Cilla waved at her torn jeans, creased boots, and woolly sweater. “Yes, we stand on formality here at Pembroke,” she intoned. “Actually, Ceres would put on high heels and lipstick to go down and get the mail. If you’re going to take that long, I’ll just meet you downstairs.”
I shook my head. “Can’t walk in heels and never met a lipstick I didn’t get on my teeth.”
Cilla beamed broadly. “We’ll get on splendidly, then, Rebecca.”
“Bex. Please.”
“Okay, Bex. Get on with it already. It’s been ten whole minutes since my last pint.”
*
It turned out the bar was the JCR—a dim undergraduate common area that looked cramped thanks to the jumble stuffed into it: mismatched chairs and chipped tables; a haphazardly hung flat-screen showing soccer highlights; and a substantial but inexpensive beer and booze collection, stocked by that year’s Bar Tsar (his elaborately framed photo hung on the wall). Even with the haze of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, it was easy to spot Nick because at least half the room was ogling him, and I had only to follow the stares. He was perched on a stool in a snug corner, relaxed and quiet, with two guys and a punky girl who did not wear her pink hair with much authority. Cilla steered me through the crowd right in their direction. She may have been small, but she was solid, efficiently built, and clearly not to be trifled with, because people parted for her as if by magic.
“These are more of the people in our corridor,” she said when she reached Nick’s corner. “Everyone, this is Bex, just in from America.”
One of them bounced to his feet so fast he almost knocked over the table. He had a kind face, bulbous nose, freckles, and a thick tuffet of orange-red hair—rather like Ron Weasley, but with scruff, and a round, compact belly that was either the product of a lot of lager, or his (ineffective) attempts to draw in enough air to appear taller than five foot six. Possibly both.
“Brilliant,” he said. “I’m Gaz. I expect Cilla’s told you all about me.”
“Just the vomity bits,” Cilla said.
Gaz grinned even wider. “That’s about all of it.”
A bespectacled dark-haired guy rose to his feet. “Please, sit. I’ll get drinks,” he said, gesturing to the threadbare, oversize chair he’d just vacated, and pulling out folded bills that were tucked into his back pocket with the same precision as the plaid collared shirt tucked into his jeans.
“That wonderful person with the fat wad of cash is Clive,” Gaz said. “And this young lady with the shirt that looks like she made it out of tea towels is Joss.”
“And I did make it out of tea towels,” Joss said, appraising me as Cilla and I squeezed into Clive’s empty seat. “Ceres was my fit model, but you’ll do nicely. Built just like her. Tall, no boobs.”
“Finally, being flat chested is an advantage,” I said. “My twin sister will be astonished.”
“Oooh, twins, eh?” Gaz said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Get off it,” Cilla scoffed. “Gaz thinks he’s dead suave, but his father is a disgraced finance minister, so it’s more like dead broke. He still owes me thirty quid from last term.”
“I make up for it with piles of charm,” Gaz said. “And this bloke here,” he said, gesturing at Nick, “is…Steve.”
He adopted a deep, dramatic intonation, lingering on the word like it was a rich dessert to be savored. Nick buried his face in his beer, but the telltale bubbles gave away his laughter.
“Steve,” I echoed, trying on Gaz’s tone for size. “Sure. I can roll with that, Steve.”
Gaz slapped the table, which reverberated under his meaty hand. “You told her?”
“She’d have figured it out anyway,” Cilla said. “So take it down about three point sizes, please, Garamond.”
Clive was back and sliding the drinks onto the scarred coffee table. “‘Gaz’ is short for ‘Garamond,’ of the Fonty Garamonds,” he explained.
“As in, the actual font,” Joss piped up. “His grandfather invented it.”
“He’s mad as pants. Won’t even read anything in sans serif,” Gaz said. “Couldn’t he have invented something cooler to be named after? Like Garamond the Time-Traveling Motorbike, or Garamond the Lady-Killing Love Tonic?”
“I thought you were Garamond the Lady-Killing Love Tonic,” Cilla cracked.
“Well, as long as we’re talking stupid names,” he said irritably, “somebody tell me why we bother with Steve if none of you uses it.”
Nick rubbed the top of his head absently. “It’s not really supposed to fool anyone,” he said. “It’s more for if I’m caught in trouble or doing anything embarrassing.”
I met his eyes. “Embarrassing, like joking to a prince that all his relatives have an STD?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Although no one in polite society would actually do that.”
We smiled at each other.
Clive turned to me and pretended to study me deeply, as if my eyelashes were tea leaves he could read. “And you are…Rebecca Porter, almost twenty, from Iowa, father invented a sofa that employs a mini-fridge as a base—”
“Can you get us one?” Gaz interjected.
“…and you once got arrested for public indecency and trespassing because you accidentally tore off your trousers while climbing a barbed-wire fence,” Clive finished.
“I maintain it tried to climb me,” I quipped. “What else does my dossier say? Or do you just have ESP?”
“Of course there’s a dossier,” Gaz said, clapping a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “The Firm has to know who’s living twenty feet from the future of the bloodline.”
Nick’s discomfort was clear (one of his tells is that the tops of his ears start to vibrate—it’s the strangest thing). He drained the last of his pint. “While you lot are busy frightening Bex, I need to go say hello to some people.”
“Yes, right. Back to the grind.” Clive grinned, nodding toward a giggling, coquettish cluster of blondes across the way.
“There are probably worse fates,” Nick said. “I hear syphilis is a beast.”
He slipped off into the room, but didn’t make it far before he was waylaid by a cranky-looking patrician brunette in a high-collared blouse, who pulled him over to whisper in his ear.
Clive whacked Gaz on the arm. “You know he’s sensitive about the king stuff.”
“But it’s exciting!” Gaz argued. “Big intrigue. I’m very respectful.”
Cilla looked doubtful as Joss checked her cell phone. “I’m meeting Tank at the new punk bar over by the Ashmolean,” she said. “Anybody want to come?”
I glanced around for guidance. Cilla shook her head.
“Suit yourselves,” Joss said, leaving behind a quarter of a pint.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Gaz said brightly, reaching over and swigging it.
“Really, Gaz,” Cilla nagged. “You’ll be sweating lager next. My great-grandmother’s great-uncle Algernon had that happen when he was courting the Spanish infanta and—”
“Ah, yes, here we go again,” grunted Gaz.
“Cilla has more stories than Nick has stalkers,” Clive told me. “I’ve no clue if any of it’s true, but it’s bloody entertaining.”