Page 98 of Born to be Wilder

Sylvie looked overwhelmed as she took it all in, but her eyes glittered with wonder… or perhaps it was just the reflection of the woman in the giant glittering orb costume causing those sparkles in her blue irises.

“What do we even do? Where do we go? I don’t understand what’s happening. Why are there so many people?” Doris spun in circles, then covered her eyes when a man wearing nothing but a sock over his penis strolled by.

“This is the big night, Doris,” Marge explained, practically shouting so we could hear her over the crowds and music. “The Endymion parade. All these weeks of celebrations lead up to this one big finale.” She paused. “Well, at least, I think that’s what’s happening, if I remember that program I watched correctly.”

“That’s what’s happening,” Sylvie said, her voice still stunned. “I googled it all last night.”

Coming to Mardi Gras and sharing my breasts with the world one last time had been my wish, but this was our second night and I still didn’t have the foggiest idea of how, when, or even if I would do it. I was so overwhelmed with the excitement around me that I wasn’t sure if I should just lift my shirt and earn my beads quick or if I needed some special moment that might never come.

As we stood, too stunned to move, a marching band came crashing around the corner. The crowd moved like a tidal wave, the band sweeping through the cheering, dancing spectators, blending in as they moved through.

The swell of bodies pushed us around, and Marge grabbed my hand. I reached for Sylvie. Her fingers gripped mine as we held on to each other, pressing close to stop from being ripped apart.

“Doris!” Sylvie screamed, and I looked to see her outstretched hand empty.

Cymbals crashed by my head as I called out Doris’s name, the drums and horns so loud I couldn’t even hear my own voice. I looked left and right, but all I saw were bodies and Marge and Sylvie, their mouths opening and closing as they screamed her name, but I couldn’t hear them either.

We huddled closer together as the crowds tried to rip us apart, and we stayed that way until the band washed on through, leaving us behind like seashells after the tide.

“Where is Doris?” Marge barked, and I could finally hear her voice.

“I don’t know!” Sylvie spun left and right. “I grabbed her hand, or at least, I thought I did, but when I looked down, I was holding the hand of a stranger and Doris was nowhere to be found!”

Panic flooded my chest. “She’s lost? Are you kidding me?”

“Alice! You’re the tallest! Can you see her?” Marge hopped up and down, trying to see over the wall of bodies, but she was too short to even clear most people’s shoulders.

I rose on my toes, my high heels already lifting me four inches over my normal height. But with the wigs and hats and costumes, I couldn’t get tall enough.

“I can’t see her!” I called back.

“Sylvie! On my shoulders! Do it! Do it now! Every second wasted is a second she could be in the grip of a kidnapper, a serial killer, or a freaking vampire!”

Sylvie looked startled, but Marge knelt, patting her shoulders. Without hesitating, Sylvie climbed on.

Marge grunted and shook but rose like a phoenix, lifting Sylvie high above the crowd like a human periscope.

“Well? Report in, soldier! What do you see?” Marge tightly gripped Sylvie’s thighs as she teetered.

“Just… people! Everywhere! Doris! Doris!” Sylvie called in every direction.

Panic clawed at me from inside my chest. “What do we do? Stay here and wait? Look for her?”

Marge spun Sylvie around, the jerking movement almost sending Sylvie toppling off. “Normally I would say stay and wait—that’s what they teach you in Scouts—but in this case, there are no landmarks for her to identify us. If she got swept into that crowd and turned around, she won’t even know what direction to go!”

“Doris!” I screamed, my panic rising.

“Wait!” Sylvie pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call her!”

“Oh my God. Of course.” I breathed a sigh of relief, sanity starting to calm me down.

Sylvie held the phone to her head, and her face lit up. “Doris? Doris? Can you hear me? Doris! Where are you?”

This went on for almost a minute. Then Sylvie hung up her phone, peering down at us from her perch on Marge’s shoulders. “It’s too loud on both our ends. I can’t hear her.”

“Can you text her?”

Marge shook her head, the movement bumping her bowl-cut hair into Sylvie’s thighs. “Doris doesn’t text. You know that.”