Playing the Palace

by Paul Rudnick

  “And Mr. Ogden?” said Miles. “Are you familiar with the Jubilee?”

  “I think it’s wonderful, and it’s my dad’s favorite show of all time!”

  The crowd in the tent liked this, and Edgar and I smiled at each other—so far, so good.

  “You must send your father our best,” said Agatha. “Hello, Mr. Ogden’s dad! And now let’s get to it, shall we? We have three contestants who’ve survived an especially grueling season—let’s not even mention our unfortunate detour into organic braided strudel. But they’ve remained staunch and true, moving ever closer to the finish line. So let me introduce Angus McReedy, our lorry driver from East Sussex; Harriet Nordstadt, author of fourteen introduction to hand-embroidery pamphlets for children and a gifted trombonist; and, all the way from Great Torrington we’ve got Anora Persad, who brews her own nonalcoholic ales, hangs wallpaper and volunteers as a firefighter.”

  The contestants were exchanging jittery but pleased glances, stunned by the royals’ presence. They took their places behind the table as jumpsuited staffers gingerly placed their entries in front of them. To my great relief, none of the contestants nor the rows of audience members were paying even minor attention to me.

  Trifle, as far as I could tell, was a layered dessert consisting of just about anything combined in a large clear glass container; the trifles were colorful, complicated and reminded me of rare squids or jellyfish squeezed into cylindrical aquariums. Think parfaits on steroids, or brandy snifters packed with pudding, cream cheese and sponge cake.

  “Let’s begin with Anora, our firefighter and alemistress,” said Agatha. “Tell us about your trifle.”

  Anora, sweet-faced and anxious, said, “Well, ma’am, I’ve always loved a good trifle, and since my family is from Trinidad, I’m honoring them with melon balls, candied yams, butterscotch treacle and shredded coconut, with a drizzle of caramel and rum.”

  “Your Highness?” said Miles, handing Edgar a silver spoon.

  “I must tell you,” said Edgar, as if confiding a sexual fetish, “I wait all year for Christmas trifle. If you’d allow me, I’d devour everyone’s trifles on the spot. But Anora, yours looks delicious.”

  Edgar dipped his spoon, snaring several layers, and tasted. He beamed. “This is heavenly! I can taste the yams, the butterscotch and the sublime coconut! It’s a symphony! Well done, Anora!”

  Edgar wasn’t faking any of this; the man loved trifle. And I loved the man.

  “Although I’m not sure we need the caramel,” Agatha commented, having dipped her own spoon. Agatha was supplying balance: “While caramel is always welcome, it occasionally becomes a lingering guest who’s misplaced his car keys.” After each of us had tried a trifle, we’d rotate and taste the others.

  “Your Highnesses?” said Miles, handing spoons to Gerald and Maureen. “May I present Angus, who’s recently had a hip replacement following a workplace mishap, but who’s never stopped baking.”

  Angus, an older man with a cane and a curlicued moustache, said, in a rugged accent, “I’ve tried to create a sophisticated trifle, using malt bouillon, diced almondine wafers and a suggestion of raspberry gelatin, mingled with mascarpone, which I’ve tinted to resemble stained glass. It was me mum’s recipe.”

  “It’s unusual,” Gerald decided, after a brimming spoonful, “perhaps a mite academic. But a worthy effort, even with reservations.”

  Oh, please, Gerald, I thought. Stop puffing yourself up as if you’re the Global Trifle Authority.

  “I’m enjoying it,” said Maureen, who’d of course only nibbled, to appear ladylike and avoid excess calories. “The mascarpone matches the amber stripe in one of our guest bedrooms, so good job on your colour palette.”

  “Colour palette”? Really? Okay, now I was just being snarky.

  “And Mr. Ogden,” said Agatha, “would you please do us the honor of sampling Harriet’s trifle?”

  Harriet was tall and narrow, with a nature guide’s can-do pluck. “I’ve given this much thought, and I’m so pleased to meet His Highness and Mr. Ogden, because I’ve always dreamed of creating a rainbow trifle. So I’ve used blueberries, strawberries, lemon rind and celery, along with my signature crushed ginger biscuits, splashes of fresh peppermint and homemade grape jelly from my pantry. And for a final touch, I’ve added a candle accent.”

