by Jerramy Fine
The way I saw it, there was no downside. The taboo of meeting someone over the Internet had completely disappeared for my age group and suddenly almost every girl I knew, on both sides of the Atlantic, was forever raving about this new e-pool of eligible men.
Besides, Peter Phillips was just as much a part of the digital generation as I was—so why not give it a try? Perhaps this was the way we were destined to meet. At the very least I figured it would get me through the working day. And with London social barriers being what they were, if I managed to meet new people through this untapped technology, even better.
Like most bored employees, within minutes of logging on to the various dating sites, I was hooked. It wasn’t uncommon for me to spend hours surfing Match.com and Friendster, eternally devising the perfect profile and constantly analyzing everyone else’s.
I saw no point in trawling through hundreds of undesirables, so when it came to composing my own profile, I was extra specific about what type of guy I was looking for. And after a handful of drafts, I settled on this:
Blond American bookworm/partygirl seeks privately educated Englishman (aged 25–30) with James Bond accent and Oscar Wilde wit. Must enjoy black-tie galas, debaucherous dinner parties, intellectual debates, and long walks in the country. An appreciation for fine wine, classic literature, and nonstop adventure goes without saying. Aristocratic lineage and Hugh Grant looks highly encouraged. No others need apply.
Pretty straightforward, right? Once it was posted, I sat back and waited for the flirty fun to begin. But despite my rather explicit dating requirements, I didn’t get a single e-mail from anyone even closely resembling my carefully described ideal!
Instead, I received dozens of e-mails from every nationality you can think of—Italian men, Australian men, Jordanian men, Fijian men, Swedish men, even Icelandic men—each one naïvely thinking that they could persuade me to drop the “English” part of my criteria!
But I was strict. Any guy who wasn’t English was deleted immediately.
Except once.
If his profile was to be believed, his name was Sebastian. Although he was born in northern California, he was now living in London. He listed fencing and rowing as his hobbies, had attended the Sorbonne and Oxford, and claimed to be both the CEO of his own consultancy and to be writing a novel in his spare time.
You had to hand it to this California boy—my interest was piqued. So I broke my own rules and opened his brief message.
“Can’t help noticing your overt Anglophilia,” it read. “Am curious to know what makes such a well-educated American girl possess such insular desires.”
Ouch!
Partly in my own defense, something made me pour out my soul to this Internet boy. (That’s the beauty of the computer-dating world—it can serve as excellent anonymous therapy.)
In a flurry of typing, I told Sebastian about my deep love for England and mysterious passion for all things royal; I told him about my crush on Peter Phillips; I even told him all about my crazy hippie parents and how sometimes, just sometimes, I wondered how much of my personality was actually a severe case of reverse rebellion. Then I pressed send.
Sebastian’s reply arrived ten minutes later. And let me tell you, what it contained was the last thing I expected.
“Quite astonishingly,” he began, “I believe that you—a girl I assumed would be snobby and inflexible, are in fact my mirror image.”
In an e-mail filled with as many confessions as my own, Sebastian told me how his dad (with a beard and blond hair down to his waist) used to sit on their kitchen floor playing acoustic guitar. He told me about his own childhood of tie-dyed pillows, organic gardens, and raising chickens and how he was pretty much left to raise himself—spending most of his youth running stark naked through the forest plotting revenge against his parents for making him eat alfalfa sprouts.
He told me that once he hit adolescence, he took to wearing knickerbockers and smoking a pipe. (Take that, hippie parents!) He even had a monocle with a chain attached to his waistcoat, and when someone met with his disapproval, he would let it drop dramatically from his eye. He told me how he dreamed of moving to Paris, and being adopted by a family that would teach him to use cutlery instead of chopsticks. And best of all, he admitted to a lifelong admiration of Zara Phillips (Peter’s striking younger sister).
I sat at my desk in shock.
After all this time, was the person who understood me better than anyone an American? It was a dizzying thought.
In our very next e-mail, Sebastian and I exchanged pictures (he was preppy and cute with classic aquiline features) and we agreed to meet for a drink the following week. When he suggested my favorite London bar, I got goosebumps and it wasn’t long before I became a nervous wreck. I mean, this guy seemed amazing. What if I wasn’t good enough for him? What if I wasn’t pretty enough? What if I wasn’t smart enough?
I went to the bookstore and bought the cheater’s guides to French literature and art history. I also read everything I could get my hands on about fencing. During the next few days, I ignored my work entirely and spent hours composing note-perfect paragraphs in response to Sebastian’s seductively cerebral e-mails. (For godsake, the boy actually asked me if I had a trousseau!99)
My heart raced wildly with every e-mail exchange and my stomach filled with endless butterflies at the thought of our pending date. But as I walked into the dimly lit bar situated ten stories above the sparkling lights of the River Thames, I knew—within seconds—that I shouldn’t have bothered.
There was zero chemistry between us.
Not a spark of physical attraction.
Not even enough basic compatibility to sustain thirty minutes of small talk.
Although our e-mail discussions had flown off the keyboard at lightning speed, we now struggled to make a simple face-to-face conversation last as long as a single glass of wine. Like 99 percent of relationships born on the Internet, ours should have stayed there. The magic of our fleeting cyber connection was gone. And never to return.
