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🎂 🎂 🎂
“Happy birthday, my sweet boy!”
“Thanks, Mom…Mom, you sound like you’re in the car - you’re not driving, are you?”
“No, I’m driving. Your mother has the phone on speaker, anyway. Happy birthday, son!”
“Thanks, Dad. Thanks for calling, you guys.”
“Well, of course we wouldn’t miss calling you on your birthday, honey!”
“So, any plans for today, Patrick? You at the store right now? Not interrupting you at work, are we?”
“No, no, I’m at home. David insisted that I take the day off today.”
“Well, that’s so thoughtful of him! He sounds like a great business partner. I can’t wait to meet him!”
“I’m sure that will happen one day, Marcy.”
“Yes. Of course. One day. But not any time soon, of course!”
“So where are you guys off to?”
“Oh, just taking a little trip out of town for a couple of days.”
“Yes, your father and I just decided we felt like…a little weekend getaway. For no reason! No, just…just a spur of the moment thing, really…”
“That sounds like fun. Where are you going?”
“Um…we’re going to…to Niagara On The Lake. Your father’s idea. Yes. That’s where we’re going.”
“Well, that sounds great. Hope you have a really nice time.”
“Oh, we will! We’re going to the, uh…Icewine Festival.”
“Isn’t that in the winter?”
“Hey, son, we’re just pulling up to our hotel right now so we’ll have to let you go. Check in with you later tonight?”
“Sure, sure. Well, actually, we’re - I’m - you know what, it doesn’t matter, call me back when you have a chance, okay?”
Before David, no one had ever given Patrick flowers.
Oh, he’d bought plenty. For his mother, for his grandmother, for Rachel and for a handful of other girls. But until today, no one had ever thought to give Patrick flowers.
He thinks he kind of likes it.
So many new things he’s discovered that he likes.
David, most of all.
He’s pretty sure about that.
David had insisted that Patrick take today off, and although Patrick still considers any day he works alongside David to be a gift, he’d appreciated David’s gesture in the spirit in which it was offered, and taken it.
“Don’t give the store a single thought, honey. Just chill, relax, watch a sports thing, rest up for the - um, for our very casual dinner tonight!”
David’s a terrible actor. Patrick knows. He’s seen those Dateline episodes on YouTube.
There’s a party, somewhere, somehow. The details he hasn’t quite figured out yet, but that there’s a party he’s pretty sure about.
In the meantime, David’s here, with flowers, and Patrick’s feeling pretty good about that.
Although David does look a bit…distracted at the moment. Probably just the strain of planning the party that Patrick definitely doesn’t know about.
He’s also pretty sure that his parents are sneaking off on some sort of naughty second honeymoon this weekend. There was definitely something they weren’t telling him, something that they were trying not to let slip. (Icewine tours in the summer? Uh huh. They’ve never been good liars. Patrick had Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy figured out before he started preschool.
Not that he ever told them. After all, he didn’t want them to feel bad.)
He tries not to think too much about his parents’ personal relationship - no one really wants to think about that sort of thing (David’s told him about the time he walked in on his parents at the motel. David still wakes up screaming some nights), but he’s always been vaguely aware that they…had one, even after nearly 35 years together.
As if he knows what Patrick’s thinking, David asks, “Gotten some calls from family, or friends?”
Patrick does sometimes feel as if David knows what he’s thinking. (While he might not have quite figured out at first that Patrick was asking him out on a date for his birthday, he did sort things out by the end of the evening…enough to know that while Patrick hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to lean across the front seat of the car, he’d definitely meet David halfway if David made it happen.)
It’s while he’s telling David about the call from his parents that Patrick begins to suspect that David’s…twitchiness might be related to more than just the party.
“Speaking of your parents…I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to them outside of work,” David says. “Is that…weird?”
And David gives that little laugh he gives when he’s trying to pretend that everything’s great, everything’s cool, everything’s just peachy, and it’s another reminder that David’s a terrible actor, because it doesn’t fool anyone, it doesn’t fool Patrick, who can tell that David’s anything but peachy right now.
And Patrick remembers an afternoon about a month ago when he’d come back from a coffee run to the cafe to find David on the phone…
“Mrs Brewer,” he’d been saying, “let me tell you something about your son. Patrick may know business administration, and he may know financial forecasting, but, sadly, when it comes to his skin care regime, there is still a lot of work we have to do there. His pores - now, is that genetic, or - oh, really? So would that be your sister, or your husband’s? Mmm. Interesting. You know, last week we had a very… contentious scene here involving a turmeric and oatmeal facemask we were road testing for the store. Patrick seems to have an aversion to putting - oh, he did? He did? What’s an ‘Eastern Conference Final’? Never mind…face paint, you say? Body paint? Are there photos?”
