Blues in the Bod [2/5]
Saturday, 3 September 2011 10:39![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extemporallySubject: AUDITION FOR The Real Thing!
From: Duncan Jones
Date: 17 January 2011 13:01
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Dear Merton,
As Nick Cave said, GET READY FOR LOVE… in the form of a play I’ll be putting up this term, hopefully with your cooperation. I’ll be directing Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing this term and I want you, that’s right you, to audition. We’ll be putting on the play at the end of Week 8 so we haven’t got much time. Chop chop! Auditions will be running end of this week. Get yer arse to this Doodle poll: http://doodle.com/k74y9dkjs9085098qxc and tell us when we may expect to be graced with your theatrical presence. Ps, it would be a bonus if you learnt at least some lines before turning up. Aren’t you lot all supposed to have photographic memories anyway? That’s how you get away with blagging tutorials.
It was be amazing. It will be legen-wait for it-dary. It will be, as they say, The Real Thing.
See you there or be FOREVER SQUARE. xxxx
Duncan ‘Zowie’ Jones
President of the Merton Menagerie (Drama Society)
---
"Did you get the email?" Carey asked, when Andrew opened his door.
"The email, not the email, not the one I've been looking for all my life, no," Andrew said. "What's up?"
"Zowie's putting on another play this term," Carey said. "And I do mean, this term - and he wants to put on The Real Thing, which is three hours long."
"Wow," Andrew said. “Ambitious.”
"I know," Carey replied.
There seemed to be nothing more to be said. Zowie (who officially went by the name of Duncan Jones) was a rather manic Philosophy finalist who'd taken a year out previously to serve in a sabbatical position at the Student Union. Neither Andrew nor Carey had been around then, but they were assured that his “strictly non-hierarchical” reign had been, in Ellen's words, "legendary". Now he was back in college he spent most of his time wandering around in a college hoodie, holding a mug of coffee and muttering things like "Kant". Andrew and Carey were slightly frightened of him.
There was a pause.
"We've got to audition for this play."
"I knew you'd say that," Carey said, grinning. "Shall we get to the EFL?"
"Good idea to read the play before auditioning," Andrew said approvingly.
"Who said anything about reading?" Carey said. Andrew looked at her. "I know the play already. What I meant was... get all available copies of the play so we crush our competition with their ignorance."
Andrew laughed. Nervously. Carey was joking. At least, he hoped she was joking.
---
Subject: Columbia Welcome Tea
From: Ellen Page
Date: 17 January 2011 16:09
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Hello Merton.
I'm sure you've noticed a couple of new Columbia students in our midst, in addition to the ones who've stayed on from last term. To welcome them, we are having a WELCOME TEA this week in Columbia's very own Columbia House, which if you didn't already know is at 65 High Street (opposite Magdalen and next to Cafe Rendezvous). Tea will be on Thursday at 4 pm, so be there sharpish or you'll miss out on the tea, coffee, biscuits, baguette, smoked salmon and the ever-present hummus. There may even be American sweets.
See you there!
Ellen
Ellen Page
Merton College International Students' Rep
Since Andrew had successfully badgered Jesse into giving him his number, he felt no compunctions whatsoever about texting him the next day at nine in the evening, saying, I’m bored. G&D’s?
He went down High Street to pick Jesse up, shivering when he walked outside. He shoved his hands into his pockets. Given it was the end of January, it was still unreasonably cold. Perhaps ice cream hadn’t been the best idea.
Columbia House (as it was popularly known) was opposite Magdalen on High Street, marked out with a red door.
“Hi!” Andrew said, when Jesse opened the door. “I’m sorry for pestering you at such short notice, but I was reading Bleak House and absolutely couldn’t stand it any more, and needed a study break asap. It really is quite selfish of me, I’m afraid.”
“It’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done,” Jesse said. “How will anyone ever forgive you?”
Andrew laughed. Once you got used to all the deadpan expressions, Jesse was the funniest person he’d ever met. “I’m imagining you were embarking on a cure for cancer or something of the sort when I texted, of course.”
Jesse laughed. “Actually, I was lounging around in my underwear catching up on the last series of Doctor Who,” he confessed.
“Exactly as I thought,” Andrew said solemnly. “Stomach cancer.” Then he started wondering if Jesse wore briefs or boxers, good Lord, and that was the kind of inappropriate image he didn’t need to be having.
“So,” Jesse said. “What’s G&D’s?”
Andrew gasped. “Do you mean to say you’ve not heard of G&D’s?” he asked a little incredulously. “Oh my word.”
“I was raised by wolves,” Jesse said. “American ones. Sorry.”
“It’s an ice-cream parlour,” Andrew explained. “They’ve got four branches all over Oxford and the D stands for something different each time, the one we’re going to is Danver but I know they’ve got a Delilah near Wellington Square, I don’t really know what the other two are, and it’s all homemade and wait’ll you see the flavours, they’ve got a Daim bar crunch.”
“Sounds good,” Jesse said. “What does G stand for?”
“George.”
They walked on in silence for a while.
“Oh! I meant to ask you,” Andrew said. “Are you auditioning for the play?”
“The Real Thing?” Jesse asked. Andrew nodded. “I filled out the Doodle poll, yeah. Also… maybe it’s just me, but this Duncan guy seems a bit… intense.”
Andrew burst out laughing. “He’s sort of earned his reputation based on being intense, yeah,” Andrew said. “Have you met him?”
“Not that I know of, but I see lots of people around in college whose names I don’t really know. Is his middle name really Zowie?”
“He’s the guy who wanders around in a Merton hoodie all the time,” Andrew informed him. “His hair’s all mussed up and he’s always drinking from this hip flask which Ellen once told me was cold coffee. I don’t think she was kidding.”
“Oh!” Recognition dawned in Jesse’s eyes. “The guy who looks like he’s about forty?”
“The prematurely grey guy, yeah.”
“Emma and I wondered who he was but we didn’t want to ask,” Jesse said. “We thought maybe he was the head of the student chapter of the political wing here, or something.”
“Chair of the Labour Club, d’you mean?” Andrew said. “Well, I’ve never quite thought of Zowie in that light but now that you mention it, I can sort of see it. No one’s actually sure if Zowie’s his actual middle name, come to think of it. I mean he definitely has a middle name that starts with Z on his Bod card, I saw it once when he was in front of me in the hall queue, but no one can quite bring themselves to believe in Zowie. Who’s Emma?”
“Emma’s – oh, I can’t believe you haven’t met Emma,” Jesse said. “She’s one of my best friends here in Oxford, she’s come over from Columbia too. She said she wanted to come for Litsoc? She didn’t manage to finish her paper in time, though.”
“Oh, that Emma,” Andrew said. “I’ll have to meet her sometime, she sounds lovely. Like Carey; she’s my best friend here.”
“She’s sort of like my equivalent of Carey, then,” Jesse said, smiling.
“Then she must be perfect and a goddess,” Andrew said in all seriousness, and pushed open the door to the G&D’s.
Inside it was warm and smelled of sugar and fruit and cream. No one had got around to taking down the Christmas lights that the staff had put up last term yet, and they twinkled at the window as people sat around small round tables talking cheerfully, their coats off and scarves, unwound from around their necks, hung on the back of their chairs. Andrew inhaled ecstatically, and turned to Jesse. “Maybe ice cream isn’t the best idea in this weather,” he said to him, “but they’ve got hot chocolate and bagels too, if you like.”
“What are you having?” Jesse asked.
“Mmm, maybe some ice cream after all,” Andrew said, licking his lips, and stuttered on his next breath when Jesse’s eyes flickered down. “P-plenty of time to get warm, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Jesse said. “Oh look, they’ve got a flavour called Oxford Blue. Is that blueberry?”
“It is, yeah, but it’s crap. I tried it the first time I came here and badmouthed G&D’s for the next couple of weeks until I came here again and had a perfectly nice ice cream.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Daim bar crunch, please,” he said to the help staff behind the counter, who was giving Andrew a politely filthy look for calling their ice-cream anything less than impeccable.
“Now that’s more like it,” Andrew said. “I’ll have passionfruit, please.”
---
Subject: Merton Mag – SUBMISSIONS REQUIRED
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 18 January 2011 09:23
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Hello JCR,
It’s Andrew again, sorry for not restricting my emails to you to the socially-sanctioned once-a-week ‘LitSoc at 5!’ ones.
Anyway, if you were paying attention, in my last email I mentioned something about a literary magazine. That’s right… the MERTON MAG will be making its debut this term, and we need you!
Who: all of you!
What: submissions to the literary magazine! Anything, any kind: book reviews, poetry, musings on music, short stories, excerpts from your novel-in-progress (we’ve all got one tucked away somewhere), your new groundbreaking theory of literary criticism, cryptic crosswords, knock-knock jokes… if you have something that might be in doubt re: inclusion shoot me an email and we’ll talk it out.
Why: fun and joy and peace and laughter
Where: what’d you mean, where?
How: by submitting something... send them to this email address
When: end of week 4 of this term.
Right, I think that’s all covered… I’ll probably send you all another email the week before the deadline just to remind you to get off your arses. Remember: PLEASE SUBMIT SOMETHING! Your rockstar literary career starts now.
x
A.
Andrew Garfield
President of the Merton College Literary Society
---
At 3.55 pm on Thursday Andrew got up from the library and hightailed it to Columbia House for tea, which he didn’t want to miss because Welcome Teas were notoriously legend. Someone let him in when he pressed the buzzer and led him up to the welfare room, where there were a couple of people already scattered around the room. Keira was there, talking to a girl who looked startlingly like her about police violence in an animated voice. Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew too spotted Zowie explaining the rules of rugby to another boy.
They were all, though, definitely moving towards the tea table. Andrew had his eye on them.
“Hi!” he said brightly to the pretty red-haired girl standing around the bookcase flipping through a back issue of The New Yorker, whom he assumed was one of the exchange students. “Do you know where Jesse is?”
“Jesse’s actually having his History of London class now, but he’ll be coming soon,” the girl told him, looking a bit puzzled. Andrew supposed it wasn’t every day that people wandered in from High Street and started demanding the whereabouts of one Jesse Eisenberg. “Oh! Are you Andrew?”
“That I am,” Andrew agreed cheerfully. “And you’ve got to be… wait, don’t tell me, let me guess with my psychic abilities… Emma!”
“I am her,” Emma agreed. She was dressed in red jeans and a very old t-shirt that said San Diego Zoo on it and was quite possibly the prettiest girl Andrew had ever met, after Carey. “And I’ve heard about you, it’s nice to meet the man behind the myth.”
“Hope I measure up,” Andrew said cheerily, as she led him into the JCR. “I thought Jesse was doing architecture?”
“Oh, he is,” Emma said. “We just have some different classes, same as when we’re over in Columbia. We all have to do a Gender and Media one, and then we choose something else. I’m doing Philosophy of Science this quarter.”
“And you major in?”
“I’m a History major.”
“Interesting,” Andrew said. “Which part?”
“England in the Regency,” Emma said. “Coming here to do my year abroad was a no-brainer really.”
“I love the Regency,” Andrew said. “I assume you’ve read Georgette Heyer.”
