Falling in Love With English Boys (19 page)

Both revelations would be spoilers in a big way, several ways. Ergo. I guess I’m gonna finish the diary.

Will and I wandered through the rest of the exhibit. Here’s what I learned:

• He took a train through India on his way to Tibet.

• It’s hard to see past the poverty, but when you do, the beauty is indescribable.

• The fact that he did it alone (the friend he’d been traveling with went in another direction) made it all the more powerful.

• Lakshmi is his fave goddess, in small part (he admitted with appropriate shame) because she spends a lot of time rubbing her hubby’s feet.

• I look absolutely nothing like Lakshmi (he didn’t say so, but a thousand years of paintings don’t lie).

• The Six Limbs are Head, Torso, Arms, and Legs.

• In art, they are Form, Line, Proportion, Color, Beauty, and Feeling.

• They figure prominently in the Kama Sutra.

• Just not in the Royal Academy.

• If one is missing, everything else is going to be outta whack.

It was raining when we walked out. Of course Will didn’t have an umbrella. What is it about guys and umbrellas? Of course, he’d told me to bring one. Now, the sort of umbrella that fits into a Betsey Johnson bag is not the sort that opens to epic proportions. In fact, it pretty much just covers one person. So, when Will ducked under with me, it was totally necessary to have his arm around my shoulders, mine around his waist, and our hips pressed together.

“The Twelve Limbs of Us,” Will said as we headed for our next destination.

Be still, my Torso.

As it turns out, Number Ten (curse it), was right across the street. Number Ten, of course, was Hatchards. Think Borders, but all dark shiny wood, brass, and thick carpeting. The pair of Geek Chic-alikes behind the register desk looked posh, bored, and faintly suspicious that I was going to grab a copy of
The History of Cheese in Three Volumes
and make a run for it.

THERE WILL BE NO COMICS OR FILM NOVELIZATIONS SOLD HERE is almost written over the door. It is the Buckingham Palace of bookstores. There are actually all these painted coat-of-arms-looking things behind the cash registers. According to Will, they’re kinda like royal monograms. If the Royals like a store, they literally give it their seal of approval.

I didn’t see Prince William’s. I wasn’t about to ask, not with princely William right next to me. Next to. No longer entwined with. Sigh. He gestured me up the curving stairs.

We went to Religion. Sarah D. would have to wait.

Will made a beeline for the top shelf and pulled down a paperback. He tossed it to me with slightly less reverence than most books in the section probably get. At least I didn’t drop it. The cover looked liked one of the paintings we’d just seen, lots of incredibly detailed people. But this was a battle scene. “
Bhaghavad Gita
,” I read the title.

“Do you have it already?” he asked.

To my credit, O my friends, I didn’t laugh.

“Don’t laugh!” he scolded.
Oops
. “This is probably the most important book about choices and eternal consequences ever written.”

“I thought that was
The Nanny Diaries
.”

“Har har.” He poked at one of the figures on the cover. “The prince Arjuna has to decide whether to wage war on his own family. The god Krishna, in the form of his chariot driver, gets him thinking about doing the
right
thing instead of the obvious one or the easy one.”

“And I should be interested because . . . ?”

“It’s our challenge, isn’t it—everyone’s—deciding whether what we’re fighting for in life is the right thing? Whether we’re motivated by duty or lust or greed? C’mon, Cat. It’s the Great Why.”

Why
, I always want to ask,
do the clever boys go for philosophy?
The Great Whys either give me a headache, or make me feel kinda guilty . . .

Oh, great.
“Is this about America fighting in the Middle East?” I asked, getting ready to get defensive and a little pissy. I’m becoming a tad tired of taking flak for decisions made by a bunch of people (who, I would venture to guess, have never read the
Baghavad Gita
, either) I wouldn’t vote for—even when I can actually vote.

“Absolutely.” Will shoved a hand into his hair, making it stand up in three different directions before flopping back into place. Okay, so clever boys can be awfully cute when they’re being philosophical and earnest. “Iraq. Afghanistan. Pakistan. And Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington and Hiroshima and celebrating life and deciding between Prada and H&M.”

