Playing the Palace Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF PAUL RUDNICK

  “With writing that’s hilarious, profane and profound (often within a single sentence), Rudnick casts a knowing eye on our obsession with fame, brand names and royalty to create a feel-good story about getting what you want without letting beauty blind you to what’s real.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A wicked good time, with moments both outlandish and touching. And as a summer beach read? Well, it’s perfect.”

  —The New York Times on Gorgeous

  “Caution: do not read in public. Will cause you to laugh (and possibly cry) out loud, sometimes at the same time. Screamingly funny and yet warmly touching. Buy multiple copies. You’ll want to share this one with friends.”

  —Meg Cabot, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Princess Diaries

  “A culture clash on steroids. Rudnick’s affection for his flawed characters lends emotional depth to his skillful satire. Hilarious, irresistible and oh so timely.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Totally irreverent and wonderfully refreshing.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Flat-out hilarious, sort of what I imagine P. G. Wodehouse would’ve written after spending some time in Bloomingdale’s. For sheer enjoyment, this book is a bargain.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Paul Rudnick’s generous, open heart, scathing wit and encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture and droll humor is in full force with his latest creation. I absolutely adored this book and snort-laughed through the entire thing. You will too.”

  —Melissa de la Cruz, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Never After: The Thirteenth Fairy

  “Gleefully wacky and irreverent . . . readers are treated to Rudnick’s considerable gifts as a satirist as he uproariously eviscerates our celebrity-mad, class-conscious, appearance-obsessed, reality-TV-vapid culture with puckish delight—a wicked good time.”

  —Libba Bray, The New York Times Book Review

  “I wish Paul Rudnick was the President, the Pope and the Surgeon General. What a gorgeous place the world would be!”

  —Jane Hamilton, bestselling author of The Excellent Lombards

  A JOVE BOOK

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2021 by Paul Rudnick

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Rudnick, Paul, author.

  Title: Playing the palace / Paul Rudnick.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Jove, 2021.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021001354 | ISBN 9780593099414 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593099421 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3568.U334 P58 2021 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001354

  First Edition: May 2021

  Book design by George Towne, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero

  Cover art by Emma Leonard

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  For John Raftis

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for the Novels of Paul Rudnick

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  It’s still weird, waking up alone. I was with Callum for almost three years and he moved out six months ago, but this morning when I opened my eyes, for a second I thought he was just out of town on an acting job and maybe I’d have a text waiting.

  But of course not. Instead I stayed under the covers and addressed my problems to the framed photo of the late, beloved Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the wall of my tiny, partitioned bedroom. Ruth keeps me on a firm, morally responsible track, and I like to think that she secretly enjoyed watching Callum and me having sex. In all matters except maybe wardrobe I always ask myself, “What would Ruth Ginsburg do?” so today as I wondered if I was ever going to fall in love again, truly in love this time, Ruth informed me, “Stop whining and go to work, you little pisher. I’m in heaven but I’m still busy.” Ruth often sounds just like my equally beloved eighty-five-year-old great-aunt Miriam.

  I took a shower using my new manly bodywash, which is exactly the same as the female version, only with simplified graphics and a steel-gray, squared-off bottle, as if it contains motor oil and testosterone; I slathered on Kiehl’s Creme de Corps moisturizer because a model at my gym recommended it after he glanced at my pores with pity but then insisted, “No, they’re fine, really, you just need to think about them”; I brushed my teeth with a gel that promised “Triple-Extreme Dazzling Whiteness” thanks to “Gene-Spliced Wintergreen”; and then I got busy with more hair care products than a Mormon family has children. I was pampering myself as a fan of what the mindfulness tutorials call self-care, in order to heal and glow. But after a final check in the mirror, I knew: none of it was working. I wasn’t healed and I wasn’t glowing and a sizable chunk of my hair was completely awry, as if it was signaling frantically for help.

  “So?” asked my roommate Adam, once I’d reached the kitchen area of our shared let’s-call-it-a-three-bedroom in the budget-friendly wilds of Hell’s Kitchen. Adam’s a Broadway dancer, which means that just seeing him both cheered me up and sent me into a body-image spiral, because he’s got the lithe muscles you only achieve from doing cardio for a living. He was wearing the limp, colorless, shredded sweats that dancers barely cover themselves with. “Are you feeling any better?”