“I love her!” Emma said. “I never meet anyone who says they love her, they usually just turn their noses up at me and tell me Jane Austen’s the real thing, which yes, but that’s so not the point –”
Some people seemed to have decided it was socially acceptable to start pouring the tea. Andrew tried not to lunge too obviously at the tea table, in case it made him look weird or anything.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked Emma.
“It’s fine,” she said, smiling at him. Her accent was really sharp. “But help yourself! I brought the Twinkies.”
“You’re a goddess,” he told her fervently, ripping open a plastic packet. “My dad used to buy them when he went to the States? But my mother put an embargo on them – said they were bad for you or some such thing, and anyway my father hasn’t been back for years.”
“Is he from the US then?” Emma said.
“Yes,” Andrew said, giving her his best smile. “I’m a dual citizen.”
“Well, that’s convenient!” Emma said, then waved at someone over his shoulder. Andrew turned. It was Jesse, just come in and walking towards them.
“Hey, Jess,” Emma said. Andrew wondered if everyone called him that or if it was just a thing he and Emma had, if he’d ever be allowed to call Jesse Jess.
“Hey,” Jesse said. “I see you’ve chosen the best location in the room.”
Andrew grinned and nodded. “Pretty much, yeah,” he said, tearing into another Twinkie. He held the small yellow cake up. “Want some?”
“Aren’t those supposed to never go bad, not even after years?” Jesse said, something in his voice approaching horror.
Andrew laughed. “Really? That’s disgusting.” He took a bite anyway. “Mmmmm.”
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?" Andrew asked Matt.
Matt fiddled with his bow tie (deep maroon, today). "Nah," he says. "I'm busy this term."
"What with?"
"I’m just," he waved one of his oversized hands vaguely, "busy."
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?" Andrew asked Karen. He wasn’t expecting the way she went googly-eyed with incredulity, but he enjoyed it anyway.
"And suffer under Duncan Jones' directorial tyranny? Are you codding me?"
"Harsh words,” Andrew said gleefully. "Also, your Scotland is showing."
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Ellen said, tossing an orange up and down, "I don’t act.”
---
"Are you going to try out for The Real Thing?"
Leehom didn't answer, so Andrew tapped him on the shoulder.
He watched as Leehom hefted the humongous headphones off his head, the earpieces round and circumaural. "What did you say?"
"… never mind," Andrew said. "Where did you get that headset? It's amazing.”
"Seinheiser," Leehom said. "Three hundred seventy pound including VAT. This is the flagship model and has a talk-through function and a noiseguard system." Andrew listened to Leehom wax ten minutes nonstop on the virtues of his headphones.
"Right," Andrew said. "I'll, I’ll put it on the Christmas list, then."
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?"
"No," Keira said.
"Why not?"
"I haven't got two hours a day three times a week and that's how often Duncan wants to rehearse," she said. "Sorry Andrew, can't talk, I have a pro bono clinic in fifteen minutes."
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?"
Jay stared blankly at him for fifteen seconds. "What's The Real Thing,” he said finally.
Put like that, it sounded very existential.
---
"I don't get it," Andrew said. "Why doesn't anyone want to audition for The Real Thing?"
"They must think you're his publicity co-ordinator, with the number of people you've asked in the past hour or so," Carey said. They were in hall. She clicked her tongue against her teeth in concentration as she investigated her fishcakes just to make sure there were absolutely no bones.
"You don't have to do that," Andrew told her. "They're fishcakes. Do you not know what that means?"
"I had a bad experience once," Carey said.
Andrew wasn't paying attention. Like a beam of sunlight that had sneaked through the library window while you were still studying, Jesse and Emma had come into the hall. "Jesse!" he shouted, waving his hand. "Guys!"
Emma heard him first and smiled, walking over to them with her tray held in front. "How are you doing, Mr Garfield?" she said.
"Good! Good," Andrew said. "We were just discussing the state of contemporary drama."
"Oh?" Emma said, sitting down next to Andrew. Up close he could see the way her eyeliner, probably applied with an expert flick of the wrist, ended in a perfect calligraphic upstroke.
Jesse took his place diagonally across him, and Andrew smiled at him. "Hey, Jesse," he said.
“Hey,” Jesse said. “Is this about The Real Thing?”
“Oh my word you can read minds!” Andrew said. “Yes it is, I’ve been asking up and down all day and no one wants to audition. You’re auditioning, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
“I am,” Jesse said. “I even got the personalized email from Duncan today – I’m not sure? but I think he was vaguely threatening actual bodily harm if I didn’t show up.”
“I’ve been taking a random straw poll –”
“Of people who’ll talk to him,” Carey interjected, and Andrew gave her a mock glare.
“A random straw poll,” he continued, “and have come to the conclusion that absolutely no one is auditioning.”
“I am!” Emma said brightly. “Love Tom Stoppard.”
“I mean besides us four,” Andrew said. “I’m trying to decide if that’s good or bad.”
“Good” Carey said, just as Jesse said, “Bad.” Carey beamed as Jesse winced.
“Oh my god,” Andrew said, delighted. “We should run a Symposium debate about this.”
“No,” Jesse said.
“Can’t we have a consensual, non-hierarchical discussion-not-debate instead?” Emma said. “Debating’s so competitive.” She shuddered. “All those blazers and index cards – I mean, there’s a reason I’m a drama kid.”
---
Subject: Litsoc at 5!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 11:49
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Dear Merton,
Litsoc will be happening in the Ackroyd Room today. Please bring pen (for writing), paper (for writing also), and mug (for tea).
Love,
Andrew
Andrew Garfield
President of the Merton College Literary Society
---
By the end of the week Andrew was informed that he had got into the play after all. So had Carey and Jesse and Emma, which was a fact both delightful and completely unsurprising – they’d all had their auditions one after another, and then Duncan had left without saying anything about other auditionees. It had seemed pretty conclusive from that.
Subject: FIRST CAST MEETING AND READ-THROUGH
From: Duncan Jones
Date: 23 January 2011 13:39
To: Carey Mulligan , Emma Stone , Jesse Eisenberg , Andrew Garfield
Hello all,
Congratulations on being selected. What will follow will be the most strenuous and gratifying weeks of your life (beating even Freshers' Week) as we follow each other on Tom Stoppard's theatrical journey. (That lad.)
We'll be holding a first cast meeting and read-through this Friday at 7 pm outside in my room (Staircase 4, Room 7). I'm trying not to scare you off at the outset so tea will be provided. Actually, scratch that - if this doesn't scare you off, nothing will. We'll want rehearsals three times a week two hours each, with them running a bit longer on weekends. Send me your timetables so I can coordinate (tutorials you obviously can't miss, lectures you may be coerced into skipping - as for other activities, perish the thought.)
See you there.
Duncan x
Duncan Jones
President of the Merton Drama Society (Menagerie)
---
"Don't you find it creepy how he signs off on all these threats with an 'x'?" Andrew asked, despairing.
"Everyone does that, Andrew, god," Carey said, clicking away from her email. "Anyway, he was quite nice really."
"Oh, right," Andrew said disbelievingly, and put on a kind of bellow he believed was supposed to approximate to Duncan's voice. "REHEARSALS THREE TIMES A WEEK! TWO HOURS EACH! LONGER ON WEEKENDS! FORGET EATING, SLEEPING, OR HAVING A SOCIAL LIFE!"
"We did sign up for it really," Carey said. "Anyway I've memorized all my lines already so it shouldn't be too difficult."
Andrew gasped and shot up from Carey's bed, where he'd been lying. "You have not!"
Carey cackled. "I haven't," she admitted. "Worth it to see the look on your face, though."
---
"Right, then," Duncan said. "Does anyone have any staging ideas that I will pick up on or discard at my will?"
They'd just been through a read-through and it'd gone quite well. Contrary to what both Carey and Jesse had tried to tell him, no one had had their script memorized yet, so they were all on the same page. (Literally, even.) Andrew could tell this was going to be brilliant.
"Yes," Andrew said brightly. "I was thinking that we could get Henry shirtless at some point." Besides him, Jesse choked on what Andrew assumed was air.
"Hm," Duncan regarded him from under his beetly brows. "Interesting choice."
"How about not?" Jesse said, like he'd never been so mortified in his life.
"We need to capitalize on our strengths," Andrew insisted earnestly.
"And you think the best way of doing that would be to objectify our cast members?" Duncan asked.
Andrew nodded.
Duncan looked thoughtful. "Young man, I like the way your mind works."
"But when would I even do that?" Jesse insisted. "It's not as though I'm going to start stripping off halfway through -" he scanned the script. “‘Annie nods. Henry makes train noises.’ You can’t expect me to be naked and make train noises.”
"Ah, loads of references to sex in there, we can fit it in somewhere I'm sure," Duncan said, waving an airy hand. “Andrew my boy, I believe you’ve hit on something fundamental to sold-out opening nights.” He paused, for dramatic effect. “CAST NUDITY!”
He opened his eyes. The cast (Andrew included) were all staring at him, mouths slightly open. He beamed, slightly maniacally. “Right, that’s about it I believe. I’ve got an essay for tomorrow. Out you go.”
"Oh my god," Jesse muttered, as Duncan shooed them all out. "I hate you."
"No you don't," Andrew said, beaming. "You love me really."
2nd week
Subject: sign up for LGBTQ crewdate
From: Simon Amstell
Date: 22 January 2011 19:18
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Hey everyone.
LGBTQ Crew Date this Wednesday. Wadham and Univ. Dinner at At Thai. £14, BYOB. Then weekly drinks. Then getting with people (hopefully). Should be massive.
Anyone welcome. RSVP by Monday.
Cheers,
Simon
Simon Amstell
Merton College LGBTQ Rep
Subject: (none)
From: Carey Mulligan
Date: 22 January 2011 19:30
To: Andrew Garfield
CREW DATE CREW DATE. Are you going?
Subject: re:
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:01
To: Carey Mulligan
Do you not remember what happened last term?
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re:
From: Carey Mulligan
Date: 22 January 2011 20:14
To: Andrew Garfield
Yes, I do remember, and yes, I found it hilarious. You should repeat the experience. And ask Jesse.
Subject: re: re: re:
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:15
To: Carey Mulligan
It was not my fault! I blame Ellen.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: re:
From: Carey Mulligan
Date: 22 January 2011 20:17
To: Andrew Garfield
Well, Ellen isn’t in charge any more, so you should go without fear. And ask Jesse. Failing which, get with Simon Amstell. Doesn’t he look disturbingly like Jesse, anyway?
Subject: re: re: re: re: re:
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:18
To: Carey Mulligan
I hate you.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:20
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Do you want to go to the crew date? It’s an Oxford tradition. Can’t have you missing out on traditions while you’re here.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:25
To: Andrew Garfield
I’ll have to talk to lots of new people, won’t I?
Jesse
Subject: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:28
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Yes, but you’ll be so smashed (sorry, English word for drunk) it won’t matter. I realise that isn’t the best selling point, but Carey will be there too?
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:31
To: Andrew Garfield
Sounds just delightful.
Jesse
Subject: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:32
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Does that mean you’re going? :)))))))))))))
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:33
To: Andrew Garfield
If I don’t, it means I’ll just have spent fifteen minutes in the library emailing you instead of rushing my paper – sorry, essay – on a Saturday night only to not have to add this fascinating item to my social calendar. Yes, I guess I’m going.
