by Jerramy Fine
Ezra, my little skater-punk brother, didn’t seem to mind holidays at the hot springs. Quite annoyingly, he never minded half the zany stuff my parents did. (He didn’t even mind his weird name, but then again at least his name was the correct gender.) But for me, the entire ordeal was absolutely mortifying.
While my family basked naked under the stars in the giant steaming pool with all their other naked friends, I would head indoors and sit by myself in the only pool on the premises where swimsuits were required—all the while knowing I would later be shunned for refusing to join in the family spirit of Christmas. Well, I’m sorry, but my Christmas spirit had its limits.
For as many Christmases as I can remember, I would float on my back all by myself in that tiny clothing-required pool, staring at the ceiling and dreaming about what life would’ve been like if I hadn’t been switched at birth. I’d dream about the classic English Christmas my real parents were having somewhere in the English countryside and how they were probably all wearing clothes. I dreamed about being somewhere I belonged, somewhere that actually felt like home.
And the instant my flight touched down at Heathrow, I knew that I was.
I dropped my suitcases at the Earl’s Court hotel, ignored my jet lag, and began making up for twenty years of lost time. I will never forget when I climbed the steps out of Westminster tube station and had my first good look at London. Big Ben towered above me, golden and gleaming, and for a few seconds I couldn’t breathe. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I just stood there. Dazed. Wondering why a giant clock had nearly knocked the wind out of me. Despite all my years of trying to escape everything around me, I suddenly felt something I’d never felt before: the desire to stay in one place forever. I suddenly felt certain that what ever I had been longing for my whole life was actually within my reach.
After being housed in a giant flat with nine other American girls, I was desperate to make it through the mandatory “cultural assimilation” week that my university had organized. I couldn’t wait to escape the lectures on “How to Tell If You’re Not Coping with the Stress of a Foreign Country,”8 the dangerous differences between the U.K. and U.S. meanings of the word “pants,”9 and which way to look when crossing the street, and start my full-time internship at the House of Commons.
Quite romantically, the U.K. Parliament has evolved from the ancient medieval council that once advised the King. Just like America has representatives and senators, the U.K. has Members of Parliament (MPs) and lords. MPs are elected by the British public into the House of Commons—meaning this is where the “commoners” or nonaristocrats are represented.
The House of Lords, on the other hand, are not elected by the public—they merely inherit their political position from their aristocratic parents. There are over seven hundred aristocratic titles in the U.K. that can be inherited and most of these hereditary noblemen are entitled to a seat in the House of Lords—purely because of their birthright.10
Believe me, I tried to get an internship at the House of Lords so I could meet some nobility and eventually meet their sons, but unlike the U.S. Senate, the English upper house hadn’t learned how to exploit free American labor quite yet and therefore had no internships available.
But I wasn’t too disappointed. The dreamy Tony Blair had just come into power and I was going to be working for one of the newly elected “Blair Babes.”11 It was going to be great. Besides, I’d interned for a U.S. congresswoman when I was a sophomore so I figured at the very least, from an academic point of view, it would be a fascinating parallel experience.
As suspected, just like in Congress, my days were filled with replying to endless letters from fretful constituents. For example, “Dear Mr. English, Thank you so much for writing to Mrs. XXX MP to share your concerns regarding the bearskin hats used by the Queen’s Guards. She has asked me to write and tell you how much she appreciates hearing your views….”
But then there were the times when I was moved to tears knowing my footsteps were echoing along the very same government corridors as Churchill’s—and those kinds of moments were worth every bit of my mundane office work. (Not to mention I got to see the dreamy Tony Blair in the flesh on more than one occasion.)
Still, compared to the de cadence of the U.S. Congress, there were some major differences I hadn’t bargained for in the British Parliament. Like how hard it would be to find a pencil. Or a Xerox machine that actually worked. The most basic modern technology (like e-mail) was only just beginning to seep into English governmental offices and most of my traditional English colleagues were highly skeptical of it.
One day, one of the English office assistants pulled me aside and whispered, “Jerramy, I hate to say it, but I do believe our good friend Bradley is somehow involved in the porn industry.”
Bradley, one of the three American interns including me working in Parliament that year, was the most clean-cut, politically determined kid I’d ever met. I doubt he’d ever picked up a Playboy in his life. He was far too worried it might ruin his senatorial campaign twenty years down the road.
“Why?” I laughed. “What on earth makes you think that?”
“Well,” the flustered Englishman continued, “I received something from Bradley this morning called hot mail. HOT mail! Can you believe he’d send something like that to me at work? I daren’t open it. Very dodgy. Very dodgy indeed.”
It took me a while to explain to him that most young Americans had Hotmail accounts and that most of them (back then anyway) had nothing to do with the porn industry, but he wasn’t at all convinced. It didn’t help that the Monica Lewinsky scandal had hit the British press that same week. Understandably, all American interns, however eager, were suddenly deemed a bit suspicious.
Yet while office supplies and twenty-first-century computer knowledge were severely lacking in the House of Commons, other things weren’t. Bars, for instance. The Houses of Parliament are located within the Palace of Westminster, a historic royal palace and former residence of kings. The layout of the palace is intricate, with its existing buildings containing well over two miles of passages. And within this beautiful, ancient maze of a building, you will find twenty-three official bars.