Hmm
. “Well . . .”

“Critical matter, Cat. It’s about seeing beyond the heavy stuff that comes at us in everyday life to the bigger picture. You find the same philosophies in Jeremy Bentham and Utilitarianism, Cicero, Karl Marx . . .” He must have noticed my eyes crossing then. “Fine. Fine. Even J. K. Rowling. I bet she’s read the Gita.”

Boys and their obsessions. If it ain’t Eastern philosophy, it’s baseball. Or PlayStation. Or Bulgarian punk bands. At least Will knows when he’s Ranting Obsessed. He paid for the book. And grabbed a copy of
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
for me, too. “At least this one will give you a laugh.”

I found what I was looking for in the basement, where Hatchards hides the less lofty stuff. I snagged my Sarah Dessen and, for His Highness,
Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging.

“
This
,” sez I, “is the ultimate book of choice and eternal consequence.”

As we left, I looked up Piccadilly and realized how close we were to the West End.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained
. “The Theatre Royal’s thataway. Number Two? Let’s go get tickets to something.”

“Not next on the schedule (
shejule
), I’m afraid,” was his response. “Come on. Let’s get some lunch.”

We went to a nearby pub. It was crowded and sticky and full of twentysomethings in business suits. A couple of them checked me out approvingly. Apparently
they
appreciate Audrey. I perched on one of the low padded stools that masquerade as seats, and tried to look more like Heidi Klum—or even Seal—than a wet seal on a greased beach ball. While Will ordered BLTs and Cokes (from a modern-day tavern wench who, judging from the pout and boobs-in-his-face lean, obviously appreciated floppy aristocrat), I had to wonder: Is he ever going to ask me out after the sun goes down?

Whaddaya think, my Philly Greek Chorus? Is he just not that into me? Or, even worse, is there something else he does at night that might make me very unhappy? (Sophie, if you so much as dare to mention yearning, saintly bloodsuckers, I will scream. There will be no vampires here.) I hate not knowing, and can’t even begin to imagine how to ask.

So how does Girl suggest to Boy that she is available at night and very curious as to whether he is, too, without making it obvious? Well, she steers the conversation toward nightly subjects, of course.

What I made sure Will learned about me in the following thirty minutes:

• I like stargazing.

• I like sunsets.

• I think it’s destiny that I’m named Cat. Cats are night creatures.

• I’m a night owl. I hate early mornings.

• I am frequently late to my first class.

Don’t worry. I was subtle.

He:

• Used to play cloud games with his younger sister, until he hit puberty and everything started looking like a nude Kylie Minogue.

• Was blown away by sunrises in the Himalayas.

• Was named after eight other William Percivals, the fourth of whom would have been as famous as Francis Drake had he not pissed off Queen Elizabeth right when she was going to fund his exploratory journey, and hence spent the following four years in the Tower.

• Wasn’t in bed until nearly four the night before, and up again at nine. Sorry ’bout the yawning.

• Is hoping not to have morning classes when he starts at St. Andrew’s.

When we left the pub, Will squinted toward the West End.
Yes, yes, yes. Theater tix. I’ll buy.
“Stars, huh? I think the Adam Sandler film about the astrologer is playing in Leicester Square. I’ll buy.”

It was not what I had in mind.

There was a guy busking on a street corner. He had a fire-engine red Mohawk and a shirt that told me THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE. He was singing “Shut Up and Let Me Go.” Slow, acoustic version. It was surprisingly melodic. It’s a sign.

I must have said that out loud.

“What’s a sign?” Will asked.

I pointed to Red, who winked and did a little hip-thrusting turn. The back of his shirt said RUN!

“A sign of what?” he pressed.

“Um . . .”
Think fast, Sherlock.
“Rock-and-roll is dead? Long live rock?”

“No.” Will jerked his chin toward a spackled-white, black-lipped, chain-dripping trio of . . . well, gender probably didn’t matter...doing a jerky
Psycho
-knife dance to “Someday My Prince Will Come.” “
That
is a sign.”