Jesse
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:35
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Excellent. You’re in the library? I’m in the library too! COME FIND ME.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:35
To: Andrew Garfield
Can’t, I have a paper due. I’ve promised myself no breaks until I hit the 5-page mark.
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:36
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Ah, cheers to essay crises – what are you, new? Don’t answer that question.
Wait, when’s your paper due? Monday?
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:37
To: Andrew Garfield
Tuesday.
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:37
To: Jesse Eisenberg
That is emphatically MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME. I’m coming for you before you sweat yourself an ulcer. See you in a few!
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
---
Subject: re: sign up for LGBTQ crewdate
From: Carey Mulligan
Date: 22 January 2011 20:30
To: Simon Amstell
Going! – C
Subject: re: sign up for LGBTQ crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 21:40
To: Simon Amstell
Hi, I’d like a space, see you there, thanks.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: sign up for LGBTQ crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 21:42
To: Simon Amstell
Dear Simon,
I’m going on the crew date. Hope it will be “massive”.
Yours sincerely,
Jesse Eisenberg
---
The thing about being in college, Andrew decided, was that it gave your life a shape you could never have imagined whilst being out of it, a kind of frenetic pace that made every day count even as it was blurring into a sort of… day-shaped blur. And at the end you were left reckoning up the minutes and wondering how they had all managed to fall into the lower bulb of the hourglass when the individual grain of time had seemed so enormous while it was upon you.
In between mucking around and auditioning for a play and writing essays, Andrew visited Columbia House.
“Hi!” he said brightly to the guy with a crew cut who opened the door and peered out at him. “Do you know where Jesse is?”
“Jesse!” the guy said. “Do you mean Jesse Eisenberg?”
Andrew blinked. “Is there more than one Jesse?”
“No,” the guy admitted, and motioned for him to come in. “You’re probably looking for him, then. I don’t know where he is.”
“I’m Andrew,” Andrew said.
“Justin. Has young Jesse been making friends then, eh?”
“Young?” Andrew asked.
“Oh, I’m the junior dean here,” the guy said. “My name’s Justin. Or you can call me J.T., if you want. Sit down! Come to the JCR. Make yourself comfortable, but not too comfortable.”
“Are you a PhD student, then?” Andrew asked politely. Junior deans usually were.
“What? Oh, yeah, yeah, I study sometimes,” Justin said, as if it were a lifestyle choice. “Mostly I pretend to look after my fellow Americans while they’re here. The sudden freedom of an over-18 policy on alcohol, you know…” he winked.
“Ah,” Andrew said. This JT guy was pretty weird.
Someone entered the room; Andrew turned to look. “Emma!” he said, relieved.
“Hey, Andrew,” Emma said. Today she was wearing a purple frock. “What’s up?”
“I like your dress,” Andrew said, and Emma beamed. “I’m not doing anything, Jesse said I should feel free to come over whenever, so this is a sort of impromptu visit, I’m afraid –”
“Yo, dude, don’t you know, Jesse’s never around this time of the day,” Justin said.
“Oh,” Andrew said sadly, half-rising to go. “Maybe I – I should go?”
“No no no, stay!” Emma said, pushing Andrew down again. She smiled sweetly at Justin. “I think Jesse has a class now, but he’ll be here very soon. Won’t he, Justin?”
“I don’t want to interrupt anything –” Andrew said, uncertain. Emma was still glare-smiling at Justin.
“You’re interrupting nothing,” she said firmly. “And while we wait for Mr Eisenberg to make an appearance, you can talk to me… unless you’d rather not?”
Justin threw up his hands. “I can see when I’m not needed,” he remarked to no one in particular, and left the room.
“Uh,” Andrew said. “Is he all right?”
“He’s just kind of a jerk sometimes,” Emma said. “It’s actually probably my fault; I kind of yelled at him last night.”
“I’m sorry,” Andrew said.
---
Fifteen minutes later Jesse poked his head in. “Emma –” he said, and broke off upon seeing Andrew. “Oh, hi, Andrew.”
“How are you?”
“Good, thank you,” Jesse said, smiling like he had a secret. It was the best smile in the world, Andrew decided. “And yourself?”
“Now that I’m here in your fine house, I’m excellent, thank you.”
“Are you really?”
“Oh! yes, yes, without a doubt. I can feel its mystical powers filling me up,” Andrew rambled. “Also, I found out that Emma is a –”
“Nooooo,” Emma said mournfully, dropping her head onto her arms. “I should have known you were going to start spreading it around.”
“Is this a huge secret?” Andrew said delightedly, trying to raise the single, arch eyebrow. He’d never been good at it, though. Both his eyebrows shot up of their own accord.
Emma grinned. “No, he already knows.”
Jesse was looking from him to her. “What do I already know?”
“Emma is a fake redhead.”
“Oh,” Jesse said. “Yeah, I know that, I was around when she dyed her hair for the first time. I think she’s hoping that if she dyes her hair enough she’ll eventually stop being a natural blonde.”
Emma groaned. “There’s no way to say this elegantly, right?” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, you’ve got bottle blonde. You could have bottle brunette. But ‘fake redhead’? There isn’t even any cool alliteration to that!”
“There’s a sort of assonance, though,” Andrew remarked. “A weird-fitting rhyme.”
Emma laughed. “I’m putting that on Facebook,” she said. “’A weird-fitting rhyme’. What day is it today?”
“Wednesday,” Andrew said reproachfully, and turned to Jesse. “Actually, I was just telling Emma about the farmer’s market they do every Wednesday, and we decided that we might go there, if you want? I know it’s a bit early –” it was only eleven – “but they close early, and they’ve got the best momos.”
“And fruit,” Emma added.
“Lovely strawberries,” Andrew added. “I don’t know where they get them in January, must be hothoused or flown in from thousands of miles away, makes me feel quite bad if I think about the carbon footprint, but oh no, that can’t be right can it, strawberries aren’t tropical… Anyway. We can go. Now, if you’re keen. Can I ask Carey?”
“Sure,” Jesse said. “That’d be nice.”
As Andrew whipped out his phone to call her he saw Emma whispering something into Jesse’s mop of curls and then giggling. She looked at Andrew fondly, though, so that was probably all right.
“Right,” Andrew said as he got off the phone. “Carey’s coming, she says she’ll meet us there. Ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Jesse said.
---
Someone had once described the air in Oxford as being like fine champagne. Andrew wasn’t sure about that – he’d had fine champagne at a New Year’s Eve party once, and the air in Oxford today more than anything else seemed bracing – but there was something to it, the way he felt drunk on possibility and learning while he was here. Today he felt drunk on possibility and Jesse.
“I will be so disappointed if you don’t like these,” he told Jesse as they stood in the queue for momos. “Just saying, though. There’s no pressure.”
“Good to know,” Jesse told him. He gave Andrew an assessing look. “You eat these every Wednesday, don’t you?”
Behind them in the line, Carey snuffled with laughter. “Oh, you don’t know!” she told them. “I’m actually surprised it’s taken him so long to bring you here, there was a period last term when he wouldn’t eat anything else but momos on Wednesdays, and then he got so embarrassed at placing such a large order that he made me buy them for him.”
“And she was crap at it,” Andrew said, helpfully hooking his chin over her shoulder.
“He’s just cross because afterwards I told him the woman said, ‘Tell your friend to enjoy these,’ and he believed me and got all paranoid.”
Jesse and Emma cracked up.
“They’re just really good dumplings, all right?”
--
Later Andrew wandered up to Jesse while he was inspecting the bananas set out carefully. Carey and Emma were by the vegetables chatting intently; judging by the amount of gesturing that was taking place in relation to the parsnips, Andrew supposed Carey was explaining them to Emma. “I wish I had a banana tree,” he said mournfully.
“And a coconut one?” Jesse said.
“You read my mind. And maybe a mango tree as well.”
“And a papaya tree.”
“A strawberry tree.”
“An essay tree.”
“An Arcade Fire tree.”
“A – what’s an arcade fire? I mean, beyond the obvious answer.”
“Oh, they’re a band, they’re really good, have you not heard of them?” Andrew watched Jesse wrinkle up his face in concentration with some fondness.
“Sort of,” Jesse said.
“You have to listen to them, I’ll send you some of their songs. Maybe,” Andrew said, struck by sudden inspiration, “I could make you a mix.”
“Awesome,” Jesse said. “No one’s, uh, no one’s ever made me a mix before.”
“I’ve never made a mix for anyone,” Andrew said (ridiculous! Come to think of it! When the prospect of doing so was making his heart bang so stupidly against his ribcage now!), and smiled at him.
Over by the vegetables, the girls had seemingly moved onto leeks; Carey was making a face while Emma tucked two of them into her basket.
“Guess what I used to do as a kid?” Jesse said.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Andrew told him. “You’ll have to enlighten me.”
“Possibly this is, uh, possibly this is connected to why no one’s ever made me a mixtape, but when I was a kid my hobby was pulling the spools out of cassettes.”
“Did you really?”
“I really did,” Jesse said seriously. “My parents came home once to find their music collection eviscerated.”
“Oh my word,” Andrew said, delighted. “Another chapter in the juvenile delinquency of Jesse James Eisenberg.”
“That’s me exactly,” Jesse agreed. “Living on the edge, and so on.”
“That’s the best thing ever, though,” Andrew told him. “Hey, did you know that if you trace words on a banana with a toothpick they’ll turn up brown on the peel some days later?”
“That’s excellent,” Jesse said. “I will have to make use of that at some point.”
“Does Emma like bananas?” Andrew asked innocently.
“Yes…”
“So just supposing you bought a bunch of bananas,” Andrew said. “Would it be quite likely that she might wander into the kitchen in pursuit of one of said bananas?”
“Leaning towards the probable on the scale of plausibility, yes,” Jesse agreed.
Amongst much giggling, a bunch of the ripest bananas was ceremoniously deposited into Jesse’s shopping basket.
---
Subject: i made you a mixtape!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 25 January 2011 15:03
To: Jesse Eisenberg
… well, sort of. I made this one virtual so you can't spoil (spool? bad joke) it. Link here:
It’s a PALINDROMIC mixtape, which I’m rather proud of. Side one here, side two here.
You don't have to listen to it all, I just thought this was a collection of songs you might like, despite only liking songs with a plot.
Andrew xxx
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: i made you a mixtape!
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 25 January 2011 16:37
To: Andrew Garfield
Contrary to popular belief, I do listen to music that has no plot. My favourite band is Ween and I like Bjork's soundtrack for Dancer in the Dark - wait, no, those are both sort of plotty. Huh.
So far I'm really enjoying the Mountain Goats' song (the first one, I mean).
Jesse
PS. Emma found out about the bananas. She wasn’t impressed. Actually, she just said, “I know that’s your handwriting, jackass.” I told her it was your idea.
Subject: re: re: i made you a mixture!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 25 January 2011 16:39
To: Jesse Eisenberg
I thought you might like that one! I haven't listened to all the Mountain Goats songs there are (since there are about 5000 of them) but you'd like that album, I think. It's a concept one, about a treatment facility for young boys.
Kind of jealous of you, by the way, for getting to listen to all these amazing songs for the first time.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
PS. Oh no! God, take some responsibility, Eisenberg.
