by Paul Rudnick
I could hear Abby telling me, “Pay attention, doofus. I wish you could send me whatever he’s about to say on your phone.”
“I love you.”
CHAPTER 23
He loved me. Edgar loved me. I’d just vomited rainbow trifle on international television, I could barely stand up and he loved me.
After he said it, Edgar refused to let me answer or say anything whatsoever. He told me I shouldn’t say it back, not yet, and not because he expected me to. He said we had time, and then I wobbled to the car, we drove back to the palace and Edgar put me to bed in my own room, ordered me to get some sleep and left.
Of course the second he was gone, I FaceTimed Abby on my tablet; since the Jubilee she’d been texting me nonstop, but I’d been too distracted and fatigued to respond.
“Finally!” she said. “I saw the baking thing and I could tell exactly what was happening—sometimes food poisoning takes a few days, but I’ve seen cases where it kicks in within seconds, and it can wipe you out. Did they give you IV fluids with electrolytes? Even sports drinks can help. Are you okay?”
“I will be, and the doctor was great, but this isn’t about the Jubilee. It’s about what happened afterward. It’s an Abby Alert.”
“Oh my God!” said Abby, her face lighting up. I remembered that she and Dane were on the last night of their honeymoon, and they were strolling back to their beachfront villa in the moonlight, both wearing sarongs and straw hats.
“I’m sorry!” I said. “It’s your last night in Bali, so we can talk later!”
“No,” Abby insisted. “This is major, and Dane’s cool with it, aren’t you, babe?”
Dane, who’d enjoyed more than three cocktails sipped through huge straws from guavas, gave Abby and me two thumbs up. As he entered the villa, Abby sat on the front steps. “So?” she asked. “Did he say it?”
Abby and I had invented Abby Alerts years ago, while she was sick. We’d sworn an oath, that whenever a guy said that he loved either one of us, we’d report back as quickly as possible. When Callum had said it, I’d called Abby from outside a Fire Island dance club, and while we’d both cheered, Abby mentioned that she’d just seen Callum, who was playing a divorced dad with a great dog, say “I love you” to a young widow with two adorable kids in a Lifetime movie. “So just remember,” she’d warned me, “he’s good at it.” When Dane had told Abby he loved her, after a Central Park softball game, she’d been wonderfully discombobulated, telling me, “I mean, I knew he loved me, we’ve been going out for a year, but with straight guys it’s so cute, because they have no idea how to say it, so Dane sounded like a little kid, blurting it out, as if he was going to punch me on the shoulder. But then he kissed me and he’s really good at that.”
So this was a necessary, sacred call. I described exactly where and how Edgar had made his declaration. Abby got very quiet.
“Whoa,” she finally said. “So he was basically covered with your puke and then he said ‘I love you.’ Which is both the most disgusting and the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. Oh, Carter. Now just blank everything else out, the barf and the Internet and who Edgar is, and just tell me: when he said ‘I love you,’ what was the first thing you thought?”
“I thought—that I’d heard him wrong. That he’d said something else, like ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘There’s something on your chin’ and that my idiot brain had turned it into ‘I love you.’ And then it hit me that he’d really said it, and I froze and I thought, ‘I am in so much trouble.’”
“You’re in trouble? Why?”
“Because . . . because . . . because up until that second, I was winging it. On Valentine’s Day I’d asked God and Ruth Ginsburg for guidance and true love and now all of a sudden, it was happening. Answered prayers. I’d met this amazing guy who’s ridiculously out of my league and all I can think about is—no. I can’t do this. It’s too much, it’s too real. It’s the ultimate hall of fame triple-platinum lottery jackpot opportunity for me to fuck everything up. Because that’s what I do.”
Abby was staring at me, with clouds scudding across the Balinese night sky behind her, and I could tell she was deeply pissed off. She was about to say something, but she held up her hand, to stop herself from being too harsh. And then:
“Carter, if I could reach through this phone I would grab you by the throat and strangle you till you were dead. So you listen to me. You are not just a smart, handsome, fabulous man with so much to offer, you’re even better than that, because you’re my brother. Edgar is after the most awesome package deal. Why hasn’t it sunk in that Edgar is thinking, ‘I’m in love with the perfect guy and also his irresistible pediatric surgeon sister’? He’s all about free medical advice. It explains everything.”
