Sunrise, Brick Apartment (oil on canvas)

Albert had started his second cup of coffee by the time Willis woke up and came into the kitchen with red lipstick smeared across his face and gold eyeshadow smudged down towards his cheekbones. If they hadn’t known each other for four years at this point—having met in sophomore year of college, through a mutual friend, Roxy—Albert would have worried about him. Willis had slept in his make-up after drag nights more in the eight months since they had partnered up for weekly performances at Cheyenne Mighty’s Matriarch Lounge—where they refused, also weekly, to take Cheyenne’s recommendation to sing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” on the basis of “how cute they look together.”

They performed a few songs every Friday night, missing out on only three nights. The first time, Willis was sick; the second time, Albert didn’t feel up to singing after having been to a funeral for his Uncle Sal’s husband, Dimitri; and the third was the night George, the guy Albert was dating at the time, took him to another bar on the east end of town, roofied his drink, and took advantage of Albert in the men’s room. That was a little less than three months ago, and since then, Albert refused any chance to have sex with anyone. He wondered how much more Willis would withstand his rejection of advances before it drove a wedge in their friendship. He didn’t want Willis to hate him for what he’d been through or what had changed in him.

Willis knew enough about what had happened. He’d helped Albert piece it together across the rest of the weekend after, half from what he would reveal and half from his slips into prolonged silence.

Albert said, “You forgot to wash up again last night. Keep it up, and you’re going to owe me a new set of pillowcases.”

Willis rubbed his hand along his face and looked at the red and gold that was left on his fingers.

“Besides, it’s not good for your skin, doing that,” Albert said.

Willis shrugged and helped himself to the coffee pot and said, “What’s for breakfast?”

Albert looked at the empty plate in front of him, scraps of egg and splotches of sauces left over. He said, “Why did you call us ‘boyfriends’ last night?”

“I thought it was fun. Besides, Cheyenne was spurring us on. I don’t disagree with her that we’d be good, but you clearly wanted her to shut up, so I said something to satisfy her.”

Albert gulped the rest of his coffee quickly, and then stood and went across the open-plan room to the painting over the mantle. It was an Impressionist piece that Dimitri, his uncle’s husband, had done many years ago. It presented a window view of an afternoon on a cobblestone street, an eerie glow from tall lamps lined the road in the foggy landscape, old brick buildings and trees dotted with fresh purple and pink blossoms retreated out to the horizon, people walked in all directions except one woman who faced the vantage point, carrying what Albert imagined to be a stack of books, but he couldn’t be sure. He always liked to stand and stare at this painting and wonder what this woman’s experience was, how she might have been affected by all these people she passed, if there had been any interactions at all, if any of them had said anything to make her uneasy. Was it just Albert, or was the way she held those books tight against her chest a sign she was uncomfortable?

“What’s wrong?” Willis pulled Albert out of his thoughts.

“What?” Albert said.

“You could have said no.”

“I did say no. I’m saying no, right now. No.”

Willis said, “I like what we’ve had. The songs, the dancing. We could do more.”

Albert came back to the table and said, “Let’s not spoil it. You want more coffee?”

Willis handed his mug over, “Ready to do another show? We’ve never done two nights in a row before.”

Albert said, “Probably as ready as you are. Cheyenne’s birthday is worth it.”

“I don’t know why she couldn’t have just done it last night. Most of us were already there, anyway.”

“She’ll always find a way to extend festivities across as many days as possible.” Albert said. “You want to go to Sal’s today?”

“Leave me out of it,” Willis said. “You check out that new café around the corner?”

“Why do you try so hard to stay away from Sal?” Albert said. The coffee maker gurgled and hissed as it filled up a fresh pot.

“Not until you answer about the café.”

“Spectral? I went in once. Barista was a little...over-eager for my number.”

Willis said, “Alright, and as for Sal, I don’t hate him. It’s just that he always looks like he’s about to run away from me.”

“You look like Dimitri,” Albert said. He’d never told Willis that it was part of the reason he’d even approached Willis in the first place.

“I never thought so.”

“Everyone thinks so,” Albert said as he filled up both mugs and passed one to Willis.

“Not me,” Willis said.

“How about this, if you come with me to Sal’s, we’ll go to the amphitheater.”

The amphitheater was on the far west end of town and had been declared defunct after a series of accidents across a short, arid summer. A magician, during his act, had a cabinet catch fire, which was not part of his act. A few weeks later, a trap door fell open where a guitarist was standing. Both of his legs snapped on impact. Near the end of the summer, someone jumped off the catwalks above the stage. That was the last straw for the city council to decide there should be no more events there. They cordoned it off with police tape and a few signs—after all, how much can you close off something as open as an amphitheater?—and scheduled demolition for mid-Fall. Albert knew Willis wanted to check it out in this short window he had left.

