I got out of the Charger with Austin’s words ringing in my ears. Fishing. We were going fishing tomorrow. Smelly, stinking, slimy, cold fish. That kind of fishing. In freezing mountain streams. In October. In weather that probably wouldn’t get above thirty degrees anyway.
And the worst part, the part that made me grit my teeth when I waved goodbye as Austin pulled away, was that I didn’t know the first goddamn thing about fishing. Not one thing, except that it involved a fish and a fishing pole. And a hook, maybe? Or was it a lure? As I said: not one damn thing. And Austin knew it.
“You look happy,” Kimmy burbled as I stormed into Bighorn Burger. My co-worker’s braces flashed in a triumphantly knowing smile that she shared with Becca.
“Do you want to borrow my brother’s waders?” Becca, already dressed in her uniform and standing behind the counter, asked in a not-so-innocent voice.
So. They knew about it too. Perfect, that made it really perfect. I passed them without comment, changed into my work clothes in the bathroom, and entered the kitchen. I spent most of my time at work in Bighorn Burger’s kitchen. I did a good job, I didn’t get caught up in Miguel and Joel’s games, and it suited my rarefied people skills. Sometimes, though, Sara had to put me on counter, and I was hoping tonight wasn’t that night.
As I walked into the kitchen, I caught sight of Miguel sitting on top of a stack of plastic condiment jars—ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, barbeque sauce, all in containers as big as my head. Perched on top of them, Miguel held a pole made out of plastic knives and forks taped end to end, and from the end of that pole dangled a string made out of uncoiled thermal cash register paper. Paperclipped to the bottom of that improvised line was a Bighorn Burger fry sleeve, with a fish inked on one side.
“Vas a pescar,” Miguel shouted.
And then, from inside the deep freezer, Joel shouted, “Agárralo, agárralo,” and he pitched something small and hard. It smacked into the fry sleeve with enough force that the coil of thermal paper spun crazily and threatened to tear free of the fishing pole made out of plastic knives and forks. With a gleeful cry, though, Miguel yanked back, and the knives-and-forks pole, and the register paper line, and the fry sleeve fish whipped up and back. Grinning, he caught the fry sleeve, shook out a cookie, and popped it into his mouth.
“You two are idiots,” I growled as I crossed to the prep table. As though guessing what I might do, Miguel threw the fishing pole like a spear into deep freezer, far away from me.
“Anda, muchacho,” Miguel said, “es una broma.”
Joel, still inside the deep freezer, laughed.
“How did you know?” I asked, grabbing the biggest knife I could find and turning towards Miguel.
Miguel stayed where he was, sprawled on top of two parallel barrels of mayonnaise, his foot cocked up on an overturned jug of chipotle ranch. He stroked his wispy mustache with two fingers in what I think was an effort to look wise and mysterious.
“Come on,” I said. “Tell me. Everybody knew about his birthday except me, and now you all knew about the fishing before me. I want to know.”
From inside the deep freezer, Joel’s voice echoed out to me. “Cálmate, hijo. Es un joke.”
“Real funny joke.”
“No te gusta pescar?” Miguel asked, pitching his voice so I could tell it was a question. “Ni con tu novio?”
“I don’t know what that means, but fuck off.”
“Fish is easy,” Joel shouted from the deep freezer. “You just hook her. Get it? Hook her?”
“Shut up, Joel.”
The brothers burst into laughter again.
I grabbed a sack of shredded iceberg, but before I could open it, a voice interrupted me.
“Vie,” Sara said from the doorway. “My office. Now.”
I let out another growl and dropped the iceberg. “If you two got me into trouble . . .”
Miguel casually flipped me the finger. From inside the freezer came a plastic rattle, and then the improvised fishing line flipped out into the kitchen, the fry sleeve with its inked fish skidding across the tile. As I left, I stomped on the register paper hard enough to tear it, and Joel and Miguel howled behind me.
Sara’s office was a decent-sized room, but the big desk and the piles of paperwork and the row of filing cabinets made it seem cramped. My knees, when I sat in the chair, had barely an inch of breathing room before they bumped the desk. Even the walls were claustrophobic; stapled over warped faux wood paneling hung hundreds of calendars and order forms and photographs and newspaper clippings, as though the four walls now served as the world’s largest bulletin board.
