Teach Me
By Lola Darling
Teach Me
Copyright © 2016 Lola Darling
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Michele Catalano, Catalano Creative.
Photo: Lauren Watson Perry
Should the teacher stand so near, my love . . . Teach me tonight.
I’m late.
I
force my legs to move faster, hugging my sheepskin coat around my
body as I hurry through the cobblestone streets. By day, I’ve
gotten decent at navigating Oxford—it’s
not as big as London, so I can remember most of the major streets
around the colleges. But it’s
not as well-organized as London, either, so when I try to guess where
a side street ought to be based on which road it runs parallel to, it
doesn’t end well.
And,
of course, I still haven’t
fixed my US cell phone, so I don’t
have GPS service either, only a basic text and call plan. I am
actually using a paper map to get around.
Mary
Kate had better be grateful I’m
coming to this damn party.
I
pause in the glow of windows from a corner pub to study the paper.
“Need
a hand there?”
drawls a Scottish guy, a cigarette drooping from one lip and a foamy
beer cooling in his fist. Beside him, an older guy is chugging a
Guinness like there’s
a prize for first to finish.
“I’m
looking for, um.” I
squint at the text she sent me once again.
Hey
there my favorite USian pen pal. So excited you are finally coming to
Englandia for more than just a week! You’re
gonna love Oxford. I get into town the night before term starts—my
friends are having a fancy dress party at 5 Pusey St. You better come
or else!!! How long has it been since you were last in London, 2
years? You owe me a visit Xoxo. P.S.
—
wear
your best habit! ;)
“5
Pusey Street?”
I say.
The
man shakes his head and takes the map from me. “This
is us.” He points at
one side. “You gotta
go back up Broad to St. Giles, hang a right—you
know where the Bird and Baby is?”
I
shake my head.
His
friend finishes his beer and belches. “The
Eagle and Child,” he
corrects the first guy. “Can’t
you hear she’s not
from around here?”
“You
don’t sound like you
are either,” I snap,
though I feel bad the moment I do. He’s
from closer to here than I am. “Sorry.
I know it. Thanks,”
I tell them both. I’m
just grumpy because it means I walked fifteen minutes in the dead
wrong direction.
I
trudge past the row of stately buildings and colleges that look like
they were plucked from a medieval movie set and plunked down in a
modern-day parking lot. The Eagle and Child was the first pub I
visited on my first day in Oxford. I’ve
been trying to soak up the literary scene here, and that pub is
famous for being Tolkien and C.S. Lewis’s
haunt back in the day.
My
grumpiness eases as I study the side streets I pass, where
old-fashioned street lamps illuminate cobblestones and chatty gaggles
of students, voices loud from drink and white with smoke. Even the
air smells inspiring. Fall mixed with the faint musk of rain on its
way later.
If
there’s anywhere in
the world I’m going
to forget about Derrick—
no,
don’t
even think his name,
I
scold myself—it’s
here. If there’s
anywhere I can find my inspiration again, anywhere I can start to
write the poetry that I’m
starving without, it’s
here.
And
now I’m on my way to
my first-ever British college party, to meet up with the girl I’ve
been best pen pals with since we were 11 years old.
Life
is good.
I
have a huge grin on my face once more by the time I find the turn off
of St. Giles and onto the side street where she sent me. At the
entrance, I ring the buzzer and unbutton my jacket to smooth down my
gray silk blouse and knee-length black skirt. It hugs my hips just
right to show I’m
fun, not enough to show I can’t
handle myself at a high society event.
Mary
Kate said
fancy dress
party
, after all, and
her joke about me dressing like a nun aside, I assume she meant I
should wear my classiest outfit.
This
is, after all, my fresh start. Things are going to be different here.
I’m
going to be different.
No more screw-ups. No more sneaking past Derrick’s
roommates because I need to be kept secret; no more hooking up with
that jerk film major who, it turns out, was just using me for my key
to the English House. No more any assholes like that. I’m
starting over here.
A
buzzer sounds from somewhere inside the building. I push open the
door and follow MK’s
text directions upstairs to the third floor. Even through the door, I
can hear the sound of raised voices and loud music.
I
guess fancy parties can still be fun ones. I try the knob, find it
open, and push open the door.
Then
I freeze like a deer in headlights, and gape at the scene within.
The
first people to catch my eye are a trio of guys in pope hats, fishnet
leggings and black high heels. A girl in a nun habit and what looks
like a bathing suit bikini takes photos of the guys while they
perform a chorus kick line.
“Welcome,
welcome!”
Another girl, this one in a low-cut shirt and bodice that look like
something out of Oktoberfest, sweeps toward the door. “Don’t
be shy, come on in!”
“Sorry,
I—I
think I have the wrong address,”
I stammer, fumbling in my coat pockets for my cell.
“Don’t
be silly! You must be Harper—MK’s
in the kitchen.”
Oktoberfest girl grabs my jacket from my shoulders and slides it off
me and onto a coatrack nearby. “Can
I get you anything? Some Pope Juice maybe?”
I
blink at her in confusion, and my gaze drifts back to the guys in
pope hats.
She
giggles. “It’s
punch, darling, don’t
worry. Nothing sinister.”
