“I don’t… understand. You never… saw… it? What does that even mean?”
“Oh boy.”
“How does one not see it? What kind of self-respecting gay are you?”
“The kind who’s about to introduce you as his girlfriend to his Republican father,” he said drily.
“I have nothing to wear!” I wailed. “Why the fuck do I have a pantsuit? I am not a businesswoman in a stock photo from the early nineties talking on her cell phone that’s as big as her head!”
“And that’s an image I’ll never unsee,” Darren said. “Wait, what color is the pantsuit?”
“Are you mocking me right now?”
“I wouldn’t even dream of it.”
“Good. Because I can’t believe I’m going to stand in the same place as Dr. Frank-N-Furter and all I have to wear is a pantsuit.”
“It’s really unfair.”
“It is,” I said. “I don’t know if you could even begin to comprehend the extent of this travesty.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’d let me get away with that.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I wouldn’t. I’m glad we’re on the same page with that. I’ll need at least three weeks to prepare for the role of a lifetime. I’m assuming you at least were smart enough to tell your father that we’d be happy to meet with him after the holidays.”
“Uh.”
I stopped my mad riffling of the closet to glare at the phone. “Darren.”
“Yeah,” he said. “About that. It’s. Uh. This Saturday?”
“Are you asking me or are you telling me?” I said, voice low and dangerous.
“Telling,” he said. “Definitely telling. Er. Um. Asking? You?”
“So what you’re saying is that in four days, I will be standing in front of your father who you have somehow convinced that you’re not only straight, but have managed to land a hot chick like me?”
“I… don’t… there are so many things wrong with what you just said.”
“Name two!”
“One, you’re not a hot chick.”
“Hey! I am the hottest chick!”
“Two, it’s not that hard to convince someone that I’m straight.”
“Oh please,” I said. “I’ve seen how you get when you’ve had one too many drinks in you. You’re practically on fire, you’re so flaming.”
“Says the drag queen. And I’m not flaming when I’m drunk!”
“So that wasn’t you last summer at my K
araoke Sunday drunk off margaritas singing Kesha?”
“That was one time.”
“Yeah, one time that you sang seven songs for. How the hell do you know the words to seven Ke$ha songs?”