Subject: re: re: re: i made you a mixtape!
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 25 January 2011 16:57
To: Jesse Eisenberg
And for having a mixtape put together by someone of such superior taste?
Jesse
PS. No. She hates you now.
Subject: re: re: re: re: i made you a mixtape!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 25 January 16:58
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Now you're learning.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
PS. I’m not going to dignify that with a response.
---
The next evening Andrew got dressed for the crew date feeling considerably excited. They were going to meet at the Merton lodge and walk up together, and Andrew was quite sure he could contrive to sit near Jesse, and even if he didn’t manage it Andrew thought it would be quite nice to shoot him pleased looks down the long table.
Also, he was always down for Thai food.
“Ello, Ellen,” he said as he arrived. “I haven’t seen you in ages, and demand a reason as to Why.”
“I’ve been locked up in the labs over the last week, you know how it is,” Ellen said. “I missed you too! What is new in the life of Garfield?”
“Did you know that there’s a comic strip called Garfield minus Garfield?” he told her. “My life is sort of like that these days, except with Garfield. Cos that’s me. Obviously.”
“Sometimes you make no sense whatsoever,” Ellen said. She was wearing eyeliner and a black dress ripped at the sleeves and above her knees. “And thanks – though I think just one will do. So, how is your epic unrequited mancrush on Jesse going?”
“We’re getting there,” Andrew told her seriously.
Ellen narrowed her eyes. “Details, please.”
“Well, I – oh, hello, new people,” Andrew said, breaking off as he saw both Carey and Jesse arrive, each toting a bottle of the finest student-priced red from Oddbins.
It was a nice crowd at At Thai – you could always tell who the crew daters were, it was impossible to not be able to tell from the tables hastily pushed together to form a long one, as well as the general rowdiness.
Carey clutched at Andrew’s arm as they came in. “I know her!” she whispered, tipping her chin at a dark-haired girl who was either sullen or swaggering, Andrew couldn’t quite tell which. “She’s Kristen, you know, at the Gender Campaign…”
“Oh, there’s a Gender Campaign here in Oxford?” Jesse asked her, looking impressed.
Carey beamed. “Yes,” she said. “This year we’re focusing on Eliminating Violence Against Women. Would you be interested in getting involved?”
“Sure,” Jesse said, before Simon whisked them away to sit next to people who weren’t from their college. Ellen ended next up to Kristen, the swaggery girl, and seemed to know her already (they exchanged hi-fives), and Carey across from an androgynous boy named Miyavi.
Andrew, through sly and subtle machinations, had managed to get a seat across from Jesse, next to a cute Taiwanese girl who introduced herself as Hebe.
“Oh, look,” he said delightedly to Jesse. “What are you doing here, stranger?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said, completely straight-faced. “My friend made me come along. I think he wouldn’t stop whining until I did.”
---
That’s The Way We Get By, Spoon
Andrew realised halfway through the crew date that it was… really not going very badly at all, and that he’d actually been expecting it to go badly. The last time he’d attended a crew date, it’d been his first. He tells everyone the funny side of it; the part he can make an anecdote out of, that Ellen had drunk him under the table, literally under the table. He’d been so drunk, and that had been the first time, he must have not been used to it, because he had gone back to his two-week old room and cried.
This, this was okay. Jesse seemed to be enjoying himself too. Well, in a way where every so often he would very carefully check that the way to the exit was clear, although Andrew thought that was probably a deeply-ingrained habit rather than a real desire to escape.
Andrew had noticed that sometimes Jesse didn’t seem to quite inhabit his body, his shoulders and mouth doing what he thought they should instead of what he was. It was hard to explain, and Andrew wasn’t certain if he was right about this theory, but he was fairly confident about it.
(No one could prove it, that he’d taken studying Jesse, so Jesse didn’t notice the scrutiny, down to an art.)
Today Jesse was all there, talking to Hebe easily and making her laugh, and he caught Andrew looking at him, perhaps because Andrew had had his reflexes slowed by the cheap wine. Jesse raised his eyebrows at him, easy but tentative underneath that.
Andrew had this, though. Smiling, he leaned forward, hooked his foot around Jesse’s ankle, and watched his eyes go wide. Then he dropped the penny he’d had in his hand ready for the purpose into Jesse’s wineglass.
“There!” he said, satisfied, pulling back.
(No one could say anything, either, about the fact that he’d left his foot tucked around Jesse’s a moment longer than strictly necessary; the ridged velvet of the corduroy warm with Jesse’s body heat, the feeling strangely adult.)
Jesse raised his eyebrows. “Can I get an exemption on this? On the grounds of being American.”
“All the more reason,” Hebe chimed in, and Andrew giggled.
“I’m American,” Jesse said, looking bemused. “Aren’t I, uh, supposed to stomp all over your obsolete customs?”
“Down it, fresher!” someone called from down the table, and everyone erupted into wolf-whistles and cheers. Everyone else in the restaurant probably hated them.
“I’m not a fresher,” Jesse said, a blush spreading on his face from cheekbone to chin.
“Might as well be,” Andrew said. “You’re – you’re newer than a fresher, is what you are.”
Jesse rolled his eyes. “Do I, uh, I, uh, have to stand up for this?” he asked. Andrew realised that the flush on his cheeks wasn’t just embarrassment, maybe. It maybe accounted for his relaxed posture, the way he could look at Andrew, tonight, without blinking first.
“No,” Andrew said. He could tell that the room would start to spin when he next stood up. He smirked. “Just down it, fresher.”
Jesse capitulated and reached for his wineglass; Andrew noted with want and interest the underside of wrist he exposed to the world, fingers splayed against the bowl of the glass before he drained it in a single gulp, and was plucking the copper disc out of the glass and handing it to Andrew with wine-stained fingers.
“Keep it,” Andrew told him. “It’s yours now. Penny someone else – just not me.”
“I don’t believe in tit-for-tat,” Jesse told him, but he dropped the penny on the table, next to his plate.
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world out here,” Andrew told him as seriously as he could, which wasn’t very since he was quite sure he was drunk-drawling. “I mean a sconce-penny-sconce one.”
“I sconce everyone who’s got with anyone in Babylove!” someone shouted, and nearly everyone (Jesse was an exception) groaned and stood up and drank.
---
The room was definitely spinning when Andrew sat back down. He wobbled a little, and Jesse leaned forward in his chair. “Andrew –”
“M’fine,” Andrew muttered, then looked at Jesse properly, so hard his face was starting to blur. “Jesse?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you having a good time?”
Jesse gave a soft snuffle of laughter. “Pretty good, yeah.”
“That’s good,” Andrew murmured. “That’s the best.”
“I sconce everyone who loves musicals,” someone roared, and this time Jesse had to get up, too, and drink some wine.
“Jesse?” Andrew asked, when Jesse sat again.
“Mmm?”
“Are you drunk?”
Jesse appeared to take that question quite seriously. “I… think I am,” he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Not as drunk as you are, though.”
Andrew thought that made sense. No one could be as drunk as him. “NO ONE CAN BE AS DRUNK AS ME,” he proclaimed, spreading his arms as wide as they could go around the crowded table. Carey glanced over at him and clearly decided he must have been all right, because she just smiled.
“You’re a champion, Andrew Garfield,” Jesse Eisenberg said.
“Jesse?”
“Yeah?” Hebe had started talking to Daniel, the guy next to Jesse. Andrew felt a flash of guilt for neglecting them.
“How drunk are you?”
“It’s hard to tell,” Jesse said. His mouth was very red. “I’m too drunk to tell.”
“Enough to let go?”
“Enough to –” Jesse smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could cuddle right now?”
Jesse paused. “I don’t know,” he said.
“I get all touchy-feely when I’m drunk,” Andrew said seriously.
“That makes for a change,” Jesse said.
“Ahahaha,” Andrew said. “That’s actually funny. You’re a funny person, Jesse Eisenberg, did you know that?”
“I did not know that,” Jesse said. “Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” Andrew said, resting his head on the table beside his plate. “Anytime you need telling, I can say it again.”
---
Maybe You Can Owe Me, Architecture in Helsinki
Jesse walked Andrew home when he decided, after the meal, that he was too drunk to drag himself to drinks, or to enjoy them or remember the event, and Jesse volunteered to be his escort.
“I’m so sorry!” Andrew said. “You don’t have to walk me home, come on.”
“No, no,” Jesse said, “I want to go home.”
“That’s even woooooorse,” Andrew wailed with the particular levity, and frankness, of the drunk. “Because did you have a crap night?”
“No! no, it was good,” Jesse said. He seemed to be sobering up rapidly on the walk through the cold whereas it made Andrew feel even drunker, like the air in Oxford really was made of champagne. “I’ve just run out of social goodwill, you know?”
“Like a wind-up toy,” Andrew said. “Ahaha. Jesse James, Toy Story.”
“Like that, yeah.”
“Except that you’re far more interesting.”
“Well – well – I’m glad you think that, I –”
“Shhh,” Andrew said, and tried put his finger on the rosy seam of Jesse’s lips, was grateful when he managed it, his aim wasn’t the best right now. He felt Jesse brought up short by it but couldn’t bring himself to think about that. “I’m gonna listen,” he told Jesse, “and remember it all, and tomorrow when I’m not so drunk I’m gonna, gonna interpret it and understand –”
They’d been walking all this time they’d been talking. Wasn’t it amazing, how people managed to multitask on a daily basis, walking and talking and breathing and, like, photosynthesising, without tripping over their feet or losing their breath? Andrew was marvelling over that when he could get past the woolly stuff his brain had turned into, to think. Was this what it was like to be Jesse? To, to have so much trouble with his hands and shoulders and feet. Even though Andrew had seen him act.
“Drunk me is like you-you,” Andrew told Jesse, and Jesse didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” he says, and Andrew said, that was all right, he didn’t have to understand.
“You’re my friend,” he said, “that’s a big deal.” And because he was so grateful he had Jesse in his life, who was fast overtaking Carey to become his new favourite person (though maybe they both were his favourites, in different, different ways) he flung his arms around Jesse just as they were outside his door and snuffled into the slope between his neck and shoulder.
“Uh,” Jesse said to the world.
“Thanks for being a frieeeeend,” Andrew said happily. Jesse – you wouldn’t think it, maybe but Jesse was warm, a surprisingly good hugger. At least once he got it into his mind to put his arms right back around Andrew and squeeze hard.
“You’re welcome,” Jesse said. “I can see that you’re very thankful.”
“And very drunk,” Andrew said, lifting his head to look into Jesse’s eyes, peering into his face to decipher the expression there –
Jesse stepped away and Andrew didn’t fall over, but it was a near thing.
“And very drunk,” Jesse agreed. “Well, here you are. Good night, and drink lots of water.”
“Yes, mum,” Andrew muttered, and tried several times to fit his key into the lock before succeeding and flinging himself on the bed. The feel of the mattress under his spine, he decided dimly, was the new sensation of the century.
He heard the pssh of a tap being opened, the clonk of a mug being put on the table next to his head, and the feeling of his coat being tugged from his arms. He even registered being made to drink some tap water, cool and lacerated with fluoride, but it wasn’t till the door closed behind Jesse that Andrew registered that Jesse had been here and now he was really gone.
