by Tanya Boteju
Deidre waved Charles over. “Well, get over here and let’s have a proper meet, sweetheart!”
Charles looked at me, then at Deidre, and with as much determination as I’d ever seen in his skinny legs, walked straight up the porch steps to meet Deidre, who gathered him up in an enormous hug, leaving Charles to adapt as best he could, not being a hugger and all. After un-smothering him, Deidre looked between Gordon and Charles and said, “You two already know each other, then?”
Gordon gave that annoying head-nod thing he did, like his skull was on a short yo-yo rope, and Charles tried unsuccessfully to mimic it.
“Hmmm, okay . . . ,” Deidre murmured, “we’ll work on that.” She turned away from them and toward me. Using her flattened hand to shield her eyes against the sun, she asked, “How’d things go with your mama, sugar?”
Gordon interrupted, “Uh . . . maybe I should go?” He stood up and started walking down the stairs.
“You don’t have to,” I said to him, approaching the porch.
“It’s cool. I’ll go.”
“No, really, stay.” I touched his arm. He looked at my hand and sat down on the steps. I noticed a smile pass Deidre’s lips.
Deidre settled down on the steps as well and patted the space beside her. I sank down between the two of them and stretched my legs out in front of me. Deidre looked up at Charles. “You too, sugar. Plop that butt down over here.” He complied, sitting on the top step just behind me and drawing his knees in tight.
I took a deep breath and told Deidre and Gordon all about what had happened that morning at Jill’s. Afterward, Deidre gathered me up into her chest, and Gordon even offered a “Sorry, man. That sucks.” Funny enough, not one tear dropped from my eyes. Maybe I was all cried out. Or maybe sadness wasn’t the central feeling invading my body anymore. I felt loss, but I also felt . . . lighter, a relief from loss. My mom leaving definitely sucked. She was gone, again. But the sense of not knowing why was no longer there. I’d maybe never understand exactly what made her leave, even this second time, but I knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t about me.
By the time the sprinkler began its skip-and-spray pattern across the yard, I’d moved on from telling them about my mother to sharing my new resolve to get back onstage. After Deidre finished what I could only describe as a very svelte version of a seated hula dance in response to this news, she proceeded to concoct another “big gay agenda” to make it happen.
Part of that agenda included homework. Once Charles and I had shared with Deidre the three song choices we’d picked out, Deidre immediately vetoed two of them. “They just won’t do you justice, sugar.” Then she tasked Charles with sourcing out an itemized clothing list she made to suit the chosen song.
Deidre instructed Gordon to help Charles, since Gordon had actually seen a drag show, and Charles hadn’t. This I knew was a plan devised by Deidre to put these two together, but I thought she was pushing it. Charles’s eyes immediately flashed with apprehension. Gordon must have noticed this too, because to my amazement, he offered, “I don’t mind helping, if you’re cool with that, Charles.” Charles considered him for a moment and then shrugged. They made a plan to meet the next day.
Sometimes I wondered if Deidre was secretly an actual sorceress.
My job was to listen to the song nonstop until I could lip-sync the lyrics while doing some other activity—“like grating cheese or vacuuming,” Deidre said—to prove that the words had “slipped into the nooks and crannies of my brain.”
Finally Deidre said I would be expected each night at the church rehearsal space at seven o’clock for practice. Over grilled cheese sandwiches, we began plotting out a loose outline of possible dance moves.
Later that evening, Deidre planted a fervent, wet kiss on each of our cheeks and waved her beautiful hand at us as she zoomed off in her van. Gordon and Charles watched her disappear around the corner, and I wondered if they both had a crush on her at this point. After some awkward goodbyes—awkward because this particular grouping of people was an unknown territory for all of us—I walked into my empty kitchen, washed the dirty dishes, changed into my favorite sweats, and tumbled into my own bed for what felt like the first time in weeks, even though it had only been a couple of days. My body sank deep into the mattress, and within minutes, I fell asleep with Gus gently wheezing beside me.
