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It’s not so bad, being demoted.
Mostly because it means his mom’s in good enough condition to run the camp again. But also because it means that this summer Troy might actually get to enjoy his time instead of running around trying to fend off foreclosure. He’s pretty hype about it, actually.
Troy is busy moving all of last summer’s stuff from his mom’s office to the smaller one down the hall when Amos walks in.
“You’re still here?” Amos says, setting a box of files on the desk.
“Nah, mom’s taking her office back. I’m just moving my stuff,” says Troy.
“No, not here the office. Here the camp.”
Troy shrugs. “Yeah, man, mom made me the financial secretary slash social media manager slash vibe chief. Well, that last one’s not an official title.”
Amos looks at him strangely. “Uh-huh. I’m more surprised you came back at all, honestly.”
Shit, Troy’s surprised too. His friends back home don’t really get it. But there was just something so compelling about the camp. Seeing everyone perform that last night was more magic than he could remember. He’d even tried going to some Broadway shows back in the city, but it wasn’t the same. Always way too big, and he could never see. There was only one time he really felt that same magic, and it was—
Speak of the devil.
Glenn walks through the door. He’s been growing his hair out, and it hangs sorta loose, curling around his ears.
“Oh,” he says. “Troy. Hey.”
Troy clears his throat. “Hey. I mean, sup, dawg.”
“Huh,” Amos says, looking back and forth. “What the hell happened between you two.”
“What?” Glenn says.
“What?” Troy says.
“What?” Amos mimics. “Exactly what I mean. Okay, well. I’ll leave you to it.”
The door shuts behind Amos, leaving just the two of them, back in the same spot where they’d first met a year ago. Troy shifts from foot to foot. It’s awkward, and quiet, and Troy isn’t used to awkward and quiet at all.
Glenn’s the one who finally breaks the silence. “Um. I never did get to tell you thanks for coming to my show, by the way,” he says.
“Oh, of course, man,” Troy says, grateful that Glenn broached the topic before he had to. “You were wicked. Eh? Eh? You see what I—”
“I do see what you did there,” Glenn says.
“Heh,” Troy says. “Right. Anyways. Sorry that I just kinda dipped after. I just uh, I had this stomach thing.”
“Yeah, no worries. I get it,” Glenn says.
Troy frowns. He does wish he could have stuck around to say congrats to Glenn face to face. After all, he’d driven a full extra hour to Saratoga Springs just to see him play Elphaba. He’d already been in Albany, on the road trying to secure some donations from AdirondACTS, and figured—what the hell. Maybe he’d even vlog it. (Turns out that wasn’t allowed.)
Either way, he hadn’t told Glenn, ‘cuz he’d wanted it to be a surprise. So he didn’t say anything ’til the end of the show, when Glenn had come out for his bow to see Troy standing there, front row, clapping so hard his hands hurt.
Glenn had this shocked little look on his face, and then he’d beamed. Not at the rest of the audience. Right at Troy.
It had made Troy’s stomach suddenly start doing such huge flips that he got dizzy. He’d hightailed it right back down to Albany the second the lights had come on.
“But you really were amazing,” Troy says.
Glenn smiles real small, and drops his packet of papers on the desk. “Thanks. I’ll—it’s good to have you back here, Troy. I’ll see you around.”
Troy watches him walk out of the office and thinks the stomach thing might be back.
*
Now that Troy’s not the boss, he gets invited to the staff hang for the first time. It’s the day before student arrivals, and the last bit of peace and quiet they’ll have in a while.
“I totally knew you’d be chill to drink with,” says Janet, handing him a beer from a box marked CONFISCATED. Must be from last summer—freaking ancient. Troy pops it open anyways.
“No shit,” Troy says. “What, was I not projecting chill vibes?”
“I mean, you were the boss. I thought you might fire me.”
“You kidding?” says Troy. “I couldn’t fire you. The kids loved your stage combat class.”
Plus, Janet is the only normal one at the camp. The only other one who can’t pull a Liza Minelli impression out of her ass on the fly.
“Well, kids are known to be generous with their love,” Amos grumbles from beside them, almost inaudible over the crackling fire. Troy and Janet exchange a look.
“I think these kids have taste,” Gigi says generously.
“Of course, of course,” Amos says. “Some of them.” He tips his beer back.
“I, for one, am very excited to see Alice return after her marvelous performance in Joan, Still last year,” Clive says.
“Alice has taste,” Amos agrees. “I knew it from the moment she auditioned with one of me and Becks-Di’s old originals. Get me a box-a your finest matz-ah—” Amos starts singing. No one joins in. “C’mon. Anyone? The Passover Princess? It was only like three years ago.”
Troy looks away awkwardly, sucking air through his teeth.
“I meaaan,” Janet says. “I wasn’t here.”
“Come on,” Amos says.
Gigi coughs.
“Sweetheart…” Clive says.
“Ugh. No one here has any taste,” Amos says, and stomps off.
“Why’s Amos being such a bitch today?” Troy mutters.
“He’s just depressed because Rebecca-Diane isn’t here,” Janet says.
“Damn, word.” Troy would probably be kinda bummed too if Glenn had decided to stay in Saratoga Springs for the summer. “Well, who’s gonna help write the musical this year, then?”
“Iunno,” says Janet.
“That is a very good question,” says Clive.
“Don’t look at me,” says Gigi.
Glenn swallows. “Um.”
Troy lights up. “Oh, shit, that’s perfect!”
