Paloma rolls his eyes and looks at me. “She’s just jealous because I have a new pair of Louboutins,” he says, lifting one leg to show me a ridiculously high-heeled shoe.
“Louboutins?” says Farrah, slapping a tube of mascara on the dressing table and putting his hands on his hips. “Bitch, I know you got those at the Payless for nine ninety-nine and just spray-painted the bottoms red.” He reaches over, as if he’s going to run his fingertip down the sole of Paloma’s shoe to see if any of it rubs off.
Paloma pulls his foot away and wags a finger at Farrah. “Do not sit there in that Tina Turner fright wig that looks like some kind of mangy Pekingese sitting up on top of your head and criticize my footwear.”
Farrah gasps. “I know you did not just drag Miss Anna Mae Bullock into this. You did not.” He turns to me as he pretends to remove one of his rhinestone earrings. “Gurl, hold my clip-ons, because there is going to be a fight.”
Now we do all laugh. This is what I like about drag queens. Everything is over the top. But it’s usually all just in fun. Usually.
“Sammy, tell that bitch I apologize for pointing out that her heels are knockoffs,” Farrah says primly as he picks up a lipstick and begins applying it.
I turn to Paloma. “Farrah would like you to know that he is . . .”
“Pronouns!” Farrah and Paloma say in unison.
“Sorry,” I apologize. “That she is very sorry for insulting your Louboutins.”
“More like Foolboutins,” Farrah says under her breath.
“Shh!” I hiss.
“Thank you,” Paloma says, powdering her nose. “And please tell my sister that I forgive her rudeness and am sorry about pointing out the tragedy of her wig. I did it out of love.”
“Now back to you,” Farrah says to me. “How many times do we have to tell you to say she and her when talking about a person’s drag self?”
“I know,” I say. “I know. But it’s confusing. Like, do you only use she when someone is in full drag? What about while he’s putting on his face but doesn’t have his hair on?”
Drag has its own language, and I haven’t mastered it yet. I’ve finally gotten the difference between girl, which just means a girl, and gurl, which means, well, different things depending on how you say it. Mostly it’s something some gay guys call one another. And the only difference is that when you say gurl, you kind of draw the word out. But that difference is important.
“When in doubt, use she,” Paloma instructs me. “Most guys won’t be offended if you call them she, but call a queen a he and you’re asking for a slap.”
This conversation makes me think about Tom Swift. For some reason, I have no problem thinking of Tom as he. Even after his grandmother let his other name slip out, I’ve never once considered him a she. Maybe because Tom is who Tom is. Jennifer is who he was, but isn’t anymore. But Paloma is usually Ricky, and Farrah is usually Brandon. They’re only Paloma and Farrah a couple of times a week.
Which brings us back to what we were talking about earlier. Who I am.
“Funny names are kind of old-school,” Farrah says, picking up the conversation as if we’d never left it. “Usually girls with funny names are comedy queens.”
“Clowns,” Paloma adds.
“Kind of,” Farrah agrees. “But really fucking funny ones. Not the creepy-ass kind like they have at the circus. But finding a name no one has used already is a bitch.”
“Where did you get yours?” I ask Farrah.
He—she—points to a poster taped to the wall beside the mirror. It shows a gorgeous blond woman wearing a red one-piece swimsuit.
“Miss Farrah Fawcett,” Farrah says. “The star of Charlie’s Angels.”
“One of the stars,” says Lola, who has walked into the middle of the conversation, and who now sits down in an armchair to watch the other queens get ready. He’s still dressed in his regular clothes, so I think of him as, well, him. He’s holding a drink in one hand.
“The star,” Farrah insists. “Child, just look at that hair. In 1976, every man and boy in America had that poster on their walls. Even the gay ones. Everybody loved Farrah Fawcett. Everybody.”
“You weren’t even alive then,” Lola says.
“That’s true,” Farrah agrees. “As you know, I am only twenty-one years of age.”
Paloma and Lola snort. Farrah flips her middle finger at them. “Anyway, I saw the show in reruns, and I thought Miss Farrah was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. So when it came time for my naming, she’s the first thing that came to mind. And my last name, Monroe, is a play on Farrah’s character’s name in Charlie’s Angels. Hers was Jill Munroe, with a ‘u.’ Mine is Monroe, with an ‘o,’ because it’s also an homage to Miss Marilyn. Farrah Monroe. And there you are.”
“Kind of ironic, a little black boy wanting to be a pretty white girl, isn’t it?” Lola says.
Farrah doesn’t respond, and I can tell Lola has said something that hurts her. But a moment later she snaps out of it and says, “Better than naming myself after a demon, old man.”
“A demon?” I say.
Lola takes a sip of his drink. “Lola is a character from the musical Damn Yankees,” he explains. “She’s a kind of demon who works for the devil and tries to seduce the show’s main character, Joe Hardy. When I was eleven, I visited my uncle in New York City. He was a homosexual, although back then everyone just called him a confirmed bachelor. He took me to the show. I’d never seen anything like it. The whole rest of the week I went around singing ‘Whatever Lola Wants,’ which was Lola’s big number from the show, and his friends all thought I was adorable. But when it came time to put me on the train to come home, my uncle told me not to sing it around my parents. I didn’t understand why, but I told him I wouldn’t. But whenever I was alone in my room, I’d sing it and remember how it felt to have all those people clapping for me.”
He starts singing, and I recognize the song as a tune I’ve often heard him humming. But I didn’t know it had words. I wonder why he doesn’t do it in his act, but before I can ask him he gets up and leaves without saying anything else.
“Now you’ve done it,” Paloma says to Farrah. “She’ll be drunk before we even open the doors.”
“She’s already drunk,” Farrah says.
“Why?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”
“That uncle she talked about?” Paloma says. “He killed himself.”
“Why?”
“He was a schoolteacher,” Paloma explains. “Taught English to eighth graders. Someone found out about him and reported him. Back then, you couldn’t be gay and teach kids. They fired him. He was afraid everyone would find out, so he killed himself. Family told everyone he’d had a heart attack, but Lola found out the truth when a letter came from him for her a week after he died. That letter also had a check in it. A big one. He left her the money that she used to open this place.”
“That’s horrible,” I say, feeling bad that I asked Lola about his name.
“You scratch anybody and you’ll find some tragedy just below the surface,” Farrah says. “It’s called life.”