And Patrick, standing in the doorway, felt like a warm hand had closed around his heart.
He feels something else now.
Because he suddenly realizes where David’s going with this.
“Like, they know about me…right?”
Oh, God.
Oh, they “know about” David.
They know his name is David Rose. They know he’s one of the Rose Video Roses and why he and his family washed up on the banks of Schitt’s Creek a few years back. They know that he’s Patrick’s business partner and the creative mastermind behind Rose Apothecary.
They know Patrick thinks very highly of him.
Of course they “know about” David.
But for the first time, Patrick wonders if maybe…
Do you know? Mom? Dad? Do you know? Have you figured out for yourselves what I haven’t…haven’t been able to…to…
Because Patrick wonders how anyone could exist in this world and not be able to tell how he feels about David.
It’s one of the reasons he decided not to go home for Christmas. He knew he’d be “David said…” and “David thinks…” and “David looks…” - ing every five minutes until even Mrs Divine’s blind goat would’ve figured out what he wasn’t saying.
He hadn’t been ready for that.
Especially after he’d called to break the news to his parents, who were…just so very, very understanding.
The store. Of course, they understood. A big investment…first year of a new business always the most dangerous…remember Uncle Brian and the taco truck, that didn’t end well…
And then his mother, hesitating and hesitating and then finally asking him, blurting it out, if he minded very much that she’d sent a Christmas card to Rachel? And one to her parents?
And Patrick had had to take a very fast swig of his cold Earl Grey before he could tell her, something in his throat still catching, that no, of course not, he doesn’t mind that at all…
And it’s true, apparently, that when you’re in a life-threatening situation, your entire life flashes before you.
Because now, standing in his kitchen, Patrick’s heart is pounding, and he’s starting to sweat, and boy, is he getting a lot of flashes.
And most of them, it seems, involve David’s face.
David’s face when Patrick told him, Oh, I’m gonna get the money.
David’s face when he met Patrick’s eyes across their crowded store on their opening day.
David’s face as he held the framed receipt in his hands. This is not nothing…
David’s face at the Open Mic, the fire on his sweater no match for the one in his eyes.
And David’s face as he looked back and forth between Patrick and Rachel and tried to figure out what was happening at what until just a few moments earlier had been a pretty swell barbecue.
Because all Patrick’s thinking now is, oh God, oh God, have I done it again?
The first time that Patrick “knew about” David was that day at Ray’s.
It took his brain a little while to catch up, though.
All Patrick could think at the time was: I’m smiling, I can’t stop smiling, why can’t I stop smiling?
It wasn’t until a few hours later that he realized that this was the most he’d smiled since arriving in Schitt’s Creek a month earlier.
And it was much later that night, as he listened to David’s voicemails over and over (and over) again, that he finally figured out why.
He’d heard about the hiking trail up at Rattlesnake Point from Twyla, whose second cousin had apparently disappeared there without a trace six years ago. (“All they ever found was a set of dentures and a jockstrap. But those might have belonged to a Sasquatch.”)
He’d been looking for a quiet hiking spot.
He had…things…to think about.
Things.
The red-tailed hawks must have a breeding area nearby, because he’d almost always see them in the air whenever he came up to the lookout. He loved to watch them soaring high above his head, giving that distinctive cry that to some people sounds savage and angry and threatening, but which Patrick has always thought sounds wild and exultant and free.
He isn’t sure exactly when in his life he began to feel like he was holding in his own cry. Holding it in so that he doesn’t scare anyone. Like his parents, who are good people, who he loves, but whose assumptions about him he’s never given them cause to question. Like Rachel, who’s been so important to him, so close, for so long, but who, he knows now, was often - so, so undeservingly - his path of least resistance.
“So your parents don’t know?” Rachel had asked him after the barbecue, as they sat in her room at the motel, David locked in his just a few feet away, a distance that might have well have been a thousand miles.
Well, Patrick sat. Rachel packed. She’d waved off his attempts to help, vaguely, with irritation, as if he was a mosquito. “I barely unpacked to begin with, Patrick,” she’d said. “Sit.” He’d sat.
“No,” he’d said. “I mean, I want to…I should tell them in person. I haven’t been home since…”
“I know,” she’d said. Pulled the zipper closed. Picked up her keys. “Guess you’ve been busy.”
She deserved more than this. More than a sharp and silent goodbye in a motel room that smells like sauerkraut and old licorice.
“Can I call you? Later this week, maybe?”
“Maybe. I don’t…look, Patrick, why don’t we just…” She’d opened the door, and Patrick had risen to his feet.