  He offered me a smoothy he’d concocted; he meant well, but I shook my head no as I plunged my hand into a box of Frosted Flakes, which made Adam look Whole Foods–judgmental but also heartbroken on my behalf. I studied Tony the Tiger on the cereal box and wondered if he’d ever been cheated on, maybe by the Lucky Charms leprechaun or Cap’n Crunch.
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br />   “You people make me sick,” said Louise, my other roommate, emerging from her bedroom. Louise isn’t a morning person and she’s working on her novel while contributing to a Black feminist website, which means, as she says, “I get to write about stuff that really matters without getting paid.” Adam and Louise are a great balance because Adam sees life as the peppiest, most joyful musical comedy and Louise wants to strangle him, but, as she puts it, “with love.”

  “Here’s what I think Carter should do,” said Adam, stretching his hamstrings across one of our mismatched folding chairs. “I think he should find a guy who’s even cuter than Callum, which I know won’t be easy, but when he does, he should marry him and make a sex video and send it to Callum using the score from Waitress, because that’s Callum’s favorite.”

  The scary thing was that I instantly pictured myself having pounding raw sex with some mouthwateringly hot imaginary stud while a woman sang a tender ballad about rediscovering her true self.

  “I think Carter should thank whatever God he believes in,” suggested Louise, “for getting rid of that cheating scumbag Callum, and then Carter should buy us some sourdough pretzels on his way home.”

  “Everyone,” I said, “you don’t have to worry about me, because I’ve been working on myself, and last night I didn’t dream about Callum, not even after I saw his Toyota ad, the one where he runs out of the surf and towels off in front of his Toyota. I’m entering a new and totally happy chapter of my life, because I’ve finally made a decision: love doesn’t exist.”

  Louise nodded in agreement as Adam regarded me as if I’d slaughtered a puppy.

  “Carter Ogden,” Adam said firmly, jabbing at his phone, “I’m sending you the entire score of Pippin right now, I mean it.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Once I’d hit 45th Street I unlocked a Citi Bike and began pedaling crosstown to my job of the day. As an associate event architect, I love the constant variety in location and clientele. But as I negotiated Midtown traffic I realized something particularly horrendous: it was Valentine’s Day. Callum and I would tuck multiple cards into each other’s underwear drawers and backpacks and shoes, as surprises; we’d bring each other hot pink–frosted cupcakes sprouting plastic cupids, and once I’d woken up to find my face and pillow scattered with those tiny, chalky, pastel hearts stamped with “BE MINE” or “LOVE YOU,” only now they would read “FUCK OFF,” “DIE ALONE” or “YOU FOOL WHY DID YOU OPEN HIS PHONE AND OBSESSIVELY SCROLL THROUGH THOSE PHOTOS OF HIM WITH OTHER GUYS EXCEPT WHY DID HE TAKE THOSE PHOTOS UNLESS HE WANTED YOU TO FIND THEM WHICH OF YOU IS THE BIGGER IDIOT?”

  As I turned up Fifth Avenue I tried not to notice the many couples strolling arm in arm and then smooching goodbye on their way to work, with not a few of these people trailing heart-shaped helium balloons or toting paper-wrapped bouquets of bodega tulips. I began hallucinating a musical number in which everyone but me began to leap along the sidewalks, proposing marriage to mounted police officers, falafel cart vendors and construction workers popping out of open manholes, with everyone exchanging huge, frilly, heart-shaped boxes of Godiva chocolates. Everyone was coupled up or hugging or flirting while I pedaled glumly alone, like a chastity monitor barking at lovers to stop kissing in public.

  I felt not just ignored or invisible, but like an athlete permanently benched, someone tossed out of the dating pool by a harsh blast from the referee’s whistle. This would be my life: I was barreling toward thirty, I still wasn’t making enough money to live in Manhattan without roommates, and while I loved my job, I knew there was something silly about it, something ephemeral and not quite adult. I helped to plan beachside weddings; Sweet Sixteens for girls who were being given Birkins and more sculpted noses; movie premieres for sequels to sequels; and gala launches of new Apple products that tracked a pet’s lung capacity or reminded the user to tell their coworkers about new Apple products. This felt like a suitable career for a Ken doll, a snippy gay sidekick in a rom-com, or an heiress between stints in rehab. I needed to apply myself and maybe go back to grad school or come up with something more butchly lucrative and aspirational in one of those fields that baffled and bored me, like finance or commercial real estate development. I briefly considered tutoring people in poverty-stricken countries on creating Wonder Woman–themed bat mitzvah centerpieces, as a form of Associate Event Architects Without Borders.

  What I needed was something I’d never confided to anyone, not even my dearest friends and family members, because it was such an impossible and yearned-for wish, something that I wanted so badly it made me believe I had a soul. I wanted this one thing with such certainty that I knew it was more than a journal-entry doodle or a childhood fantasy that I needed to outgrow. It was who I was.

