‘Am I allowed to be a tiny bit impressed with myself?’ I say, looking in the mirror. ‘It’s not horrible, right?’
‘No,’ Natalie says with a smile. ‘It’s actually pretty good. I mean, you’re well blended, so you have a good starting point at least.’
The tutorial continues and we start on the eyes. Suddenly everything seems a hell of a lot more complicated. I can’t draw in a straight line, so my first bit of eyeliner looks like it’s been put on with a Sharpie by a toddler. The powder under my eyes seems to be doing a decent job of catching fallout from the eyeshadow, but the colour isn’t coming through like I want it to. What looked so vibrant on my wrist in the shop looks sort of dull on my eyelid, and I can’t get the colours to blend in the same way the queen is.
When it comes to the second eye, things go from bad to worse. The eyeliner isn’t as even as it should be, the eyeshadow blends better, but in a different place to where it did on the first eye, so now I’m sweating and panicking about it and—
The door opens and closes downstairs.
Natalie sits up sharply like a meerkat and I find myself staring at her, full deer in headlights realness, a deer with a half-painted mug and white powder all over the floor in front of her. And I mean a lot of powder. It looks like I’m either on coke or have a sudden obsession with sherbet and I honestly don’t know which is worse.
‘Oh my God,’ I mutter. I look at myself in the mirror and what a few moments ago had felt like a really good starting point for me suddenly looks messy, and just not at all right.
‘Oh my gosh, your mum is going to love this,’ Natalie says, a smile on her face. ‘Maybe she can teach you to—’
‘This isn’t funny,’ I interrupt, going into full panic stations. ‘She can’t see me like this.’
Natalie blinks, confused. I rummage in the bag trying to find something to clean the make-up off with. I pour way too much of the micellar water onto a cotton pad and attack my face with it like I’ve totally lost my mind.
‘What? She already knows you’re gay – what’s the problem?’
‘She got really weird about us going to Entity the other night,’ I say. ‘Like, panicky that I was going to get hurt or something. If she sees me in drag, I . . . I don’t think she’ll be mad, that’s not her gig, but I don’t want her to worry more than she already does.’
‘OK, then.’ Natalie takes a deep breath. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Can you clear this up?’ I say, gesturing at the pile of make-up and brushes all over my carpet. ‘In my drawer, just the top one.’
Natalie starts piling as much of the make-up as she can into my desk drawer. ‘Oh, look! A Pritt Stick!’
‘Shut UP!’
‘Robin!’ Mum’s voice comes from downstairs. If I’d have kept quiet instead of screeching like a howler monkey, then she wouldn’t have even known I was here. ‘You home, sweetie?’
‘We’re upstairs, Mrs Cooper!’ Natalie calls.
‘What are you doing?’ I hiss, scraping at my eye with a cotton pad, annoyed at the cinematic parallels to what happened between me and Connor. Maybe I should jump out of the window this time.
‘It’s weirder if we don’t answer!’ she hisses back, grabbing a cotton pad and going at my face too.
I can hear her footsteps on the stairs. I check my face in the mirror, scrubbing at the remnants of foundation in the stubble along my jawline. I didn’t even shave before doing this. I was so unprepared. Christ.
Just as I throw the last cotton pad in the bin and Natalie throws herself across the mess of powder on the carpet, the door opens and Mum appears, her face smiley, open, me a little bleary-eyed, my whole face no doubt covered in a sheen of cleansing water. The smile is wiped from her face so fast I’m suddenly unsure it was even there in the first place.
‘Robin, are you OK?’
‘Um . . .’ I can’t form words. There isn’t a single thing that I think I can say in this moment that would explain the current state of my face. ‘I—’
‘Mrs Finch has been getting on his case today,’ Natalie says. ‘So we came back here and started talking about it and Robin got a little upset.’
Mum offers me a sad smile. ‘Well, rest assured I’m going to give that old hag a piece of my mind when I see her.’ She looks to Natalie. ‘You want to stay for dinner, hun? I’m making curry.’
