Dad first installed the thing I was convinced I’d break it if I even looked at it the wrong way, but he swore he’d reinforced it plenty and that if I broke it, it would be no big deal. He could just fix it. So for today, this swing is my fainting couch, and it’s sort of comforting to know that my dad is still there to fix things when I break them.
“What’d you think?” I ask, feeling a little timid. Grammy has always encouraged me in everything, but we don’t talk a lot about Clem and me being gay, which is nice, but sometimes I wonder if it’s a topic Grammy is nervous to tackle. I’m wild with anxiety at the thought of everything I’ve so carefully kept to myself just being out there for everyone to see, but my ego still wants to hear her impression of it all.
“I think I ought to teach you how to do your makeup.”
I laugh and relief swells in my chest. “Grammy, drag makeup isn’t the same as regular makeup.”
“Well, either way, we’ve got to fix that face. But honestly, Pumpkin, I found it charming. You’ve always been such a star. I wish you’d picked up theater or dance. I told your mama to get you started young, but she insisted that you’d find your passions on your own.”
I sigh and reach down for a sip of coffee. Ah, it burns so good. “I have passions,” I say.
I know. I should be super into theater or dance or something. But people who commit that hard to something kind of stress me out. In some inexplicable way, I feel embarrassed for them, but a tiny part of me has also always wanted to be them too. Like, I can’t help but wonder how freeing it must be to love performing so much that you’re okay with auditioning and not getting the part.
Choir, though, is the exact amount of commitment I’m comfortable with. There’s something almost mathematical about how you either hit your note or you don’t, and at least in our choir, there’s little to no competition. And then there’s the fact that if I’m going to be onstage, the only role I want to play is me.
“Well, you’re still young,” she says. “You’ve got plenty of time to explore every crevice of the world.”
But it doesn’t exactly feel like that. It feels like I’m supposed to know who I am right this moment.
“Clem’s leaving me,” I tell her. “She’s going to Georgia.”
She nods, eyeing me from over the rim of her coffee cup. “It won’t be easy to see you two apart.”
“So I guess I’m the only one who didn’t know.” I want to be angry at Grammy, but every effort to muster my disappointment fails.
“She didn’t know how to break the news. I swear, the girl was losing sleep over it.”
“We tell each other everything,” I say, my voice catching on that last syllable.
Grammy is silent for a moment. “Maybe you don’t. And maybe you shouldn’t.”
My mouth snaps open. She’s wrong. We do tell each other every—well, maybe not everything. And, in reality, I don’t want her to know everything. I think about her and Hannah and her closed bedroom door. Nope. I definitely don’t want to know everything.
“Fine,” I say, even though it is very much not fine. Nothing about this is fine! “But this is an awfully big thing to leave out. I just . . . I thought we’d live together until we got married and then we’d be next-door neighbors and then our spouses would die before us and then we’d both die watching our favorite TV shows and then we’d all be buried in the Brewer family plot until we became one giant clump of dirt.”
Grammy laughs. “Well, as lovely as that sounds . . . I don’t think you’re really taking into account what’s best for Clem. Or for you!”
“Can we please talk about literally anything else?” I ask.
Cleo pops up from between the flower beds. “Oh my goodness, I watched the first few episodes of that television show you and Clem are always talking about? The one where winter is coming or what have you?”
“Game of Thrones!” I say. I’m on my third rewatch and am still reeling from the last season. “Well, you’re, like, way late to the party, but welcome to the game of thrones! When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die,” I quote back to her.
But