3/5
From: Duncan Jones
Date: 17 January 2011 13:01
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Dear Merton,
As Nick Cave said, GET READY FOR LOVE… in the form of a play I’ll be putting up this term, hopefully with your cooperation. I’ll be directing Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing this term and I want you, that’s right you, to audition. We’ll be putting on the play at the end of Week 8 so we haven’t got much time. Chop chop! Auditions will be running end of this week. Get yer arse to this Doodle poll: http://doodle.com/k74y9dkjs9085098qxc and tell us when we may expect to be graced with your theatrical presence. Ps, it would be a bonus if you learnt at least some lines before turning up. Aren’t you lot all supposed to have photographic memories anyway? That’s how you get away with blagging tutorials.
It was be amazing. It will be legen-wait for it-dary. It will be, as they say, The Real Thing.
See you there or be FOREVER SQUARE. xxxx
Duncan ‘Zowie’ Jones
President of the Merton Menagerie (Drama Society)
---
"Did you get the email?" Carey asked, when Andrew opened his door.
"The email, not the email, not the one I've been looking for all my life, no," Andrew said. "What's up?"
"Zowie's putting on another play this term," Carey said. "And I do mean, this term - and he wants to put on The Real Thing, which is three hours long."
"Wow," Andrew said. “Ambitious.”
"I know," Carey replied.
There seemed to be nothing more to be said. Zowie (who officially went by the name of Duncan Jones) was a rather manic Philosophy finalist who'd taken a year out previously to serve in a sabbatical position at the Student Union. Neither Andrew nor Carey had been around then, but they were assured that his “strictly non-hierarchical” reign had been, in Ellen's words, "legendary". Now he was back in college he spent most of his time wandering around in a college hoodie, holding a mug of coffee and muttering things like "Kant". Andrew and Carey were slightly frightened of him.
There was a pause.
"We've got to audition for this play."
"I knew you'd say that," Carey said, grinning. "Shall we get to the EFL?"
"Good idea to read the play before auditioning," Andrew said approvingly.
"Who said anything about reading?" Carey said. Andrew looked at her. "I know the play already. What I meant was... get all available copies of the play so we crush our competition with their ignorance."
Andrew laughed. Nervously. Carey was joking. At least, he hoped she was joking.
---
Subject: Columbia Welcome Tea
From: Ellen Page
Date: 17 January 2011 16:09
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Hello Merton.
I'm sure you've noticed a couple of new Columbia students in our midst, in addition to the ones who've stayed on from last term. To welcome them, we are having a WELCOME TEA this week in Columbia's very own Columbia House, which if you didn't already know is at 65 High Street (opposite Magdalen and next to Cafe Rendezvous). Tea will be on Thursday at 4 pm, so be there sharpish or you'll miss out on the tea, coffee, biscuits, baguette, smoked salmon and the ever-present hummus. There may even be American sweets.
See you there!
Ellen
Ellen Page
Merton College International Students' Rep
Since Andrew had successfully badgered Jesse into giving him his number, he felt no compunctions whatsoever about texting him the next day at nine in the evening, saying, I’m bored. G&D’s?
He went down High Street to pick Jesse up, shivering when he walked outside. He shoved his hands into his pockets. Given it was the end of January, it was still unreasonably cold. Perhaps ice cream hadn’t been the best idea.
Columbia House (as it was popularly known) was opposite Magdalen on High Street, marked out with a red door.
“Hi!” Andrew said, when Jesse opened the door. “I’m sorry for pestering you at such short notice, but I was reading Bleak House and absolutely couldn’t stand it any more, and needed a study break asap. It really is quite selfish of me, I’m afraid.”
“It’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done,” Jesse said. “How will anyone ever forgive you?”
Andrew laughed. Once you got used to all the deadpan expressions, Jesse was the funniest person he’d ever met. “I’m imagining you were embarking on a cure for cancer or something of the sort when I texted, of course.”
Jesse laughed. “Actually, I was lounging around in my underwear catching up on the last series of Doctor Who,” he confessed.
“Exactly as I thought,” Andrew said solemnly. “Stomach cancer.” Then he started wondering if Jesse wore briefs or boxers, good Lord, and that was the kind of inappropriate image he didn’t need to be having.
“So,” Jesse said. “What’s G&D’s?”
Andrew gasped. “Do you mean to say you’ve not heard of G&D’s?” he asked a little incredulously. “Oh my word.”
“I was raised by wolves,” Jesse said. “American ones. Sorry.”
“It’s an ice-cream parlour,” Andrew explained. “They’ve got four branches all over Oxford and the D stands for something different each time, the one we’re going to is Danver but I know they’ve got a Delilah near Wellington Square, I don’t really know what the other two are, and it’s all homemade and wait’ll you see the flavours, they’ve got a Daim bar crunch.”
“Sounds good,” Jesse said. “What does G stand for?”
“George.”
They walked on in silence for a while.
“Oh! I meant to ask you,” Andrew said. “Are you auditioning for the play?”
“The Real Thing?” Jesse asked. Andrew nodded. “I filled out the Doodle poll, yeah. Also… maybe it’s just me, but this Duncan guy seems a bit… intense.”
Andrew burst out laughing. “He’s sort of earned his reputation based on being intense, yeah,” Andrew said. “Have you met him?”
“Not that I know of, but I see lots of people around in college whose names I don’t really know. Is his middle name really Zowie?”
“He’s the guy who wanders around in a Merton hoodie all the time,” Andrew informed him. “His hair’s all mussed up and he’s always drinking from this hip flask which Ellen once told me was cold coffee. I don’t think she was kidding.”
“Oh!” Recognition dawned in Jesse’s eyes. “The guy who looks like he’s about forty?”
“The prematurely grey guy, yeah.”
“Emma and I wondered who he was but we didn’t want to ask,” Jesse said. “We thought maybe he was the head of the student chapter of the political wing here, or something.”
“Chair of the Labour Club, d’you mean?” Andrew said. “Well, I’ve never quite thought of Zowie in that light but now that you mention it, I can sort of see it. No one’s actually sure if Zowie’s his actual middle name, come to think of it. I mean he definitely has a middle name that starts with Z on his Bod card, I saw it once when he was in front of me in the hall queue, but no one can quite bring themselves to believe in Zowie. Who’s Emma?”
“Emma’s – oh, I can’t believe you haven’t met Emma,” Jesse said. “She’s one of my best friends here in Oxford, she’s come over from Columbia too. She said she wanted to come for Litsoc? She didn’t manage to finish her paper in time, though.”
“Oh, that Emma,” Andrew said. “I’ll have to meet her sometime, she sounds lovely. Like Carey; she’s my best friend here.”
“She’s sort of like my equivalent of Carey, then,” Jesse said, smiling.
“Then she must be perfect and a goddess,” Andrew said in all seriousness, and pushed open the door to the G&D’s.
Inside it was warm and smelled of sugar and fruit and cream. No one had got around to taking down the Christmas lights that the staff had put up last term yet, and they twinkled at the window as people sat around small round tables talking cheerfully, their coats off and scarves, unwound from around their necks, hung on the back of their chairs. Andrew inhaled ecstatically, and turned to Jesse. “Maybe ice cream isn’t the best idea in this weather,” he said to him, “but they’ve got hot chocolate and bagels too, if you like.”
“What are you having?” Jesse asked.
“Mmm, maybe some ice cream after all,” Andrew said, licking his lips, and stuttered on his next breath when Jesse’s eyes flickered down. “P-plenty of time to get warm, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Jesse said. “Oh look, they’ve got a flavour called Oxford Blue. Is that blueberry?”
“It is, yeah, but it’s crap. I tried it the first time I came here and badmouthed G&D’s for the next couple of weeks until I came here again and had a perfectly nice ice cream.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Daim bar crunch, please,” he said to the help staff behind the counter, who was giving Andrew a politely filthy look for calling their ice-cream anything less than impeccable.
“Now that’s more like it,” Andrew said. “I’ll have passionfruit, please.”
---
Subject: Merton Mag – SUBMISSIONS REQUIRED
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 18 January 2011 09:23
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Hello JCR,
It’s Andrew again, sorry for not restricting my emails to you to the socially-sanctioned once-a-week ‘LitSoc at 5!’ ones.
Anyway, if you were paying attention, in my last email I mentioned something about a literary magazine. That’s right… the MERTON MAG will be making its debut this term, and we need you!
Who: all of you!
What: submissions to the literary magazine! Anything, any kind: book reviews, poetry, musings on music, short stories, excerpts from your novel-in-progress (we’ve all got one tucked away somewhere), your new groundbreaking theory of literary criticism, cryptic crosswords, knock-knock jokes… if you have something that might be in doubt re: inclusion shoot me an email and we’ll talk it out.
Why: fun and joy and peace and laughter
Where: what’d you mean, where?
How: by submitting something... send them to this email address
When: end of week 4 of this term.
Right, I think that’s all covered… I’ll probably send you all another email the week before the deadline just to remind you to get off your arses. Remember: PLEASE SUBMIT SOMETHING! Your rockstar literary career starts now.
x
A.
Andrew Garfield
President of the Merton College Literary Society
---
At 3.55 pm on Thursday Andrew got up from the library and hightailed it to Columbia House for tea, which he didn’t want to miss because Welcome Teas were notoriously legend. Someone let him in when he pressed the buzzer and led him up to the welfare room, where there were a couple of people already scattered around the room. Keira was there, talking to a girl who looked startlingly like her about police violence in an animated voice. Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew too spotted Zowie explaining the rules of rugby to another boy.
They were all, though, definitely moving towards the tea table. Andrew had his eye on them.
“Hi!” he said brightly to the pretty red-haired girl standing around the bookcase flipping through a back issue of The New Yorker, whom he assumed was one of the exchange students. “Do you know where Jesse is?”
“Jesse’s actually having his History of London class now, but he’ll be coming soon,” the girl told him, looking a bit puzzled. Andrew supposed it wasn’t every day that people wandered in from High Street and started demanding the whereabouts of one Jesse Eisenberg. “Oh! Are you Andrew?”
“That I am,” Andrew agreed cheerfully. “And you’ve got to be… wait, don’t tell me, let me guess with my psychic abilities… Emma!”
“I am her,” Emma agreed. She was dressed in red jeans and a very old t-shirt that said San Diego Zoo on it and was quite possibly the prettiest girl Andrew had ever met, after Carey. “And I’ve heard about you, it’s nice to meet the man behind the myth.”
“Hope I measure up,” Andrew said cheerily, as she led him into the JCR. “I thought Jesse was doing architecture?”
“Oh, he is,” Emma said. “We just have some different classes, same as when we’re over in Columbia. We all have to do a Gender and Media one, and then we choose something else. I’m doing Philosophy of Science this quarter.”
“And you major in?”
“I’m a History major.”
“Interesting,” Andrew said. “Which part?”
“England in the Regency,” Emma said. “Coming here to do my year abroad was a no-brainer really.”
“I love the Regency,” Andrew said. “I assume you’ve read Georgette Heyer.”
“I love her!” Emma said. “I never meet anyone who says they love her, they usually just turn their noses up at me and tell me Jane Austen’s the real thing, which yes, but that’s so not the point –”
Some people seemed to have decided it was socially acceptable to start pouring the tea. Andrew tried not to lunge too obviously at the tea table, in case it made him look weird or anything.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked Emma.
