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The air smells like meat and smoke, and Callie’s stomach pangs with it.
The gaggle of them are all crowded onto outdoor furniture and picnic blankets in the Sadecki backyard. Lottie and Nat curled up on the swinging canvas chair. Van and Taissa side by side on plastic white outdoor chairs with years of lawn sod staining the legs green and muddy. Shauna manning the grill. Jeff, when he saw Tai brought Sammy, scrambled down to the basement for like twenty minutes to fish his partly-deflated football out of the cardboard boxes full of Callie’s old school projects. Kept saying it was “boys time” and “now we could have a real barbecue.” And now just keeps tossing the football at Sammy who every time lets it fall at his feet and stares at it as it goes down. And Jeff just keeps cheering like, “great job, buddy, way to let it come to you!” like he really means it.
And Callie’s watching it, and feeling light and happy in her stomach, like when she was little, you know. She remembers feeling like the sun then. She had this mobile on the ceiling of her room that Aunt Tai bought for her when she was really little and Tai still came around sometimes, of all the planets swinging around the sun, right, and she felt like that. Like her dad was Mercury or something. Just so excited to get to swivel around her and see all the light she made.
She forgot how that could feel. But she remembers it again, a little. Standing against the house, leaned in the shadows, watching them all. The air is full of them talking. The Yellowjackets. Buzzing, she guesses.
Misty’s in the middle of the group, sitting on a checkered blanket, patting the spot next to her, shouting: “Callie! Yoohoo! There’s space next to me! Come on.”
Callie looks at her mom, to try to save her. But Shauna pretends she doesn’t hear it. Just hums to herself and tends to the meat.
Callie could probably just refuse. But her stomach is still doing that panging family thing. Everything feels full, all of them being here, and the day is bright and in their eyes and her dad keeps saying: “Great one, buddy! You almost caught it that time! Maybe just try, you know, trying? But hey, only if you want! This game is great too, huh?” and Lottie and Natalie are just snuggling into each other with their hands knotted in each other’s hair doing these little finger pets, and Tai and Van have their chairs pulled so close, giggling together under their breath. And she feels like yeah, okay, she belongs here. This tugging.
So she sighs. Relents. Goes to sit down next to Misty, who greets her by squeezing her tight around the shoulders and Callie has to literally shake her off.
“You know, gosh. I am just so jazzed it’s summer,” Misty says, unfazed. “Now we can really start living it up, you know?”
Nat laughs soft against Lottie’s mouth, tickling the cusp of her ear. Shauna mumbles “oh fucking shit” under her breath when she grabs the handle of her spatula only to realize it’s hot from leaving it too close to the grill.
“Living it up, Misty?” Van says, eyes narrowed.
“Oh, yeah!” Misty says. “I mean, I can’t wait to break my kayak out for the weekend. Plus, all the summer holidays are like, fireworks and parade city and who doesn’t love that, right? Oh, and you know what, we should all absolutely get a house on the shore for a week. You guys don’t even worry about the logistics by the way, I’ll just book an Airbnb and Venmo request you all, so, keep your eyes peeled for that, please. I do not want a repeat of the deposit situation from Nat and Lottie’s engagement weekend cabin.”
“We’ve said we were sorry,” Shauna says.
“No, in fact, none of you have, but I’ll accept that as your official apology, so thank you, Shauna. But anyway, I wasn’t done. I also have this whole ice cream crawl planned. It’s like a bar crawl, but all ice cream places, and you’re done by three p.m. And you all need to respond to my evite about that, please, so I can get an accurate headcount? And then, oh! Well, obviously we should do something for Pride Month. You know, to be good allies.”
Callie feels her head swivel on the axis. “Allies?”
“ Yes, ” Misty says. “Callie, are you not an ally? It’s very important to be engaging in allyship. I read all about it in Vox.”
“Not that,” Callie says. “Just, kinda seems like you’re all a little more than just allies, you know.”
Misty says, “Well, Van and Tai, yeah, obviously.”
Callie narrows her eyes. “Right. And also the rest of you?”
Lottie — whose bare legs are almost glowing in the sun now that Nat’s pushed aside the hem of her caftan to wrap a hand around Lottie’s thighs as she presses lazy kisses into the curtain of her hair — says: “Yes. We’re all allies too. Personally, I’m so inspired by the struggles and triumphs of that community.”
“You mean your community,” Callie says.
“My community?” Lottie says, exhaling this soft sigh as Nat’s breath rings against her cheek. She tightens her grip around the nape of Nat’s neck, fingers squeezing all needful. “Well, all of you are my community. I really think of the group of us as a family. It’s a beautiful thing.”