She hasn’t cried. Patrick thinks maybe she’s in shock, and he wants to tell her, don’t leave, not yet, wait, wait until tomorrow. Because he doesn’t like the thought of it all hitting her later, while she’s on the road, dissolving into tears on an unfamiliar highway, pulling over to the side of the road, maybe in the dark…
Rachel had finally just shaken her head. “Not yet, okay? I just…” She’d exhaled, grabbed her bag, started out of the room. In the doorway, she’d turned to face him again.
“I’m…I’m going to need some time with this, Patrick.”
He’d nodded.
He’d wanted to beg her, please don’t hate me, but that might be too big of an ask right now.
Maybe she needed to hate him for a little while.
That, at least, is something he could give her.
But he’d still wanted to ask her, it wasn’t just me, was it? Didn’t it…didn’t something feel…wrong…to you, too?
Only once had he asked someone that question…
Her name was Darcy. Patrick had met her at a Christmas party thrown by one of his co-workers, when he and Rachel were in the middle of one of their “off again” periods. She was a friend of a friend, quick-witted and smart; she made him laugh and she smelled good. So when Patrick gave her a ride home later that evening and she put her hand on his thigh in the car and asked him if he wanted to come up for a beer, he’d said yes.
Because, well…it’s what you did. Right?
Afterwards, she’d been quiet, quieter than she’d been the whole evening, finally asking, “Were you expecting…something different?”
Patrick had been trying to find his other shoe and her words caught him off guard.
“Uh. I mean…no? No, that was…that was…good. Thank you.” He paused. “I’m sorry, was there…something wrong? I hope I didn’t…”
Darcy had sat up and looked at him standing there holding his socks and trying to remember what you were supposed to say in this situation.
Rachel had never asked him anything afterwards.
“I don’t know,” Darcy said, tapping her fingers on the nightstand, looking thoughtful. “You seemed…kind of distracted. Like you were…confused. Or trying to remember something you’d forgotten. Like a phone number or someone’s name.” She shrugged. “Never mind. It’s not important. I had a good time.” She gave him a smile - not a huge one, but Patrick thought it seemed sincere. “You’re a nice guy, Patrick. You take care of yourself. I hope you remember whatever it is you forgot.”
Sitting in the motel room, the day of the barbecue, he’d remembered all this, and wished so much that Rachel had asked him things.
Things he hadn’t been able to ask her.
Because then maybe he would have had answers for her sooner.
And for himself.
Still hesitating in the doorway, Rachel looked at him, then back out at the parking lot. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry now that I came. I can see that it’s…caused some trouble. For some people I don’t even know. I am sorry about that.”
Patrick had recalled Alexis’ stricken, confused face. She just seemed so…sad, Patrick, I just thought…oh my God, I never…David, put that down, potato salad is not the answer!
Rachel had made a weak attempt at a smile. “I thought maybe if I just showed up you’d…I know how you feel about taking control of things in your life. Thought maybe I’d impress you.”
And that’s when he’d blurted it out, at last.
“Rachel - was there ever a time, in all those years, that you thought…that something wasn’t…” He’d held his hands out towards her, desperately trying to say what he’d wanted to say without actually saying it, because it had felt like that might be just a little bit more cruelty than either of them could stomach at the moment.
“Yeah.” She’d looked very hard at the dresser as she said it. “Yeah. Yes. But…I always assumed…that it was me.”
Oh. Oh, Rachel. But the shame had choked him and he hadn’t said a word.
After a moment she’d shrugged at the dresser and continued. “When we broke up that first time, the summer after high school…you know I dated a couple of other guys, and…”
And then she’d finally looked up and met his eyes.
“When we got back together again, I…yeah. There was something…different…with you, but I just thought…” She’d tapped her keys against her leg as she thought.
“I don’t know what I thought, actually,” she’d said, and gave a shaky laugh. “Maybe I didn’t think about it that much, to be honest. Some things you don’t always want to know.”
And Patrick had understood then what he’d always known deep down, known every time they’d patched things up and tried again: how much they both would have had to lose if either of them had thought about it too much.
Rachel had run her free hand through her hair, sighed, and said, “And don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m not...” She’d glanced out again towards the parking lot, now looking like she craved nothing more than escape. “I don’t want to be that person.”
He’d nodded. “I never thought you were.”
And then she was gone.
They’ve made some tentative progress over the past several months. She texts once in a while: sometimes to pass on news ( My cousin Bridget finally got the kidney transplant. She’s doing really well. I know you always liked her, thought you’d want to know ), sometimes to ask him a question ( I found a pair of your cufflinks behind the dresser yesterday. Do you want me to send them to you or should I just drop them at Goodwill? ).
Once in a while, it’s just to say hello.
Not that often. But it’s a start.
When he remembers what she’s got to be working through, he feels sick.