“Abby . . .” I said, smiling.
“You need to be fucking clear about something. This is the guy. And if he’s going to become the king of England, well, boo-fucking-hoo. You found him. He found you. You both got so lucky. And you are not going to fuck this up. You are going to believe in it. You’re going to show Edgar and yourself and the universe that this can work. You can’t run away or talk yourself out of it. You’re going to do the opposite. You’re going to go for it.”
“But . . .”
“What part of ‘Fuck you, it was bad trifle, get over yourself and have an incredible life with the guy you love’ don’t you understand?”
* * *
The next day Edgar called Cassandra and promised her the use of the royal crest as an endorsement on her website if she gave me two more unpaid vacation weeks.
I was intent on using these weeks to prove Maureen, Her Majesty and all the haters wrong. I’d convince everyone, and myself, that this was for keeps. That I was ready. That I’d been tested by the rugby match and the children’s hospital and the Jubilee, and I’d never make such rookie mistakes again. I would unveil not just a revamped, slightly more aware version of myself, but a completely new product. Someone confident, polished and adult, someone who belonged at Edgar’s side, or at a respectful distance behind him, on the world stage.
Over the next two weeks, here’s what happened:
Edgar had a tuxedo custom made for me, explaining, “It’s not for special occasions; it’s a uniform.” I’d always loved the suave, man-of-destiny notion of myself in a tux, but I’d made do with rentals and thrift-store bargains. With a tux draped, cut and sewn to my exact dimensions, I was a roguish financier lighting a cigarette atop the Eiffel Tower or 007 tossing his diamond cuff links onto a blackjack table at Monte Carlo. I was someone who made out with Edgar, both of us in our tuxes, in a side room during a ball at the Australian embassy.
I found that the secret to holding my own at, say, a country house dinner party was to never obscure or lie about my background; as an American interloper, I could ask the other guests questions and be bad at croquet and glance at Edgar across the room, especially his ass in riding clothes.
The key to defeating Queen Catherine’s nightly surveillance was to face her down and say, “Your Majesty, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and perform fellatio on His Highness. Someone has to do it.” The first time I did this she was speechless, then threw up her hands, hissed, “Charming,” and let me pass.
Touring the Chelsea Flower Show was actually fun; the displays of enormous dahlias and wisteria and fuchsias, micro-calculated to arrive at their peaks, were like horticultural musical comedies. I like fanatics, and if you mess with their succulents, English gardeners are capable of using trowels as switchblades.
Edgar and I could make a political statement just by showing up, and especially by dancing. We practiced, and two men in white tie waltzing in a ballroom at an event to promote international human rights can make an impression on a snide Russian oil baron who wants to cultivate foreign investors. I checked with Louise and she approved, calling our waltz “a subliminal protest action and a decent start.”
My renewed campaign confused Gerald and especially Maureen. She’d expected me to be persuaded by her admonitions at the Jubileee and flee the country and any future with Edgar. She’d meant well, but she’d also wanted to clear a path, for Gerald’s ascension to the throne. Whenever I’d run into her, at a formal dinner or a charitable tea, she’d say things like “Still at it?” or “We’re praying for you,” which weren’t precisely votes of confidence. While Maureen could be congenial and almost an ally, at heart she was a political spouse, plotting Gerald’s rise. I was careful around her; being cheerful and polite were my own tactical maneuvers, for safeguarding Edgar.
Late one night, while we were in bed, Edgar tossed my sweatpants at me, saying, “Come along.” Barely dressed, I followed him up three flights of stairs and into a darkened room. He pulled back the curtains, and a full moon illuminated furniture hidden beneath sheets. He uncovered a well-worn, chintz-upholstered sofa and beckoned for me to sit beside him.