  The trifle was ringed with lit rainbow candles and looked like the happiest pride parade float. I was determined to love it, because of Harriet’s toothy smile, her politics and her trombone habit.

  I dipped my spoon between the candles, tasted and swallowed.

  “The mix of flavors is surprising and completely delicious,” I said, meaning every word.

  “It’s like a rainbow in my mouth. Congratulations, Harriet . . .”

  Hold on. Had something caught in my throat? Had a ginger biscuit been waylaid? No. I wasn’t about to gag, I couldn’t. I went for a mild cough, covering a burp.

  “Carter?” said Edgar, concerned.

  “Mr. Ogden?” echoed Agatha.

  “The aftertaste is even more appealing, it’s . . . it’s . . .”

  Oh my God. I can control this, I can force my body, especially my esophagus, to brace itself, or at least wait till I’m off-camera. Except something’s rising. Why am I thinking about that scene in one of the Alien movies where the fanged creature bursts out of that guy’s shuddering chest?

  “Carter?” asked Miles, worried. “Is there a digestive issue?”

  “No, not at all, I love Harriet’s trifle . . .”

  I was trying so hard. I was commanding my stomach to stop contracting and my body to stop sweating and shaking. But there was an ice-pick pain radiating from my gut into my throat, and my shoulders heaved as the trifle climbed higher and higher, clawing its way and unstoppably returning to my mouth.

  “Carter, you’re white as a sheet,” said Edgar. “Is there a doctor standing by?”

  “This is hard to watch,” said Gerald as I clutched at the tablecloth, to at least stay upright, while making uncontrollable gagging noises at a cement mixer volume.

  “Perhaps it’s an American response,” said Maureen, turning away.

  “I . . . I . . . I’m fine, I just, I just . . .”

  I’ve always hated vomiting, because it’s gross and because it turns my body against itself. As a child I’d sworn that I’d never vomit, that I wouldn’t let it happen, not to me. Do not vomit, I shouted inwardly. YOU ARE NOT A PERSON WHO VOMITS.

  And then not just a spoonful of trifle, but everything I’d eaten in the past week, or maybe since birth, rocketed volcanically up my throat and out my mouth, splattering Harriet, Agatha, Miles and all the royal judges, because my head kept whipping back and forth like a malfunctioning sprinkler system. I couldn’t stop vomiting, and the second I thought, This must be everything, my gullet upchucked more, until I expected to see my lungs and spleen hitting the ceiling of the tent. Whatever gag reflex I had was long gone; I was an open tunnel, a vomit superhighway. I might very well be birthing an island or a new continent made entirely out of regurgitated trifle, which was also now drenching the camera lens.

  As I staggered, and Edgar tried to yank and steady me, I fell headlong, dragging the tablecloth and upending all the trifles, causing the candles in Harriet’s trifle to set the tablecloth on fire, which was when everyone in the tent began screaming and running for the exits as the cameras swung wildly and the bodyguards sprinted to find fire extinguishers while hoping not to slip in my barf. It was like watching a mob fleeing from Godzilla or a marauding triceratops, not knowing which way to turn, with parents being swept away by my tidal wave of trifle, reaching out helplessly for wailing babies. Right before I passed out I knew only one thing:

  For the rest of my life, whenever anyone didn’t like something, a politician or a movie star’s performance or a holiday sweater, their opinion would be pu
nctuated by a clip of me vomiting trifle.

  * * *

  Might I?”

  It was Maureen, an hour later. I’d refused an ambulance because I was so mortified, and I was lying on a cot in a holding area, a few yards from what remained of the Baking Jubilee tent. The fire had been quickly contained and the show’s finale was in the process of being rescheduled. The sweat that had soaked my body was starting to dry, and Edgar had been tending to me with fresh towels and ice chips. A local doctor had checked me out and said that I’d most likely had food poisoning, either from an ingredient I hadn’t known I was allergic to or from one of the trifle’s dairy products spoiling under the hot lights. Edgar was off finding me some crackers, which were all I’d ever eat for the rest of my life, when Maureen walked in.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling myself up on an elbow.