I wasn’t even old enough to legally drink back in America, and all of sudden I was spending night after night downing government subsidized gin-and-tonics with the U.K.’s most senior politicians.
By law, the bars had to stay open as long as the House was in session. So while the MPs and their staff sat around waiting for the voting bells to ring, they drank. Vote. Drink. Vote. Drink. Vote. Drink. It’s no wonder their government ran like such a finely oiled machine.
No one was violently protesting about unborn children. No one was demanding the right to own semiautomatic weapons. No one was complaining about the topless women that appeared every day as a matter of course in several of the national newspapers. From what I could tell, England appeared to be an oasis of sheer calm and civilization under the watchful eye of Her Majesty the Queen. Only in the U.S. could you still have decidedly genuine and objective arguments about whether the death penalty was a moral obligation, whether stem cell research was sacrilegious, or whether gay humans were substandard to straight ones. I’m telling you, whatever connected contemporary British society to the ancient institution of royalty seemed to be working.
Much to my surprise (and everyone else’s), chasing English boys wasn’t a huge priority during my semester abroad. But to be honest, I wasn’t surrounded by loads of temptation. Whereas all the young men working in U.S. Congress were tan, square-jawed, and positively Kennedy-esque, the English government didn’t seem to be churning out quite so many youthfully handsome political lackeys. Besides, the very idea of chasing after random English boys seemed silly when I knew my physical proximity to Peter Phillips was closer than it had ever been before.
At any rate, I was already head over heels in love with London. I loved everything about it: the air, the accent, the people, t
he palaces, even the milky tea and the rainy weather. Determined to explore every single inch of that breathtaking city, I crammed every spare hour I had with sightseeing. Sadly, most of my American classmates were primarily interested in the novelty of the U.K.’s lower drinking age,12. so getting people to tour the Royal Mews or Hampton Court Palace or Windsor Castle or the Crown Jewels or Diana’s Dress Collection with me early on a Saturday morning wasn’t always easy.
However, I did meet one nice English guy during that semester. Now don’t get excited—he wasn’t a love interest. Rupert was working for an MP during his gap year13 and sat at the desk across from me in our little government office building next to Westminster Abbey. Although he insisted on calling me Jezza14 and teased me endlessly about my royal obsession, Rupert was one of those guys who instantly became a surrogate brother to me. We might have had a momentary spark of attraction for each other in the early days, but our friendship became so close so quickly; it soon seemed utterly ridiculous to even consider anything else.
Rupert and I would read the morning papers together, make countless cups of afternoon tea, complain about the eternally broken “photocopier,” gossip about what had gone on in all the government bars the night before, and try to predict what year Bradley would be elected to the U.S. Senate. Knowing all the other students in my program were hanging out purely with other Americans in all-American sports bars, I felt genuinely lucky to have made a real English friend.
I was also lucky to have landed such an amazing internship—not only was it extremely social, but it granted me elite glimpses into British life. The MP I was working for always offered me her discarded invitations, giving me the option of attending in her place. And as a result, I went to all sorts of crazy things: receptions in support of cable television, receptions campaigning against circus animals, committee meetings on everything from fireworks safety to poverty in Africa. One morning my MP handed me an invitation to a housing awards ceremony taking place that afternoon and of course I agreed to go.
After lunch, when I looked at the invitation more carefully to see where I needed to be, I nearly fell out of my chair. Princess Anne, HRH The Princess Royal, was going to be presenting one of the awards! Princess Anne was the Queen’s only daughter, Prince Charles’s younger sister, and the mother of my beloved Peter!
Full-scale panic set in. I was going to come face to face with my future mother-in-law!
The awards were taking place in ten minutes. I had no time to prepare. Zero time to compose myself or create any kind of strategy. How on earth was I going to handle it? My palms were sweaty and my heart was pounding, but I had no choice but to stay calm as I entered the smart Westminster conference room, put on my nametag, and took my seat.
All through the awards, I felt like I was trapped in some kind of space-time continuum. I watched the presentation on all the good deeds the housing charities were doing across the country: the homeless teenagers they were sheltering, the life skills they were teaching to make sure the same kids never wandered back onto the streets again. It was all very moving. I watched it as if everything were perfectly normal. As if some critical juncture in my destiny wasn’t unfolding before my very eyes.
More down-to-earth than the other royals, Princess Anne didn’t necessarily have a reputation for elegance, but overall she was the type of woman that the British public considered to be a “good egg.” I watched her intently as she stood patiently to the side before presenting the awards, wearing a navy wool suit and her signature white gloves. Now in her late forties, she had long, sturdy legs and her upswept bouffant hairstyle hadn’t changed a bit since the 1970s. You had to admire her for refusing to give into fashion trends and focusing solely on her charity work. I read somewhere that she was associated with over two hundred charities and organizations in an official capacity. How could anyone be against the monarchy when faced with a statistic like that?
