Chapter 3

Her houseplants werewhat did her in.

Mae stared at her favorite pothos, cascading over her favorite (now empty) bookshelf, and picked up her phone.

please come help

Vik texted back immediately.

on my way, sugar

And Mae couldn't make herself do anything but keep staring at her pothos, sinking, again, into the memory of that last day with Jesus, when they'd spread his ashes in the waves. When they'd laughed at the awkwardness of it; when the wind had whipped her hair as her friends slowly departed. Until it had just been her, and the ocean, and a tiny town Jesus had loved.

Mae had spent the last three weeks boxing up her office and her apartment. Whispering goodbye to her life in Portland, the life she knew she had loved so deeply.

But sometimes, these last few weeks, it felt like she'd never fully left that beach at all.

A knock sounded at the door, startling her back to Southeast Portland and her domain of half-packed boxes: disorienting rooms composed entirely of cardboard and memories.

"Hey." Vik's thick brows were furrowed in concern. They stepped forward, wrapping Mae into an embrace, and Mae barely held herself back from kissing their black curls. Vik had always been a hugger, but their squeezes had gotten tighter, more lingering as Mae's departure date loomed. Mae wanted to write a thank you card for each one. "What's up?"

"My plants."

Mae disentangled from Vik's limbs before tears arrived.

"Goddammit." Vik released a long sigh, forehead unfurrowing as they understood. "I've been dreading this day ever since you sent that damn text."

"I know," Mae said, plopping back down on her favorite armchair. "I know. But I can't take all of them?—"

"Of course you can't."

Vik pushed aside piles of junk on the couch.

"And maybe if you could just?—"

"Mae, I cannot take your plants. Jackson has told me, multiple times, that if I bring a single one more home he'll divorce me."

Now Mae sighed.

"I know."

"You could ask someone else. Ozzy or Ben or?—"

"No one's as good of a plant parent as you."

Vik breathed out before reaching their arm across the couch to take Mae's hand.

"Only you."

Buying houseplants together was one of Mae's very favorite parts of her friendship with Vik, although she had lots of favorite parts. She understood Jackson's feelings. They had been buying too many plants together for at least ten years. Had officially run out of room in both of their homes for more somewhere around Obama's second term.

Mae did not want to leave a single one.

But the plan was to only take what she could pack in the car when she returned to Greyfin Bay, in a week. Everything else would be put in storage until she had her living situation more fully sussed out.

Having an actual garden—her own borrowed square of soil to plant and weed and love—had always been one of the biggest features of Mae's daydreams. And part of her mourned for the fact that buying 12 Main Street, as incredible of a venture as it might possibly be, wouldn't satisfy that particular longing.

Although maybe there was a small plot of land behind the building that Mae hadn't been able to see, since Dell McCleary hadn't let her look. Maybe, next to the trash cans, she could find a spot to grow cucumbers and peppers and snap peas and cosmos and dahlias.

Actually…

Something she could do, right away, perhaps the very first thing she could do, was use some of Jesus's money to buy one of those enormous ceramic planters for the porch of the store, the ones that cost hundreds of dollars that Mae had never been able to afford. She could research the best container plants that would survive the climate of the coast, maybe a combination of?—

Vik dropped Mae's hand with a gasp.

"You're doing it. You're picturing all the plants you're going to get without me." Vik shook their head. "You little ho."

"I wasn't! Well, I was just thinking about?—"

"About something you can do at your store." Vik smiled, their gentlest, most affectionate one. "I know that look by now, Mae."

Mae could feel it then. That she'd been smiling, without consciously thinking about it. A smile that faded as she looked Vik in the eye.

"Tell me again," she whispered. "That I'm not making a massive mistake."

Vik was the only one she'd asked this of, the only person to whom she'd expressed any doubt.

The reactions of her friends, when she'd called them all to brunch after returning from Greyfin Bay, had been mixed.

"Ew," Theo had said immediately. Ozzy had clocked him on the arm.

But Mae had only burst into laughter at Theo's downturned lips, the honest confusion in his eyes. Had continued laughing when he'd turned to Ozzy and said, "What? I'm sorry, babe; you know I love a day trip to the coast, but living? In Greyfin Bay?"

Because bless Theo Pham for not being afraid to voice the question that entered Mae's own head at least once a day.

"Do they even have any gay bars on the coast?" Theo asked, turning back to Mae.

"Oh!" Mae smiled, giggles still burning in her throat, somewhat deliriously.

But everything had felt slightly delirious, really, since Jesus died.

"They just opened one in Astoria!"

Theo tilted his head.

"And how far is Astoria from Greyfin Bay?"

The giggles finally disappeared. Mae messed with the hem of her skirt.

"About three hours."

"Theo," Ozzy said. "We hardly even go to bars anymore."

"I know, I know." Theo waved off his partner. "We're boring as shit now. But…" He looked Mae in the eye. "I love you, Mae. Honestly, it sounds brave as fuck. And we all know you'd create an incredible space. I just promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn't live somewhere where there weren't at least places I could go to feel safe when I needed them. And I can't lie and say it doesn't make me nervous, watching you do this. Especially right now."

