Playing the Palace

by Paul Rudnick

  “Your Highness,” said Caroline, “I appreciate your many good works, and it must be gratifying to have met someone to share your causes. But we’re all romantics at heart, so I’m speaking for fans everywhere when I ask, are you committed to one another? And I promise that we aren’t adding winged cupids over your heads or shimmering orchestral glissandos in the editing room.”

  Edgar looked at me with such affection and trust. He’d told me he loved me and doing this had changed him. He wasn’t the guarded, wounded man I’d first met, the guy who’d been hurt before and had conditioned himself to loneliness. He’d made the leap. He’d dared to be happy. Abby was right, about everything.

  “Yes, we are, Caroline,” said Edgar. “Deeply committed.”

  “And Mr. Ogden?”

  “Yes. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why I’m grateful to have met someone who—well, as my great-aunt Miriam told me at my sister’s wedding—he’s a catch.”

  As everyone in the studio laughed and Edgar blushed, Caroline added, “Well, I think that’s all brilliant, despite my next question, which I’m afraid I must ask. Your Highness, are you aware of cell phone footage that surfaced a half hour ago, and has gone viral, of Mr. Ogden passionately kissing another man?”

  Time stopped. What was she talking about? Edgar was still holding my hand, but his was trembling.

  “I’m not certain what you’re referring to, Caroline,” Edgar told her, keeping an even tone.

  “Let’s see the clip, where Carter seems quite smitten with someone who’s been identified as Callum Turner, an American actor.”

  Edgar and I both turned as the screen behind us showed Callum and me, outside a restaurant, kissing.

  “Well, that’s quite simple, then,” Edgar explained, visibly relieved. “Yes, Carter was involved with that chap, but it was some time ago. I’m sure this is from that earlier period.”

  “It’s time-stamped from last night,” said Caroline. “Just a few blocks from the palace.”

  No. No. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Had I?

  Last night Edgar and I had reluctantly agreed to stay in our own rooms so we’d be well rested for the interview. I’d had trouble getting to sleep, because I kept thinking about the show, with so many people watching, and how much I wanted to please Edgar. As I was lying in bed and giving myself an Abby-style you’ve-got-this pep talk a text came in, followed by a call. It was Callum, who was in London shooting a small role as a henchman in the next Bond movie; with his hair slicked back and the right mirrored sunglasses, Callum could pass for a glowering Euro-thug. He was nearby and wondered if I was up for a drink.

  I knew it was a bad idea, but I was antsy and I could use some fresh air. Callum and I couldn’t be more over, so what was the harm? And if I was being ruthlessly honest, I was itching to preen a little and to see if Callum would ask about Edgar so I could act super-casual as Callum tried to come off as unimpressed.

  I pulled on my clothes, snuck out of the palace and walked to a café. Callum was waiting at a table in the back, and yes, he looked good. No one can slouch in a battered motorcycle jacket and jeans like Callum. That had been part of our problem; I could never tell if he was brooding or auditioning a new headshot.

  “Hey, Carter. Look at you.”

  “I can only stay a minute.”

  “One drink.”

  “One Coke.”

  Callum gossiped about the movie and how excited he was, because “People haven’t seen me do evil.” I almost said, “I have,” but resisted.

  “So tell me about what’s-his-name, your new dude, Prince Edward?”

  “Edgar.”

  “Edgar, right. Skinny. But he seems cool. Is he a good guy?”

  “The best.” I was ashamed, because I wanted to brag, but I didn’t need to punish Callum with my happiness. And my prince. I knew I should leave. Except I hadn’t been out of the royal orbit for weeks, or talked to another American in person, so I told myself, Five more minutes.

  “So is it, like, serious?”

  “I think so. I hope so. I’m adjusting, but it’s going well.”

  “Good. Great. I’m happy for you. Shit.”

  “What?”

  “You probably can’t tell, ’cause I was covering it, but I’ve been thinking about us. And when I see pictures of you with Prince whoever-he-is, it kills me. And I hate myself for that. I just want you to be happy. Really.”

