James gestured to me: No! Shut up! This is working!

“‘He’s a person’? ‘He’s fun’?” the queen sneered. “Is he a new enzyme detergent or roll-on deodorant?”

“He could be. I’ve gone over my campaign with Marc and Alison, and they’ve approved. So please, Nana, trust me. I can do this. Carter can do this. It’s brilliant. It will make everyone say, ‘Carter Ogden is a bit of all right. Carter Ogden isn’t—Carter, what was that word your great-aunt Miriam called that inebriated fellow who bumped into her on the dance floor? A putz? Imagine it, Nana, if that was on everyone’s lips, as they turn to one another and toast our family, if the nation could speak as one and proclaim, ‘Carter Ogden—not a putz!’”

“And just what is this inherently unworkable notion?”

“You’ll see. Because for perhaps the first time in my life, I’m working on instinct. I’m thinking, as it were, outside the throne room. I’m being ingenious, creative and . . . and . . .”

“Adaptable,” I murmured.

“Adaptable!” said Edgar. “So let us surprise you.”

I had no idea what Edgar was talking about, and I wasn’t being asked for my opinion. But I loved hearing him bargain like this, improvising and coaxing. He reminded me of me when I was thirteen and begging my parents to let me take the train into New York by myself, or when I’d borrowed Callum’s leather jacket when he was out of town and lost it at a dance party. I’d told him it was stolen by a Republican senator. He’d bought my story. It’s all about believing whatever you’re saying, especially if it’s insane.

Queen Catherine shut her eyes and inhaled as if she was vaping the universe. She opened her eyes. She glanced to either side, consulting invisible ancestors. She sighed and gave her form of permission:

“Get out of my sight.”

CHAPTER 22

We were brought in a golf cart to the set of The Great British Baking Jubilee the next morning at seven a.m. When I asked Edgar how he’d come up with this idea, he told me, “I imagined I was you, handed an assignment which called for friendly media attention, a nonpartisan, immersive activity, a colourful backdrop and a live audience which exists to applaud. I’m an associate event prince.”

I was floored by his process; this was an innovation worthy of me, someone who’d branded a morticians’ conference at a Pennsylvania Marriott by stuffing the gift bags with black water bottles embossed with a skull and crossbones, along with temporary tattoos reading “Kill Me Now.” I’d also provided a link to a hookup app called Dying to Meet You. Morticians, it turned out, love to party.