The rest of the table laid in wait, watching Theo and Mae.

A lump rose in Mae's throat, as sudden and true as the laughter.

"I know," she whispered. Because she did. And she knew Theo knew. He'd been raised in a small town in Georgia; their connection to the South was one of Mae's favorite things about their friendship. He knew the realities of being queer in a small town.

And they all knew how conservatives had weaponized the fear of queerness, of transness, over the last few years. How effective it had been. How effective it had always been.

How it made every fear in the back of every queer and trans person's own mind stand on edge. Especially in places where they didn't have as much strength in numbers. Places like Greyfin Bay.

"But maybe," Mae continued, "that makes doing something like this more important than ever."

Because she knew, in that moment, just as she'd known the second she'd talked to Dell McCleary: she couldn't show those prickles of fear about this. She was upending her entire life. She had to be all in.

And to perhaps everyone's surprise, Theo's eyes had turned wet as he turned away, blinking.

"Okay, girl," he'd said, and Theo's girls were always gender neutral, so Mae and Vik never took offense, "I love you so much, and I still kind of hate it, but okay."

And Ozzy had wrapped his arm around Theo's shoulder, the deep brown of his knuckles brushing briefly against the light brown of Theo's forearm, before he looked at Mae and asked, "What do you need?"

Mae rested her head against Vik's wrist now as Vik answered, as Mae knew they would: "You're not making a massive mistake." Vik was likely only saying it because they knew Mae needed them to say it, but it helped either way.

Vik shrugged.

"In all honesty? Even if it doesn't work out? I'm jealous as shit about it. If I didn't have Jackson, you know I'd be down there every weekend helping you paint the walls and buy lighting fixtures."

"Lighting fixtures," Mae sighed dreamily.

"Fucking lighting fixtures!" Vik huffed in annoyance. "You're gonna buy lighting fixtures and new plants without me."

"I'm going to text you photos of every single one before I make any decisions."

"Good," Vik said. Before sighing again. "No, you should probably make some decisions without me. This is your store, Mae. You need to make it your own."

"And I'm not…" Mae swallowed, physically willing herself to not apologize for needing this affirmation from Vik one more time. "I'm not a horrible person for even considering this. For using Jesus's money this way."

Technically, it was mostly Steve's money.

Steve, love of Jesus's life, had been both a workaholic and the inheritor of generational wealth. The lone true business gay of their group.

And he had died of a heart attack, four months before Jesus's body gave up, too.

"That's the beauty of it,"Jesus had said in the hospital that last day he'd been lucid, when Mae had protested his hints that this wealth would now be passed on to her. "It's Steve's money, really. I'm just the lucky fairy"—he had tried to do a saucy wink after he said fairy, but the tubes running to his nose had restricted his facial movement—"who gets to distribute it."

"Mae. Fuck no, you're not a horrible person for following a dream you've had since you were nineteen."

Mae stared at the ceiling.

Vik sighed once more and squeezed her hand harder.

"Mae," they said again. "I know you're so used to it, giving so much of your energy away, but…you do know that living your owndream is queer resistance, too, right? Letting yourself be happy, doing what feels right for you, is queer joy. And queer joy is always a revolution."

Mae knew they were right. The community center had always been Jesus's dream. Their fearless leader. She had been along for the ride, had felt purpose along with all the hard parts, but…it wasn't the same, without him singing in the office next to hers. It never would be.

And she knew. That Jesus had specifically told her to be selfish.

"What I need to implore," Jesus had said, voice growing ever hoarser, "Mae, my darling, is that the money is for you. I'm choosing to give it to you, and dios mio, Mae, if you just give it back to the center, or donate it all away?—"

He had shaken a finger before dropping his hand back to the bed. His head lolled toward her, the tough guy act he'd been trying to enforce fading away. Replaced by a warm, tired look of only love that Mae wanted to both run away from and treasure in her heart forever. She wished she could've saved it in a locket, a physical thing she could return to, over and over, until her own last days.

I want you to trust the world again.

"Yeah," she whispered now. "I know."

"And anyway," Vik continued, "We know you're going to stock that bookstore to the gills with queer shit, which is its own kind of social work in and of itself, really."

Mae laughed through the pressure in her sinuses.

"I was thinking of putting a huge trans flag right in the window. Just really putting it all out there for any passersby."

"The mid-Oregon coast won't know what hit it."

"I'm sure there are other storefronts on the coast with trans flags, though," Mae added after a minute. "Even if I don't know where they all are, yet."

Vik nudged Mae's foot with their own.

"Yeah," they said softly. "But having another one never hurts."

Mae finally turned away from the ceiling, rolling her neck to smile at Vik.

"Yeah," she said, equally as soft. "That's true."

Vik's mouth morphed into a grim line.

"And you're sure this Dell person isn't going to screw you over?"

Mae broke eye contact to stare back at the pothos, using all of her concentration on not letting heat flare up her neck.

Dell still refused to sell Mae the building outright. But he'd begrudgingly agreed to lease it to her, for a time.

A compromise.

A compromise that, if she let herself think on it too long, still pissed her off.

"Yeah," Mae said, and she couldn't tell if it was a lie or forced optimism. "It'll be okay."

