MY OXFORD YEAR
by Julia Whelan
American Ella Durran has had the same plan for her life since she
was thirteen: Study at Oxford. At 24, she’s finally made it to England on a
Rhodes Scholarship when she’s offered an unbelievable position in a rising
political star’s presidential campaign. With the promise that she’ll work
remotely and return to DC at the end of her Oxford year, she’s free to enjoy
her Once in a Lifetime Experience. That is, until a smart-mouthed local who is
too quick with his tongue and his car ruins her shirt and her first day. When
Ella discovers that her English literature course will be taught by none other
than that same local, Jamie Davenport, she thinks for the first time that
Oxford might not be all she’s envisioned. But a late-night drink reveals a
connection she wasn’t anticipating finding and what begins as a casual fling
soon develops into something much more when Ella learns Jamie has a
life-changing secret. Immediately, Ella is faced with a seemingly impossible
decision: turn her back on the man she’s falling in love with to follow her
political dreams or be there for him during a trial neither are truly prepared
for. As the end of her year in Oxford rapidly approaches, Ella must decide if
the dreams she’s always wanted are the same ones she’s now yearning for.
CHAPTER 1
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England – now!
Home-Thoughts, from Abroad – Robert Browning,
1845
“Next!”
The customs agent
beckons the person in front of me and I approach the big red line, absently
toeing the curling tape, resting my hand on the gleaming pipe railing.
No adjustable ropes at Heathrow, apparently; these lines must always be long if
they require permanent demarcation.
My phone rings. I
glance down. I don’t know the number.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Is this Eleanor
Durran?”
“Yes?”
“This is Gavin
Brookdale.”
My first thought is
that this is a prank call. Gavin Brookdale just stepped down as White House
Chief of Staff. He’s run every major political campaign of the last 20 years.
He’s a legend. He’s my idol. He’s calling me?
“Hello?”
“Sorry, I-I’m here,”
I stammer. “I’m just –
“Have you heard of
Janet Wilkes?”
Have I heard of –
Janet Wilkes is the junior senator from Florida and a dark horse candidate for
President. She’s 45, lost her husband twelve years ago in Afghanistan, raised
three kids on a teacher’s salary while somehow putting herself through law
school, and then ran the most impressive grassroots senatorial campaign I’ve
ever seen. She also has the hottest human-rights-attorney boyfriend I’ve ever
seen, but that’s beside the point. She’s a Gold Star wife who’s a progressive
firebrand on social issues. We’ve never seen anyone like her on the national
stage before. The first debate isn’t for another two weeks, on October 13, but
voters seem to love her: she’s polling third in a field of twelve. Candidate
Number Two is not long for the race; a Case of the Jilted Mistress(es). Number
One, however, happens to be the current Vice-President, George Hillerson, who
Gavin Brookdale (if the Washington gossip mill is accurate) loathes. Still,
even the notoriously mercurial Brookdale wouldn’t back a losing horse like
Wilkes just to spite the presumptive nominee. If nothing else, Gavin Brookdale
likes to win. “Of course I’ve heard of her.”
“She read your piece
in The Atlantic. We both did. ‘The Art of Education and the Death of the
Thinking American Electorate.’ We were impressed.”
“Thank you,” I gush.
“It was something I felt was missing from the discourse –”
“What you wrote was a
philosophy. It wasn’t a policy.”
This brings me up
short. “I understand why you’d think that, but I –”
“Don’t worry, I know
you have the policy chops. I know you won Ohio for Janey Bennett. The 138th
for Carl Moseley. You’re a talented young lady, Eleanor.”
“Mr. Brookdale –”
“Call me Gavin.”
“Then call me Ella.
No one calls me Eleanor.”
“Alright, Ella, would
you like to be the education consultant for Wilkes’ campaign?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Yes!” I bleat. “Yes,
of course! She’s incredible –”
“Great. Come down to
my office today and we’ll read you in.”
All the breath leaves
my body. I can’t seem to get it back. “So… here’s the thing. I-I’m in England.”
“Fine, when you get
back.”
“… I get back in
June.”
Silence.
“Are you consulting
over there?”
“No, I have a… I got
a Rhodes and I’m doing a –”
Gavin chortles. “I
was a Rhodie.”
“I know, Sir.”
“Gavin.”
“Gavin.”
“What are you
studying?”
“English Language and
Literature 1830 to 1914.”
Beat. “Why?”
“Because I want to?”
Why does it come out as a question?
“You don’t need it.
Getting the Rhodes is what matters. Doing it is meaningless, especially in
Literature from 1830 to 19-whatever. The only reason you wanted it was to help
you get that life-changing political job, right? Well, I’m giving that to you.
So come home and let’s get down to business.”
“Next!”
A customs agent –
stone-faced, turbaned, impressive beard – waves me forward. I take one step
over the line, but hold a finger up to him. He’s not even looking at me.
