“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
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 s
till 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
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
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?
It’s weird because I always know things about people, gut feelings that usually lead me in more or less the right direction. I do think I got a gut feeling with you, I just didn’t have what I needed in my head to understand it. But I kind of kept chasing it anyway, like I was just going blindly in a certain direction and hoping for the best. I guess that makes you the North Star?
I wanna see you again and soon. I keep reading that one paragraph over and over again. You know which one. I want you back here with me. I want your body and I want the rest of you too. And I want to get the fuck out of this house. Watching June and Nora on TV doing appearances without me is torture.
We have this annual thing at my dad’s lake house in Texas. Whole long weekend off the grid. There’s a lake with a pier, and my dad always cooks something fucking amazing. You wanna come? I kind of can’t stop thinking about you all sunburned and pretty sitting out there in the country. It’s the weekend after next. If Shaan can talk to Zahra or somebody about flying you into Austin, we can pick you up from there. Say yes?
Yrs,
Alex
P.S. Allen Ginsberg to Peter Orlovsky—1958:
Tho I long for the actual sunlight contact between us I miss you like a home. Shine back honey & think of me.
Re: A mass of fools and knaves
* * *
Henry
to A
Alex,
If I’m north, I shudder to think where in God’s name we’re going.
I’m ruminating on identity and your question about where a person like me comes from, and as best as I can explain it, here’s a story:
Once, there was a young prince who was born in a castle. His mother was a princess scholar, and his father was the most handsome, feared knight in all the land. As a boy, people would bring him everything he could ever dream of wanting. The most beautiful silk clothes, ripe fruit from the orangery. At times, he was so happy, he felt he would never grow tired of being a prince.
He came from a long, long line of princes, but never before had there been a prince quite like him: born with his heart on the outside of his body.
When he was small, his family would smile and laugh and say he would grow out of it one day. But as he grew, it stayed where it was, red and visible and alive. He didn’t mind it very much, but every day, the family’s fear grew that the people of the kingdom would soon notice and turn their backs on the prince.
His grandmother, the queen, lived in a high tower, where she spoke only of the other princes, past and present, who were born whole.
Then, the prince’s father, the knight, was struck down in battle. The lance tore open his armor and his body and left him bleeding in the dust. And so, when the queen sent new clothes, armor for the prince to parcel his heart away safe, the prince’s mother did not stop her. For she was afraid, now: afraid of her son’s heart torn open too.
So the prince wore it, and for many years, he believed it was right.
Until he met the most devastatingly gorgeous peasant boy from a nearby village who said absolutely ghastly things to him that made him feel alive for the first time in years and who turned out to be the most mad sort of sorcerer, one who could conjure up things like gold and vodka shots and apricot tarts out of absolutely nothing, and the prince’s whole life went up in a puff of dazzling purple smoke, and the kingdom said, “I can’t believe we’re all so surprised.”
I’m in for the lake house. I must admit, I’m glad you’re getting out of the house. I worry you may burn the thing down. Does this mean I’ll be meeting your father?
I miss you.
x
Henry
P.S. This is mortifying and maudlin and, honestly, I hope you forget it as soon as you’ve read it.
P.P.S. From Henry James to Hendrik C. Andersen, 1899:
May the terrific U.S.A. be meanwhile not a brute to you. I feel in you a confidence, dear Boy–which to show is a joy to me. My hopes and desires and sympathies right heartily and most firmly, go with you. So keep up your heart, and tell me, as it shapes itself, your (inevitably, I imagine, more or less weird) American story. May, at any rate, tutta quella gente be good to you.
* * *
“Do not,” Nora says, leaning over the passenger seat. “There is a system and you must respect the system.”
“I don’t believe in systems when I’m on vacation,” June says, her body folded halfway over Alex’s, trying to slap Nora’s hand out of the way.
“It’s math,” Nora says.
“Math has no authority here,” June tells her.
“Math is everywhere, June.”
; “Get off me,” Alex says, shoving June off his shoulder.
“You’re supposed to back me up on this!” June yelps, pulling his hair and receiving a very ugly face in response.
“I’ll let you look at one boob,” Nora tells him. “The good one.”
“They’re both good,” June says, suddenly distracted.
“I’ve seen both of them. I can practically see both of them now,” Alex says, gesturing at what Nora is wearing for the day, which is a ratty pair of short overalls and the most perfunctory of bra-like things.
“Hashtag vacation nips,” she says. “Pleeeeeease.”
Alex sighs. “Sorry, Bug, but Nora did put more hours into her playlist, so she should get the aux cord.”
There’s a combination of girl sounds from the back seat, disgust and triumph, and Nora plugs her phone in, swearing she’s developed some kind of foolproof algorithm for the perfect road trip playlist. The first trumpets of “Loco in Acapulco” by the Four Tops blast, and Alex finally pulls out of the gas station.
The jeep is a refurb, a project his dad took on when Alex was around ten. It lives in California now, but he drives it into Texas once a year for this weekend, leaves it in Austin so Alex and June can drive it in. Alex learned to drive one summer in the valley in this jeep, and the accelerator feels just as good under his foot now as he falls into formation with two black Secret Service SUVs and heads for the interstate. He hardly ever gets to drive himself anywhere anymore.
The sky is wide open and bluebonnet blue for miles, the sun low and heavy with an early morning start, and Alex has his sunglasses on and his arms bare and the doors and roof off. He cranks up the stereo and feels like he could throw anything away on the wind whipping through his hair and it would just float away like it never was, as if nothing matters but the rush and skip in his chest.
But it’s all right behind the haze of dopamine: losing the campaign job, the restless days pacing his room, Do you feel forever about him?
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