These were words that Wills Windsor had never expected to hear in his
entire life, let alone his teenage years. So it was quite a shock to
hear them come out of the mouth of Caitlin Price, his girlfriend of six
months.
“What do you mean, we shouldn’t go out anymore?” Wills managed to ask.
Caitlin pouted cutely. Wills just didn’t understand, so she had to spell
it out for him. “I don’t think we should date.”
“I got it the first time. Can you give me a reason why? I thought things
were good between us.”
“They were good between us, Wills. It’s just that I met someone else.”
She sighed dreamily. “I think I’m in love.”
Wills ran his hand through his close cropped blond hair. “Who? Spring
break is only one week, for Christ’s sake!”
“Topher Romaine.”
“Topher Romaine? You don’t mean the Calvin Klein underwear model, do
you? How did that happen?”
“I met him in Milan at a photo shoot. It was love at first sight.” She
noticed Wills’ downcast expression. “What’s the matter, Wills? You
didn’t really think we were going to date until the end of the term, did
you?”
His mouth dropped open. “Well, yes, I did!”
Caitlin hugged him impulsively, “Oh, that’s so sweet! You were always
such a sweet guy. Now, I know you might be upset by this-”
“You think?” Wills asked, pulling away.
“But please don’t hate me. I’d die if you’d hate me!” A car pulled up
outside of the café and honked. “Oh, that’s Topher! He isn’t working
this month, so he flew out to see me. Isn’t that sweet? Well, I gotta
go.” She stood up, “Thanks for being so understanding, Wills!” She ran
out and hopped into the car.
“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Wills said to her retreating back. He left some
money on the table and exited the café in a daze. Caitlin had just
broken up with him. For a guy who dropped his pants for a living? Did
that hurt, or what? He decided to go back to Eton and lick his wounds.
* * *
Wills opened his dorm room and flipped on the lights. Unfortunately, he
wasn’t alone. His roommate Justin Stanford and Sarah Speedman, Justin’s
girlfriend were there. Justin’s shirt was on the ground. Sarah’s shirt
was in the process of coming off. The couple turned and screamed,
“Aaah!”
“I am so sorry,” Wills apologized, backing out the room, blushing. He
had never been so embarrassed in his life. He heard Sarah yell something
at Justin, and Justin say something like, ‘This is my fault? These rooms
don’t have locks!’
Sarah stepped outside; “You can come in now.”
“Leaving already?”
“Yup.” She hugged him hard. “Be strong, Wills.”
Wills was surprised; “What’s this for?” He and Sarah never showed each
other any affection, except for the frequent swapping insults. He patted
her on the back awkwardly and said teasingly, “You’re not wearing a bra
as a fashion statement, right?” She smacked him on the back of the head.
“I’ll tell Justin to look for it.”
She pulled away and smilingly gave him the finger. “I have no sympathy
for you, Wills.”
“Caitlin Price dumped me,” Wills announced when he reentered the room.
Justin didn’t look up from his copy of King Lear. “Yeah, I know. I’m
sorry, mate.”
“How do you already know? She dumped me less than an hour ago. Don’t
tell me it made the news that quick.”
“Not quite. Sarah told me,” he explained. “Don’t look so surprised. She
goes to St. Mary’s with Caitlin. On the way over here, she ran into
Caitlin’s dorm mate’s best friend’s sister. Topher Romaine, huh? That
sucks.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. I’m a prince, yet I’m dropped for some
underfed, longhaired drug addicted fashion model. What does that say
about me?”
“No, I was talking about losing Caitlin. That girl is a fox.”
“She was all right, I guess,” Wills said reflectively. “Oh well, those
girls come a dime a dozen. Her loss.”
Justin started to laugh, “Yeah, you would like to think that. Believe
me, there is no substitute for Caitlin Price. She’s the embodiment of
every male’s fantasy. Guys would give their right arm to go out with
her. She’s…She’s…She’s like a female you.”
“Hey, try to control yourself. You’ve got a girlfriend.”
“Just because I have a girlfriend, who I am very happy with, so don’t go
shooting your mouth off to Sarah,” Justin warned. “Doesn’t mean I don’t
have a finger on the common man’s pulse. Which starts beating rapidly
every time Caitlin Price goes by.”
“Caitlin Price would be nothing without me. I made her popular and
desirable. Any girl, and I mean any girl, would undergo an amazing
transformation like that with me by her side.”
“My, my aren’t we full of ourselves. Care to put your money where your
mouth is?”
Wills raised an eyebrow. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
Justin was in deep thought. “The Junior Prom is coming up. You and
Caitlin were probably planning to go together, right?” Wills nodded. “We
all know you are a shoe-in for Prom King, but is Caitlin still going to
win Queen, even without you? According to your ‘I Made Her’ theory, the
answer is no. But according to my ‘She Is A Fox’ theory, I say yes.”
“So you want to bet whether or not Caitlin will be Prom Queen?”
“No. I want you to prove your theory. We choose a girl and you have six
weeks. Work your magic on her and turn her into Prom Queen.”
Wills smiled at his roommate, supremely confident of victory. “You have
a bet.” They shook.
“Good. We can scout St. Mary’s tomorrow for prospects.”
* * *
“How do you choose?” Wills wondered. Nobody was on campus because it was
the weekend. “Should we head to the dorms and choose from there?”
“We can’t go into the dorms,” Justin informed. “St. Mary’s has the same
policy as Eton. No members of the opposite sex are allowed in the dorm
rooms.”
“You and Sarah manage fine,” Wills retorted. “Okay, so we can’t go in
there. How are we supposed to find the girls, Einstein, if nobody is on
campus?”