“It’s fine,” she said, smiling at him. Her accent was really sharp. “But help yourself! I brought the Twinkies.”
“You’re a goddess,” he told her fervently, ripping open a plastic packet. “My dad used to buy them when he went to the States? But my mother put an embargo on them – said they were bad for you or some such thing, and anyway my father hasn’t been back for years.”
“Is he from the US then?” Emma said.
“Yes,” Andrew said, giving her his best smile. “I’m a dual citizen.”
“Well, that’s convenient!” Emma said, then waved at someone over his shoulder. Andrew turned. It was Jesse, just come in and walking towards them.
“Hey, Jess,” Emma said. Andrew wondered if everyone called him that or if it was just a thing he and Emma had, if he’d ever be allowed to call Jesse Jess.
“Hey,” Jesse said. “I see you’ve chosen the best location in the room.”
Andrew grinned and nodded. “Pretty much, yeah,” he said, tearing into another Twinkie. He held the small yellow cake up. “Want some?”
“Aren’t those supposed to never go bad, not even after years?” Jesse said, something in his voice approaching horror.
Andrew laughed. “Really? That’s disgusting.” He took a bite anyway. “Mmmmm.”
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?" Andrew asked Matt.
Matt fiddled with his bow tie (deep maroon, today). "Nah," he says. "I'm busy this term."
"What with?"
"I’m just," he waved one of his oversized hands vaguely, "busy."
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?" Andrew asked Karen. He wasn’t expecting the way she went googly-eyed with incredulity, but he enjoyed it anyway.
"And suffer under Duncan Jones' directorial tyranny? Are you codding me?"
"Harsh words,” Andrew said gleefully. "Also, your Scotland is showing."
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Ellen said, tossing an orange up and down, "I don’t act.”
---
"Are you going to try out for The Real Thing?"
Leehom didn't answer, so Andrew tapped him on the shoulder.
He watched as Leehom hefted the humongous headphones off his head, the earpieces round and circumaural. "What did you say?"
"… never mind," Andrew said. "Where did you get that headset? It's amazing.”
"Seinheiser," Leehom said. "Three hundred seventy pound including VAT. This is the flagship model and has a talk-through function and a noiseguard system." Andrew listened to Leehom wax ten minutes nonstop on the virtues of his headphones.
"Right," Andrew said. "I'll, I’ll put it on the Christmas list, then."
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?"
"No," Keira said.
"Why not?"
"I haven't got two hours a day three times a week and that's how often Duncan wants to rehearse," she said. "Sorry Andrew, can't talk, I have a pro bono clinic in fifteen minutes."
---
"Are you auditioning for The Real Thing?"
Jay stared blankly at him for fifteen seconds. "What's The Real Thing,” he said finally.
Put like that, it sounded very existential.
---
"I don't get it," Andrew said. "Why doesn't anyone want to audition for The Real Thing?"
"They must think you're his publicity co-ordinator, with the number of people you've asked in the past hour or so," Carey said. They were in hall. She clicked her tongue against her teeth in concentration as she investigated her fishcakes just to make sure there were absolutely no bones.
"You don't have to do that," Andrew told her. "They're fishcakes. Do you not know what that means?"
"I had a bad experience once," Carey said.
Andrew wasn't paying attention. Like a beam of sunlight that had sneaked through the library window while you were still studying, Jesse and Emma had come into the hall. "Jesse!" he shouted, waving his hand. "Guys!"
Emma heard him first and smiled, walking over to them with her tray held in front. "How are you doing, Mr Garfield?" she said.
"Good! Good," Andrew said. "We were just discussing the state of contemporary drama."
"Oh?" Emma said, sitting down next to Andrew. Up close he could see the way her eyeliner, probably applied with an expert flick of the wrist, ended in a perfect calligraphic upstroke.
Jesse took his place diagonally across him, and Andrew smiled at him. "Hey, Jesse," he said.
“Hey,” Jesse said. “Is this about The Real Thing?”
“Oh my word you can read minds!” Andrew said. “Yes it is, I’ve been asking up and down all day and no one wants to audition. You’re auditioning, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
“I am,” Jesse said. “I even got the personalized email from Duncan today – I’m not sure? but I think he was vaguely threatening actual bodily harm if I didn’t show up.”
“I’ve been taking a random straw poll –”
“Of people who’ll talk to him,” Carey interjected, and Andrew gave her a mock glare.
“A random straw poll,” he continued, “and have come to the conclusion that absolutely no one is auditioning.”
“I am!” Emma said brightly. “Love Tom Stoppard.”
“I mean besides us four,” Andrew said. “I’m trying to decide if that’s good or bad.”
“Good” Carey said, just as Jesse said, “Bad.” Carey beamed as Jesse winced.
“Oh my god,” Andrew said, delighted. “We should run a Symposium debate about this.”
“No,” Jesse said.
“Can’t we have a consensual, non-hierarchical discussion-not-debate instead?” Emma said. “Debating’s so competitive.” She shuddered. “All those blazers and index cards – I mean, there’s a reason I’m a drama kid.”
---
Subject: Litsoc at 5!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 11:49
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Dear Merton,
Litsoc will be happening in the Ackroyd Room today. Please bring pen (for writing), paper (for writing also), and mug (for tea).
Love,
Andrew
Andrew Garfield
President of the Merton College Literary Society
---
By the end of the week Andrew was informed that he had got into the play after all. So had Carey and Jesse and Emma, which was a fact both delightful and completely unsurprising – they’d all had their auditions one after another, and then Duncan had left without saying anything about other auditionees. It had seemed pretty conclusive from that.
Subject: FIRST CAST MEETING AND READ-THROUGH
From: Duncan Jones
Date: 23 January 2011 13:39
To: Carey Mulligan , Emma Stone , Jesse Eisenberg , Andrew Garfield
Hello all,
Congratulations on being selected. What will follow will be the most strenuous and gratifying weeks of your life (beating even Freshers' Week) as we follow each other on Tom Stoppard's theatrical journey. (That lad.)
We'll be holding a first cast meeting and read-through this Friday at 7 pm outside in my room (Staircase 4, Room 7). I'm trying not to scare you off at the outset so tea will be provided. Actually, scratch that - if this doesn't scare you off, nothing will. We'll want rehearsals three times a week two hours each, with them running a bit longer on weekends. Send me your timetables so I can coordinate (tutorials you obviously can't miss, lectures you may be coerced into skipping - as for other activities, perish the thought.)
See you there.
Duncan x
Duncan Jones
President of the Merton Drama Society (Menagerie)
---
"Don't you find it creepy how he signs off on all these threats with an 'x'?" Andrew asked, despairing.
"Everyone does that, Andrew, god," Carey said, clicking away from her email. "Anyway, he was quite nice really."
"Oh, right," Andrew said disbelievingly, and put on a kind of bellow he believed was supposed to approximate to Duncan's voice. "REHEARSALS THREE TIMES A WEEK! TWO HOURS EACH! LONGER ON WEEKENDS! FORGET EATING, SLEEPING, OR HAVING A SOCIAL LIFE!"
"We did sign up for it really," Carey said. "Anyway I've memorized all my lines already so it shouldn't be too difficult."
Andrew gasped and shot up from Carey's bed, where he'd been lying. "You have not!"
Carey cackled. "I haven't," she admitted. "Worth it to see the look on your face, though."
---
"Right, then," Duncan said. "Does anyone have any staging ideas that I will pick up on or discard at my will?"
They'd just been through a read-through and it'd gone quite well. Contrary to what both Carey and Jesse had tried to tell him, no one had had their script memorized yet, so they were all on the same page. (Literally, even.) Andrew could tell this was going to be brilliant.
"Yes," Andrew said brightly. "I was thinking that we could get Henry shirtless at some point." Besides him, Jesse choked on what Andrew assumed was air.
"Hm," Duncan regarded him from under his beetly brows. "Interesting choice."
"How about not?" Jesse said, like he'd never been so mortified in his life.
"We need to capitalize on our strengths," Andrew insisted earnestly.
"And you think the best way of doing that would be to objectify our cast members?" Duncan asked.
Andrew nodded.
Duncan looked thoughtful. "Young man, I like the way your mind works."
"But when would I even do that?" Jesse insisted. "It's not as though I'm going to start stripping off halfway through -" he scanned the script. “‘Annie nods. Henry makes train noises.’ You can’t expect me to be naked and make train noises.”
"Ah, loads of references to sex in there, we can fit it in somewhere I'm sure," Duncan said, waving an airy hand. “Andrew my boy, I believe you’ve hit on something fundamental to sold-out opening nights.” He paused, for dramatic effect. “CAST NUDITY!”
He opened his eyes. The cast (Andrew included) were all staring at him, mouths slightly open. He beamed, slightly maniacally. “Right, that’s about it I believe. I’ve got an essay for tomorrow. Out you go.”
"Oh my god," Jesse muttered, as Duncan shooed them all out. "I hate you."
"No you don't," Andrew said, beaming. "You love me really."
2nd week
Subject: sign up for LGBTQ crewdate
From: Simon Amstell
Date: 22 January 2011 19:18
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Hey everyone.
LGBTQ Crew Date this Wednesday. Wadham and Univ. Dinner at At Thai. £14, BYOB. Then weekly drinks. Then getting with people (hopefully). Should be massive.
Anyone welcome. RSVP by Monday.
Cheers,
Simon
Simon Amstell
Merton College LGBTQ Rep
Subject: (none)
From: Carey Mulligan
Date: 22 January 2011 19:30
To: Andrew Garfield
CREW DATE CREW DATE. Are you going?
Subject: re:
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:01
To: Carey Mulligan
Do you not remember what happened last term?
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re:
From: Carey Mulligan
Date: 22 January 2011 20:14
To: Andrew Garfield
Yes, I do remember, and yes, I found it hilarious. You should repeat the experience. And ask Jesse.
Subject: re: re: re:
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:15
To: Carey Mulligan
It was not my fault! I blame Ellen.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: re:
From: Carey Mulligan
Date: 22 January 2011 20:17
To: Andrew Garfield
Well, Ellen isn’t in charge any more, so you should go without fear. And ask Jesse. Failing which, get with Simon Amstell. Doesn’t he look disturbingly like Jesse, anyway?
Subject: re: re: re: re: re:
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:18
To: Carey Mulligan
I hate you.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:20
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Do you want to go to the crew date? It’s an Oxford tradition. Can’t have you missing out on traditions while you’re here.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:25
To: Andrew Garfield
I’ll have to talk to lots of new people, won’t I?
Jesse
Subject: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:28
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Yes, but you’ll be so smashed (sorry, English word for drunk) it won’t matter. I realise that isn’t the best selling point, but Carey will be there too?
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:31
To: Andrew Garfield
Sounds just delightful.
Jesse
Subject: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:32
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Does that mean you’re going? :)))))))))))))
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:33
To: Andrew Garfield
If I don’t, it means I’ll just have spent fifteen minutes in the library emailing you instead of rushing my paper – sorry, essay – on a Saturday night only to not have to add this fascinating item to my social calendar. Yes, I guess I’m going.
