Red, White & Royal Blue (28 page)

“Um. Yeah? I haven’t, um, come out to her. Yet.”

Zahra blinks, presses her lips together, and makes a noise like she’s being strangled. “Listen,” she says. “We don’t have time to deal with this, and your mother has enough to manage without having to process her son’s fucking quarter-life NATO sexual crisis, so—I won’t tell her. But once the convention is over, you have to.”

“Okay,” Alex says on an exhale.

“Would it make any difference at all if I told you not to see him again?”

Alex looks over at Henry, looking rumpled and nauseated and terrified at the corner of the bed. “No.”

“God fucking dammit,” she says, rubbing the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Every time I see you, it takes another year off my life. I’m going downstairs, and you better be dressed and there in five minutes so we can try to save this goddamn campaign. And
you
”—she rounds on Henry—“you need to get back to fucking England now, and if anyone sees you leave, I will personally end you. Ask me if I’m afraid of the crown.”

“Duly noted,” he says in a faint voice.

Zahra fixes him with a final glare, turns on her heel, and stalks out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

NINE

“Okay,” he says.

His mother sits across the table, hands folded, looking at him expectantly. His palms are starting to sweat. The room is small, one of the lesser conference rooms in the West Wing. He knows he could have asked her to lunch or something, but, well, he kind of panicked.

He guesses he should just do it.

“I’ve been, um,” he starts. “I’ve been figuring some stuff out about myself, lately. And … I wanted to let you know, because you’re my mom, and I want you to be a part of my life, and I don’t want to hide things from you. And also it’s, um, relevant to the campaign, from an image perspective.”

“Okay,” Ellen says, her voice neutral.

“Okay,” he repeats. “All right. Um. So, I’ve realized I’m not straight. I’m actually bisexual.”

Her expression clears, and she laughs, unclasping her hands. “Oh, that’s it, sugar? God, I was worried it was gonna be something worse!” She reaches across the table, covering his hand with hers. “That’s great, baby. I’m so glad you told me.”

Alex smiles back, the anxious bubble in his chest shrinking slightly, but there’s one more bomb to drop. “Um. There’s something else. I kind of … met somebody.”

She tilts her head. “You did? Well, I’m happy for you, I hope you had them do all the paperwork—”

“It’s, uh,” he interrupts her. “It’s Henry.”

A beat. She frowns, her brow knitting together. “Henry…?”

“Yeah, Henry.”

“Henry, as in … the prince?”

“Yes.”

“Of England?”

“Yes.”

“So, not another Henry?”

“No, Mom. Prince Henry. Of Wales.”

“I thought you hated him?” she says. “Or … now you’re friends with him?”

“Both true at different points. But uh, now we’re, like, a thing. Have been. A thing. For, like, seven-ish months? I guess?”

“I … see.”

She stares at him for a very long minute. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

Suddenly, her phone is in her hand, and she’s standing, kicking her chair under the table. “Okay, I’m clearing my schedule for the afternoon,” she says. “I need, uh, time to prepare some materials. Are you free in an hour? We can reconvene here. I’ll order food. Bring, uh, your passport and any receipts and relevant documents you have, sugar.”

She doesn’t wait to hear if he’s free, just walks backward out of the room and disappears into the corridor. The door isn’t even finished closing when a notification pops up on his phone.
CALENDAR REQUEST FROM MOM: 2 P.M. WEST WING FIRST FLOOR, INTERNATIONAL ETHICS & SEXUAL IDENTITY DEBRIEF.

An hour later, there are several cartons of Chinese food and a PowerPoint cued up. The first slide says:
SEXUAL EXPERIMENTATION WITH FOREIGN MONARCHS: A GRAY AREA.
Alex wonders if it’s too late to swan dive off the roof.

“Okay,” she says when he sits down, in almost exactly the same tone he used on her earlier. “Before we start, I—I want to be clear, I love you and support you always. But this is, quite frankly, a logistical and ethical clusterfuck, so we need to make sure we have our ducks in a row. Okay?”

The next slide is titled:
EXPLORING YOUR SEXUALITY: HEALTHY, BUT DOES IT HAVE TO BE WITH THE PRINCE OF ENGLAND?
She apologizes for not having time to come up with better titles. Alex actively wishes for the sweet release of death.

The one after is:
FEDERAL FUNDING, TRAVEL EXPENSES, BOOTY CALLS, AND YOU.

She’s mostly concerned with making sure he hasn’t used any federally funded private jets to see Henry for exclusively personal visits—he hasn’t—and with making him fill out a bunch of paperwork to cover both their asses. It feels clinical and wrong, checking little boxes about his relationship, especially when half are asking things he hasn’t even discussed with Henry yet.

It’s agonizing, but eventually it’s over, and he doesn’t die, which is something. His mother takes the last form and seals
it up in an envelope with the rest. She sets it aside and takes off her reading glasses, setting those aside too.

“So,” she says. “Here’s the thing. I know I put a lot on you. But I do it because I trust you. You’re a dumbass, but I trust you, and I trust your judgment. I promised you years ago I would never tell you to be anything you’re not. So I’m not gonna be the president or the mother who forbids you from seeing him.”

She takes another breath, waiting for Alex to nod that he understands.

