Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil
x—the Imp
She carried the jar of flowers into her room and turned to Aloysius, who was sitting on her bed. His scratched glass eyes made him look permanently tired, so it was the best place for him. “I think someone knows us rather well, Aloysius,” she said, breathing in the smell of her favorite flowers.
After the opening night ofA Midsummer Night’s Dream, she found a bottle of red wine from the Puck winery waiting outside her door.Congratulations, from one Imp to another.
These gestures from Sean surprised and confused her. She knew, from the way she caught him looking at her sometimes, that there was something unspoken between them. He sought her out first in any room, he hugged her just that bit too long. But he had never articulated it, and she didn’t want him to. It would change everything, and she didn’t want anything to change. Maybe the Imp was Sean’s way of showing her how he felt, without having to risk what they had. So, she stopped mentioning it, let it be something secret, unspoken. What harm was it doing?
The loveliest gesture came at the end of Hilary term, just before they broke up for Easter. She’d been talking to Akiko at formal hall, telling her how Easter always made her think of her grandmother. Valerie used to lay these elaborate Easter egg hunts with fiendishly cryptic clues. The hunts could take hours, most of her cousins would give up, but for Chloe the harder the clues, the more she appreciated the chocolate egg at the end.
“Isn’t it a shame that we get too old for these things?” she told Akiko, leaning her face on her palm.
“Who says we’re too old?” Akiko said indignantly. “Delight and wonder aren’t confined to childhood.”
Sean must have been within earshot, or perhaps Akiko told him about the conversation later, because the next day she found a small painted egg sitting in her college letter box. It had “crack me” written on it in beautiful calligraphy. She felt a hum of adrenaline. The egg was so pretty, she was loath to break it, but she did. Inside, she found a tiny scroll with the wordsLove is a smoke raised with the fume of this bridge.
A Shakespeare quote, “Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs”—the Bridge of Sighs. She ran through town to the famous bridge, scanning the walls for a clue, and there, in a crack, she found a small, fluffy chick, with a scroll clamped in its beak. She laughed, delighted, as she unwrapped the clue:In the fifteenth century, you would watch a cockfight, but if you wanted a coffee, where could you get your flat white?She had to ponder this one. The Pret a Manger on the Cornmarket was in a building from the fifteenth century, but when she walked down there, she couldn’t see anything on the walls outside. She went in and asked a barista if they knew anything about a treasure hunt. The teenage boy grinned and handed her a paper cup with a clue written on it, in the same cursive script.
And so her quest unfurled, with clue after clue taking her all over town. To her favorite book in the library (Brideshead Revisited, of course), her favorite tree (the sycamore by All Souls), and even her favorite cake (the mille-feuille at the bakery on the Cowley Road). The final clue led her back to Lincoln, to the stone imp in the stairway beside Deep Hall, and a chocolate egg lay wedged between the bars with a note:You are never too old for treasure hunts. Happy Easter. Love, the Imp.
It was, without a doubt, the nicest, most thoughtful thinganyone had ever done for her. She loved the artistry in the details, the personalized clues…But as she clasped the final note in her hand, she felt confusion stirring alongside her pleasure, sediment muddying clear water. For someone to take this much time to re-create a cherished childhood memory—it didn’t feel like just a sweet gesture from a friend. It felt like a quiet, deliberate declaration of love. As much as she loved the Imp, delighted in his notes, cherished their contents, when she was with Sean she just didn’t feel that kind of connection with him. And now she felt a small thrum of dread, because it felt like this was building to something, and she couldn’t see how it was going to end well.
16
Chloe walked across to thecloisters flexing and then clenching her fingers. She could see Sean was already there, waiting for her. He was wearing designer jeans that flattered his physique and a worn leather jacket over the “Director’s Cut” T-shirt he’d been wearing earlier. He swung one foot back and forth, scuffing his shoe against a paving stone.
“Hey,” he said, running a hand through his floppy black hair. “You recovered from your dunking?”
“Just about. I might have frog spawn in my ears,” she said, lifting a hand to jiggle one earlobe.
“You always did have great comic timing,” he said. “I wish I’d caught it on camera.”
They walked through the front quad, up Turl Street, toward the University Parks.
“It feels weird being back here, doesn’t it?” she said.
“Yeah, first time I’ve been back,” he said. “Nothing changes, does it?”
Nothing, and yet everything.
“Except now you’re super successful,” she said, elbowing him.
“I don’t know about that,” he said, taking off his jacket as they turned up Park Street.
“So, what’s it like, getting everything you ever wanted?” she asked. “Work-wise, at least.”
“It’s not everything it’s cracked up to be,” he said. She assumed he was joking, but when she looked across at him, he gave her a tight smile. “I know I’m blessed I get to do what I do.”
“Blessed? You’ve been in LA too long,” she said, and he laughed, a real laugh this time.
“How about you? Tell me about this film company you work for—are you writing, producing?”
“More like making coffee and booking meeting rooms,” she said lightly, but then she thought of Rob, what he would say if he could hear her diminish her role like this. “I’m pushing to get more hands-on experience in production, see the whole process, learn the craft.” Then she took a deep breath and pulled off the Band-Aid.“Why haven’t you been in touch all these years, really, Sean? Don’t tell me it’s because you were too busy.”
Sean shook his head as though befuddled. But then he cleared his throat and said, “I guess I was pissed off with you.”
“Still? You’ve had a million girlfriends since then, haven’t you?”
