The Anglophile (3 page)

“You're right, but let me try another one. Was that basketball game at Notre Dame?” he asks with a small but just as wolfish smile. This chap is definitely interested.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. You played basketball in England?”

“Me? Oh heavens no. I rowed.”

“What British rower follows American basketball?”

“This one.”

“Name four players!”

“Not the university ones, I'm afraid. But the NBA, sure, I could do it.”

“Go ahead then.”

“Shaq, of course. Kobe Bryant, he's a natural—shame about the legal problems. Jason Kidd, and Jefferson and Martin, they're also Nets. There's Reggie Miller in the Indiana Pacers, he's brilliant, and there's that forty-year-old bloke, Karl Malone—”

“Okay!” I stop him with my upturned palm as I chuckle. “I believe you. That's amazing. I can't think of one athlete from your neck of the woods except—who's that soccer guy, you know,
Bend It Like Beckham—
”

“Beckham,” he says with a wink.

I'm officially in love.

“We had an uncle doing a stint in Boston who sent my brother and me an overseas subscription to
Sports Illustrated.
That got us hooked. I worshipped Wilt while Nigel was the Dr. J expert.”

Nigel,
I echo in my brain. I have never met even one American named Nigel. I have a brief vision of Nigel and his so-far nameless brother reading
Sports Illustrated
taking turns tending a raging peat, stoking it with an antique poker topped with a family crest.

I guess I was smirking again because he says, “Humorous stuff, is it?”

“No, uh, I was just thinking that you'd love what Gary does for a living. He's an executive on the Bulls account, and has season passes.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You're making me bloody jealous here. I tried to get tickets to tonight's game, but my concierge told me even nosebleed is like asking him for front row seats to Oprah.”

“I'm going tonight.”

“
Really!
Brilliant!”

“The girl Gary was supposed to go with came down with chicken pox from her cat—sounds weird, I know—and when I called him to tell him I was in town—”

Gary slides into the conversation as soon as he hears his name, a bag of donuts and cocoa in his hand: “I told her it was her lucky day.”

I playfully poke Gary. “I'm not so sure about her story.”

“Why?” asks Gary.

“Who ever heard of cat pox?”

Gary shrugs. “I've never heard of it either. But it's exactly what she said to me.”

I turn back to my Brit, who is still looking amused: “I told him my work here kicks off tomorrow, so yes, I'd love to go to the game.”

“So you like Notre Dame basketball?” the Brit asks.

Gary is floored. “You follow ND in England?”

“Well, I've heard of it of course—”

“My dad went to ND.
Fucking
loved it.”

Now I remember the whole issue with Gary's father's “enchanted” college years, one of the big topics of conversation during our epic road trip. Gary's rejection from the school still was a sore spot for him. How could it have happened? He was a legacy applicant with a ninety-one percent high school average. Either of those qualifications alone should have gotten him in. Gary
had been wait-listed to no avail. His theory was that he was rejected because he was coming out of a public school and he asked for financial aid. Gary's father wasn't big money like so many other legacy applicants; his Dad had attended ND in the sixties on scholarship. Yet Gary still refused to say a bad word about the school.

Gary's family was richer than mine, but that's not saying much. In his mind he was poor.

To keep alert on the eighteen-hour drive from Binghamton to Notre Dame, Gary needed someone like me along, a chronic talker. I calmed down about being abducted once we left the New York State border, and dutifully kept the conversation going through Ohio Amish territory, Cincinnati and Gary, Indiana, Michael Jackson's hometown. Gary stopped the car there for a corny photo op, which was of course Gary standing in front of a big green Welcome to Gary sign banked up with snow. Back in the car I sang, “Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana, let me say it once again!” A private joke with myself: “Gary, Indiana” was the song that most annoyed my oldest brother, Gene. Our mother listened to the original Broadway cast soundtrack album of
The Music Man
at least twice a week, humming along as she painstakingly ran over our old living room rug with a carpet sweeper. The music wormed its way into Gene's brain. I'm not sure how I escaped its insidious power.