CHAPTER 17
The next two weeks felt like continuous somersaults: dive headfirst, look up, heave forward, find feet, repeat.
The first plunge I took brought me to Jill’s place. I thought about avoiding Jill and my work at the emporium—she’d no doubt let me get away with it. But somehow, it felt like Jill and I were on the same side. She’d been hurt by my mom too, after all, and she had tried to encourage a truce between my mom and me, even if it was a complete disaster.
Thus, I found myself in her backyard on Monday morning, staring at her behind as she knelt and dug at some potted plants. She had earbuds in and was poorly singing half sentences of a song I didn’t recognize.
“Hey!” I yelled at her butt.
She jumped a little and pulled a bud out of her ear. When she turned to see me, a gigantic smile filled her face and she rose, dusting off her knees. “Hey, doll. I’m so happy to see you.” She raised her arms a little, the smile remaining but uncertainty in her eyes.
I shuffled over but paused about a foot away from her. She dropped her arms. I didn’t know where to look, so I stared at Jill’s work boots, scuffed and dusty with dried soil. A wave of light-headedness crashed over me, and in moments Jill had me in her arms.
Over the next couple of days, Jill and I threw ourselves into work, happy for the distraction. While we lugged slippery plastic bags of soil, watered thirsty plants, and sorted inventory, we said almost nothing to one another, but the silence was an easy one—punctuated with half smiles and slight nods and, every so often, an unanticipated hug in the middle of the storeroom or after loading the truck. They were brief, passing hugs, but they helped us steady one another as we worked through our separate and shared heartaches, and I felt myself slowly regaining some balance.
Dad arrived home on Monday night, in an exhausted, happy stupor from his road trip. Jill and I hadn’t talked about whether to tell my dad about the letter or about my mom appearing out of nowhere, but I’d decided for myself that it would only hurt him. Mom hadn’t even mentioned my dad at any point. I didn’t know where to begin explaining that to him, or to myself, for that matter.
And though a small part of me was still frustrated with his passivity, and still confused about how much he knew and didn’t know, I found myself mostly just yearning to have him home. To have his curly-headed, bighearted self roll his eyes at me and pinch me when I said something sassy.
So when he lumbered through the kitchen door after I’d just arrived home from rehearsing with Deidre, I ignored the niggling in my stomach, gave him an enormous hug, and breathed in—Cheetos, vinyl, sweat. Familiar and comforting.
“What’s this?” he asked. “A hug? From my teenage offspring? Has the apocalypse arrived? Is there a new world order?”
I kept my face buried in his thick neck and murmured, “Hush up and be grateful, old man.”
One piece of my tumbling, careening life I did share with him the next morning before both of us went to work was that I was helping Deidre with a “project” and would be heading to North Gate each night for a couple of weeks. He seemed curious but remained sensibly nonintrusive. When I told him Gordon Grant would be driving me out there some nights, however, he expressed his surprise.
“Gordon Grant? When did you two become friendly again?”
“Just the past few days. That’s what happens when you flit around the countryside with your buddies on irresponsible, middle-aged adventures—you miss all kinds of thrilling stuff.” If you only knew.
“Yeah, yeah.” He filled a glass of water from the faucet. “He’s . . . okay to hang out with?”
“Yeah, he’s okay. Stil
l a little rough around the edges, but getting there.”
“Mmm,” he murmured into his glass. “Okay, well, if you need a pickup or drop-off from this old guy . . .”
Watching him sip his drink, his mess of curls pleading for a comb, his toes wriggling at the ends of his Birkenstocks, my chest ached. Despite his own losses, my dad had never made me feel anything but loved.
To his added bewilderment, I kissed him on the cheek and laid my head on his shoulder, my arms wrapping around his waist. “I love you, you old hippie.”
My rehearsals with Deidre made our previous boot camp look like a potato-sack race. Her “training” made me feel like I was about to do the Iron Man. Except harder. The Steel Queen. Or Chromium King.
