Mr. March Names the Stars Read online

  Wes scowled at him. "My point, Nash, is that we didn't get to check our bios or have input about what they said in the first place. It's not just the gay thing, though that's the worst. Look at the rest of it."

  "Are other parts of it inaccurate?"

  "Not exactly, but they're not right. I fish when I need it to eat; it's not a hobby. Yeah, I kind of like Whitman and Adah Menken, but I'm way more into Mary Oliver and Carl Phillips. And calling Ivy my 'fellow covener' makes it sound like more of us are waiting at home. But it's just us. Which the name should make clear." Nash gave him a blank look, and Wes smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I forget sometimes that the whole world isn’t full of armchair astronomy buffs like Ivy and I are. Procyon is a binary star system. Two stars, two of us. The only thing they did right was not misgendering Ivy." He rubbed his face to hide his noise of frustration. "It's like when they went to put the calendar together, they realized they'd forgotten to ask for bios and made them up from whatever weird stuff we'd talked about that day, rather than bothering to ask us. And that is on Silver Grove."

  Nash opened his mouth, maybe to argue, and then closed it again. "You're absolutely right."

  "Well... yeah. Of course I am." They stared at each other. Now that they weren't going to fight, Wes wasn't sure what to do.

  Nash leaned forward and rested his elbows on his briefcase. "What would you like Silver Grove to do?"

  "What do you mean?" Wes demanded. "I want you to fix it!"

  Nash gave a tiny shrug. "Yes, but how? This is a limited-run calendar produced on a low budget for charity. From Silver Grove's perspective, it's a feel-good PR opportunity. We make no money on it. That means that, should something go wrong, there won't be a lot of effort put into correcting it."

  Wes' eyes narrowed. "That doesn't seem very 'An it harm none' of ye." He twitched. "You."

  Nash rolled his eyes. "Not every Pagan lives by the Rede. And Silver Grove is built on an American capitalist business model, not a Pagan one. I don't know if even two thirds of the people who work there identify as Pagan. At the executive level, maybe, but down in the trenches, most of us are just mail clerks and machine operators and... and lawyers. No particular religion required."

  That knocked Wes back. He'd assumed Nash was a fellow Pagan who could understand Wes' plight on a personal autonomy and authority level. But he was right—a lawyer was a lawyer; he wouldn't have to be Pagan to work at a Pagan publishing firm. That was going to make this tougher.

  As if sensing the drift of Wes' thoughts, Nash sighed and reached up. With deft movements of strong, narrow fingers, he undid the two top buttons of his polo shirt, revealing a strong collarbone that Wes had a surprisingly strong urge to touch. Nash leaned forward, and it took Wes' brain a minute to catch up with the fact that he was being shown something. He forced his gaze away from the collarbone and leaned closer, toward where Nash's index finger was pointing.

  The blue ink was faint against Nash's dark skin, as if the tattoo were sinking into Nash's body. And he hadn't pulled his shirt down far enough to reveal the whole design, but Wes would recognize the top of that seven-pointed star anywhere. He lifted his eyes to Nash's, startled. "Blue Star," he said. "You guys are hardcore."

  Nash snorted as he adroitly rebuttoned his shirt to the top button. "If you say so." He leaned back and lifted his hand to shield his eyes against the morning sun. "I can tell Editing to correct your bio," he said. "That way, if the calendar goes into a second print run, we can do it with accurate copy. How does that sound?"

  Wes stared at him. "That's it? Silver Grove is the biggest New Age publisher in North America. Is that the best its top lawyer can offer a disgruntled former employee?"

  Nash coughed. It sounded like he was covering a laugh. "I'm sorry, Wes, but I'm far from Silver Grove's top lawyer, and you are, at best, a disgruntled former contractor. As far as the documents you signed are concerned, Silver Grove has fulfilled its obligations to you. I'm offering the corrected bio as a gesture of good faith. We don't have to do anything."

  "I could sue!" Wes said, wincing when his voice came out shrill and panicked.

  "For what?" Nash asked, one thin eyebrow lifting.

  "Um… libel?"

  "No good." Nash shook his head. "You would have to prove that Silver Grove intentionally printed false information about you, with the intention of defaming your character. Our legal team would have no problem proving that this was an honest mistake, and that no real damage has been done to you."

