Page 54 of Best Woman
“No, butthis,” I say, sweeping an arm to encompass the dress I was still squeezed into, the makeup on my face, and my giant blowout, “is drag.”
“So that’s not really you,” he said, sounding genuinely curious. “You don’t like getting all glammed up in a dress and highheels?” There’s a question underneath the question, something like,Then what’s the point. I can’t believe I’m discussing fashion and gender presentation with the man who refused to buy me a Sailor Venus doll when I was nine.
I pull my right foot up onto the bench and start massaging the blood back into it. “Because it’s what everyone expected. Or needed to see. Whatever.”
Dad hands me an evil, environmentally unsound plastic water bottle and falls heavily into his favored armchair. “I don’t think anyone needed you to be uncomfortable just to, I don’t know, prove something.”
I can’t help the snort I let out. “Of course they did, Dad. That’s what being transis.” I crack open the water and take a glug. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
He tells me where I’ll find everything I’d need for the night and that we’d need to leave early the next morning if I wanted to have time to swing by Mom’s and get ready before heading to the farewell brunch. The thought of being in that house and facing her—
I’ve always wanted a daughter.
—makes my stomach seize up like I’m constipated. And maybe I am, just not…physically. Psychic constipation.
The room is almost as I’d left it just days ago, with one glaring omission. The photo of me that had hung on the wall was gone. In its place is the ugliest piece of art I’ve ever seen: a giant papier-mâché Kit Kat bar, executed in wobbly detail by someone with little artistic talent or hand-eye coordination butlotsof enthusiasm. I knew this because I’d made it in second grade.
I had no idea Dad had held on to it. I’d always wondered why this piece wasn’t in my mother’s cabinet of offspring art. One ofthe edges bore my initials, still the same even after my trip to city court two years ago to have my name legally changed: JR. Here is a little piece of my past that my dad had kept all these years as I moved further and further away from him and the version of myself he knew and understood. A piece of me that is, in a measurable way, unchanged.
I unzip my dress and get into bed. I think of how my mother would chide me for going to sleep without washing my makeup off, and that’s the thing that finally shakes the ugly sobs from my chest.
“Rise and shine,bitch.”
My eyes crack open painfully, glued shut by a mixture of eye makeup and tears. At first, Daytona’s presence doesn’t register as odd, because we’d been in this position so many times before. Despite her hedonistic lifestyle, Daytona is an unbearable morning person and anytime we crash at each other’s homes, she always wakes me up early, demanding breakfast.
None of that explained why she was waking me up now, in my father’s apartment. In Florida.
“What,” I croak, “the fuck are you doing here?”
She is wearing a Juicy Couture tracksuit straight out of the early aughts, hair piled atop her head, huge vintage Dior sunglasses shielding her eyes from the sun slanting through the blinds. Everything about her is at odds with the scenery, but at the same time, it makes complete sense that she’s here. Daytona insisted herself upon the world, and because of that, therewas no place in which she didn’t belong, no space she could not command and make her own.
“I’m here to get you the fuck out of bed and play fairy godmother.” She studies her nails, claws so viciously red they look dipped in blood. “I don’t have all day, and you have a brunch to get to, so let’sgo,girl.”
I laugh, somewhat frantically. “No, seriously, what thefuckare you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Atlanta, not my Dad’s spare bedroom.”
As if summoned, my Dad pops his head in the door, two coffee mugs in hand. “Morning, Jules. Daytona, I only had skim milk, I hope that’s OK.” He hands her the mug I’d always loved as a kid, whose handle was an airplane streaming an arced jet of wind.
Daytona takes the mug and cocks her head coquettishly. “That’s just fine, honey. Thanks so much.” To my horror, my father blushes and adjusts his glasses, handing me the other mug and closing the door on his way out.
“Have you beenflirtingwith my dad?”
She sips her coffee, the picture of nonchalance. “You know I like them a little seasoned.”
I gulp down some coffee, choking a bit on how hot it is. The ensuing coughing fit helps wake me up a bit more. My body feels sore, mostly concentrated in my feet, shoulders, and head. My eyes are dry and the bobby pins I’d never taken out were poking my scalp. And, right, I’d been publicly humiliated by my mother in front of a ballroom full of people last night, then exposed as a horrible person in front of the girl I was into and my brother, whose wedding I ruined by being the victim of one scene and the cause of another.
Tears start welling up in my eyes again, and I squeeze them shut to stave them off. As the world goes dark, I hear the thump of Daytona setting her mug down on the nightstand, then taking mine out of my hands and doing the same with it. Then, unthinkably, her arms wrap around me as she draws me to her crushed velvet bosom.
“I know, honey. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She strokes my hair and holds me as I let myself fall apart. It feels awful, but also really, really good.
Once I’ve cried off the rest of last night’s mascara, Daytona cuddles up behind me and explains into my rat’s nest hair that she’d been filling her tank at an Atlanta gas station when Aiden DM’d her on Instagram. They’d been following each other since meeting in New York, and after the disaster of last night, Aiden had wanted to make sure one of my friends knew what had happened, even though he was confused and pissed over the drama with Kim. “He knows you pretty well, girl,” Daytona says as she works through the tangles of my hair with a brush. “He knows how much you need your family.”
That unleashes another round of sobs, and when they’re done, Daytona continues her tale. She’d only been a few hours from the state line and knew she could make it here by morning if she—
“Don’t say it,” I said, needing to make the joke so I wouldn’t start crying again.
“I drove all niiiiiight,” she sings in that husky voice, “to get to you.Don’t worry, it wasn’t ahugeimposition. I’m crashing with thisbeautifuldaddy in Fort Lauderdale. We’re gonna fuck in his pool later.”
How could I possibly thank her for this? How could I beginto explain how much it means that she’d come all the way here and held me while I fell to pieces?
