“FISH!” Allicia screams from the steps of Lincoln Center.
Allicia and I are both Pisces. This is our shared nickname.
“Bitch!!” I call back to her, waving.
Oden and I have just emerged from the subway. Sweating, we prance over to meet her, dodging a million other queers dressed in mesh and neon and metal and lace.
“This dress!” she screeches.
I feel like an orchid in full bloom. The dress is the body—hot-pink, skin-tight—everything exposed.
“OK, bag.”
Leashy touches a perfectly manicured finger to my faux-fur, leopard-print clutch.
“I see you, Jersey.”
I giggle, batting my eyelashes at her.
“Thank you for noticing.”
Allicia always notices. I love that about her.
“Alright, folks, keep it moving!”
Before I can fawn over every detail of her outfit—a black tube-top that shows off her perfect tits, an immaculate pair of black pants that have been block-printed with splotches of white and blue paint, black patent-leather Demonias—a ticket-taker waves us through a set of velvet ropes, pushing us deeper into the Lincoln Center playground.
“Where do we go?” Oden asks, looking lost.
“This way.”
Allicia leads us past the fountain, toward a part of the grounds I’ve never been to before.
“I was here all the time when I was at AMDA,” she says.
I can see it in her body—Allicia’s 18-year-old, musical-theater-student self. Before she moved to Brooklyn, before her afro turned the brightest shade of seafoam white, before she started wearing sunglasses at night and 6-inch platform boots. She was here, prepping for a life of endless auditions.
“Jesus Christ.”
The place is packed. Knowing miss Pretty Lamé got us on a list, but the list was almost pointless. A sea of folding chairs, all filled with people, faces the stage.
“Let’s sit here? I guess?”
Oden ushers us into three adjacent seats in the very last row.
“I gotta pee,” I say, already dreading the line.
“I’ll get the drinks,” Allicia says.
The two of us scurry off in opposite directions, leaving Oden to guard our seats.
The sun is setting, the air cooling. The sky is turning mauve, the clouds dark blue. I join the bathroom line, light up a joint, take a hit. The wait will be long. To pass the time, I let my mind wander.
In 2022, backstage at Bushwig, I have my ass against the wall, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. Suzanne Bartsch and her crew are scurrying around, fringe and glitter and rhinestones and lace flying everywhere. In front of me, Amanda Lepore and Joey Arias are posing for photos.
I’ve seen Amanda before at parties, but not Joey, never Joey. She looks like a reclusive goth goddess—the kind of deity who comes out only rarely and at night, on mystically significant occasions. I’m starstruck.
The two of them strike several poses, arms around each other’s waists. Amanda’s eyes are only for the camera, but Joey’s looking around. At Amanda, at the photographer, at the swirl of artists and stagehands and props that are spinning by. She looks curious and a little demure. Open.
Flash.
Joey’s eyes land on me.
Flash.
I swallow, drop my gaze. I don’t want to be rude, staring like this.
Flash.
But a moment, my eyes wander back. She’s magnetic; I can’t look anywhere else.
Flash.
Our eyes meet. Joey’s lips curl up into a small, almost flirtatious smile. I feel my whole face go hot.
Flash.
She’s looking at the camera now, but her eyes are twinkling. She looks lit up in a way she didn’t before.
Flash.
The photoshoot ends, Amanda and Joey laughing with the photographer before they all spin off in different directions—Amanda, to huddle with Suzanne, the photographer, to take photos of someone else.
Joey turns their gaze back to me.
My mind goes blank.
She approaches, smooth and graceful.
My ears fill with white noise.
Joey glides to stand directly before me. Her lips are full, painted the color of red wine. Her nails are black, long, acrylic. Perfect. And her eyes. They’re soft beneath her winged eyeliner, and they’re looking right into mine. I’m not breathing.
“You know me,” she says.
The simplicity of it. It makes everything around us go quiet.
“I do,” I say.
I’m struck by the sense of being—in the most divine, unlikely way—in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. I’m at the very center of the cosmic spiderweb.
What feels like a decade later, I emerge from the Lincoln Center bathroom. The walk back to our seats feels like a mile.
“Just in time!” Oden says.
“I got snackies.”
Allicia’s holding an armful of canned Prosecco and a variety of chips. I take a can, pop it open. The bubbles hiss right as the orchestra revs up.
“Here we go!” Leashy squeals.
The crowd flares with applause. Everyone is drunk, sweating, cheering.
Thorgy’s headshot fills the digital screen behind the stage, her name spelled out in six-foot, hot-pink lettering.
“She looks like a Christmas tree,” I say.
Allicia snort-laughs.
“It is a bit Christmas-y, isn’t it?” Oden agrees.
She’s wearing a red and green plaid dress, her hair done up in a gold-dusted beehive.
Monét’s face replaces Thorgy’s on screen. The crowd goes wild.
“Which season was she on, again?” Allicia whispers in my ear.
“The one with the sponge dress.”
Monét steps out, joining Thorgy onstage.
“Oh shit,” I say, floored.
She’s wearing a pink, floor-length ballgown. And draped around her shoulders.
“THE BOA,” Oden and Allicia, in unison.
It’s long and fluffy and matches her gown. Just like the one we made for Pretty.
“Did she know?” Allicia asks.
“No,” I say, in disbelief.
“Oh, shit,” I hiss again.
“No fucking way,” Oden gasps.
Sapphira is walking out now, and she’s also monochromatic. Her ballgown is the color of Big Bird; her boa matches perfectly.
“This is wild.”
Pretty knew. That boa had to get made. She just knew.
All three of us start screaming. Full-throated, high-pitched, feral screams.
She walks onto the stage, her headshot and name shining behind her.
“She looks like one of them,” Oden whispers in my ear.
“Like they all coordinated,” Allicia agrees.
The divine intuition of it all has me gagged.
“She fucking knew.”
Pretty’s emerald-green ballgown glitters under the lights. Her wig, her beard, her eye-makeup—all of them dusted with rhinestones and glitter—gleam. And the boa. She is everything. It rustles around Pretty’s body like money, a living clown-snake made of ivy and abundance and dollar bills. She looks like one of them, the Ru Girls.
“She has arrived,” Oden says, beaming.
Allicia, beside me, is screaming Pretty’s name.
Once again, I find myself near the center of the cosmic spiderweb. But this time, it’s Pretty who’s directly in its eye. She was meant to be here.
After a comical introduction by Thorgy, the three queens open their mouths to sing. Monét and Sapphira are talented—classically trained, beautiful—but either their mics aren’t quite loud enough, or their voices don’t quite carry. The crowd chatters, distracted.
“I can barely hear them,” Oden says, munching on chips.
“Right?” Allicia agrees.
But when Pretty sings, her voice. It hits us in the back row like 1000 yards of tulle, all unspooling as one. All around us, I hear gasps.
“Who is she?” someone near us says.
The three of us exchange a knowing glance.
“She’s Pretty Lamé,” I say, loud and brash, sounding drunker than I am. “You should follow her on Instagram.”
“Oh.”
The voices around us sound startled, a little pearl-clutchy. They weren’t expecting a heckler with a connect.
“At Beard of the Ball,” I say, louder still.
Beside me, Allicia cackles. Oden grins.
Before us, a queen is born.
And finally... look at that amazing boa! She looks fantastic!