Sophia stood just inside the door, surveying the chaos. The five men due on stage in less than thirty minutes were still in varying stages of undress, and only two had their makeup done. “Why didn’t anyone call me if you were this far behind?”
Five heads turned, and the makeup artist they had on loan for the evening, Chrissy, growled. “Keep still. Jesus, you’d think you’d learn that. How many hours are you in my chair every day?”
The man in question—Rhys, who usually had makeup for television, not the stage—flashed her a charming grin. “Enough for you turn me into Casanova. Patrick can’t take his hands off me.”
His costar Patrick coughed. “Only because it’s in the script.”
Everyone—including Rhys—laughed.
Sophia grinned. “Rhys, behave. We’re lucky to have Chrissy tonight, especially since she knows you guys from the set.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Shit. We’re running out of time,” she said, crossing over to stand next to the third man, Chance. “Angelo and Sebastian”—she pointed to the two men sitting on the couch on the other side of the room—“pick out your dresses. There’s a sapphire blue that’d be perfect for you, Angelo. And, Sebastian, look at the sequined red.”
Neither dared argue; instead, they took the dresses she’d mentioned and started removing their pants.
Sophia turned to Chance. “This hair,” she grumbled. “Why do you have so much?” She shook her head and pulled out a wig cap from one of the drawers.
Chance shrugged. “Patrick likes it.”
Sophia sighed. “Well, can’t argue with that, darlin’. Wouldn’t want your husband mad at me.” She worked at plastering Chance’s hair down, then pulled the cap over top. Without a word, she picked up this brush and that one, pots of powder, pencils, fake eyelashes, then a big blonde wig, and not even fifteen minutes later, she stepped back and surveyed her work. “Well, you probably won’t win Miss America—”
“Of course not. I’m married,” Chance said and Sophia laughed.
“Mrs. America, then.” She shook her head. “But you’ll do for tonight. Chrissy, who’s left?”
“Wait, you’re done?” Chance asked, leaning around Sophia to look in the mirror. “Holy shit!”
“I told you before, on a good night, I can go from Tom to Sophia in fifteen minutes flat—jewelry, makeup, and all. It’s even easier to fix someone else.” She flashed a grin. “Now. Dress. You should wear green.” She turned to Chrissy. “Okay, then….”
Chrissy grinned and pointed at Patrick. “Just that dork. We’ve gotta cover that damned tat.” She waved at the full-sleeve tribal tattoo. “And he needs that hair for the show, but….”
Sophia wrinkled her nose at the long black hair hanging down along the chair. “Yeah. Don’t worry, darlin’, I can handle the hair. You take care of the tat, but only the shoulder. We’ll put a long-sleeved dress on him to cover the rest. Can we work together?”
With a nod Chrissy grabbed the cover-up pot and moved over to Patrick’s left side. “So… what got you started in this?”
Sophia thought about it for a few moments as she pulled and twisted at Patrick’s hair. “I’ve only done drag for probably thirty years or so. But I realized I wanted to do this”—she waved at her dress—“a long time before.”
“How long?” Patrick asked, looking up.
Tugging his hair, Sophia tsked. “Don’t move. Since I was eight.”
“Eight?” Chance asked from behind them.
Sophia glanced over her shoulder. “Yes, and you three are about to know something only one other person here knows.”
Patrick raised an eyebrow but wisely didn’t move. “Oh?”
“Yes.” Sophia stuffed a clip in Patrick’s hair. “Yes. My understanding happened forty-six years ago. Tonight. Three days after my eighth birthday.”
“That’d make you—” Chance started.
“Don’t do it,” Patrick warned, and Chrissy snickered.
“Good boy,” Sophia said, patting Patrick’s shoulder. She worked in silence a few more moments and finally had Patrick’s hair basically glued down and ready for the wig cap. “We’ll stick with black for his hair,” she told Chrissy, who nodded.
“Got it.”
Sophia glanced up at the clock. “Five minutes before I’m on stage.” She turned to see Angelo and Sebastian—now in full drag, and she could just barely tell there were males under the makeup—and grinned. Rhys walked in next, tall and almost willowy for a man, but rocking the copper dress and matching satin heels. “First, thank you. Tonight is going to be amazing because of you guys. Though I’m sure a few will be disappointed that you’re actually wearing clothes.”
That made everyone laugh. “I don’t mind actually being fully clothed, even in a dress,” Sebastian said, getting another laugh from everyone.
“Anyway, you guys know that tonight is the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. What you don’t know is that it has a more… personal meaning as well. I was alive when the riots happened, living in New York, in fact.”
* * *
“That lady is very tall!” Tom stared at the picture on the newspaper spread out on the floor in front of him. He’d been looking at the comics and closed the paper to find a picture on the front of two very tall women with a man between them, holding their arms.
Leaning over from her chair, Tom’s mother peered at the picture. “No, that’s not a lady, honey. That’s a man wearing women’s clothes.”
Tom’s eyes widened, and he looked up at her. “You can do that in public?”
“Erm…,” Dad said, drawing Tom’s attention. “Not exactly.”
“But they’re in public.” Tom pointed at the paper.
“They’re actually outside of a place that’s… mostly—or, well, usually—safe for them to be dressed like that.”
Tom frowned down at the paper. Adults like to do it too. Did that mean he wasn’t weird? That it was okay to want to do that? “Why do they do that?”
When silence followed the question, Tom looked up to see his parents staring at each other, both looking… “uncomfortable” was the best word Tom could think of for their expressions. “Uh, well… sometimes a man feels more like… a woman,” his dad said.
“Oh.” That made a sort of sense to Tom in a way he couldn’t explain. Yet again he found himself wondering if that meant he wasn’t weird. He absentmindedly turned the page and saw another picture, this one of a sign reading Stonewall Inn and under it “Homosexuals Fight Back!” The language of the article made little sense to Tom, with many of the words beyond him, despite his above-average reading level. The first word of the title made him wonder, though. “Does ‘homosexual’ mean a man who dresses like a lady?”
He looked up again in time to see his dad sigh.
Mom patted Dad’s hand and turned back to Tom. “No, honey. The man who dresses like a lady is called a drag queen. A homosexual is when a man loves another man.”
Ohhhh. Tom swallowed hard. “Is that… is that okay?”
His mom gave him an odd look, one he’d only understand many years later as one of realization. And an expression—and an answer—that would make all the difference in the world to Tom for the rest of his life.
“I think it is, yes.”
* * *
Sophia stood on the stage, looking out over the crowd. “Good evening. Tonight is special for all of us. It’s a celebration of a night that hallmarks a change in our world, one we hold up as the shift in the fight for acceptance. We have special guests to help celebrate with us, and I want to thank them for making this evening, one especially near and dear to me—though you didn’t hear that—” Sophia paused when the audience laughed. “—making this night even more special. Shall I introduce them to you? Better known as the cast of Deception, let’s welcome….”