  "Are you kidding me?" Wes gestured widely, trying to encompass the entire festival circuit with one circling hand. "You have no idea what it's been like since the calendar came out, and it's been less than a month. People used to leave me alone unless they wanted to buy something. And that was great—Ivy's the social one, not me. But since that calendar came out, it's been nonstop. I'm being mobbed by women I've never met who think they know me because they have a picture of me holding a cutesy baby farm animal. 'Mr. March, sign my calendar!' 'Mr. March, I don't have a calendar; sign my arm.' 'Sign my boob.' And the matchmaking, my gods. If it's not for themselves, it's for a sister or a daughter or a shy friend. The circuit is my home, but it doesn't feel like a safe space anymore."

  Wes wouldn't have been surprised if Nash fled after that tirade, but instead he leaned forward, eyes intent. "I'm so sorry to hear that," he said, and Wes believed him. "What do you want us to do about it?"

  "Stop selling the incorrect copies. I don't know if you can get them back from stores, but you sell them at every major festival on the circuit. Stop doing that until you get corrected copies made."

  Nash stared at him for a long moment. Then he exhaled slowly and leaned back, looking out over the campground spread out around them. "Yeah," he said, "okay. I can do that."

  Wes exhaled too, relieved. "Thank you," he said. "You have no idea how much I appreciate it."

  "Good day, then," Nash said brusquely as he stood and began shoving his paperwork back into his briefcase. Wes felt bereft, bewildered. Had he said something? Done something? It wasn't like he wanted Nash to stay, but the thought of parting on such cold terms put an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  "I, uh—" Wes blurted the words—sounds, really—without thinking. When Nash looked over, his hands not pausing, Wes realized he had no idea what he wanted to say. He licked his lips and looked at Nash's hand, which had just picked up the pristine calendar his assistant had packed for him. "You don't have your own copy of the calendar?" he asked, and cursed himself for the way he had somehow made it sound both accusatory and disbelieving at the same time. "Every Silver Grove employee I've met has had at least two."

  Nash's lips pressed into a tight line before he said, "Every Silver Grove employee you've met has probably been allosexual, too."

  A different shock ran through Wes, a flare of recognition and a desperate hope of kinship. His hand shot out without his say-so and gripped Nash's wrist. Nash looked down at the spot, forehead crinkling in an adorably confused scowl, and then back at Wes' face, scowl now moving on to just plain annoyed territory. "Mr. Piedmont," he said, voice clipped, "what are you doing?"

  Wes snatched his hand back. "Sorry!" he said. "Sorry. There just aren't that many of us. I get excited."

  "'Us'?" Nash echoed, looking intrigued despite himself.

  "Asexual Pagans."

  Wes couldn't read what Nash's expression was doing. He looked disapproving and maybe disbelieving, but also cautiously hopeful. "You said," he began, but he didn't seem able to finish.

  "That I'm gay? Yeah." Wes nodded. "I do that, and maybe that makes me a coward. But I'm sick of people judging me when it's none of their business. Outside of other people in Reclaiming, who are open to basically everything, every time I'm honest with another Pagan—every time I say 'homoromantic asexual'—I get a lecture about the importance of sexual experience in Pagan religions and how not having sex is submitting to the oppressive patriarchal Puritanism that modern Paganism was developed to resis
t."

  Nash sank back into his chair, less accusation and more bemusement in his expression now. "That's funny; I thought modern Paganism was developed so Gerald Gardner could run around rural England buck naked."

  Wes laughed so hard he choked. "Anyway, I got sick of people telling me asexuality is incompatible with Paganism, so I stopped saying it."

  "That's absurd!" Nash said, eyes flashing with anger. "Any healthy model of sex positivity embraces all forms of consensual sexual expression, including its absence!"

  Wes held up his hand. "Hey, man, preaching to the choir."

  "And who the hell are they to tell you how to practice your religion?"

  "No one I gave a crap about." Wes sighed and scratched the back of his head. "But it wears, you know?"

  "Do I ever. I'm not trying to play the 'my suffering is worse than yours' game, but if you want a lecture or twenty, try being black, panromantic, asexual, trans, and Pagan in suburban Minnesota."

