calls for a voice mail. “Clem, I, uh, wanted to see where you are.” And then quietly, so that hopefully Nick can’t hear me over the music, “I’m really nervous. It would mean a lot to have you here. But also, please be careful. Call me.”
“Here,” says Nick after rooting through his bag. “Take this. It’s always good to have a prop. There’s nothing worse than not knowing what to do with your hands.”
He hands me a pink fan with scalloped edges. I open it to look it over carefully. “I’ll give it back as soon as I’m done.”
“Nah,” he says. “Keep it. You know how to snap one of these things open?”
I laugh nervously.
Nick leans over and positions my thumb along the stem of the fan. “There ya go. Now flick your wrist, and voilà.”
I do as he says and the fan spreads, making a satisfying noise. “So dramatic,” I say. “You didn’t have to do all this for me.”
“Nah, I’m on last tonight. I’ve got time to kill. Knock ’em dead,” he says.
A girl with a buzzed head and a cat-ear headband pokes in through the curtain. “Pumpkin?”
I raise my fan in the air.
“Two more ahead of you and then you’re on,” she says.
I nod and attempt to swallow, but my throat is too dry. At least I’m lip-synching tonight.
It’s nice to have Nick here. But I don’t know Nick. And Nick isn’t Clementine . . . or Tucker.
Filling my lungs, I take a deep breath in and remind myself that for some ridiculous reason, this is something I want. Something I think I might love, actually. I love drag. I love doing drag—what little I’ve done so far, at least. Admitting that, even to myself, is terrifying and exhilarating all at once. I remember what Willowdean said in the car about being scared to go and scared to stay. I feel that to my bones.
Clem, I type, are you almost here? I go on in a few minutes.
Please say you’re on your way.
Or that this is just bad cell service and you’re actually parking right this minute.
And please don’t be dead. Because if you’re dead and I’m freaking out because you’re not here to see me perform, I’ll feel like a real asshole.
You’d tell me if you were dead, right?
I’d know because the whole twin thing, right?
I’m trying so hard not to freak out right now.
“You’re up!” says the hairless cat girl.
“Break a leg!” calls Nick, who is halfway through his Peppa Roni transformation in his wig cap and half-baked face.
I step through the curtain and immediately see all of my friends clustered together, chanting, “Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin!”
“People, folks, y’all,” says Lee from her barstool perch on the far end of the stage, “it is my great pleasure to welcome to the stage for her Hideaway debut, Miss Pumpkin Patch!”
My heart beats through my chest, and I wobble on my heels, steadying myself on a stranger’s chair. Well, I wouldn’t call them heels. They’re sandals with a kitten heel that I found at the thrift store, and my toes hang out of the front. Surely all baby drag queens are as big of a mess as I am.
I allow myself a quick glance across the room, and sitting there at the bar is Tucker.
He smiles, and I don’t have the mental capacity to play games or pretend I’m not happy to see him. My lips twitch into a brief smile back at him, and I take the stage.
Lee holds her hand out for me as I take the last step. She pulls the microphone down and says, “The heels get easier, I swear. You got this, baby.”
She takes her seat like she is the queen and I’m performing for her court, which I guess is the case. I feel suddenly shy, waiting for my music to begin.
And then my song begins, the iconic intro immediately recognizable to the entire audience.
I snap my fan open like Nick taught me and hold it in front of my chest. “At first, I was afraid. I was petrified,” Gloria Gaynor sings as I mouth along. “Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side.”
I look out to the audience for a face, anyone I know. But the lights are blinding.
Up on this stage, all I have is myself. Waylon Russell Brewer, aka Miss Pumpkin Patch.
It doesn’t matter who’s in the audience or what they’re thinking or what they’re doing, because for these three minutes and eighteen seconds, the world