They hadn’t said anything after I’d been discharged, just poured coffee down my throat and escorted me to the first of many sessions with a grief counselor and therapist who specialized in post-traumatic stress disorder. For several weeks, one or the other was with me at all times until they were sure I wasn’t a danger to myself anymore.
We’d never talked about it much, but Hicks and Sonny were with me every step of the way through my recovery, which made me even more angry that not one, but two assholes were now causing them grief. First, Bill had taken advantage of them, then this asshole Cameron couldn’t be bothered to show up. Fucker hadn’t even called.
Cameron was supposed to be here hours ago to celebrate the grand opening of their new bookstore, Twin Peeks. They had done a great job with the marketing, and the crowds had been massive… at first. Then the news had spread like wildfire that the star had failed to show. Now, only a few die-hard fans lingered outside in the heat, and even they didn’t look like they’d last much longer.
Sonny let go of me, reaching over to the counter and grabbing a paper towel. He brushed it across his face then casually blew his nose, trying to work the last of the tears out of his eyes.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I feel happy!” he replied in a horrible British accent as he quotedMonty Python.
“Yer’ not foolin’ anyone, y’know,” I said in the same awful accent, waggling my eyebrows at him.
Sonny grinned back at me.
“We’re not dead yet!” he replied. We both laughed then.
“God,” I laughed, “You’re right, though. We aren’t dead yet. If we can figure out what happened to Cameron and get him here for the signing tomorrow, we might still be able to salvage this fiasco.”
“That’s a big if,” he said, his troubled eyes looking up at me.
From where I stood, I could just barely spy Hicks through the partially open break room door in the back of the store. I wasn’t sure what was going on with him at the moment, but he had his cell phone pressed tightly against one ear, and his finger in the other. The whirr of the box fans made it hard to hear just about anything in the store.
Watching the twins suffer, I felt guilty for the mental bitching I’d been doing about being here. Our moms had guilt tripped me into showing, but we were family.
“They’re nervous, Lee,” Mama K had said on Friday night after the mandatory family pizza and D&D session. “They won’t let Diana or me help, but they still need the support of their family.”
We’d been washing dishes together in the kitchen. Mama D had shaken her blonde head, her green eyes smiling softly at her partner of thirty years as she insisted on drying the dishes by hand. “You know how bull-headed your brothers can be,” she’d said. “But, at least they come by it honestly.”
I’d smiled at that comment and breathed deeply, enjoying the smell of the handmade candles that burned in the kitchen. The candles were Mama D’s hobby. She’d been mixing and making scents for us for as long as I could remember. She made each of us a special scented soap and candle combo that was unique to each of us.
The twins were the youngest of the six Devereaux kids, having just turned twenty-one. Of all of us, they looked the most like Mama D, having been born from her eggs. Mama K had spawned and carried me and Weaver, but Kaine and Bishop had been adopted. The moms hadn’t intended to have twins, but with in-vitro fertilization, it was afairly common occurrence. I thought they were pretty lucky they hadn’t had more than one set.
Our parents had met in college and known that their relationship was “the one” as soon as they set eyes on each other. They’d each finished school, done a stint in the military, then started their own business, a martial arts school, that had flourished over the years. They now had ten dojos across the northeast and there had even been talk about franchising opportunities.
Growing up gay in the eighties might have been easier than with previous generations, but it still wasn’t a picnic. Being strong women in a male-dominated sport had brought its own set of challenges as well. They could both attest to the fact that misogyny was alive and well in the Midwest.
When the time had come to start a family, my moms had known exactly what they wanted, two boys, two girls. I’d been first, then Weaver, my red-headed spitfire of a sister, and they thought they’d been on track. Then fate had brought them Kaine and Bishop. Hudson and Hicks were born a few years after in a bid for more girls. Once the twins were born, they decided that six was enough.
With Mama K and Mama D both looking pointedly at me, I’d reluctantly agreed to help out the twins this weekend. Now, here we were, hot, sweaty, and no superstar to make the grand opening grand. Plus, potentially no headliner for the Pop Culture Festival.
The Akron Pop Culture Festival was run by committee. A committee that Bill Conyers had held by the nuts for almost four years... until the twins joined, that was.
The twins had worked for Walt Geller and his wife, Alice, the original owners of the bookstore, for years. Walt and Alice had wanted to retire and get away from the harsh Ohio winters, so they’d offered to sell the boys the business at an extremely reasonable rate.
Sonny had come up with an amazing business plan, rebranding “Geller’s Books” as “Twin Peeks”, and convincing even the disapproving suits at the bank to approve a small business loan, even though they didn’t have any experience running a business. Central tothat plan was making a big splash at this year’s Pop Culture Festival... which turned out to be a lot harder than they had expected.
As owners of the bookstore, they had inherited Mr. Geller’s spot on the committee for the Pop Culture Festival. Unfortunately, the spot came with more headaches than it solved.
Attendance at the con had been down for the last three years straight and the coffers had been hemorrhaging money. Hicks had told me things were so bad that if the convention didn’t do well this year, it was likely to be the last.
The other members of the committee were well-meaning, but they weren’t used to managing the funds and planning events the size of Pop Culture Festival. The most established store owner was Bill Conyers, and his store was an inspirational bookstore. Conyers had joined the committee a few years back and always seemed to have money to burn. He had strong-armed many of the members into voting with him simply with his deep pockets.
With Mr. Geller retiring and many other members of the committee too busy to regularly participate, the planning had fallen heavily on Sonny and Hicks. Hicks took on the position of Marketing Director, and Sonny became the Treasurer... an act that had not endeared him to Bill Conyers, who had apparently been eyeing the role for years.
As part of their marketing plan to get the convention back into the black, they’d floated the idea to the committee to bring Cameron to town to support LGBTQ artists. That had brought them into conflict with Bill, because he wanted to have a local church leader headline instead.
The committee was hesitant of signing Cameron at first, the members wary of risking so much on an unknown speaker. Cameron was well known for avoiding the public eye. What would they do if he didn’t show? Plus, they argued, they didn’t have the funds to pay to bring him to Ohio. Dowling, at least, was local.
