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“I can’t believe you’ve never been to America before,” Crowley said yet again, because she was bored and didn’t have any better ideas for making conversation/provoking Aziraphale.
“I just couldn’t see the point, dear girl. It’s essentially a second-rate extension of England, is it not?”
Crowley discreetly waggled her fingers and a passing member of the theatre’s staff handed her a programme, which she promptly offered to Aziraphale.
“So…” she drawled, “Let me get this right. Pilgrim Fathers, no divine presence. War of Independence, no divine presence. Civil War, Cold War, Civil Rights … no shits given by the Heavenly hierarchy. Most powerful civilisation on earth, did they send their ambassador over to have a squizz? Nahhh.”
“I think Heaven rather thought it was all a flash in the pan. And I certainly wasn’t going to visit under my own steam. Remember when you kept nagging me to visit Alexander the Great’s Empire?”
They had reached their box. There were no inconvenient human staff buzzing around to disrupt them – a little demonic miracle had seen to that – but there was a bottle of champagne on ice awaiting them, and a selection of nibbles.
“But you’ve come here now,” Crowley continued, ignoring her companion’s jibe about her ability – or lack thereof – to judge the longevity of global superpowers, “To be a tourist.”
Aziraphale hadn’t really come to see America. She’d come to spend time with Crowley. But it would violate every rule of their fragile, precious relationship to say so.
“You’ll love this, angel,” Crowley murmured in her ear a few minutes later, champagne flute in hand, as the lights dimmed. “Trust me.”
A young man in a long maroon tailcoat had taken centre stage. Aziraphale leaned forward, peering through the opera glasses she’d insisted were de rigueur for attending what these semi-literate barbarians called the ‘theater’.
The figure onstage gazed out at the audience and began to rap.
“How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?”
* * *
“Unbelievable.”
Crowley scowled at Aziraphale in response and gave a long, obnoxiously loud suck on the straw of the milkshake she’d somehow obtained in the minutes since they’d been kicked out of the theatre.
“’S fine. We can come back tomorrow night if you want. Another box could miraculously become free at the last minute?”
“We could. But will you be able to make it through that delightful number with the three sisters this time without screaming “JUSTICE FOR PEGGY!” and vaulting out of the box? What on earth was all that about?”
Crowley slurped her milkshake at her. Aziraphale snapped her fingers, and it disappeared.
“Hmmph.”
The angel waited.
“It just… she wasn’t like that. They got it wrong.”
“She…?”
“Peggy. Peggy Schuyler. They were making fun of her! ‘S not right. She was bold and sharp and witty, a lot like Angelica. Typical reductive sexist portrayal.”
Aziraphale stared at her. “So that’s where you got to in the 1780s! And… you were with the Rebels… which means the USA is a Hellish creation! I knew a nation that invented Hershey’s so-called chocolate had to be Satanic in origin!” she exclaimed triumphantly.
Crowley rolled her eyes, a pointless gesture of contempt given that it was entirely obscured by her dark glasses.
“Oh, they didn’t need any encouragement from me. I was just hanging around so I could take credit for any evil deeds either side might get up to. And, y’know, enjoy some balls.”
“Ah, yes,” said Aziraphale fondly. “You do like to dance, my dear.”
“Dance? Uh, yeah, that too.”
In their aimless wandering, they’d reached Central Park. By unspoken agreement they headed towards a nearby bench overlooking a pond, and sat in companionable silence a while.
“Whose balls did you enjoy?” Aziraphale interjected suddenly.
Crowley blushed and studied her snakeskin sandals. Then, very softly, she sang:
“Alexander Hamilton…”