“Gavin, can I call –”
“She’s going to be
the nominee, Ella. It’s going to be the fight of my life and I need all hands –
including yours – on deck, but we’re going to do it.”
He’s delusional. But,
my God, what if he’s right? A shiver of excitement snakes through me. “Gavin –”
“Listen, I’ve always
backed the winning candidate, but I have never backed someone who I personally,
deeply, wanted to win.”
“Miss?” Now the
customs agent looks at me.
Gavin chuckles at my
silence. “I don’t want to have to convince you, if you don’t feel –”
“I can work from here.” Before he can argue, I
continue, “I will make myself available at all hours. I will make Wilkes my
priority.” Behind me, a bloated, red-faced businessman reeking of gin, moves to
squeeze around me. I head him off, grabbing the railing, saying into the phone,
“I had two jobs in college while volunteering in field offices and coordinating
multiple city council runs. I worked two winning congressional campaigns last
year while helping to shape the education budget for Ohio. I can certainly consult
for you while reading books and writing about them occasionally.”
“Miss!” the customs
agent barks. “Hang up the phone or step aside.” I hold my finger up higher (as
if visibility is the problem) and widen my stance over the line.
“What’s your date
certain for coming home?” Gavin asks.
“June 11th. I already
have a ticket. Seat 32A.”
“Miss!” The customs
agent and the man bark at me.
I look down at the
red line between my sprawled feet. “Gavin, I’m straddling the North Atlantic
right now. I literally have one foot in England and one in America and if I
don’t hang up they’ll –”
“I’ll call you back.”
He disconnects.
What does that mean?
What do I do? Numbly, I hurry to the immigration window, coming face to face
with the dour agent. I adopt my best beauty-pageant smile and speak in the
chagrined, gee-whiz tone I know he expects. “I am so sorry, Sir, my sincerest
apologies. My Mom’s –”
“Passport.” He’s back
to not looking at me. I’m getting the passive-aggressive treatment now. I hand
over my brand new passport with the crisp, un-stamped pages. “Purpose of
visit?”
“Study.”
“For how long will
you be in the country?”
I pause. I glance
down at the dark, unhelpful screen of my phone. “I… I don’t know.”
Now he looks up at
me.
“A year,” I say.
Screw it. “An academic year.”
“Where?”
“Oxford.” Saying the
word out loud cuts through everything else. My smile becomes genuine. He asks
me more questions, and I suppose I answer, but all I can think is:
I’m here. This is
actually happening. Everything has come together according to plan.
He stamps my
passport, hands it back, lifts his hand to the line.
“Next!”
#
When I was thirteen I
read an article in Seventeen Magazine called, “My Once in a Lifetime
Experience,” and it was a personal account of an American girl’s year abroad at
Oxford. The classes, the students, the parks, the pubs, even the chip shop
(“pictured, bottom left”) seemed like another world. Like slipping through a
wormhole into a universe where things were ordered and people were dignified
and the buildings were older than my entire country. I suppose thirteen is an
important age in every girl’s life, but for me, growing up in the middle of
nowhere, with a family that had fallen apart? I needed something to hold onto.
I needed inspiration. I needed hope. The girl who wrote the article had been
transformed. Oxford had unlocked her life and I was convinced that it would be
the key to mine.
So I made a plan: get
to Oxford.
After going through
more customs checkpoints, I follow signs for The Central Bus Terminal and find
an automatic ticket kiosk. The “£” sign before the amount looks so much better,
more civilized, more historical than the American dollar sign, which always
seems overly suggestive to me. Like it should be flashing in sequential neon
lights above a strip club. $ - $ - $. Girls! Girls! Girls!
The kiosk’s screen
asks me if I want a discounted return ticket (I assume that means round trip),
and I pause. My flight back to Washington is on June 11th, barely
sixteen hours after the official end of Trinity term. I have no plans to return
to the states before then, instead staying here over the two long vacations (in
December and March) and traveling. In fact, I already have my December
itinerary all planned. I purchase the return ticket, then cross to a bench to
wait for the next bus.
My phone dings and I
look down. An email from The Rhodes Foundation reminding me about the
orientation tomorrow morning.
For whatever reason,
out of all the academic scholarships in the world, most people seem to have
heard of The Rhodes. It’s not the only prestigious scholarship to be had, but
it’s the one that I wanted. Every year, America sends 32 of its most
overachieving, uber-competitive, social-climbing, do-gooder nerds to Oxford.
It’s mostly associated with geniuses, power-players, global leaders. Let me
demystify this: to get a Rhodes, you have to be slightly unhinged. You have to
have a stellar GPA, excel in multiple courses of study, be socially
entrepreneurial, charity-minded, and athletically proficient (though the last
time I did anything remotely athletic I knocked out Jimmy Brighton’s front
tooth with a foul ball, so take that tenet with a grain of salt). I could have
gone after other scholarships. There’s the Marshal, the Fulbright, the Watson,
but the Rhodies are my people. They’re the planners.