  That’s why I left my bike in the rack near St. Patrick’s Cathedral and went inside. Even though I’m Jewish and St. Patrick’s has a troubled history with New York’s LGBTQ community, it’s my favorite place in the city, and not just because it’s strategically located between Tiffany’s and Saks, although I do believe that’s a sign of God’s admiration for high-end retail. I love St. Patrick’s because, like me, it’s silly and theatrical, with its spires and buttresses and tapestries, but it’s also the home of so many people’s most deeply felt longings; St. Patrick’s is a form of sumptuously Gothic therapy. I head to St. Patrick’s because it’s inspiring and peaceful, which allows me to talk to God about what I really want my life to be, not as a negotiation, hovering somewhere between prayer and bribery, but as a conversation, as a clearinghouse for my heart.

  The cathedral was lightly populated with Swedish backpackers, elderly widows and a handful of scarily tough Jersey housewives, most likely here to confess machine-gunning a rival in a Stop & Shop produce aisle. I sat in a rear pew and scoped out the area for cute priests—it happens, and there’s even a yearly, unauthorized Vatican calendar of the most pious dreamboats. For gay guys in New York, cruising is a formality, like checking your phone, your breath or your coat at a Theater District restaurant. I shut my eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath, as if speaking to God was a classic yoga pose. I quieted my mind to vanquish anxiety and eBay bids and thoughts of how St. Patrick’s could be such a great setting for a murder mystery, a rom-com finale or a blasphemous motorcycle chase.

  Dear God, I began, and I didn’t worry if I was talking to myself or if God existed or what religion he favored, or if “he” was even an acceptable pronoun, or if it should be capitalized. I was talking to God because, like so many other people, I needed to, and that need makes God real.

  I don’t want to just keep going without a purpose, to work or the apartment or anywhere else. I don’t want to keep my head down and manage my expectations and my 401(k) and call that growing up. I don’t want to only feel safe. I don’t want to keep obsessing over Callum and what I did wrong and whether I still hate him and wondering if we’ll ever get back together, because that sort of chatter bores everyone at cocktail parties, so imagine what it does to God; God is the universe’s best listener, but that’s no reason to nag Him and make Him hand you Buddha’s business card as He heads for the door, muttering, “Gotta get up early, nice to meet you.”

  I want to be like my idol, Justice Ginsburg. I want to be fair-minded and dedicated and compassionate, and look great doing it. Only, of course, without going to law school. I want Ruth’s spirit of justice and curiosity and not taking any shit.

  I want a big life. I want to fall in love, not like what happened with Callum, which sometimes felt wonderful but more often like an educated guess, as if while I was kissing him I needed to remind myself: this is love, right? I want to know I’m in love, no, not even know it—I want to understand why it’s called being in love. I want to be overwhelmed by the miracle of another human being. Love is like God—it’s the place where need and rumor and dreams become something else entirely, something sacred, something beyond questions or arguments or therapy. Ruth Ginsburg and choc
olate and oxygen and God and love: the real things.

  And beyond that, beyond the blissful selfishness of love, and I know that I have no right to ask for any of this, but here goes: I want more. I want to stay me, as ridiculous as that might sound, but I want to make a difference in the world and have the best time, without being torn apart by worry and fear twenty-four hours a day. I want to be of service and create beauty and see if I can convince myself that magic exists and can be shared. Not spell casting, wand-waving magic, although I’m open to anything, but the more available magic of neon-bright crepe paper and cheap tinsel and helping other people, not to forget their very real problems, which can be insulting, but to let them know that another human being cares enough about them to find the right doctor and take them for chemo and find a great playlist and simply be there and listen, without offering useless advice or ever saying “I know just how you feel.”

  I want what maybe everyone wants: to make being human feel like a superpower. And yes, I know that’s beyond corny, but that’s why I’m only telling God, who only rolls His eyes to cause thunder.

  I want to stop listening to the other, snickering, undeniably sane demons, who hiss things like “I don’t think so” and “Oh, please” and “Carter Ogden, who do you think you are, I mean, do you really think you can fall in love and change the world, when you still can’t decide whether boldly patterned socks are ever a good idea?”

  So just for now, in this resolutely private moment with You, in this prayer that can’t be forwarded or downloaded or mocked by the Twitterverse, I’m asking for everything, except for the lightning bolt that smites idiots who dare to ask for everything. I’ll ask, because the alternative, never asking, is sadness itself. Never asking isn’t just giving up or huddling under a Slanket on the sidelines; it’s admitting defeat without even trying, without daring to be a boldly-patterned-sock-wearing hero, or more likely a boldly-patterned-sock-wearing fool.