Playing the Palace

by Paul Rudnick

  And of course, the more questions he asked, the more I chattered, and yes, it was exciting to have Prince Edgar, of all people, interrogating me about the cartoons I’d grown up on, and the plays and books that had changed the way I saw the world, and whether I’d ever been hit by another vehicle while riding my bike (yes, and both times by someone opening a car door in traffic, and yes, I’d called those people every possible name I could think of ending in stick, wad and hole).

  When we’d polished off our pancakes and I at last took a breath, I was embarrassed, because I’d monopolized our date and barely asked Edgar a thing. I’d behaved selfishly, both because he’d kept wanting more details—about whether I ran outdoors or on a treadmill, whether my sister and I had gone to summer camp (yes; for soccer and theater, respectively) and whether I’d made it through all the Avengers movies (I had, although we agreed that three more had probably been released while we were eating). There was also an unspoken barrier between us; James had cautioned me about not asking Edgar personal questions, and my blunder about his parents was still fresh.

  “All right, we can both feel it,” Edgar admitted. “You’ve been wonderfully generous and amusing, although we’ve barely scratched the surface of your life. But I’ve been reticent.”

  “It’s okay. I get it.”

  “Thank you. But let’s try something, a small episode of trust. Ask me something. Anything. And don’t be afraid of offending me, or crossing a line. Just ask, and I promise I’ll be honest.”

  Whoa. Jesus. I’d shared incredibly intimate confessions with Callum and earlier boyfriends. But none of them was a prince. None of them could serve up steamingly authentic royal dish. I’d never had pancakes with anyone who’d be justified in asking me to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

  And did Edgar really mean it? Or was this a test, of my discretion and sensitivity?

  “Okay. Your life is public and pressured in ways I can’t even imagine. Where do you go when you don’t want to think about any of it?”

  Edgar looked serious, but I couldn’t tell if I’d gone too far or if he wanted to be specific.

  “At the palace, there’s a tiny room in a wing that’s barely used. It was a nursery. I don’t have that many memories of time alone with my parents. But there was a period when I was so young that I still didn’t know how odd my life was. And my mum and my dad would wear old clothes, and they’d read to me, and sometimes we’d all dance to my mum’s favourite disco songs. After they died, the room was closed, and all the furniture’s under dustcloths. I think my grandmother, and her advisors, felt it wouldn’t be healthy to let my brother and I wallow in the past and our loss. And maybe they were correct, because that room has a haunted quality. But sometimes, after I’ve given some precarious interview or spent an evening being blankly gracious with someone whose politics I loathe, I need to go there, by myself. Just to lie on the couch and look up at the ceiling and be completely quiet. To imagine, just for an hour, that no one can find me. And to see my parents not as tragic historical figures, but as I remember them, giggling and happy. And whenever I leave that room, I feel not just calm, but—as if I’ve reconnected with who I really am.”

  Of course I wanted to cry, and I felt honored, but even more, I was scared, because I never wanted to hurt this man, or betray him in any way. Sure, he was impossibly rich and famous in such a singular, untouchable way, but oh my God, his parents had died when he was ten years old. And he didn’t seem bitter or angry, but he was understandably guarded, and sweet, and lost.

  “Sorry about all that. I let things get a bit somber . . .”

  “No, that room, that nursery, it sounds so special . . .”

  Just as Edgar was about to say something else, which I couldn’t wait to hear, I became aware of two things. First, James, at a table a few feet away, had ordered a death-by-chocolate brownie with whipped cream and a sparkler in it, to his delight. I also heard a barrage of clicks and loud whispers and chairs being moved as a pack of teenage girls descended, demanding to know: “Oh my God! Are you him!” “Olivia, I told you it was him! That prince guy! It’s him! You’re him, right!” “Edgar! Prince Eddie! Can I get a selfie with you? Please? I know you’re gay, but can you look like you wanna kiss me, so my boyfriend’s head will explode?”

