Someday My Prince Will Come

by Jerramy Fine

  I closed the rickety bathroom door behind me and switched on the light, only to find myself nose to nose with Captain Hook, who switched it right off again, pinned me against the tiny sink (boy, did he love to pin), and started kissing me again. What was going on here? One minute I was trying to find my superhero soulmate and the next minute half of the windmill was trying to kiss me!

  Not that I was complaining. The pirate was a pretty good kisser himself. And he was related to the Queen.

  Suddenly, a loud knock snapped me out of my royal fantasy.

  “Grace Kelly. Let me in. I have mud all over me.” It was Charles.

  Again, I had to wonder why Debrett’s didn’t think to write one measly paragraph on the correct etiquette to extract oneself from a pirate.

  “Listen, Captain Hook,” I whispered frantically, “I can’t let Charles see you in here with me!”

  I was telling the truth. I had no intention of becoming known as the American girl who kisses two guys in less than five minutes. Even if I had.

  “Okay,” he whispered back. “I’ll just climb out the window.”

  Right. Of course. He’ll just climb out the window. He said it as if he climbed out of bathroom windows every day. There would probably be a photo of me covered in mud, standing on a toilet, and pushing the Queen’s second cousin out of a window in next month’s Tatler. I could see it now:

  Unknown American social climber and Grace Kelly wanna-be shoves The Honourable Something Something-Something out of a windmill window as society birthday party spins dangerously out of control….

  I tried not to think about it. With Captain Hook safely evacuated, I slowly opened the bathroom door. Charles smiled at me politely as if I were a stranger, then squeezed past me toward the sink. His entire demeanor was so indifferent toward me, I was forced to wonder if I had actually imagined the whole amazing kiss-in-the-grass episode. Except for the small fact that we were both still covered in grass.

  Back in the main room of the windmill, I heard Rupert calling for me.

  “Jezza! There you are!” He was very drunk. But he was also sitting very close to Superman. Oh how I’d strayed from my first love of the evening!

  Rupert pulled me onto his lap as I walked by, raised his pint glass, and slurred, “Jezza, you’re a top bird!” before spilling most of it over my grass-stained Princess Grace cardigan.

  But then, true to his costume, Superman saved the day.

  He lifted me off Rupert’s lap and safely onto his own, turned to me with his big round Superman eyes, and in a husky English accent that made my stomach flip, he said, “Are you tired?”

  I nodded dreamily and rested my head on his muscley shoulder.

  “Me too,” he said quietly. “Let’s find ourselves a bunk bed.”

  The next morning, a bunch of us headed to Superman’s parents’ house, which happened to be five minutes down the road, and cooked ourselves a full English breakfast—which is quite possibly the world’s best cure for a hangover. Over platefuls of fried toast, fried bacon, fried sausages, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, and fried eggs sunny-side up, I tried to pretend that the night before I hadn’t made out with three out of the seven guys sitting at the breakfast table.

  Twelve

  “Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart.”

  —RAINER MARIA RILKE

  I rushed to the newsagent every day, earnestly awaiting the next issue of Tatler. When it finally appeared, I handed over my three pounds and quickly flipped to the society pages. No sign of the windmill party. I breathed a sigh of relief. That party would not have been an idyllic social debut.

  Still, I vigilantly scanned the party photographs searching for faces I might recognize—and what do you know, there was Superman! And another of Giles! I closed the magazine and smiled with satisfaction. It was only a matter of time before my face appeared in those pages as well. First, aristocratic social circles. Next stop: royal circles.

  Nevertheless, after the windmill party, I had to admit to a certain trend. Costume parties full of aristocratic boys with aristocratic accents were not really helping me with my prince search and I was really starting to worry if they were actually having an adverse effect.

  I mean, what if Captain Hook knew Peter? Let’s face it, as the Queen’s second cousin, he must know at least some of the royal family. With that connection alone, gossip could easily reach my future husband, warning him to stay clear of this flighty new American girl that kisses any costumed Englishman placed in front of her. Not the best reputation to precede me.