  “Thank you. And I get it. Are you seeing anyone?”

  “The vice president of the United States. Kidding. A couple of guys, nothing major. Not like us.”

  In his own confused, Callum-centric way, Callum was struggling. I wasn’t sure if he still had feelings for me or if, because I was off the market, I was a challenge. Callum loved being adored by everyone, but he was so transparent that I could never hate him. He was sweetly stuck on himself. And by “a couple of guys” that meant there were at least four.

  After more show business schmooze and Callum prying for more information about Edgar, which I skated over, we left. As we were standing on the sidewalk and I was saying, “Great to see you, and congratulations on the movie,” Callum put his hand on my neck and kissed me. I pulled away, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, or smack him, especially because during the kiss, I felt nothing. Not even nostalgia. I was thinking about kissing Edgar and how much I missed him, even after only a few hours apart. The kiss may have lasted a moment longer than it should have, because my mind and my heart were elsewhere, and because Callum was holding my shoulder and not letting go.

  “Hey, enough,” I said, managing to break his grip.

  “Just wanted to give it a shot.”

  “Not cool.”

  “Sorry.”

  Callum dipped his head and raised his eyes to reflect the streetlamp; this was one of his tricks, stolen from the use of key lights on movie sets, which add sparkle to an actor’s eyes. Callum was his own best cinematographer. Then he gave me a wry half smile, the one he’d once used on a can of Diet Sprite, and sauntered off, maybe worried that he was losing his touch and should cut back on the carbs.

  There had been sidewalk tables with a handful of stragglers, but I’d had no idea anyone was paying attention, not to me. Edgar was the famous person, and he wasn’t here.

  I hadn’t told Edgar or Abby or anyone else about my encounter with Callum, as it had been brief and embarrassing and I’d already erased it.

  “Mr. Ogden?” said Caroline.

  “I . . . I . . . nothing happened,” I said, because I was innocent. “It was nothing.”

  “You lived with Callum Turner for three years,” Caroline continued, ramping into steely district attorney cross-examination mode. “And now he appears in London. Other patrons at the café have reported a highly amorous conversation and overheard Prince Edgar’s name.”

  “We were just having a drink! Callum is shooting a movie!”

  “And you were together for over an hour.”

  “Carter?” asked Edgar.

  “And as the footage reveals,” Caroline said, savoring the accusation, “the kiss is quite lengthy. And sensual. And Carter, when our staff contacted Mr. Turner, he said your relationship remains very real and that you’d been avid to see him. He said you seemed worried and offhand about His Highness. He chose the words ‘restless’ and ‘unsatisfied.’ He said you were keen on reconnecting with him, because the two of you had never really broken up.”

  God damn Callum. His ego was that fragile. And I’d fallen for it. Callum liked to think that because of his relentlessly Instagrammed cheekbones and ranch-hand-in-a-Tylenol-ad jawline, he had no competition. Until now.

  “He also provided us with an album of photos, hundreds actually, depicting the intensity of your romance. They’re on our website. He said you belonged together. And that His Highness was, in his phrase, ‘a rebound
deal.’”

  “No he’s not!” I said vehemently, to end all of this and expose Caroline’s distortion of the facts. “And you have to understand, that’s exactly the sort of thing Callum would say!”

  “Carter?” Edgar repeated. His face was ashen, because he didn’t know what to believe. How had I let this happen? And how could I fix this? And why was I being blamed for Callum’s ugly scheming?

  “Callum is lying,” I said, speaking as clearly as possible. “He’s jealous and he cheated on me and he made me feel terrible about myself.”

  “A provisional theory,” Caroline smirked.

  “Edgar, please, you have to believe me. I would never do this to you. Because I know how it feels when someone gets bored or horny and starts lying about everything, and I stuck with Callum for way too long, and it almost destroyed me. So that’s not who I am. Yes, I went for a drink, and he grabbed me, but that’s all that went on. I would never want to hurt you.”

  “That’s a pretty speech,” said Caroline, hungering for more fireworks.