“But,” she goes on, “this is a really, really big fucking deal. This is not just some person from class or some intern. You need to think really long and hard because you are putting yourself and your career and, above all, this campaign and this entire administration, in danger here. I know you’re young, but this is a forever decision. Even if you don’t stay with him forever, if people find out, that sticks with you forever. So you need to figure out if you feel forever about him. And if you don’t, you need to cut it the fuck out.”

She rests her hands on the table in front of her, and the silence hangs in the air between them. Alex feels like his heart is caught somewhere between his tonsils.

Forever.
It seems like an impossibly huge word, something he’s supposed to grow into ten years from now.

“Also,” she says. “I am so sorry to do this, sugar. But you’re off the campaign.”

Alex snaps back into razor sharp reality, stomach plummeting.

“Wait, no—”

“This is not up for debate, Alex,” she tells him, and she does look sorry, but he knows the set of her jaw too well. “I can’t
risk this. You’re way too close to the sun. We’re telling the press you’re focusing on other career options. I’ll have your desk cleaned out for you over the weekend.”

She holds out one hand, and Alex looks down into her palm, the worried lines there, until the realization clicks.

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his campaign badge. The first artifact of his entire career, a career he’s managed to derail in a matter of months. And he hands it over.

“Oh, one last thing,” she says, her tone suddenly businesslike again, shuffling something from the bottom of her files. “I know Texas public schools don’t have sex ed for shit, and we didn’t go over this when we had the talk—which is on me for assuming—so I just wanted to make sure you know you still need to be using condoms even if you’re having anal interc—”

“Okay, thanks, Mom!”
Alex half yells, nearly knocking over his chair in his rush for the door.

“Wait, honey,” she calls after him, “I had Planned Parenthood send over all these pamphlets, take one! They sent a bike messenger and everything!”

A mass of fools and knaves

A
                8/10/20 1:04 AM

to Henry

H,

Have you ever read any of Alexander Hamilton’s letters to John Laurens?

What am I saying? Of course you haven’t. You’d probably be disinherited for revolutionary sympathies.

Well, since I got the boot from the campaign, there is literally nothing for me to do but watch cable news (diligently chipping away at my brain cells by the day), reread Harry Potter, and sort through all my old shit from college. Just looking at papers, thinking: Excellent, yes, I’m so glad I stayed up all night writing this for a 98 in the class, only to get summarily fired from the first job I ever had and exiled to my bedroom! Great job, Alex!

Is this how you feel in the palace all the time? It fucking
sucks,
man.

So anyway, I’m going through my college stuff, and I find this analysis I did of Hamilton’s wartime correspondence, and hear me out: I think Hamilton could have been bi. His letters to Laurens are almost as romantic as his letters to his wife. Half of them are signed “Yours” or “Affectionately yrs,” and the last one before Laurens died is signed “Yrs for ever.” I can’t figure out why nobody talks about the possibility of a Founding Father being not straight (outside of Chernow’s biography, which is great btw, see attached bibliography). I mean, I
know
why, but.

Anyway, I found this part of a letter he wrote to Laurens, and it made me think of you. And me, I guess:

The truth is I am an unlucky honest man, that speak my sentiments to all and with emphasis. I say this to you
because you know it and will not charge me with vanity. I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you …

Thinking about history makes me wonder how I’ll fit into it one day, I guess. And you too. I kinda wish people still wrote like that.

History, huh? Bet we could make some.

Affectionately yrs, slowly going insane,

Alex, First Son of Founding Father Sacrilege

Re: A mass of fools and knaves

Henry
                8/10/20 4:18 AM

to A

Alex, First Son of Masturbatory Historical Readings:

The phrase “see attached bibliography” is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me.

Every time you mention your slow decay inside the White House, I can’t help but feel it’s my fault, and I feel absolutely shit about it. I’m sorry. I should have known better than to turn up at a thing like that. I got carried away; I didn’t think. I know how much that job meant to you.

I just want to … you know. Extend the option. If you wanted less of me, and more of that—the work, the uncomplicated things—I would understand. Truly.

In any event … Believe it or not, I have actually done a bit of reading on Hamilton, for a number of reasons. First, he was a brilliant writer. Second, I knew you were named after him (the pair of you share an alarming number of traits, by the by: passionate determination, never knowing when to shut up, &c &c). And third, some saucy tart once tried to impugn my virtue against an oil painting of him, and in the halls of memory, some things demand context.

Are you angling for a revolutionary soldier role-play scenario? I must inform you, any trace of King George III blood I have would curdle in my very veins and render me useless to you.

Or are you suggesting you’d rather exchange passionate letters by candlelight?

Should I tell you that when we’re apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I’ve just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all?

I think perhaps Hamilton said it better in a letter to Eliza:

You engross my thoughts too intirely to allow me to think of any thing else—you not only employ my mind all day; but you intrude upon my sleep. I meet you in every dream—and when I wake I cannot close my eyes again for ruminating on your sweetness.

If you did decide to take the option mentioned at the start of this email, I do hope you haven’t read the rest of this rubbish.

Regards,

Haplessly Romantic Heretic Prince Henry the Utterly Daft

Re: A mass of fools and knaves

A
                8/10/20 5:36 AM

to Henry

H,

Please don’t be stupid. No part of any of this will ever be uncomplicated.

Anyway, you should be a writer. You are a writer.

Even after all this, I still always feel like I want to know more of you. Does that sound crazy? I just sit here and wonder, who is this person who knows stuff about Hamilton and writes like this? Where does someone like that even come from? How was I so wrong?