Paul drew a hatch mark on an imaginary scoreboard with one finger. I had a feeling that point was not being awarded to me.
I rolled my chair back so I could bang my head against my desk repeatedly.
“Uh-huh. So your client is the CIA?” My mother’s drawl made each of those initials ten syllables long.
“No. Obviously not, Mama. They don’t advertise—”
“And can we expect to meet your boyfriend when you come home?” she continued.
Paul sketched a second hatch mark.
He was dead to me. He really was.
“I… Look, it’s not that I don’t… It’s just that I…” No matter which way I approached this, I could not figure out a way to explain to my mother that having lots of really enjoyable, really casual sex with guys was a viable life choice. “Not every gay man has a boyfriend!” I insisted.
“Mmm hmm. You know, Ava’s coming home,” my mother said coyly.
I sighed. “No, Mama. How would I know? I haven’t talked to Ava in a decade.” And God knew, Ava wouldn’t have accepted my call if I’d tried. Even at eighteen, she’d been five hundred pounds of sass in a one-hundred-pound human, which was part of why I’d liked her so much… and why I’d stayed with her way longer than I should have.
“All the way from California too! Which is further than New York.”
Paul’s shoulders shook, and he bit his lip as he made a third hatch mark.
“We’re having a special parade this year for the centennial. Almost every living Mr. and Ms. Licking Thicket is coming back to participate, all the way back to Emma Stevens, Ms. Licking Thicket 1950! There’s been only one person who sent regrets. Do you know who that one person is, Brooks?”
I shook my head. By process of elimination, it seemed safe to say, “Is it me, Mama?”
Paul lifted his finger to mark another point.
“Yes, Brooks,” she said sadly. “And since we’ve already established that you don’t really have any work to do or any boyfriend to worry about, I truly don’t see why you can’t come home, just this once, to help your daddy out. We’d love to see you, baby. I’ll make your favorite desserts every single night.”
And this was why I didn’t go home. I could already feel myself sliding backward with every “Yes, ma’am,” morphing into the Brooks Johnson I used to be. I hated it.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say no one final time and mean it, when my dad spoke up again. “Brooks, if you could see your way to coming home and fixing this for us… for me… Well. I’d really appreciate it, son, that’s all.”
Ugh. I hated letting them down, especially since my dad wasn’t the kind of guy to ask for help ever… especially when fixing shit was what I did. But how could I fix two problems at once?
I thought about Beauregard Partridge and looked at my blank idea notebook.
Then I thought about singing the Partridge Pit jingle on my parents’ old sectional, and how genuinely scared I’d been when I thought my dad was sick… or worse.
Paul grabbed a cube of sticky notes from my desk, scribbled something, and stuck it to the front of the placard on my desk, snort-giggling all the while. He turned it to face me. Instead of my name and Vice President, it now read:
Brooks Johnson, Mr. Licking Thicket 2010
I rolled my eyes. I was glad Paul seemed to be enjoying himself, because revenge was gonna be swift, and he’d better have his asthma inhaler ready when I thought of a suitable punishm—
Oh. Oh, hot damn. The idea came to me the way the perfect hook for an ad campaign sometimes did—a brilliant flash I’d learned not to question—and I suddenly knew exactly how Paul and I could craft a flawless presentation for the General and I could help my family… and maybe, while I was at it, finally convince my parents once and for all that I was really, actually gay.
I gave my very straight coworker my most angelic smile, and he frowned in response.
“You know what, Mama? You’re right. I’ll come home tomorrow. After all, I’ll have plenty of time to do my work while I’m there. Being Head Licker is mostly ceremonial.” Cut a ribbon here, start a race there, announce the new Mr. and Ms. Licking Thicket when the festival was all said and done. How hard could it be?
“Well, there are a lot of ceremonies, but… yes! Oh, Brooks! Oh, thank you, honey! We…”
“But make sure you have room for me and my boyfriend.”
Paul’s head went back. “What boyfriend?” he mouthed.
“W-what boyfriend?” my mother stammered.
“Oh, Mama, you’re going to love him,” I said gleefully. “His name is Paul.”
2
Mal
I was struggling to attach the final metal spring onto a saw blade when Ava Ivey came storming into my studio.