‘World-famous?’ I ask, finding my voice.
She snorts. ‘Of course, nothing but the best.’
‘Sure,’ Natalie replies. ‘That would be nice.’
Mum heads downstairs and I instantly feel guilty for keeping this from her. That’s not how we do things. We share basically everything, and this is probably only the third thing in my whole life that I’ve kept from her, the first two being 1) that I’m gay, which she now knows, and 2) Connor, which I don’t know if she’ll ever know.
‘What are you thinking?’ Natalie asks. I look over at her and she’s brushing the powder from her T-shirt, the remnants falling on the floor. Surely the sign of the truest of true friends is someone who would throw themselves over a pile of setting powder for you.
I sigh and smile. ‘Just that I’m lucky to have you – that’s all.’
She makes a retching sound. ‘You’re gross,’ she says. ‘And you have foundation in your hairline.’
FOURTEEN
As I’m locking up my bike at school the following morning, I see Connor approaching. We’ve not really spoken since the Sunday incident and I don’t know how ready I am to talk about it.
‘Hey,’ he says, looking around, double-checking and triple-checking that no one has seen him come in the bike sheds. ‘You all right?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘You?’
He shrugs. ‘I wanted to apologize again for Sunday,’ he says. ‘I swear they said they were going out.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘Couldn’t be helped.’
He steps a little closer to me. ‘Maybe, if you’re free this weekend—’
There’s a clanging sound on the fence nearby, probably just somebody rushing past, but Connor jumps back and it kills whatever moment he was trying to create. He smiles at me, trying to regain his composure. ‘I’ll message you.’
‘OK.’
And, quicker than anything, he slips away and back towards school. I want the ground to swallow me up right now.
‘Did something scare him off?’ Greg is at the entrance to the bike sheds. ‘I’ve never seen him move so quick.’
‘I think he heard someone coming so . . .’ I trail off. I can’t talk about this with Greg. ‘How are you?’
‘Don’t deflect,’ he says. ‘How is lover boy this morning?’
‘Please don’t, Greg. I’m not in the mood,’ I say.
‘Neither is he, unless you’re under cover of darkness and completely alone,’ he says. ‘Remind me how many times he’s had to sneak out of your bedroom window?’
‘It’s far too early for this shit. Can we not?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
‘I was only teasing. I . . . I didn’t know you were . . .’ And I don’t know what Greg’s going to say. Maybe he’s getting the sense that I’m a bit sick of it. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. ‘I’m only looking out for you, I swear. I don’t want you—’
‘Good morning, you two!’ Natalie squeaks, bounding up to us. ‘You are never going to believe the night I had.’
‘Christ, do I want to know?’ I ask. Smile on, defences up.
‘I was looking up make-up tutorials for you,’ she says. ‘I want to see you as done up as basically everyone who has ever entered the Werkroom.’ She turns to Greg. ‘It turns out he’s quite good at it. The boy can blend.’
Greg blinks. ‘If I knew what that meant, I would applaud you, Robin.’
Nat rolls her eyes. ‘God, you’re clueless.’
Just a little way ahead of us, I see Seth walking towards school, his blond hair bouncing as he walks and, oh my Go
d, is he actually wearing a leather jacket? Christ. I almost want to pinch myself or check with Natalie that I’m not dreaming this boy up in my head.
‘Robin? Have I completely lost you to—’ Natalie clocks where my gaze is. ‘Oh, I see. Christ, is that a leather jacket?’
‘Uh-huh,’ I say.
‘Hey, Seth!’ Natalie calls out. He stops and turns round, taking off his headphones. He waves and his shirt lifts a little and be still my beating heart. ‘Do you have chills?’
He blinks and looks down at the jacket. A smile crosses his face. ‘Yeah, they’re multiplying.’
‘I like the jacket,’ Natalie says.
‘Do you?’ he asks as we get a little closer. ‘Because, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were making fun of me.’
