She met Trevor during her third week at St Andrews. From the moment the taxi dropped her off at McIntosh Hall, the town enchanted her. Cobblestone streets were crammed with narrow houses with bright orange roofs. Wooden planters were filled with pansies and shop windows displayed Shetland sweaters.
And the bicycles! Students left them propped against fire hydrants while they browsed inside Waterstones bookstore and ate eggs Benedict at Taste café. Kate bought a yellow bicycle and rode to Blackfriars Chapel and down to the sand dunes to watch the sunset.
The sunsets took her breath away. She’d look back at the town with the ruins of St Andrews Cathedral rising in the distance and St Andrews golf course laid out like a magic carpet and think the whole world consisted of stone turrets and picturesque shops and fishing boats bobbing in cozy inlets.
* * *
Kate hopped on her bicycle and rode down North Street. It was one of three medieval streets at the center of town and it was so narrow, she was afraid of getting sideswiped by a taxi.
Her college advisor had shown her the brochures for St Andrews. Her parents were hesitant: Kate was in the top ten of her class; she could have gone to UCLA or even Stanford. But when she read about the six-hundred-year-old university nestled in a fishing village on the North Sea, she didn’t want to go anywhere else.
Everything about St Andrews was new and exciting: the Botanic Gardens with its lush ferns and university museum filled with fifteenth-century artifacts. She spent whole afternoons admiring pottery in quaint galleries and exploring fishing villages on the Fife Coastal Path.
She waited at the stop sign and realized she forgot her math homework. She was in enough trouble with math; she couldn’t afford another bad grade. She turned back and parked her bicycle in front of Mitchells Deli.
A young man sat at the wooden table. His sandy hair fell over his forehead and he tapped on a calculator.
“Excuse me.” She approached him. “I left my binder here, did you see it?”
“It’s right here.” He took it out of his backpack.
“You took my homework?” Kate was startled.
“I was going to return it, your name is on the back.” He handed it to her. “I corrected it for you. You got most of the answers wrong.”
“Did I?” she said and sighed. “No one told me applied mathematics is completely different from what we learned in America. No matter how much I study, I can’t get it right.”
“Would you like help?” he asked.
“I can’t afford a tutor.” She shook her head. “I’ve used up my allowance.”
“I won’t charge you,” he answered, erasing a number on his paper.
Kate often had men offer to carry her bags at the airport, or allow her to cut in line at the supermarket when she was in a hurry and only had one item. But the offers usually came with a request for her phone number and phone calls asking her to dinner.
But he couldn’t be interested in her. He barely looked up, and she was wearing jeans and no makeup.
“You have your own homework,” she said. “Why would you want to help me for free?”
“It’s math,” he said simply. “I enjoy it.”
“All right, I’m Kate.” She smiled, relief flooding through her. She noticed his angular cheekbones and thin wrists beneath his shirt cuffs. “But let me buy you a plate of chips and Parmesan. It’s the best thing I’ve eaten since I arrived in Scotland.”
“Trevor.” He held out his hand. “And a plate of chips and Parmesan sounds great.”
* * *
Kate glanced at her watch and gasped. She had been listening to Trevor so closely, she hadn’t kept track of time.
“This has been wonderful, but I have to go.” She gathered her books. “I’m late for the Gilbert and Sullivan Society and then I have a meeting of the Music Is Love committee and tonight I’m assisting at the student film festival.”
“You have three events in one afternoon?” he asked. “Doesn’t that make your day a little crowded?”
“The societies are the best thing about St Andrews,” she countered. “You meet students from all over the world and become interested in subjects you never imagined. I also joined the Sherlock Society and Children’s Teddy Bear Society. We deliver teddy bears to local hospitals.”
“Charity work is worthwhile but most of it seems like a waste of time.” He shrugged. “If I want to study Sherlock Holmes, all I need is a book.”
“You must belong to some societies,” she urged. “How do you make friends?”
“I tried the Mathematics Society, but the members were more interested in drinking Hendrick’s gin at Sandy’s Bar,” he replied. “Most societies have members who spend Christmas holidays at a Scottish castle and summer vacations on large yachts. They have jobs waiting for them in family banks or trust funds large enough so they never work at all. Attending St Andrews is just moving the party from London and Surrey to their own private club on the North Sea.”
“I’ve never been to a castle and didn’t know a single person when I arrived,” Kate argued. “Everyone is friendly and I’m having so much fun.”
“You’re a pretty American; it’s different,” he said. “My father teaches science at a grammar school in York and my mother is a nurse. That hardly qualifies me to rub shoulders with guys who grew up on polo ponies and girls whose diamond earrings cost more than my parents’ house.”
“Why did you come to St Andrews if you don’t like anything about it?” She was suddenly angry.
“A few reasons,” he said thoughtfully. “The math program is internationally regarded, but it’s more than that. When I stand on the Old Course and gaze at the grass tinged with purple and yellow and the sun reflecting on the Castle Course Clubhouse, it’s the most beautiful place in the world.”
Trevor pushed his hair off his forehead and Kate noticed his eyes were brown and flecked with gold. Her voice softened and she smiled.
“The golf course is my favorite spot. Sometimes the light is perfect.” She stood up. “Thank you for your help. I’m sure I’ll see you again.”
“Kate,” Trevor called.