It’s not just the mortification of never once suspecting what the problem was between them all those years.
It’s the humiliation of knowing - and recognizing that, one day, everyone they knew will also know - that she’d never been to him what she always thought she was.
He wishes he could tell her that there’s no reason for her to feel that way. But he can’t do that while he’s still struggling with his own embarrassment over how badly he’d handled just about everything.
When he’d left, all Patrick had been able to think about was that he was doing the right thing for everyone.
But that wasn’t how it had worked out at all.
Patrick got Felicia’s text just as he was leaving his office that Wednesday afternoon about two years ago.
Felicia, Fee, who’d been one of his best friends ever since they’d survived an excruciatingly dull 8 a.m. Statistics class in their first year of university by sitting next to each other in the back row and concocting elaborate backstories about the other students.
“The guy in the beret,” Patrick had whispered one morning in November, “is on the run from the Latvian Mafia.”
“I didn’t know Latvia had a Mafia.”
“Well, they do now, and it’s all because of him.”
“Because he assassinated the heir to the throne.”
“I didn’t know Latvia had a royal family.”
“Well, not anymore.”
“He’s also a cryptocurrency billionaire and he’s going to build a force field to block out the sun and hold us all for ransom.”
“Like on The Simpsons.”
“That’s where he got the idea. It’s a very popular show in Latvia.”
“I’d expect nothing less. I knew he was a sociopath the first time I saw him.”
“How did you know?”
“Who wears a fucking beret to a Stats lecture?”
(David would like Fee, Patrick thinks now. He really ought to introduce them. That is, if David’s still speaking to him by the end of the day.)
He’d been with Fee in the pub the night she met Jack, and he’d gone - with Rachel, during their most recent reconciliation - to Fee and Jack’s wedding the summer after she’d finished her MBA. Patrick fought back a panic attack throughout the entire ceremony, and at the reception he’d drank too many beers and some weird - but actually very delicious - Glenfidditch and kombucha concoction that Jack was pressing on everyone, all because Rachel had made some offhand comment about the flowers when they walked into the venue, some suggestion that they could maybe look at something like that for us, and he’d just nodded, nodded, and couldn’t remember anything about the ceremony.
Fee had been feverish and animated, circling among her guests with an always-present wine glass in her hand, sparkling, talking, embracing, laughing.
And on a Wednesday night just a little over a year later, Patrick had sat with Fee in Communist’s Daughter (secretly happy for the excuse not to go home just yet, the tight fraught silences between him and Rachel having grown more and more frequent these last few weeks), floor sticky with other people’s regret, as she’d waved another wine glass around and talked about the implosion of her marriage.
“Knew it was a mistake, Paddy,” she’d whispered - slurred - as she took another long swallow from the glass held in a trembling hand.
“Knew it for, fuck, months? Months. Knew at the fucking wedding shower, my God, and I just kept drinking and smiling and thinking, sure, everyone feels this way, right? Everyone just gets scared, right? Cold feet? Wedding jitters? All that shit.”
She’d nodded at the bartender, tapped her nearly-empty (again) glass, and Patrick had frowned, met the bartender’s eye and given just the slightest shake of his head.
Fee hadn’t noticed.
“Knew it at the dress fitting, knew it as I was walking down the fucking aisle, my God, but I couldn’t…I just wanted to run, y’know? But I was…I was just so fucking embarrassed, Paddy, that I hadn’t figured it out sooner.”
She’d drained the last of her wine and Patrick had slid a tumbler of water into her hand as she continued, the tears starting at last:
“How’m I gonna tell everyone - my friends, everybody at work, my mom and dad, my fucking grandma - how’m I gonna tell them that I got married because I was just too fucking embarrassed to admit that I made a mistake?”
The air up at the lookout was always sweet and clear. Patrick sat there a lot over his first few months in town, breathing in, breathing out, using some of the meditation techniques he’d found online, counting as he inhaled, counting as he exhaled, focusing on the white light.
And in between, he’d think about his new business partner.
And gradually, his mind started to calm. He started to understand what was happening to him.
And he was…happy.
Up at the lookout, listening to the cry of the red-tailed hawk, listening to his own cry that’s finally working its way free…he was happier than he thought he’d been for a long, long time.
But now…
“Like, they know about us…right?”
Us.
How can he…how can he possibly explain to David why he hasn’t been able to explain things to them?
To explain how he’d somehow got it so terribly wrong for so many years?
To tell them that no matter how much they love him, he is not the son they always thought they had?
Will they think his silence is all somehow their fault?
Will they ever be able to trust him again?
Will they understand how, while trying not to lose everything he had, he’d lost himself instead?