She should be grateful he had compromised at all. That she was still going to be able to move into 12 Main Street. That this perhaps unhinged plan still had legs.

It was simply that Mae had never had the opportunity before to own something. She had spent most of the last two decades alternately dreaming about owning a house and making jokes with her fellow forever-renter friends about how they would never be able to actually accomplish such a thing.

Unless a loved one died, and unexpectedly left you three-quarters of a million dollars.

And maybe Mae should finally buy a fucking house. Tell Dell to go fuck himself. She could keep working at the community center she loved, and grow the garden she'd always dreamed of. It was hard, on her days of doubt, to understand why the hell she wasn't doing that.

Yet…

"I felt him next to me." She looked at Vik again. "When I was in Greyfin Bay. I felt me there, next to me. I won't let Dell McCleary take that away."

Because wasn't that what Jesus had taught her, when she was finding her bearings at the center? Trying to figure out the best ways to connect their clients with the health care and housing and support they needed? Like any progress in this world, advancement came with stumbling blocks. With thinking you finally had something, before another asshole came along and took part of it away. Made it exponentially harder to grab, whether through bureaucracy or bigotry, just because they could.

So maybe Mae had suddenly inherited $750,000—an amount of zeroes that still felt surreal, that made the whole world feel different—and still couldn't fully own what she wanted. Because she was from a place someone else didn't like. Because she had pink hair, maybe. Because even if she was richer than she had ever dared to imagine, Dell McCleary still had more power.

There was always someone with more power.

But she wouldn't let this one win this time.

"Still. If he tries…" Vik narrowed their eyes and pulled away to extract their phone from their bag. "You sure this guy isn't on Instagram? I can't believe I can't even stalk him."

Mae tried to laugh, but it got stuck somewhere in her throat.

"I swear, if I ever find his profile, I'll send it to you straight away."

Even Vik didn't need to know how hard Mae had tried to find it herself. How often she'd replayed their brief in-person interaction in her head.

So what if Dell happened to be one of the most attractive people she'd ever seen. She'd known it was him as soon as he'd stepped onto the porch that day, instinct confirmed when he'd opened his mouth and that voice unfurled. As deep and sexy as his body—big and burly, the kind of body that was soft and solid all at once: a belly made for his thick, folded arms to rest upon perfectly. The kind of body Mae wanted to climb like a tree, if her own body was more adept at climbing trees. That sandy beard she could practically feel on her skin the moment she'd let herself truly look at it. Closed-off brown eyes she wanted to see lit with laughter.

Except no, no she didn't.

Because who cared.

She didn't care in the least about his eyes or his beard or the fact that, in the flashes of her memories of that day, she was pretty sure his nails had been painted. But maybe she'd made it up. Maybe the thick fingers accompanying his thick body hadn't been adorned with a surprising shade of deep purple at all.

It didn't matter, if true, that it was the exact sort of surprise Mae had always been most drawn to.

God, fuck Dell McCleary.

"I only have one other thing I've been wanting to say."

Mae actually jumped a little, turning back toward Vik.

Vik raised an eyebrow.

"You alright there?"

"Yeah."

Mae was pretty sure her pothos believed her, about how fucking pissed she was about that guy.

She wasn't so sure about Vik. Who wouldn't relax that damn eyebrow.

"What else were you going to say, Vik?" Mae waved a hand, imploring Vik to get on with it.

Vik shifted on the couch, throwing Mae one last suspicious look before staring at the dark screen of Mae's TV.

"Well. There's, you know, the fact of how horribly I'm going to miss you, which is"—Vik shook their head—"a conversation for another time, and mostly one I need to have with myself and my therapist, but."

They looked back at Mae, the smile returned to their lips, if a bit more bittersweet.

"Mae, you should let go of this community center idea. Above the shop."

Mae opened her mouth. Closed it.

Having an adjoining queer community center on the second floor of the bookshop had continued to be part of her pitch—to her friends, that day at brunch; to Dell, in their terse email exchanges. It wouldn't be a full-time, multi-pronged center like the one here, like what Jesus had built, but…

"Queer joy is enough," Vik whispered.

Because Vik knew. That the look they'd apparently begun to recognize on Mae's face, the smiles that grew when she had a new idea—that look was never about the second floor.

"Play with your books a while." Vik smiled again. "It's enough, Mae." They turned their gaze to Mae's pothos. "It's enough."

* * *

Three days later, before signing the papers for her new storage unit, Mae put every houseplant onto the sidewalk outside of her apartment except one—a Chinese money plant that had started as a transplant from one of Vik's, held in her favorite teal planter. It took ten trips, along with an extra, tired, frustrated trip to find where the hell she'd packed a clean piece of paper and a Sharpie with which to scribble: FREE. Frazzled and running late, she stuck the note under a fishbone cactus.

When she returned two hours later, storage unit secured, extra boxes from U-Haul tucked under an arm, every plant was gone.

And when she walked into her apartment two minutes after that, for the first time since she'd moved in years before, it no longer felt like home.

She stood for an extra minute to absorb the shock of it.

Until she whispered, "It's enough." And she picked up the packing tape once more.