Happy Thanksgiving from Brandon & Abel

Gentle readers: wishing you very safe travels today, wherever you might be headed. The HTRAMH boys are homeward bound after their first college semester apart. PLASTIC BRANDON and PLASTIC ABEL will be reenacting some key Thanksgiving-reunion moments for you, because they like you.

Brandon is headed home from Baltimore. Here he is waiting for his train, his stomach a little swervy. He is two minutes away from cracking into the generic Pepto in his suitcase. The flowers are for you-know-who; the train station gift shop was sold out of everything except yellow roses. Brandon knows Abel is well-versed in the Language of Flowers and hopes he won’t take it the wrong way.

Meanwhile, Abel’s ride home just fell through thanks to his roommate’s temperamental Kia. He’s so upset, you guys. The gift box contains cinnamon jelly beans for his boy and they taunt him cruelly as he ponders a Plan B.

Update #1

Plan B fell through. So did Plan C, and Plan D. So Abel took to the streets of Philadelphia with a somewhat humiliating sign, hoping someone would have mercy on a desperate guy who hadn’t seen his BF in thirty-four days, eight hours, and twenty-nine minutes.

He wandered the streets for the better part of three hours, keeping his spirits up by singing all of Blondie’s Eat to the Beat under his breath and asking himself WWCD (What Would Cadmus Do?). Around 7:00, outside a bar on South Street, he ran into salvation in an unlikely form: two extravagantly outfitted cowgirl types who introduced themselves as Shay and Jaelynn.

They told him they’d be driving right through Blanton late tonight and agreed to give him a ride, but first he’d have to accompany them to the annual “Damn! I Feel Like a Woman!” Cowgirl Karaoke Competition at a little bar two towns over.

I know I don’t have to tell you how Abel feels about karaoke. THE DEAL WAS SEALED.

Meanwhile, Brandon hung out on his parents’ couch, watching Private Practice and House Hunters with his mom. And watching his phone. The muffled call from a karaoke bar wasn’t much of a comfort, not with someone yodeling “All My Exes Live in Texas” in the background. “I’ll see you first thing tomorrow, Tin Man,” Abel promised. Brandon sulked a little and put on a Season 2 Castaway Planet DVD as soon as his mom went to bed.

Is Abel making it home or what? Tune in tomorrow for THANKSGIVING ESCAPADES.

Update #2

How long does a Cowgirl Karaoke Competition take? Pretty long, as it turns out. Abel toe-tapped at the Hot Spurs Bar & Grill for two and a half hours, sipping a Sim-blue margarita with Shay and Jaelynn and trying to convince them that their “Stand By Your Man” duet could totally benefit from an untrained but enthusiastic tenor.

Abel was right, to the tune of three first-prize certificates and a coupon book for ten free Spurburgers.

(He requested that his certificate be left blank. Later, back in the girls’ Chevy beater, he asked them for a pen.)

At 1 a.m., Brandon was tucked under the blankets in his childhood bedroom, drifting in and out of a feverish dream involving Cadmus, Sim, a remote cabin in a rainstorm, and a pair of steampunk goggles.

At first he thought the tap tap tap on his bedroom window was the patter of rain on the cabin’s tin roof, but then he woke with a jolt to Abel’s face behind the glass.

He pulled on some boxers and threw the window open.

“Sorry sorry sorry!” Abel whispered, tossing a nervous glance at Brandon’s parents’ darkened window. “I know I said tomorrow morning, but—”

“What took you so long?” said Brandon.

Abel grinned and climbed in the window. He reached in his back pocket and plucked out a carefully rolled certificate.

“I was just getting you this,” he said.

Brandon traced the letters with his finger. The summer flooded back: cinnamon jelly beans, a stopped elevator, a mechanical heart blinking blue in the dark.

“I also got you coupons for ten free Spurburgers,” Abel said. Only he didn’t quite get the word Spurburgers out.

STAY TUNED for pumpkin pie and a visit from Bec, coming later tonight!

Update #3

On Thanksgiving Day, Brandon and Abel feasted separately with their families. Brandon ate a metric ton of turkey, mashed potatoes, candied yams, canned corn, Stove Top stuffing, and crescent rolls, and carefully avoided his father’s eyes and the subject of Abel. On the west side of the river, Abel ate lobster, butternut squash ravioli, and heirloom tomato salad and carefully avoided queries about his first-semester grades. They texted each other forty-eight times during the day, mostly private jokes and Castaway Planet quotes.

Brandon bickered with his sister Natalie over the end slice of the cranberry sauce, and also her views on Mumford & Sons.

Abel did fourteen Mad Libs with his little sister Susannah and comforted her over some sinister business with the class bully.

At 4:00, the doorbell rang at Brandon’s house. His mom answered and in burst Bec, her hair freshly dyed a startling shade of black.

“Whassup, Snow White?” Brandon said.

“Bite me!” Bec suggested.

They rushed into a hug.

“You just about ready?” said Bec.

“Yep. Definitely,” said Brandon. The brown bakery box was in the fridge, all set to go.

Brandon grabbed his Castaway Planet keychain off the hook in the hall, and they were off.

It was a nice day for an RV drive, but Brandon barely noticed. Bec chattered about her weird roommate who saved her toenail clippings, and they listened to the WHAT IS THIS LIFE EVEN playlist they’d made at the end of summer. As he pulled the Sunseeker onto Abel’s street, Brandon saw Abel waiting for them on the side of the road, waving Plastic Sim and Plastic Cadmus in one hand and clutching his gift box of jelly beans in the other. Brandon braked and powered the window down.

“Good evening, Captain,” he said. “Might I interest you in some pumpkin pie?”

Abel gestured grandly to his driveway. “Pull over, Tin Man.”

Pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, and cinnamon jelly beans in the Sunseeker.