Chapter 5
5
After the doorman at the Savoy hotel welcomed me through the revolving door, I allowed myself a few seconds to marvel at the lobby. White marble columns stretched up to the sky-high ceiling, and the floor was a blindingly shiny black-and-white marble checkerboard. A modern frieze topped each wall: white silhouettes of ornately dressed women, standing, walking, dancing. I felt like I’d fallen right into Pride and Prejudice , like Lizzie Bennet craning her neck to admire the romantic halls of Pemberley. Austen loved to drop her heroines into grander settings, let them sink or swim. I could be Fanny Price arriving at Mansfield Park, or Catherine Morland at Northanger Abbey. I would try to swim—but first I had to find the elevator.
My supervisor at Kramer had left me a panicky voicemail while I was in class: a last-minute tutoring assignment. Could I be at the Savoy in an hour? He emailed me the student’s intake form, which included a permanent address in North London, and a request for thirty hours of tutoring at the Savoy, all crammed into two weeks.
The liveried lift attendant smiled at me in the mirrored elevator doors as I tried to smooth my wind-whipped hair and wrinkled clothes. My ugly-duckling thing had ended, mercifully, with the last year of high school, and I knew logically that I looked the part now. But I didn’t feel the part. When men noticed me on the street in London, it could be admiration, but it could just as easily be me looking the wrong way to cross the road.
I knocked on the door of the room I’d been told to, my heart thumping with nerves. What if the parents sent me away and requested someone more experienced? I couldn’t let that happen. Thirty hours in two weeks—that paycheck would be my biggest ever. I could finally get a replacement for my fraying laptop charger. I could treat Liv and Andre to canned cocktails on Hampstead Heath, raise a toast to London’s wealthiest children. May they all test poorly and need tutors.
A long pause and the door opened on a wispy brunette teenager. She tipped her head to the side and pursed her lips, regarding me with evident curiosity.
“Are you Philippa?” I asked.
She grimaced. “Pippa. Or Pip. Never Philippa .”
Great start, then. Pippa swung the door open and retreated, as close to a welcome as most teenagers could manage. I followed her into the enormous suite, trying not to gawk: a mahogany dining set on tile, a living room of pearl-colored couches, and, beyond that, two ornate bedrooms. No visible parents.
Pippa crossed the room and crashed onto the couch. Her dark hair was in a loose topknot, and she wore simple gray sweats, but they were tailored and slim, conspicuously chic. I hadn’t known it was even possible for sweats to be chic.
I set the Kramer materials on the table next to a vase of white lilies, then sat down on the couch, too, folding one leg under me. I’d learned the best way to charm my SAT students was to seem younger. Too close to their age to have any real authority as a grown-up, I had to be more like a friend—casual, lenient, playful. It worked both ways. They were casual with me, less self-conscious about their shortcomings, even if that only amounted to a poor grounding in geometry, or a midsize vocabulary. They trusted me to help them.
I turned toward Pippa on the couch. “So, did you—”
“Your skin is incredible,” she interrupted, leaning a little toward me. She had very dark, pretty eyes, with long lashes. “How is it so clear?”
“Sorry?”
“No spots. No matter what I do, I have them. Mum’s bought me every serum under the sun.”
“Oh, well, I’m older, I guess. My skin wasn’t clear when I was your age.”
“You don’t look old.”
I laughed. “I didn’t say I was old. I’m only twenty-three.”
“Seven years older than this skin,” Pippa sighed. She waved a thin manicured hand at her face, which was not particularly spotty. “When did yours go away?”
I shrugged. “A little less every year, I guess, and just about gone when I went to college.”
“What uni did you go to?” Pippa’s manner was not demanding, exactly, but there wasn’t an ounce of deference in it. It was easy to imagine that she spoke to everyone like this—her teachers, her parents, her friends. Like she was incapable of modulation, or above it.
“I went to Smith College. Do you know it?”
“No.”
“It’s a women’s college in the city where I grew up.”
“All girls?”
I smiled. “All girls. It was nice.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
“Isn’t your school all girls?” The poshest schools were usually gender-segregated.
“Yes,” Pippa huffed, rolling her eyes. “That’s how I know it’s a nightmare.”
I guffawed, and Pippa smiled slyly. Pleased and trying not to let me see it.
“So, was it your mum’s idea to do SAT tutoring?” I asked.
“Oh, Mum doesn’t care, she’s not big on academics. An artiste ,” she said, with an expert eye roll. “She doesn’t even care that my older sister didn’t finish uni. No, my school counselor suggested it. He knows I want to go to the States.”
“It’s great you’re getting a head start on the test. It’s a lot to tackle.” I nodded back at the books on the table. “We better get on with it.” Tutoring sessions were normally an hour or two, but Pippa and I would need to do three hours a day.
She stood and crossed the room slowly, languorously, as if she was very tired and everyone knew it. There was something lazy and unbothered to all her movements and gestures—a funny contrast to her quick speech and wit. She seemed unflappable, not a quality I associated with my own adolescent years.
