They try again. It’s perfect.
“I can’t believe that works. Where did you learn that?” Kira asks, amazed.
My throat constricts as I remember the day Nick taught me, after The Glug. “State secret,” I manage, feeling myself unspool.
Kira stomps her foot. “No. You will not get all weepy on me. Aren’t you an artist? Do not spoil my masterpiece.”
This makes me smile, which is its intent. Cilla hands me a bottle of water with a straw poking out so I won’t disrupt my lipstick.
“Thank you,” I tell her. “For everything. No one would blame you if you weren’t here.”
“I would blame me,” Cilla says. “And not just because I’d be shirking my job. Although perhaps all this happening means I did shirk my job.”
“Don’t even say that. Your job isn’t to babysit me, Cil.”
“It is, a bit, but you’re also my friend,” Cilla points out. “I should have noticed on both ends how bad it had gotten.”
“There has been a lot of why didn’t you tell me and I’m not psychic today, all of it earned,” I say. “Reminds me of when Nick and I broke up the first time.” I catch myself. “Hopefully the only time.”
“Has he said anything since the Abbey?” Cilla looks concerned.
“He’s probably said a lot of things, but none of them to me,” I say. “Which is kind of the crux of the problem. All along, if we’d just told each other everything right away, straight up, it might have been fine. Everyone thinks Americans are so in-your-face, but I was too scared to be a pain in the ass.”
“I am married to Gaz,” she says. “My arse is immune to pain. Remember that next time.”
“You are a better friend than I deserve.”
“Oh, shove it, love,” she says good-naturedly. “This is not the Premier League. There’s no rankings or win-loss records in our friendship. Whatever happens, you and Nick will need us, and we’d be daft as a brush not to be there for both of you.”
She senses danger from my tear ducts, so she shoves the straw into my mouth and turns me to the long mirror.
“You’re a picture, Bex,” she says softly. “He’ll melt.”
Donna had procured a plum gossamer Jenny Packham with elbow-length sleeves and a chic, slouchy neckline. My hair is swept into a glamorous, bouncy ponytail, Kira’s clever nod to the Bex from Oxford whom Nick rarely saw any other way, and Eleanor had proffered the Surrey Fringe as a choker but I opted instead for my diamond pendant. Even through my haze, I love how I look. I hope Nick will, too. If he shows. Intellectually I know it’s unlikely he’ll stand me up tonight—I’d have heard by now; he has too much respect for duty to jilt three hundred guests without a word—but given how we left things…well, it’s little wonder we fell in love over a show specializing in cliffhangers.
“Right, go in, mingle, get out,” Cilla says, checking her clipboard. “Early to bed tonight. We are going to proceed as if this wedding is happening.”
“If this wedding doesn’t happen, then he is dumb as the box of hair I put on your head every month,” Kira says, clicking shut her giant toolbox of makeup. “I don’t care who started it, or who slept with what, or whatever went on with you kids, but shit happens and when it’s people who matter, we deal with it. You, Rebecca Porter, are a catch. You’re the only person I’ve ever worked for who knows when my birthday is and asks about my family. If HRH can’t get over whatever his problem is, then you go be a goddess someplace else.”
We are silent.
“That was a better speech than mine,” Cilla observes.
“You’re both going to make me cry again,” I say.
“Don’t you dare.” Kira smudges my blush one last time. “Blot your lippie if you reapply. It kills me that you never do that. Now go slay him.”
*
Sure enough, Nick is exactly where he is supposed to be, in a small space off the gardens. I hang back to take in the sight: Prince Nicholas, dressed for ceremony in a devastating tux, washing down a granola bar with a Coke and nose-deep in a binder labeled The Lesser Royals of Southeast Asia. My mouth goes dry. We used to pretend we weren’t madly in love before tearing into one another in private; now, everyone believes we’ve never been happier, yet I have no idea if we’re even speaking. Out of all the illusions we have created, from my hair to my walk to the color of my teeth, pretending we are fine will be the biggest, and the flimsiest. The Lyons Emerald has never felt heavier on my finger. I wonder what they’ll do to the engraving if I have to give it back. Maybe Nick can replace me with another B.
“There you are, Rebecca,” says Marj, whom I hadn’t even noticed in the corner of the room. Nick jerks up his head, then gives me a long, appraising gaze that I can’t read. I shift under the weight of it, and feel the prick of my secret talisman, the flag pin, tacked covertly to my bra.
“Come in,” Marj says. “Do you need one last look at the cheat books?”
I shake my head. “If I don’t know it now, I never will.”
“Is any of this lot even coming?” Nick asks.
“One must always prepare,” Marj says, taking his binder and heaving it over to a folding table next to ten other ones like it, plus three volumes clearly for Freddie labeled Comfortably Distant Relatives, Potentially Awkward, and finally, Seriously Do Not Touch. I wonder if she has a Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off binder. Knowing Marj, the answer is yes.
This is the first time I’ve seen Marj not wearing a cardigan, even in summer, and cocktail wear suits her. From the frock’s silvery color and matching cropped jacket to the low, chunky heels, it all could as easily have come from the Queen’s own armoire—apt, as she’s effectively as much Nick’s grandmother as Eleanor is. But there’s fatigue around her edges. Should tomorrow go smoothly, her husband will ply her with cocktails on a hard-earned Carnival Cruise and hopefully toss her mobile overboard. When Nick does not greet me, much less kiss me hello, Marj betrays no reaction. If anyone deserves to live in crisis denial right now, it’s her.
“You look marvelous,” she says, giving me a kiss on both cheeks. “Like a right royal highness yourself. It’s been quite a year, but you’ve come out of it brilliantly, Rebecca.”
I flush, from shame, not pleasure, but she won’t discern the difference.
“Thank you,” I say. “If I ever seemed ungrateful, or cranky, I really am sorry. I know how hard you and Barnes worked to get me here.”
Marj barks out a laugh. “When I started here, my equivalent on Emma’s staff was a woman named Elaine who seemed like as much of an old battle-ax to me then as I seem to you now,” she says. “One day Emma marched into her office, slammed a pile of these sorts of binders on the desk, and said, ‘Shove it with knobs on, you stroppy old cow.’”