The Brit speaks again: “So there's a story going around that you abducted this young lady for one of their basketball games.”

Gary snorts, and then a distant memory washes over
his face. “I forgot all about that road trip! I friggin' kidnapped you!”

“There was nine inches of snow in Indiana! You were insane to make me go!”

Gary can't talk for laughter. Finally: “Man! What a trip that was. Remember how we spun out fifteen miles before getting to the stadium?”

“Remember it? Gary—we almost
died.
”

Gary's laughter subsides after a glance toward the stool behind the window where his little lady friend is perched. “Shit, listen guys, I have to get back to that chick. Digging me, big time. I just wanted to refund your cocoa, Miss S. When you're in Chi-town you don't pay.”

“Too late, my new friend has already offered to pay.”

Gary barely contains himself, but keeps his commentary to a knowing smile. The Brit is expressionless again, but I suspect we're his entertainment for the day.

“I'll be over by the window, but first I have to take another horse piss. Give me a minute to finish the job, and then come over and join us.”

“He's a bit off-color, but he's a wonderful pal,” I say when Gary's out of earshot again. “We lived a few doors down from each other in my college back east—”

“Ah, ah, ah. Never apologize for school chums. My mate Reece was almost sent down fresher year for streaking. Cost his father plenty quid to keep him there. Took the committee a week to take a decision on that. His old man had to cough up an endowment to keep him through to tripos. But he was a good bloke all the same.”

He chuckles out loud, and I laugh too even though I haven't the faintest clue who or what tripos is. There's
one more rollicking memory of his school days: “Bloody Andy served everybody drinks with fish ice at our last reunion.”

“Fish ice? Is that another British expression?”

A laugh. “No, just the ice that fish gets shipped in. Salmon fish ice it was. Nasty stuff.”

I bet Gary would enjoy hearing about these fellow pranksters, but he has returned from the bathroom and right now he's having a fine time ogling the contours of the blonde's blinding white sweater.

“So, you're from New York City,” he says.

“Yes, I'm living there again. Gary's also a New Yorker, by the way, from Bensonhurst—that's a part of Brooklyn. You can ask him about Knicks games. That's his secondary team.”

“I'm going to New York after Chicago; never been.” My unprotected heart jumps at the news.
Boyfriend, boyfriend,
I tell myself as he continues, “Had to add a few days on, of course. How can you come to America and not see New York?”

“You'll love it. And trust me, Downtown needs your pounds to rebuild.” I'm blushing a bit as I sneak another face-saving look toward the front of the line. What is taking so long? We're ordering donuts here, not steaks. How many boxes of donut holes has that man ahead of us ordered?

“Maybe you could show me around?”

This time I look him straight in the eyes. “Of course I will.” Did I just say that? It sounds like we just made a date. Is offering to tour-guide a man you'd love to kiss cheating?

“Wonderful.”

He smiles at me and I smile at him, and the sudden silence threatens to ruin our vibe.

“You know, when you used the word college before, it occurred to me that in England, college is usually what I think you call high school here. Well, except in Oxbridge. Oh
sorry,
you probably wouldn't know that term. It means—”

“So did you go to Oxford or Cambridge?”

After an amused glance he says, “Cambridge.”

“Which college?”

“You know the colleges?”

“A few of them. Try me.”

“Trinity.”

“Where Isaac Newton was a student, right?”

“Indeed, the very one.”

“Indeed,” I mimic his accent, this time out loud.

“Next!” The combination of the cashier's blond hair, large lips and huge torso make him look quite a bit like a bodybuilder duck.

“What can I get my new friend here?” the Brit asks me.

“Oh, thank you. Hot chocolate. That's all I want.”

“And for
youse?
” says the ducky cashier to the Cambridge grad.

“Sugar donut, thank you. And make that two cocoas.”

“Youse?” my “new friend” discreetly parrots to me while our paper cups of cocoa are being filled several feet away. “What has your country done to my poor language?”

