So I don’t think Lacey quite believed it when I announced my England plans. History had borne out that our gravitational pull was simply too strong. Even as infants, Mom said that she’d set us down two feet apart in our crib, and an hour later we’d somehow be snuggled right up next to each other again, as if we were still in the womb. Nothing had ever come between us before, so it must have seemed highly unlikely that I’d willingly put an ocean there.
“It feels weird that you haven’t met any of these people,” I told her that night. “I keep turning to tell you things, expecting you to be here.”
“How am I going to survive organic chemistry without you drawing obscene cartoon molecules on my flash cards?” she complained affectionately.
“Well, we can’t be attached at the hip forever,” I reasoned. “Nobody will let me hang out in the operating room sketching people’s innards while you rebuild their aortas, or whatever.”
“Why not? It’d be like a souvenir,” Lacey said. “But fine, don’t worry about me, up here with my face in a cadaver while you’re living with a prince.” She tsked. “I can’t believe you don’t even have any gossip on him. You are the worst.”
“I rarely see him, Lace,” I said. “Half the time he doesn’t socialize with us. He hasn’t even come into town.”
By the sheer happenstance of Ceres Whitehall de Villency inexplicably (to me) opting for a year at Cornell, I’d landed smack in the middle of Nick’s tight social cluster—everyone in our hall was a proven-loyal chum, or the offspring of one—and my own assimilation came largely thanks to Cilla, who didn’t so much take me under her wing as wrestle me there. I think we were mutually grateful that we got along so well: me because Oxford was the first time I’d been without Lacey, my genetically built-in best friend, and Cilla because her proximity to Nick made her suspicious of outside girls’ motivations, and her other choices on our floor were unsatisfying. Lady Bollocks was too aloof and consumed with horsy pursuits, Joss spent all her free time sewing and immersing herself in the essence of whatever oddball she was dating (which accounted for her current insincere punk look), and the mysterious eighth door in our hallway belonged not to a coed, but to Nick’s personal protection officers. We were forbidden to buddy up with this taciturn quartet of ex-military men, so we never knew their names, instead christening them based on their various personal qualities (PPO Stout was as tall as he was wide; PPO Twiggy was svelte but could snap you like one; PPO Popeye occasionally had spinach in his teeth; PPO Furrow was a frowner). None was older than forty, all had wives and children at home, and yet to do their jobs they bunked two at a time in the most inelegant fashion—it must have felt like trying to shove a cat into a mouse hole—which surely put them on the fast track to sainthood.
Nobody said it directly, but I sensed that coming on strong with questions about Nick would raise the hackles of both my new friends and his trained killers, and it wasn’t worth it just to find out if Nick wore boxers or briefs. So I couldn’t tell Lacey much about him that she didn’t already know from People. The day I got accepted to Oxford, she dragged her old Royal Family commemorative issue from the dusty archives under her bed, and showed me pictures of three-year old Nick roaming Balmoral’s moors in buckle shoes and a tweedy plaid jacket, or waving from the Buckingham Palace balcony during a state occasion while Freddie waggled his tongue. None of it did much to create an image of an actual person; just a poster boy, a character in a far-off story.
“I did hear a rumor his room is totally bulletproof,” I told Lacey. “But that’s about it.”
“Maybe he’s just not that friendly.”
“Well, but he’s not unfriendly,” I explained. “He just socializes really sporadically.”
“Shy, maybe?” she wondered. “Like his mom? She’s basically a hermit. Or maybe he takes after Prince Richard. I read that he’s super stiff.” Lacey let out a puff of frustration. “It’s killing me not to see for myself. Some people swear Nicholas has a wooden leg and that’s why he never plays polo anymore.”
“That’s ridiculous. Are prosthetics even made of wood anymore?”
“You’re missing the point,” Lacey groused, but she was laughing. “I would kill to have a prince three doors down. Take pity on me and go make out with him, please.”
“I can’t, Lace. I already kissed his friend. And don’t you remember? He will never—”
“Marry an American,” we finished in unison.
