AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Darcy seemed uncharacteristically interested in what he had to say. He was looking at him now. “You thought what?”
“I don’t know. That I would be suited to such a position.”
“And here you are.” Bron kept his face forward. “Was further education not an option for you? Or does the student lifestyle not suit your … taste?”
“Not everybody can afford access to such an education.”
“Aren’t there bursaries for such situations as this?”
“Perhaps, but there is also the foundational education necessary to aid one’s chances of entry in the first place.”
“Aha!” Darcy jibed. “So you applied and didn’t get in?”
Bron bit his tongue, forced himself to keep still. “Perhaps.”
“But there are many other university options other than Cambridge.”
“Can I not aspire to such heights?”
“Of course. But it is not all there is, you know. People have a very clear idea of what they think the city will be before ever stepping foot in it. I imagine it never quite meets the mark.”
He didn’t admit to Darcy that his words rang true, that the etchings of the cityscape paled in comparison to the years of his pining over Oxbridge via celluloid. Instead, he said, “I, for one, think Cambridge is beautiful.”
“Beautiful, indeed. A place of historical prosperity and almost guaranteed future success … if you happen to be on the right side of it. So in an ideal world, you would have continued your studies at one of the colleges?”
“Yes, but the world is not ideal.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” Bron fixed his countenance on the liveliness of the room. Following his gaze, Darcy faced out to the crowd too.
“There is a right and a wrong way of reading a room,” he said, so casually into the air that Bron wasn’t entirely sure if it was him Darcy continued to address. “What you are doing now is the wrong way. No, don’t move,” he said when Bron finally turned toward him. “Keep looking as you have, and tell me what you see.”
Bron pressed his lips together and made a point of looking. There wasn’t anything he could do but oblige his host’s son. “Um, okay. I see …” A crowd of people, some laughing in corners, others loitering to get the servers’ attention and their hands on the canapes; smug-looking men looking complacent, and a woman who stood out in her hot-pink jumpsuit. Someone was tilting their head toward the ceiling’s netted balloons. Bron wondered, then, when they would fall. “I guess I see what is right in front of me. I see a party.”
Darcy huffed, unimpressed by the answer.
“Was that not good enough? Well, what doyousee?”
“I see a lot of drunk people. Or people pretending to be drunk, and a lot of knockoff Chanel.”
“An equally basic answer,” Bron murmured.
“But the real question is, what do you propose they see? Other than you looking miserable.”
He scowled. “I’m not miserable.”
“Then why do you slouch?”
He righted his posture. “I don’t.”
“The best thing you can do is allow yourself to blend in, almost like a piece of furniture. You want to fit in with the landscape. Don’t let the room read you.”
Was that the best thing to do—to blend in? Bron gave it some serious thought. Certainly, life would be easier if he weren’t so different, a sunflower amid a field of red poppies. But at what cost? Hedidnotice that, on the whole, nobody strained to look athim tonight, nor did they offer him an odd look. Just because of the suit he was wearing? At that moment, Mr. Edwards advanced toward them and signaled with flapping arms for them to come forward.
“Come, Bron, come. I must have you dance.”
“No, thank you, sir. I’m alright where I am.”
“No, no, I insist,” Mr. Edwards said, taking him by the hands. “And since I am dancing with the only beautiful girl in the room”—Ada continued to spin around behind him, frolicking to the music by herself—“I insist you dance with the next best thing.” He turned to his son and grabbed him by the waistcoat.
