parents bring out every year on their anniversary. Copper serving trays are being passed around, with deviled eggs and other more questionable meat appetizers.
To the side, taking up an entire kitchen island, are the bottles of champagne sitting in a copper tub full of ice. Leon and Kat were right: no one would notice a bottle—or ten—missing from this supply.
Everyone’s dressed up in their own interpretation of the term. From air force uniforms to sleek dresses, to bow ties and blazers over jeans. Glasses clink; the scent of vanilla candles fills the space between the tightly packed bodies.
I navigate around the pockets of chatting astronauts, their families, and media types. I can’t discern the music that plays, but the strumming of a rhythmic guitar floods the room. It’s coming from all around—the record player’s hooked up to a surround sound speaker system. It’s a heavy-handed metaphor for the whole night, but it works.
When I turn back, my dad comes through the door and freezes. “This is just like … oh my god.”
Tears start forming in his eyes, but he rubs his eyes quickly to shrug it off. We’re all dazzled, but thankfully everyone’s huddled in the kitchen, and they haven’t really paid attention to us.
“You remember those Life magazines I’ve showed you?” Dad asks. “With the astronaut parties with the families? This is it. It’s real.” He clears his throat as a tear rolls down his cheek. Mom puts a hand on his back.
I’m feeling something here. Some bizarre nostalgia for an era that came half a century before my existence.
It’s all beautiful. And overwhelming.
Until I hear the whisper-yelled commands of someone to my right. “Closer,” the voice says. “Did you get the tear?”
In the corner of the room, Kiara’s got her sights set on me and my dad, while Josh Farrow—“the face of Shooting Stars ”—stands next to her with a clipboard, directing her every move.
Dad doesn’t notice, but just being in the same room as StarWatch makes me uncomfortable, so I slip away as Mom introduces herself to the families who were lucky enough to get outof gardening duty. As I reach the kitchen, Kat runs up and gives me a big hug. I did not think we were hugging friends. Or, maybe hugs are just a Texas thing.
She pulls out a Tupperware stocked with deviled eggs and starts placing them on the tray.
“I made these, so you better like ’em.”
“Why are they … green?”
She laughs. “Fair question. I add avocado to them. It’s my secret ingredient, though I guess when it completely changes the color it’s not so secret.”
“No, not exactly.”
I take one anyway, thankful there’s at least one meatless thing I can eat here. I scan the crowd, and my chest aches as I look for Leon. This isn’t a totally new feeling for me. There were sparks with Deb once. And something with Jeremy too.
But something about this feels different. Deb was my best friend, and we just fell into a comfortable relationship. Jeremy was new and exciting, and he was there as I took a self-guided tour of my own queerness—something I may never fully find the right label for.
But with Leon, the burning in my chest has never been so perfectly bright. So clear. It’s like when I spend hours picking background colors for the teaser images before my shows—when I hit that perfect shade of bluish-green, and I could never describe why it’s perfect, but it just is .
With my crush on Leon, it so clearly is right.
Every time I close my eyes and let my mind drift for toolong, I see his face giving that side-eye smirk with those perfect teeth. Those teeth that rarely see the camera—back at the swings, it felt like he’d stocked up all his smiles for me, for that moment.
And something else—no, not his ridiculously sculpted gymnastics muscles—draws me to him. It’s the hesitant quality that the camera does get to see. The side I saw in the gardens. Everyone else here is so sure of themselves,
To the side, taking up an entire kitchen island, are the bottles of champagne sitting in a copper tub full of ice. Leon and Kat were right: no one would notice a bottle—or ten—missing from this supply.
Everyone’s dressed up in their own interpretation of the term. From air force uniforms to sleek dresses, to bow ties and blazers over jeans. Glasses clink; the scent of vanilla candles fills the space between the tightly packed bodies.
I navigate around the pockets of chatting astronauts, their families, and media types. I can’t discern the music that plays, but the strumming of a rhythmic guitar floods the room. It’s coming from all around—the record player’s hooked up to a surround sound speaker system. It’s a heavy-handed metaphor for the whole night, but it works.
When I turn back, my dad comes through the door and freezes. “This is just like … oh my god.”
Tears start forming in his eyes, but he rubs his eyes quickly to shrug it off. We’re all dazzled, but thankfully everyone’s huddled in the kitchen, and they haven’t really paid attention to us.
“You remember those Life magazines I’ve showed you?” Dad asks. “With the astronaut parties with the families? This is it. It’s real.” He clears his throat as a tear rolls down his cheek. Mom puts a hand on his back.
I’m feeling something here. Some bizarre nostalgia for an era that came half a century before my existence.
It’s all beautiful. And overwhelming.
Until I hear the whisper-yelled commands of someone to my right. “Closer,” the voice says. “Did you get the tear?”
In the corner of the room, Kiara’s got her sights set on me and my dad, while Josh Farrow—“the face of Shooting Stars ”—stands next to her with a clipboard, directing her every move.
Dad doesn’t notice, but just being in the same room as StarWatch makes me uncomfortable, so I slip away as Mom introduces herself to the families who were lucky enough to get outof gardening duty. As I reach the kitchen, Kat runs up and gives me a big hug. I did not think we were hugging friends. Or, maybe hugs are just a Texas thing.
She pulls out a Tupperware stocked with deviled eggs and starts placing them on the tray.
“I made these, so you better like ’em.”
“Why are they … green?”
She laughs. “Fair question. I add avocado to them. It’s my secret ingredient, though I guess when it completely changes the color it’s not so secret.”
“No, not exactly.”
I take one anyway, thankful there’s at least one meatless thing I can eat here. I scan the crowd, and my chest aches as I look for Leon. This isn’t a totally new feeling for me. There were sparks with Deb once. And something with Jeremy too.
But something about this feels different. Deb was my best friend, and we just fell into a comfortable relationship. Jeremy was new and exciting, and he was there as I took a self-guided tour of my own queerness—something I may never fully find the right label for.
But with Leon, the burning in my chest has never been so perfectly bright. So clear. It’s like when I spend hours picking background colors for the teaser images before my shows—when I hit that perfect shade of bluish-green, and I could never describe why it’s perfect, but it just is .
With my crush on Leon, it so clearly is right.
Every time I close my eyes and let my mind drift for toolong, I see his face giving that side-eye smirk with those perfect teeth. Those teeth that rarely see the camera—back at the swings, it felt like he’d stocked up all his smiles for me, for that moment.
And something else—no, not his ridiculously sculpted gymnastics muscles—draws me to him. It’s the hesitant quality that the camera does get to see. The side I saw in the gardens. Everyone else here is so sure of themselves,
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