Willis said, “I can’t say no to a haunted place. What would we do though?”

“We could get stoned?”

“As long as we don’t forget to stop by Roddy’s and pick out flowers for Cheyenne.”

“Sure,” Albert said. He stared out of the floor-to-ceiling window by the table, looked out over their small chunk of the city as people walked by, and his thoughts again trailed off to the woman in Dimitri’s painting.

Willis said, “Something wrong?”

Albert couldn’t bring himself to say anything about how uneasy Willis’s advances had made him the night before, and that he was worried that with the party, tonight might be the same. Could Willis understand that he didn’t like sex anymore? Even if he could, how could Albert have told him? There’d just be a long line of misunderstandings and interjections, all built with an intention to clarify, but only further muddying the subject until all hope for communication would be lost—or at least for a while until the only thing that could open the doors to this conversation again, time, had passed long enough for Albert to feel even remotely capable of confronting not only his feelings about the assault, but also Willis’s feelings about it. If that was the course to take, what then?

Albert considered the many different things that might be said in such conversations, the what-ifs, the worries, the excuses, for so long he found he’d gone into a thousand-yard stare, but he didn’t break himself from it right away. He felt the shift in the room as Willis stood and came closer to him, moved as if to put his arm on Albert’s shoulder but then decided against it. Albert equally wanted Willis to say something, break the silence, push him to talk—about something, anything—as much as he wanted Willis to say nothing at all. The two stood there watching all those lives go by outside. Shards of the soon-finishing sunrise cut across the city from behind the low morning clouds as Albert felt the words he’d been trying to say catch at the back of his throat.

♢

Noon, Downtown Flower Shop (acrylic on glass)

In the back room of Roddy’s Flowers, Theo–the current owner, Dimitri’s sister, and Roddy’s daughter–stood with Albert by the shelves of ribbons and dusty vases, crumbling boxes full of fabrics and packs of needles from, her partner, Barbara’s side gig doing upholstery, and the scissors and needle-noses that were scattered across the workbench. The floor had a layer of dirt that would never sweep away. Yet every time Barbara would ask her to sweep, she would sweep. There were two small, but wide, pairs of clerestory windows on the left and back walls that beamed light into the room.

Theo remembered how happy her father had been to have gotten such a great corner location with all this consistent lighting. She crossed her arms and said, “Does Willis know?”

Albert said, “I haven’t told him, but I don’t know how many more nights I can push him away before I have to come clean.”

“I imagine he wants to parade you around all day now that he thinks you’re his.” Theo looked down the hall.

She could see Willis and Barbara in the main room. Barbara showed Willis an arrangement of hot pink roses, orange lilies, sunflowers, lavender, purple asters, green Athos poms, and red carnations. Another, similar arrangement sat on the table beside her. The sun lit the store through the big front windows well enough they didn’t need to keep the lights on. Along the middle window of the front wall was a mural of various flowers of every color, done in light brushstrokes of a thinned-out acrylic, so that the light that came through the flowers became a full spectrum.

Dimitri had painted it almost five years ago, when Theo and Barbara took over the place after Roddy passed.

Albert said, “I don’t belong to him.”

“Then act like it.” Theo kept an eye on Willis. Sure, he looked like Dimitri in his mid-twenties, but she hadn’t gotten over the time she flipped a reversed 9 of Swords in his reading. Whatever anxiety or secret he must have had, she’d known it was a sign of someone Albert didn’t need at this point in his life. Not after the assault. Theo could tell just from the way Willis spoke to Albert that Willis wouldn’t respect Albert’s experience enough to try to understand anything he would share about it. As far as she knew, he’d stopped trying to get Albert to open up about it as soon as he’d learned the basic facts. Sure, it was an uncomfortable topic for either of them to bring up, she could understand that—she figured it was an uncomfortable topic for everyone, no matter what the circumstances—but the way she saw it was if Willis cared as much as he claimed he did, if he was prepared to love Albert, he would need to come to an acceptance of how that night had changed Albert.

Theo saw Barbara and Willis chatting and rifling through bouquets. She gave Albert a light backhand to the gut and said, “You’ll figure it out.”

“How’s Sal been?” Albert said.

“The gallery keeps him busy.”

“I wish I hadn’t stopped joining him and Dimitri for dinner after Christmas last year.”

“God, Dimitri could cook,” Theo said. “You should check in with Sal.”

“I had to bribe Willis into going with me. We’re heading there next.”

“I bet Willis pukes before going on stage again tonight.”