Sara, a big woman herself, sat behind the desk. Her hair diffused around her head in a big, bleached cloud. Now that we lived together, I had an idea of exactly how long it took her to get every hair drifting in unison: twenty-three minutes. That’s how long the blow dryer ran in the morning, at least. A good blast of static would have done the same work in a fraction of the time.
“Vie, we need to—”
“You told them.”
“What?”
“You told them about Austin’s birthday. And you told them about the . . . the . . .”
“Fishing?”
“God, don’t say that. You did, didn’t you? Tell them, I mean.”
“Well, I said I was excited to see what you had planned for Austin’s birthday and . . . oh. Yes. I guess I did.”
“And the—” I almost said fishing, but instead, I swallowed the word and changed it to, “and this time?”
“Yesterday, when Austin called to ask if you were working on Sunday, I had to check the schedule, and I wanted to make sure Becca wouldn’t mind . . .”
I groaned.
“I don’t see how it matters.”
It mattered, I wanted to tell her, because when I had forgotten Austin’s birthday, Joel and Miguel had almost taken my balls off with a knife. Not because they particularly liked Austin but because they thought I was intentionally sabotaging a relationship. And it mattered because I didn’t like all the attention. It was a lot of pressure, being the only gay couple in Vehpese. At least, we were the only gay couple I knew about, and it wasn’t that big of a town. It already felt like everything we did was under a spotlight; I didn’t need Miguel and Joel pantomiming my dates.
But Sara would only be hurt if I explained that. All she cared about was that—in her words—for the first time in his life, Austin seemed like he was really happy. I think that had more to do with coming out than it did with dating me, but she was convinced, possibly against all reason, that I was good for Austin. I guess I should be glad that someone in town thought it was a good idea.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I just wish I’d known.”
“But he wanted it to be a surprise.”
“It was.”
Her sharp brown eyes fixed mine. “I’ve got plenty of gear at home, and tonight, I’ll show you how to tie a fly and cast. You won’t be a champion fisherman, but you won’t look like a fool.”
“Oh. Um. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now, if you’re finished?”
I nodded, feeling heat come into my cheeks.
“Very well. I wanted you to know that your caseworker called today and that she’ll be coming on Tuesday after school.”
“They’re not moving me,” I said, shooting upright in the chair. “I won’t move.”
“No, no. She wants to check in and see how you’re doing. I think you made quite the impression. She asked all about you. Lord, it was all I could do to get off the phone and finish my hair in time to get to work.”
Maybe, I thought, that meant Sara had only spent twenty-two minutes on the cloud today. But only maybe. My mind turned to the comment about my social worker. Only a few days before, Wyoming’s Department of Family Services had taken me out of my father’s custody and, temporarily, put me with Sara. I still had all the bruises my dad given me, so it was a pretty open and shut case.
What hadn’t been open and shut, though, was the fact that Genevieve Coyote in Sage, my caseworker with DFS, had some sort of psychic ability too. I wasn’t sure what, but I knew she did. And she knew my secret too, at least in part. I hadn’t seen her since that night, though, and so I hadn’t had a chance to ask her any more.
“Vie,” Sara said, interrupting my thoughts. “You know that DFS likes to place kids back with their families, if that’s at all possible. And if it’s not, they like them to be in a more . . . traditional setting.”
“Fuck that.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“No, I’m serious. Fuck that.”
“No,” she said, slapping a meaty hand on the desk so hard that it cracked and a papers scuttled. “I’m serious. You’re a decent young man, Vie, but you’ve got a mouth like a sailor with hoof rot. As long as I’m responsible for your well-being, you’re going to clean it up.”
“Are you . . . scolding me?”
Sara’s normally red face reddened slightly. “I most certainly am.”
The bizarreness of the moment seemed to drag it out. “Ok,” I said unsteadily.
“All right then.”
“But I’m not leaving Vehpese.”
Her mouth tightened into a knot, and she wedged her hands under her chin. “You’ve jumped the gun and you’re already halfway down the track. All Miss Coyote in Sage wants is to talk. We can be civil enough for that, can’t we?”
I stayed silent. My knees thumped the bottom of the desk.
“Vie?”
“Yes. Fine.”
“All right, sweetheart. Now, don’t let me forget about the fishing gear.”
Groaning again, I went back to the kitchen. As I scooped iceberg lettuce into the plastic trays, my mind tried to predict what tomorrow would bring. Let her forget? I wished I could.