When the smoke clears, Tom Shandley stands alone onstage, filing his nails with a small silver dagger. He wears his red-and-purple ceremonial robe, a black stole embroidered with gold skulls and swords, and a two-foot-tall red velvet hat.
He cups a hand to one ear.
Cheers. Decibel leveclass="underline" new pope at balcony.
Nothing’s left of the Henchman. Just a heap of black robe, a wisp of steam escaping it. Shandley bends down and pinches it between his thumb and forefinger, dangles it like a rotten sardine.
“That’s what the little beast gets,” Shandley vamps, “for ringing my bells.”
Abel hoots and whistles. My vest is unbearable; I unzip it a centimeter, let out some heat.
Shandley’s taking off the hat, smoothing his neat silver hair with a little black comb. He’s tanner and thinner than usual and his sharp nose and chin look sharper in person. He loses the robe next, slowly, an ironic striptease that more than half the audience seems to appreciate unironically. Pressed gray pants and black Castaway shirt underneath.
“Before you ask, let’s get a few things out of the way.” He plucks the mike off its stand. “I’m a Leo with Scorpio rising, my favorite color is chartreuse, I do all my own stunts, and I will not, I repeat, not go to the prom with you.” A staff guy hurries onstage with a paper coffee cup; Shandley takes a sip and aaahs. “Also, if I were a peanut butter, I’d be smoooooth. Any more questions?”
Everyone giggles.
“No? Damn, easiest five hundred bucks I ever made. Just kidding! Yes, Lady Leatherpants—you first!”
Lagarde Lady wants some dirt on their famous on-set pranks. Shandley trots out a story I’ve heard before, the one about the fake finale script where Sim malfunctions and kills the entire cast. Abel’s grinning like a kid at a circus and laughing at the story like it’s new, and I should be too, I should be sharing this with him, but I can’t. I keep staring at the Henchman’s abandoned robe.
“Do you believe in heaven?” I’d asked my dad once. I was nine, and my goofball teacher Mr. Ratison had just died in a car crash in Maine. I hadn’t slept with the light off all week.
“Absolutely.” Dad pulled my plaid comforter up to my shoulders and tucked it tight around me like a cocoon. “There’s a lot in life I’m not sure about, but I know there’s a God, and I know he’s got a place ready for us when it’s our time to go. And as long as we’re good people, that’s where we’re going to be someday, with God forever and ever. You can trust in that, Brandon. Okay?”
He ruffled my hair and shut off my light, thinking he’d comforted me. I lay there stiff and wide-eyed until two a.m., listening to my baseball clock tick. What would you do in heaven if it lasts forever and ever and time never ends? How could quiet eternity not feel like water torture? And heaven was the better option. There’s no way I’d be good enough to get in, not with all those shivery thoughts about kissing Spider-Man upside-down and…
“Next! Yep, you.” Tom Shandley’s pointing right at us. “Well, well, Mr. Neon Sweatband. I like it. Very Olivia Newton-John.”
Abel’s been Summoned by Xaarg.
He steps forward like Cadmus, chin held high, hands on the hips of his tight dark jeans. He’s asking our question. I’m sweating through my shirt. I lob the maybe-God a softbalclass="underline" If you’re up there, give me a sign. If Shandley says no, nothing happened in the cave, then Father Mike is wrong. You’re okay with this trip. You’re okay with me, just the way I am.
“…so do you think they did anything in the cave, for real?”
Say no, Shandley. Say no.
“Yes, I do. Unfortunately.”
Crap.
Abel’s shaking his head. “Are you serious?”
“I think that was the implication, yep. Bray hasn’t confirmed, so I’m talking out of school. But I wouldn’t be shocked.”
A cheer shoots up in the corner.
“You sound disappointed,” says Abel.
“Well, yeaaah, I don’t think that’s the smartest move, to be honest. I hope we don’t go there next season.”
“Yeah! They’re like, exactly wrong for each other.”
“No, it’s just—you know. The sensational aspect of the storyline.”
Abel’s jaw tenses.
“What do you mean?” he says.
“Oh, I dunno. It just seems so, ya know, desperate. Let’s have a big gay story to pump things up. Win some awards.”
“That’s sort of cynical.”
“Eh. It would backfire, anyway.”
“Why is that?”
“You know why. If it was a glorified sidekick, someone like Dutchie, then sure. Aww. Cute little neutered gay. But make the show’s primary hetero heartthrob a sudden secret queer and just watch how many people tune out before sweeps.”
“That’s not very nice,” Dave pipes up. His gross hipster hand is around Bec’s waist but I feel too sick to react.
“I’m just being honest,” Tom Shandley shrugs. “Bray’s got to think of the ratings. If your main character’s in a relationship you have to show it, and I don’t care how many gay fans Castaway has: you can’t turn a major network show into Queer as Folk and not expect a backlash. We’re not that evolved yet. N’est-ce pas?”
Abel folds his arms. “Mais non,” he says.
“Well, aren’t you an optimist.”
“You’re selling people short.”
“Bigots exist, dear.”
“They exist but they’re not important.”
“They have remotes. Remotes equal importance.”
“They shouldn’t. Leonard Bray shouldn’t worry about a bunch of fucking idiots. They’re too stupid to be real fans.”
I hear people around us pull in a sharp breath, as if Shandley could really incinerate us with his eyes if he felt like it.
“He’s the showrunner.” Shandley cocks his head. “The show lives and dies on its fans. Even the stupid ones. You’re smart enough to know that, aren’t you, sweetheart?”
“Yeah, but if he never takes a real chance—”
“The network will be happy. So I hope he doesn’t.”
“But listen! Don’t you think challenging things and making like, a legacy—”
“Aaaaand could we get a new question? ‘Kay? I love a debate, but cheez whiz, you guys.” He rolls his eyes and sips his coffee. “I’m a god, not a politician.”
A murmur races through the crowd. Some girl lifts a question paddle and asks a polite, careful question about Shandley’s stint with Shakespeare in the Park. For a second I just stare at Abel’s profile—the tension in his jaw, the rare you-have-angered-me flare in his eyes. He took on Xaarg. Just like Cadmus. I never could have done that. Even when I sat at the table and came out to my own parents I barely looked at them; just traced the parading goose families on Mom’s plastic placemats while Nat listened from the kitchen, ready to jump in if I chickened out. I can make excuses, say I only appear timid to the naked eye because I see things the way Sim does and tolerate all points of view, but the truth is that 95% of the time, I’m mostly too terrified to say what I think.
Also, this is really not the point at all, but Abel McNaughton is hot when he’s mad.
You’re not listening, says Father Mike.
Shhhhh. Not now, please not now.
You got your sign. Shandley said yes.
My eyes drift down to Abel’s forearm, Malibu-tanned from resting in the RV’s open window. Today’s belt buckle: pewter thorns and roses wreathed around the words TRUE LOVE.
Stop looking at him.
What if I don’t?
Maybe God will take him away. To make it easy.
I press my eyes shut. Shandley answers the next question, some egghead ramble about Xaarg and the perversion of free will. When I open my eyes again, I’m alone in the crowd. Bec’s drifted away from me, whispering to Dave with her hand on his shoulder. And Abel’s gone altogether—his spot beside me filled by two teenage girls in sunflower shirts, as if he’d never existed at all.