The other finalist
selected from my district (a Math/Econ/Classics triple-major and Olympic archer
who had discovered that applying Game Theory to negotiations with known
terrorists makes the intel 147% more reliable) told me, “I’ve been working
toward getting a Rhodes since Freshman year.” To which I replied, “Me, too.” He
clarified, “Of high school.” To which I replied, “Me, too.”
While, yes, the
Rhodes is a golden ticket to Oxford, it’s also a built-in network and the means
to my political future. It ensures that people who would have otherwise
discounted me – this unconnected girl from the soybean fields of Ohio – will
take a second, serious look. People like Gavin Brookdale.
Going after things
the way I do, being who I am, has alienated my entire hometown and most of my
extended family. My mom hadn’t gone to college and my dad had dropped out after
two years because he’d thought it was more important to change the world than learn
about it, and there I was, this achievement machine making everyone around it
vaguely uncomfortable. She thinks she’s better than everyone else.
Honestly, I don’t.
But I do think I’m better than what everyone, besides my dad, told me I
was.
#
I wake up in a moment
of panic when the bus I’d boarded back at Heathrow jerks to a stop, sending the
book on my lap to the floor. Hastily retrieving it, I force my sleepy eyes to
take in the view from the floor-to-ceiling window in front of me. I chose the seat
on the upper level at the very front, wanting to devour every bit of English
countryside on the way to Oxford. Then I slept through it.
Pushing through the
fog in my head, I peer outside. A dingy bus stop in front of a generic cell
phone store. I look for a street sign, trying to get my bearings. My info
packet from the college said to get off at the Queens Lane stop on High Street.
This can’t be it. I glance behind me and no one on the bus is moving to get
off, so I settle back into my seat.
The bus starts up
again, and I breathe deeply, trying to wake up. I jam the book into my
backpack. I’d wanted to finish it before my first class tomorrow, but I can’t
focus. I was too excited to eat or sleep on the plane. My empty stomach and
all-nighter is catching up to me. The time difference is catching up to me. The
last twelve years spent striving for this moment is catching up to me.
Inside my jacket
pocket, my phone vibrates. I pull it out and see the same number from earlier.
I take a deep breath and preemptively answer, “Gavin, listen, I was thinking,
let’s do a trial period of, say, a month, and if you feel that I need to be
there –”
“Not necessary."
My throat tightens.
“Please, just give me thirty days to prove that –”
“It’s fine. I made it
work. Just remember who comes first.”
Elation breaks
through the fog. My fist clenches in victory and my smile reaches all the way
to my temples. “Absolutely,” I say in my most professional voice. “Thank you so
much for this opportunity. You won’t be disappointed.”
“I know that. That’s
why I hired you. What’s your fee? FYI: there’s no money.”
There’s never any
money. I tell him my fee anyway and we settle on something that I can live
with. The Rhodes is paying my tuition and lodging and I get a small stipend for
living expenses on top of that. I decide right then that what Gavin’s going to
pay me will go directly into my travel budget.
“Now, go,” he says,
“Have fun. You’ve clearly earned it. There’s a pub you should visit in the
center of town. The Turf. See where one of your fellow Rhodes Scholars – a
young William Jefferson Clinton – ‘didn’t’ inhale.”
“Ha, got it. Will
do.”
“Just take your phone
with you. Your phone is an appendage, not an accessory. Okay?”
I nod even though he
can’t see me. “Okay. It’s a plan.” Just as I say this, the bus rounds a bend
and there she is:
Oxford.
Beyond a picturesque
bridge, the narrow two-lane road continues into a bustling main street, lined
on each side by buildings with a hodge-podge of architectural styles, no room
to breathe between them. Like the crowd at the finish line of a marathon, these
buildings cheer me on, welcoming me to their city. Some are topped with sloped,
slate roofs, others with battlements. Some of the larger buildings have huge
wooden gates that look as if they were carved in place, a fusion of timeless
wood and stone that steals my breath. Maybe those doors lead to some of the 38
individual Oxford colleges? Imagining it, dreaming of it all these years,
doesn’t do it justice.
I look skyward.
Punctuating the horizon are the tips of other ancient buildings, high-points of
stone bordering the city like beacons.
“The City of Dreaming
Spires,” I murmur to myself.
“Indeed it is,” Gavin
says in my ear. I’d forgotten he was still on the line.
That’s what they call
Oxford. A title well deserved. Because that means, before it was my dream or
Seventeen Magazine girl’s dream, it was someone else’s dream as well.
Julia Whelan is a screenwriter, lifelong actor, and award-winning
audiobook narrator. She graduated with a degree in English and creative writing
from Middlebury College and Oxford University. While she was in England, her
flirtation with tea blossomed into a full-blown love affair, culminating in her
eventual certification as a tea master.
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