“I have already thought of that. Sarah told me about an art show in the
auditorium. We go there and make our selection.”
They cut across the quad to the oval shaped building. Justin peeked
through the window; “There are plenty of girls there.”
“Should we go in?” Wills asked.
“No, the show is almost over. Let’s wait ‘till they leave. Choose a
number between one and one hundred.”
“What? Twenty seven, I guess.”
“Twenty seven it is. Girl number twenty seven to walk through that door
is yours.”
Girls started to file out of the double doors and they started counting.
“One…two…three.”
After seeing the first ten, Wills complained, “We should have gone to
the movies. One type of girl goes to an art show on a Saturday: the kind
who doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“Which is good for you. Would you want to shove a guy over in order to
prove this little experiment?”
“Yeah, but there’s a reason why they don’t have a boyfriends. They’re
unattractive, annoying, got some weird personal tic, something that
makes the single and desperate.” Justin nudged him and pointed to girl
number seventeen, a.k.a. Sarah, walking out of the auditorium. “I stand
corrected. There’s an exception to every rule.”
“Twenty five, twenty six…. Twenty-seven! Ding- ding, we have a winner,”
Justin crowed as a tall brunette walked through the door. “And the
winner is…Oh my God…”
“Katie Spier. Your ex-girlfriend.” Wills hid his face in his hands. She
walked by them, and they quickly ducked behind a tree. “Now I get to
experience firsthand the hell you went through.”
Justin didn’t answer; he was staring at Katie intensely. “Justin?
Justin?” Wills echoed. “Earth to Justin. Houston, we have a problem…”
“Yeah,” Justin mumbled. “What are the odds?”
Wills remembered that Justin and Katie had a very nasty break up, which
could explain his odd behavior. “Are you okay with this? Because I’m
more than happy to pick a new candidate.”
“Um. Maybe you should…”
“What’s the matter with him?” Sarah asked, walking up to them.
“Nothing’s wrong with Justin,” Wills said quickly. Except for the fact
he still has these feelings for his ex-girlfriend, that is.
“I wasn’t talking about Justin,” Sarah grinned. “I was talking about
you. Why do you have this pained look on your face?”
Justin recovered. “Nothing is wrong with him. Not physically, anyway.
Wills just has this very big project he has to do. He only has six
weeks, and he has a lot of work to do.”
“Well, good luck,” Sarah turned to her boyfriend. “Want to get something
to eat in the dining hall? Wills, are you going to join us?”
Justin answered for him, “No, Wills can’t. He has to start the project
now, when it’s front of him. Right Wills?”
“Yeah,” Wills mumbled, standing up. “I better start now.” He waved his
friends off. He hurried after Katie, who was cutting across campus at a
rapid pace. “Katie! Hold up!” She didn’t turn around, so he had to put
extra speed in his longer legs to catch up. “Will you wait a second?”
Katie finally turned around, casting him a look of withering disgust.
“Oh, look. It’s Justin Stanford’s sidekick. What do you want, Tonto?”
Wills stopped short. This wasn’t the response he hoped for. “Uh…Hi?”
“I thought so.” She started walking.
“Where are you headed?”
“Like that’s any of your concern.”
“Hey, I’m trying to be nice. You should at least try to reciprocate it.”
“Ooh, he’s trying to be nice,” Katie said so loudly that everyone in the
quad turned in their direction. “Prince William is being nice to me,
everybody. He actually graced my presence and said ‘hi’. I think I
should fall over right now and die of happiness.”
“Shut up,” Wills hissed. This was not going the way he wanted. He hadn’t
planned it all out, but he thought his Windsor charm could placate her,
and they could go somewhere to talk.
She grinned evilly; he hadn’t seen anything yet. “He said ‘hi’ to me,”
she announced again. “Prince William acknowledged me. What should I do
to repay this kind gesture? Be his slave for the rest of the year.
Should I kowtow at his very word?” Without warning she laid down in a
prostrate position. “I will stay like this as long as it pleases you,
your highness.”
Wills had enough. “Excuse me,” he walked away as fast as he could,
trying to ignore the stares of onlookers. This bet was going to be
harder to win than he thought. But he wasn’t going to let Justin know
that.
“So you crashed and burned,” Justin said when Wills finally joined them
for dinner.
“What do you mean?” Wills asked innocently, sliding into the seat across
from him.
“We heard it, buddy. It’s all over St. Mary’s. The great Wills Windsor
gets rejected by white trash Katie Spier.” Justin was hiding his
conflicting feelings with some very macho, disgusting bravado.
Sarah looked at her boyfriend disapprovingly. “Will you try to show a
little sensitivity, give us some indication you’re a human being?”
“Hey, I resent that. I’m a man. I was born sensitive.”
“More like a boy. And stop calling her white trash. You went out with
her, what does that say about you?”
“What, are you guys friends or something?” Wills asked, interested. If
Sarah knew Katie personally, his work would be so much easier.
“Not really. She’s my lab partner in Physics. I feel kind of sorry for
her because she doesn’t have many friends. Unlike some people,
compassion does flow through my veins.” She glared at Justin again.
“I wonder why,” Wills said sarcastically. “With that winning
personality, she should have plenty of friends.”
She threw him a sharp look, “Okay, Mr. Sensitive. Think of it this way;
try going to a snob school like St. Mary’s when your father is a bus
driver. That’s why she doesn’t have many friends, England’s privileged
elite won’t give her a chance.”
“Well, well,” Justin commented. “Looks like we found another Eleanor
Roosevelt. Another spokesman for lost causes. Another champion for the
underdog. I do mean dog.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, “Caveman.”
“Well, why aren’t you friends with her, Mother Teresa?”