Jesse
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:35
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Excellent. You’re in the library? I’m in the library too! COME FIND ME.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:35
To: Andrew Garfield
Can’t, I have a paper due. I’ve promised myself no breaks until I hit the 5-page mark.
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:36
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Ah, cheers to essay crises – what are you, new? Don’t answer that question.
Wait, when’s your paper due? Monday?
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 20:37
To: Andrew Garfield
Tuesday.
Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 20:37
To: Jesse Eisenberg
That is emphatically MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME. I’m coming for you before you sweat yourself an ulcer. See you in a few!
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
---
Subject: re: sign up for LGBTQ crewdate
From: Carey Mulligan
Date: 22 January 2011 20:30
To: Simon Amstell
Going! – C
Subject: re: sign up for LGBTQ crewdate
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 22 January 2011 21:40
To: Simon Amstell
Hi, I’d like a space, see you there, thanks.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: sign up for LGBTQ crewdate
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 22 January 2011 21:42
To: Simon Amstell
Dear Simon,
I’m going on the crew date. Hope it will be “massive”.
Yours sincerely,
Jesse Eisenberg
---
The thing about being in college, Andrew decided, was that it gave your life a shape you could never have imagined whilst being out of it, a kind of frenetic pace that made every day count even as it was blurring into a sort of… day-shaped blur. And at the end you were left reckoning up the minutes and wondering how they had all managed to fall into the lower bulb of the hourglass when the individual grain of time had seemed so enormous while it was upon you.
In between mucking around and auditioning for a play and writing essays, Andrew visited Columbia House.
“Hi!” he said brightly to the guy with a crew cut who opened the door and peered out at him. “Do you know where Jesse is?”
“Jesse!” the guy said. “Do you mean Jesse Eisenberg?”
Andrew blinked. “Is there more than one Jesse?”
“No,” the guy admitted, and motioned for him to come in. “You’re probably looking for him, then. I don’t know where he is.”
“I’m Andrew,” Andrew said.
“Justin. Has young Jesse been making friends then, eh?”
“Young?” Andrew asked.
“Oh, I’m the junior dean here,” the guy said. “My name’s Justin. Or you can call me J.T., if you want. Sit down! Come to the JCR. Make yourself comfortable, but not too comfortable.”
“Are you a PhD student, then?” Andrew asked politely. Junior deans usually were.
“What? Oh, yeah, yeah, I study sometimes,” Justin said, as if it were a lifestyle choice. “Mostly I pretend to look after my fellow Americans while they’re here. The sudden freedom of an over-18 policy on alcohol, you know…” he winked.
“Ah,” Andrew said. This JT guy was pretty weird.
Someone entered the room; Andrew turned to look. “Emma!” he said, relieved.
“Hey, Andrew,” Emma said. Today she was wearing a purple frock. “What’s up?”
“I like your dress,” Andrew said, and Emma beamed. “I’m not doing anything, Jesse said I should feel free to come over whenever, so this is a sort of impromptu visit, I’m afraid –”
“Yo, dude, don’t you know, Jesse’s never around this time of the day,” Justin said.
“Oh,” Andrew said sadly, half-rising to go. “Maybe I – I should go?”
“No no no, stay!” Emma said, pushing Andrew down again. She smiled sweetly at Justin. “I think Jesse has a class now, but he’ll be here very soon. Won’t he, Justin?”
“I don’t want to interrupt anything –” Andrew said, uncertain. Emma was still glare-smiling at Justin.
“You’re interrupting nothing,” she said firmly. “And while we wait for Mr Eisenberg to make an appearance, you can talk to me… unless you’d rather not?”
Justin threw up his hands. “I can see when I’m not needed,” he remarked to no one in particular, and left the room.
“Uh,” Andrew said. “Is he all right?”
“He’s just kind of a jerk sometimes,” Emma said. “It’s actually probably my fault; I kind of yelled at him last night.”
“I’m sorry,” Andrew said.
---
Fifteen minutes later Jesse poked his head in. “Emma –” he said, and broke off upon seeing Andrew. “Oh, hi, Andrew.”
“How are you?”
“Good, thank you,” Jesse said, smiling like he had a secret. It was the best smile in the world, Andrew decided. “And yourself?”
“Now that I’m here in your fine house, I’m excellent, thank you.”
“Are you really?”
“Oh! yes, yes, without a doubt. I can feel its mystical powers filling me up,” Andrew rambled. “Also, I found out that Emma is a –”
“Nooooo,” Emma said mournfully, dropping her head onto her arms. “I should have known you were going to start spreading it around.”
“Is this a huge secret?” Andrew said delightedly, trying to raise the single, arch eyebrow. He’d never been good at it, though. Both his eyebrows shot up of their own accord.
Emma grinned. “No, he already knows.”
Jesse was looking from him to her. “What do I already know?”
“Emma is a fake redhead.”
“Oh,” Jesse said. “Yeah, I know that, I was around when she dyed her hair for the first time. I think she’s hoping that if she dyes her hair enough she’ll eventually stop being a natural blonde.”
Emma groaned. “There’s no way to say this elegantly, right?” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, you’ve got bottle blonde. You could have bottle brunette. But ‘fake redhead’? There isn’t even any cool alliteration to that!”
“There’s a sort of assonance, though,” Andrew remarked. “A weird-fitting rhyme.”
Emma laughed. “I’m putting that on Facebook,” she said. “’A weird-fitting rhyme’. What day is it today?”
“Wednesday,” Andrew said reproachfully, and turned to Jesse. “Actually, I was just telling Emma about the farmer’s market they do every Wednesday, and we decided that we might go there, if you want? I know it’s a bit early –” it was only eleven – “but they close early, and they’ve got the best momos.”
“And fruit,” Emma added.
“Lovely strawberries,” Andrew added. “I don’t know where they get them in January, must be hothoused or flown in from thousands of miles away, makes me feel quite bad if I think about the carbon footprint, but oh no, that can’t be right can it, strawberries aren’t tropical… Anyway. We can go. Now, if you’re keen. Can I ask Carey?”
“Sure,” Jesse said. “That’d be nice.”
As Andrew whipped out his phone to call her he saw Emma whispering something into Jesse’s mop of curls and then giggling. She looked at Andrew fondly, though, so that was probably all right.
“Right,” Andrew said as he got off the phone. “Carey’s coming, she says she’ll meet us there. Ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Jesse said.
---
Someone had once described the air in Oxford as being like fine champagne. Andrew wasn’t sure about that – he’d had fine champagne at a New Year’s Eve party once, and the air in Oxford today more than anything else seemed bracing – but there was something to it, the way he felt drunk on possibility and learning while he was here. Today he felt drunk on possibility and Jesse.
“I will be so disappointed if you don’t like these,” he told Jesse as they stood in the queue for momos. “Just saying, though. There’s no pressure.”
“Good to know,” Jesse told him. He gave Andrew an assessing look. “You eat these every Wednesday, don’t you?”
Behind them in the line, Carey snuffled with laughter. “Oh, you don’t know!” she told them. “I’m actually surprised it’s taken him so long to bring you here, there was a period last term when he wouldn’t eat anything else but momos on Wednesdays, and then he got so embarrassed at placing such a large order that he made me buy them for him.”
“And she was crap at it,” Andrew said, helpfully hooking his chin over her shoulder.
“He’s just cross because afterwards I told him the woman said, ‘Tell your friend to enjoy these,’ and he believed me and got all paranoid.”
Jesse and Emma cracked up.
“They’re just really good dumplings, all right?”
--
Later Andrew wandered up to Jesse while he was inspecting the bananas set out carefully. Carey and Emma were by the vegetables chatting intently; judging by the amount of gesturing that was taking place in relation to the parsnips, Andrew supposed Carey was explaining them to Emma. “I wish I had a banana tree,” he said mournfully.
“And a coconut one?” Jesse said.
“You read my mind. And maybe a mango tree as well.”
“And a papaya tree.”
“A strawberry tree.”
“An essay tree.”
“An Arcade Fire tree.”
“A – what’s an arcade fire? I mean, beyond the obvious answer.”
“Oh, they’re a band, they’re really good, have you not heard of them?” Andrew watched Jesse wrinkle up his face in concentration with some fondness.
“Sort of,” Jesse said.
“You have to listen to them, I’ll send you some of their songs. Maybe,” Andrew said, struck by sudden inspiration, “I could make you a mix.”
“Awesome,” Jesse said. “No one’s, uh, no one’s ever made me a mix before.”
“I’ve never made a mix for anyone,” Andrew said (ridiculous! Come to think of it! When the prospect of doing so was making his heart bang so stupidly against his ribcage now!), and smiled at him.
Over by the vegetables, the girls had seemingly moved onto leeks; Carey was making a face while Emma tucked two of them into her basket.
“Guess what I used to do as a kid?” Jesse said.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Andrew told him. “You’ll have to enlighten me.”
“Possibly this is, uh, possibly this is connected to why no one’s ever made me a mixtape, but when I was a kid my hobby was pulling the spools out of cassettes.”
“Did you really?”
“I really did,” Jesse said seriously. “My parents came home once to find their music collection eviscerated.”
“Oh my word,” Andrew said, delighted. “Another chapter in the juvenile delinquency of Jesse James Eisenberg.”
“That’s me exactly,” Jesse agreed. “Living on the edge, and so on.”
“That’s the best thing ever, though,” Andrew told him. “Hey, did you know that if you trace words on a banana with a toothpick they’ll turn up brown on the peel some days later?”
“That’s excellent,” Jesse said. “I will have to make use of that at some point.”
“Does Emma like bananas?” Andrew asked innocently.
“Yes…”
“So just supposing you bought a bunch of bananas,” Andrew said. “Would it be quite likely that she might wander into the kitchen in pursuit of one of said bananas?”
“Leaning towards the probable on the scale of plausibility, yes,” Jesse agreed.
Amongst much giggling, a bunch of the ripest bananas was ceremoniously deposited into Jesse’s shopping basket.
---
Subject: i made you a mixtape!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 25 January 2011 15:03
To: Jesse Eisenberg
… well, sort of. I made this one virtual so you can't spoil (spool? bad joke) it. Link here:
It’s a PALINDROMIC mixtape, which I’m rather proud of. Side one here, side two here.
You don't have to listen to it all, I just thought this was a collection of songs you might like, despite only liking songs with a plot.
Andrew xxx
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
Subject: re: i made you a mixtape!
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 25 January 2011 16:37
To: Andrew Garfield
Contrary to popular belief, I do listen to music that has no plot. My favourite band is Ween and I like Bjork's soundtrack for Dancer in the Dark - wait, no, those are both sort of plotty. Huh.
So far I'm really enjoying the Mountain Goats' song (the first one, I mean).
Jesse
PS. Emma found out about the bananas. She wasn’t impressed. Actually, she just said, “I know that’s your handwriting, jackass.” I told her it was your idea.
Subject: re: re: i made you a mixture!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 25 January 2011 16:39
To: Jesse Eisenberg
I thought you might like that one! I haven't listened to all the Mountain Goats songs there are (since there are about 5000 of them) but you'd like that album, I think. It's a concept one, about a treatment facility for young boys.
Kind of jealous of you, by the way, for getting to listen to all these amazing songs for the first time.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
PS. Oh no! God, take some responsibility, Eisenberg.
Subject: re: re: re: i made you a mixtape!