Glenn glances uncomfortably over to Janet, like she might save him. She shrugs, and Troy takes that as his cue to continue. “You’ve taken over Rebecca-Diane’s music class, it makes total sense. Don’t tell me you’re still, like, shy or something. You know you can do it.”
Glenn flushes. “It’s not about—It’s just a lot of work, and I’m still doing tech—”
“I can take over tech for you.”
“No,” Glenn says. “I mean, I don’t know.”
“Come on! It’s like, I got my ring light. I got my GoPro. I know angles and lighting and shit.”
“It’s not just that. There’s sound, there’s—”
“Dude, I was a DJ for like six months, I think I know sound.”
“—props—”
“If Janet can learn to teach stage combat I can learn to make props.”
“I—I guess.”
“You leave it to me, and you can focus on the stage, bro. ‘Swhere you belong. I know you’re gonna crush it.”
Glenn still looks uncertain, but when Troy says that he tips his head down and smiles, all shy and soft, looking like Kirsten Dunst in Dakota’s cousin’s VHS of Spider-Man, and it evokes the same response in Troy now as MJ did when he was thirteen: he pops a major, embarrassing boner right then and there.
Aw fuck, man.
Troy thought it had to be a fluke at least year’s show, and a fluke in Saratoga Springs, ‘cuz both of those times, Glenn was dressed like a girl. But Troy has never been the kind of guy who doubts what his dick is telling him, and right now it’s confirming the worst—that he’s a little gay for Glenn.
Which is a real problem, ‘cuz Troy’s never done butt stuff, has never even used lube except one time with a strawberry flavored one that his girlfriend had called “so nasty it made me want to give up blowjobs forever,” and has never even watched a single episode of America’s Next Top Model.
He doesn’t realize it’s been dead quiet ’til Janet clears her throat.
“Is it just me, or am I, like, getting vibes from you guys?” she says.
“That’s what I said,” Amos says, returning to the fire with a fresh case of confiscated beers. “Okay, at least you all remember the main number for Blackmail and Botox, right? That was our best work. Please tell me at least one of you remembers.”
*
“Yeah, the kids are pretty dope, actually,” Troy tells Glenn at lunch a few days later, after his first tech class. He’s put butt stuff and America’s Next Top Model out of his mind for now, ‘cuz he’s got bigger stuff to worry about. Bigger stuff like the huge freaking lights he’s still figuring out how to use. “That girl Lainy’s been showing me the ropes with the spotlights. It’s actually not that different from lighting a vlog, just like, quadruple the size. How’s the music class?”
“Oh, they’re great. They’re a lot more, um, energetic than the kids I would teach in tech, but they’re great.”
“And writing? Is Amos being a bitch to you too?”
“No, he—he’s okay.”
“You’re gonna crush it,” Troy says decisively, and pretends not to notice Glenn hide his smile in a bite of salad.
The kids are dope, but they’re also freaky little detectives who are way too perceptive for their own good.
“I wish Glenn was here,” Samantha says loudly when Troy accidentally trips over a cable and shuts off the lighting and sound on half the stage.
“Yeah, well, me too,” Troy says, pulling on a wire that he’s somehow gotten tangled with three others.
“Should I call him?” says Lainy.
“No!” Troy says. “Uh, I mean, nah. I don’t wanna bother him.”
“Hmmmmm,” Samantha says. “I see.”
“You don’t see anything,” Troy says.
“Of course we don’t see anything. The lights are off,” Gavin says.
At least it distracts them from the Glenn thing. God, Troy doesn’t even need to say anything weird for them to get weird about it!
“Hey,” Troy says one day, leaning against the doorway of Glenn’s classroom. “Can I borrow a pen?”
“Ooooooh,” say all the kids, raising their eyebrows and pursing their lips, like Troy’s innocent request was anything but.
“Wow, guys, that was a really good note. Try that again,” Glenn says.
“Oooooooh.”
“Okay, now keep doing that, but the right side of the room goes up an octave and the left goes down, then you switch, and move up or down another octave. Ready? Go.”
“Ooooooooh,” go the kids, in perfect harmony.
“Man, you’re so good with them,” Troy whispers.
“You’ve just gotta distract them,” whispers Glenn. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
“I hope so,” Troy says, and then smiles at him because he doesn’t know what else to say.
Glenn quickly looks away. “Um, so—you just needed a pen?”
Troy’s got like a billion pens, actually, which makes it so much more annoying that the kids picked up on it. See? Freaky little detectives.
“Actually, I wanted to ask if you’d be down to come teach a guest lesson,” he says nervously. Glenn’s gotta be super busy and Troy really doesn’t wanna put more on his plate, but he needs to buy himself a little more time.
For now, Troy’s got the kids painting props for this year’s musical— a near future techno-dystopia West Side Story retelling—but don’t tell Amos I said it like that, because he insists that it’s totally unique, according to Glenn—‘cuz it’s easy to fill the class with while he furiously reads through books on everything from cable management to color filters. This tech stuff is a lot harder than he’d thought. It’s for sure way harder than learning to DJ, which, to be real, was mostly just him screwing around on his laptop. But eventually he’s gonna run out of projects to give the kids.
And, admittedly, it’d be nice to have Glenn around the class for a bit.
“Oh!” Glenn says. “Sure.”
“Really?” Troy says. That was easier than he thought.
Glenn nods. “Happy to help.”