Patrick knows now, of course, that his story is not unique. That there are many, many people like himself - people for whom the truth was a longer time coming than it was for others. It doesn’t seem quite fair, he thinks sometimes, but that seems to be the way it is.
Fee got it wrong. He’d got it wrong. Everyone got it wrong, sometimes. Right?
“I am never wrong,” David said.
Two days before the party they’d been at the store going through a just-arrived shipment of product.
“But sometimes I am…surprised,” he continued. “Startled, even. Caught unawares by…deviations from an expected course of events.”
“So, in other words, wrong,” said Stevie, pouring herself another glass of wine.
“You’re the one who signed off on this vendor,” Patrick said. “I had my doubts, if you remember, but you insisted that you were ‘handling her.’”
“I am,” David said. “I most definitely am ‘handling her.’ It’s just that…this isn’t what I expected.” He stared into the cardboard box on the counter in front of him. “The prototypes I saw…” David trailed off. He reached into the box and pulled out…
Patrick squinted at the object David held in his hand.
“What…is that?”
“I’m not sure,” David said, staring at it. “These were supposed to be Marino wool crocheted throws. I don’t recall Evangeline’s website featuring any of… these.”
Patrick moved towards the box and looked inside. “Hey, my great-grandmother used to have one of these. Haven’t seen one since I was about eight.”
David’s eyes remained fixed on the object in his hand. “Her last email to me said something about ‘going in another direction…think you’ll be thrilled with what I came up with…’ I assumed she was talking about colour palettes, or maybe stitchwork, not…”
Stevie stared down into the box. “Toilet paper cozies?”
David closed his eyes and leaned his head back, breathing deeply. “The horror. The horror…”
“Nana Budd had one of these,” Stevie said. “She used to keep her weed in it.”
“That’s…whimsical,” David said, “but, you know, I really don’t -”
“Now that I think about it,” Patrick said, looking at the plastic doll dressed in a pink and white crocheted dress (with matching floppy hat) clutched in David’s hand, “I think Roland and Jocelyn have one of these in their guest bathroom.”
“Why - why - why would you tell me something like that?”
“Well, maybe there’s a market for this sort of thing.” Patrick gestured towards the back of the store. “Might tie in nicely with the toilet brushes, or the plungers. We could bundle them, make a bathroom gift set -”
“Ok, so that’s not happening.”
“I like them,” Stevie said.
“That’s because you’ve been drinking since noon.”
Stevie reached into the box and pulled out a doll wearing a bright yellow off-the-shoulder dress and a Carmen Miranda-inspired headpiece. “I think you should put this one on the cash desk,” she said. “You can just move the lip balms somewhere else.”
David fumbled for his phone. ”I need to call Evangeline,” he mumbled. “Maybe this box wasn’t meant for us. Maybe she’s having a mid-life crisis. Or something heavy fell on her head. Or -”
“David,” Patrick said, “it’s ok to admit that maybe you might have been wrong about this vendor.”
“I feel like I was not given all the relevant information. And I am not thinking about myself. I am thinking about our customers. I feel I have…an obligation to warn them.”
“Warn them about what?” Stevie asked.
“That this …is a terrible thing to do to a bathroom.”
“That’s the same thing you said about the Lover’s Curry.”
“Anyone can…misread a situation,” Patrick said, gently patting David’s back in what he hoped was a soothing way. “Happens all the time. You know what you need, David?”
“A box of matches and a can of gasoline?”
“We’ll call that Plan B. Right now I think you just need to…reframe the situation as a learning experience.”
“About how you were wrong,” Stevie said. She topped up her glass. David shot her a look.
“I was thinking more like how sometimes we can’t really have proper perspective when we’re right in the middle of a situation,” Patrick continued. “Sometimes you need to take a step back, look at things from a completely different direction.”
“I would like to take many steps back from this…crime against humanity,” David said, dropping the doll back into the box and shuddering visibly. “Something about all this makes me feel dirty inside.”
“That’s also what you said about the Lover’s -”
“Get out of my store.”
“Don’t do it,” Fee had told Patrick that night, as he’d held her hand in the cab half an hour later. “Don’t do it, Paddy. If you think you’re making a mistake…just fucking trust your gut, okay? Just get the fuck out.”
Two weeks later, Patrick had packed his car, punched Ray’s address into his GPS, and got the fuck out.
And then…David.
Us.
“Okay…listen, David…”
It’s not until David’s left that Patrick remembers the phone call with his parents, and now everything makes sense.
Which is great, because now he doesn’t have to think about them sneaking off for a dirty weekend together, and that already makes him feel a little better.
“So my parents are coming here?”
“Mmm. Actually, they’re already here. They’re…at the motel. Right now.”
