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‘It doesn’t matter. It’s how itlooks.’
I get it. I do. But I think I have a workaround.
‘Wait here,’ I tell him, and then I scurry over to the security guard managing the line, a plan slowly forming in my head.
25
Gabriel
When I agreed to go out with Noah, I’d pictured us enjoying each other’s company over a candlelit dinner and, hopefully, spending the rest of the evening naked in Noah’s bedroom because, well, frankly, I just want to have sex. All night. In various positions. And the three condoms that are burning a hole through my pants pocket right now attest to that fact.
I hadnotexpected to be dragged into a drag queen’s dressing-room, stripped out of my clothes and asked to choose between a sapphire sequined gown or a shimmery emerald cocktail dress with a long fringe.
The drag queen in question, a tall, broad-shouldered queen named Peaches O’Plenty, presses the dresses against my collarbone, one after the other, assessing them. ‘What do you think, baby?’ She turns back to Noah.
‘Emerald, for sure,’ Noah says.
‘You heard your man, love,’ Peaches says as she thrusts the emerald dress into my hands. ‘Let me know if you need help with the zip.’
‘Why am I the one in the dress?’ I mutter as I step into the neck and shimmy the fringe up my hip.
As I slip the dress over my shoulders, I reflect on what would be worse: getting photographed in a nightclub the night before a match or being recognised in drag, in a nightclub, the night before a match.
‘You said it yourself,’ Noah replies from behind the screen. ‘You don’t want anyone recognising you.’
‘Help me zip up,’ I demand. Noah slips behind me, his hands finding my hips.
‘Green was a good choice,’ he whispers as the zip rises.
‘And now for the wig!’ Peaches declares as I step around the screen. I glance apprehensively at a wall full of wigs, wondering if it’s too late to back out.
‘Look at you! Put your arms down and walk properly. It’s a dress, not a shackle, Gabriel,’ Peaches says as I shuffle forward. ‘Gosh, Iloveyou baby gays.’
Leading me to a seat in front of a large mirror, Peaches plucks a dark afro from her wig wall and places it loosely on my crown. ‘No?’
I shake my head, unsure when I started forming opinions about the kind of drag queen I want to be. ‘Longer.’
Noah hands Peaches a poker-straight black wig that screams Cherà la‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’. Peaches places it on my head, fanning the hair around my shoulders.
‘Not feeling it?’ she asks.
‘I want to go blonde.’ If I’m going to do this, I want to do it right. Go all out.
Peaches smiles. ‘Sassy queen knows what she wants.’ She reaches over me and grasps a styled blonde wig that could just as easily belong in Dolly Parton’s wardrobe.
‘We’ve created a monster,’ Noah agrees.
I slip on a hair cap and follow Peaches’s instructions on how to put on the wig. Adjusting it around the hairline, I flip the wig over and let the hair fall around my shoulders. It’s bouncy and bright andeverything.
‘Well, well, well,’ Peaches hums beside me.
I don’t look anything like myself and yet—
I feelsofree.
I’m not Gabriel anymore. His concerns, his issues, his limitations—they simply don’t exist for this person. If only for a few hours, I can be someone else; someone completely different.
Peaches picks up an eyeshadow palette full of vibrant pinks, yellows and greens. ‘Time to make you a woman, honey.’