“Dope. I mean, uh—thanks, man. I owe you one.” After a beat he punches Glenn awkwardly on the shoulder.
The kids’ rhythmic ooohing stops abruptly. Troy steels himself, but Glenn’s already got them completely under control, turning around and clapping his hands. “Alright! Back to it, everyone. Let’s try some projection exercises now.”
*
“Kotes, you don’t get it,” Troy moans into his phone later that night. “It’s just, like, mesh doesn’t even look good on me, bro. And I don’t even like brunch. And—wait, do gay people still like Lady Gaga, or have they moved on? And—”
He’s interrupted by a knock at the door. “Ugh, I’ll call you back,” Troy tells Dakota. Even though he’s supposed to be the financial secretary slash social media manager slash vibe chief, everyone still ends up coming to him for dumb stuff they don’t want to bother his mom about, like if a kid threw up or is crying ‘cuz they didn’t get the part they wanted.
“Come in,” he calls.
“Hey,” Glenn says, soft and quiet, and Troy bolts upright in bed. “Sorry to… sorry. It’s just that me and Janet were supposed to do tonight’s bedtime performance together, but, um, she got super high hotboxing her car and I kind of needed a second person, and you said you owed me one, but I—”
“Yeah! Yeah, no. Totally, I can help,” Troy says, tumbling out of bed and pulling on a pair of jeans. Glenn stands awkwardly in the doorway. “Uh, just gimme one sec.”
“Right, right. Sorry again.” Glenn steps outside.
Troy smooths his hair down in the mirror. He never did one of these performances last year, and since he wasn’t supposed to be a teacher he wasn’t gonna this year, either. But the kids talk about them so reverentially. There must be something magic about them.
Plus, he might get to see Glenn sing again, which would be magic by itself. He puts on a hat, then pulls it off, then puts it on again.
“So what’s the plan?” Troy asks, finally coming out to meet him. He went with no hat.
“It’s just a little musical number” —yes!— “and Janet was gonna be my partner so I made the part pretty small—you don’t need to do much. I’m just gonna need you to read about three lines. And to catch me when I fall.”
“Oh, dope, I can do that,” Troy says. “I can absolutely do that.”
*
The moment they walk into the cabin, Glenn’s al business. He says nothing, just rings a bell, loudly, and all the kids are suddenly sitting at attention. Then he falls to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut.
That’s Troy’s cue. He presses play on the track Glenn’s got loaded up on his phone—If_I_Were_A_Bell_-_Guys_And_Dolls_Instrumental.mp4—and he picks Glenn up by the armpits, hauling him to his feet.
“You, uh... you still dizzy?” He asks. That’s line one of three. They’d watched the number on YouTube beforehand, and Glenn was right. Troy doesn’t have a ton of lines. He’s glad about that for a lot of reasons. One, ‘cuz he’s never been good at memorization, and with only ten minutes to go there was no way he’d learn more than three lines. Two, his voice isn’t all that, and it’s good Glenn gets all the singing lines.
And three, ‘cuz Troy forgets pretty much everything in his brain the moment Glenn starts cozying up to him, throwing his arms around Troy’s shoulders and collapsing against him like he’s drunk. “Ask me how do I feel—Ask me now that we’re cozy and cli—nging,” he sings dreamily, and Troy’s heart just about stops.
Then Glenn pushes him away. “Well, sir! All I can say is if I were a bell I’d be ring—ing.” He jumps up onto a kid’s trunk as he sings, hanging from the wooden pole of a bunk bed.
“If I were a gate I’d be swing—ing,” Glenn sings, toes on the edge of a dresser, and then suddenly he wobbles and falls. All the kids scream as Troy reaches out to catch him. Glenn smiles up at him warmly for a single beat, then, just as quick as he’d fallen, he tumbles dramatically out of Troy’s arms and keeps singing, the kids shrieking along in delight.
Troy knew what to expect, watching that lady from that 1950’s movie, but watching Glenn is something else entirely. It’s a total 180. On stage—even if that stage is the floor of a cabin—he’s completely transformed.
“Ask me how do I feel from this chemistry lesson I’m learning,” Glenn sings, leaning down and grabs the collar of Troy’s shirt, and it’s not like Troy doesn’t know it’s an act, but he’s getting up real close to Troy’s face, and Troy’s blush is real.
“Ch—chemistry?” Troy asks.
“Yeah, chemistry!” Glenn leaps up again, hopping from dresser to dresser, bed to bed. Troy’s helpless to do anything but smile after him, trailing him like a dog in case he needs to be caught again. Which he does, right at the end.
“If I were a bell, I’d go ding—dong—ding—dong—ding—!” Glenn sings, standing on a trunk and facing the kids with his arms out. After his last note, he falls backwards without even looking, right into Troy’s arms. This time he stays there, panting hard, beaming up at him. The kids clap and scream and Glenn’s smile only grows wider and wider.
Oh my god, Troy is mad deep in this shit.
It feels like the moment lasts forever before Glenn finally rises to his feet, completely steady all of a sudden. Back to regular Glenn, like he wasn’t just a drunk lady singing his heart out a second ago.“Right. Lights out, everyone. And, um, Amos requests I tell you that if you have any singing roles coming up and you must have late-night conversations, please refrain from whispering as it can damage your vocal cords. Just speak quietly. There is a difference. His words, not mine. Um, thank you.”