  “Don’t. Just rest. You’ve earned it. You poor boy.”

  “Your Grace?”

  “Maureen, please. Oh, Carter, when I saw your face going so deathly pale, my heart just broke.”

  “I’m so sorry, and look at your blazer . . .”

  “My blazer is fine; a spritz with club soda and all was well. But you’re my concern. Because, and I know you won’t believe this, but I know just how you feel.”

  “Maureen?”

  “Gerald and I have been married for five years, and it’s been lovely. Strenuous but lovely. It was the year before the wedding that almost destroyed me.”

  “How?”

  “I was an ordinary girl from the Cotswolds. My dad ran a small construction business, and my mum was his receptionist. They’d sacrificed so much to send me to university—not Oxford with Gerald, but nearby. We met at one of those awful parties where everyone’s drunk and sprawling and pretending not to notice there’s a royal in the room. And Gerald was so out of place, because he’s not really a party person, as perhaps you’ve gathered. He was sitting in the corner of a couch, barely sipping some frightfully adult cocktail, in his grey flannels and cardigan, as if he was someone’s dad, or a faculty assistant, and he looked so morose that I took pity. I like a project.”

  Maureen was being surprisingly genuine.

  “But once things grew more serious, I had to make a decision. Because I simply wasn’t prepared for the onslaught. After our first public appearance, at the dedication of a footbridge, I wasn’t merely criticised, I was flayed alive. I was too common, my ankles were too thick, I was a gold digger with two rhinoplasties and a breast augmentation. I was pretentious and dull, and above all else, I’d never be as kind or as glamorous or as saintly as Gerald and Edgar’s mum.”

  “What happened? How did you turn things around?”

  “Laboriously. And, to this day, never in full. I think when people realised that Gerald wasn’t buckling under, and that he’d made his choice, there was a sort of truce. But I was still unbearably plain, and not up to the task, and then there was the most fearsome obstacle of all.”

  “Queen Catherine?”

  “Who hated me on sight. She thought I lacked spirit, whatever that might be, perhaps because she kept me in a constant state of terror, and would mistake me for a palace assistant and call me Mabel.”

  “Been there. Am there.”

  “I’ve still made only the slightest dent. After Gerald sat her down and said he was marrying me, with her approval or without, she shrugged, and decided that it doesn’t really matter, since Gerald will never be king. So she’s become, well, almost cordial. I’ve made my peace with this, but that’s why I wanted to speak with you, especially after today. Because you don’t have to do it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean—this life. It isn’t for everyone. Think about the future. Right now, you’ve still got a chance at escape. And I know how much Edgar means to you, I can see that, but what I’m saying is, this isn’t just about affection. It’s about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t be trapped by the occasional dazzle and the attentive staff and some image of yourself as a sunlit, gracious royal, carefully posed beside Edgar on a magazine cover. That’s only publicity, and whatever pleasure it holds fades, rather quickly. And then it’s just the two of you, behind barbed wire and brick walls and armed guards, making a life, as best you can. Think it through.”

  Why was Maureen telling me this? Was she being straightforward and helpful, as a battle-toughened veteran, or maneuvering to eliminate me? Her face was, as always, masklike, and I wondered what would happen if she ever cried.

  “Maureen—do you regret marrying Gerald?”

  She uttered the tiniest sigh. “No. Of course not. But at times, I regret marrying everything else.”

  “Triscuits or saltines?” asked Edgar, carrying boxes of both. “Maureen? I thought you’d gone back to London.”

  “On my way. I just wanted to check in with our boy here, who seems to be on the mend. Please feel better, Carter, and think about what I’ve said. I’m one of the few people with a firsthand perspective. And Edgar, do take better care of Carter. No more rainbow trifle.”

  She touched my hand and left.

  “What is she talking about? What did she tell you?”

  “That I should rest and drink fluids and try not to barf on her shoes again. She was fine. Very sweet.”

  This was the first time I’d deliberately lied to Edgar. Through my exhausted haze, I managed to sit up on the edge of the cot.

