What. The. Fuck. I scrub my hands through my curls, like that might somehow erase everything I just saw. Clem can’t be going to Georgia. Georgia? Why Athens, Georgia? If she’s going to leave me, she might as well make it worth it. Everyone knows cities in the south named after European cities are total duds. You don’t see people lining up to go to Paris, Texas, do you?
I go back to my own room and take a few deep breaths.Clem and I aren’t just twins. We’re best friends. But we have boundaries too. Text messages. Emails. Those are things we don’t go tromping through, so even though I am aching with confusion and hurt feelings, I’m not about to get caught snooping through her emails.
After marking the email as unread, I settle into my own bed, and it hits me harder. Forget snooping through emails! Clem is about to betray me in the biggest way. She’s abandoning me. On top of that, she’s not even offering me the decency of a warning.
My twin—the person who I am so closely synced with that when I lose my keys she always knows where I left them—is considering leaving me. And worse than that: she kept it a secret. Does Hannah know? Our parents? Grammy? Surely Grammy would have told me. If Clem is considering her dorm prospects, then this is more than her feeling out her options.
An alert buzzes on my phone, jarring me back to the present. I grab my phone and swipe to find an Instagram post from @FiercestOfThemAllOfficial. The image is of a crown on a red velvet pedestal, and below that, the caption reads:Season 16’s queen has been crowned, but the search for Season 17’s queen begins now! Click the link in our bio and send in your audition video today. Who knows? You might just be the Fiercest of Them All!
I read the caption again and again until I’ve memorized it.You might just be the Fiercest of Them All.
Double dumped in one night. Lucas wasn’t worried about coming out. He just didn’twant to come out with me. Hearing it, really piecing it together in my head and seeing the dots connect, cuts deep. But Clem. That hurts me in a way no boy could ever. If she really is going to Georgia, I get the message loud and clear. The life I dreamed up for us isn’t enough. She wants something bigger and better. Without me.
Fine. Let her have it. She can go. She can leave me. She can be anyone she wants to be. And so can I.
It doesn’t take me long to find the Merle Norman makeup starter kit Grammy bought Clem for her fifteenth birthday. The mauve leather case was tucked under her bed, collecting dust in between a shoebox full of failed drawings Hannah ripped out of her sketch pad and Clementine secretly kept and a chest of old dance shoes and recital costumes.
This moment feels almost inevitable. I always knew I would try drag, at least once. I just didn’t expect it to be today.
I sit down at my desk and use the old makeup mirror Mom keeps under the sink in the hallway bathroom. The bulbs around the mirror are burned out, so I take the lampshade off my desk light and use that to illuminate my face and highlight every little spot and blemish. Talk about a damn reckoning. Who needs extreme sports when makeup mirrors exist? Is this why we all hate ourselves? Instagram and harsh lighting?
Poking through the makeup kit, I find a few things I recognize from merely existing in a house with two women. Powder. Lipstick. Blush. Mascara—which looksterrifying, by the way. Who in their right mind would put that pointy-looking brush stick thing so close to their eyes?
I’ve definitely dabbled with things like lipstick and have found myself scrolling through pages and pages of time-lapse makeup tutorials, so I have anideaof how makeup works in a theoretical sense. I understand things like the fact that drag queens glue down their brows with a glue stick and repaint their brows on top. And I can see all the ways contouring can give you the illusion of cheekbones and a jawline. But I’ve never actually tried any of those things myself. It turns out that application is not as easy as the internet makes it out to be.
Thankfully, I shaved this morning, so my face is smooth at the very least. I start with foundation, and what I’m working with is not nearly as effective as what I’ve seen queens use on TV and online. I don’t have any sponges or brushes, so I use what the Lord gave me and apply it with my fingers. I do the same with blush, and decide that more is more. I’m going for drag. Not Monday morning real estate agent at the office.
Outside my room, the floorboards creak as Mom knocks on my door. “Waylon? Darling?”
I gasp, and begin to choke. Is it possible to swallow your Adam’s apple?
“Waylon?”
“I’m fine!” I rasp out.
My mother has caught me in a fair amount of unfortunate circumstances. Crusty socks. Crusty boxers. Crusty sheets. (I have since learned how to do my own laundry,thank you very much.) Scandalous videos on sketchy websites. The list goes on. And it’s not like she doesn’t know I’m gay, but makeup is a whole new level of queer that my mother, who has only left Texas enough times to count on one hand, might find... alarming.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes?” I call back in a deep voice. “Yes!” I try again in my normal voice.
She chortles. “I’m heading to bed, baby.”
“Okay, good night!”
“How’d Mimi do?” she asks.
My pounding heart slows. It doesn’t matter what it is. If we are interested, so is Mom. (Bless her for downloading Pokémon Go the summer Clem and I were absolutely consumed by that addictive little game.) “Ruby took the crown!”
“Ah, well, maybe Mimi will make the Hall of Fame season?”
“All-Stars, Mom! It’s called All-Stars.”
“Ahh, yes. That’s right. Well, good night, baby. Your sister already asleep?”
I could rat on that jerk and get her in real trouble. But then I’d probably have to account for this half face of makeup. “Yes, ma’am!” I say.
“Love you, baby! Night!”