  “It’s not a speech!” I practically yelled, my voice strained and desperate; I was telling the truth, but the more I underlined everything, the more I sounded trapped.

  “Your Highness?” said Caroline. “Any response? To Mr. Ogden’s somewhat far-fetched and unlikely tale?”

  I have never hated anyone as much as I hated Caroline right then, Getting louder or standing up wouldn’t help my cause, because Caroline would turn it against me and ask Edgar if I’d ever been violent. I could feel my face reddening as I clutched the armrests of my chair, digging grooves into the fabric. I wasn’t sure when Edgar had let go of my hand, but he seemed miles away. He wouldn’t look at me.

  Edgar shut his eyes, in pain. He opened them and attempted to breathe.

  “All right,” he began. “Carter, when we started seeing each other, I asked for only one promise, one absolute assurance. That I be able to trust you.”

  “Understandable,” murmured Caroline supportively. “Crucial.”

  “And now . . .” Edgar said, although he was fighting it, “and now I’m not convinced that I can.”

  “Edgar?” I said.

  “I believe what His Highness means is . . .” interjected Caroline.

  “I know what he means!” I howled at her.

  “Mr. Ogden,” she replied, every bit the offended sparrow, “I will request that you modulate your volume.”

  “What I mean,” said Edgar, “is that I may have done something I swore to myself I’d never do ever again—for the sake of my own mental health, and my service to this country. But now I . . . I’ve allowed myself, and this is entirely my doing, and I take full responsibility, but I’ve let myself be compromised. To be placed in a position of, I believe the word is, vulnerability.”

  “Which is a good thing!” I insisted. “You need to be vulnerable! Everyone does! Even princes! Especially princes!”

  “Why?” asked Edgar.

  “So you don’t shut down,” I pleaded. “So you don’t cut yourself off, so you don’t condemn yourself to being suspicious of everyone you meet, and eliminating them, and ending up alone.”

  “Your Highness,” said Caroline, “If I might suggest an alternative bridge to personal fulfillment, based on my recent bestseller, Rewiring Your Love Clock . . .”

  “Shut the hell up!” I yelled.

  “I beg your pardon!” she said. “But many fine people, millions of readers worldwide, have found my book to be miraculously helpful. Adrienne Lestercroft, a bank manager from Leeds, posted a five-star review on Amazon just this morning, terming the book, and I’m quoting Adrienne’s own tribute, ‘a masterwork of reenvisioning one’s own inner loveways . . . ’”

  “I DON’T GIVE A DAMN!” I rasped, as if a fire-fueled demon had entered my larynx. Caroline was hijacking my life to sell her book, and Edgar was growing smaller and smaller, huddling in the corner of his chair as if he could will himself to disappear.

  “Mr. Ogden!” cried Caroline. “Are you threatening me and my devoted readership?”

  “No! And I’m sorry for yelling, but Edgar, please, we need to talk, somewhere private, we can get through this, it’s really not a problem at all . . .”

  “It’s not?” asked Edgar, sitting up straighter.

  “Your Highness?” said Caroline, her nose all but twitching from the scent of blood.

  “Carter,” said Edgar, “I have told you things and formed an intimacy . . . that I may be regretting. I have no idea what the truth of this Callum Turner situation, and these charges, may be, and that’s the dilemma. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to sit beside you and question everything. I don’t want to leave myself open to any further heartache and disgrace and—pancakes!”

  “Pancakes?” asked Caroline incisively, as if she’d just flung open a trunk and found the murder weapon.

  “No!” I told Edgar. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you turn me into a liar and the bad guy and the reason you’re about to torch your own life. That’s not fair. I’m a mess and the worst baking show judge ever, and I don’t even want to think about what my hair is doing right now, but I am not your enemy!”

  “I don’t care!” Edgar said, and now he was shouting. “I don’t want to care! About any of this! And about doing this stupid interview!”

