Cambridge while I trudged over to Buckingham Palace at weird hours and then eventually maintained a guest room there for game nights and the subsequent mornings.
“I can’t believe I have to move in with my grandmother if I want to see you,” Nick said after we won game two. “Is this what people mean when they say they’re sports widows?”
“Yes,” I said. “And no offense, but I hope it becomes an annual problem.”
We promptly lost the next two games, both of which ended with me curled in the fetal position on the floor.
“I cannot believe you brought this idiotic team into my life,” Eleanor said, throwing the remote across her sitting room. “Wasting all that winning in August when they knew perfectly well they’d need it now. I’m finished. Forever.”
“Right,” I said. “Same time tomorrow night?”
“Be punctual,” she said. “I don’t want to miss your anthem. Everyone sings it so badly.”
I wasn’t, and we didn’t, and the guy from Staind did absolutely mangle the “The Star-Spangled Banner.” We won, and Queen Eleanor pointed at the sky in triumph while I, the Duchess of Clarence, screamed into a throw pillow that had probably once been leaned on by Queen Victoria herself. Either of them. When we took game six in Cleveland, I had to stack two cushions in front of my face during my yelling to avoid triggering a PPO panic.
Game seven. On the road. For all of it.
Richard sent Nick to Wales for something I did not have room in my brain to remember, so Lacey came in from Cambridge because she couldn’t stand the idea of me going through this without moral support. I rolled out of my nap room at 1 a.m. and threw on my hat and my Kris Bryant jersey to meet her at the porte cochere.
“Listen up, kid,” I said, talking into her belly button. “You’re going to hear a lot of words today from Auntie Bex, and you need to ignore all of them except for ‘GO, CUBS.’”
“This should be highly educational,” Lacey said. “The worst Olly ever says is ‘Oh, rats.’ He is the most adorable square.” She looked up at the foyer with a rueful smile. “This is better than the last time I was here.”
Lacey gave a comical little sigh, and we followed Althorpe past the famous palace staircase and through a gilded glass-paned door. A narrow, rickety set of steps extended down, covered in thick green carpet that smelled faintly of chlorine.
“Are we going to the pool?” Lacey asked, confused. “Ooh, wait, is there a bowling alley in here? I always wondered.”
“I don’t think the Brits are into bowling that isn’t done on lawns,” I said.
The staircase expelled us into a low-ceilinged basement hallway, the walls dotted with portraits that had been hung fairly carelessly and painted with even less rigor. One of them was of Queen Anne, but seemingly by way of Picasso; next to her hung a rendition of Marta in which her head was three sizes too small. There was also a portrait of Richard on horseback that looked like it was meant for the front of a romance novel.
“It’s a wall of shame,” I breathed. “These are horrific.”
“I hope you’re never down here,” Lacey said.
“I hope I am,” I countered. “That way only about three people will ever see my portrait.”
Althorpe threw open a set of heavy double doors to reveal the spacious in-house movie theater, furnished with about twenty high-end leather couches and captains’ seats that had their own tables for snacks. Lacey and I were agog. The Cubs—my Cubs—were about to play for their lives on the wall of Buckingham Palace.
“An immense moment demands an immense screen,” came Eleanor’s voice.
When she rose with some effort from her seat, I blinked. It looked familiar. But it couldn’t be.
“Eleanor,” I said, dropping all formality. “Is that…?”
“A Coucherator,” she said. “Nicholas spoke to your mother and had one flown in. There is a treat in it for you.”
She opened the refrigerated compartment of my dad’s life’s work, so roundly mocked by the British press and Eleanor alike. Inside was a perfectly chilled case of Miller Lite. It was only then that I noticed a side table stuffed with Cracker Jack, Doritos, Pop-Tarts, and hot dog condiments.
“Althorpe will deliver the tube meat momentarily,” Eleanor said.
What the hell, I thought, and threw my arms around my grandmother-in-law’s satin-clad shoulders.