Page 101 of A Certain Appeal
“Great,” I say, and thank Diva as she fills my glass. Jane emerges from his warm-up space in time to be handed the final flute, and suddenly all eyes are on me. Tonic turns down the music, and my butterflies still for a moment.
“How ’bout a toast from our fearless leader?” Jane suggests.
“No speeches,” I warn. “I’ll start crying and it will be ‘Rainbow Connection’ all over again.” I cast my attention around the room. “Thank you for being part of this. It’s literally a dream come true, and it wouldn’t have been possible without you. I adore you all, even if you’re kind of nasty.” This gets everyone chuckling, and I raise my glass before the tickling behind my eyes results in anything detrimental to my eyeliner. “Pop a pastie!”
“Pop a pastie!” they chorus, and we all drink.
“Alrighty.” I turn to Jane. “I’m going upstairs, but I’ll be back in time—”
“Oh, we’re not done with you yet.” Jane pulls me to his side, free arm linking with mine, and I realize that no one else has gone back to their preshow routine.
“It turns out that Ming doesn’t cross-stitch,” Jane continues. A memory flickers at the edge of my awareness.Cross-stitch?
“But,” says Ming, “Tonic does.”
Tonic steps forward holding a leopard-print gift bag. It’s long, probably meant for a bottle of wine. “It wasn’t any trouble,” she says, handing me the bag. “The challenge was finding a frame the right size.”
I nod, still clueless, and push past the pink tissue paper to pull out something in a gold-colored frame. Behind the glass is a cross-stitchwith letters in the same blue-green we used to tile upstairs, the words surrounded with tiny flowers of blue-green and gold.
“Dance like nobody’s watching.” The words are a tight fit around the sudden lump in my throat. “Live like a giant piece of metal could crush your skull tomorrow.”
“Did I get it right?” Jane asks. “I was pretty muddled, but I wrote down what I could remember the next day. It felt worthy of preservation.”
“I—” I’m at a loss. “Thank you.”
“Thankyou, Kitten,” says Tonic. “For this opportunity. Especially after... everything.”
“Your costume is my thank-you,” says Ming. “But thank you, also.”
“You’ve done something special here, Kitten,” Andrea says, martini aloft. “I’m honored to be part of it.”
“Well done, Lizard,” Chloe offers, and the newer performers chime in with thanks of their own.
Jane wraps me in a hug, kissing my cheek. “This is what being brave gets you.”
“I...” I look over each of them in turn. My cousin, who believed in me enough to move her entire life out here. Ming, in her unrelenting, filthy glory. Andrea, who, for all her faults, has pulled every string, thread, and line of spider silk in her arsenal to make tonight a success. Tonic, coming into her own. Momma, Diva, and our other new performers, brought into our weird, sexy family.
And Jane.MyJane. The reason I found them all in the first place.
A new feeling starts to take shape amid the quaking nerves and the excitement overwhelming the rest of my awareness. It’s familiar, and positive, and I know that if I give it an inch, it will absolutely destroy my makeup.
I laugh. “I just pick up panties.”
Jane squeezes my arm. “You hush.” He raises his glass. “To Kitten!”
“To Kitten!” the others call, and toss back their glasses. A moment later, Blondie is blasting from the speakers, and everyone returns to their final preparations. I leave the framed cross-stitch at my makeup station, arranging it beside the postcard of the Eastern Columbia Building Darcy mailed me while he was in LA last month.
“Okay,” I announce to the room. “NowI’m going upstairs.”
“Be back in time for me to do your lips,” Chloe calls, and I give her a thumbs-up.
On my way out, I place my hand on the green, egg-shaped light fixture beside the curtained exit. Andrea rescued it from Meryton after our emergency meeting that grim day, and the light was the final element to the room. The contact helps banish the jitters about as much as it ever did, which is to say, hardly, but I’m happy to have part of our old home with us.
Moving through the curtain, I pause in front of the open door of the band’s dressing room. The guys sit at their poker table, suit jackets hanging on the wardrobe rack at the back of the room. I spot Johnny’s gold sharkskin among the black. It’s the least offensive of his lineup. While that’s not saying much, it is my favorite.
“Thirty minutes to showtime, fellas,” I say.
“Thanks, Kitten!” Johnny looks up from his hand, eyes darting to the others at the table. He nods toward Dion, whose back is to me, and arches a brow.
