Chapter 2
Will Wright was halfway through transforming into a woman when his sister called. Upstairs at the Village Inn, the area designated for the drag queens’ toilette was a former utility cupboard that had been colonized by the bar’s coterie of performers. Dressing tables and vanity mirrors had been installed against one wall, but metal filing cabinets and moldering cardboard boxes still lined the opposite side, and its occupants wasted no time in enforcing a pecking order. Spots at “the High Table,” as the queens had dubbed the well-lit vanity, were intensely coveted. According to local lore, those chairs were reserved for the more seasoned artistes—although, more often than not, they were claimed by whoever got there first on a Friday night.
Three drag queens—Faye Runaway, Gaia Gender, Raina Shine—were sitting there now like Macbeth’s witches, titivating between sips of gin and tonic. Tammy, the emcee for the evening, was already downstairs at the DJ booth. Julie Madly Deeply wasn’t due to join them until after midnight.
Will, who was both the new girl and incapable of showing up on time (according to everyone who knew him), had no chance of a seat at the High Table tonight—or even a proper mirror. As a result, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor and applying his makeup while peering down at the front-facing camera of his phone, which he had propped up against the skirting board. At one point, Gaia left her post to go smoke outside, but Will resisted the urge to take her place, staying his own licentious hand: Stealing such a spot once it had been claimed was a sin akin to sleeping with somebody’s husband. Come to think of it, most queens were less territorial over men than they were over favorable lighting.
When Will first began experimenting with drag, doing amateurish, clown-like makeup in his bedroom during lockdown, he had daydreamed about being invited behind the curtain at a real club even more than he had thought about performing. He imagined gossiping with the other queens in the dressing room, sharing stories and lipstick, the glamour and the camaraderie. Admittedly, the reality was markedly less “backstage at the Hippodrome” than Will had once hoped, instead giving the overall impression that they were all preparing to put on a particularly baroque school play.
Faye, at least, had welcomed Will with open arms: He was the latest in a long line of fledglings to be taken under her sequined wing. But the queen of the runaways had more to offer by way of advice than she did tutelage, deadheading Will’s ingénue-like expectations with a French-tipped talon.
“Most of these novices you see on Instagram wouldn’t even make a half-decent chorus girl,” Faye had told him. “It’s not a matter of talent. It’s that other thing. The ineffable. Je ne sais quoi. Not to be confused with Jenny Sais Quoi,” she added, referring to the queen who had recently moved to Bristol to be with a man she had met at the Renaissance tour.
Beat nearly done, Will swore under his breath as his own image vanished from the screen, replaced by his sister’s name and a picture from last New Year’s Eve in which they were, for once, both smiling. He answered the call, dusting foundation from the surface of his phone at the same time, before opening the camera again.
“Thief,” Margo declared. Behind him, Will heard Raina tut indelicately at the tinny sound of the speakerphone.
“Am not,” Will said. This was not a video call, and so Margo could not see the oversized white blouse he was wearing, purloined from her wardrobe on his last visit and tied into a cute little knot at the waist.
“I’m going out with The Girls tonight,” Margo admonished, “and I was going to wear that top. You are so annoying.”
“The Girls” consisted of Claire and Fiona, women Margo had known since school and who had become very fond of peppering Will with all kinds of questions since they got hip to Drag Race UK on the BBC. “Do you tuck?” Fiona had asked him last Christmas Eve. “Are you a look queen or a comedy queen? When are you going to go on RuPaul?”
“You should wear that top from Reiss,” Will told Margo. “It’s smarter.”
“That top is brand-new,” she accused. “How do you know about it?”
“Brotherly intuition.”
“I swear to god, Will.”
He and his sister had been sharing clothes since their late teens, when their wardrobes had consisted solely of oversized hoodies and band T-shirts. As the years went on, they discovered that Will’s taste and Margo’s income were a match made in heaven, and every quarter or so, without fail, Margo would show up at Will’s flat unannounced with a tote bag and a scowl, demanding her stuff back.
“Very Twelfth Night,” he murmured to nobody, as he executed a pleasing (if not perfect) cat-eye flick.
Will and Margo were far from twins. In fact they weren’t blood relatives at all, just a pair of former delinquents brought together by Will’s father and his ever-roving eye. Still, with Will’s dark Irish hair and lashes, and the thick black mane Margo inherited from her Italian mother (not to mention the savage shorthand in which they communicated), you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
“Did you hear who’s in Brum right now?” Margo asked, her annoyance giving way under the urge to spill tea.
“Who?” Will asked, owl-like, his mouth a perfect O as he applied lipstick.
“Patrick Lake.”
Will froze, lipstick tube held midair. “Are you serious? I thought that was just a rumor.”
“A bunch of people saw him outside the Grand on Church Street. It’s been all over Instagram today.”
“I’m so over social media,” Will said, with a superior air. “And I’ve been…busy.”