On the lonely taxi ride home, I marveled at my heart’s gullibility. I couldn’t believe I had let myself get so worked up about this random American guy! To become so emotionally involved! So unsure of myself! To think I was devouring French literature in order to impress him! He should have been devouring things to impress me! He wasn’t even English! What in God’s name was I thinking?
I vowed never to succumb to that sly online love trap ever again and removed my profile from those silly Web sites the very next morning. I seriously doubt Peter Phillips surfed the Web that much anyway.
The next day, I arrived home after work to find George and Sophie watching the latest episode of Big Brother—the mundane, eviction-based reality show that had taken the U.K. (and our flat) by storm.
“Jerramy, do you smell gas?” asked Sophie as I walked into the sitting room. “The boys keep telling me that I’m crazy.”
I sniffed the air and definitely detected something that smelled like sulfur. “Yes!” I answered.
“That’s it,” exclaimed Sophie, jumping off the sofa and grabbing the phone. “I’m ringing Duncan.”
“Good luck,” I said sarcastically. I flopped down on the sofa next to George and settled in to listen to yet another of Sophie and Duncan’s infamous screaming matches.
“Duncan!” she shouted. “Can’t you at least come over here and smell it for yourself?”
Pause. “But you live five minutes away!”
Pause. “Duncan! If it is a gas leak, the flat could burst into flames at any second!”
Pause. “I can’t believe you have so little regard for the safety of your tenants or your property!”
Pause. Slamming of phone onto receiver.
“What did he say?” I asked tentatively. I could tell Sophie was seething.
“He said don’t light any matches and he would call in the morning to see if we’re still alive.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” I said.
>
“I’m going to bed,” said George.
“Well, I’m calling the fire department,” said Sophie, and she started dialing.
Less than ten minutes later, a fire engine pulled up outside our flat, sirens blaring and lights flashing. And before I knew what was happening, no fewer than eight firemen burst through our front door. Sophie explained the situation while the fleet of uniformed men circled through the various rooms.
Finally, one of the burly men spoke.
“Smells to me like you pretty little girls spilled some nail varnish,” he said with a grin.
If Sophie’s eyes could kill, that fireman would have dropped dead on the spot.
We emphatically denied such condescending allegations (could they be any more patronizing?). But eventually, after the whole fire brigade insisted we make them cups of tea, they finally gave us an official all-clear. No gas leak. We could sleep safely and without fear of spontaneous combustions.
The next morning I got a text message from Duncan: “STILL ALIVE?”
It took me less than two seconds to respond: “NO THANX 2 U.”
Duncan replied even faster: “UR HOT WHEN UR ANGRY.”
I shook my head in exasperation. The things I put up with for possible polo invitations.
Twenty-five
“It’s the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.”
—REBECCA WEST
Rupert and his friends had finally graduated from Oxford, accepted high-flying jobs, and at long last, everyone had arrived in London.
England is weird like that. In America, you graduate from college and depending on job prospects or grad school, close circles of friends suddenly disperse to just about every city in the country you can think of. But in England, you graduate from college and everyone moves to London. Simple as that.
When I was at the University of Rochester, my five closest girlfriends had moved to five different cities practically the day after we graduated, and as result, I was still coming to terms with the pain of being separated from my college friends quite possibly for life. I wholeheartedly envied English people who were lucky enough to strengthen their college friendships for de cades to come—merely because they all lived in London.
In retrospect, I realized this weird migrating phenomenon might be part of the reason that meeting English people in London was so maddeningly difficult for me. In large American cities, everyone comes and goes so quickly that there is general openness to new blood and new friendships. But in London, everyone is already firmly and happily ensconced in their college social circle, so there is very little incentive for them to make new friends. Newcomers (like me) are rarely accepted unless (like me) they have virtually punched their way in.
Still, because of these social boxing skills of mine, I was invited to Rupert’s house warming party. It was in SW, of course. And I could hardly wait. It’d been a long time since I’d been to a party swarming with boarding-school accents, antediluvian attitudes, gold signet rings, and those adorable pink button-down shirts with sleeves rolled to just below the elbow.
Far too long.
The moment I entered the large three-story town house (Rupert was sharing with three flatmates), I was in my element. Oh, how I’d missed this extraordinary level of charm and insouciance, this contagious neglect of all common sense and responsibility! And I no longer had to travel by that blasted Oxford bus for the privilege! It was now on my London doorstep!
I joyfully circled the party like a drunken butterfly. But amid the intoxicated sea of young college graduates I noticed a dainty old lady, possibly in her seventies, gulping down white wine with as much vigor as the rest of us. I pulled Hugo aside and asked him what this elegant, beautifully coiffed woman wearing a Chanel suit was doing at such a depraved social event.
“That’s Lucinda,” he answered, “Tom’s mum. Cracking good fun! Former It Girl, apparently. Still can’t get enough of the night life!”
