“I’m crying,” Benny says. “This is—”
“Somuch,” Matty adds.
“An epic start to a wildly unnecessary destination wedding!” Benny says.
After introducing the Lemon clan, Zia Gab goes around the rest of the jet. “The whole guest list is here. Well, almost!” She starts with the two other groomsmen on Topher’s side, grabbing the broad shoulders of a blond-haired white guy so hot my nonexistent ovaries burst. “This is Tyler Dell, Topher’s freshman-year roommate at Cornell, and”—she moves on to the guy across the aisle, yet another smokeshow, tall, dark, and douchey with a buzzcut—“Trav Ridgewell the Third, who went to Cornell butdidn’t room with you boys, right? But they were in the same circle. Topher may not have lasted at an Ivy, but the friendships he built did!”
“I should play a triumphant instrumental as she does this,” Benny quips.
“I’d like to play any music with Tyler,” I say.
“Or Trav,” Matty adds.
“They’re devastatingly straight, boys, and far too old for you both,” Benny says.
Zia Gabriella then introduces Sienna’s second cousin Jenni Lee, a two-names-at-all-time law student who looks like an airbrushed model.
“What the hell isshedoing here?” I whisper to Matty.
Jenni Lee DeLuca and her dad, a local conservative politician who is Sienna and Ricky’s father’s first cousin (I hope you’re keeping up because this is confusing!), moved to the neighborhood when Ricky and I were really young. Her mom, an author of “inspirational romance” (aka super religious), left her dad for a younger man, and it was the scandal of the century in our small Hudson Valley town. And Jenni Lee, who became her father’s protégé, leveraged the sympathy vote to win student body president as a high school senior touting a “No Labels” message to bring “all students” together. She claimed to be the “A” in LGBTQIA+, but after Jenni Lee swept the election, she wrote an op-ed in the school newspaper about how “A” meant “abstinent ally” and ended up campaigning the school board to cut funding to the Sexuality and Gender Alliance, get books with any queer or “nonreligious” themes in the school library pulled from circulation, and went so far as to support a nearby school district’sdecision to kick a genderqueer student out of their high school musical. That was big news around the Hudson River towns. It seemed she had a lot of support from parents who thought exposure to “mature content” was harmful to teens. I knew she was bad news. She always gave me the ick, and I never understood how Sienna and Ricky were related to her. I do a sweep to make sure her father isn’t on board, but Ma whispers, “Don’t worry, the bigot isn’t coming. He’s on the campaign trail.Governor.”
A shiver runs down my spine.Good god, save us.
Ma elbows me to be quiet.
Zia Gab then announces, “Jenni Lee and Trav started dating last year after meeting through Topher. Isn’t that just wonderful?” Zia Gab makes a kissing motion with her hands that’s borderline gross.
Jenni Lee wastes no time rushing to my side and telling me she follows me on Clock. “Last time I saw you, you were a kid! Now you’re spicy on Clock.” She releases a honk laugh, referring to content I filmed with Matty, both of us shirtless but wearing aprons, and cooking with Nonna. It was a joke video, but it blew up.
I don’t smile or give her anything.
She clears her throat. “Dumb food pun. I don’t mean it in a bad way; lots of gay guys get spicy online.”
“Wholesome family content,” I say casually. “Right?”
Her smile tightens as she hums. “Not exactly the word I would use. It’s a shame. You could use your platform forgood. Appeal to . . .” She chooses her words carefully. “More people.”
My chest rises and falls rapidly, in anger, but I won’t make a scene with one of Sienna’s bridesmaids, so I bury it, decide not toengage further. I’m enlightened or whatever. What she’s saying is that I should appeal tostraightviewers. Growing up in a more conservative old-school Italian suburb, even in blue New York, which isn’t so blue outside the city, I’ve had to contend with that mentality of having to curb my gayness for others. But my art ismine.Myspace. If you don’t get it, it’snot foryou, Jenni Lee.
She must register my irritation, because her eyes calculate a way out. Then she smiles sweetly, mechanically, like a politician. It’s unnerving. “How excited are you for Sienna’s big day?”
“Very. I’m going to, uh. . .” I hitch my thumb and swerve away from her.
Moving on.
“She still gives me the ick,” Matty says under his breath, and I nod in agreement.
The final girl is the last of Sienna’s bridesmaids, with a fabulous hot-pink blowout, the fiercest fifties-style cat eye mint-green eyeglasses, clad in a ratty old band tee she obviously thrifted. Her makeup is beyond flawless, and while she definitely stands out among Topher and Sienna’s bridal party, she’s also by far the coolest. Monroe Cooper, Sienna’s college roommate at FIT while Sienna studied fashion merchandizing.
An expectant flight attendant materializes. “If we can all get seated and buckle up, the pilot is almost ready.” The flight attendant is tall with dark hair pulled back in a tight bun. In a navy-blue blazer and tailored slacks, she walks around the cabin handing out hot towels before taking drink orders.
“When do we take off?” Matty asks after ordering a rum and coke and getting turned down because the manifest revealed his age.
“We’re waiting on two more passengers,” the attendant responds.
“Two more? Who else are we—”
My words dissolve like foam when I seehimround the corner—
