Page 13 of Best Woman
“Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of pony hair!” the three of us shriek in unison, cackling at the memory.
“Remind me toneverbuy ketamine from my landlord again,” River shouts from the pile of chiffon they’re buried under, unflappable as ever. “Speaking of, does anyone want a bump?”
“Neigh,” says Kyle, and considering River’s offering a horse tranquilizer, that could go either way. “Julia, we know that you’ve been under a lot of stress. This isn’t Tumblr in 2011: no one expects you to keep calm and carry on.”
“Except those breeders down in Boca,” Daytona interjects. “But you made your bed, now you get to lie in it while we judge you.”
“I still can’t believe you’ve gotten yourself immersed in something straight out of a low-budget gay romantic comedy,” says Kyle, pouring another glass of champagne. “I know you love a goodangst with a happy endingAU, but this is a bit much.”
“Maybe it can just be morefriends to lovers.” I can hope. “Although I’ve barely talked to Kim since high school, and we weren’t very good friends then. We’re just two queer women supporting each other during a stressful event, one of whom has lied to the other one in order to get into her pants and then marry her and adopt three children and buy a house in Cherry Grove.” Even a wedding hookup seemed like a stretch, but after a few hours with Kim all of my old high school yearning had returned and taken hold. I’d been writing her name in the notebook I used at work. I thought about her every morning when I woke up and every night before I went to bed. I hadn’t had a proper crush in years, not since my intense fling with a paramedic who lived with his mother on Staten Island and fucked like a sex god. And I’d never had a crush as powerful or as all-consuming as my teenage love for Kim Cameron. I felt sixteen again, and it wasn’t just because of the estrogen I’d injected three nights ago. “You’ll all be invited out for the summer, of course.”
“Is she hot?” asks Daytona, priorities always in order.
My cheeks flush, and my lips are loose from the champagne. “She issohot. In high school, she was this cool loner in Doc Martens, but now she’s like, sophisticated and sexy and masc but still a little alt.” Another swig of champagne. “Great tits too.”
Daytona whistles. “Crunchy and curvy,rightup your alley.”
She has a point. With men, I tend to favor skinny skater boys with tattoo sleeves, thick black glasses, and stupidly big dicks. With women, I go for girls who smell like patchouli, have at one point in their lives owned a wall tapestry from Urban Outfitters, and…well, have nice butts.
I stand on unsteady legs and wobble over to where River is beckoning me. “It doesn’t matter if she’s my type,” I argue, only slurring a bit. “It’s just a little wedding fling. No one has to get hurt and it probably won’t even happen.”
Kyle and Daytona exchange a glance. It reminds me of the knowing looks my parents gave each other when I was eight and told them I didn’t want to play soccer anymore because of my “allergies” when it was because the team captain, Sarah, said she didn’t want to marry me, even though I’d used her favorite Ring Pop flavor for the proposal.
“If you’re going to be delusional, you might as well go for the full fantasy,” says River, holding something black and slinky in their hands. “Let’s turn you into Cinderella.”
I smile, embarrassed to feel tears welling up. I don’t deserve friends like these.
“One of the stepsisters, at least,” calls Daytona, wrapping herself in a silk robe.
Or maybe I do.
An hour later I leave Hannah G’s building, heavy garment bag slung over my shoulder and a Louis Vuitton duffle in my hand, to make the thankfully short trek home. I live on almost the exact divide where Chinatown meets Little Italy, and at this time of night, the smell of garlic wafts from every open window. After a night spent with my favorite people in the world and sixfigures worth of designer clothing in my hands, I finally feel like this wedding might be OK. Not amazing. But I’ll survive, and look great doing it.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from…Ben Otsuka.
See you in two weeks ;)
Six days beforemy brother’s wedding, I load my bags into the back of Daytona’s cherry red SUV. The trunk has barely any space left inside—it contains the industrial-grade fan she uses for hair-blowing purposes at her shows, a large trunk that serves as her makeup kit, a terrifying tangled ball of hair extensions, and no less than three large duffle bags stuffed with clothing erupting through the zippers in an orgiastic explosion of sequins and satin and spandex. There’s also a single Timberland platform heel perched on top of an inflatable dolphin.
“Girl, are you living out of this car now?” I ask as I slide into the passenger seat. “Your trunk looks like Hannah G’s greenroom.” A few months before, River had managed to get us backstage atSaturday Night Live. Hannah G loved rolling with a squad and we’d filled in a few times, though she never remembered the name of anyone except Daytona, who was unforgettable. Her magnetism rivaled a pop star’s, and I’d felt just as starstruck around her in the early days of our acquaintance asI still felt anytime I saw River’s boss, awkward and tongue-tied, desperate to be liked.
Sometimes I still wasn’t sure if Daytona liked me, even when she went out of her way to do something nice like drive me to the airport, a truly thankless task. I couldn’t quite believe I’d managed to become friends with someone as fascinating and fabulous as her.
“I’m driving down to Atlanta after I drop you off,” Daytona says, turning off my street and heading toward LaGuardia. “I’ve got a few gigs there this weekend.”
My friend is kind of an underground legend, often leaving for weeks at a time to tour various queer enclaves around the country. There’s something about the alchemic combination of her utter fierceness and ability to bring serious pathos to any song she performs—I’ve seen her bring the house down with at least three Maroon 5 songs—that hypnotizes an audience, creating an electric charge that burns right through you until you’re screaming her name and emptying your wallet for tip money.
We gossip a bit, talking about pretentious parties and precarious pairings as we drive over a cemetery on the BQE. Daytona lights a joint and passes it over. I usually prefer to pop an edible after I’ve made it through airport security, but one doesnotturn down Daytona’s weed. She always brings the best shit back with her from her travels, and soon I’m feeling pleasantly stoned as we queue up a playlist and go full Lilith Fair, singing along to “Building a Mystery.”
As the next track starts up, 10,000 Maniacs’ cover of “Because the Night,” I’m feeling unwound enough to say, without stopping to think first: “I’m nervous.”
“You’ll be fine,” she says flippantly, taking a final huge drag before dropping the roach into a half-empty plastic water bottle. Daytona doesn’t talk about her family much, but from what I gather, she wouldn’t be surprised to see them holdingGod Hates Fagssigns and tiki torches at a white supremacist rally. Family to her is something built rather than something inherent, and trust is earned, not given by default. Not for the first time, I feel a swell of pride and gratitude that somehow, I’ve earned hers.
In our toxic little foursome, Kyle and I spend the most time together by ourselves, and tension has lingered between Daytona and me since I started transitioning. I had a sneaking suspicion in those early days that she felt a bit as if I’d stepped on her shoe while walking behind her. Being trans washerthing, mostly because she relished her position as the only girl in our group. In the years since, we’ve sanded down the rough edges of relating to each other as women, but I’ve always been worried she resented me not just for moving in on her territory, but for doing it with relative ease. Or at least, ease with my relatives.
“I hope so,” I say, resting my head against the window and watching the sun filter through slowly turning autumn leaves on the cemetery trees. “I can’t seem to escape this feeling of impending doom.”
“You’re headed to Florida, the stubby little chode of America. It’s gonna fuck you, but you’re not gonna enjoy it.”
