Another Fake Post!

Otherwise known as another All Together With Feeling Excerpt!
--

Oliver calls around nine. “We’re going out, bitch.”

“Tonight?” I’ve been reading all night, and all the websites say Oliver needs time to grieve and process what happened, or whatever. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he’s breaking the rules. The advice all sounds the same as what he got when his mom died. He didn’t follow that, either.

“You want to drive?” I say.

“I would rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”

“I was planning on drinking…”

“I will be drinking tonight.”

“All right, all right. I’ll drive.”

I ignore the drama downstairs—honestly, could it be less important?—and push through the crowd and out the door. I don’t tell them where I’m going, but only because they don’t ask. And only because I don’t know.

The drive to Oliver’s is through a lot of the windy roads with very few streetlamps, the ones that give you time to think. A lot of times this annoys me, and I blast the radio and sing at the top of my lungs to keep my mind from spinning around with stupid shit like boys and homework and my parents. Tonight I don’t mind the silence. I have a lot to think about and, as worried as I am about Oliver, I don’t feel like avoiding any of it, particularly, at the moment.

I park to ring his doorbell, like a good date or whatever, but he comes prancing through the front door before I get a chance to open it. He really pulled out all the stops tonight, and he looks fantastic—some polka dot party dress, with a sash around an empire waist. I think he cut more of his hair off. It looks shorter and spikier than usual. He didn’t wear the falsies, so his whole body is smooth and flat underneath the dress. When he’s in girl’s clothes, I can really tell how thin he is, and it worries me.

“Ready?” he climbs into the passenger seat. His eyes are really done up tonight—smokey silver. I can’t seen any of the bruises on his face, and I wonder how many layers of cover-up he had to put on.

“Where are we going?”

“There is a gay pride festival at the park. I thought we might attend.”

I groan a bit. “I love how you’re always so sensitive to my needs when you plan our excursions.”

“Oh Etta. I’m sure you won’t be the only fag hag present.”

“Yeah, sure, except I’m looking for a boy. What do you call them?”

“Fag hogs?”

“Hogs are girls, Oliver.”

“I suppose those are the fat fag hags, then,”

I give him a look.

“Stop it,” he says. “You are not fat.”

“But some girls are, and I don’t appreciate your making digs at them when they’re not here. I don’t make fun of ugly gay people—”

“Bleh.”

“—homosexuals in front of you.”

“Yes, because that would be insensitive to the ugly homosexual present.”

I frown at him. “Never say that.”

He laughs and looks out the window. “All right, all right.”

He has a bottle of his premium vodka with him, and he sips while he goes through my CDs. “Little Shop of Horrors?” He makes a face.

“It’s a Broadway musical, Oliver.”

“Yes, so was Legally Blonde.” He rolls his eyes. “Little Shop of Horrors is…”

“Is what? I like it.”

“It’s no Heathers.”

“You’re no Heathers.”

“Fair enough, fair enough, though honestly I am not sure how accurate that statement is.” He examines his fingernails—repolished, I notice. “Little Shop is not dark. Little Shop is barely dusky. And it is a metaphor so broad that I find it has very little meaning. It is the most useless warning I have encountered in my large history of musical theater. And yes, upon thinking about it, I would like confirm that I do, indeed, believe that I could be Heathers.”

“It’s not a musical.”

“Yes, you have me there.”

“So put in something you like,” I say. “Whatever.” I don’t want to pick a fight with him tonight, and I’ve gotten too close already. Even though I know we’re just bantering, it’s making me nervous. I don’t want him to make him cry.

Until he puts in Wicked, and then I just want to put his head through my windshield.

I say, “God, Oliver, really?”

“What’s wrong with Wicked?”

“Nothing, except—all right, you want to talk metaphors?”

“Wicked is a metaphorical masterpiece, Etta.”

“Yeah, and Jesus Christ, it knows it. It’s so busy caressing its metaphors that it loses all hope of actual, you know, plot. Or—God forbid—character development.”

He rolls his eyes. “We are allowed to like different things, Etta.”

This burns like a slap in the face.