As I sat there, all my years of royal research became a dizzying blur. Let’s say I was lucky enough to be presented to her. How was I supposed to address her? Your Highness? Your Royal Highness? Ma’am? Or was that only for Princess Margaret? Should I dip my head into a slight bow or was that only for men? Did I curtsy with my weight on my left foot or my right? I couldn’t remember a thing. And if she did talk to me, what in the name of God was I going to say? Dare I mention I planned on marrying her son?
The awards ended, and tea and biscuits15 were served. Everyone mingled about trying to get near the Princess Royal without looking like that’s what they were trying to do and I was no exception. Aside from the few formerly homeless teenagers who had been invited to the event, I was by far the youngest person present—and I suppose that’s what drew her to me.
I was introduced to her by one of the charity executives. “May I present Miss Fine, an intern in the House of Commons,” she said, reading directly from my nametag.16
Everything became somewhat hazy after that. I was overcome with the significance those next few moments would hold for my future.
“Your Highness.” I smiled, bobbing into a subtle curtsy and lightly touching the gloved fingertips of her outstretched hand. “How do you do.”
(If they offer their hand, you shake their hand—at least I was focused enough to remember that bit of royal protocol!)
And before we could exchange any more pleasantries, before I could slip her my e-mail address to pass on to Peter, before she could see what a fantastic daughter-in-law I was going to make, she was swiftly introduced to the next person. And I was left alone with my teacup. Giddy beyond words.
As I happily walked back to Parliament in a daze, I hummed the lines from my favorite Little Mermaid song. Back in Colorado, I used to listen to The Little Mermaid sound track on my Walkman at top volume whenever my parents assigned me the disgusting task of cleaning out the chicken coop. Those beautiful Disney songs were all I had to help me block out the fact that I (someone quite possibly of noble birth) was being forced to shovel hay and excrement.
But now, after meeting Princess Anne, the mother of my future husband, so soon after arriving in England, my beloved lyrics took on a whole new meaning and suddenly seemed as if they’d been written just for me.
“I don’t know when, I don’t know how,
But I know something’s starting right now!
Watch and you’ll see, someday I’ll be, part of your world!”
Just like Ariel after she had seen the shipwrecked Prince Eric, I could feel the weight of my destiny on my shoulders. And by the time I reached the office, I was quite worked up about it. Luckily most people had gone home for the day so only Rupert was there to witness my minor bout of hysteria.
“It’s a small country,” I muttered, frantically pacing back and forth across the room. “Therefore, statistically, it’s only a matter of time. I mean, if I can meet Peter’s mother in less than one month after arriving on English shores, surely, surely it’s only a matter of time before I meet Peter.”
I looked pointedly at Rupert. He was leaning back lazily in his desk chair, fingers interlaced behind his head, and watching me—utterly amused.
“Why don’t you just climb into his bedroom window?” he teased. “Then you can meet Peter to night.”
I stamped my foot in protest. “Rupert! I’m serious about this!” (And besides, I wasn’t yet entirely sure where Peter lived.)
“Ah, Jezza,” Rupert sighed. “You’re sweet. But you’re barking.17 Properly barking.”
Six
“I hold my breath and cast my fate in the direction of my heart. I will put on hold my lesser dreams and reach for what is truly mine.”
—MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
My junior year was ending and as much as I tried to deny it, that meant my semester abroad was ending too. Not only did it mean leaving my beloved English homeland and returning to monarchy-free America, it meant spending the rest of the summer in the cowboy-crammed mountains of Colorado. And let me tell you, after six glittering months in London, ne
ither location seemed at all enticing.
I briefly and quite seriously considered throwing my passport into the sea and staying in the U.K. forever as a citizen of the world. But something told me I would be back. And much sooner than anyone realized.
Look at it this way: I had always dreamed of visiting England—and through nothing but sheer passion and tenacity I had made it happen. If the simple power of intention was all that was required, then surely I was capable of making anything happen. And I suppose it was this revelation that prompted me to try my luck and write to Peter one more time.
I know what you’re thinking. She’s twenty-one years old for godsake! She’s about to be a senior in college! She should have known better! Besides, didn’t she learn her lesson the first time?
This is true. When it came to previous royal correspondence, I’d been pretty badly burned. And I agree that by this point I really should have realized that acting like a wistful teenager and sending out yet another lovesick piece of fan mail to Buckingham Palace was not going to further my cause. I mean, what was I hoping to achieve? Another nonresponse from another assistant secretary?
Of course not. You see, this is where my maturity would be an asset. This is where my twenty-one years of experience would come into play to make sure that nothing as devastating as that would happen again.
I knew that meeting Peter’s mother was no coincidence. And I simply wasn’t willing to let a slice of serendipity as strong as that pass me by. Perhaps my letter was not meant to reach Peter all those years ago, but maybe now the moment was right.
When my semester in London was over, I backpacked18 around Europe for a few weeks, and spent the rest of the summer waitressing and working on political campaigns in Denver. And, you guessed it, I also spent several days trying to draft the perfect letter to Peter. Talk about weird déjà vu! The only difference was this time I was writing on a laptop instead of on scented lavender stationery. And this time I didn’t pause once to decide if dotting my i’s with little hearts was or wasn’t a good idea.