We practiced for an hour each night, Monday to Friday, for two weeks. Deidre used her plentiful connections to secure me a spot at the weekly “Chicks and Chucks” show at Chills bar. Deidre said that Chills attracted a very friendly, mixed crowd, and every show opened with a handful of “virgin sacrifices.”
“Don’t worry, sugar, ‘virgin sacrifices’ isn’t as sinister as it sounds—all those babies performing will have had a chance to rehearse, like you are, and y’all are a crowd favorite. You’ll be loved, I promise.”
Though this still put me in a perpetual state of nausea, the thought of sharing myself with a warm audience definitely sent a thrill up my spine. And the show gave me a finite deadline. I was at least confident that in two weeks of rehearsals with someone like Deidre, things would be . . . no worse than my last time onstage.
It was easy to see why Deidre was so adored and respected in the drag community—her patience with my deficiency of rhythm and coordination impressed me over and over again. I’m sure with anyone who had an ounce of athleticism or sense of timing, she could have had them stage-ready in two or three days. But we spent the first two nights practicing the most basic of dance moves.
“These here are what I call fillers,” Deidre explained, “steps you can add in whenever needed that still look sharp if done right.”
“Done right,” of course, is relative. I discovered that for Deidre, it meant precise, natural, and fluid—a challenge to my general way of being. But with Deidre’s patience and expertise, and more importantly, her ability to somehow make all this sweat and work fun, I slowly managed to acquire some natural flow for each movement, each step.
Though I’d probably always be a little uncoordinated, and mostly awkward, this feeling of moving in a way that was new but also comfortable made me realize I wasn’t destined to be any one way. That was a comfort in itself.
The next day Charles came by to show me the clothes he and Gordon had found. As I tried on different shirts, I asked him what he thought of Deidre and Gordon. I hoped he could open himself up to them—especially Gordon—eventually.
He sat on the bed with his back to me. We’d been friends forever, but he’d still never wanted to see me shirtless. After some thought, he ventured, “Deidre is . . . a supernova explosion, and the afterglow. Gordon—I don’t know. More like . . . dark matter? He managed not to be his usual offensive self when we went searching for clothes yesterday, but he’s definitely not charming, either. Or even capable of pleasant, it seems.”
“Yeah, he hasn’t figured out how to let down his guard yet. I’m hoping Deidre will help with that—if anyone can.”
“Agreed.”
I wanted to ask him how he felt about the whole Tessa thing too but thought it might still be too fresh in his heart. I tried a general approach. “How are you doing?”
“With what?”
“With . . . whatever.”
A few moments of silence. I continued to button my second shirt.
Charles finally spoke. “Well, I’m not sure that costume design is in my future, but at least it’s taken my mind off Tessa.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think I’ll take up writing poetry full-time instead.” He peered over his shoulder and I could see his sly smile.
Throwing a shirt at his back, I said, “Excellent choice.” Then: “The right girl will come along, friend. You’re a catch.”
“That’s what I think.”
Pushing the last button through its hole, I said, “Okay, you can look. What do you think of this one?” Out of the three shirts he and Gordon had found, this bright tangerine one would best suit my song. The large, sharp collar reminded me of an origami swan, too, and I loved it.
“Snazzy. Gordon said there was a lot of leather at the show the other night. Should we find you a leather jacket or something?”
“Um, no, I don’t think so. But I will need a jacket—something bright like this shirt, and fitted. Think you can find one?”
He collapsed dramatically across my bed. “Ugh. More shopping? With Gordon? Please, no.”
I laughed. “All right, all right. You’ve proven your friendship. I’ll see if Deidre can find a jacket.” I looked down at my raggedy jean shorts. “Okay, what’ve you got for pants? Please don’t say corduroys.”
“Okay, sugar, week one was all about the basics, because you know, you gotta learn to walk before you can boogie.”
