I sit in my apartment for hours and then finally, ta-da, there I am. You haven’t seen me at my best, I can be quite a splendid sight. Or could be, back in my prime. I once wrapped a wig around a birdcage and wore a live canary on my head, it was my homage to Madame Pompadour. And you know, there’s always a moment, when I’m all finished and I’ve exceeded even my own expectations, and I’m alone in my apartment, well, there’s always a moment when I feel unbelievably good. Invincible, like a member of a new, improved species. And of course I’m looking forward like crazy to getting out there and showing it off, that’s the point, imagine how depressing it would be to put all that stuff on, stand around in front of the mirror, then take it all off again and go to bed. No, I adore strutting around in front of the multitudes, but there’s something about standing there by myself, about to go out, that’s perfect, in its way. I don’t know if I’d say it’s better than going out and showing off, because, honey, I was born for display. But I do know about how fabulous your drag can feel right before anybody sees it.”
“It’s funny,” Mary said.
“What is?”
“I don’t know. It’s funny to think of me arranging a party like this and you, you know.”
“Dressing up like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center,” Cassandra said. “In a parallel dimension, I’m the housewife and you’re the drag queen.”
“It’s funny.”
“It’s a riot,” Cassandra said.
“I should get back downstairs.”
“I turned the potatoes off, don’t worry.”
“Oh, right. The potatoes.”
Cassandra said, “It’s hard to live. It’s hard to keep walking around and change into new outfits all the time and not just collapse.”
Mary thought she would stand up. She didn’t stand up. She continued looking into her own eyes and Cassandra’s eyes. Something opened in her. She put her palms down on the cool glass of the tabletop.
She said, “There is nothing more unthinkable than losing a child.”.
“I know.”
She turned. Cassandra was there.
“Honey, I know,” Cassandra said.
“Are you all right?” Mary asked her.
“I’m dying, dear.”
“I didn’t mean that”
“Do you mean, am I scared?”
“Not that exactly, either.”
“Sometimes I’m scared,” Cassandra said. “Not of dying itself, it just doesn’t seem to scare me all that much. I mean, when you’ve gotten on a subway at four in the morning dressed as Jackie Kennedy, well . . . No, I’m scared of being enfeebled. All my life I’ve relied on my ferocity, my how do you say queenly bearing, and, honey, it works. It’s my power. I’m tall and I’m more than a little crazy and when somebody even thinks about fucking with me I draw myself up to my full six three and I look at them as if to say, Don’t mess with me because I’ve got nothing to lose and I will mess with you worse. You’d be amazed, the scrapes I’ve gotten out of by attitude alone. But I do worry that if I start looking weak, if I don’t have it in me to look like I’m too mean and too nuts to be worth bothering with, the wolves’ll be on my ass. They can smell weakness. And frankly, there are a few characters in my building who’d just as soon kill you as look at you.”
“I guess I can’t imagine,” Mary said.
“I envy you, living in a big house in the suburbs like this. You seem so safe here.”
“I don’t feel particularly safe.”
“Oh, well, I probably can’t imagine, either.”
Mary was aware of the quiet of her bedroom, its perfumed ease and its starched ruffles. Cassandra sat in the middle of it like a wild creature, pale and hawk-nosed, ill and rouged, and yet it seemed, fleetingly, that Cassandra belonged there more than Mary herself did.
“You’ve been wonderful with Zoe,” she said. “And Jamal. I hope you know how much I appreciate it.”
“Don’t thank me,” Cassandra said. “Don’t you dare. Zoe is my daughter. Jamal is my godson. I haven’t done anything for you.”
Mary looked into Cassandra’s harsh, dying face.
“No,” she said. “I guess you haven’t. Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Cassandra said. “These are difficult times, a girl can lose track of herself.”
“That’s true.”
“Well, now,” Cassandra said, and she rose with a small, brittle wince from the edge of the bed. “Shall we go down to our guests?”
“All right,” Mary said. “Yes, we should go back down.”
“Better fix your face a little first.”
Mary turned back