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“Charmed,” said Faye. “And you must be Gracie’s drag daughter. I’d recognize that shoddy contouring anywhere.”
“I’m far too young to be a mother,” said Will. “Unlike some of us.”
“I took Gracie under my wing when she first started out,” Faye told Patrick. “She’d been doing god-awful drag on Instagram and needed a guiding hand. I’m like her drag stepmother. Which would make you my granddaughter, after a fashion. Do you have a name, love? Do you speak at all?”
Patrick cleared his throat, about to respond, then paused. One word out of his mouth would surely give him away, his American drawl easily attributed to his trademark superhero role No. If he was going to do this, he needed to go full Stanislavski.
“Infamy,” he said breathily, barely above a whisper, drawing deep on his dialect training from that short-lived tour of An Inspector Calls eight years ago.
Faye howled. “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me! That’s a good one.”
Patrick let out a silent sigh of relief. Maybe he would get away with this after all.
Faye tottered away, and Will turned to Patrick.
“Infamy?” he said.
Patrick waggled his eyebrows provocatively. The fact that they were currently drawn a full inch and a half above their usual position probably made him look ridiculous, but he was thrilled to realize he didn’t care. Was this what Will loved about drag, he wondered? This feeling of absolute freedom from yourself?
“Not bad, right?” he said, in what he thought was a passable English accent.
“You’re a better actor than I gave you credit for,” said Will.
“Ouch,” said Patrick, then adding with a snigger: “You cow!”
Will threw back his head and cackled. “I should watch my back!” he said. “You’ll be coming for my gig next.”
“I don’t know about all that,” said Patrick. “I mean, obviously I look stunning, but I think you probably make a better lady than me.”
Patrick’s drag was a little on the butch side. Will had remarked earlier, while picking out clothes for him, that there was no getting away from those shoulders, those arms, that chest, although he had done an admirable job of trying. Patrick’s waist was cinched under a loose black playsuit, Will had draped a biker jacket over his shoulders, and he’d squeezed his size tens into a red pair of what Will lovingly called his “fuck-me pumps.” He had felt absurd, clown-like, while Will did his makeup—a lengthy and intimate process during which Patrick had observed that Will had a slight bump on the bridge of his nose and bit his bottom lip when he was concentrating—but the moment he’d put on the blown-out blond wig, it was like somebody somewhere had waved a wand. The overall effect was a little like Sandy at the end of Grease, if she happened to be a powerlifter.
“I can’t believe people aren’t staring more,” said Patrick.
“Look around, love. There are flashier sights in tonight.”
“Still. I thought for sure I’d have been clocked by now.”
Will smirked, and Patrick knew he’d used the term wrong.
“Sweetie,” said Will. “Nobody here thinks you’re a real woman. I doubt there are many who’d even call you a decent drag queen, not with the way you’re tottering around in those shoes.”
“They hurt my feet.”
“Welcome to the club. The point is, though…nobody cares. You’re not the first fledgling to come through here, and you won’t be the last.” He pointed to the stage. “I’ve seen some truly shit performance art go on there. Properly abominable stuff. And the weakest lip-syncs you can imagine. But I’ve also seen kings and queens and in-betweens step up there and blow everyone away. Real queer genius. And the beauty of a place like this is there’s room for all of it.”
“So which one were you?” Patrick asked.
Will laughed. “Somewhere in the middle. Come on, let’s find a seat. Looks like the show is about to begin.”
What followed was a carousel of some of the most bizarre visuals Patrick had ever seen. A nonbinary performer decked out in a jumpsuit and bubble perm like Sigourney Weaver in Alien performed a lip-sync to “E.T.,” by Katy Perry, tearing open their coveralls at the first chorus to reveal a creature bursting forth from their chest, a puppet cleverly operated by their left arm under the clothes. A queen in a bright yellow raincoat sang “Don’t Rain on My Parade” while shooting the audience with a water pistol from waist height (“Golden showers are a running theme with her,” Will informed him). But his favorite performance of the night, not that he could ever be biased, was the artist who had transformed themselves into Captain Kismet on one half of their body and Princess Sura on the other, flipping back and forth between personas like Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria while miming along to “Holding Out for a Hero.”
I can’t wait to tell Audra, Patrick thought. She’ll get such a kick out of this. A second later he remembered he couldn’t tell anyone he’d been here—that this was the whole point of his disguise. What did the teleporting bank robber Jumpin’ Jacques always say right before he vanished from the scene of his latest crime in the Kismet comics? J’étais jamais ici. I was never here.
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