part of the Cartier set (Cartiers are the crowd who all have a I, II, III, and so on after their names). Then I think for a second.

“Nick Adams. As in the Hemingway stories?” I smile. Ah, Mr. Chaucer would be proud.

Nick nods. “My mum is a great believer in his books. His writing is so clear but there’s always more happening under the surface than you know at first.”

“Like Raymond Carver?” I ask. Nick turns his ring around, a habit I noticed at Arabella’s flat. He’s got one of the family crest rings that are worn on the pinky by both sexes; the family crests (a deer, a shield, some random Scottish thing or tree with curling braches) are a silent reminder of just how old the money or family name is. One of the guests motions for Nick to come over and we end up inside around a large oval table in the sunroom. Winter light rays through the plate glass windows, hitting the polished concrete floor and glinting off the sterling silver flatware.

Anyone can watch
The Princess Diaries
or
Pretty Woman
and learn which fork to use, or how to walk like royalty, but actually assimilating to the upper class is something that you can’t just study from film. At Bracker’s, or at the mega-mansions handed down to Hadley’s finest, it’s obvious there’s a set of unwritten rules, ones that wouldn’t make it into a movie because they are far too subtle. But at Nick Cooper’s, everything’s easy, the tone, the chatter, all the edges blurred so nothing’s defined. Creamy parsnip soup eaten, we move onto roast chicken with “new potatoes” (the little red kind) and haricots verte (green beans but French), then right into the best dessert I’ve ever had, sticky toffee pudding. Each person has their own little ramekin of the stuff and the caramel scent rises up to me. With the light in the room, the sweet and cinnamony smell, this image will be a photograph in my mind. Just as I’m thinking this, Nick Cooper catches my eye and we stay like that, just for a second longer than normal.

As Nick had mentioned at Arabella’s flat the night I met him, each time a name is dropped, his mother flings a spoon onto the ground. With Tobias at the table, this has led to Nick’s father having to go get more silverware from the kitchen just for the sake of throwing it onto the concrete where it lands with a clang, causing all of us to laugh. Nick has only been guilty once, when he mentioned meeting the nephew of Bertram Russell, the philosopher. Not to be outdone, Tobias pipes in with, “Wasn’t he at that party given by Lady Piper Fuller?” Arabella keeps smiling as Mrs. Cooper cries, “Yet again, Toby!” and pelts a spoon over her shoulder.

“I can’t help it, honestly,” Toby says with his wide grin. He is the life of the party in many ways, always picking up conversation if it lags, telling amusing (if name-laden) stories from around the globe. I can see why Arabella likes him. In some ways, he’s like the society version of her dad — big, brash, funny. It’s ironic that she has to hide her relationship from her parents when they’d probably like Tobias, if he weren’t titled and everything.

“Are you ready, then?” Nick asks. He has politely offered to drive me to the train station so I can catch the four oh five back to Waterloo.

“Yup, thanks. Again, thanks very much for having me.” I hold up my little recipe cards from Mrs. Cooper, who wrote them down, along with the names of two books she thought I’d like, and I slide the items into my bag so I can add them to my journal later.

The train station could be a set for a nineteen thirties film, where the hero is going off somewhere, leaving the girl behind. In this case, it’s the reverse and I’m heading out, leaving a pensive Nick Cooper. If things were different, if I’d met him somewhere else, some other time…Never mind. I didn’t. He looks at me as the train approaches.

“I gather you’ve got something going with someone,” he says.

“Something underneath the surface, you mean?”

“Yes, like that,” he bites his bottom lip and runs a hand though his hair, which, true to his English birthright, flops into his eyes just enough to warrant swooning. “But I did want to say — if you hadn’t — if I weren’t treading on someone else’s…”

I nod and the train slows down. “I hear what you’re saying. I like talking to you, too. And your parents are really cool.”

“So maybe I’ll see you around?” he asks.

“I should think so,” I say and feel terribly British. I want to add
I hope so
, but I don’t, even though I only mean it in a friendly way. Probably.

I stand on the train; Nick gives me a kiss on both cheeks and says, “Asher’s a lucky guy.”

Lurch (my stomach, not the train). “What?” I ask.

“I know him, we were at school together — I saw his face when you and I were doing dishes at Arabella’s.” My face clearly shows that I’m shocked to have been discovered. “Don’t worry — I wouldn’t ever say anything. He’s a good guy.”

“Thanks,” I say to Nick as the train starts to move. He waves and I’m not sure if I meant to say thanks for keeping it under wraps, thanks for lunch, or thanks for not trying anything, since I don’t know how I would’ve reacted.

At Ed’s Easy Diner at midnight that night, Asher tries to feed me one more sweet potato fry.

“I can’t,” I swat it away. “It’s physically impossible.”

“Oh, go on, then,” he says but when I shake my head he eats it himself. “So, tell me more about this lunch at Cooper’s, then.”

“I told you,” I say. “It was fun — very, um, English, I think. Relaxed. His mother threw spoons every time Tobias opened his mouth.” Asher laughs. “Nick told me you guys are friends?”

Asher drains his Coke. “We went to school together — not really friends so much as lived in the same dorm.” Asher looks like he’s about to go on but doesn’t.

“What’s the story there?” I ask and take his hand.

“The story is that he did something for me once, and for that I will always be grateful. And then I, in turn, did something for him. So we have an unwritten, unspoken — until now — code of honor between us.”

“Care to elaborate?” I ask. The code of honor — how Three Musketeers (not the candy bar, the book), how dashing.

“Not really,” Asher says. “We all have our little histories, don’t we?”