From: Jesse Eisenberg
Date: 25 January 2011 16:57
To: Jesse Eisenberg
And for having a mixtape put together by someone of such superior taste?
Jesse
PS. No. She hates you now.
Subject: re: re: re: re: i made you a mixtape!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 25 January 16:58
To: Jesse Eisenberg
Now you're learning.
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
PS. I’m not going to dignify that with a response.
---
The next evening Andrew got dressed for the crew date feeling considerably excited. They were going to meet at the Merton lodge and walk up together, and Andrew was quite sure he could contrive to sit near Jesse, and even if he didn’t manage it Andrew thought it would be quite nice to shoot him pleased looks down the long table.
Also, he was always down for Thai food.
“Ello, Ellen,” he said as he arrived. “I haven’t seen you in ages, and demand a reason as to Why.”
“I’ve been locked up in the labs over the last week, you know how it is,” Ellen said. “I missed you too! What is new in the life of Garfield?”
“Did you know that there’s a comic strip called Garfield minus Garfield?” he told her. “My life is sort of like that these days, except with Garfield. Cos that’s me. Obviously.”
“Sometimes you make no sense whatsoever,” Ellen said. She was wearing eyeliner and a black dress ripped at the sleeves and above her knees. “And thanks – though I think just one will do. So, how is your epic unrequited mancrush on Jesse going?”
“We’re getting there,” Andrew told her seriously.
Ellen narrowed her eyes. “Details, please.”
“Well, I – oh, hello, new people,” Andrew said, breaking off as he saw both Carey and Jesse arrive, each toting a bottle of the finest student-priced red from Oddbins.
It was a nice crowd at At Thai – you could always tell who the crew daters were, it was impossible to not be able to tell from the tables hastily pushed together to form a long one, as well as the general rowdiness.
Carey clutched at Andrew’s arm as they came in. “I know her!” she whispered, tipping her chin at a dark-haired girl who was either sullen or swaggering, Andrew couldn’t quite tell which. “She’s Kristen, you know, at the Gender Campaign…”
“Oh, there’s a Gender Campaign here in Oxford?” Jesse asked her, looking impressed.
Carey beamed. “Yes,” she said. “This year we’re focusing on Eliminating Violence Against Women. Would you be interested in getting involved?”
“Sure,” Jesse said, before Simon whisked them away to sit next to people who weren’t from their college. Ellen ended next up to Kristen, the swaggery girl, and seemed to know her already (they exchanged hi-fives), and Carey across from an androgynous boy named Miyavi.
Andrew, through sly and subtle machinations, had managed to get a seat across from Jesse, next to a cute Taiwanese girl who introduced herself as Hebe.
“Oh, look,” he said delightedly to Jesse. “What are you doing here, stranger?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said, completely straight-faced. “My friend made me come along. I think he wouldn’t stop whining until I did.”
---
That’s The Way We Get By, Spoon
Andrew realised halfway through the crew date that it was… really not going very badly at all, and that he’d actually been expecting it to go badly. The last time he’d attended a crew date, it’d been his first. He tells everyone the funny side of it; the part he can make an anecdote out of, that Ellen had drunk him under the table, literally under the table. He’d been so drunk, and that had been the first time, he must have not been used to it, because he had gone back to his two-week old room and cried.
This, this was okay. Jesse seemed to be enjoying himself too. Well, in a way where every so often he would very carefully check that the way to the exit was clear, although Andrew thought that was probably a deeply-ingrained habit rather than a real desire to escape.
Andrew had noticed that sometimes Jesse didn’t seem to quite inhabit his body, his shoulders and mouth doing what he thought they should instead of what he was. It was hard to explain, and Andrew wasn’t certain if he was right about this theory, but he was fairly confident about it.
(No one could prove it, that he’d taken studying Jesse, so Jesse didn’t notice the scrutiny, down to an art.)
Today Jesse was all there, talking to Hebe easily and making her laugh, and he caught Andrew looking at him, perhaps because Andrew had had his reflexes slowed by the cheap wine. Jesse raised his eyebrows at him, easy but tentative underneath that.
Andrew had this, though. Smiling, he leaned forward, hooked his foot around Jesse’s ankle, and watched his eyes go wide. Then he dropped the penny he’d had in his hand ready for the purpose into Jesse’s wineglass.
“There!” he said, satisfied, pulling back.
(No one could say anything, either, about the fact that he’d left his foot tucked around Jesse’s a moment longer than strictly necessary; the ridged velvet of the corduroy warm with Jesse’s body heat, the feeling strangely adult.)
Jesse raised his eyebrows. “Can I get an exemption on this? On the grounds of being American.”
“All the more reason,” Hebe chimed in, and Andrew giggled.
“I’m American,” Jesse said, looking bemused. “Aren’t I, uh, supposed to stomp all over your obsolete customs?”
“Down it, fresher!” someone called from down the table, and everyone erupted into wolf-whistles and cheers. Everyone else in the restaurant probably hated them.
“I’m not a fresher,” Jesse said, a blush spreading on his face from cheekbone to chin.
“Might as well be,” Andrew said. “You’re – you’re newer than a fresher, is what you are.”
Jesse rolled his eyes. “Do I, uh, I, uh, have to stand up for this?” he asked. Andrew realised that the flush on his cheeks wasn’t just embarrassment, maybe. It maybe accounted for his relaxed posture, the way he could look at Andrew, tonight, without blinking first.
“No,” Andrew said. He could tell that the room would start to spin when he next stood up. He smirked. “Just down it, fresher.”
Jesse capitulated and reached for his wineglass; Andrew noted with want and interest the underside of wrist he exposed to the world, fingers splayed against the bowl of the glass before he drained it in a single gulp, and was plucking the copper disc out of the glass and handing it to Andrew with wine-stained fingers.
“Keep it,” Andrew told him. “It’s yours now. Penny someone else – just not me.”
“I don’t believe in tit-for-tat,” Jesse told him, but he dropped the penny on the table, next to his plate.
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world out here,” Andrew told him as seriously as he could, which wasn’t very since he was quite sure he was drunk-drawling. “I mean a sconce-penny-sconce one.”
“I sconce everyone who’s got with anyone in Babylove!” someone shouted, and nearly everyone (Jesse was an exception) groaned and stood up and drank.
---
The room was definitely spinning when Andrew sat back down. He wobbled a little, and Jesse leaned forward in his chair. “Andrew –”
“M’fine,” Andrew muttered, then looked at Jesse properly, so hard his face was starting to blur. “Jesse?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you having a good time?”
Jesse gave a soft snuffle of laughter. “Pretty good, yeah.”
“That’s good,” Andrew murmured. “That’s the best.”
“I sconce everyone who loves musicals,” someone roared, and this time Jesse had to get up, too, and drink some wine.
“Jesse?” Andrew asked, when Jesse sat again.
“Mmm?”
“Are you drunk?”
Jesse appeared to take that question quite seriously. “I… think I am,” he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Not as drunk as you are, though.”
Andrew thought that made sense. No one could be as drunk as him. “NO ONE CAN BE AS DRUNK AS ME,” he proclaimed, spreading his arms as wide as they could go around the crowded table. Carey glanced over at him and clearly decided he must have been all right, because she just smiled.
“You’re a champion, Andrew Garfield,” Jesse Eisenberg said.
“Jesse?”
“Yeah?” Hebe had started talking to Daniel, the guy next to Jesse. Andrew felt a flash of guilt for neglecting them.
“How drunk are you?”
“It’s hard to tell,” Jesse said. His mouth was very red. “I’m too drunk to tell.”
“Enough to let go?”
“Enough to –” Jesse smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could cuddle right now?”
Jesse paused. “I don’t know,” he said.
“I get all touchy-feely when I’m drunk,” Andrew said seriously.
“That makes for a change,” Jesse said.
“Ahahaha,” Andrew said. “That’s actually funny. You’re a funny person, Jesse Eisenberg, did you know that?”
“I did not know that,” Jesse said. “Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” Andrew said, resting his head on the table beside his plate. “Anytime you need telling, I can say it again.”
---
Maybe You Can Owe Me, Architecture in Helsinki
Jesse walked Andrew home when he decided, after the meal, that he was too drunk to drag himself to drinks, or to enjoy them or remember the event, and Jesse volunteered to be his escort.
“I’m so sorry!” Andrew said. “You don’t have to walk me home, come on.”
“No, no,” Jesse said, “I want to go home.”
“That’s even woooooorse,” Andrew wailed with the particular levity, and frankness, of the drunk. “Because did you have a crap night?”
“No! no, it was good,” Jesse said. He seemed to be sobering up rapidly on the walk through the cold whereas it made Andrew feel even drunker, like the air in Oxford really was made of champagne. “I’ve just run out of social goodwill, you know?”
“Like a wind-up toy,” Andrew said. “Ahaha. Jesse James, Toy Story.”
“Like that, yeah.”
“Except that you’re far more interesting.”
“Well – well – I’m glad you think that, I –”
“Shhh,” Andrew said, and tried put his finger on the rosy seam of Jesse’s lips, was grateful when he managed it, his aim wasn’t the best right now. He felt Jesse brought up short by it but couldn’t bring himself to think about that. “I’m gonna listen,” he told Jesse, “and remember it all, and tomorrow when I’m not so drunk I’m gonna, gonna interpret it and understand –”
They’d been walking all this time they’d been talking. Wasn’t it amazing, how people managed to multitask on a daily basis, walking and talking and breathing and, like, photosynthesising, without tripping over their feet or losing their breath? Andrew was marvelling over that when he could get past the woolly stuff his brain had turned into, to think. Was this what it was like to be Jesse? To, to have so much trouble with his hands and shoulders and feet. Even though Andrew had seen him act.
“Drunk me is like you-you,” Andrew told Jesse, and Jesse didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” he says, and Andrew said, that was all right, he didn’t have to understand.
“You’re my friend,” he said, “that’s a big deal.” And because he was so grateful he had Jesse in his life, who was fast overtaking Carey to become his new favourite person (though maybe they both were his favourites, in different, different ways) he flung his arms around Jesse just as they were outside his door and snuffled into the slope between his neck and shoulder.
“Uh,” Jesse said to the world.
“Thanks for being a frieeeeend,” Andrew said happily. Jesse – you wouldn’t think it, maybe but Jesse was warm, a surprisingly good hugger. At least once he got it into his mind to put his arms right back around Andrew and squeeze hard.
“You’re welcome,” Jesse said. “I can see that you’re very thankful.”
“And very drunk,” Andrew said, lifting his head to look into Jesse’s eyes, peering into his face to decipher the expression there –
Jesse stepped away and Andrew didn’t fall over, but it was a near thing.
“And very drunk,” Jesse agreed. “Well, here you are. Good night, and drink lots of water.”
“Yes, mum,” Andrew muttered, and tried several times to fit his key into the lock before succeeding and flinging himself on the bed. The feel of the mattress under his spine, he decided dimly, was the new sensation of the century.
He heard the pssh of a tap being opened, the clonk of a mug being put on the table next to his head, and the feeling of his coat being tugged from his arms. He even registered being made to drink some tap water, cool and lacerated with fluoride, but it wasn’t till the door closed behind Jesse that Andrew registered that Jesse had been here and now he was really gone.
3/5