  “Carter, I’ve come to like Maureen, but the one thing she’s not is sweet. What did one of the tabloids call her? ‘The Pink Piranha’?”

  “Okay,” I said, resolving not to dance around my most recent fiasco. “I know that today wasn’t my fault, sort of, but it’s part of a pattern. I can’t keep embarrassing you and forcing you to look chipper and put a smiley-face spin on everything and tell me I’m doing great. It’s not fair to either of us, but especially not to you. Or to all those queer kids watching us and thinking, ‘You know, maybe being straight isn’t such a bad idea after all.’ I just, I’m . . .”

  I was grasping for some adequate phrase, to let Edgar off the hook. I couldn’t look in his eyes.

  Harriet was standing a few feet away. “Mr. Ogden?” she asked. “And Your Highness? May I have a word?”

  “Of course,” said Edgar, although there was nothing I could say to make amends with Harriet after what I’d done to her.

  “Mr. Ogden, I’m so sorry about your physical distress, and I need to apologise for the trifle.”

  “No no no, it’s not your fault, and your trifle was fantastic, you deserved to win . . .”

  “But don’t you see? I did win. Because I’ve had the opportunity to meet His Highness, and even more importantly, the fellow he cares about. That’s why I chose the rainbow. My partner, Edith, she’s an optometrist, we’ve been together for twenty-one years, and things haven’t always been . . . unhindered. Our families barely speak to us, and just last week, this bloke was walking past Edith’s storefront, and he saw the small rainbow flag in the window. He marched in just as Edith was giving an eye exam to Rebecca, a woman from our church, she’s been coming to Edith for years. And the man was clutching the flag. He spat on it, tossed it on the floor, and called Edith and Rebecca, and I’m quoting, ‘a couple of ugly dyke bitches.’ And he stomped out.”

  “Oh my God . . .” I said.

  “I’m so sorry . . .” Edgar added.

  “And that’s why you mean so much, and why Edith has been showing me all the photos of the two of you together. Edith?”

  A woman Harriet’s age, only shorter and redheaded, in a Levi’s jacket and a long skirt, had been waiting outside.

  “What a pleasure,” said Edith, shyly. “You’ve made our day.”

  Edgar and I were about to cry as Harriet and Edith asked for a selfie, and I tried not to breathe on them.

  “Oh my,” said Edg
ar, after the couple had gone.

  “They’re so wonderful. And everything they said, we don’t deserve it. I don’t.”

  “But Harriet and Edith thought otherwise. And Carter, I know we shouldn’t keep at this just for the optics as queer mascots. That would be madness. So there’s something I should tell you.”

  Here it comes. He’s being a gentleman. Letting me down easy. Even though we’re both Aquarians. Or maybe because we’re both Aquarians, which can be an overdose. We’d been ingenious and adaptable and all the rest of it, and the result was clear. We should burn everything we had on. He’ll say it’s not me, it’s him. We’ll both be so caring.

  “When I saw you barf, with that rainbow of partially digested trifle geysering from every opening in your body, I only had two thoughts. First I told myself, ‘Do not laugh. That would be so inhumane.’”

  “Thank you.”

  “But beyond that, as you went through the day, putting yourself out there, and all for me, I was just . . . Well, it was all very touching, but in truth I barely noticed what you were doing. Because all I kept seeing was you. I couldn’t stop. Because of a simple fact that has nothing to do with palaces or event planning or buckets of contaminated trifle. I’ve been thinking about everything we fought over the other night, and how I blathered on about finding a partner, as if you weren’t right there beside me.”

  “Edgar, it’s okay, I get it, we both have goals, and I don’t want to stand in your way of meeting just the right guy, someone who deserves you—”

  “Will you please be still?”

  “Fine!”

  “Good Lord. All right. I’ve never said this before, not in this manner. I thought I’d never have the opportunity. And now I’m stammering and flouncing and trying not to say it, because I’m petrified that you don’t feel the same way.”

  “What way?”

  I could hear Ruth Ginsburg whispering in my ear, “Shut up. You need to hear this.”

  I could hear Louise growling, “Incoming neo-capitalist emotional manifesto. Beware.”