Falling From Grace: Student-Teacher Forbidden Romance

Chapter 3

[RECAP: American student Leonie is getting to know her new roommates at the English boarding school she has been forced to attend]

Over tea Mai grilled her about high school in America. Leonie was amazed how much actual tea these British girls drunk, she had thought the stereotype was a joke. But it was more than true.

"I envy you so much. No uniforms and all those hot guys and parties," Mai said.

"Hot guys?"

"Yes, like on TV. Driving around in open top cars and wearing designer clothes."

Somewhere along the line Mai had got the impression that the whole of the US was an episode of Beverly Hills 90210.

"It's really pretty dull, at least where I'm from," Leonie said. She found she was already starting to pick up their idiom and avoid words like "darn", though she wasn't sure why. "Like small town, no beach, no rockstars."

"What about cheerleaders? Were you a cheerleader?"

Leonie laughed. "In Junior High."

"In those outfits with the little skirts and the pompoms?" It was clearly some kind of dream for Mai.

"We had cheerleading uniforms, yes. But truly it wasn't that exciting."

Mai wasn't deterred. "But LA though, that must be amazing right? Hollywood stars everywhere you go."

Leonie had to explain that she'd never been to LA, let alone Hollywood. Mai's mouth fell open.

"Doesn't everyone go there? That's like being in England and never visiting London."

Leonie tried to redeem herself by mentioning she had been to Washington DC and New York several times.

Mai buttered a piece of bread. "New York's cool, I guess. Like Friends or Sex and the City. We don't get to watch that here though, it's not considered suitable."

"They have TV here? At school I mean?" Leonie asked.

"Of course. We're stuck here for months on end, there's not much else to do. Unless you like chess or knitting or you have a lacrosse stick welded to your hand like Harry. So what subjects are you doing?"

This hadn't been determined yet, as Leonie was arriving half way through A-levels. She said that she hoped to do Maths - she remembered to use the UK English term and not say "Math" - as well as English and History of Art.

"Maths is awful but the other two are okay. We all do English too. Why those subjects?"

"I guess they seemed the most similar in the US and UK," Leonie said. "Shakespeare is Shakespeare and trigonometry is trigonometry, wherever you go."

Figgy nodded. "And History of Art is universal too. I'm taking that."

"So what do you want to do when you graduate?" Mai asked. "Will you go to an American college and join a sorority?"

Leonie suspected that Mai's notion of US college was the opening scene of Legally Blonde.

"I actually want to be an actress," Leonie confessed. She always felt as though this needed to come with a disclaimer. "But not Hollywood. I mean theatre acting, like Shakespeare."

"You should use your time here to learn a British accent then," Mai said.

Figgy was concerned that Leonie might have taken offence at this. "Actually it's believed that the American accent is closer to the Elizabethan accent than how we speak now."

Mai shrugged. "Good luck finding a casting agent who wants Ophelia saying aluminum and acclimate. Anyway you couldn't be as bad as Gwyneth Paltrow. When she plays English roles she sounds like she has a broomstick up her backside."

Leonie laughed. She looked along the table at the other girls, wondering which one of them would be Lady Harriet Venn. "Is Lady Harriet - our other roommate - here?" she asked.

Mai started choking on her sandwich and her sandwich and Figgy had to slap her on the back, causing people to notice. One of them was a girl with wavy dark hair and a kind of pretty-but-bitchy look going on. She seemed to regard Mai more with a contempt than concern, staring over and clearly giving her the evil eye.

Pouring a glass of water for Mai, Leonie asked her if she was okay.

By now recovered, Mai grinned. "Fine. It's just that no one ever calls her that. You'll see why. I just found it really funny, particularly with your accent."

"Harry's very down to earth," Figgy said. "She'll probably be at some lacrosse team thing. They're all so mad keen having not played all holiday that they start straight away."

Leonie had never played lacrosse and wasn't entirely sure what it was. "So what do you do for fun around here? Is there a boys' school nearby?"

"Nowhere near. I can promise you that there isn't a single cute guy in a fifty mile radius," Mai said, stirring sugar into yet another cup of tea.

"I saw one earlier. I guess he was someone's brother?" Leonie asked. But the others had no idea who the mystery blue-eyed guy might be.

Leonie kept replaying the way his eyes had met her over and over again. And then the terrible moment when he'd seen her teddy bear. Even if she did find out who his sister was, she'd probably blown it. Who would be interested in a girl who still needed a big furry teddy bear guarding her bed?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Would a guy be put off by a girl who still slept with a teddy bear?

Or would he find it cute?

Or would he want to kick the bear out of bed, so he could take its place...?!