  “Your Highness,” said Caroline, deeply insulted, “may I remind you that the Palace agreed to your appearance, and Mr. Ogden’s, and that I have an award-winning reputation for my comprehensive communication skills—for example, my two-part special evening edition with Mariah Carey—”

  “I DON’T CARE ABOUT MARIAH CAREY!” Edgar bellowed, standing up. “I don’t care about protocol, I don’t care about calculating my royal profile, I don’t care about love . . .”

  He turned to me. His face was wild, and I was so frightened, not by his anger, but because I knew what he was going to say next.

  “Which means . . . which means . . . that I can’t care about you!”

  His body was flailing; he was about to either spontaneously combust and fill the airwaves with a zillion floating shreds of convulsive royalty, or leave. He lunged at me but at the last second yanked himself back. He moaned in an unearthly combination of a Neanderthal’s war cry and a wretchedly teething baby, shook his arms to the heavens and hurled himself out of the studio, followed by a frantic James and the security team.

  “Oh my,” said Caroline, shocked but pleased by the chaos she’d incited and the ratings that would accrue. “Mr. Ogden?” she asked serenely. “Any final thoughts?”

  “Any final thoughts?” I said, staring at her incredulously, in disbelief at the height, or the depth, of her sheer gall. I marched directly to one of the cameras and said, “Only one. Everybody knows that Caroline’s book sucks and that she wrote that Amazon review herself. And beyond that, I have no idea what I’m doing here, on this show or in England or anywhere else! Because I’m from New Jersey, and I’m going home!”

  CHAPTER 25

  I’d shut off my phone and my tablet and I was wearing a sleep mask. My family, along with Louise and Adam, had been trying to track me down, but I couldn’t deal with anyone, not yet, not even with Abby, as I slumped in my middle seat in economy on the plane back to New York (I’d put the ticket on my last functioning credit card). There was no way I could doze, or slow my pulse to a normal range, or cajole myself into believing that in the history of the universe, a gay couple splitting up on live global TV was a blip, a speck of LGBTQ info-dust, and that the whole gaypocalypse had undoubtedly stopped trending on every social media platform hours ago. As I’d passed through Heathrow wearing sunglasses and a knitted wool hat pulled almost to my chin, I’d glimpsed headlines on the newsstands and video monitors: “Edgar Denounces American Man-Slut”; “The Prince And The Pipsqueak”; “Royal Raunchgate”; and “GLAAD Condemns Carter Ogden B
ecause Cheating Isn’t a Gay Civil Right.” A haughty woman on TMZ was saying, “If my man kissed somebody else, I’d be all, ‘Bye, Carter. See you in hell!’”

  What just happened? Had I betrayed Edgar, or had he overreacted, and why, before I’d started ignoring my devices, hadn’t he reached out to me in any way? What was I guilty of? Why had I gotten together with Callum, and let him kiss me, and why hadn’t I been more conscious of my surroundings? And above all else, was anyone, especially me, surprised that I’d twisted my greatest chance for love into the most epic and public cataclysm?

  I couldn’t begin to sort anything out, but one aspect was certain: I’d made this happen. All those months ago I’d sat in St. Patrick’s and prayed for love and the largest possible life. My prayer had been answered, but with an expiration date.

  Because I was Cinderella Ogden. Because I should’ve known that sooner or later my prince would catch on to how unlovable I was, how inadequate in every way, and he’d leave. So I’d sped up the inevitable. Ruth Ginsburg was about to tell me something, but I’d stopped listening, especially to figments of my imagination; Ruth was gone, which was something else, on a very long list of truths, I’d be forced to accept.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said a flight attendant, tapping my shoulder, “would you like to purchase a beverage?” As I shook my head no, he whispered, “And I’m so sorry about you and Prince Edgar. I thought you were adorable together.”

  “I’m not going to judge you,” added the voice of a second flight attendant. “Because Callum Turner is seriously hot, and I bet you’re feeling like crap right now. So if you’d like a cocktail, we won’t charge you.”

  With my sleep mask still in place, I heard another voice from two rows over: “Is he that cheating guy? The one with the prince? I know the drill. Two divorces and fifty-eight stitches in the back of my head from my ex’s golf club.”