Patrick’s still shaking a little, still feeling a little raw, but he tells David he’s fine, it’s all fine, because even though David’s been wonderful, more wonderful than Patrick probably deserves (although when he says this, David tells him to just knock that off, right now, Patrick Brewer ), he knows that David’s still got a party to plan, and the best thing for their relationship, after getting over this latest speed bump, is to let David get back to party planning sooner rather than later.
And so once Patrick manages to reassure David that he really is all right, David hurries out, looking relieved, mumbling something about the fucking caterers and Stevie and why Twyla is so married to that wall in the cafe, surely she can appreciate how an open concept look would…but then he’s gone.
Patrick’s still got another couple of hours to kill before the party that he doesn’t know about, and he’s getting restless sitting around the apartment.
He eats a piece of leftover pizza, looks through the cupboards and finds a vase - Twyla’s housewarming present to him - and puts the flowers in some water. He puts the vase on the desk by his bed, thinking again, as he does so, that he really should look into getting a new coffee table soon.
A short time later, while he’s tuning his guitar and watching Blue Jays in 30, Patrick’s phone pings, and he looks down to see a text from David:
I’m just stepping out of the store for a few minutes. Stevie will keep an eye on things. There’s something I have to take care of at the motel.
Patrick tries to think of where in town he can go where he won’t run into someone who will try, desperately and awkwardly, to pretend that they don’t know about the surprise party.
He can’t go near the motel in case he runs into his parents.
He can’t go near the cafe, because by this time David will be knee-deep in a full-scale dress rehearsal (with props, costumes and a curated music selection) which will probably take hours.
He’d love a hike - this is just the sort of restless, unsettled state of mind that a good long punishing hike is made for - but there’s not enough time.
So finally, he winds up just wandering without a destination in mind through the residential streets around his apartment building.
The locals call this neighbourhood “Upper SC”, which has always puzzled Patrick, since there doesn’t appear to be any “Lower SC” - but if he’s honest, he’s kind of been afraid to ask since he moved in.
Locals. Well, that includes him now, doesn’t it?
Patrick told David, the day they came to look at the apartment for the first time, that when he’d first come to town he wasn’t sure how long he’d be staying. If he’d even be staying. Truth be told, he’d had some private doubts about Ray at first, but those had faded after the first few days when he’d realized that despite appearances, Ray really did seem to have his finger on the pulse of the needs and wants of this odd little town.
Not that different from David, actually. When Patrick had finally pieced together David’s voicemails, that day two years ago, he’d been a little surprised - and quietly excited - to discover that this mysterious, beautiful, fascinating man had come up with a genuinely viable and interesting business idea.
That was the moment that Patrick had first started to think that maybe he did have a reason to stay here.
A couple of reasons.
And now, look at him.
Look at them.
Just look.
Patrick realizes he’s been walking for a while when he passes Roland and Jocelyn’s house. He blinks. Their place is halfway across town from his. He’s clearly been on autopilot for some time now.
He turns onto Balsam Road, where he thinks Bob and Gwen live. Oh, no, it’s just Gwen now…or is it? He’s pretty sure Roland mentioned something about Gwen hosting a visiting professor at Elmdale College. Patrick hadn’t been aware that Elmdale College even had a Faculty of Leatherworking, but this town continues to surprise him.
His mind is still running over what he’s going to say to his parents tonight and he’s not really paying too much attention to where he is, but just then he catches movement out of the corner of his eye and stops in his tracks, just in time to keep from bumping into -
“Brewer.”
“Uh. Sorry, Ronnie - I didn’t see you there. I was -”
“ - not watching where you were going. I figured that out already.”
Ronnie drops an armful of boxes in the back of her pickup truck and gives him a once-over. She frowns.
“You don’t look well, Brewer. You look like you ate a bad burrito or something. You been to the cafe? I heard something about a salmonella outbreak.”
“Uh, well…actually, there is no outbreak. It’s…well, I just found out that -”
“Oh, you know about all that. Good, we can drop the act. I only agreed to go along with it because apparently this party is a big deal to David.”
“Oh. I guess…yeah. I guess so. I, uh, told him once that I’d always wanted a surprise party. I guess he remembered.”
“I guess he did.” Ronnie’s standing with her arms crossed, staring at him in that way that always makes Patrick feel like he’s done something that she finds terribly offensive. Like existing.
“Well, thank you for going along with it. I’m starting to get the idea that David’s gone to a lot of trouble, and I…I’m really trying to make sure that nothing else goes wrong today.”
Ronnie raises her eyebrows.
“You’re trying to make sure?”
Patrick swallows. “Well, yeah, I - I just want to make sure that everything goes well, and…”
He trails off, once again at a loss for words in the face of Ronnie’s obvious disapproval.
