Free Falling in Love With English Boys by Melissa Jensen Page A

of mercy. And I don’t care. Just call me Time-Killer-Charity-Case. I’m in.

    I do love the Tube—the endless escalator rides that make you feel like you’re heading into the center of the earth, the young men with guitars playing 80s covers in the tiled tunnels (Will told me it’s called “busking,” and he flipped a pound coin into the case of the one singing “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”—maybe because people kept shouting “Yes!” from the platform), the veddy propah voice telling you to “mind the gap” as you step into the train. The sideways rocking of the cars that makes you bump up against the person sitting next to you. I made sure to sit so he was on the nonzit side.
    He had one arm slung across the back of the seats, so it wasn’t around my shoulders, but I could feel it if I leaned all the way back. With my chin still down, I noticed his shoes: brown leather oxfords, big, slightly battered, and infinitely classier than the silver-and-black Nikes Adam wears with such pride. And his jeans: faded and soft-looking over his knees and at the crease of his thighs. He wears his clothes like they’re made for him, a totally comfy second skin. Wish I could do that.

    So, here’s what I learned by the time we got to Portobello Road:
• He finished a year ago at a place he calls “Charterhouse” (I’ll assume it’s a school and has nothing to do with steak) and just returned last week from a backpacking trip through Tibet.
• He would have given it all up to become a Buddhist monk, would he not have had to give it all up. “All,” he mentioned, included bacon, Guinness, and the plasma screen he has come to worship after the last World Cup series. “All,” I’m sure, also includes killer sex with beautiful women with names like Imogen or Consuelo. Boys like this have sex like that.
• He’s staying at his family’s flat “in Town” for a few weeks before going “home” to Somerset, then he starts university at St. Andrew’s at the end of the summer. He wants to study philosophy. And finance. Clearly he’s a compassionate corporate type.
• He doesn’t like tea (which posed a minor challenge in Tibet), excessive perfume, or American football. He likes Reese’s candy (a moderate challenge in the UK), English football, and Voltaire.
• His hair, in the sunlight, looks like polished mahogany, only way softer.

    We walked through Portobello Market. Will says it will be insane tomorrow, with half of London’s dubious antiques and happy, conspicuous consumers cramming the street. But it’s pretty cool on any day. Lots of people wearing funky clothing, buying funky clothing, and a veggie market that is colorful enough to make you blink. I bought a little basket of perfect, purple-black plums and a copy of a Stella McCartney hat (a copy, not a fake, I feel compelled to reiterate, although Mom gave it the evil eye nonetheless); Will tried on a Stetson—originally made, the vendor informed me, in Philadelphia—whaddaya know? (See pix.) He didn’t buy the hat.
    We ended up in a little café where the girl behind the counter had an inch of spiky green hair, a fishhook through her right eyebrow, and a tattoo of a dragon on her forearm. She demanded “Can I help yez?” with a friendly snarl. Will ordered our drinks and the two of us stood staring into the glass case, overwhelmed by the sheer excessiveness of the sugar-chocolate-pastry choices there. Green snapped her gum and waited almost patiently. I had to take a picture of the bounty. She leaned into the shot and bared her teeth. (See pix.)
    Then this tiny, round woman with a face like a walnut came out of the back and handed Green a clean coffeepot. She rattled off something in a language that sounded like a cross between Russian and Navajo. The girl chirped back, the old woman patted her cheek and trundled back out of sight.
    “My gran says to have the kugel. She baked it with love.” Green rolled her eyes at this, but I could tell