  Wes whistled and saluted Nash with his empty water glass. "I bow to your superior weirdness."

  Nash gave a small, pained laugh. "There was a time when I would've given anything to be 'normal.' But I couldn't change who I was and what I believed. And I hoped that, once I accepted myself, other people would have an easier time accepting me."

  "How's that working for you?"

  Nash laughed again, softly. "It isn't. But it helps me care less about what other people think."

  "Yeah."

  They sat quietly for a minute, pondering that, and then Nash looked around. "I should go."

  "Sure," Wes said easily. He felt unexpectedly at ease around Nash, like they'd been hanging out together for years, rather than ten minutes. It was like when he spent time with Ivy: Wes would be content sitting at this table with Nash for the rest of the day, but he also felt like Nash could get up and walk away right now, and that would be okay, too. They'd catch up with each other later.

  Wes shook his head. They wouldn't catch up with each other later. Nash would go back to Silver Grove and make the changes he'd promised. Wes would spend his week in the Minnesota sun before moving on to Ohio for the next festival. Their paths would never need to cross again.

  That was not okay with Wes. In fact, it was so not okay that his breath caught in his chest. He couldn't let Nash walk away without attempting to continue communications. "We should exchange information," he said. Nash's gaze turned sharp and considering. Wes knew he must be blushing redder than a bowl of strawberries, but he met Nash's gaze and refused to be embarrassed into backpedaling. "I mean, so you can update me on how it's going with the new calendar and everything."

  The gaze from Nash's brown eyes was piercing, and Wes couldn't help squirming under its perceptive scrutiny. "Huh," Nash said finally. "Yeah, okay." He pulled a sleek smartphone from his pocket, swiped at the screen, and held it out to Wes. "Put your contact info in there. I'll text you updates."

  Wes stared at the phone. "I, uh, don't have a phone? I mean, not really. Ivy and I share this ancient Motorola thing, but it only gets reception half the time at festivals and three-quarters of the time between."

  "When you're home—"

  "You're looking at it." Wes waved at the tent. "We're circuit riders. From April to October, we travel to Pagan festivals around the U.S. and Canada. In between, we camp wherever we feel like. Every couple months, we stay in a hotel for a few nights to do laundry, stock up on supplies, do maintenance on the truck, and binge on bacon cheeseburgers and whatever low-budget sci-fi shows are playing in the middle of the night. This tent and Ivy's pickup truck are our only real homes."

  Nash looked astounded, and Wes didn't blame him. Pagan festivals didn't have a lot of true circuit riders. He and Ivy rarely told people that particular detail about themselves.

  "And between November and March?" Nash asked.

  "At the end of September, we pull out a U.S. map and pick a city to spend the winter in. The only requirement is that it's someplace we've never stayed before. We get our winter clothes out of storage and spend October working our network for a place to stay, a space for Ivy to do metal work, and somebody who doesn't mind paying under the table for a couple youngish people's strong arms and backs for a few months. If we're lucky, we find a setup where all three of those things are in the same place."

  They led a hard life, there was no denying that. It wasn't for everyone. Heck, sometimes it wasn't for Wes. Some nights the ground rose up bumpy and unyielding to stab his lower back, and some mornings a campground's meager hot water supply cut out in the middle of his shower. Those were the times he thought about the choices he'd made in his life and whether it was too late to chart a different course. He'd never be the white picket fence type, but sometimes he wondered what it'd be like to have one apartment and one job in one city, to put down roots, watch his neighbors' kids grow up, maybe adopt a cat. It held no appeal for him now, but someday. He'd told Ivy they couldn't ride the circuit forever, but Ivy seemed to think they'd keep going until they kicked it—a couple of eighty-year-old geezers in a decrepit red F-150, sleeping in a tent and washing their underwear in the stream.

  He looked up from his wandering thoughts and caught an expression of extreme concentration on Nash's face. It looked good on him. Wes pictured him at a desk, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, hunched over a pile of contracts with that look on his face, and his breath hitched. The Nash in his mind looked so right. Maybe it was all in his mind, or maybe he'd been gifted a rare, real vision. He wondered what it would be like to be that comfortable in his own skin. Most times he was, but sometimes he'd catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, something he and Ivy had been chasing since their parents died. He knew they were unlikely to find it in the chaos of the Pagan festival circuit, but he couldn't imagine seeking it anywhere else.