Ronnie sighs.
“I like David, ok, Brewer? I’ve liked him ever since his family moved to town. I didn’t think I would, but I did. I don’t usually admit when I’m wrong. And for some reason, I’m admitting it to you. And I find that very annoying.”
“Oh, well, that’s -”
“Did I say I was finished?”
Patrick shakes his head.
“Let me ask you something, Brewer,” Ronnie says. “Why is it that you always have to have the upper hand?”
“The - well, I don’t know that I -”
“Yeah, you do. Had to tell me how to do my job - several times, as I recall - when I was finishing your bathroom. Have to tell everyone on your baseball team how they should play. Had to take all of those secret dance classes - oh, yeah, I know about that - so that you and Stevie won’t mess up in Cabaret. Now I wonder, why is that, exactly?”
I’m a take-charge guy, David. I like to take charge of things in my life…
“You want my advice?”
“Well, I -”
“Say yes, Brewer.”
“Yes. Yes, I absolutely do.”
Ronnie closes up the gate of her truck and wipes some dust off her hands on her jeans. “You ought to be more like you were at the Open Mic night.”
Patrick’s getting confused again as to whether or not he’s allowed to talk. He decides not to, just in case.
His confusion probably shows on his face, because Ronnie’s giving him that death glare of hers again. She sighs.
“You know I was at your Open Mic, right? The first one.”
Patrick nods. He’d seen her sitting in the front row with Twyla and a generous handful of drink tickets.
“Yes, and thank you for coming. Again, I’m sorry about Bob’s poetry, I had no idea that it would be so, um, sexual, and -”
“I know you think you were in charge of that Open Mic, Brewer. I remember that day you came barreling into the Town Hall, going on and on about permits and liquor licences. And I know David was against it from the start. We all saw him that night. He looked like he was about to crap himself when you got up on that stage for the first time with that…” - she waves a hand vaguely in his direction - “...guitar. It was your baby, all of it, wasn’t it?”
Patrick’s not sure what he’s supposed to say. But luckily Ronnie isn’t interested in waiting for his answer because she continues:
“But that’s where it ended. Right?”
Patrick blinks. “Where…what ended?”
“Your upper hand,” says Ronnie. “You gave away your upper hand the moment you started singing that…thing to David.”
Patrick had always known that he was giving his heart to David that night.
He’d just never thought about how many other people knew that’s what he was doing.
He’d been so excited to show David that he knew how to put together something creative, something fun, something that wasn’t all numbers and spreadsheets and margins and markups. The timing couldn’t have been better: he’d already been working on that acoustic arrangement of The Best ever since David had mentioned about a month earlier how much he loved that song. He’d wanted to play it for David several times, but the time never seemed quite right. Until that day that they had - well, Patrick had - decided to hold the Open Mic night. And then Patrick had realized it would be the perfect opportunity.
It wasn’t until he was halfway through the song that he realized that he was saying I love you, I love you, I love you to David with every word that he sang.
In front of everyone.
“It looked good on you, Brewer.”
Patrick gives his head a little shake and looks back at Ronnie. He mustn’t have been paying very close attention, because it just sounded like she’d given him a compliment.
“You let go of all your control up on that stage. You gave it all to him. Not a lot of people could do that. I never figured you for one of them.”
Ronnie narrows her eyes at him a little.
“You didn’t keep it up, though. All that…business that went on when your little red-headed girlfriend showed up in town…again, that was you trying to keep everything on your own terms, wasn’t it? Keep all the little boxes of your life all neat and tidy and not touching each other.”
Patrick flushes when he remembers that week. How every time he’d walked into the cafe, heads turned in his direction and stared for just a second longer than seemed necessary. The way that when he’d come by the Town Hall to pick up the renewed permits for the store, Roland and Bob made a point to avoid eye contact, Roland even muttering something about IBS as an excuse to run out of the room.
It was a small town, and people talked. Knowing that they were talking about him had just added another layer of misery to the rest of Patrick’s pain.
He looks up at Ronnie, knowing she can see his reddened face, and bracing himself for some kind of taunt, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, she says, “Just let it go sometimes, Brewer. Just let someone else take the wheel. Sometimes it’s okay to be the passenger.” She pauses.
“Unless we’re talking about your car, that is. Bob says that thing is a piece of junk. Don’t let anyone else drive it. You might end up being charged with manslaughter.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
“Now make yourself useful and help me load the rest of these tiles. My sciatica is acting up.”
Even though Patrick knows there’s a party waiting for him inside the cafe, he’s still taken aback when he walks through the door.
They’re all there for him. Smiling, laughing, waiting for him. Waiting to celebrate him.
There have been times, over the past few years, when Patrick wouldn’t have said that he thought he was someone worth celebrating.