Albert said, “He’ll get drunk and puke after the show.”

“I think you’ll be okay, though.”

“Willis won’t. It’s not in the cards.” Albert checked down the hall and Willis waved him over. “It’s probably time to head out.”

Theo said, “Can’t wait to see Bertie and Willow at the party,” she said. Then they went out down the hall. The sunlight and shards of colors from the mural bounced off every vase and against the refrigerators’ clear doors and into the spotless marble tile floor as Theo and Barbara said their goodbyes to Albert and Willis.

♢

Afternoon, West Side Gallery (gouache on paper)

The building had been many things in its hundred years, a bakery, an insurance office, a thrift store, until Sal and Dimitri bought it, remodeled it, and filled it with paintings and photography. They’d turned the upper floor into their dream living space with a big kitchen where Dimitri could work his culinary magic, a little balcony garden, and a perfect bedroom view out to the rest of the cityscape. By their fifth anniversary, they’d turned the gallery into a decent money maker through showings of artists, many local and more than a few who were widely known. Now, after four months without Dimitri, the first of which he’d kept the gallery closed, Sal was starting to reconnect with society.

Sal’s happiness had been a thin veil for any visitors to his gallery until Albert and Willis visited. That was his first genuine smile of the day. His beard brushed at Albert’s face as they hugged. He asked how they were and what brought them to this side of town.

Albert looked to Willis before he answered. He said, “Just came from Theo’s, prepping for Cheyenne’s party.”

“How was she?” Sal said. “You know, she’s been more of a worry-wart since Dimitri passed.” He couldn’t bring himself to keep eye contact with Willis for longer than half a second.

Willis stepped away, towards another corner of the room, but then made a sudden adjustment and went back outside instead.

“Good kid,” Sal said.

“He thinks you don’t like him.”

Sal scratched his face.

Albert said, “How are you, really?”

Sal said, “Do you still have that painting I gave you?”

“Front and center in my living room.”

“It was the first painting we ever had in here.” Sal walked Albert through the gallery, past each painting without dwelling on any of them. “Dimitri did it before we got married.” Sal thought back about Dimitri’s paintings.

Dimitri had painted since high school, before they’d met. He had talent. Pushing paint on paper and canvas had been his therapy to work through anxiety, then over the years, especially after they started dating, Dimitri had started to experiment with more types of paints and surfaces until he’d developed a city-wide level of fame for his versatility.

Sal remembered the day he and Dimitri had gifted the oil painting of the woman on the street to Albert. Dimitri had told Sal he thought Albert would get something out of it, so they gave it to him for his eighteenth birthday. They’d both known how much Albert admired Dimitri—he’d admired Sal, too, for that matter—and over dinner once, just upstairs, Albert had admitted their marriage had been the beacon of acceptance that had helped him decide to come out in high school.

Sal said, “The thing is, I could have given up on this gallery after Dimitri died”

Sal led Albert closer to a corner of the gallery where there were no patrons. They stood by a framed landscape painting of Dimitri’s. It was an abstracted nighttime street view, splotches of stark colors in gouache paint for people and trees and buildings, and the dark blue sky that commanded over every possible emotion one might get from the painting. The out-of-focus quality the abstraction had given it made it look as if it was raining.

He said, “I don’t regret any of it. But I think my best years are used up.”

“You could get plenty out of this gallery.”

“I don’t know what happened with that last guy, but don’t let go of Willis,” Sal said.

“He and I aren’t really,” Albert said. “I don’t think I want to be with anyone.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

Albert stared at Dimitri’s painting. He chewed at the corner of his lips. “You were dealing with a lot, I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Tell me when you’re ready,” Sal said. “Otherwise, if you ever want to help out around here, I could use the back-up from time to time. Events don’t plan themselves.”

Albert said he would.

Sal hugged Albert and thanked him for coming by, and then added, almost as an afterthought, “Have fun at the party.”

“You’re not coming by?”

“Too big a crowd for me right now.”

Albert said, “When you’re ready,” and lifted a quick, loose wave of his hand as he walked out of the gallery.

Sal moved towards the stairs up to his apartment for a cup of tea. From the bottom of the stairs, he watched Albert and Willis walk down the road towards the far end of town. He rotated his wedding band back and forth with his thumb. The sun began its slow crawling back towards the horizon, bounced harshly on the brick buildings of the west side of the city, and burnt into the pavement all the heat of these final days of August.

