My Professor(98)

I had just assumed the driver would be taking me somewhere in Providence, but now that I know I’m wrong, it feels too late to pump the brakes—literally. Frank has already pulled away from the curb, and I’d look like a crazy person if I asked him to pull back over so I could leap out of the car. So instead, I sit quietly. We don’t say a word to each other for the entire drive. He keeps the radio dialed in to classical music, and I love every minute of it. I can’t remember the last time I listened to music like this, uninterrupted, with Rhode Island’s early summer landscape whipping past the windows.

The farther from Providence we travel, the more water splashes across the scene. Small pockets turn into expansive bays that stretch to the horizon. Once we’re on Aquidneck Island, we continue south until Memorial Boulevard takes us to the very tip of the world. I look out onto a sandy beach hosting a few brave souls as we climb a steep hill that eventually deposits us onto a road lined with shops that look straight out of a theme park. They’re all perfectly matching, a long line of two-story Tudor-style townhomes with green scalloped-edged awnings announcing cafes and art galleries, tennis shops and boutiques. We pass them by and then continue on into a neighborhood—at least that’s the only word I can think of to describe this place. Each house we pass is slightly bigger than the last. Properties expand. Gates grow toward the sky until it’s impossible to make out what’s concealed behind them.

I’ve heard of Newport; everyone in Rhode Island has. I’m pretty sure the rumors are only half true, but the story goes that there’s no world more exclusive, no property values more expensive. The difference between the Hamptons and Newport, as I’ve heard it, is that the Hamptons are where people move when they have a few million to spare. Newport, on the other hand, doesn’t have a price tag. The mansions here aren’t sold; they’re inherited.

I think of what it would be like to see one of them, almost working up the nerve to ask Frank if we can stop just to take a quick peek behind one of the gates, but then he clicks his blinker on and pulls off the road to the left, onto a long drive.

My first thought is that he’s headed in the wrong direction and needs to make a U-turn, but then he pulls up to a soaring limestone-framed gate with a pair of heavy copper gas lanterns, and he presses a button on the remote mounted on his sun visor.

The huge iron doors swing open and we pass through. At the last moment, before the gate disappears from view, I turn back to glance over my shoulder and notice the delicate word formed by scrolling ironwork at the very top.

Rosethorn.