Natalie fake gasps. ‘Me? No, I wouldn’t. I’m just an innocent flower. I’d never do such a thing.’
Seth scoffs. ‘Innocent flower, huh? Venus flytrap more like?’
‘Ooh, did the attitude come with the jacket or did you need to pay extra for it?’ she teases, and he laughs and I’m standing here with Greg watching the two of them flirting, wishing I were dead. How the heck does she do that? I go near him and get tongue-tied, Natalie goes near him and . . . well . . . wow.
‘Sorry, I’ve gotta run,’ he says. He looks at me for what is probably the first time since he stopped. ‘See you guys later.’
He walks away and I stare at Natalie. She shrugs and we carry on into the school.
I’m distracted when I get home. I try to work, but I can’t concentrate. I can’t sit still. All of this excess energy from not dancing is rushing through my body. There is a part of me that wants to go back, but right now I can’t. It all feels too tainted. A little too close to my failure. I pick up my phone and check my messages. Among them, I find one from Priya.
Seriously, babe, dancing isn’t the same without you! Come back to me!
Soon!
I don’t know how soon, but soon is the best I can hope for.
I hop on to my bed and lose myself in some drag videos for a while, rewatching Kaye Bye, stalking her online, following her on every platform possible. And then Seth’s face pops into my head.
I google him, feeling an instant rush of nervous energy when I do it. I don’t know where it’s come from. It turns out he’s not easy to find – there are a lot of Seth Harrises on Instagram – but thankfully I’m persistent and would rather do this than think about my trainwreck of a life. His page is mostly black and white, a lot of line drawings of skylines, a couple of people if you scroll further back, artsy photographs of himself, of landscapes. He’s an artist. Of course he’s an artist – why would he not be an artist?
There are a few group photos dotted around. Some with two other boys who look like they could be his brothers, another with a man and a woman who are one hundred per cent his parents. He looks exactly like his dad.
My finger hovers over the follow button. But we don’t know each other. We’ve only just met and I don’t want to scare him off. So I just scroll until I can’t scroll any more.
I must be out of my mind. I message Connor.
You around?
I wait for the three dots. And now I really know that I’m out of my mind here. My phone buzzes and I jump. But it’s Natalie sending me a video.
Start here.
Honestly can’t wait to see you in full Trixie Mattel get up.
I click the link and watch Trixie doing her make-up on a budget. She makes it seem easy. Mum isn’t home, so I could at least try this out.
After last time, I ordered the purple glue online, but it hasn’t arrived yet so Pritt Stick will have to do.
I watch the tutorial again, finding out just how difficult it is to get my eyebrows to lie flat and, after following step by step, brush stroke by brush stroke, I have an incredibly messy desk and a totally finished face. It doesn’t look half bad.
I snap a picture and send it to Natalie.
BITCH!
YES!
It’s OK?
Honey, you are a WORK! OF! ART!
My phone buzzes in my hand. My heart jumps and I curse it. Connor.
Maybe. Is your mum home?
She’s not. She won’t be home until later tonight and I’m sat here looking like a wigless Trixie Mattel copycat. I could remove this face and tell Connor the house is free, have him over and forget everything that’s happened. But there’s a niggling in the pit of my stomach and a picture of Seth in my head that is telling me not to do that.
She’s just got home. Sorry. Maybe some other time.
Natalie’s encouragement gives me the painting bug. I double-check Mum’s shifts and start to paint my face as often as I can. It’s a long process to get things to go right, to get my eyebrows flat, to get the contour in the right place. But every time I do it I get a little better, and every time I follow a tutorial I get closer and closer to looking like the queen at the end rather than a busted mess.
The process is weirdly calming, and a pretty decent distraction from the other things in my life. When I’m painting my face, I’m not thinking about my current chaos, I’m just thinking about the face.
You free?
Hey.
Hey????