Troy turns to the kids. They’re still looking at Glenn with expressions of awe—and yo, Troy bets his face looks just like theirs. “You heard him, gang,” he says. “Lights out.”
*
“Man, Janet missed out,” Troy says, once they’ve made their rounds. The heat of the day has broken and deposited a healthy coating of dew on the grass. They leave little wet footprints as they walk back to the staff housing, slow and meandering. It’s just them and the crickets. “Though I dunno if she could’ve caught you that much.”
“When I rehearsed it with her I did a lot less falling. But it’s better with the falling,” Glenn admits. “More dramatic that way.”
“Totally,” Troy says, flexing his muscles a bit. Glenn basically just said he thinks Troy is strong, right? “The kids loved it.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard them scream that much,” Glenn agrees. Scream, clap, all of it. And some wolf whistles, even. Mostly from the same kids always giving Troy looks every time he so much as mentions Glenn, or, god forbid, goes to ask for a pen.
“The kids are gonna talk,” Troy blurts out, because he’s freakin’ stupid like that.
Glenn doesn’t seem to find him stupid for it. He just shrugs. “They always talk. Two summers ago Rebecca-Diane got the stomach flu so I ate lunch with Amos for one single day and for the rest of camp kids kept asking if we were kissing.”
Well, now that Troy’s thinking about kissing and Glenn, he really wants to kiss Glenn.
“Could’ve been worse,” Glenn continues, muttering quietly. “I almost went with People Will Say We’re In Love.”
“What?” Troy startles out of his reverie.
“Oh.” Glenn flushes. “I was just—it’s—it’s a song. From Oklahoma!”
“Right. The… state.”
“The musical.”
“Oh,” Troy says, feeling stupid.
Glenn’s quiet for a moment. Then he laughs, bright and high, and Troy super really wants to kiss him.
But he’s got to learn how to do this right. Needs to know musicals and stuff. Needs to be a part of his world. Hey, The Little Mermaid. That’s a musical, right? He knows that one. That’s a start.
“Well, either way,” Troy says. “You lowkey crushed it.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Glenn says.
“Bullshit. You did Elphaba all by yourself, and you lowkey—nah, you highkey crushed that, too.”
“Well,” Glenn says quietly. “Thanks. I appreciate it. And— I don’t think I expressed enough how much I appreciated that you came to my show. It meant a lot to me when you told me last summer that—to stop letting people underestimate me. I don’t think I would have even auditioned if it wasn’t for that.”
By the time Glenn’s done speaking, they’ve finished making their way across the field to the staff cabins, and are lingering outside Glenn’s door.
“Dude, come on. You’re, like, one of the most talented people I know,” Troy says fervently, and not just because he doesn’t want to stop talking. He really means it. “I’m just glad everyone got to see that in Saratoga Springs, too.”
Glenn looks at him, eyes wide and soft. “I—that’s really—um. Well, I hope your—stomach thing cleared up.”
“Oh,” Troy says. “Right. That. Yeah. It’s, uh. It’s fine.” It’s totally not. It’s acting up right now, in fact. But by this point Troy is pretty sure that the stomach thing has been nerves all along, instead of indigestion like he originally thought. Troy awkwardly casts his eyes around for something to change the subject to.
He doesn’t know how he missed it before, but hanging on Glenn’s door is this huge sign made of papier-mâché, GLENN in big hand-painted letters across it. It’s shaped like a spotlight, pointing at a little green figure.
“Oh shit,” Troy says, stepping over for a closer look. “It’s you as Elphaba! The kids made this for you?”
Glenn comes up beside him. “Yeah. Actually, they made this way before I was even cast. It’s tradition to make these signs after a staff member’s first summer. I guess—well, it was copper plating originally, but it turned green over time.”
“Woah. Kind of like a prophecy.”
“That’s the rumor,” Glenn says. “That the staff signs predict the future. The kids made Gigi’s fashion-related back when he was just a counselor, and then he ended up teaching the costume class. But… I don’t know. Rebecca-Diane’s was a fire because she became a counselor the summer she dyed her hair red, but she was never really that involved with the camp bonfires, and none of the pyrotechnic accidents were ever her fault, so it’s probably just a coincidence.”
“Huh,” Troy says, turning back to Glenn. “Dope.”
“Yeah. It’s pretty cool.” Glenn smiles. “They’ll probably make you one this year.”
“Aw, I mean—yeah, that’d be sick, but they don’t need to do all that—I mean, I just stepped in last-minute—”
“And I really appreciate that too, by the way,” Glenn says softly. “Getting to direct the musical has been—it’s been great.”
“You deserve it,” Troy says. He looks down at Glenn and Glenn looks up at him and Troy feels for a long moment that they’re both holding their breath, waiting for something. This is exactly the point of the night where, if Glenn were a chick, Troy would send it and lean in to kiss her goodnight. And Glenn looks so kissable, face invitingly flushed in the yellow light of the cabin’s lone outdoor lamp.
But he really, really needs to learn how to do this right. He’s not gonna screw this up. He’s gonna learn everything there is to learn about musicals and about butt stuff and being gay. He’s gonna do it for Glenn.
“Right. Uh,” says Troy, stepping back, and the spell is broken. “Seeya at lunch tomorrow?”
Glenn lets out a breath. “Yeah, yeah, of course,” he says. “See you then.”
*
Turns out that even though, like, everyone who works at the camp is gay, asking for advice on “how to be gay” isn’t all that helpful.