Deidre stood facing the giant mirror in the church basement, her bare feet shoulder-width apart and her arms hanging loosely at her sides. Today she wore tight black exercise pants and a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves and neck cut out. A black durag covered her head, and hoop earrings the size of bangles looped from her ears. She could have been a professional dancer for all I knew.
I was next to her, trying my best to look as relaxed as she did. “Jungle Boogie” bumped and rolled out of the speakers at max volume.
“But now we’re done walking—it’s time to boogie.” Her pelvis began bouncing around in a tight circle to the beat. “It’s time to let all the choreography and precision fall away. . . .”
Without warning, she slumped over so her head almost touched the floor, and then she flung her arms out wide. Her arms started rippling as though water moved through them. Pivoting on one foot, she stamped around in a circle, then raised her torso back up, sending waves through her entire body as she did. Before I could close my mouth, she grabbed me and spun me around so many times I almost flopped to the floor from dizziness, but my hand remained firmly gripped in hers and she pulled me back toward her.
Taking my other hand, she raised our arms up and swayed them back and forth. “Here we go, honey! Let the funk move through you!”
She let go of me, closed her eyes, and allowed her body to do whatever it wanted to. Without her guiding me, I felt a little self-conscious, but it was hard not to get drawn in by her energy. I tried closing my eyes too, and then let my whole body go loose, focusing on just the music—dipping with the bass, vibrating with the horns, mouthing the gravelly voice.
When the scat part started, I opened my eyes and they met with Deidre’s. We mirrored each other’s wide grins and boogied toward one another, singing our own versions of the unrestrained, throaty sounds emanating from the speakers. When the Tarzan yell let loose at the end, we screamed at the top of our lungs too and dissolved into hysterics.
Eventually, I shared more than a clue or two with Jill. I couldn’t help it. After her revelation that she’d hung out with a drag crowd herself, I became increasingly curious about her experiences. I broke our comfortable silence one day as we shoveled dirt from the back of her truck into Mr. Karim’s garden, my muscles still sore from my “workouts” with Deidre. “So, what was drag like . . . back in the Stone Age?” I asked with a grin.
She paused to lean on her shovel. “You laugh, smart-ass, but those days do feel like another lifetime.” She gazed into the air in front of her, a smile playing on her lips. “It was fun, though. Those people really knew how to have a good time. It was one of the only places I felt like I could just be a nut.”
“So why’d you stop hanging out with them?”
“I moved here to start my business. Not much of a drag scene in Bridgeton, as you know.” Sh
e crossed her eyes at me.
“No. Not much,” I agreed.
“I used to pop over to North Gate once in a while for a show, but I guess I lost a bit of my motivation after—” She looked up at me uncertainly.
“After Mom?”
Jill nodded and kicked at her shovel.
For some reason, Deidre’s flailing arms and our Tarzan yells from the night before sprang up in my mind. “Jill, I think it’s okay for us to—” To what? “To . . . change things up.”
She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. “Oh yeah? And what might that mean?” she asked, leaning her shovel against the truck.
What did that mean? “I guess . . . I think it means—we deserve to have a little fun? To let loose?” I grinned at her.
Jill’s face perked up in a mixture of confusion and amusement.
“I—I may be doing a drag show on Saturday,” I blurted. Saying it out loud made it feel awfully close . . . and real.
Jill’s face lit up. “A show? You’re doing drag?”
I laughed nervously and nodded.
“Nima! Are you kidding me? Where? Do I get to come? Please?” But then she held her palms out facing me and wagged them side to side. “No, no—never mind. You don’t have to tell me anything. I understand if you want this just for yourself.” She dug her hands into her pockets and thumped the heel of her boot against the gravel to knock the dirt off.
“Jill, you goof, I’d love you to be there.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
A grin burst across her face. “Then I’ll be there.”
Three times in the first week, Gordon drove me to and from rehearsals, and he continued to do so the second week. He would drop me off, awkwardly allow Deidre to give him a Deidre-size hug, then wander off to who-knows-where for an hour while we practiced. He’d appear again a few minutes after eight and awkwardly stand near the door while we finished up.