The sun’s beating so heavy into Callie’s eyes. “Okay, no. I mean, like, your other community. Like — Aunt Lottie, you are a lesbian, right?”
Behind her, Van quirks a tired smile, leans back into her chair. “Here we go.”
Lottie cocks her head to the side. “What, me? No. I, I see, how you might think that? But no, not me.”
Nat picks her head up from their PDA to nod in Callie’s general direction, then flops her head back all gentle into Lottie’s shoulder.
Tai rolls her eyes. Rubs her thumb along the back of Van’s hand, feels the knuckles and the little red hairs and the way Van’s ankle, her heavy workman’s boots even in the rising heat, hooks around Tai’s leg like a promise.
Callie says: “Right. But, you’re literally engaged to Aunt Nat."
Lottie nods. “Well, yes, obviously, I am. But, I really feel more that I connect to a — a person’s soul. Their spirit. I’m a fluid being. We all are, really.”
Nat nods again. “Well said, baby.”
Callie’s trying so hard not to lose her mind. “Okay, but have you ever felt connected to a man’s soul or spirit?”
Lottie raises her eyebrows, mouth going a little pinched. “Er … well, no. Not in exactly those terms but, I have certainly felt a deep kinship with men. With all sorts of people.”
Shauna flips a burger to cook evenly, and says: “What terms are those? Because, wait, I was like, so sure you two” — she gestures with her spatula to Lottie and Nat— “were having threesomes in the woods with Travis, right? I cannot be the only one who thought that.”
Jeff, jogging over to grab the football up from Sammy’s feet, turns to her all sharply: “ Shauna.”
“What?” Shauna says. “As if Callie doesn’t know what a threesome is.”
“It’s true,” Callie nods. “I know.”
“ Callie,” Jeff says.
“What? Not from experience. Just from not living under a literal rock? Jesus, Dad.”
“Anyway,” Jeff says. “Not her. I meant S-a-m-m-y.
Sammy says. “I know how to spell. Especially my own name? ”
“So true, buddy! ‘Cause you’re so smart!” Jeff says, brightly and strained, then turns back to face the adults. “Come on, Tai, I’m right here, aren’t I? Ix-nay on the s-e-x talk in front of the k-i-d?”
“I know how to spell,” Sammy reminds him.
“What?” Tai says, distracted from the way Van was snaking the short edges of her fingernails up Tai’s side, through the thin fabric of her t-shirt, gentle and heady. “Oh, uh, yeah, of course, Jeff. Thanks for saying something. Let’s uh, reign in the s-e-x talk, okay, Shauna?”
“Nice save, Tai,” Van says, muffling a laugh. “But actually yeah, they’re right, Samwich, you shouldn’t be hearing this shit.”
“ Van,” Jeff scolds.
“What? Oh, ‘shit’? Shit. I mean, uh, Sorry, Sammo. Shouldn't've said that.”
Callie exhales heavy and exasperated, slaps her hands down on her thighs. “Okay, can we please get back to the point?” and looks at Lottie. “Which is you’re clearly a lesbian and I don’t get why you don’t just call yourself a lesbian.”
Taissa pipes in. “Look, Callie, honey, we’ve tried. Just give it up. It’s easier.”
Shauna, trying to make herself sound so nonchalant, says: “So, Cals, why are you so interested anyway? I mean, you’re not — or are you — is this you telling us that you’re, uh —”
Callie pitches her eyebrows, gives her mom her best goading, shit-eating challenge of a grin. “Why? Would something be wrong with that?”
“ Great episode of Seinfeld,” Van murmurs from behind her.
Shauna, quickly, papers over with: “What? No. No, no no no no. No. Obviously not, Cals. I love you, you know, uh, no matter what, right? Yeah.”
“Wow,” Callie deadpans. “Convincing.”
Jeff adds: “Your mom’s right, Cals. We love you forever and always, alright? But don’t think that if you bring home a girl that I’m gonna grill her any less than one of your fellas.”
Tai says: “Who says fellas? ”
Callie says: “Okay, when I brought Kyle home for the first time all you asked is if he was a Jets fan.”
“Yeah, well you can tell a lot about a person from their sports loyalties is all I’m saying! If he was a Giants fan I just don’t know how I’d’ve trusted him in my house, and I’m sticking to that.”
Van ribs: “ Hey. Is that why we’re eating outside? You won’t let me in your house?”
Jeff says: “We’re eating outside ‘cause it’s a glorious day out, but now that you mention it, yeah, that might have something to do with it.”