Asher walks me back to the empty flat. “Should I come in?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say.

Asher puts his arms around my waist and grins.

We spend the next hour playing DJ, taking turns trying to find the cheesiest lyrics from the albums in Monti’s old collection. From Cilla Black to The Pet Shop Boys, to Sheena Easton, the records span two and a half decades of pop, funk, and flat out fabulously bad music. Then Asher says, “Wait. Let me put this on. This one’s really good.”

“I can name this song in two second,” I say. The trouble is, it’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered, the Stevie Wonder version that I totally connect to Jacob now, so when Asher tries to dance with me, I stamp on the ground a little too hard which makes the needle jump.

“Damn, sorry. It must be scratched.”

“Here — let me put one on,” I say. I go over and out on the fifth track of Clementine Highstreet’s greatest hits (it’s so funny to me that people you’ve never heard of have the best-of albums, when you can’t even think of ONE song they’ve done, let alone enough to warrant an entire greatest hits).
Be here, be now
plays, its crackling only adding to the dim light, the way Asher kisses my neck. We sway and kiss, the words swirling around us,
stay with me, be here, now, baby
—
my heart is a pocket, you’re searching for lost change, I’m the one you’re looking for
…Not bad for a song that I will connect to this moment. But then the last line, which I haven’t really paid attention to comes on as Asher undoes the buttons on my shirt,
someday you’ll leave, let time pull you away, and I’ll be left with only thoughts of yesterday
,
but for now just stay, be here, be now.

In the morning, I wake up and just look at him, wondering if I should I have said yes, yes I’ll sleep with him — not resting sleep, the other kind. But then I’m glad I didn’t. With my luck, I’d lose my virginity and Arabella would bust in and discover us, or the house would catch on fire or Tobias would use his flat key and shout out to the world. Not yet. Not now.

Dear Dad,

In one hour I’m leaving to meet Arabella to shop for Nevis! Thank you a million times for saying yes. Nick Cooper’s parents will be great chaperones, really. And I’ll send postcards…But I still have to get through the SATs before we go. Plus, I need to do an outline for my project with Poppy Massa-Tonclair — she liked the idea of a personal narrative (you can tell Mr. Chaucer I got the idea form him).

My name to you, L.

PS From your latest email, sounds like Louisa’s really great — looking forward to meeting her. Ask her if she’s read Alain de Botton and what she thinks of his ideas.

Dear Chris,

I just wrote my dad and told him Nick Cooper’s parents are chaperoning the Nevis trip, which is essentially true in that they have some villa there, but I think it’s chaperoning in the loosest sense of the word (i.e. come and tell us if someone’s bleeding or needs to be airlifted, but otherwise, you’re on your own). Fun in the sun. But I wish Asher were invited.

I also told Dad I’m psyched to meet his current flame, Louisa, but I’m actually kind of dreading it — by all accounts he’s great, which in some ways might be harder to fathom than his other two (lame!) girlfriends…

Anyway, I’m about to go meet Arabella for an hour of shopping before we head out to Bracker’s Common for the long weekend! Think of me while you deal with mid-terms (insert pity face here). I’ll be trying to contain my excitement (and failing) when I watch the Celebrity Life shoot (think me, Mick Jagger, Tom Jones, Paul — I mean, Sir Paul — hanging out or rather, think of me fetching them tea. Heh.). Actually, I need to study study study this weekend for the dreaded SATS.

I bumped into your crush, Alistair the American today — as per your wishes, I poked and prodded a little. Which of the following info did I glean? (fill in the oval completely to show your answer) a) Alistair is single b) he was way into you c) he was kind of serious about that Cali visit — he asked me about UCLA again as a subtle way of mentioning we should stop by d) all of the above. Yes, D is the correct answer…

And for all this info I want the following: to know what Jacob’s like now (however you wish to define this), a jpeg of some of the yearbook, and more scoop on the Lindsay Parrish situation, plus this Chilton Pomroy girl. Chili? Chilly? Will the name insanity never end? And what happened with Haverford, your straight-boy quest? There’s stuff happening here, too, one of my friends might be heading for a faculty fracas — still waiting for the details…and I wrote another song! Or, the beginning of one — more journal fodder —if those pages could talk. Actually, thank God they can’t. Good luck w/exams & your boys. I’m going to email shiny Lila Lawrence now — have been OOT (out of touch) but she finally wrote, so now it’s up to me! LLS — Big xxxs, L.

Dear Lila,

I know, I know, it’s been way too long. I’m glad you ended the email strike! I’ve been busy, too, so I get what you mean. Art History — sounds like a perfect major to declare. I’m sure you’re great at it (and even more reason now for you to head to Paris for a semester, oui?).

I nearly peed in my pants (okay, slight exag.) when I read your email. Let me get this straight — Henry my (not my, but you know) little prepster from the Vineyard wrote to me? I totally forgot he thought I went to Brown with you…but impressive that a) he remembers me (and my Ivy League lie) and b) that the mail reached you.

The fact that a postcard was delivered to me at Brown University where I am not even a student st testament to the wonder of the postal system — good thing you rescued it from the lost letters pile. Should I write him back? Do I have to deal w/it now or just wait until I inevitably bump into him on Martha’s Vineyard? Speaking of which, what are your summer plans? If all goes well, I’ll be working w/Mable in Edgartown — maybe w/my English boyfriend along for the ride…not kidding. He’s amazing — but will fill you in on details later. Tell me more about your love life — I’d never have pegged you for such a single girl…write back soon — and have a fun spring break. You said you’re heading someplace warm — which tropical place are you jetting off to? Miss you — L.