“Take one thing off before you leave the house,” Clive says. “Every self-respecting homosexual strives to keep it classy.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about? I don’t have time for this. I have, like, six different numbers to run through—Jessica, please take it from the top, thank you.” Amos says.
“Always,” Gigi says, lifting one perfectly manicured finger in the air, “use an enema.”
“I kinda feel like you’re asking the wrong kind of gay person here,” Janet says.
“There’s no right way to be gay or straight,” Lainy says. “It’s all about the individual person.“
Troy sits cross-legged on the floor in front of her. Finally, some real wisdom. “Word, I feel that. But, like, there’s not some stuff you need to know if you’re gonna be gay? Like, you don’t need to watch Rent? You don’t need to know what a twunk is?”
Other kids from class are filing in and sitting in front of Lainy, too. “How do you not know what a twunk is?” Christopher says. “Even I know what a twunk is, and I’m ten.”
“That’s not the point,” Lainy says.
“He should know what a twunk is,” Gavin says.
“The point is that anyone can be gay even if they don’t,” Lainy says.
“What’s everyone talking about?” Glenn says from the doorway.
“Oh, shit,” Troy says, jumping to his feet. “I forgot you were coming today. We were just, uh. Tech huddle.”
“Okay,” Glenn says slowly. “I’m just gonna go get set up over there.”
“Cool, cool, cool,” Troy says, and then—“Not a word,” he tells the kids, making a zipping motion with his hand over his mouth. They all nod and copy the motion.
“Now lock ‘em.” They do. Troy holds his hand out. “Gimme.” Without making a peep, they drop their imaginary keys in his hand.
Troy’s all satisfied with himself, until halfway through Glenn’s rigging lesson, when he breaks for questions and is met with total silence.
“Really?” Glenn says, sounding a little put out, hanging there in his harness. “Nothing?”
“Oh, shit,” Troy says. “My bad. Guys, you can talk now.”
Still silence.
“What did you do to them?” Glenn asks accusingly.
“I, uh, made them zip their mouths and lock them shut.”
“Well—unzip them,” Glenn says.
The kids shrug their shoulders. One of them makes a locking motion.
Right. These might be technical theater kids, but they’re still theater kids. Troy gets it. “Alright, alright,” he says, pretending to fish around in his pockets for the keys. “Come get ‘em.”
One by one, the kids come up and retrieve their keys, each with their own little flair. Gavin pretends like he’s having trouble getting it into the keyhole, and Samantha gasps dramatically like she’s taking her first breath of air once she unzips her mouth. Man. They’re so freaking creative, all of them. Troy can’t help but smile.
“Wait, wait,” Troy says, when Christopher tries to leave with a “key” in his hand. “That one’s Lainy’s. You got them mixed up, bro.”
“Mmmph,” Christopher says.
“Mmph!” Lainy says.
“Shit,” Troy says, patting his pockets. “I guess I lost Christopher’s key. You guys gotta help me find it.”
Glenn’s still hanging in midair. Sorry, Troy mouths at him, but Glenn doesn’t seem too upset, watching the kids run around searching for Christopher’s key with a fond look on his face. After two or three minutes of looking high and low, the campers decide they find it inside Lainy’s mouth, and finally all the kids are zipper-free. When Troy looks back up at Glenn, that fond smile is trained right at Troy, his eyes soft and warm.
Troy’s stomach backflips. He clears his throat and quickly turns back to the class. “Okay, lil dudes. Glenn asked if you had any questions.”
Every hand in the room shoots up.
*
“So we got sixteen new followers on the ‘gram,” Troy says, even though fourteen are friends he begged for a follow. At his mom’s unamused look, Troy folds. “Alright, alright, so I’ve kinda been slacking on the whole social media thing lately. In my defense—”
Mom waves him off. “Oh, it’s okay, I know you’re busy with tech. I’ve actually got a new guy on that. We started a different account and it’s got six thousand followers.”
“Six K? Sheeesh,” Troy says. “Wait. You replaced me?”
“No, no. I just gave you an intern.” Mom points out her window into the office down the hall—the one that was supposed to be Troy’s, but that he hasn’t stepped foot in since the first week.
Troy follows her finger.
“Alan?!”
It’s that little kid from last summer, sitting at his desk on the phone, engrossed in a call.
“He’s a very astute businessman. But that’s not why I called you in here. I called you in here,” Mom says, leaning forward, steepling her fingers in that way that always makes Troy sweat ‘cuz she always did it when he was in trouble as a kid, “to explain to me why all the kids are asking me what’s going on with you and my music teacher.”
“Uhhh,” Troy says.
She leans back. “I’ll rephrase. Are you screwing or not?”
“Mom,” Troy groans.
“I never did understand how I could have made a son as heterosexual as you,” Mom sighs. “I thought not having a father figure was supposed to do you good.”
“Mo—om.”
“I mean, for God’s sake, I had you listening to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Can you imagine how surprised I was when you picked up football?”
“Mom! Jeez, mom. Nothing. Nothing is happening.” Yet, his brain unhelpfully chimes in.
She looks at him with her laser narrowed eyes. Troy still feels like he’s in trouble somehow. But finally she spins around in her chair. “Ah, well, I suppose Andrew Lloyd Weber was straight. I should have played more Sondheim for you instead.”
*
Troy was dreading potentially running into Caroline at the Lakewood mixer, but it seems like Barnswell’s moved onto other ventures. Last he heard, they were developing hybrid nightclub-slash-coffee-shops in Bushwick. Whatever. Troy’s enTroypreneurship thing might not be doing that hot, but even he knows that’s a dumb idea.
