My phone buzzed. “This email is regarding the Allen House New York Trip. Your current status is: Waitlisted.” My shoulders slumped. The house committee was organising a weekend trip to New York for forty students — a trip everyone wanted in on — and I’d been wishing so hard I might bend luck in my favour.

They say don’t meet your role models. I learned that the hard way on a September evening in New York. I was walking up Broadway when I spotted an emerald green poster for The Great Gatsby — glitzy font, art deco shimmer, a man in a tux holding a cocktail. He looked familiar. I kept walking. Then I stopped.