  I knew that I had been deprived of aristocratic boys for so long that my subconscious was merely making up for lost time. And I knew that, quite frankly, I had been unfairly subjected to a nonstop stream of temptation. But I also knew that no matter how many times Rupert insisted I had nothing to worry about, my wanton behavior had to stop before it became borderline promiscuous. No matter how sexy his toga, or how lovely his accent, or how many times he was pictured in a magazine—I had to stop.

  So, right then and there, I decided to grab ahold of myself and date English guys properly. Make them call me, send me flowers, and take me to dinner. My days of ripping off togas and tangling myself up with pirates were over. Over! I was going to cut down on the cocktails and sangria and play hard to get. Forget the back pages of Tatler—I had to save myself for the front cover.

  The next day I received a phone call from a boy I met at the windmill. Oddly enough, it wasn’t a boy I had kissed, not that that would have narrowed it down for you. It was from a boy who had dressed up as the Pope. His name was Andrew and he needed a date to an upcoming London reception.

  Clearly, Andrew was not a Pope in real life. Far from it. He was a young gentleman of leisure who enjoyed partaking in more than his fair share of tennis and debauchery. And it seemed this reception would be involving both of his favorite pastimes. We were to attend a black-tie gala to mark the finale of a series of U.S./U.K. singles and doubles championships that had been held all week at The Queen’s Club50—the most prestigious tennis club in the country, if not the world.

  “However,” Andrew drawled to me over the phone in his devastatingly upper-crust accent, “I’m afraid that this invitation must be purely platonic. It’s going to be quite a party, and I think it best if you and I keep our options open. As long you as arrive on my arm, the rest of the evening is your oyster.”

  Andrew’s oyster terms suited me just fine and I happily agreed to be his transatlantic arm-candy. But seriously—how was I supposed to concentrate on my social exclusion paper that was due that week? All I could think about were swarms of world-class British athletes dressed in tuxedos!51

  Andrew and I arrived during the final game of the tournament. But it wasn’t normal tennis like I was expecting. It was a spin-off game called “racquets” that is only taught at exclusive British boarding schools. Apparently it started off in the eighteenth century as a game played in English prison yards yet somehow morphed into a game for the wealthy aristocracy. Don’t ask. All I know is that only a dozen or so courts on the planet can even facilitate racquets and Queen’s Club has two of them.

  Anyway, as Andrew whispered all the club gossip in my ear, I sipped my champagne and tried to make sense of it all. To be honest I had never been one for spectator sports. I would have rather done just about anything than watch baseball or football or almost any game involving a ball. I just can’t focus on any of it. I might as well sit and watch fish swim back and forth in a fish tank.

  But racquets was different. It all moved so fast and the players moved with such amazing, inhuman skill that my heart was actually pumping as I watched the last minutes of the tournament. The game we watched was between the #3-and #4-ranked racquets players in the world within the under-twenty-four age group. And I was particularly transfixed by #3. When he was declared the winner, I clapped as loudly as I could without spilling champagne over my little black dress.

  The reception that followed w
as terribly civilized. Then again, for me it was all relative. At that point, any party that didn’t involve shoving pirates out of bathroom windows seemed civilized. As always, I kept my farm town upbringing to myself and dazzled everyone with my charming Debrett’s manners. No pirate-esque episodes that night, that’s for sure. I was so over that silly stage in my life.

  The American businessmen had turned out in massive numbers and all seemed to have conveniently left their wives at home. Andrew was nowhere to be found so I was left to fend for myself in a banquet room full of black-tie testosterone. I was attempting to converse with four drunken Chicago tycoons, when I felt a tap on my arm.