Van smirks: “Right, is it all the us actually winning games that you take issue with?”
“Well, you know what, being a Jets guy builds character. Loyalty. Thick and thin. Real shit, Van!” Jeff says.
Sammy nudges the football with his sneaker toe. “Aren’t I not supposed to hear that word?”
“Too right, buddy! So smart, real smart,” Jeff says, a note of panic in his voice. “Say, how about we play a real catch next? You know, I throw it and you catch it and then hey, maybe then you throw it and I catch it, and we just go from there?”
Sammy grimaces. “Do I have to?”
“Leave him alone, Jeff,” Tai says. “He just wants to go look for four leaf clovers anyway.”
Sammy’s face lights up for the first time all day. “Do you really think there’s some here?”
Van winks at him. “You know, I think I saw a real big clover patch over by the grill.”
Sammy scurries all giddy over past Shauna, and Van turns to Callie:
“Anyway, Cals, it’s just how Tai said. We tried. They don’t wanna hear it. Better just to move on with your life, okay?”
Callie ignores her. Turns back to Nat and Lottie, who’ve shifted on their little canvas loveseat— Nat’s sprawled longways now with her legs kicked off the side, batting in the air like a swimmer, and her head in Lottie’s lap, looking up at her with this soft, liquid twinge in her eye. Lottie’s raking a hand through Nat’s hair. Tracing the outline of her face with the soft pad of her index finger.
“Okay, but, Aunt Nat,” Callie says. “ You’re at least bi, right. Like, you’d call yourself bi?”
Nat says: “I dunno. I mean, everyone likes to fuck girls, right? I don’t see why we need a word for it.”
Jeff says: “I dunno if everyone does.”
“You do,” Nat points out.
“Well. Yeah.”
Nat lifts her head a little to pick up her lemonade from the table and cheers it towards him and takes a sip. “Well there you go.”
Lottie takes advantage of Nat’s lifted head to dip her own down and kiss Nat’s hairline. Callie thinks she sees her fucking smell her? Like, a big whiff of Nat’s hair.
“And, come on, Callie,” Shauna says. “Not everyone. I mean, I for one have never even thought about it, so.”
Van and Tai make their most pointed eye contact yet. Van’s mouth’s dancing with an urge to say something.
“Don’t you dare,” Tai says, a thumb to Van’s chin, just at the edge of her lip. “She’s gotta get there on her own.”
“It’s been almost three decades, Tai. If she was gonna get there on her own, she would’ve, already.”
“Are you guys talking about me?” Shauna calls out.
“ No !” Van and Tai say in guilty unison.
“Well, I for one,” Misty says. “ Love men.”
Callie’s been fucking waiting for this one. Draws up close to her. “Okay, but like, real men? Or the idea of men? I mean — okay, actually, have you ever heard of the Lesbian Masterdoc, Aunt Misty?”
“Master what?” Shauna asks.
“It’s a Google Doc. Shut up, Mom. I’m doing something here.”
Misty pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Well, I haven’t personally read it, but I have seen some Reddit threads that referenced it.”
Callie narrows her gaze. “Which part of Reddit? The lesbian part of Reddit?”
Misty scoffs. “You know it is just like Natalie said, you are trying to, to box me in with words and I just won’t have it, young lady. Why do there have to be lesbian and not lesbian parts of Reddit. Aren’t we all just people? Kumbaya?”
Van drops Tai hand that she was tracing shapes on the back of and sighs all heavy. “Misty, there’s absolutely lesbian parts of Reddit. I know because you sent me a page from one last week. Which I did not open by the way because I’ve turned the internet off on my phone forever so please never do it again, but, seriously.”
Misty sniffs, pushed her glasses up all offended. "I was just supporting your interests."
Jeff meanders over to Shauna, helps her start plating burgers on buns. “You know, you kids these days, you just think everyone's L-G-B-T-Q-R-S-L-M-N-O-P, you know?”
Callie blinks at him. “ …. Dad .... you have to know that that’s not what it’s called. Please tell me you know that's not what it's called."
“I’m just saying!” he says, holding his hands up in a posture of innocence with the plastic hamburger bun bag dangling from one half-open fist. “Not everyone’s gay, okay? Some of us just happen to be straight, and that’s totally, you know, fine, you know. Not saying of course that it’s bad to be gay or anything. I personally love when people are gay. But, uh, well if everyone was gay, wouldn’t it sort of spoil it for them? Tai, back me up here!”