Pippa got two bottles of San Pellegrino from the minibar and put them on the table for us. Then she sank into a chair, tucking her feet under her. “Okay, Anna,” she said. “Hit me with the knowledge.”
We’d been working for two hours when someone knocked on the door. I was glad to hear it; I wanted to make a good impression on at least one parent before I left.
But when Pippa opened the door, it was hotel staff. The man set a round silver tray of fruit on the table, said good afternoon, and exited. It looked like an Impressionist painting, the sliced fruit in swirls and eddies. Kiwis, berries, grapes, glistening crescents of pineapple and melon.
“They bring it every day. Dig in,” Pippa said, biting into something brown and wrinkly. “Mum and Dad never touch it.” I looked down at the tray: a riot of artful abundance. I should play along, play it cool—like fruit art was a daily occurrence for me, too—but I found I didn’t want to.
“This is amazing,” I said, picking up a slippery half-moon of melon. I pointed it at the brown thing in Pippa’s hand. “What is that?”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve never seen a date before?”
I smiled at her shock. “I thought they were small, like raisins?”
“Way better, they’re super sweet. Try one,” Pippa commanded, her mouth still full.
I picked up a date and bit into it. The texture was chewy, a little odd. The sweetness was heavy and smooth, like maple syrup or honey.
She grinned at me. “Good, right? I bet you’ve never had fresh figs, either.”
It was time to get back to the lesson, if we were going to finish today. But Pippa was fully focused on me, eager now, waiting for an answer. I wanted to please her.
I laughed. “Not a lot of figs where I’m from, no.”
“Too cold?”
Too working-class, but I said, “Yes, probably too cold.”
Pippa spun the tray so the figs were in front of me. Halved open, they were bright pink, almost lewd.
“Will we be meeting here all week?” I asked, contemplating the figs. “Your paperwork said you live in Highgate.”
“We don’t really live here,” Pippa said. “In Britain, I mean. The last few years, we’ve mostly lived in France. Or at least Mum does, with my sister. Dad’s always traveling for work anyway, and I’m in boarding school. Sometimes when Dad’s in London, Mum and I come stay here and see him.”
“Why not at your house?”
“My aunt’s there right now with her kids. She offered to let us stay, but Mum didn’t want to ‘get in her hair.’?”
“Is it weird having your family in another country?”
“I’m away at school anyway. And I go to France for holiday breaks.” Pippa shrugged and bit into a slick slice of cantaloupe. “I guess your family’s in another country, too. Do you go to them for holidays? What about Christmas?”
“Oh no,” I said, forming my face into a smile. “I want to see what London’s like, all lit up with decorations.”
“It’s been years since I was here for Crimbo! I remember there’s a huge German market in Hyde Park. Is it snowy for Christmas, where you’re from?”
“Yes, Massachusetts, do you know it? About a four-hour drive from New York City.”
Pippa’s eyes lit up. “New York! That’s where I’ll be. I mean, that’s where I want to be. NYU, or maybe Columbia?”
I nodded and took a slice of kiwi. Those schools would require top-tier SAT scores, a tall order even for someone as bright as Pippa. Disappointing test results often meant angry parents complaining to Kramer, blaming the tutor.
“I’ve only been twice, but it’s my favorite city in the world,” Pippa said, practically swooning in her chair. “You must’ve gone all the time, if you lived so close.”
“A few times.” Only for school trips: the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, a musical. “I can see the appeal.”
Pippa leaned back in her chair. “It’s not just for uni. I want to live there, be a real New Yorker. But I guess maybe you never think where you grew up is very exciting.”
“You seemed pretty excited about the Christmas market a minute ago,” I teased.
“But imagine: Christmas in New York , Anna! The big tree and the Rockettes and the parade.”
“That’s Thanksgiving.”
“What?”
“The parade, it’s for Thanksgiving.”
She waved this aside. “I’m just saying, I’m ready for somewhere new. That’s what uni is for, right? Look at my sister; she studied right here in London. Hanging around all her old school friends. Look how well that worked out.” Not at all well, her tone indicated.
I had to agree. Smith hadn’t been far enough, and I’d never been able to convince myself that New York would be, either. It had always been London, for me. “Well, should we get back to work?” I nodded at the workbook in front of Pippa, now spotted with cantaloupe drips.
Pippa giggled at the pages, dabbing at the splotches with the cuff of her sweatshirt. “Do we have to, miss?” she teased.
I was often charmed by my students. Sixteen, seventeen years old, they felt like raw, unformed potential, the world opening for them, their skill and privilege. Their lives had an inevitable forward momentum, like they couldn’t choose wrong. I hadn’t felt that way in a long time.
“Wait, we can’t start until you try a fig,” Pippa said, pointing at the tray.
I laughed. I was laughing a lot today. Was it just the giddiness of being here, in the Savoy, trying a tiny slice of the out-of-reach London I’d been hoping to see? The halved figs were fuchsia, lush, like a lipsticked smile. I took one from the tray and bit into it.