Chapter 6
6
Every weekday, I spent three hours with Pippa. Between classes and teaching and bartending and hours of schoolwork and trips to Roedean, the two weeks were a mad scramble. I barely had time to microwave a baked potato for dinner most nights. A jacket potato , Andre corrected me as I stood slumped against the counter, watching it spin.
Suddenly it was November, and our last session at the Savoy. I always felt a little sad, saying goodbye to my best, most likable students. It was satisfying to see the leaps and bounds Pippa had made in our time together, to feel how her confidence had grown, but also bittersweet knowing I’d never cross paths with her again. My students dissolved back into their world, and I moved on to the next assignment. If I was lucky, they let me know their scores a few months later.
I’d enjoyed my thirty hours with Pippa. A quirky teenager hidden inside the slouchy designer clothes of a Soho socialite, she was smart and funny, but also a master time-waster. When she was tired of studying (most of hour three), she’d try to get me off topic, or drown me in details of Gossip Girl , a tutorial for her future New York life. She’d suggest we take a break, go for a walk along the Embankment, have dessert and coffee at the hotel café.
Today, I’d relented: our last hour and a half of studying was over afternoon tea, down in the Savoy’s dining room. How could I resist? A pianist played quietly from an elaborate gazebo in the center of the room. Sitting there under the romantic glass-domed ceiling, I thought of Edith Wharton—half expecting some of her pretty, striving heroines to flounce in and settle conspicuously at the next table, hoping to catch a duke or a widowed viscount. A server brought a tower of perfect finger sandwiches (cucumber, salmon, egg-and-watercress), tiny cakes, and scones. We sipped Earl Grey, and Pippa supervised my first scone spread with delicious clotted cream and jam—cream first, then jam, never the other way around. The crumbs dropped into the workbooks open on the table in front of us. Permutations and combinations were the last topic.
“Do you think I’ve got it?” Pippa said wryly when we finished. “Perfect score?”
“I think you’ve got what you need to know, and now you need practice.”
Pippa pouted. “I can’t practice on my own. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“You can start with the practice test I left last week. The one you said you’d do over the weekend?”
“That wasn’t my fault, Mum got tickets for the theater. You said to do it all in one go, but I never had four hours free.”
“It’s the only way you’ll get used to it—doing questions quickly within the timed sections when you’re already exhausted from the section before.”
Pippa collapsed back into the brocade wing chair. “It’s not fair. I want you to proctor the tests for me, like you do at Roedean.”
“Maybe your mum could do it? I could give her the instructions and all four practice tests.” My voice dropped off at the end, realizing how unlikely this was. I liked Mrs. Wilder, but she had never once sat down in my presence or even stood still. She was energetic and friendly, but always on her way somewhere. Her demeanor was so much the opposite of Pippa’s laid-back, unhurried way of moving that it surprised me to see how well they got along.
When we got back upstairs to the suite, Mrs. Wilder was just inside the door, taking off a classic Burberry raincoat.
“Mum, I’ve got so much more work to do,” Pippa said, her voice suddenly plaintive. She always became more childlike in her mother’s presence. “And these practice tests. But we’re leaving, and Anna says I’ll have to do it on my own.”
I didn’t want Mrs. Wilder to think I hadn’t finished the job she’d paid for. “Well,” I said, “that’s not quite what I—”
“Is there more to be done?” Mrs. Wilder said warmly to me, without any hint of disappointment. “Won the battle but not yet the war?”
I nodded. “The war will require more work,” I said. “Top scores come from lots of practice and working through the material more than once. If Pippa does the practice tests over the next few weeks, you can send them to me, and I’ll send you back the reports. Let you know which areas she should be reviewing.”
“I can’t do that on my own,” Pippa said, visibly sagging.
Mrs. Wilder squeezed Pippa to her side affectionately. “You’re a good student, Pip, I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
“Fine won’t be good enough. The scores they want are so high, Mum! Can’t Anna keep tutoring me?”
Mrs. Wilder sighed. “I’m sure Anna’s a very busy young woman.”
“Just a few more weeks, Mum, that’s all I need.”
Mrs. Wilder looked down at Pippa fondly, the wispy teen still tucked into her side. She seemed to be weighing things. “Well, Anna,” she said after a moment. “You’ll be on break for the holidays, won’t you, in December? Would you come to us?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Come to stay with us, in December, so you can work with Pippa till she’s back in school?”
“Come? To France?”
Mrs. Wilder chuckled. “Oh, it’s not that far. I think you’ll find it’s just the next one over.”
I laughed, too, but my mind was churning. “I don’t think Kramer would let me go,” I said. “It’s against policy to—”
“We can leave Kramer out of it, I think, now they’ve made the introduction,” Mrs. Wilder said, putting a motherly hand on my sleeve. “What’s your private rate, Anna?”
“Oh, I don’t—” I said, hesitating. “I hadn’t thought.”
“A month would be nice, wouldn’t it, Pip?” Mrs. Wilder squeezed Pippa against her again. “All the time in the world to practice, and time to enjoy yourselves, too.” She turned back to me. “We’d get the flights and all that, see to everything. There’s a separate guest suite, and we’d give you meals and Christmas lunch. And you can’t miss the fireworks over the bay on New Year’s.”
I knew I should reply, but my head was cloudy. A month in the French Riviera! But so many ways this could go wrong, blow up in my face. Helplessly, I looked to Pippa, to see if this was really what the girl wanted—to clog up her holidays with studying and practice tests. A tutor she had little in common with.
Her mouth was drawn down; she was poorly hiding a smirk of victory. Like this had been her plan the whole time. She knew that I had no family here for Christmas, that I wasn’t going home. And her mother had gone right along with the plan, almost no hesitation. To be schemed for like this by a posh teenager—it might’ve been the highest compliment I’d ever received.
Pippa smiled sweetly up at me. “Will you come, Anna?”