Alex Ham the orchestra man

Chapter Four

Alex stopped at a random classroom to ask where the guidance counselor's room was, since that was apparently where the gay club - officially QSA - was meeting. He headed up the set of stairs in the main lobby and found the room, with a small sign on the ajar door: QSA , and a lot of rainbows and unicorns and different pride flags - he identified the gay one, and then bi, ace, nonbinary, and trans, along with others.

Tentatively, he pushed the door open and stuck his head in. Only Peggy was in the room, sitting in a cushy chair and swinging their legs aimlessly. "Hi, Ham. Didn't realize you were coming," they greeted. He slipped into the small room and pushed the door near-shut behind him.

He almost raised his eyebrow before remembering what a disaster that had been. "I thought Laurens told you guys."

They shook their head. "No, though I didn't realize you were so close already," they said, winking suggestively. Alex turned red and immediately willed himself to stop blushing with little success. Peggy cackled. "Aww, look at little Alex! He's all red."

"Shut up, Peggy," he muttered with little venom.

The door creaked behind him and Eliza and Angelica came into the room, looking around. "Only you two are here yet? And good to see you, Alex, didn't think you'd be interested in these things," Angelica said.

"Are you kidding? The LGBTQ+ community is one of the most important things I could be defending, people pretend to accept it only because the rest of the country would shame them for it and yet they still use the f-word, and I don't mean the swear, in common language. And then if people are 'allies', most of them don't even know what the less common sexualities or gender identities and whatnot are. And -"

"Calm down, Alex," Angelica laughed, "we get it. You care about this." He nodded violently. "Yes I do."

They lapsed back into comfortable conversation as more people filed into the room, Alex mentioning that he was bi to those who asked why he was there.

John, Lafayette, and Mulligan burst into the room, shouting in sync "AYYYY WHAT TIME IS IT?!"

"Time for all of you to sit down." A lady swept grandly into the room after them, pulling the door shut behind her. "I'm Mrs. Ross, or you can call me Betsy. I'm the guidance counselor that runs the QSA, or 'gay club' as I know many of you call it," she said, winking at John. Her crows' feet showed themselves as she smiled broadly. "Now, I see several new faces here, so why don't we introduce ourselves and our pronouns again?" The people that went frequently groaned, and she admonished, "Stop complaining, we need to do this for every new person." The Schuylers turned as one and fake-glared at Alex. "This is all your fault, Alex," Peggy scolded. He pretended to shrink into himself.

"I'm so sorry that I wanted to come and see what all the big fuss was about," he defended. They laughed. "I'm kidding Alex, relax." He did so.

With a minimal amount of hustling, Mrs. Ross pushed them into a big circle so they could see everyone's face. "Anyone want to start?" She was met with a roomful of innocently blank faces. She sighed. "Okay, Laf, you start then."

They bounced in their seat. "I'm Laf, they/them/theirs pronouns," they said excitedly, hair springing everywhere. Alex wondered if they were ever calm. Probably not.

Introductions went around the circle, people cheerfully naming their pronouns as well as their names.

"Well, now that that's done with, let's talk. Is there anything anyone wants to discuss?"

Angelica Schuyler raised her hand and said, "The way people think the 'A stands for ally', which is just inherently incorrect and actually, it stands for asexual, and how the asexual community is underrepresented in the LGBTQ+ community..."