“We’re here,” he said. “This is it.”
“Where are we?”
“The nursery. Where I’d have fun with Gerald and our parents.”
This was the place Edgar had told me about during our first dinner at IHOP. This was his sanctuary when the world became too much. When he needed to be alone.
“It’s—it feels like we’re floating,” I said, peering at the walls, which were painted with a mural of animals in striped vests and top hats playing musical instruments. “As if when we go outside, a hundred years might’ve passed. Or we’ll be on a mountaintop or a pirate ship.”
“Yes. Sometimes I’ve thought about tidying things up, but I haven’t. I’ve been waiting. To show it to you.”
He looked at me, to see if I could handle this. To see if he could become this open, and connected to his past, and free.
“I love it.”
Which wasn’t me saying “I love you,” but still an important step; we were trusting each other more and more.
“Look,” Edgar said, finding something behind a cushion. “He’s still here.”
He was manipulating a hand puppet of a threadbare lion.
“Hello, Carter,” said the lion. “Will you have sex with me?”
“Now I understand everything. You had a gay puppet.”
“You belong here,” said the lion.
CHAPTER 24
Holding it together?” asked Edgar, as we sat side by side having our hair and makeup tended to in a greenroom at BBC Studios. We were wearing similar but not identical blazers (his navy versus my gray Harris Tweed). We had tissues tucked into our collars to protect our crisply laundered shirts from the foundation that was being sponged onto our faces and set with powder. Our hair had been trimmed, slicked and sprayed, and we’d definitely trounce the poodles at the Westminster Dog Show.
“You resemble strange evangelical cousins,” said James. “The sort of people who come to the door with Bibles and won’t leave.”
“You look so handsome, Your Highness,” said Edgar’s stylist, an ultra-competent woman who wore very little makeup herself and kept her hair in a ponytail.
“As does Carter,” said Edgar, thanking my stylist, a great guy with a shaved head and multiple piercings, who said, “Next time I’ll give you matching Mohawks.”
“It’s a mite scary,” commented Ian to the security team. “They look like those twins in The Shining.”
“Or hired assassins,” said Terry.
“But in a good way,” Lucky assured us.
As we waited off-camera with the Palace advisors, Edgar told me, “You’re going to be splendid. The country will forget all about me.”
“The country will embrace both of you, God willing,” said Marc.
“People just want to see if I’ll barf. And what color.”
“They’ve already increased the estimate to three hundred million viewers worldwide,” said Alison, who’d masterminded the interview. “Polls have Edgar’s approval rating at ninety-two percent, with Carter hovering around seventy percent, which is a vast improvement from earlier in the week.”
I’d been staying off social media to dodge such statistics, but I was glad my numbers were rising. Adam had texted me that, according to CNN, “Almost no one thinks you’re a Scientologist who’s trying to convert Edgar, not anymore,” and Louise had liked our attending an Amnesty International banquet (we didn’t get into the disconnect of having former political prisoners speak at a $25,000-a-plate dinner).
The studio buzzed with grips, camera operators and production assistants going about their tasks. The set was flimsy, with its green screen backdrop, which would project an abstract rotating globe, but with proper lighting and close-ups, everything would be transformed into must-watch morning show prestige.
Caroline Chadwick, our host, was already seated and having her microphone clipped to the neckline of her sleeveless, tomato red sheath, the choice for newswomen everywhere who want to appear professional but svelte. Caroline, who’s England’s foremost news/entertainment/chat personality, was approachably glamorous; she was you, if you had access to stylists, round-the-clock day care, publicists, a driver and interns who’d been forbidden to make eye contact.
Edgar and I were brought to chairs opposite Caroline, and I’d been trained, by my associate event background, to sit on the tail of my jacket so it wouldn’t scrunch up, to push my shoulders back and to not put my hands in my lap. The key to talk-show appearances is to stay relaxed and completely artificial at the same time.
