“I really don’t think— Oh, hello there.” There’s rustling over the phone, the crinkling of a wrapper, and some heavy snuffling that sounds distinctly doglike. “Who’za good lad, then? David says hello.”
“Hi, David.”
“He— Oi! Not for you, Mr. Wobbles! Those are mine!” More rustling, a distant, offended meow. “No, Mr. Wobbles, you bastard!”
“What in the fuck is a Mr. Wobbles?”
“My sister’s idiot cat,” Henry tells him. “The thing weighs a ton and is still trying to steal my Jaffa Cakes. He and David are mates.”
“What are you even doing right now?”
“What am I doing? I was trying to sleep.”
“Okay, but you’re eating Jabba Cakes, so.”
“Jaffa Cakes, my God,” Henry says. “I’m having my entire life haunted by a deranged American Neanderthal and a pair of turkeys, apparently.”
“And?”
Henry heaves another almighty sigh. He’s always sighing when Alex is involved. It’s amazing he has any air left. “And … don’t laugh.”
“Oh, yay,” Alex says readily.
“I was watching Great British Bake Off.”
“Cute. Not embarrassing, though. What else?”
“I, er, might be … wearing one of those peely face masks,” he says in a rush.
“Oh my God, I knew it!”
“Instant regret.”
“I knew you had one of those crazy expensive Scandinavian skin care regimens. Do you have that, like, eye cream with diamonds in it?”
“No!” Henry pouts, and Alex has to press the back of his hand against his lips to stifle his laugh. “Look, I have an appearance tomorrow, all right? I didn’t know I’d be scrutinized.”
“I’m not scrutinizing. We all gotta keep those pores in check,” Alex says. “So you like Bake Off, huh?”
“It’s just so soothing,” Henry says. “Everything’s all pastel-colored and the music is so relaxing and everyone’s so lovely to one another. And you learn so much about different types of biscuits, Alex. So much. When the world seems awful, such as when you’re trapped in a Great Turkey Calamity, you can put it on and vanish into biscuit land.”
“American cooking competition shows are nothing like that. They’re all sweaty and, like, dramatic death music and intense camera cuts,” Alex says. “Bake Off makes Chopped look like the fucking Manson tapes.”
“I feel like this explains loads about our differences,” Henry says, and Alex gives a small laugh.
“You know,” Alex says. “You’re kind of surprising.”
Henry pauses. “In what way?”
“In that you’re not a totally boring asshole.”
“Wow,” Henry says with a laugh. “I’m honored.”
“I guess you have your depths.”
“You thought I was a dumb blond, didn’t you?”
“Not exactly, just, boring,” Alex says. “I mean, your dog is named David, which is pretty boring.”
“After Bowie.”
“I—” Alex’s head spins, recalibrating. “Are you serious? What the hell? Why not call him Bowie, then?”
“Bit on the nose, isn’t it?” Henry says. “A man should have some element of mystery.”
“I guess,” Alex says. Then, because he can’t stop it in time, lets out a tremendous yawn. He’s been up since seven for a run before class. If these turkeys don’t end him, exhaustion will.
“Alex,” Henry says firmly.
“What?”
“The turkeys are not going to Jurassic Park you,” he says. “You’re not the bloke from Seinfeld. You’re Jeff Goldblum. Go to sleep.”
Alex bites down a smile that feels bigger than the sentence has truly earned. “You go to sleep.”
“I will,” Henry says, and Alex thinks he hears the weird smile returned in Henry’s voice, and honestly, this whole night is really, really weird, “as soon as you get off the phone, won’t I?”
“Okay,” Alex says, “but, like, what if they gobble again?”
“Go sleep in June’s room, you numpty.”
“Okay,” Alex says.
“Okay,” Henry agrees.
“Okay,” Alex says again. He’s suddenly very aware they’ve never spoken on the phone before, and so he’s never had to figure out how to hang up the phone with Henry before. He’s at a loss. But he’s still smiling. Cornbread is staring at him like he doesn’t get it. Me fuckin’ too, buddy.
“Okay,” Henry repeats. “So. Good night.”
“Cool,” Alex says lamely. “Good night.”
He hangs up and stares at the phone in his hand, as if it should explain the static electricity in the air around him.
He shakes it off, gathers up his pillow and a bundle of clothes, and crosses the hall to June’s room, climbing up into her tall bed. But he can’t stop thinking there’s some end left loose.
He takes his phone back out. i sent pics of turkeys so i deserve pics of your animals too.
A minute and a half later: Henry, in a massive, palatial, hideous bed of white and gold linens, his face looking slightly pink and recently scrubbed, with a beagle’s head on one side of his pillow and an obese Siamese cat curled up on the other around a Jaffa Cake wrapper. He’s got faint circles under his eyes, but his face is soft and amused, one hand resting above his head on the pillow while the other holds up the phone for the selfie.
This is what I must endure, he says, followed by, Good night, honestly.
HRH Prince Dickhead
Dec 8, 2019, 8:53 PM
yo there’s a bond marathon on and did you know your dad was a total babe
HRH Prince Dickhead
I BEG YOU TO NOT
* * *
Even before Alex’s parents split, they both had a habit of calling him by the other’s last name when he exhibited particular traits. They still do. When he runs his mouth off to the press, his mom calls him into her office and says, “Get your shit together, Diaz.” When his hard-headedness gets him stuck, his dad texts him, “Let it go, Claremont.”
Alex’s mother sighs as she sets her copy of the Post down on her desk, open to an inside page article: SENATOR OSCAR DIAZ RETURNS TO DC FOR HOLIDAYS WITH EX-WIFE PRESIDENT CLAREMONT. It’s almost weird how much it isn’t weird anymore. His dad is flying in from California for Christmas, and it’s fine, but it’s also in the Post.
She’s doing the thing she always does when she’s about to spend time with his father: pursing her lips and twitching two fingers of her right hand.
“You know,” Alex says from where he’s kicked back on an Oval Office couch with a book, “somebody can go get you a cigarette.”
“Hush, Diaz.”
She’s had the Lincoln Bedroom prepared for his dad, and she keeps changing her mind, having housekeeping undecorate and redecorate. Leo, for his part, is unfazed and mollifies her with compliments between fits of tinsel. Alex doesn’t think anyone but Leo could ever stay married to his mother. His father certainly couldn’t.