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“Oh, he’s out in Seattle, being perfect,” I said. It was true. Vincent, seven years older than I was, had nabbed the title of best child while still in utero. “We barely made it to the hospital!” Mom liked to crow at every opportunity, in case people wanted to hear stories of her vagina. “He came out like a greased otter. It barely hurt! Now this one,” she’d say, pointing to me, since I always seemed to be present for these stories. “She was stuck right at my pubic bone. They had to use a vacuum to pull her out! I had a third degree tear, and it took months to heal. Months.”
But my brother was a great guy, and he’d gone to school with one or two of the Churchill boys, so I pulled out my phone and showed Mrs. Churchill a photo of the three of them—Vincent, Ashley and James, my two-year-old nephew.
“They’re beautiful. How about you, Samantha? Is there anyone special in your life?”
I tried not to cringe. “When I get married, Mrs. Churchill, you’ll definitely be invited.” She smiled in pleasure, and I kept going. Meep. Meep.
“Samantha!” cried Courtney Finlay. She was the type who liked to pounce on me to prove she wasn’t a homophobe (because she was). “How is Stoningham’s bravest firefighter?”
“You’re a firefighter?” asked her husband, whose name I could never remember.
“I am, but of course, we’re all equally brave,” I said, forcing a smile. They were a bit older than my parents, and I fondly remembered Mom, infuriated after a library board meeting, saying she’d met puddles deeper than Courtney.
“Tell me, Samantha, how is the L-G-B-T-Q-I-A plus scene around here?” Courtney asked, proudly pronouncing all of the letters distinctly. She glanced around to ensure everyone heard her being woke.
“Rather than tell you, Courtney, why don’t you come out with me? We can see a drag show, go to some gay bars, maybe hit a few pride parades, paint rainbows on our boobs and run naked through the streets. I bet you’ve never been kissed by a woman, so scrunch up those wrinkled old lips, Courtney, and let me do the honors.”
Obviously, I didn’t say that. I just smiled and meeped my way past them. Being out in your hometown, where everyone knew everything, could be tiring. I just wanted to be me and have my sexuality not be such a topic of discussion.
“Hey, Sam,” said Emma London. She was a little older than I was, but in a town this size, we also knew each other just because. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad. Merry holidays.” I shifted, and my pants meeped.
Emma looked around for the noise, which I pretended not to notice. “Same to you. Any special plans?”
“Here you go,” said Miller, her honey, handing her a glass of wine. “Oh, hey, Sam. How are you?”
“Good, Miller, thanks for asking. How’s Tess?” His daughter, a beautiful little girl with crazy blond curls, had come to the firehouse with the rest of the kindergarteners last week.
“She’s great. Guess what she wants to be when she grows up?”
“A firefighter?” I guessed. “My work here is done, then.” Emma laughed, and Miller put his arm around her and smiled at me. They were good people, those two. A lovely couple. The kind I’d like to be with my person, except my person had something come up. And, said the honest, irritating part of my brain, Judith wasn’t really my person.
Suddenly, I wanted to cry. Emma’s eyebrows rose, but I said, “Oh, there are my parents” and kept going. Meep. Meep. “Is there a cat in here?” asked Mrs. Greene, looking my way, then flinching as our eyes met. She was of those uber-wealthy church ladies who thought I’d be going to hell and shouldn’t be allowed in public, and especially not near children. She’d written a letter to the editor after the kindergarten visit saying so.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Greene!” I said. “Isn’t it lovely to celebrate the birth of the brown-skinned immigrant who hated the rich? It must inspire you to give away hundreds of thousands of dollars. Harder to get a rich man in the kindgom of heaven than getting a camel through the eye of the needle and all that.” I crinkled my nose at her in a big fake smile. Meep, meep, fuck you, Mrs. Greene, meep.
Finally, with people who loved me. “Hello, parents,” I said, relieving my father of his drink and taking a long slurp. The candy cane that served as a garnish almost poked me in the eye. “Having fun?”
“Where’s Judith?” Mom demanded. “I thought you said she was coming. I can’t believe you’ve been dating someone for half a year and we haven’t met her yet!”
“Inside voice, Mom. Something came up at work.”
“She’s a painter,” Mom said. “Can’t she put the brush down and come out for an hour so you don’t have to make excuses for her?”
It was a terrible thing, being understood by one’s parent. “Apparently not,” I said.
“You always were a glutton for punishment,” my mother said. “Stop feeling guilty for being gay, honey, and choosing these horrible women to date.” She glanced around for homophobes to comment so she could fight them.
Another gulp of Dad’s martini. “For one, I don’t feel guilty about being gay, and two, Judith isn’t horrible.”
“We love you just the way you are,” Dad said. “We don’t care who you sleep with.”
“Of course we do, Ted!” said my mother with an eye roll. “We want her to sleep with a decent, caring person! Not one who stands her up time and time again and makes her look like an idiot!”
“Filter, Mom. Filter.”
“Well, sure,” Dad said sheepishly. “We want that, punkin pie. That is, we don’t want that. We want the first part, not the second.”
