“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, thanks 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.