She grabs my hand and leads me through an old, rundown looking
apartment toward a dingy kitchen. “I’m
Amber, I went to school with MK. She was always talking about you,
you know. I gotta admit, you aren’t
what I expected.”
Amber’s eyes dart up
and down my long skirt, and the conservative, expensive blouse I
picked out for this occasion, which I clearly and totally
misunderstood. “What
are you supposed to be, an actual nun?”
“Escaped
from a convent,” I
manage.
We
reach the kitchen, and a mass of boobs and hair assaults me in a
giant, bone-crushing hug. Mary Kate is dressed in her sluttiest best.
Somehow she makes the skin-tight neon red miniskirt and matching
pleather bustier totally work. It probably helps that she’s
5’10”
of Victoria’s
Secret model proportions.
“Hi
MK,” I manage to
squeak out.
“I
thought you’d
never
get here!”
she exclaims dramatically, still squeezing all the air from my lungs
while she plants a wet kiss on my cheek. Someone’s
already been at the pope juice, I see.
When
she finally lets me go to breathe, I grin up at her. I could never
stay mad at MK for long. She’s
the one friend I could always pour my soul out to, ever since we were
kids and our parents arranged for us to write letters through a pen
pal program so we could both “experience
new cultures”
through each other.
She’s
the only person who knows the whole story about
he-who-must-not-be-named, too.
“Me?”
I exclaim. “I
thought
you
would
never get here! You left me wandering around Oxford alone and
confused for a whole
week
of foreign student orientation.”
“I’m
sorry
darling—you know how
the Mother can be. Punch?”
She extends a fistful of some sort of violently red beverage.
“You
also didn’t explain
the whole fancy dress thing,”
I point out as I accept the punch.
“I
honestly thought you knew.”
She pouts. She does look sorry. “Tarts
and Vicars is a tradition on campus. Haven’t
you ever seen Bridget Jones?”
I
snort into my cup of punch. Mm. The drink is pretty damn tasty. Pure
sugar, just the way I like.
MK
spins to face the rest of the kitchen. A gaggle of guys and girls in
various stages of undress smile at us expectantly.
“Now.
Let me introduce the crew.”
#
Three
sips into my second round of punch, I realize my mistake. This stuff
is
strong
.
Mary Kate has migrated upstairs to the roof with a hot American guy I
vaguely recognize from exchange orientation. Even though she paused
to wink over his shoulder at me before going, I feel a little bit
abandoned. First she brings me here without explaining what the hell
“fancy dress”
parties really entail, then she skips out with the first hot guy who
winks at her? I mean, yes, her new boytoy displays an impressive
arsenal of temptation, but really, she couldn’t
have made sure I was okay first?
Her
friends from the kitchen have dissipated, and to be honest, I didn’t
remember any of their names yet anyway.
I
walk (okay, stumble) toward the confessional booth in the corner. I
haven’t seen anyone
go in and out of it all night—it
seems more like a party prop than anything else. Adding to the
atmosphere. I only wish I’d
known what that atmosphere would be before I agreed to meet MK
tonight.
This
is everything I swore I would avoid this semester.
I
slide open the door to the right-hand booth of the confessional. I
have to hand it to whoever designed this thing—it
looks just like the real deal. I stare down at a red-cushioned seat,
complete with a kneeler in front of it. Between this confessional
booth and the left-hand one hangs a thin wooden screen, carved in
elaborate curlicues, through which I can only glimpse shadows. Looks
like both sides are empty, as far as I can tell.
I
collapse onto the seat of one booth and pull the flimsy door shut
behind me. It doesn’t
do much to block out the sound of the party, but it helps.
My
head throbs. I’ve
been so good all summer. Not a single drink until now.
Looks
like I’ve lost my
tolerance.
I
set my remaining punch on the ledge beside my seat and lean my head
back against the headrest with a groan. The wooden walls around me
seem to close in, hug me close, comforting in their familiarity. I
sat inside confessionals just like this as a kid, back when Mom and
Dad still made us go to Sunday mass. Someone should’ve
warned them that convincing me and Tara to be good Christian girls
would never work.
But
I always did like this part. Closing myself into a secret dark place,
unburdening my secrets to someone who actually cared to listen.
I
breathe out a sigh. I need to distract myself, so I start talking.
“Forgive me Father,
for I have sinned. It’s
probably been . . . I
don’t know, ten
years since my last confession.”
I’m
speaking to myself, of course. So when a sigh answers me from the
neighboring confessional, I nearly fall off the pew.
“You’ve
got me beat by five,”
says a deep, masculine voice.
My
face flames red-hot. Good thing it’s
dark in here. “Oh
god, I’m so sorry, I
didn’t know anyone
else was in here. I’ll
go, I’m sorry,”
I babble at the wooden separator.
He
laughs softly. “Relax.
I don’t own
the place.”
Now
that my heart isn’t
pounding from surprise, it starts to pound all over again for a
different reason. Dear lord, that accent. He sounds nothing like the
Cockney boys down in London, or even the guys leading my orientation
group, with their posh upper-class enunciation. His voice is more
natural, smooth on the ears.