After a stage manager’s countdown and Caroline’s pounding theme music, the lights became blinding and Caroline swiveled to the camera, chirping, “Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Caroline and Company. And what a divinely special morning this is. Because today, as promised, my guests are His Royal Highness Prince Edgar and his much-talked-about American companion of late, one Carter Ogden.”
As Caroline filled in the most up-to-the-minute data on what she called our “burgeoning affiliation,” Edgar touched my arm and murmured, “Here we go.”
“Good morning, Your Highness and Mr. Ogden. It’s marvelous to have you here for your very first live-on-the-air, in-depth interview as a couple.”
“It’s our pleasure, Caroline,” said Edgar. “We always enjoy your program, and thank you for asking us.”
Using a host’s first name warms things up; it’s why politicians tell newscasters, “Hank, that’s why I’m in favor of nuclear power plants near schools.”
“Let’s get right to it,” said Caroline. “Your Highness, how would you characterise your relationship with Mr. Ogden?”
“Carter is not only a dear friend, but someone I’ve had the privilege of getting to know. He’s impressed me beyond words, and he delights me. And I’m sure your viewers will feel the same.”
“And Mr. Ogden? Your thoughts?”
“I admire and respect His Highness, especially because he’s been introducing me to the English people, who’ve overwhelmed me with their kindness, generosity and great good humor. And yes, I’ve come to enjoy trifle as well.”
We all laughed; my Jubilee trauma was the elephant in the room, so I’d climbed on its back and waved merrily. I could tell from Edgar’s grin that he liked my approach.
A few days ago, when Edgar had asked me about doing this interview, I’d been skittish, and he’d said it was my call. But I’d thought about how well we’d been getting along and about how much smoother our public life had become, so I decided, Why not? I loved that Edgar wanted to be up front about our romance, and his team had ratified that Caroline’s show would be friendly turf.
Marc and Alison had been raring to prep me, but I didn’t want to worry everything to death. Wouldn’t it be great if Edgar and I could be an everyday gay couple, even in the spotlight? Of course, I’d coached fathers of the bride, Easter brunch cater-waiters dressed as bunnies, and mermaids flo
ating across the indoor pools of Tribeca real estate showings, for years; I was savvy about positioning a brand. Only this morning that brand was An Appealing and Affable Gay Royal Couple.
“But Your Highness,” said Caroline, “can you be more specific? Our viewers are dying to know—how do you forecast your future with Mr. Ogden?”
Caroline had become my great-aunt Miriam, wheedling for intimate details and, on behalf of parents everywhere, grandkids.
“Our future will depend entirely on Carter, but I’m hoping it will be bright. I’m not the easiest companion, I’m afraid.”
“Carter, is this true?”
“Well, Edgar has much better manners than I do, and he’s far more dedicated to helping just about everyone. Yesterday he hosted an event for the Royal Clean Water Initiative, which he founded. Before meeting His Highness, I’d had no idea that over a third of the world’s people don’t have access to something as basic and essential as clean drinking water. Edgar’s traveled to over twenty-two countries, where he’s helped to dig wells, install plumbing and secure funding for pipelines.”
From observing Edgar, I’d become a pro at redirecting a personal question toward a larger issue. It’s how a movie star turns a gossip reporter’s third degree about a recent breakup involving a drunken street brawl and a trip to the emergency room into a plug for her new documentary on koala habitats.
“Carter is an invaluable asset,” said Edgar. “He’s wonderful at talking to people and drawing them out. He has an accomplished background in event architecture, and he’s accessible and open-hearted, traits which I’d very much like to emulate.”
Edgar reached out and took my hand. For a royal, this was an unprecedented signal. Edgar was openly gay, but today he was proving it. The moment would be forwarded and paused and praised and condemned, and it made me love Edgar even more. Sure, for most couples, holding hands is no big deal, and Edgar wasn’t angling for a Nobel Prize in LGBTQ PDA (Public Displays of Affection). But as Harriet and Edith were aware, the world isn’t always a safe or inclusive place, and Edgar’s gesture was seismic. As for me, I’d been anointed as the royal boyfriend, and for right now, that was swoonworthy enough.
