Nick comes from a long line of people who love a grand romantic gesture—the grandest and arguably most romantic being the statue that the first Queen Victoria commissioned of her cherished husband Prince Albert, sitting golden and humongous across from his eponymous concert hall. King Arthur II delivered his proposal on a white horse—the 1930s version of Lloyd Dobler hoisting the boom box in Say Anything—and Queen Victoria II sent her beloved Smudgy a daily carrier pigeon bearing one letter on a scrap of paper, which all would have unscrambled to profess her desire for him to get on with it already, but poor Crown Prince “Smudgy” Sigmund of Germany was never one for puzzles and died of a dog bite before he solved it. Still, I now understood where all of these people were coming from: Keeping the secret of my feelings for Nick was torture. I wanted to confess myself and either move on to the euphoria or the Grief Ice Cream phase. But above all, I just wanted to see him.
I was thwarted on all counts. I didn’t even know where Nick was, or when he was coming back to Oxford; I was fidgety, and I could barely sleep. My solution was to stay busy. I hung out in the Pembroke JCR a lot more, doing everything from schoolwork to watching part of a three-day test match between the England cricket team and Sri Lanka, which was nearly as incomprehensible to me as Gaz’s rhyming slang, as much as he tried to explain both. I went for long runs, and this time, I actually ran. In a rare moment after one too many gins, Bea even attempted to teach me chess. Unlike cricket, I had no problem mastering the basic rules, but strategy—seeing three moves ahead in a way that forged my path to victory—was, and is, completely beyond me. Bea got so fed up after ten minutes that she dropped my king in my beer and swept out of there.
The first week passed agonizingly slowly. During the second, I had just started to settle into a rhythm of distracting myself, when Lacey sent me a photo of the annual Thanksgiving Cake that we usually make together—neither of us likes pie, which is thoroughly un-American of us—and it hit me how much I missed my family. While they were snug at home in Iowa gorging on my mother’s biscuit stuffing, homemade Chex Mix, and several pounds of turkey, I spent Thanksgiving huddled over a table with my distinguished tutor discussing the noteworthy differences in the iconic portraits of Queen Elizabeth, and gagging on my homesickness: for the Muscatine Turkey Trot, rooting against the Dallas Cowboys with Dad, even my mother’s fussy questions about why my jeans are so ratty and whether I might put on a little lipstick. Cilla took pity and corralled me for a late lunch at one of our regular spots, The Grand Café, a thin blue building on the high street that was allegedly the first coffeehouse in England (but noteworthy to me for making a decent Bellini). Joss had insisted on meeting us there, for reasons that became clear when she blew in and pressed into my hand something she claimed was a Thanksgiving gift: a white long-sleeved T-shirt with the word heart written on the sleeve.
“Get it? Heart on your sleeve?” she prompted. The words were stamped on crookedly. “It’s part of my submission to a fashion school in London. If I get in, I can finally blow off this place.” She nudged me. “You should wear it when Nick comes back to town.”
“No,” Cilla said firmly.
“You’re right. A drawing of a sleeve on a heart would—”
“No,” Cilla said, and gestured for another round of drinks.
When we returned to Pembroke, PPO Popeye jumped out from near the mailboxes like he’d been watching for me.
“Steve is in Windsor,” he said, handing me a packet of what looked like instructions. “He says the castle is closed to the public tomorrow if you want a squizz.”
I was so programmed not to expect any movement on the Nick front that I had nothing whatsoever to say in response, and PPO Popeye seemed taken aback by what he perceived as my hesitation. He hadn’t presented this excursion as merely an option. He wiggled the folder under my nose and then poked me in the arm with it.
“Um. Of course. Thanks,” I said lamely. “Oh, and there’s something in your teeth.”
“I know,” he said, walking away with the awkward gait of a man trying, and failing, to mask his military precision.
Windsor Castle was favored by at least four of the eight Henrys, several Georges, the lone Elizabeth, both Victorias, and Queen Eleanor, and it’s also the royal residence that I love best. Unlike Buckingham Palace, which is protected by a large courtyard and a fence and feels rather isolated from the bustle around it, the town of Windsor directly abuts the edge of the castle grounds, like it’s merely the fanciest house on the block—which, technically, it is. But the true wonder of Windsor is that it has survived a thousand years and a fire, and is still in active use. In fact, the day I went, the Royal Standard was flying, indicating that Eleanor was staying there—and possibly looking down on me as I ate my fatty, three-quid sausage roll on the walk to the gate. I’d been up so late talking to Lacey that I slept through my alarm and almost missed the train. I’d barely had time to brush my teeth, much less my hair, and I’d thrown on the first shirt I found. I didn’t even realize until I took off my cardigan on the warm train that it was Joss’s design. She’d gotten what she wanted: I was going to Nick with a heart on my sleeve.
The one in my chest pounded as I loped up the hill. As much as I’d been dying to see Nick, now that it was happening, all I could hear in my head was every piece of advice from last night’s well-intentioned emergency summit.
“You need a plan, Bex.” Lacey’s voice crackled through the speakerphone. “You are not suave enough to do this without a plan.”
“What if you show up and he acts indifferent?” Cilla said.
“Or you blurt it out, but the magic is gone?” Lacey again.
“Are you going to wear my heart shirt?” Joss asked.
“Are you going to ask about India?” Lacey barreled on, ignoring her.
“Say nothing about your feelings,” Cilla said. “Not at first. It’s been a while. Just be yourself and let any awkwardness ebb.”
“Then jump him,” Joss offered.
“No, then watch for a sign that it’s time to be honest with him,” Lacey said.
“Then jump him.” Joss again.
“No, then keep your distance. Say your piece calmly and then look him square in the eye,” Cilla said.
“Then jump him,” Joss said. “Jumping is the whole point.”
“But Bex can’t be trusted,” Lacey said. “She jumped Clive, and look where that got her.”