  I turned around and let out a tiny gasp, for there, standing right next to me, was #3! He was freshly showered and his blond hair was still wet and poked off his head in perfect little spikes. Up close, he was absolutely stunning. Like one of those soap-opera actors whose good looks can’t possibly be real. Also, I know you should never judge a guy wearing a tux because tuxes always make guys look better than they do in real life, but the black wool of his double-breasted dinner jacket made #3 look more preposterously handsome than ever. His jaw was so square, his shoulders so broad, and his skin so tanned, I felt as if I was standing next to a life-sized Malibu Ken doll.

  I stood there dumbfounded as the Ken doll took the champagne glass out of my hand and replaced it with another glass flute filled with something pink and bubbly. And then, in an Etonian52 accent that took my breath away, he said, “I thought you might prefer a Kir Royale instead of plain champagne.”

  I don’t think I’d ever heard a more beautiful pick-up line in my entire life.

  It sure did make a change from America. I think the best pick-up line I ever heard there was from a guy in Daytona Beach who zoomed past me in his flashy red convertible shouting, “Take your shorts off, baby!”

  Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion and I could barely speak. I just couldn’t believe that this gorgeous Ken doll was actually talking to me. His name was James St. John53 Carrington-MacCarthey.54 How soap opera is that?

  We chatted for a while, but to be fair, he did most of the talking—I was too tongue-tied to do anything more than giggle and bat my eyelids. After a while it became clear that I was keeping him from all the important sports people who wanted to congratulate him on winning the tournament, and as ever, there was a gaggle of overaged businessmen waiting to talk to me, so we went our separate ways.

  For the next few hours, the party went on around me and I floated through it, refusing to drink anything but Kir Royales. Around 1 A.M., those who were still standing retired to the clubhouse lounge to watch highlights from some sort of horse race. Andrew kissed me graciously on the cheek, said good-bye, and disappeared into the night, and I collapsed into an overstuffed leather sofa in the back of the room, asking myself for the millionth time why I insisted on wearing such ridiculously high heels.

  Most of the people around me were focused on the big screen television and the noise of the commentators filled the room. I was so warm and happy in my comfy sofa that I began to nod off until I felt a familiar tap on my arm. I looked up and there was my beautiful Ken doll.

  He sat down next to me on the sofa, leaned over, and began to whisper something to me in French. Due to Colorado’s close proximity to Mexico, my parents had made me take Spanish in high school instead of French, ignoring my insistence that one day I’d be living much closer to France. As result of this, I had no idea what the Ken doll was saying to me. All I know is that I didn’t want him to stop. His hand was on my leg and inching slowly up the skirt of my little black dress. Quite frankly, I didn’t want that to stop either.

  Suddenly he switched from French to his exquisite Etonian English and whispered, “I want to take you on a tour of Queen’s Club.”

  Wait a minute. Let’s pause for one tiny second. Did Eton and Harrow55 and all those other prestigious boys’ boarding schools teach all their students that if you like a girl, you invite them on a tour? Regardless of the venue? What if I had been in my own house? Would he have invited me on a tour of my own room? What if we were in a grocery store? Would it be a tour of the produce section?

  I quickly snapped out of it and before I knew what was happening, James St. John Carrington-MacCarthey and I were lying on the floor of an actual racquets court and making out in the dark. I decided to start playing hard to get next week.

  At the latest.

  Luckily, I was removed from temptation for a while. My first semester at LSE was coming to an end and I busied myself with frantic paper-writing. Also, in case you hadn’t heard, New Year’s Eve 1999 was kind of a big one. To save money, I wasn’t going home for Christmas (Oh, no! My first Christmas away from my family and the naked hot springs—how was I ever going to get through it?), but whenever people started talking about their elaborate party arrangements for the millennium, I have to say that the sheer splendor and scope of my plans outshined everyone else’s by far.

  It was the last semester of my senior year of college, and my superstylish friend Natalie, who lived across the hall from me, had started seriously dating a boy who lived next door to me. His name was Krishna and everyone, including me, thought he and Natalie were perfect for each other.