He doesn’t feel that way anymore.
His eyes dart around the room as he embraces David and tries to act surprised to see his parents. Most of the cast and crew from Cabaret are here - he spots Adam and Clarissa, Allison and Audrey - as well as at least half of his baseball team, along with several of their vendors and a few neighbours from his building. (Also Twyla’s stepfather with his personal trainer. Patrick decides not to ask.)
And the Roses. Patrick feels a bubble of laughter rising up inside of him as he imagines the inevitable meet-and-greet that’s shaping up between his parents and David’s family tonight. He hopes David’s ordered enough alcohol.
How did David…well. Stevie, probably, had something to do with putting together the guest list. He sees her there beside David, looking excited and hopeful. And maybe more than a little nervous?
And then he’s sitting in a booth, his parents gazing at him with so much of that familiar warmth and joy on their faces that he’s denied himself for far too long.
So much happiness. So much love.
So much…expectation?
And for the second time that day, he realizes that his parents haven’t been entirely truthful with him.
That…they know.
And for a moment his take-charge brain grinds to a halt, telling him to fall back, to regroup, to change tactics, to find some way of managing this unexpected turn of events.
But only for a moment.
He knows now that it doesn’t matter that they already know.
It doesn’t matter that they don’t know that he knows.
And all of a sudden, over the background buzz of chatter in the cafe, he hears Mrs. Rose’s voice (not surprising, because it carries so beautifully):
“...and then she said to me, ‘There is a freedom in letting go, Moira’ and I have to say, John, that…” but he loses the rest…something about feet? It’s not important.
She’s right.
The fact that his parents are pretending that they don’t know almost breaks him in two, because he knows what it means.
He almost laughs. Probably would, if he wasn’t trying so hard not to cry.
God, he loves them so much.
He knows now that it was never going to be as hard as he thought it would.
So he sits, and doesn’t bother trying to hold the tears back anymore as he tells them the only thing that they need to know.
That he’s never been happier in his life.
Yeah, this really isn’t how surprise parties are supposed to work…
But Patrick doesn’t care.
He looks over to where David’s standing, doing a reasonably convincing impression of someone who is trying very hard not to look desperately interested in what’s going on between Patrick and his parents.
But finally David looks up, and meets Patrick’s eyes.
At that moment, Patrick hears Mrs Rose’s voice again - “Fellow celebrants! I would not consume those crab cakes if I were you. I am reminded of a most pestiferous incident involving an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet at the wrap party for A Fish Called Wanda ” - and he almost laughs out loud at the look of absolute fury that David shoots at his mother.
But the next moment he looks back at Patrick, pasting a wild and desperate smile on his face, the face of a man who is clearly determined to give Patrick the best fucking surprise party in the history of the world.
Patrick smiles back at him, raises his hand, and beckons.
And Patrick doesn’t think he’s ever seen David look so relieved.
A moment later David is sliding into the booth next to him. “Hi,” he says softly to Patrick, and then, “Hi…hi, Mrs Brewer, Mr Brewer.” He does that thing with his shoulders, gives his head a little shake, clears his throat and glances at Patrick. His eyes are big. His heart is bigger.
David’s leg judders against Patrick’s under the table as Patrick reaches over and takes his hand.
“Mom. Dad. I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, David.”
Patrick is very happy.
If anyone were to ask him how he’s feeling right now, he’d say that he felt like a red-tailed hawk.
And probably whoever had asked him would look at him funny and regret that they’d asked, but Patrick doesn’t care.
In fact, he’s so distracted by being happy that at first he doesn’t hear what his mother’s saying, but then -
“Wait. What gift basket?”
Patrick loves everything.
He loves this song. He loves Twyla. He loves the cafe (especially now that he knows there’s no risk of salmonella). He loves the crab cakes (which is good, because apparently he’s the only one who does and now he’ll have leftovers in his fridge for days).
He loves David.
He really, really loves David.
It’s when he’s swaying to the music and looking into David’s eyes that he finally realizes that…it’s time.
Not that he hasn’t been thinking about it for a while now…
But now…yeah. He’s going to do it.
He’s already ordered the rings, because, hello, that part has been obvious for a while now.
But now he knows just where he’s going to do it, too.
He’ll check with the jeweller first to triple-confirm the shipping date. Or maybe he should have that talk with Stevie. No, check on the rings first. Then put in a special order for that double-cream brie that David likes so much. Then look into the extended weather forecast for the next six weeks or so. And try to convince David - once again - to buy hiking shoes.
He’ll make a list tomorrow.
Better yet, a spreadsheet.
One thing he knows for sure is that this time, everything’s going to be perfect.
🎂 🎂 🎂