Red, White & Royal Blue(19)

Family dinners are rare but less over-the-top than everything else that happens in the White House. His mother sends someone to pick up pizzas, and they take over the game room on the third floor with paper plates and bottles of Shiner shipped in from Texas. It’s always amusing to catch one of the burly suits speaking in code over their earpieces: “Black Bear has requested extra banana peppers.”

June’s already on the chaise and sipping a beer. A stab of guilt immediately hits when he remembers her text.

“Shit, I’m an asshole,” he says.

“Mm-hmm, you are.”

“But, technically … I am having dinner with you?”

“Just bring me my pizza,” she says with a sigh. After Secret Service misread an olive-based shouting match in 2017 and almost put the Residence on lockdown, they now each get their own pizzas.

“Sure thing, Bug.” He finds June’s—margherita—and his—pepperoni and mushroom.

“Hi, Alex,” says a voice from somewhere behind the television as he settles in with his pizza.

“Hey, Leo,” he answers. His stepdad is fiddling with the wiring, probably rewiring it to do something that’d make more sense in an Iron Man comic, like he does with most electronics—eccentric millionaire inventor habits die hard. He’s about to ask for a dumbed-down explanation when his mother comes blazing in.

“Why did y’all let me run for president?” she says, tapping too forcefully at her phone’s keyboard in little staccato stabs. She kicks off her heels into the corner, throwing her phone after them.

“Because we all knew better than to try to stop you,” Leo’s voice says. He peeks his bearded, bespectacled head out and adds, “And because the world would fall apart without you, my radiant orchid.”

His mother rolls her eyes but smiles. It’s always been like that with them, ever since they first met at a charity event when Alex was fourteen. She was the Speaker of the House, and he was a genius with a dozen patents and money to burn on women’s health initiatives. Now, she’s the president, and he’s sold his companies to spend his time fulfilling First Gentleman duties.

Ellen releases two inches of zipper on the back of her skirt, the sign she’s officially done for the day, and scoops up a slice.

“All right,” she says. She does a scrubbing gesture in the air in front of her face—president face off, mom face on. “Hi, babies.”

“’Lo,” Alex and June mumble in unison through mouthfuls of food.

Ellen sighs and looks over at Leo. “I did that, didn’t I? No goddamn manners. Like a couple of little opossums. This is why they say women can’t have it all.”

“They are masterpieces,” Leo says.

“One good thing, one bad thing,” she says. “Let’s do this.”

It’s her lifelong system for catching up on their days when she’s at her busiest. Alex grew up with a mother who was a sometimes baffling combination of intensely organized and committed to lines of emotional communication, like an overly invested life coach. When he got his first girlfriend, she made a PowerPoint presentation.

“Mmm.” June swallows a bite. “Good thing. Oh! Oh my God. Ronan Farrow tweeted about my essay for New York magazine, and we totally engaged in witty Twitter repartee. Part one of my long game to force him to be my friend is underway.”

“Don’t act like this isn’t all part of your extra-long game of abusing your position to murder Woody Allen and make it look like an accident,” Alex says.

“He’s just so frail; it’d only take one good push—”

“How many times do I have to tell y’all not to discuss your murder plots in front of a sitting president?” their mother interrupts. “Plausible deniability. Come on.”

“Anyway,” June says. “One bad thing would be, uh … well, Woody Allen’s still alive. Your turn, Alex.”

“Good thing,” Alex says, “I filibustered one of my professors into agreeing a question on our last exam was misleading so I would get full credit for my answer, which was correct.” He takes a swig of beer. “Bad thing—Mom, I saw the new art in the hall on the second floor, and I need to know why you allowed a George W. Bush terrier painting in our home.”

“It’s a bipartisan gesture,” Ellen says. “People find them endearing.”

“I have to walk past it whenever I go to my room,” Alex says. “Its beady little eyes follow me everywhere.”

“It’s staying.”

Alex sighs. “Fine.”

Leo goes next—as usual, his bad thing is somehow also a good thing—and then Ellen’s up.

“Well, my UN ambassador fucked up his one job and said something idiotic about Israel, and now I have to call Netanyahu and personally apologize. But the good thing is it’s two in the morning in Tel Aviv, so I can put it off until tomorrow and have dinner with you two instead.”

Alex smiles at her. He’s still in awe, sometimes, of hearing her talk about presidential pains in the ass, even three years in. They lapse into idle conversation, little barbs and inside jokes, and these nights may be rare, but they’re still nice.

“So,” Ellen says, starting on another slice crust-first. “I ever tell you I used to hustle pool at my mom’s bar?”