  One day, Krishna came into my room to chat while he was waiting for Natalie to finish getting ready. (She always took hours to choose an outfit.) As we laughed about drunken stories from last night’s party, Krishna began to take a closer look at all the royal posters adorning my walls.

  “Did I ever tell you that back in India, my mom is a princess?” Krishna said casually in his contagiously cheerful way.

  What??? Krishna’s mom was a princess?

  “Hurry up, baby doll!” he called to Natalie. “The movie starts in ten minutes!”

  Natalie came rushing out of her room, looking unbelievably stunning as usual, and they were off—leaving me to wonder how Krishna, my beer-loving, tennis-playing, all-American neighbor with his backward baseball cap, could possibly be connected to an Indian royal family.

  But he was. In fact, he was the nephew of His Highness the Maharaja of Rajasthan.56 And I had been invited by Krishna and Natalie to spend the millennium with them and the rest of the royal family at their Royal Palace in India.

  There were odd times (including that absurd TV/book chart phase) when the free-love hippie parents became positively fascist. This was another one of those times.

  “I don’t think you should go,” my mom told me. “I’m really worried you might be caught up in the Y2K.”

  “What better place to get stuck than in a palace?” I countered.

  This conversation was getting ridiculous. It wasn’t like I was asking her to fund my plane ticket to Mumbai; I was merely doing the daughterly thing and kindly informing her of my plans. I mean, I was already in London—which was practically halfway to India. (And quietly dipping into my new student loan money would easily cover the cost of the flight.)

  “I don’t think it’s safe for you to travel as a woman on your own. You might be forced into a harem or something,” she continued.

  “I won’t be alone! Besides, didn’t you try to hitchhike to Woodstock by yourself?” She didn’t like being reminded of that one.

  “That was different.”

  “Not really.”

  “Jerramy, you can’t fly around the world on a whim like some spoiled trust-fund kid! You can barely afford to be in London! Every penny you have should be going toward LSE, not wasted on one crazy party after another! You can go to India some other time. It’s not like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  “Mom! I’m being invited to party with a royal family on the eve of the millennium. If that’s not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, what is?!”

  “What if you get malaria?”

  I was tempted to hang up on her. “I won’t get malaria.” Seriously, what happened to all the usual do-what-makes-you-happy hippie talk?

  “Jerramy, if you go to
India, I’ll be very disappointed in you.” I’m surprised she tried this one. I’ve never responded to any kind of guilt-related discipline and she knew it.

  “Mom, don’t worry about me. I’ll be perfectly safe. And I’ll send you a postcard from the palace.” And with that, I said good bye, called up the London travel agent, and bought my once-in-a-lifetime ticket.

  To my horror, Air India was hijacked the night before I was scheduled to leave. Luckily I was taking a different airline, but it made me wonder if maybe my mom was right to be worried about me sometimes. But nothing, not even terrorists, was going to stop me from missing this party.

  After the gray gloom of London, stepping into the glorious Bombay sunshine was pure bliss. Krishna had his driver pick me up at the airport and drive me to his family’s apartment where I could freshen up and wait for my connecting flight to Rajasthan.

  On Christmas Eve, my mom used to drive my brother and me through the poorer neighborhoods to remind us of how lucky we were. Because of this exposure, I genuinely thought I knew what poverty was. And as a smug masters student of social policy, I definitely thought I knew what poverty was.

  But I didn’t.

  Only during that short car ride through the backstreets of Mumbai did I learn.

  People, millions of people, literally living in piles of dirt. People literally going to the bathroom on top of each other—along with the cows, dogs, and monkeys that were living in the dirt with them. There were dozens of people with freakish birth defects crawling around on shriveled limbs. I saw a leper, I saw a girl with feet as big as watermelons with about ten toes on each, I saw people without legs rolling around on boards. They’d surround the car and paw at me through the windows with crazed, deranged eyes. It was like stepping inside that picture of Dante’s Inferno that appeared in one of my high school textbooks. It was like what hell must honestly look like.