Lacey let out a girlish giggle. “I still can’t believe she actually said that to you.”
I had seen Nick alone once more, on my third day, about thirty seconds before my inaugural conversation with Lady Beatrix Larchmont-Kent-Smythe. I’d forgotten my robe and towels in Iowa, so until I bought new ones—which was, naturally, exactly what I’d been planning to do on the day in question—I’d been wrapping myself in the tiny terrycloth loaner from the college and sprinting to my door. It had worked, until I bumped smack into Nick as he was coming into the bathroom. My bucket of toiletries went flying, including a box of tampons I’d left in there, raining feminine hygiene products all over him. It sounds like a quirky meet-awkward from act one of a romantic comedy, but it was mortifying, and I didn’t have the advantage of being well-lit and cutely dressed. Or dressed, period.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry.” I frantically tried to pick everything up without flashing him.
“No trouble,” Nick said, gallantly gathering my scattered stuff. He was wearing ratty maroon gym shorts that proved definitively his legs were made of very nice muscle rather than wood. “Tricky business having to bring so much stuff to the shower.”
“Thanks for helping,” I said, feeling like an idiot. “Forecast for today did say ‘sunny with a chance of Tampax.’”
Syphilis and Tampax. That’s what I’ll call it when I crack and write my own version of The Bexicon.
Nick kept his head down, but I saw his cheeks flush. He later told me that he’d never even said the word tampon, much less had to handle any, which of course made sense: Who sends the eventual leader of the Commonwealth out for lady supplies? Like the pro I would soon realize he is, though, Nick brushed it off, scooping up the last tampons and dropping them in their box before tossing it to me gently and continuing on his way.
As the bathroom door swung shut behind him, I heard a loud throat clearing and turned to face the one and only Lady Bollocks, polished and perfect in riding jodhpurs and a white button-down shirt.
“How trite,” she said. “Accidentally running into him wearing a glorified hand towel.”
“You’re Bea, right?” I said, awkwardly rearranging myself so I could clasp closed my towel and still shake her hand. “I’m Bex.”
“I know,” Bea said, making no move to meet the gesture. “And let’s be clear, Rebecca. Your little…whatever that was…is a waste of your time. He will never. Marry. An American.”
She punctuated the last sentence with thrusts of a sharply filed nail. I was so flummoxed that, still dripping water onto the centuries-old Persian runner, I simply gaped as she vanished into her room.
* * *
If I had actually harbored fantasies of landing myself a prince, I might’ve been deterred by the intensity of the competition outside the cozy confines of Pembroke. Our college-mates, while clearly interested, were at least accustomed to the sight of Nick, and initially that was the only place I saw him. But off campus, so to speak, the curious eyeballs were more intense. Guys jockeyed to get him on weekend sports teams or present themselves as potential confidantes, the better to boost their own profiles; the ladies were eager for a shot at an heir they couldn’t count on running into every day on their way out of the bathroom. They all tried to be subtle about it, and failed spectacularly. It was like dropping a steak into a rabid pack of horndogs.
The first time I witnessed this was about three hours after I’d hung up the phone with Lacey. I’d begun working my way through Oxford’s pubs in my ten days there before school had started, than
ks to the guiding hand of Cilla and the others, and that night I found myself outside on a bitingly chilly night, trudging past several warm and inviting ones.
“Where are we going again?” I asked Cilla, shivering as I tried to keep up. Her stride is all business.
“It’s called The Bird,” she tossed at me over her shoulder. “It’s where C. S. Lewis and Tolkien and some other people got together and gave notes on each other’s manuscripts and probably acted totally unbearable.”
We pulled up our parka hoods against the mounting wind until we came to a plain yellow gabled building with its name in iron gothic letters across the front.
“The Eagle and Child,” I read aloud. “I thought you said it was called The Bird.”
“Same thing,” Cilla said. “It got nicknamed The Bird and Baby because of the pictures on the pub sign, and that got shortened to The Bird.”
“So its nickname has its own nickname?”