Indeed. In fact, it wasn’t long before Lucinda pulled out her digital camera and started snapping pictures of all the guests—and then promptly informing them if they did or didn’t possess photogenic qualities suitable for the society pages. She was hilarious and I loved her. (Especially when she deemed me to be appropriately photogenic.)
It was good to see Rupert again although he was immensely distracted by what appeared to be a relatively serious girlfriend. Still, I was genuinely happy for him. I know it’s not saying much, but I still thought Rupert was one of the most deserving English guys I’d ever met.
“Jezza!” Rupert bellowed drunkenly. “There is someone here you must meet!” Rupert grabbed my shoulder and began to steer me through the crowd.
“His name is Nick,” he whispered loudly into my ear, “and, you’re going to love this—he works for Buckingham Palace!”
“Rupert!” I laughed. “Stop it!”
“No! Jezza! Really he does!”
I rolled my eyes. “No, he doesn’t. You really have to stop making fun of me in front of your friends!”
By this time, we were standing in front of Nick. He was cute—dark hair, roguish grin, big broad rugby shoulders.
“Nick,” Rupert stated dramatically, “this is Jezza. The girl I was telling you about. She doesn’t believe me that you work for Buckingham Palace.”
“Oh, but I do,” Nick replied, winking at Rupert. “Lovely to meet you, Jezza.” I smiled in exasperation. I knew the two of them were just kidding around at my expense.
“I’ll leave you two monarchists alone,” teased Rupert.
Nick just laughed.
“So, Nick,” I began, with mock seriousness, “what is it that you do at Buckingham Palace?”
“I work as an assistant secretary to Her Majesty the Queen,” he replied.
He answered without skipping a beat. Maybe he was serious. No—couldn’t be. He was far too young to hold such a position.
“And what does that involve?” I asked with amusement, happy to play his game for a while.
He shrugged and said smoothly, “Assisting with planning the official engagements carried out by my Sovereign.”
Oh, be still my pounding heart!
“For instance?” I squeaked.
“For instance, this week I assisted Her Majesty in receiving His Excellency the Ambassador from the Republic of Turkey into the Court of St. James’s.”100
“Very impressive,” I said flirtatiously. “But how do I know you’re telling the truth? For all I know, you merely memorized today’s Court Circular.”101
“Very well then,” he said, lowering his voice. “How about I tell you something I’m working on that has yet to be formally announced?”
“I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” I said coquettishly.
“I think obtaining your favorable opinion might be worth the trouble,” Nick replied.
I blushed.
“Alright then,” I whispered, “tell me.”
“Well,” he leaned closer, “at present, I am busy preparing logistics for the upcoming arrival of your very own illustrious commander-in-chief.”
My eyes widened in shock. “You mean George W. and his entourage are descending upon Buckingham Palace?” I found the whole image rather disturbing. Royals and rodeos simply didn’t belong together.
Nick shook his head gravely. “I’m afraid so. Who would have guessed that one of my first assignments would be orchestrating royal protocol to fit the needs of a Texas cowboy?”
Just then, a rather drunken Hugo appeared. “Jerramy! Piers and I need your expert opinion on something this instant!” He grabbed my arm and attempted to drag me away.
I quickly pulled a business card out of my purse and slipped it into Nick’s hand. “Call me if you ever want to divulge more royal information,” I said softly, and then disappeared with Hugo into the crowd.
Hugo pulled me upstairs to find Piers. And as soon as our trio was assembled, the issue on which my expertise was so urge
ntly required was revealed.
“Okay,” slurred Piers in his wonderfully upper crust accent, “this summer, Hugo and I are planning a road trip across your grand United States of America. And we would like to ask you several critical questions regarding the itinerary.”
“Jerramy,” said Hugo sternly, “please don’t take this lightly. As our honorary American friend, and perhaps the only American we are not embarrassed to be seen with—your expertise is invaluable. I implore you to listen carefully to our proposal, and to give us an honest answer regarding its viability.”
“I’ll do my best!” I laughed.
Hugo began by taking a deep breath, “Jerramy, you may not know this, but from the moment we learned of its glorious existence, Piers and I have dreamt of going to prom. In fact, going to an American prom is perhaps our deepest and most heartfelt desire.”
Piers nodded earnestly. I did my best not to dissolve into drunken giggles.
“So,” Hugo continued, “this is our plan: We will pinpoint several strategic small towns in the Midwest and time our arrival exactly one week before prom night. Then, Piers and I, dressed in our most dapper English daywear, will linger about in search of a date.”
“We already know that the foxy girls will be taken,” Piers said matter-of-factly.
“But,” Hugo grinned, “the geeky girls will be desperate!”
Piers nodded with enthusiasm.
Hugo carried on with his tactical explanation. “So, we will strike up a conversation with these desperately dateless girls—in the library, or perhaps in the car park102 after school—and we shall introduce ourselves as earls or perhaps young viscounts.”
“But we’ll also be sure to casually mention how we’d love to be invited to a real American prom!” said Piers dreamily, stumbling into a simulated waltz with an imaginary American partner.
I laughed again. “And when these geeky American girls are face to face with your matchless English charm and hear your delicious English accents, you hope they’ll be falling over themselves to take you to their prom?”