Tai shakes her head, losing herself in a wash of giggles with Van, red hair making a curtain between their two heads. Tai tucks a strand behind Van’s ear, and tells Jeff: “No, I’m sorry, just having way too much fun watching you squirm.”
Van pipes in: “Also that’s high talk from a guy who I know for a fact used to do circle jerks with Randy Walsh all throughout high school. Or— sorry, does it count as a circle jerk if it’s just two guys?”
Jeff’s going red in the face. “Hey! I told you that in confidence!”
Sammy meanders back over, a tiny fist full of ripped up clover stems and leaves that he leaves as a gift on Callie’s lap, and then sits down next to her. He turns his head to his mom, and asks: “What’s a circle jerk?”
Tai’s eyes go wide and panicked. “It’s a, uh, a very bad thing that happens when you’re a jerk to someone in a circle and you should never ever say it, okay?”
Van scoffs. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
Callie glances back over at Lottie and Nat, since they haven’t said anything in a while, and finds they’re just fully making out, the swing chair creaking under their moving bodies.
Shauna smacks Jeff lightly on the stomach with the back of her hand. “You never told me you did that.”
“There’s nothing to tell!” Jeff insists. “It was just normal, regular guy stuff, you know. Guys being dudes. Being bros . And it’s not like we just said hey dude, wanna whip out your, your you know what in front of me, like apropos of nothing. There were Playboy s involved.”
“Ew?” Callie says.
Lottie takes a break from actively nibbling Nat’s ear, tells her niece: “You see, Callie? This is what you get from digging. Better just to be content.”
Callie can’t think of an answer to that, because mostly she just feels like she’s going insane and they’re all fucking like, gaslighting her or something. She’s pretty sure this counts as gaslighting.
Meanwhile, Shauna’s having a quiet little face journey in the corner, the batch of burgers on the grill charring too black in the process. “Wait, okay, I’m just — because, well, if that?” she waves her hand in the general vicinity of Jeff’s crotch. “Counts as gay then. Well, I mean. Nobody take more from this than it needs, because I’m pretty sure it’s totally normal? But I did teach Jackie to masturbate once. But. But that wasn’t — was that gay?”
“Oh my fucking God, Mom,” Callie says.
Sammy tugs on her arm. “What’s masturbate?”
Callie’s eyes go wide and freaked. “Aunt Tai? Wanna jump in here?”
Tai says: “It’s um. When you’re a master at um. Baiting fish for … fishing? Also, I’m sorry Shauna, you taught her to masturbate?”
Shauna drops her spatula on the table beside the grill. The burgers keep burning. “What! What’s wrong with that? I thought we— the group of us — celebrated women’s sexuality, right?”
Van says, “Sounds like you were celebrating alright.”
The whole backyard is just silently staring at Shauna. Even Lottie and Nat have stopped groping.
Lottie says: “So, you were in the room with her while she did it, Shauna?”
Nat cocks her head in a what she said motion. “And was it a hands on demonstration?” she says with a wink, and then makes this finger crooking gesture that Callie feels the need to cover Sammy’s eyes from.
Van’s fucking losing it at this point. She’s all exasperation: “Okay, see, very queer reaction you both just had to that.”
“Thank you!” Callie says, removing her hand from Sammy’s eyes when he starts trying to pull it off.
Lottie takes in a deep, theatrical breath. “I would say it’s simply a human response to a very curious piece of information about our dear friend. That I personally would love some more information on. If you’re comfortable with sharing, Shauna.”
At this point, Jeff scoops up the spatula and nudges Shauna out of the way to save the burning burgers.
Shauna says, “Okay, no. I was not in the room with her. I just — she asked me once , if I had ever …? So I very um, you know, clinically and, and friendly … ly explained what I, you know, did. And then she later I guess, well, tried that. And then sort of uh … reported back.”
Nat leans back in the rocking loveseat, hands folded behind her head. Lottie nestles in the crook of her shoulder. “And that was the end of it?” Nat asks. “You did say it was just once.”
“Well, not exactly,” Shauna admits. “She couldn’t quite get the hang of it? So I kept giving like, different suggestions and then sometimes she’d go home and try those, and sort of tell me about them, and then sometimes she’d figure out something new and like, tell me. And maybe a few times I tried that. But that’s, I mean — all girls do that? … Don’t they?”
It’s Tai’s turn to lose it. “Oh, yeah, Shauna. All girls have sex by proxy with their best friends. Very hetero of you. Good job!”
Jeff bristles at his grill station. Says to Shauna in a loud stage whisper: “Hey, this wasn’t uh, when I was going out with her, right? ‘Cause I thought I was doing a very good job of you know, making her —“
He breaks off, takes a pointed glance to where Callie and Sammy are sitting.
