The Heat of Christmas: A Stonewall Investigation

“How are you not jet-lagged?”

“Dusty, we’ve talked about this. I’m immune to jet lag, the same way I’m immune to hangovers and the weird sick feeling you always get when you have even a hint of dairy. So get with the program and come out with me tonight.”

“You’re also immune to taking ‘no’ for an answer.” I shook my head. “And don’t use my lactose intolerance against me like that. I thought we were friends.”

“Brandon Reed is supposed to be there.”

“Perfect. I’ll definitely miss tonight, then.”

“What?” Kira looked shocked that her bait didn’t reel me in. “Brandon suffocate-me-with-your-thighs Reed? Brandon sit-on-my-face-until-I-pass-out Reed? Brandon hold-me-for—”

“Yes! Yes, that Brandon.” I could feel myself getting warm just thinking about my neighbor. “I freak out when I bump into him in the hall for a few seconds, I’m not going to purposely put myself in a situation where I might have to interact with him for longer than that.”

Kira crossed her arms and rolled her eyes to the sky. “You have got to come out of your shell, Dusty. At some point, you’ve just gotta do it. Why not now? It’s going to get so much harder out of college. Trust me. I watch my sister trying to make friends, and it’s like watching a salmon trying to breathe air. It just doesn’t work.”

I scoffed at that. The bus pulled up to our stop, braking with a loud hiss. We got on to the packed bus and shouldered our way to an open space toward the back, finding a spot to grab onto the metal pole.

“Don’t you want to celebrate being done with your test?” Kira wasn’t letting this go. The bus rocked us back and forth as it drove down a particularly bumpy road. Someone opened their leftovers from lunch and snuck a few bites, the mouthwatering smell of rice, beans, and carnitas wafting through the crowded bus.

“Yes, I do, actually. I plan on celebrating by finally finishing last season of Project Runway and starting on the most current one. I’ve got the next three hours all booked up.”

“You’re killing me here. Can I pay you?”

“Absolutely… not. No you can’t pay me, are you nuts?… How much?” I shook my head, laughing. “No, no. That was a joke.”

“Yeah, your lips may be saying ‘joke,’ but your eyes were telling me a totally different story.” She momentarily let go of the pole and put her two hands up to her chin. “Please, Kira, please be my party fairy godmother moonlighting as my hot and sexy sugar mama, please, Mother Kira.”

The bus slowed. She used her shoulder to brace herself against the pole, both of us laughing while the current stop was announced over the speakers. A group of frat guys got up and squeezed past. Out of the windows were rows of stately looking mansions, many of them with hand-painted posters hanging off their pillars and columns, advertising whatever dance or fundraiser the fraternity was currently having with their partnered sorority. The sky above the frat houses grew an inky blue and deep purple as the sun started to disappear.

“How did I ever even crack through this shell of yours?” She playfully knocked two knuckles against my arm.

“Because we’ve known each other since we were both kids and didn’t have any kind of social defenses or reservations set up to prematurely block out meaningful friendships?”

“Yup. That sounds about right.”

“Plus, I really wanted to play with your Barbies.”

“That also sounds about right.” She pursed her lips, smiling, her light hazel eyes feeling as familiar as family. “Didn’t you break one of them? And then you buried her.”

“I did not! That makes me sound like a stage-four serial killer. I didn’t break her, I was just combing her hair and accidentally got the brush stuck.”

“So you were just giving her a new up-do?”

“Basically, except it took a tragic turn. So I tried cutting the brush out, but you can imagine how that went for me at a very uncoordinated age of eleven.” Kira cracked up as I continued. “Then I realized I really couldn’t give her back to you, so I thought I could hide her in the backyard… by digging a hole in the ground and throwing her in.”

“A grave.”

“You can call it that, I guess, yes.”

Kira dabbed at the corners of her eyes to pick up the tears before they slid and ruined her makeup.

“You buried my Barbie after giving her a crackhead haircut.”

I caught the case of the giggles. A couple sitting nearby began throwing some glances our way. I immediately felt the eyes on us and quieted down, suppressing the laughter that was thumping in my chest. It was probably all in my head, but still, I stopped laughing.

“So then you owe me, basically.” Kira’s perfectly threaded eyebrow arched at an angle that would make the London Bridge jealous. “You have to come to the party tonight.”