“Not me?” he asks, only a hint of hurt in his voice.
“Of course, you.” I squeeze his hand to make up for my thoughtless comment. “I suppose... I put you in a different category than Edna.”
“And what category would that be?” he whispers in my ear.
“The category of people I’d like to kiss.” I can’t believe I just said that. We face each other and smile. There’s lipstick on bothour mouths and a gaggle of increasingly inebriated college boys around us. It doesn’t feel like the right time to kiss, and so we let the moment pass. “My only point was that being a man feels so limiting.”
He nods. “Man, according to the dictionary last I checked, means any human being, regardless of sex or age or color or creed. Simply a member of the human race. A person. Perhaps it’s men who imposed limits on their own definition of themselves. Perhaps we were always meant to be whatever we wanted.”
As I contemplate his words, Jack rushes toward us. “It’s time to go, boys. Go pick out an ensemble worthy of the occasion.”
Shams and I move toward Jack’s bed, littered with unchosen costumes. We hold them up against each other as Jack mixes one more round of drinks. “Do you boys know why this drink is called an Aviation?” he asks as he mixes gin and maraschino liqueur with fresh lemon juice and crème de violette. “Because it will make you fly. And who doesn’t dream of taking flight?”
Shams and I choose to throw matching Victorian dresses over our clothes. The dresses are large enough to fit over what we already have on. We find appropriate wigs and hats to complete the ensembles. I’m pretty sure I saw these costumes in the performance ofThe Importance of Being Earnestthat Harvard put on last year, the one Brendan insisted I accompany him to. Mother came with us and loved the play. She laughed uproariously throughout, and no one clapped louder than her. I loved seeing her like that. Carefree in the dark. It struck me that evening that the true gift of theater is that as the performers play their parts, the audience gets to sit in the anonymity of darkness andstopperforming for others. Just react from the purity of our own emotional responses.
“Aviations?” Jack asks, holding out two cups to me and Shams.
“No thanks, Jack,” I say. “I’m a good Victorian girl.”
“Of course you are, baby boy. And you, great sham of a person?”
“I don’t need help taking flight tonight,” Shams says. “I feel like I’m already in the clouds.”
“You two are hopeless bores.” Jack rolls his eyes dramatically as he empties both glasses into his stomach.
“Whoa there, Jackie boy.” Brendan puts a protective arm around Jack. “You may want to slow down a tad. You wouldn’t want to crash in midair.”
Jack laughs uncontrollably. I’ve never seen him more sozzled. He speaks like he’s onstage, playing the part of some European bon vivant. “Don’t you tell me what to do, Lady Macbeth! The night is young, but our lives are short! LET’S LIVE.”
Live we do. We stumble toward the masquerade ball, some because they’re blotted, and some—myself, certainly—because we have no idea how to walk the cobblestoned streets in heels. If it weren’t for Shams holding me up, I would certainly have tripped at least twice and added a layer of red blood to the rouge and lipstick on my face. With his help, I make it past the entrance door, which looks like any other door in Boston, dark mahogany with an arch above it. Nothing to suggest the world of revelation we’ve just entered.
“I need a drink,” Jack declares, unaware that another drink is the last thing he needs. “Let’s go order some ginger beers and I can mix up some Dark and Stormys to get the party started.”
“Jack...” Brendan puts a hand on Jack’s tense shoulder. “The party started hours ago in our room. I think we’ve had too much.”
“And I say too much is not enough!” Jack sneers.
The other boys ignore Jack. They’re too entranced by the sights all around them. Everything here feels exaggerated. The pearls too large, the feathers too abundant. It’s a mockery of good taste and a reinvention of it all at the same time. It’s wonderful.
“Did you hear me, world?” Louder, so his voice might reach the volume of the live band playing a syncopated ragtime, Jack yells, “TOO MUCH IS NOT ENOUGH.”
“I don’t think I can watch more of this,” Shams whispers in my ear. “He’s making an even bigger fool of himself than he usually does. Shall we take a walk?”
I don’t need to answer. He already seems to know I’ll follow him anywhere.
As we walk toward the band, where men in dresses dance with the joyous thrill of unexpected freedom, a mustached man in a tuxedo and a top hat beelines toward us, waving. He looks vaguely familiar, and I feel a sudden panic. It could be the mailman, or the butcher. My God, it could be one of my teachers, or my mother’s employer, who I only met once. Did he have a mustache? I don’t remember. He could have grown one if he didn’t. My mind races with endless, equally terrifying possibilities of who this could be.
I hadn’t thought of this before walking into this secret space, or when I went to the Golden Rooster for that matter. All this time, I’ve been worried that Mother might find out, without thinking ofhowshe might find out. What if it’s because I run into someone who knows her? Perhaps the reason the mailman is always so jovial is that he spends his nights dancing in dresses, filling himself up on freedom by night so he can be happy all day.
“Oliver!” the man says in a husky baritone that feels forced, like a performance. “Welcome to the grand rag.”
I recognize something in the voice, but still, I can’t quite placeit. I feel sweat on my brow, and in my armpits. The Victorian dress I’m wearing over my clothes is thick and uncomfortable. I feel hot and trapped. I misjudged it all. “I—I don’t feel well,” I say to Shams. “I think...”
“You don’t recognize me?” the voice says, no longer husky. It takes me a moment to realize it’s a woman’s voice. The top hat comes off. It’s Edna in male drag. “It’s me. Edna. The back room of the Rooster. Plato’sSymposium. Even with all that makeup and the dress, I recognized you right away.”
“I remember who you are.” I wipe sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “I thought—I didn’t... I was afraid you were someone my family knew. Someone who might tell my mother I was here.”
Edna pulls me into a hug that immediately calms me. Support really can be medicine when administered correctly. And she knows just how to administer it. “I’m sorry I spooked you,” she says when she releases me. “And I’m sorrier you have to live looking over your shoulder.” She holds her hand out to Shams. “I don’t think we’ve officially met. I’m Edna. But tonight, I’m going by Septimus Smith.”