“We corrected a few things, too. Calling a fight a
wobbly
is outlawed in every state of the Union.”

“I'm amazed you even know that term.” He studies my face and gives me the verdict: “You're charming, by the way.”

“And so are you,” I rally back.

“Well then, we might as well be introduced. What's your name, Miss S.? Susan? Sabrina?”

“Shari.”

“Sherri? Is that short for Sheridan?”

“No, Shari, not Sherri.”

“Oh. Right. That sounds so—American. Is that short for Sharon, then?”

I bristle at his question. Like Debbie and Tammy, plain old Shari is a pretty damn common name among lower and middle-class Jews of New York. There are at least five Shari Diamonds in Manhattan alone; I saw us listed on a computer screen when my Citibank manager brought up my account on his computer the day my checkbook was stolen. As the manager double-checked my address, I noted a Shari Diamond in Stuyvesant Town complex on Fourteenth Street, and two of us on Avenue A.

When I was around sixteen my mother huffed when I asked her why she had to choose such a tacky name: “I can't believe I've given birth to such a snob.”

I'm still not crazy about my first name, but my mother would never let me get away with a legal name change like the one my Binghamton friend Rain Alexander fixed for herself just before our college graduation—Rain changed her name to Mary so that she wouldn't come off sounding like the upstate New York hippie kid she was in her post MBA interviews. I use
Shari socially but for professional publication I always use S. Roberta Diamond, uglier, sure, but far more respectable looking.

I cram all these thoughts down almost as quickly as they well up. Who needs a North American class and demographic lesson with a sugar donut? I answer with, “No, just Shari. It's pretty common as a full name in New York City.”

“Right. Well, my friends call me Kit.”

“That a nickname?”

“Yes. Short for Christopher.”

Oh, good God. Gary is
not
going to believe this.

Suddenly it really does feel like cheating.
I am not hooking up with this Chris,
I sell myself again. “Myself” is not buying. It's awfully hard to think of Kevin Bernstein now, but I have to try and think of him if I'm any sort of decent human being. I endeavor to do just that, but only my half-committed relationship doubts seep through. Even if Kevin is appealing at first, the more time you spend with him you realize how nebbishy he truly is. He does, however, have endearing brown cowlicks, and an exceedingly warm body temperature—which makes sleeping with him a pleasure since I'm practically an amphibian. I would hate to think a body in the bed is the only reason I've stayed with him.

“You look alarmed.” He studies my face again: “I'm sorry, have I offended you somehow?”

“No. I'm just a little worried.”

“For heavens' sake, what about?”

I wave off his concern and we talk some more. In another scarily pleasant surprise, it turns out that
“after business” in Chicago, Kit is scheduled for my very flight from Chicago to New York's LaGuardia Airport.

“Now you'll absolutely have to be my guide to the Big Apple. Do New Yorkers really say the Big Apple by the way?”

“Surprisingly, yes. Do the British really drink a lot of tea?”

“Well, I have a fair bit,” he says congenially. He tacks on, “By the way, have I asked you already, what is your work here exactly? Are you in a conference in Chicago?”

“Yes.”

“I heard every room in the city is booked. My bellhop told me there's an ephemera conference going on in my hotel, as well as a convention of
M*A*S*H
enthusiasts.”

Before I can tell him which group
I'm
booked for—there's at least three in my hotel, too, including a chemists meet-up—our hot steaming order is finally ready in the take-out bag. There is a further distraction when Gary arrives back by our side with a news report on his sorority president seduction.

“What's taking so long, you two?” Gary asks.

I raise my eyebrows in exaggerated frustration. “We just got our order. There was a donut hole holdup. How are you faring over there with your
chick?
”

“She loves me, my friends, but she wants to walk.”

“As in outside?” After Kit hands me the paper cup of cocoa, I gratefully wrap my frozen fingers around it. “Sweetheart, Gary, we came here for the warmth.”