At least it means the mixer is Barnswell free. Just the kids and the counselors. Amos has even FaceTimed Rebecca-Diane in.
“And how are your performances going?” Amos asks.
Rebecca-Diane’s voice comes through the speaker. “Oh, they are a-ma-zing. And I’ve been able to channel some of the interest in my performances into interest in my seances.”
“You do those on the ship? Are candles even allowed?”
“It’s fine, Amos, we’re like, literally surrounded by water.”
“I guess,” Amos says dubiously.
“Okay, don’t be like that,” Rebecca-Diane says. “Come on, show me around. I thought I saw Mackenzie, was that Mackenzie? Let me say hi to her. I want to ask if she’s managed to commune with her past life yet.”
Amos walks away, leaving a gap between him and Glenn. Troy shuffles a little closer to fill it. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Glenn smile.
“You’ll add more fuel to their fire,” Glenn says. He’s right. Troy can already see some of the kids whispering.
“Like you said, they’re gonna talk anyways.” Troy shrugs. “We just need more excitement. Something to distract them. Maybe we should get a crew together to TP Lakeside while they’re all here.”
Glenn laughs. “We can think of a better distraction. I heard the kids loved your DJ set last year.”
“Really? Who said that?”
“The kids,” Glenn says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “They’ve all been talking about it.”
“Really?” Troy says again.
“Are you saying you weren’t planning to do it this year?” Glenn asks.
You are not one of us, Amos told him last time he was here. It still stings, lowkey. Troy frowns. “I mean I. I didn’t prepare a set or anything.”
“You didn’t need to,” Glenn says. “There’s a soundboard. You said you can DJ, right?”
“I mean,” Troy says.
“C’mon,” Glenn says, gently knocking his shoulder against Troy’s.
“Come on what?” A kid asks, coming up behind him.
“He should do a DJ set,” Glenn says.
“Oh, yeah, come on!” another kid who’s overheard says.
“Please!”
“Give my regards to Broadway,” someone belts.
“Come on come on come on,” they chant.
Troy looks between Glenn and the campers, sighing. “Damn, y’all little fuckers are persistent.”
“Troy!” his mom calls from across the room. “Language.”
“Alright, alright,” Troy says. Glenn nods encouragingly as Troy walks over to the DJ booth, which in reality is just the laptop, which he used last year, and a soundboard, which he didn’t even touch ‘cuz none of the controls made sense to him back then. As he takes a closer look, he realizes the controls do make some sense to him now. He’s picked up some tricks for fading sounds in and out, mixing, balancing—all the stuff he taught himself during late nights or early mornings before classes so that he’d have something to teach the kids.
And he’s picked up more than just how to mix. He’s picked up what kinds of songs these kids would like, too. He knows all of Wicked, for one. At least all of Elphaba’s songs. He knows that song Glenn performed to the kids. And he went ahead and listened to that song from Oklahoma! Glenn mentioned, too. It’s no Post Malone, but it’s pretty dece. Troy rubs his hands together. He can do this.
When the first swell of music starts, the entire mixer falls quiet. Troy looks up, nervous. The Lakewood kids are standing around with their arms crossed. What fucking ever, ‘cuz the AdirondACTS kids are quiet with eager anticipation. Troy fiddles with the soundboard, more confident now. Those are the kids he’s doing it for.
“Oklahoma!” he hears a kid shout, excited. Hell yeah. He really can do this.
People will say we’re in l-l-l-l-llllllllllllllllove. Troy drops the beat. Lovelovelllllllove.
The AdirondACTS kids erupt into cheers and start dancing. “Troy! Go off!” Christopher yells.
“F—hell yeah,” Troy calls. His mom gives him a thumbs up from the corner. “Oh, whaaaat? Do that spin again. That’s fire, lil man.”
He fades it into Defying Gravity next, and that one gets a lot of screams. He even gets some of the little Lakeside kiddos boppin’. When he adds a trap beat to Phantom of the Opera, he can’t stop himself from dancing, too. A few of the kids from his tech class beckon him to the dance floor, and fuck it, Troy goes and dances with them. Gavin can do a mean pirouette, though he does have to stop Samantha from trying to twerk before his mom sees.
When he’s finally done with the set and returns to the spot in the corner where the chaperones are gathered, he feels like a million bucks. “So? Whaddya think?” he asks.
“I liked the Phantom remix,” Gigi says.
“That was pretty fun,” Amos admits.
Troy grins. “Guys, call me crazy, but I think I might’ve just invented a whole new genre. Showstep. Kinda like trapstep, but it’s show tunes plus dubstep. You feel me?”
“Mmmm, you lost me there,” Amos says.
“Maybe with a less shitty name,” Janet says.
“Glenn.” Troy turns. “You feel me, right?”
“Um,” Glenn says.
“Oh,” Troy says.
“But,” Glenn says, “I do think you—lowkey crushed that.”
Whatever he was going to say melts away in the glow of Glenn’s approval. Troy smiles so hard his cheeks hurt.
Out of the blue, he remembers what Lainy said the other day. It’s not about knowing how to be gay. It’s about the individual. Maybe Troy can be a gay guy who’s into showstep instead of Drag Race. Well, he’s not gay. Bi, or whatever. And he’s not gay or bi or anything yet. That all depends on if Glenn’s down to be gay with him, which he’s still not totally sure about. But from the way Glenn is smiling back at him, he really, really hopes he’s down.