She turned around and he waved a paper in the air.
“You forgot your math.” He grinned. “It would be a shame not to turn it in. You got all the answers right.”
* * *
Kate sat at the desk in her dorm room and thumbed through a copy of Beowulf. It was past midnight and the moon glimmered on the playing fields. Footsteps clattered across the cobblestones and there was the sound of laughter.
She never needed much sleep; it was one of the reasons she excelled in high school. It wasn’t unusual for her to study for a chemistry exam until 2:00 a.m. or stay up all night reading F. Scott Fitzgerald.
There were so many things she loved to do at St Andrews that it was impossible to fit it all in. Just this evening, she welcomed a well-known Swedish film director and watched a performance of The Mikado.
She sipped a cup of lavender tea and heard a knock on her door. She pulled a fisherman’s sweater over her T-shirt and opened it.
“Trevor!” she exclaimed. “How did you get up here? The residence hall is locked after 10:00 p.m.”
“What a strange coincidence, I live down the hall.” He waved at a door. “You have a telephone call on the house phone.”
“A phone call?”
Her friends would call her cell phone and she’d already talked to her parents this evening.
“His name is Byron.” He handed her a notepad. “He said it was urgent.”
“His name isn’t actually Byron, it’s George.” She glanced at the note. “My bicycle got a flat tire and he pumped it up. He told me his whole life story: his father expects him to take over the family stock brokerage but he wants to be a poet,” she explained. “He asked where I lived, but I didn’t think he would call.”
“Would you like me to give him a message?” Trevor asked.
“Do you mind?” she wondered.
Kate sat cross-legged on the bed and waited for Trevor to return.
“It’s all fixed.” He entered her room. “He wrote a sonnet and wanted to deliver it to you in person. I told him you fell into a bush and got poison ivy.” He chuckled. “It is particularly bad and very contagious. If he wants to see for himself, he can come tomorrow. From the speed he hung up, I doubt you’ll be hearing from him again.”
“First you save my math homework and now you chase away would-be poets,” she laughed. “How can I thank you?”
Trevor rubbed his forehead and a smile crossed his face. “Follow me, I want to show you something.”
“I’m not dressed and it’s past midnight.” She pointed to her sweatpants and bare feet.
“No one will see us.” He opened the door. “Trust me, it will be worth it.”
* * *
They strode across the quad and climbed the steps of a stone building with a domed roof. Trevor pushed open double doors and she followed him inside.
The foyer had a tile floor and rounded plaster walls. Trevor started up a spiral staircase and Kate suddenly panicked. What was she doing alone with a stranger in the middle of the night?
“Don’t look so alarmed.” He waved his flashlight. “It’s perfectly safe.”
Kate wanted to say she wasn’t worried about falling and breaking her neck, she was afraid he was going to kiss her. But he had behaved like a gentleman. And if she were wrong, they’d both be embarrassed.
They reached a landing with floor-to-ceiling windows and a domed ceiling. Trevor pointed and she gasped. The space was taken up by the biggest telescope she had ever seen.
“You asked me why I came to St Andrews and this is one of the reasons.” His eyes sparkled. “The James Gregory Telescope is the largest telescope in the United Kingdom and is being used to study extrasolar planets.”
“It’s amazing!” She admired its gleaming surfaces. “I’ve always wanted a telescope. In Santa Barbara, my favorite thing to do is lie on the beach and look up at the stars.”
“Somehow, I knew you’d appreciate it.” His smile was as wide as a boy’s. “Look through the camera.”
Kate squinted into the lens and the stars were so close, it was like looking through the wrong end of a kaleidoscope. The sky was milky velvet and the moon was a golden ball.
“You should join the Astronomy Society.” Kate turned to Trevor. “They meet at the observatory every Wednesday. Once a month they have a pudding and hot chocolate social.”
“I’d much rather use the telescope when no one is here.” He shrugged. “Astronomy is like math, it’s best appreciated alone.”
“You brought me here,” she reminded him.
“Friends are important,” he said slowly. “But it has to be someone you have a connection with, not because your names are on the same lists. You’re different.”
“Different?” she wondered.
“You care about your grades. Your light is on in the middle of the night because you’re studying, not because you’re passed out and forgot to turn it off.” He paused. “You love the sunsets on the Old Course and you’re not afraid to leave your dorm at midnight and try something new.”
“Those are the qualifications for a friend?” she laughed.
“They are for me,” he said seriously.
Kate gazed out the window at stars that looked like a diamond necklace and thought St Andrews was even better than she imagined. She turned back to Trevor and felt light and happy.
“They are for me too.”
* * *
Kate sipped her brandy and gazed out the window of her suite at Claridge’s. Hyde Park was lit with twinkling lights and she could see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.
What had it been like to be eighteen and not have made any mistakes? She shouldn’t have accepted Trevor’s invitation. But he agreed not to talk about the past and it would be nice to sit in an elegant restaurant and talk about London and New York.
She entered the bedroom and slipped on a robe. The four-poster bed had monogrammed sheets and royal-blue pillowcases. A beveled mirror rested against the wall and Tiffany lamps stood on walnut bedside tables.
Now wasn’t the time to think about Trevor; she had to concentrate on Christmas Dinner at Claridge’s. She climbed into bed and flicked on her laptop. It would be impossible to sleep. At least she could catch up on her work.