  Nash drummed his fingers against his briefcase. "I'm not sure how to reach you," he admitted.

  "Letters," Wes said. "I love sending letters. Love getting them, too."

  "Letters?" Nash echoed. "Actual, hand-written letters, on paper, sent through the mail?"

  Wes grinned. "Yeah, it's great. It's dying art form, and that's a shame. I could send them to your office, give the kids in the mailroom something to scratch their heads over."

  Nash looked unconvinced, but he reached into his briefcase and held out a crisp white business card with the Silver Grove logo in the upper left corner and "Nash Larsen, associate legal counsel," with an address and phone number in the lower right. Clean and simple, like Nash. Wes ran his fingers over it and tucked it into the waistband of his shorts.

  "Where can I send your letters?" Nash asked. "I don't suppose your pickup has a mailbox."

  Wes beamed. "You still got that phone?"

  Nash pulled his phone out again and entered his security code. Wes knew just enough about how these gizmos worked to find the notes screen. He typed in the circuit-tracker website's URL with instructions on how to navigate to the Pagan festival page he and Ivy had created. Then he added the names of the two festivals they were skipping this year and handed the phone back. "This is how you find me," he said. "All the festivals have mailing addresses listed. They're used to us getting mail and are good about getting it to us."

  After looking at the information for a minute, Nash returned his phone to his pocket and swept his briefcase off the table. "That will be acceptable," he said, all business again. He held out his hand. "Thank you, Mr. Piedmont. I'll be in touch."

  Wes stood and shook Nash's hand. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Larsen," he said. "I look forward to hearing from you."

  Nash nodded, extracted his hand from Wes' grip, and walked away, dodging the crowd that had swelled considerably while they were talking.

  With suspicious rapidity, Ivy appeared at Wes' back. Wes leaned into his sibling's warmth, enjoying the smooth flow of silk against his back from the short wrap Ivy wore on cool mornings and evenings. Ivy smelled like home, wind and pine sap and slightly damp socks. "I've most
ly got everything sorted out with the booth," Ivy said, wrapping an arm around Wes' chest, "though you'll need to check in with the vendor coordinator at some point." Wes nodded. "And who was that delicious drink of water I saw making his ever-so-crisp way away from us?"

  Wes' fingers flicked at the top of Nash's business card, sticking out of his waistband. "Nash Larsen. He's from Silver Grove. From the legal department. He's going to fix the mess with the calendar."

  Ivy hummed and moved away, hauling Wes toward the tent to finish setting up. "Well, that's nice of him," xe said. "And which of his no-doubt hideous faults will you and your trust issues be zeroing in on as an excuse to push him away?"

  "Don't do that," Wes snapped. "Wanting people to be honest with me isn't the same as having 'trust issues'."

  "Well," Ivy mused, "there's honesty, and then there's honesty."

  "That doesn't make sense," Wes grumbled, hefting one of their boxes of soap with more force than necessary.

  "Neither do you, dear one. Well, whatever Mr. Larsen's going to do, let's hope he does it fast. Two women asked me to introduce you to them while I was out."

  Wes bit back a curse and focused on the work that needed to be done. That was the only way to keep himself from going crazy worrying about this mess with the calendar: focus on the task in front of him and hope Nash could make change happen quickly. He wondered how long it would take.

  He also wondered how long it would take Nash to realize that, while he would need to write Wes with updates, there was really no reason for Wes to write back.

  May 31, 2016

  Mr. Wesley Piedmont

  c/o Other Realms Gathering, Minnesota

  Dear Mr. Piedmont,

  Regarding our conversation of May 27: I have spoken with representatives from Silver Grove's Editing, Production, Distribution, and Sales departments, outlining the course of action you and I discussed. They have taken the matter under advisement and will inform me of the timeline for implementation as soon as they are able. I should advise you that, while the pace of innovation may be fast, the pace of business can be quite slow, and it may take longer than you had hoped before you notice the changes or their benefits.