Leo must pick up on my tone because he repositions himself in the chair beside the bed, reverting his attention. “It’s interesting. You know these episodes like some people know quotes fromThe OfficeorFriends. What is it aboutMadcap Market?”
I know it’s not an intrusive question, but it plucks at the raw spot where Buckley had wounded me that fateful night in Manhattan. “I don’t know.” It comes out tart, which shuts Leo up. I don’t mean to be curt, but I can’t unpack my trauma for him right now. We only have so much time to come up with a clean backstory for our audition that will secure us a spot and, hopefully, one hundred thousand dollars.
“Fine. Geesh. Don’t tell me.” He taps one end of the pen impatiently against the bedside table while I locate the episode.
Finally, Pat Crumsky’s face—tan skin, bright eyes, salt-and-pepper pompadour hair—takes over the screen. The theme music, which has always been funky and retro, blasts from the speakers as cartoon cans roll, spin, and stack into letters. I sit on the edge of the bed, eyes unable to move or blink for the full forty-seven minutes. Pure rapture.
The mom, Carol, and the son, Logan, compete in matching pink sweatshirts with rainbow ascots tied around their necks. “We’ll have to come up with a sweatshirt color,” I tell Leo, not even blinking or missing a second of the episode.
“Eggplant purple.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to be Team Eggplant.”
I pause the show. “Absolutely not.”
“Come on. It’s funny.”
“It’s an easy joke.”
He points at the screen. “This show is pure camp. No questions.”
I consider this and relent. “Fine.” I turn back to the TV. “But only because I look excellent in purple.”
Back in the episode, Carol bests the competition in the trivia round, Logan racks up the lowest receipt total, and in the grand finale, the two of them race through the store like seasoned pros after chugging the sponsored energy drinks (it was the early 2000s—nobody knew your heart could explode yet!). Only, their final clue in the scavenger hunt is impossible—Need a hand with that meat?They were vegetarians who hadn’t done their homework. It was Hamburger Helper.
No matter how many times I yelled that at the TV, they couldn’t hear me.
“See,” Leo shouts, comically incredulous. “Need a hand with that meat? This show loves a saucy innuendo. Or should I saysauce-y.”
“You should say neither. Now, shhh.” I wave him away. Yes, it’s ridiculous and intentional and probably cringey, but I don’t care. It’s deliciously entertaining and mind-numbing.
Even though I’ve seen this before, even though I know how it ends, my heart thumps rigorously for this mother and son team. In their package video, they talk about how Carol plans to surprise Logan by using the money to pay for him to go to his dream college and get a degree in theater.
Back then, it resonated with me because in that taped address to the camera, I knew Carol loved her son unconditionally and I, like her, could see so clearly how he would thrive in a college setting, where his queerness could blossom. I worried if Mom would feel the same, if her acceptance would come as easily.
Now it resonates differently because, little did I know, Mom had been setting aside money for years to put me through college until the cancer came and that money needed to be used for treatment and I begged the government to take pity on me with student loans which they did, and then said LOL JK when repayments kicked in.
“The people on this show are so funny,” says Leo, standing up and stretching. “They went home with seventy-five thousand dollars. That’s more dough than most people will see in a lifetime.”
“I think when you set your heart on something and you get within inches of achieving it, the fallout is difficult.” I shove away annoying thoughts of Buckley and the domestic future I foresaw for us. “Imagine having all that adrenaline surging through you, hearing the right answer, and knowing you were two aisles over when the clock ran out.”
“I guess, but they still beat the other contestants. They still won.” Leo’s not getting it. “Their smiles were so fake there at the end.”
“I’m sure that dawned on them, when the cameras stopped rolling, how much money it really was, but that mom had a plan for that one hundred grand. Twenty-five thousand less is a significant difference.” My mind is overrun with loan payments and pauses and income-based plans. How my bank account is probably tired of being taken from but never repleted. “I’m not saying I would feel the same way. I’m saying I can understand why they might react like that.”
Leo’s pouty lips become poutier. “I would be thrilled with half that. Anyway, at least the queer guy won. I was rooting for him.” He thrusts a fist in the air.
“I’ve seen this one a bunch of times,” I tell him, reminiscing. “We had it saved on our DVR at home for a while. I know representation matters is kind of a cliché thing to say nowadays, but I really think it does. Logan was the first person I saw on TV that I thought, ‘Hey, he’s like me.’ I had no idea what I even meant by that at the time. I think that’s whyMadcap Marketdid for me what narrative TV couldn’t. I knew Logan was a real person living a real life.”
Saying this gives me pause. If Leo and I go through with the lie, am I going against what I love about the show? Real people sharing their real lives competing for real money? I shelve that existential crisis for now and say, “This show means a lot to me because it was my mom’s and my thing. For a long time. I also think this episode being one of our frequent rewatches was my mom’s way of hinting at me that she knew I was gay and that she’d be okay with it if I came out.” I didn’t realize that at the time, but it’s clear now.
Leo sobers, meets my eyes with friendly warmth. “Was she okay with it? You know, when you finally told her?”
I nod. “More than okay. Like, baked-a-rainbow-cake-to-celebrate okay. It was my fifteenth birthday. She’d somehow overheard me on the phone with one of my friends who already knew, discussing how I’d tell them. That night, before dessert, I blurted it out, they both reacted fine if somewhat lukewarm as if they already knew, and then I cut into the cake and noticed all the colorful layers. That’s when we all started crying. Happy crying.”
“That’s intense, but very sweet. Was it a good rainbow cake?”