“Wait,” comes a voice from Amos’ phone. Troy had forgotten about Rebecca-Diane. “Did I miss something between you two?”
*
Troy doesn’t get a chance to put Lainy’s advice into practice, because right after the mixer is tech week.
Fucking tech week.
Saying “Go for Troy” into the walkie-talkie feels pretty badass until the fiftieth time he has to do it.
Glenn sends him sympathetic looks in the brief moments their paths cross, Glenn in between rehearsals and Troy in between errands, procuring Astro Turf and unjamming fog machines and spray painting cardboard boxes. He’s just about dead on his feet, running around and putting out fires. Literal fires, twice.
But as hellish as tech week is, nothing compares to performance day. His mom is the position he was last year—fielding all the parents’ complaints and questions at the same time as she’s trying to woo them back into signing their kids up for another year. Troy doesn’t exactly envy her. This year, the parents only have nice things to say to him.
“Thank you for your hard work. I am so excited to see my baby up on stage.”
“You can’t imagine how excited I am for the play.”
“I’m so excited!”
“So excited!”
So excited.
Troy isn’t excited.
Troy is terrified.
Man, he wishes he was in his mom’s spot. At least last year he didn’t have to worry about the play itself. He got to kick back and watch. Now, it’s like—is he fifty billion percent sure that the lights are working correctly? The sound? He double and triple and quadruple checks the harnesses, WD-40’s the squeaky trap door hinge one last time, tweaks the angle of every prop on stage.
It’s the final frantic twenty minutes til showtime. The last performance outside is just finishing up—Clive’s class has been working on an interpretive, interactive dance where they commune with the trees— so the only people in the theater are the kids in Amos and Glenn’s play. And Amos, of course. And—
“Glenn,” Troy says, spotting him in the rush of bodies, grabbing him by the arm. “Please, dude, you gotta help me.”
“Troy?” Glenn asks. “What do you need?”
“Uhh,” Troy says. “Everything?”
Glenn frowns. “Troy…”
Troy pulls him into the tech booth and shuts the door, feeling about three seconds away from breaking down. “I—I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Oh,” Glenn says, confusion melting away. “Look, I get it. It’s normal to be nervous. I just think of the kids. They’re counting on us. On you.”
“That’s exactly it,” Troy says miserably. “If I screw up a DJ set then I look like a dumbass, and it’s whatever. If I put out a bad vlog, then my channel flops. But if I fumble my cue then, what, I ruin Jessica’s big solo? That can’t happen, dawg. All these kids—all the hard work they’ve been putting in—I can’t disappoint them.”
“You won’t,” Glenn insists, more fiercely than Troy expected. “You’ve been working really hard for these kids all summer. I see that. We all see that. Not just teaching them, but learning, too. Plus, I’ve watched you run yourself ragged practicing this. You can do this. You could do it in your sleep.”
“Fuck. I know, I just…” Troy trails off, collapsing onto the table with his head in his hands.
Glenn is quiet for a moment. Then he lays his clipboard across the labels of the control panel with a snap so loud that it makes Troy lift his head.
“Okay,” Glenn says decisively, pointing to a switch. “What’s this do?”
“What?” Troy says.
“What does this switch do?”
“Uh,” Troy says. “That’s the—dimmer for the back of the stage.”
“Right,” Glenn says. “And this one?” He points to a button.
“Curtains.”
“This one?”
“House lights,” Troy answers, and then, as Glenn keeps pointing, “music channel fader. Blackout button. Fog machine.”
“Right, right, right,” Glenn says. “This one?”
“Uh. Backing vocals, I think. Right? Fuck. No, wait…”
“Flip it and see.”
Troy flips it.
“Backing vocals,” Glenn says, pulling the mic at the collar of his shirt right up to his mouth, and if Troy listens close he can hear it echo through the theater. Glenn lets the mic drop. “You knew that.”
“I guess I did,” Troy says.
“You can do this,” Glenn repeats, sounding so, so certain of Troy. It makes his heart swell.
“I,” Troy starts. “I can…”
Glenn takes a step closer. The tech booth isn’t that big. Like this, he’s practically nose to nose with Troy, and Troy’s already rapidly-beating heart skips a beat.
“Like you told me last year,” Glenn says, grabbing Troy by his hands, gentle and warm and firm all at once. “Finish the job.”
And suddenly, Troy can’t keep the words from rushing out.
“I don’t know who RuPaul is,” he blurts out. “And I’m sorry, dude, but I am never gonna finish Cats. Jason Derulo freaked me the hell out. And I know what a twunk is now, but I can’t keep any of the animals straight, like, would I be an otter? Or a cub? And—”
Glenn cuts him off with a laugh. “What?”
“Aw, shit.” Troy pulls a hand away to wipe it down his face. “I’m fumbling this, huh?”
“What—is this?”
“This is.” Troy takes a deep breath. “I just—look, before this summer, I didn’t know anything about tech. But you’re right. I tried real hard and I learned so much shit and—maybe I can do this. And I don’t know anything about being gay, either, but I’m trying real hard, and I’m learning so much shit, and maybe I can do this, too. So I guess what I’m tryna say is—can I, like, take you out on a date sometime?”
“Um.” Glenn blinks at him. “I thought you were straight.”