“If you think that’s off, wait until Gaz busts out the old Cockney rhyming slang,” Cilla said. “As if he’s not indecipherable enough on his own.”
She paused. “I also finally talked Nick into coming out to toast the start of term, so he’ll be here. Just pretend he’s normal.” She stopped. “Not that he isn’t, but…you know.”
She pushed me inside the pub, where the boisterous, noisy vibe clashed with the unassuming exterior. Fresh paint butted up against original brick and stonework, the walls warped and bulging in some corners. Students sloshed beer over the edges of their pint glasses as they snacked on plates of thick-cut chips, and while the music was loud, the human din was louder. Later on I would flirt with the VIP club scene, but velvet ropes are more Lacey’s speed than mine. I have always preferred a dive.
Cilla scanned the crowd, which wasn’t easy, given that the pub was essentially a long chain of cramped rooms.
“I wish Gaz would invest in a stepstool,” she groused. “His hair would be so easy to spot if he weren’t so bloody short.”
“I think we walked right past them,” I said, gesturing toward the larger of the two front rooms. “Half of the girls in here are loitering over there.”
We peered to our right, and eventually I recognized Nick’s head, and saw that it was bent at an angle toward a group that included golden-blond India Bolingbroke. Standing to either side, like wardens, were Gaz and Joss, chatting up a gloomy guy with six rings in his nose.
“Oi!” Clive called out behind us, coming from the bar and carrying a large tray of shot glasses and Guinness pints. “You’re just in time.”
We let him pass through the crowded, uneven doorway—precious cargo, after all—then pushed through the crush until our hands found the shot glasses.
“Yikes,” I said, pulling back a moment. “I wasn’t expecting it to be warm.”
Nick reached in and took a pint and a shot for India.
“You chase the warm with the cold,” he instructed. “Right, all, this is Bex’s first chaser. Let’s have a toast.”
“Three cheers to the lemons!” Gaz shouted, thrusting his hand in the air so hard that he spilled some whiskey on his cheek.
Cilla nudged me. “See what I mean?” she said. “Not a bloody lick of sense.”
“How about a real toast?” Clive interjected. “One that uses words in a sensible order.”
I held up my shot and thought for a second. “Thanks, everyone, for the warm welcome. Sorry about the Revolution.”
Nick hoisted his pint glass. “We’ll get you next time.”
The warm whiskey went down like sweet, spicy fire. I gulped the Guinness as quickly as I could, and put down my empty glass to see Nick watching approvingly.
“Joss,” he said. “You’re officially spared from The Glug this year. We’ve got a ringer.”
Joss turned away from her date, who looked like Edward Scissorhands up close but without the roiling inner life. “I didn’t want to do it anyway,” she said. “College-sponsored drinking games are the tool of the patriarchy, right, Tank?” Then she nodded toward the door. “Heads up, Clive. Penelope Six-Names, your four o’clock.”
“Not again,” he said, gesturing at an eager-looking girl with straw-like bangs, a sunburn, and two large, full glasses. “Six-Names knows better than to bring him a drink we didn’t see the bartender pour.”
“I have no idea what anyone is talking about,” I said to no one in particular as Clive slipped away to head off Six-Names at the pass.
“Never you mind about The Glug, you’ll soon find out,” Nick said. Then he went very still. “This song is brilliant,” he said.
Everyone around Nick seemed to agree, and pretty soon, our entire room was screaming the chorus of “Wannabe.” Nick smiled wide and shouted along, but—much like how he did not chug his Guinness, and wholly skipped the shot—he let his friends dance and rage around him, freely idiotic, like youthful, well-educated court jesters sans the belled hats. I sensed a reserve in his body language, suggesting he wasn’t as comfortable outside the safety of Pembroke’s walls, and I wasn’t sure if that was natural shyness or the hesitation that comes from knowing you’re not just in the spotlight, you are the spotlight. For me, partying next to Mr. July in the previous year’s unsanctioned Hot Princes of the World calendar ended up being no weirder than walking into a Cornell house party and bumping into half the basketball team. Well-wishers, limelight seekers, curious fans—they’re everywhere. The only difference was that this particular center of attention had a lot more self-control, and a bigger birthright.