This was not a lie, exactly. Between his two part-time jobs—drag and bookselling—Will certainly was always busy. And he had deleted Instagram and TikTok from his phone a week ago in a bid to improve his mental health, reasoning that any events of significance would make their way to him via WhatsApp or, if he got bored enough, a newspaper. Mainly, though, he was trying to avoid crossing timelines with his latest ex-boyfriend, Ry. Also, a handful of soul-destroying videos from his most recent ill-fated gig were still in circulation. Better to wait things out. At least until sufficient time had elapsed that he could gracefully rejoin polite society, not unlike a literary heroine whose reputation gets absolutely beasted after she is seen taking a stroll with a scoundrel. (During his self-imposed digital exile, he might have also read half of a Henry James novel from the nineteenth-century section at the bookshop where he worked.)
“It’s so surreal to think of a big celebrity just wandering around Birmingham,” said Will.
“I know, right?” said Margo. “Can’t you just picture him popping into the Oasis Market to pick up a bong and get something pierced?”
“Then going to Snobs for a warm alcopop and an STI,” added Faye from behind Will, having determined that any conversation happening via speakerphone was one she could invite herself to join without compunction.
“You might be telling on yourself there, love,” said Will.
“Oh, please,” Faye said derisively. “I wouldn’t be seen dead in that new hole. I remember old Snobs, before they moved it.”
“Snobs is straight culture,” announced a self-important voice from behind Will. He scooted around and looked up to see Jordan entering the dressing room, a full drinks tray in hand. Jordan was one of life’s main characters, fond of entering rooms with a grand proclamation, pausing in the doorway to give everybody time to take in his words—and his outfit. Tonight, he wore a fitted tank top, high-waisted jeans, and a pair of platform heels, all the better to tower imperiously over the twinks who reported to him downstairs. Jordan ostensibly held the title of bar manager at the Village, but in all their years of friendship, the only thing Will had ever witnessed him manage was to make an entire hen party cry. He didn’t so much run the place as hold court, like a viceroy or governor installed by the powers that be who owned the bar.
Jordan Thomas believed his own hype to the point of egomania, which Will blamed on him having two first names. He also happened to be Will’s best friend in the entire world.
“Marg, I have to go,” he said. “Duty calls.”
“Hi, Margo!” Jordan called out as he set down his tray.
Margo made a noncommittal noise on the other end and hung up.
“Patrick Lake,” Jordan purred. “What a slice.”
“I thought fancying straight men was against your politics?” Will challenged.
“It is. But I’m only human, Will, and the man’s fit as fuck. As if he’s in Birmingham.” Jordan bit his lip. “Maybe I could find a way into his hotel. Do some investigative journalism.”
“Firstly, that is not investigative journalism, it is stalking,” said Will. “And secondly, you are not a journalist. You’re a homosexual with an iPhone.”
“How hard could it be to finesse my way onto a film set?” Jordan continued, ignoring him. “You know, I’ve always had this theory that gays make the best spies.”
Jordan had plenty of theories about life, the universe, and everything, but Will was quite fond of this one. After all, who could be better equipped for espionage than somebody who had grown up learning to decode the subtleties of body language, read any room for signs of imminent danger, and assume a completely alien identity when the occasion called for it?
“Is one of those for me?” Will asked, nodding to the tray of drinks. Technically, he was reporting to Jordan this evening, but if he were to assume even the slightest deferential tone, the man’s ego would tumesce to the point of no return. Better to act like any other drag performer, haughty and superior, even if tonight he would not be onstage, instead functioning as a glorified shot girl. It was a humiliating part of the job, but necessary if he wanted to buy those boots he’d had his eye on. Every spare penny, of which there were precious few, went toward his costuming. Meanwhile, his “boy drag,” as he now fondly referred to his everyday apparel, consisted of bulky work trousers—Dickies and Carhartt when he was on a particularly good charity shop haul—and the aforementioned, gender-neutral loot from Margo’s closet.
“Off-brand gin for my best girl,” Jordan said, handing over a large glass before picking up one himself. “Bottoms up—”
“And down with tops!” Will replied in unison with the other queens, giggling and taking a generous swig. “Now go, go, I need to get into my dress.”
“Something slutty?” Jordan asked.
“Have you ever seen me in any other kind?”
Once Jordan had returned to his domain downstairs, Will carefully attached his wig, which he had christened Ariel, and stepped into his dress, a sleek black vintage number he loved like a favorite child (if one he’d bought online at a high discount).
“Could somebody zip me up, please?” he asked, but Faye was nowhere to be seen, and the other witches were suddenly so fixated on their own magic mirrors that they didn’t seem to hear him. “Never mind,” he said, “I’ll figure it out.” Will awkwardly reached behind his own back and with a few small jumps that made his padding jiggle comically, managed to tug the zipper upward. Crouching as delicately as was possible under the circumstances, he retrieved his phone to give his reflection one final examination.
He grunted in exasperation as his image onscreen was once again obscured by an incoming notification. This time, it was a text from Jordan downstairs:
You will NEVER believe who just walked in.