“Oh, Nate, look at you!” Mum coos, coming over to tweak my bow tie needlessly.
“Hey.”
“Who’s a handsome boy?”
I grimace. “Mum, you’re doing that thing again!”
“Hmm?” She’s only half-listening, brushing down the shoulders of my jacket, making me paranoid I’ve got dandruff.
“Where you’re talking to me like I’m a dog,” I continue. “Do you want me to start weeing on the carpet?”
She frowns. “You are not going to wee on the carpet, Nate.”
“No, I know, but that’s what dogs… Oh, never mind.”
“Well?” Mum says, presenting me to my dad.
I stand awkwardly, not really knowing where to put my hands, but eventually just opting to shove them in my trouser pockets, although they turn out to be smaller and higher up than I’m used to, meaning my hands don’t really fit properly.
“Hands out of pockets,” Mum says, smiling and using her primary school teacher voice – firm, calm, slightly disappointed. “You don’t want to look slovenly.”
I clear my throat and remove my hands.
Dad is looking impressed.
“If I was thirty years younger—” Dad says.
“If you were thirty years younger, what?” I interrupt.
Dad looks flummoxed.
“That’s not a thing parents say to their kids!” I tell him. “Or to anyone!” I add.
He raises his eyebrows. “No? Doesn’t it just mean that you miss the good old days?”
Mum tuts. “No, Mick, it doesn’t. It’s really inappropriate.”
I shake my head. “Oh my god, right, listen—”
“Rose? Come and see your handsome brother!” Mum shouts through to the kitchen.
“Mum, no—”
But my six-year-old sister has already run through, blonde hair, cherubic smile, butter wouldn’t melt, and you would never tell she was actually possessed.
“OK, here I am, thank you, please go back to the kitchen,” I tell her.
Rose looks me up and down, giving nothing away in terms of whether I look OK or not. “Do a twirl,” she demands.
I grit my teeth because denying her will only make this last longer and I really do not have the time. I turn around on the spot. “Ta-da. There we go.” I gesture to the door.
Rose sits down on the sofa.
“Oh my god,” I mutter. “OK, So—”
“Photo time!” Mum declares, squinting at her phone as she tries to access the camera.
“No, but—”
“I want one of you on your own, one with Dad, one with Rose, we’ll need one of you by the front door…”
There’s a shot of me by the front door for every major, and for that matter minor, life event of the last sixteen years. First day of every new school year. Last day of every school year. Joining the Scouts. Opening night of the school production. Grandpa Henry’s funeral. The day Mum decided my voice had started fricking breaking!
“I’m putting them on Facebook and emailing them to the family – everyone wants to see!” she continues.
“OK, but—”
It’s futile. Mum starts shepherding us, adjusting sofa cushions in the background “so the family don’t think we’re messy” and telling Dad to “smile more” so that “no one thinks he’s too depressed about losing his job”. When she’s done, she starts swiping through them and then it’s all, “How do you attach a photo to an email again?” and all I want to do is just say the thing I want to say and get out of there.
“You seem tense,” Mum says, glancing up from her phone. “Remember to breathe during your important speech, and don’t gabble. You know how you gabble when you get nervous.”
Oh my god.
“And who knows,” she continues, “maybe a little romance will blossom at this prom?”
My eyes widen.
“Maybe you will lock eyes with a special someone across the crowded dance floor…”
“OK,” I say. “So, look, about that, what if … you know, maybe there already is a ‘someone’ who is … special, you know?”
Mum’s eyes light up and then fill with mild panic. “Are you using condoms?”
“Mum! We’re not… We haven’t… That’s not…”
“But you would?”
“I mean, yes, but—”
She actually breathes a sigh of relief. “So, tell us, then!”
“Yes, tell us all about him!” Dad says.
“Yes, him, that’s right, because I’m— Hang on, what?”
Everyone’s just looking back at me expectantly. This was not as I’d planned it in my head. At least one person should have been crying by now.
“What’s his name?” Mum asks.
“OK, so, it’s Tariq, but can we just backpedal a little here?” I look at my parents, who are smiling inanely at me. “OK, so, I am” – I pause, because drama – “gaaaaay.”
“Yes,” Mum says, with this sort of manic fixed grin on her face.
“I like boys.”
“I like boys,” Rose adds.
“No, but I really like them,” I tell her. “I don’t like girls, I like boys.”
She frowns at me. “I’m a girl.”
“Right, but—” I glance at Mum for help, but she doesn’t seem to clock any problem. “I like girls, but I don’t like like girls, Rose? OK? Makes sense? Good.”
“No.”
“OK. Mum?” I look at her pleadingly.
“Well, you haven’t explained it very well, Nate,” she says.
I take a deep breath. “So, like, Cinderella falls in love with the prince, but instead of Cinderella, it’s … Colin.” It was the first name I could think of. It’s a shit example. Everyone knows it.
Rose shakes her head. “I’m winding you up, dumbo. Someone actually like likes you? Wow!” And she flounces out.
That girl.
I turn back to my parents. “How are you not surprised? I never told you any of this.”
Dad furrows his brow. “I think you did.”
Mum nods. “You definitely did.”
“I definitely did not.”
“Yes, because in year nine you went to school with nail varnish on that time.”
I blink at her. “Mum! Me going to school with nail varnish on was not me coming out to you!” I glare at them. Are they actually serious? “What did you think I was doing that evening after school that would require nail varnish?”
“Going to Gay Club?” Dad shrugs.
“Gay Club? Gay Club?” My voice is squeaking it’s so high at this point. “It was the drama department trip to The Rocky Horror Show!”
“Oh,” Mum says weakly. “Aren’t you meant to wear stockings and suspenders
