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“Because you have, like, the energy of someone who knows things.”
“You’re thinking of your boyfriend.”
“Nah,” she says. “You know stuff.”
“I don’t even know how to, like, make human connections.”
“That’s not true. Niko and I love you.”
August blinks up at the ceiling, trying to absorb her words. “That’s—that’s nice and all, but you two are… you know. Different.”
“Different how?”
“Like, you’re both your own planets. You have gravitational fields. You pull people into them and that’s it. It’s, like, inevitable. I’m not half as warm or hospitable. No support for life.”
Myla groans. “Jesus, I didn’t know you could be so fucking dire.” August scowls and Myla laughs. “Do you ever hear yourself talk, though? You’re cool. You’re smart. Maybe people at your stupid Catholic school were just dicks, man. You’ve got a brighter glow than you realize.”
“I—I mean, I guess. That’s nice of you to say.”
“It’s not nice, it’s true.”
They’re both quiet, the record spinning on.
“You do too,” August says to the ceiling at last. It’s hard for her to say stuff like this straight-on. “Glow.”
“Oh, I know.”
Classes exit the drop period, and it’s August and her packs of scantrons and lecture after lecture five days a week. This lands her with the latest shifts, and she finds herself audience to the weirdest characters and most bizarre events that descend upon Billy’s under the cloak of night.
Her first week, she spent twenty minutes explaining to a drunk man why he couldn’t order a bratwurst and, failing that, why he couldn’t do pelvic floor exercises on top of the bar. Part of being a Brooklyn institution, August has learned, is collecting all the New York strangeness at the end of the night like a pool filter full of june bugs.
Tonight, it’s a table of men in leather dusters loudly discussing the social scandals of the local vampire fetish community. They sent back their first order of pancakes with a demand for more chocolate chips and did not take kindly to the Count Chocula joke August attempted. They’re not leaving a tip.
At the bar, there’s a drag queen fresh from a gig, sipping a milkshake, all skintight catsuit and heels, her press-on nails arranged in two neat rows of five on the counter. She watches August at the register, smoothing the ends of her pink lace front. There’s something familiar about her that August can’t seem to pin down.
“Can I get you anything else?” August asks.
The queen laughs. “A frontal lobotomy to forget the night I had?”
August cringes, commiserative. “Rough one?”
“Walked in on one of the girls experiencing the very graphic aftermath of a vegan tuna melt in the dressing room. That’s why I’m—” She gestures widely to herself. “Usually I de-drag before I take the subway, but it was fucked up in there.”
“Yikes,” August says. “I thought I had it bad with the Lost Boys over there.”
The queen glances at the leather-clad disciples of darkness, who are patiently passing around the butter pecan syrup from one gloved hand to the next. “Never thought I’d see a vampire I absolutely didn’t want to fuck.”
August laughs and leans into the bar. This close, she can catch the sticky-sweet smell of hairspray and body glitter. It smells like Mardi Gras—amazing.
“Hold up, I know you,” the queen says. “You live above the Popeyes, right? Parkside and Flatbush?”
August blinks, observing the way her gold highlight gleams on top of her dark brown cheekbone. “Yeah?”
“I’ve seen you around a couple of times. I live there too. Sixth floor.”
“Oh,” August says. “Oh! You must be the drag queen who lives across the hall!”
“I’m an accountant,” she deadpans. “Nah, I’m playing with you. I mean, that is my day job. But yeah, that’s me, Annie.”