  Someone, or any number of IHOP patrons, had tipped off their friends, families and the paparazzi, because our table was now besieged by a growing mob, as if we’d become a Black Friday sale at Best Buy and Edgar was a half-price sixty-inch flat screen. Everyone was jostling me aside to get closer to Edgar as the guards deftly hustled him out onto the sidewalk.

  “I will contact you!” Edgar promised as he was being tossed into the waiting SUV, and all I could do was say, “Please!” in a strangled voice, as I was jammed against a wall by the crowd. No one had registered my presence, so I was of zero interest as I heard more than one person asking in bafflement, “But what was Prince Edgar doing at IHOP?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Still nothing?” said Adam almost two weeks later, once I’d joined him after his show at a gritty theater hangout, the kind of place with paper tablecloths, dim lighting and a waitstaff, all out-of-work actors, who call everyone “honey.” Adam was dancing in a jukebox musical based on the *NSYNC catalogue, and in one number the entire chorus wore curly wigs and acid-washed denim jumpsuits to portray the young Justin Timberlake’s torment over leaving the group for a solo career.

  “Edgar’s the crown prince—he’s got a lot on his plate,” I ventured, but as I heard myself say it even I didn’t believe it. Edgar had my contact information, but I didn’t have his, because mega-famous people don’t just hand out their email addresses or cell numbers. Of course I’d been checking the palace website five times a day to see if I could track Edgar’s schedule, but it was rarely updated and was filled with stock photos of royal gardens and a single shot of Edgar distributing medical supplies at a refugee camp in Somalia, which made me respect him and also made me wonder, don’t they have Wi-Fi in Somalia?

  “I warned you,” said Louise, hogging the bread, “just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he isn’t a guy. And royals are the ultimate form of privilege, because it’s all inherited. They’re white people whose feet don’t even touch the ground. You’re being ghosted by a ghost.”

  “I once went out with a guy who played King George in one of the tours of Hamilton,” volunteered Adam’s boyfriend, DuShawn, who I liked because he was, if anything, even more optimistic and theater-driven than Adam. “And after our first date he didn’t call me for five weeks because he’d been hit by a car, which had also destroyed his phone.”

  “Exactly!” said Adam. “There could be a totally sympathetic explanation!”

  “Or maybe Edgar is just a devious buttwipe with boyfriends all over the world,” said Louise. “Maybe he just throws a dart at a globe.”

  “So I should just stop thinking about him,” I said, “and going over every second of our date in my mind and trying to pinpoint what I did wrong and considering having radical plastic surgery so if we ever run into each other he won’t recognize me and we could try again?”

  “You are making me feel so healthy,” said Adam.

  “Have you thought about writing ‘I Went on One Date with Prince Edgar’ on a piece of cardboard,” suggested Louise, “and sitting cross-legged in Times Square?”

  “Or you could sue IHOP,” said Adam. “Maybe they served him bad pancakes.”

  “There’s no such thing as bad pancakes!” I protested.

  “Pancakes,” said DuShawn, “are filled with carbs and air and refried microorganisms, which can live on a griddle for months. And if I could have pancakes right now I would not only die happy, I would write a musical about a guy who falls in love with a plate of pancakes and petitions the Supreme Court so they can get married.”

  I knew I liked DuShawn.

  “Carter,” said Louis
e, passing me a chunk of bread, which meant she was being sincere, “we love you so much, and you’ve already been through a shitshow with Callum. You should be grateful that this Prince Edgar thing ended before you could overinvest. You deserve so much better.”

  “You deserve, like, Hugh Jackman,” said Adam.

  “Adam, for the one millionth time,” I said, “Hugh Jackman isn’t gay. You just want him to be gay.”

  “But during ‘Bye Bye Bye,’” Adam countered, “when Justin leaves the group, all the dancers are bored, so we’re dedicating the number to turning Hugh Jackman gay. Fifteen dancers in leather patchwork vests and newsboy caps can be very powerful.”

  Adam and DuShawn began harmonizing on the *NSYNC ballad “Music of My Heart,” and the entire restaurant joined in, except for Louise and me, representing the people who’d recently experienced toxic relationships and just couldn’t get it together and needed more bread.