“Shit, me too, bro. I mean—not bro. God, I told you I was fumbling.”
“You’re not fumbling.”
“Bro? I don’t know any gay dudes that say bro.”
“You don’t need to be like other gay dudes,” Glenn says. There’s a little smile starting to creep across his face.
“That’s what Lainy said,” Troy mumbles. “It’s about the individual.”
“Lainy’s smart,” Glenn agrees, smile growing bigger. “You don’t need to watch Cats or know who RuPaul is. I like you like this.”
Troy pauses. “You like me?”
“Oh,” Glenn says, ears reddening. “Um. Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Bet, bet.” Troy says. “So is that a yes to the date, or.”
“I—guess it is.”
“Cool.” Troy is trying to play it cool so hard, but he just can’t stop himself from grinning like an idiot. He feels like his smile might split his face in two. “One last question. Can I kiss you?”
Glenn’s whole face goes red to match his ears.
“For good luck,” Troy says, aware he’s running his mouth. “And also ‘cuz I’ve really wanted to, like, all summer, and—”
Glenn leans in, cutting him off with a quick peck to his lips. It’s light and fleeting and perfect in its own way. But hell if Troy’s gonna let his first gay kiss happen that quick. Not after he’s waited so long for it. He grabs Glenn by his waist and pulls him in close. Glenn makes a muffled squeak, clipboard clattering to the ground.
Then he lets his mouth fall open and kisses back.
Fuck, Glenn is just as kissable as Troy thought. He should have done this ages ago. He should have kissed Glenn right there at the dance in front of everyone. Right there, standing outside his cabin after the bedtime performance. Right there at the staff hang that first day. After his Wicked performance. After his Joan, Still performance.
Troy should have been kissing Glenn this whole time. Troy should have been running his tongue across Glenn’s soft, warm lips, basking in the quiet sighing noises he makes when Troy runs his hand down his back, feeling the barest hint of stubble scratch across his chin, hearing the sounds of cheering coming from somewhere behind them—
“Oh, oh my god,” Glenn says, flailing backwards. “It’s starting. Is it—is it starting?”
“No!” someone yells.
They both pause.
“We heard that!” another kid yells.
“Oh my god,” Glenn whispers, eyes dropping to somewhere behind Troy. Troy follows his gaze to the sound board with dawning horror.
Glenn’s mic is still on.
Above the soundboard and through the glass that overlooks the stage, all the kids from the play are waving frantically, hooting and hollering, with Amos trying in vain to corral them back into their positions.
“Oh my god,” Troy repeats, and then hears it echo throughout the theater: Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.
*
“I knew it,” Mom says.
“Mom.”
“I knew there was no way I produced a heterosexual son.” She sounds just as proud as all the other parents scattered around the campgrounds, hugging their kids and telling them what a great job they did. Troy puts his head in his hands, massively embarrassed, as his mom hugs him, too.
She’s not even the first person to I knew it him. That honor went first to all the kids in the theater, and second to Amos.
Troy’s still hiding his burning face when he feels another, smaller pair of arms hug him around his legs. He peeks out from his hands to find a couple of the kids from his class have joined the hug.
“I’m gonna miss you,” Christopher says.
“We’re gonna miss you,” Samantha says, sniffling.
Troy pats them on the head. “Don’t worry, fam. You’ll be here next summer, right? I’ll see you then.”
“Really? You’re coming back?”
“‘Course. I didn’t go learn all that tech stuff for f—reakin’ nothing,” he says. Mom nods approvingly from over his shoulder, then turns to talk to some other parents.
“That’s perfect,” Christopher says, pulling away. “Because we’ve got a surprise for you. Everyone,” he calls.
Lainy and Gavin and the rest of his class are already on their way, holding something hidden under a sheet. When they get closer, Gavin pulls the sheet off dramatically to reveal a huge papier-mâché TROY sign.
“For your cabin next year,” Samantha says proudly.
“Forreal? Oh my god, thank you guys, that’s… I don’t even… I mean… what is it?” Troy tilts his head. His name is painted on the side of a big cylinder, entering a—some kind of a hole. It looks a bit, uh…
“It’s a round peg in a round hole,” Lainy says.
“You know, like from Camp Isn’t Home last year. Camp is—”
“Where square pegs find their holes and outcasts find their dreams,” a couple of kids sing.
Christopher nods. “You’re a round peg ‘cuz you’re a normal guy,” he says. “But you still fit in here.”
“Guys,” Troy says, touched. “You’re gonna make me cry. C’mere, bring it in, group hug.”
Glenn finds him like that, just as he’s finishing up the last of his tearful goodbyes.
“Man,” Troy says, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “I’m really gonna miss those little freaks.”
“You’ll see them next year,” he says. His eyes drop to the sign, and he smiles. “I told you they’d make you a sign. It’s a, um…”
“A round peg in a round hole,” Troy says. “To show that I fit in.”
“Oh, that’s really sweet.” Glenn tilts his head. “But don’t you think it kind of looks like…?”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Troy says.
“And coming out of the hole, is that—”
“It’s just the hot glue,” Troy says. “I think.”
“Hmm,” Glenn says, head still tilted. “I wonder if it’s true that these things predict the future.”
“What?” Troy says. It takes him a second. “Oh. Oh.” He blushes, hard.
Glenn laughs.
*
He and Glenn hang the sign on his door that very night, after sneaking away from the closing staff bonfire early.
Turns out those things do predict the future, after all.
*