He was right, of course.

Something else I know about him now:

• He is very discreet, but as the check-your-phone-in-class-discreetly diva, I see all. He checked his phone. Several times.

As far as I am concerned,
that
begs asking the Great
“Why?”

July 17

Beautiful Girls

I am turning into a nervous wreck. Okay, Ditzy Miss Kitty, you’ve started asking some good questions. (Is love meant to make us feel like fools? you ask. Probably not, sez I. But by all science decrees, bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly, either.)

My questions:

Knowing all we do about the Male of the Species (i.e., they are happy with two pairs of shoes, they frequently smell funny—and don’t seem to care, they actually believe the Five-Second Rule, and they think asking for directions is infinitely more humiliating than being seen in the parking lot of a Hooters . . .), we still want ’em more than Marc Jacobs on tap?

Do I ask too much? Have I? Of my dad, of Adam, now of Will? I don’t think so. But then, what do I know . . . ?

I know one thing for shore:

When the thang with the boy ain’t happening, there ain’t nothang like a girl thang.

Consuelo’s house is a mere ten blocks and an entire world away from the flat. It takes up a quarter of the block, has double front doors, and doorknobs the size of grapefruits. It’s on a square that has its own little park in the middle. The park is locked. Only residents get keys.

So there we were, Elizabeth, Consuelo, and I, sitting on the grass in the park, despite the fact that it’s nine o’clock at night and only about 50 degrees. Imogen was on a date, with an Italian race-car driver she met at a club last weekend. He arrived to pick her up in a Maserati. She texted Elizabeth forty minutes later. Marco was taking her to dinner in Brighton—fifty miles from London. They were there already, in a restaurant that looked out over the sea, with a bottle of Moët on ice, and a blazing fire nearby.

The three of us dateless losers (Bayard is off sailing or skydiving or shooting at things in Scotland for the week) were huddled in Consuelo’s park with a massive bottle of cheap wine Consuelo nicked from her brother and four tins of Pringles. We were in the park because Elizabeth says the family’s butler makes her twitchy.

“He’s always around, isn’t he?” she complained, struggling with the bottle cap. “Skulking about, making sure I don’t run off with the family jewels.”

I would have snickered at the term “family jewels,” only Consuelo’s house is actually full of fancy silver and gold stuff, lots of which has glittery stones on it. I’m pretty sure they’re real.

I like Consuelo’s butler. His name is Huggins and he brings Diet Coke and Pringles to whichever of the thirty rooms we’re hanging out in.

The conversation started with my day with Will (the movie was funny; Will having me home by 4 p.m., not so much).

Consuelo: “Of course he fancies you! He bought you a sexy book, didn’t he?”

Elizabeth: “That’s the
Kama Sutra
, darling cow. What he bought Cat was a treatise on finding enlightenment, not the sweet spot. Sorry, Yank, doesn’t look good.”

It moved naturally to Would You Rather . . .

Elizabeth:“ . . . publish your diary—that would be your private little blog, Yank—or have a film made of your most humiliating dating moment?”

I went for the dating moment. Throwing up in the middle of
Year One
was almost appropriate, after all. Consuelo opted for the diary (“Well, someone’s making an absolute mint off that
Secret Diary of a Call Girl
, aren’t they?”). She doesn’t keep a diary.

And inexorably (ooh, ooh, SAT word!) on to the fact that I am still a virgin, with no prospects in sight. I’m really really afraid Philly boys just aren’t going to look the same after a summer in London with Will Percival.

Consuelo: “Bayard and I planned for months. Where? When? Who would brave the Boots for condoms? Silly git, he bought glow-in-the-dark.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Fifteenth birthday,” she said cheerfully. At my expression, she shrugged. “We’ve been together since junior school. What else were we waiting for?” She took a swig of the wine and shuddered. “It was disastrous. Hayloft over our stables. Horribly prickly. I had a rash for days after.”