  * * *

  I was in the ballroom of the Plaza Hotel the next morning at 7 a.m. to help Cassandra prepare a product launch for a homewares collection from a folksy Texas couple who’d branded themselves through a makeover show on HGTV. They were building an empire based on white canvas slipcovers, cheaply handwoven throws, oversize nonworking clock faces used as wall art, and sheaves of wheat in mason jars. The couple seemed sweet enough, so I resisted murmuring “early Pottery Barn catalogue” as I stacked cans of their signature line of paint, in shades like Prairie Taupe and Tumblin’ Mauve, and plumped accent pillows silk-screened with inspirational phrases like “Family Matters” and “Love Is” (I mentally finished this sentence with “a cruel hoax,” “Hell on Earth” and “as fake as these faux marble eggs”).

  “Carter, you seem completely out of it,” scolded Cassandra. “The flameless candles inside the hurricane lanterns are supposed to be in groups of three, on the battered tin trays painted with sunsets. What is wrong with you!”

  “I’m sorry, I haven’t been sleeping, and I think I’m dehydrated because I’ve been running a lot.” I work out harder during periods of heartbreak, because it’s one of the few things I can control. If you see somebody who’s suddenly in shape, it usually means that the rest of their life is in tatters. “I promise to do better, and see, I’m putting these decorative spheres made from old license plates into these hemp baskets, just like on the show.”

  In truth, I’d been lagging for the past week, as I internalized the fact that I’d never see Edgar again. At first I’d wondered if I’d only had a crush on his celebrity dazzle and on the perks of being seen with him, but as a New Yorker, I worked very hard to spurn being impressed by stars. In New York, everyone acts like they’re famous; there’s a snob’s equality. But what I really missed was making Edgar smile, and hearing about that private room in the palace, and his face lighting up as he explored the copper IHOP table caddy holding glass pitchers with four different flavors of syrup. I missed surprising him.

  “Are you still pining for Prince Edgar?” Cassandra demanded, interrupting my pity party, or given the décor, my pity hoedown. “Who, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you ever actually met? You need to see someone, or take something, because your delusions are out of control. Just because you designed banners with Prince Edgar’s face on them doesn’t count as a date, and yes, I know you claim you had dinner with him, at IHOP, which doesn’t do very much for your credibility, I mean if that doesn’t define going off the emotional deep end I don’t know what does. You’re having a serious reality disconnect and it’s affecting your work and if you don’t stop lying to yourself, and especially to me, well, I’m going to have to let you go.”

  As I was processing this threat and preparing to either grovel more effectively or hurl a lamp made from a vintage gasoline can onto the floor and quit in a huff, a voice inquired, “Are you Mr. Ogden’s employer?”

  Everyone in the ballroom turned to see Prince Edgar, followed by his security team, standing near the ballroom’s ornate gilded doors.

  “Um, oh my God, um, yes, I am. Your Highness,” Cassandra sputtered.

  “Cassandra?” I said airily, causing her to fall into a wobbling curtsy as one of her wrought iron earrings unhooked and clattered to the floor.

  “I’m so sorry to intrude,” said Edgar, “but I was wondering if Carter might enjoy his lunch break a few moments early? If that’s all right with Carter?”

  For Cassandra’s benefit and my own, I paused. Edgar hadn’t tried to contact me in any way, and now he just showed up, as if his dramatic entrance, holding a deluxe picnic basket, would erase his neglect, or apologize for it. I gestured as if I was incredibly busy, then I checked my phone, as if I had to cancel my lunch plans with Hugh Jackman, and then I made a clicking noise with my tongue and shrugged vaguely in Edgar’s direction, indicating a put-upon “Up to you.”

  “Of . . . of course, Your Highness,” Cassandra whimpered, now clutching a table so she could remain in a half curtsy, as I bet myself that she’d repeat the words “Your Highness” three more times in the next 10 seconds.

