“Yup.” I throw the rest of my mocha into the trash.
“Oh. Okay. So, by the way, am I supposed to act differently with you now? So people don’t find out you’re a girl?”
“Well, not announcing it in the middle of a crowd would be a good start.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Audrey’s irritated me ever since my parents brought her home from the hospital. (I can’t actually remember that, but it’s a safe assumption.) I can never stay mad at her for more than a second or two, though. No one can. There’s something about Audrey that makes you incapable of sustaining negative feelings toward her. She’s a lot like Gretchen that way, actually.
We take out some cash at an ATM, then get tickets to take the train into the city. The train is delayed and I can’t hold it any longer, so I bite the bullet and use the women’s restroom, darting in and out, and keeping my head down, even though no one looks at me twice. Finally we get on the train, make it downtown and get a taxi to our hotel.
Neither of us has been to London since our parents brought us here on a sightseeing trip when I was twelve. All I can remember about that trip is wanting to kill myself from being in such close proximity to my mother for so long. Audrey remembers it well, though. She talked for years afterward about how much she loved the tour guides at the Tower of London. She’s going on the tour again this weekend with one of her online friends while I’m at my interview.
Wow. She, she, she, she, she. Now that I’m used to it, it’s funny how even thinking in gendered pronouns makes life easier.
Dad’s travel agent made all the reservations for us, which means we’re in a nice hotel. It’s late when we get in, so we order room service. Audrey wants to go out, since our jet-lagged brains are wide-awake. I’ve got my interview in the morning, though, and I make her stay in with me. She pouts, but she gets over it fast. We watch old movies until we fall asleep.
The next morning, Audrey goes to meet her friend and I take a train to Oxford. At first I can’t find the building where I’m supposed to meet Dr. Raavi, and I have to ask for directions. The people I ask look at me funny. I can’t tell if it’s because of my accent, or because of how I look in my binder, or because they’re just British and therefore rude. It makes me jittery and self-conscious, but I find the right building with ten minutes to spare.
There’s a little old man sitting at the reception desk. A porter, that’s what they call them.
“I have a meeting with Dr. Raavi,” I tell him.
The porter looks bored. “Your name, please?”
I hesitate. Lacey’s the one who sent my name over. What did she tell them? Will Dr. Raavi be expecting me to walk in looking like someone named Antonia?
The appointment book is open on the desk in front of us. I glance down at it and see an hour blocked off with the words Mr. Tony Fasseau.
Lacey told them I was a guy.
Why did she do that? I only told my inner circle I was presenting as male for this trip. Did Lacey just assume? Or did Derek tell her?
I wanted to be in control of how this information gets out. Maybe that isn’t a choice I get to make, though.
“Fasseau,” I tell the porter, who’s looking at me with some suspicion. I can only pray he won’t ask to see ID.
He doesn’t. He simply points me to the third door on the left and goes back to slumping over his desk.
My interview is easy after that. I accept the offer of tea, as Lacey instructed, and I don’t complain when Dr. Raavi pours milk into it, even though milk in tea grosses me out.
“Is Tony short for Anthony or Antonio?” Dr. Raavi asks me after I compliment his disgusting milky tea. I want to hug him for asking, but I suspect that wouldn’t help my chances.
“Antonio.” It’s close enough. If he somehow found out the truth, I could always claim he’d misunderstood me.
“Italian?”
“No, my family’s French, but my mother’s into names from that era.”
“What era would that be? Ancient Greece?”
“No, the, uh, 1920s.”
“Ah,” Dr. Raavi says. It’s clear from the vacant look in his eyes he never cared in the first place. He was only making small talk. Oh.
He changes the subject to political philosophy, and I try to keep up. After forty-five minutes and two more cups of gross tea, Dr. Raavi stands up and shakes my hand.
“Lacey Colfer was one of the best assistants I ever had,” he says. “Her recommendation is worth more than any curriculum vitae. If you’d like to come here and work for me this summer, young man, I’d be pleased to have you.”
My head is spinning from the tea and the job offer and most of all from the “young man.”
“Yes, sir, I’d like that,” I say.