I ignore message after message from Connor as the days go by, instead filling my group chat with Natalie and Greg with photos of the faces I’ve been painting. Natalie replies exuberantly to them with gratuitous emojis; Greg does the absolute best he can. But I know I need more than paint: I need to ask for help. It’s Natalie who tells me where I need to go.
Priya, TELL ME you’re at the studio tomorrow night.
FIFTEEN
Walking up to the studio for the first time in over a week is pretty daunting. Priya told me she would be here and was more than happy to help. I just have to convince Miss Emily that I’m not totally hopeless first.
‘She’s going to be fine,’ Priya says. ‘Honestly, she’ll just be glad you’re back. I’ve not told her, by the way.’
‘She’s probably worked it out?’
Priya shrugs. ‘Maybe.’ She checks her watch. ‘You’ve got ten minutes – go see her now. I’ll wait out here.’
I knock on the office door and Miss Emily calls to come in. She’s sitting on the edge of her desk, and her eyes widen when she sees me walk in. It’s a pretty big office because she shares it with all the other teachers at the school, each one of them with a desk, but somehow it feels tiny now that it’s just the two of us in here, her eyes fixed on me.
‘There was me thinking I was never going to see you again,’ she says. ‘From four classes a week to none. That was some illness.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t sick. I . . .’ I trail off. God, it still hurts to say it.
‘You didn’t get into LAPA,’ she says.
I try not to let the disappointment appear on my face. Instead I take a breath and paint on that smile.
‘No,’ I say. ‘How did you know?’
‘Dan got an acceptance letter last week, so I just assumed,’ she says. It’s an absolute punch to the gut. He’s another boy in our class. ‘I’m sorry, Robin. How are you feeling?’
‘I’m OK,’ I lie. ‘I’m figuring it out.’
‘Honestly?’
I laugh. ‘Honestly?’ I repeat. ‘Honestly, whenever I think about it, I feel like I’m about to shatter into a thousand pieces.’ But I say it with a smile. I keep up the facade. Everything is fine, I’m laughing, I’m joking, it’s all right.
She blinks a couple of times like she’s trying to process the disconnect between the words I’m saying and the look on my face. Maybe she goes off my look, maybe. Somehow, I’m telepathically asking her not to talk about it any more because it might kill me.
‘You’ll figure it out,’ she says, smiling. ‘Of course you will.’ She checks her watch. ‘Right, to the studio then. If there’s one thing you need right now, it’s a dance class.’
The class is hard. Even wit
h just a week out, I’m struggling to get back into it. I’m nervous before every step, worried I can’t do it, analysing every little thing that I do, like there is another me outside of my body criticizing my every move.
The girls are dancing in their New Yorkers tonight, a three-inch beige heel, and I watch them a little more intently than usual. Their balance is, by some divine miracle, the same as it is when they are dancing in bare feet or a jazz shoe, and I can’t figure out why. All I know is that I want to try. That’s what I’m here for.
Priya looks godlike, T-shirt flowing, leg kicking so high she could whack herself in the face if she wasn’t in total control. She turns to me at the end of the class.
‘How did it go?’ she asks.
‘She was fine,’ I say. ‘Just wanted to get me dancing again.’
‘And are you feeling any better?’
I shrug and paint my smile back on. I know I don’t need to hide in front of Priya, but I don’t want to be a downer. I’m trying to keep looking forward, focus on what can be, not what hasn’t been. ‘Some days are better than others. Today is a good day. Dancing feels good.’
She smiles. ‘Good. You’ll get in next year. What do I want? A famous husband! When do I want him? ASAP!’
‘You don’t seem to need a famous husband just now,’ I say, raising an eyebrow. ‘How is Greg?’
Her face bursts into a grin. ‘Oh, he’s yummy, where did you find him?’
I shrug. ‘He just appeared one day. We keep him around because he’s cute.’
‘He certainly is that!’ she says, heading towards the door. ‘Are you coming?’
‘I just want to talk to Miss Emily,’ I say. ‘I won’t be long.’
Boy Queen Page 11