  “It’s so wonderful to see you, Your Highness, and I hope our work at the United Nations was acceptable, Your Highness, and, well, what a lovely surprise to meet you, Your Highness, I’m such a fan, Your Highness.”

  Four times! Score!

  Once Edgar and I had left the ballroom I unleashed my frustration: “What are you doing? What is this?”

  We were standing in a fairly deserted outer hallway, but Edgar needed more privacy, so he dragged me into a stairwell, and I sat on the stairs as his team waited outside.

  “Carter, one of the many things I most admire about you is your honesty. Which I’d like to return in kind. Because if we’re to keep seeing each other, which is something I’d like very much—very, very much—honesty will be key.”

  “And? So?”

  “I know. Once again, I’ve acted abominably, and I could recite my schedule and offer international excuses, but I won’t. Because . . .”

  He was having trouble with whatever he was about to say, trying to organize his thoughts and pacing in the very small space.

  “Here it is. After our dinner, which was an utter delight, I returned to London, where I was summoned by my grandmother for what she termed a ‘caring advisory,’ which means everything short of my being pistol-whipped. She’d been fully briefed on your existence and our behavior, which she judged to be irresponsible and disrespectful.”

  When Edgar cited his grandmother, he was referring to the Queen of England. One of my grandmothers is dead and the other one lives in Vermont and sends me a cat calendar every year.

  “Your grandmother was upset because we went to IHOP?”

  “Because I exposed the Crown to possible rumour-mongering by placing myself in a far too public and down-market setting with what she kept referring to as a ‘questionable stranger.’”

  I was stung. I was from New Jersey, and I had an unneccessary job, and I’d distracted myself from the Edgar situation by adding a silvery-gray streak to my hair, but being a “questionable stranger” made it sound as if I hung around schoolyards at recess.

  “I know. I told her that you were gifted and smart and funny, but she got this look, it’s like a dinosaur with gout, it’s so unpleasant and intimidating—here, I’ll show you.”

  He fished in his pocket for a five-pound note with a picture of his grandmother, Queen Catherine, etched on it in a dried-blood red. I saw what he meant.

  “And then she had a proposal. She said that if I really wanted to continue, and that if our relationship held genuine promise, it could weather a test of time. She said I should wait a year, and if I still wished to see you, she might allow it. We bargained. I brought her down to one month, and she agreed, as long as I made no attempt to communicate with you. But after two weeks I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I was so ashamed of my spinelessness, and I’d been so rude, that I jumped on a
plane and here I am. And I apologise, which is feeble. And now you know precisely how cowardly and constrained I am, so if you’d like to head right back into that ballroom, you have every right. Because I . . .”

  He was searching for exactly the right damning word.

  “I am an asshole. Or as we say in England, an arsehole. But I prefer asshole, because I’m being one in America.”

  This was new. I’d never been vetted, and found wanting, by the Queen of England before. And I’d never seen Edgar so tormented. And I was feeling interestingly powerful.

  “Say it again.”

  “What? That I’m an asshole?”

  “Yes.”

  He paused and opened the stairwell door, calling out, “James?”

  James stood in the doorway.

  “James, what am I?”

  “An asshole, Your Highness.”

  “Were you just guessing?” I asked James. “Or is that his, like, Scotland Yard code name?”

  “I was listening at the door. And his code name is Fuckhead.”

  This sounded especially elegant in James’s Mayfair accent.

  Edgar stared at James, who added, “But it’s being changed, because everyone kept guessing it.”

  “Thank you, James,” said Edgar. He turned to me: “Your decision?”

  CHAPTER 9

  By the time Edgar and I had reached a secluded clearing in Central Park, James had set out our picnic lunch on a blanket in the royal tartan. There was fine china, champagne, neatly trimmed sandwiches and, artfully spilling out of the wicker basket, a selection of Hostess Yodels, boxes of Mallomars, canisters of Pringles and every variety of M&M, poured into Wedgewood bowls. I was starting to forgive Edgar, because this wasn’t a generic feast; this was aimed at me. The way to my heart lies through my future dental work.