And a more protective posse. That night, and many times since, I noticed how seamlessly Gaz and Clive, the PPOs, and a few other acquaintances from Nick’s Eton days knew how to close ranks, no matter where we were (The Bird was a favorite because the small rooms made it easier to keep an eye on their quarry). Girls and guys alike sidled up wearing their ancestries or their social standings on their sleeves, and the lads gracefully deflected them—they were like a human condom, strategically positioned to keep everything treacherous out of the hot zone—which left Nick free to chat up girls who didn’t seem like they wanted something from him beyond what any young thing might want from an attractive guy at a bar. The whole operation ran smoothly enough that it never got in the way unless you were one of the misguided missiles seeking royal heat. India Bolingbroke was on the inside circle; Penelope Six-Names, conversely, peered over Gaz’s shoulder and protested, “I just want to say hi! I’m family! We’re third cousins!”
“Everyone’s a third cousin,” Gaz said, twirling her and dipping her with surprising grace.
My edges were fuzzy, thanks to the alcohol. Everyone’s edges were fuzzy a lot of the time at Oxford, which is probably why most of these details never leaked: People think they’re telling the truth, but no one can remember for sure. Sometimes when we went out, I’d get a phone number written on my hand, and then forget and wake up with only half of it still there. Other times I’d stumble home on my own. But, more often than I ever intended, I’d end up with Clive. I had no interest in a relationship that would constrict my time in England—which makes me laugh out loud now, given that I ended up in the most constricting relationship in England—and it wasn’t the shrewdest move to jump into bed with a guy living practically on top of me, but the whiskey wasn’t always on my side. Fortunately, Clive was. He swore leaving Oxford with a steady girlfriend would make it too hard to build a serious journalism career, because he’d need freedom to chase a story (or presumably, an attractive source), making our friends-with-benefits arrangement mutually satisfying.
Mostly. Making out with Clive sometimes felt like sucking face with a math experiment. He fixated on a weird numerical pattern, nine turns of the tongue clockwise and nine turns the other way, like he’d memorized instructions from a magazine. It seemed odd at first, a guy with so much else going for him having so little game, but the longer I watched him with Nick the more I understood Clive did himself no favors. He took his role as Nick’s wingman-in-chief almost as se
riously as his journalistic aspirations. In fact, generations of men like Clive had spent their lives making sure their own Nicks didn’t get snookered by opportunists or social climbers or enemies, nor poisoned, nor impulsively married to the peasant girl selling flowers on Tottenham Court Road. Whether Nick wanted to be or not, he was the sun, and everyone revolved around him. And anyone who resented this arrangement had the very fabric of the universe working against them: Like me and Lacey, like gravity itself, it simply was.
Chapter Three
When Nick and I got engaged, a newspaper column claimed I’d come to Oxford to sweep Nick off his feet as a way of legitimizing my father’s fridge-furniture empire to the world—which is patently absurd, not least because the Coucherator was already the top-selling appliance in Luxembourg. The truth is, I rarely thought about Nick at first, and saw him even less. He’d been absent from communal meals in the Dining Hall, and wasn’t particularly gregarious during passing encounters in the hallway. I got more information from the papers than from living with him: There was a story about him spending his reclusive mother’s birthday with her at Prince Richard’s country estate, Trewsbury House, complete with grainy photos of him exchanging a terse-looking handshake with his father (NICK AND DICK: NOT SO THICK? the headline wondered); and a gossipy tidbit claiming he’d gotten his teeth whitened after an heiress named Davinia snubbed his summer advances because she thought they were too yellow. Clive, who seemed to relish having the inside scoop, dissected these for me at length whenever we walked to lunch or the market (he swore Nick’s teeth were lighter). I knew Lacey was dying of curiosity from her room at Cornell, so I dutifully listened for repeatable tidbits, but frankly, I had other priorities. The first of which involved giving Lady Bollocks no reason to poison my Weetabix.
The Royal We Page 3
