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’t want 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 looks terrifying, 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 an idea of 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!”
She pads down the hallway to her and Dad’s room, and once I hear the door close behind her, I exhale.
I continue on, tracing some version of eyebrows, covering my lids in sparkly green eye shadow, lining my lips, filling them in with an orangey-red lipstick. Lastly, I attempt mascara. There’s lots of eye watering and blinking, but eventually I get some color on my nearly translucent lashes, which are actually sort of long. Because I’m feeling exceptionally brave, I scoot to the edge of my chair and try my hand at the eyelash curler I found at the bottom of the makeup kit.
A sharp pinch tugs at my eyelid. “Ow! Shit!”
I detangle myself from the curler and try once more. I feel actual fear as the metal closes around my lashes, but when I feel nothing, I press a little harder.
When I’m done with both eyes, I see that in the case of eyelash curlers, the pain is worth the gain. Tilting my chin down, I bat my lashes a few times. Damn, girl.
My makeup isn’t great. It’s a little too everyday, but like drunk-girl everyday, so it’s all a bit smudged. But still, there’s something different about me. I’ve transformed into someone else. Someone who wasn’t dumped and abandoned. Someone who might even have a few secrets of their own. Every time I glance in the mirror, I feel a fluttering in my chest.
I stand and open the bottom drawer of my dresser, where I keep swimsuits and discarded Halloween costumes. I’ve got a feather boa from the year I went as Hulk Hogan, and then there’s the black wig from the year I went as Tina from Bob’s Burgers. (Mimi Mee once said that Halloween is a drag queen testing ground.)
There’s a tickle of excitement in my fingers as I open my closet and reach for my Waylon Stage Three Wardrobe. Like my life, my clothing is clearly divided into phases, and for years, I’ve been stocking up on clothing that I’ll wear after high school when Clem and I are living our truth in Austin. Sometimes when I’m feeling brave, I’ll bust out a piece or two for a night at home or dinner at Grammy’s, but for the most part, this half of my closet remains untouched. A shrine to the person who I will soon become. Leggings, skinny jeans, dramatic robes, capes, Elton John–style sunglasses, and an incredible shoe collection. I either bought it with my own money earned working for Dad over the summer or it was passed down from Grammy. One day, I’ll wear it all, and I’ll wear it with intention.