“You’re going to need these. You know you will.”

Ramona dangled the red vinyl boots in front of my face, bait hooked on the end of a line. Patiently, she waited for me to bite.

“Fine,” I said at last, snatching them from her and tossing them into the suitcase sprawled open on my bedroom floor. “Fine, I’ll take them with me. Even though I still don’t think they’re very practical.”

Ramona grinned. “Come on. Who knows what could happen to you in rural Kansas? Like… What if you stumble across an amateur drag show and in a shocking twist of events, you’re needed on stage? See, these boots would be very practical footwear for such an occasion.”

I bent down and tried to fold the top of one boot the best I could, forcing the shoe into the existing puzzle of clothing and footwear. A square peg in a round hole. “Oh yeah, I’m sure that will be a common occurrence. You really do think of it all.”

“‘Be Prepared,’ as the Boy Scouts of America say.”

I could laugh at Ramona’s quips as much as I sensed she wanted me to, comforting her with smiles that said everything is great. But lurking beneath my sunny display was the knowledge that I would never really be prepared for this. A pair of cheap Halloween boots did not change the reality that I would never be ready to face the Family. Uncle Ted and Aunt Cathy, the shrinks who got inside my head with a single psychoanalytic glance. My cousin Matt, fresh out of law school. My cousin Bruce, fresh out of prison. Just the thought of seeing all of them assembled there at the airport made my temples throb and my throat get dry. I’d seen Ted, Cathy, and Matt two, maybe three Christmases ago. It had been eight years since Bruce was locked up. Eight years since he did what he did.

“It’s only three weeks,” I said, more to myself than to Ramona.

“‘Only?’” she repeated, plopping down on the edge of my bed. “That’s, like, almost a month. Which is basically almost a year. No, almost an eternity!” She dramatically fell backwards, as if possessed by the spirit of Shakespeare. “An eternity away from me!”

I chewed my lip, eyeing the heap of a best friend that had taken over my bed. Ramona’s hair, the color of wheat, fanned out around her head like a tangled corona. The golden afternoon poured through my window, setting her features aglow. I recognized this moment, so fragile and fleeting, as a last glimpse of east coast Heaven before I boarded the plane to midwestern Hell. Population: 4,500.

“How will I survive, Ramona?” I asked, lying down beside her. It was a genuine question.