“I mean, uh, buttering her pickles, you know?”
“Ew, Dad?” Callie says. “That’s not better. You do get how that’s not any better, right?”
Shauna just gives him this obviously fake reassuring look, but he seems to buy it.
Callie says: “But, anyway I pulled up that Google Doc if any of you wanna read? I just think it could fix at least one of you.”
Lottie says: “Assuming a model of brokenness is an unhealthy paradigm to live by.”
Van says: “Bold of you to assume I can be fixed, but give it here.”
She reaches over and takes the phone from Callie, then blows up the letters crazy big so she can read them.
She reads silently for a moment. Misty looks on intently.
“Huh,” Van says. “I mean, fuck technology still, but this could be useful.”
Misty grabs it from her. “I wanna see! Not that it applies to me, of course. But I’m just a student of the human condition.”
Nat snorts. “Misty, we’ve literally fucked before. Like a lot.”
Lottie nods: “Recently in fact. I was there.”
Callie tells them: “Oh, so now you two think having gay sex makes you gay?”
Nat lets out an angry sigh. “I didn’t say I wasn’t! I just, I don’t like all your stupid little labels. That’s not how it was for us. We didn’t need to put words on every little thing. It just makes your world all small. You don’t need all that. You can just live.”
Lottie pats her back appreciatively.
Callie counters: “Or maybe you just grew up in like a super homophobic time and now you feel like you can’t actually admit what’s right fucking in front of you because you’re like, addicted to the benefit of the doubt, or whatever.”
Van leans forward, rests her elbows all tired on her knees. “Cal. Why’s this so important to you?”
Callie thinks about two nights ago, hot and heavy in the backseat of Ilana’s mom’s car, her hands fisted in the dark waves of Ilana’s hair, the air full of sweat, Callie’s mouth leaving half moon rings of teeth marks on Ilana’s neck.
But okay, she’s not gonna tell them that. They don’t need to know her fucking business. Plus it just seems like maybe if you’re maybe kinda dating someone, you shouldn’t tell all your murderous aunts about it. Just in case it goes south, right?
So Callie tells her: “Well, I just feel like it’s useful to start a fight at these things so you guys don’t get too bored and ritually slaughter someone again?”
Shauna says: “Hey! We haven’t ritually slaughtered anyone in… you know. A while. Or, okay, actually there was that one—“
Jeff interrupts, an anxious look over the fences to the rest of the neighborhood. “You know, that is a really solid idea, Callie Wallie. One smart kid I raised, huh?”
“So you think I’m right?” Callie says, beaming her chin forward.
“Well, not about me and Randy. That’s just inaccurate. I happen to love your mom very much.”
Callie says, slowly: “Dad, do you know about being bisexual? Have you heard of that ever? Nod if you understand me.”
Sammy perks up! “Oh, I know that one! Uncle Jeff, it’s when you like—”
“I know what it is. But thank you, Samsonite. I’m sure that was gonna be a, a heck of a lesson.” He looks awkwardly out at the crowd of them, all stifling in a laugh at him. “So, who wants burgers?”
Van lifts her arm from around Tai’s shoulder to point down at her with a lazy finger. “Beyond meat for this one, okay?”
Nat perks up too: “Oh, and can you get one of the burnt ones for Lot? She likes the crispy bits.”
Lottie smiles at her all languid and loved up. “You’re so good to me.”
And then they’re just back to making out.
Callie just sighs. Scooches over off the blanket so she’s sitting on the grass at Van and Tai’s feet. “I really thought I was gonna get them to get it. Like, at least one of them.”
Tai says: “Cute. And dumb. Just like your mom!”
“Hey, I heard that!” Shauna says, walking behind them and dropping a veggie burger on a plate into Tai’s lap.
“Meant for you to,” Tai says, pitching her eyebrows up at her, and Shauna rolls her eyes and flicks Tai on the ear, and Shauna just laughs at her, and on the other end of the backyard, Lottie and Nat are still making out, and Misty’s moved her blanket over to the edge of the seat to talk to them while they’re making out, and sometimes Nat takes a pause for breath to answer her, and Jeff calls Sammy over to give him the two little sliders he made just for him, because he remembered he likes when food is mini, and he brings them over to Van and climbs into her lap to eat them, her arms wrapped around his tummy to hold him steady, and Shauna sends Callie into the house to get extra napkins for everyone.
And Callie feels warm in her stomach, shiny and sunned up, the sounds of them all drifting in through the open door.