♢

Sunset, Amphitheater (spray paint on concrete)

The clouds shifted across the sky with the light purples and oranges of the oncoming sunset like a slow, choreographed dance. Willis and Albert sat on the seats by the stage. Willis could see all the places where terrible things had happened, the death, the near-deaths, and he convinced himself he could see the outline of the trap door that had flung open. He stopped himself just before he worked out a path up to the lighting grid where someone had jumped from. He looked back to Albert, who was still fixing up his one-hitter after having dumped Willis’ second hit out.

Willis watched Albert take another deep hit, hold the air in his lungs, blow it all out towards the stage, and then put the one-hitter on the armrest. The seats were hard with a grating texture, some material Willis couldn’t place. They were much more uncomfortable than he remembered from the few events he’d attended.

Willis stroked Albert’s back through his silky shirt. His hand trembled, but the action was something he told himself was soothing, for both of them. He wanted to ask what had been bugging Albert earlier that morning—or whatever off vibes those were that he’d picked up, anyway, he couldn’t tell much, but he could tell when something was wrong with his friends—but he didn’t want to make Albert tense, especially after just taking a hit.

Albert turned, and their eyes locked for the first time since their morning coffee. Willis could feel him trembling, too. The high took over them a little more, and their trembling slowed and then stopped, like ripples in the water.

“Did you ever see any weird stuff when you were here?” Willis said.

“Stop talking about it so much,” Albert said.

Willis withdrew his hand from Albert’s back and shoved both hands under his legs as if to keep warm.

“Hey, cheer up. Cheyenne’s party is a couple hours away,” Albert said.

For Willis, the high came on strong. He couldn’t feel his left hand, so he kept making a fist under his leg. He found that every time he looked at Albert, he’d suddenly have no idea how long he’d been looking at him, but the best colors of the sky were behind Albert, as if he had a purple and orange halo with clouds on the top. Willis leaned closer, as if struggling to find warmth. His right hand had made its return to Albert’s lower back. They kept eye contact as Willis leaned forward.

Right when he went for the kiss, they heard a loud metal bang. Distorted by the high, Willis was certain it came from towards the stage. He looked around, heart hammering its way out of his chest.

“Should we check it out?” Willis said.

Albert shrugged.

Willis exhaled. It turned into a groan. The moment for the kiss was gone.

Albert pulled a compact out of his coat pocket and checked his reflection. He ran the end of his ring finger above his cheekbones and put the compact away.

“Let’s snoop,” he said.

Willis stood, legs wobbly, and they went closer to the stage, but there were no signs of anything that could have made the noise, nothing more than a couple of pigeons up in the lighting grid. Willis led Albert around the left side of the amphitheater, where they found, on the concrete wall, graffiti of a conglomeration of symbols done in blue and pink. A three-quarters circle with a line through it, which sat inside a larger triangle whose bottom line was dotted. Both were placed next to an equally colorful ampersand with an asterisk inside the bottom half. Each symbol had a shadow lining their right sides, which had been sprayed on so thick the paint had dripped down the wall before it dried, like someone’s mascara soaked in a storm and then left on to dry after a rushed retreat back inside.

Willis had never given graffiti much attention, mostly seeing it on the sides of freight trains and sketchy alleys that he’d rather not go down, but this one was different. He couldn’t figure out what it meant—if it had any meaning at all, or if it was just some random act of vandalism—and to him that made it special. He took a picture of it. For many years after, he would find his mind wandering to this art when he’d be sorting through old photos he’d saved.

He jolted when there was another loud bang, and they both looked around. Far at the back of the amphitheater a demolition crew was setting up its equipment, ready to go in on Monday. Suddenly hyper-alert, they both jumped back around the corner so the demolition guys wouldn’t see them.

Willis said, “I think I need food.”

Albert checked the time. “Can it wait until the party?”

Willis considered. “Depends on how much dancing you want me to do.”

They went back to the seats and decided against smoking any more.

“What’s the longest amount of time you’ve been single?” Albert said.

Willis thought for a minute, unsure what brought this question on. “About 2 years. Right before college.”

“And how was it? All the time to yourself?”

“Did a lot of reading, several dates, nothing serious, nothing that went anywhere.”

“So even when you weren’t dating, you were still dating,” Albert said.

“More for my own benefit, keep the social skills exercised, experience the world.”

“You really are every color of the alphabet.”

Willis almost stood up but talked himself out of it. “I don’t appreciate that, Bertie.”

“I just mean,” Albert said, “That you seem to have yourself figured out.”

“Far from it,” Willis said. “Now are you ready to let Bertie and Willow do their thing at this party?”

The orange and purple of the sunset faded into the horizon, the fluffy clouds and darker blue sky overtook them. Stars sparkled their way into visibility and settled in for the night. The moon was gray and nearly full, and it stood among the stars as if on guard. The amphitheater was lit just enough that Willis could see the way out as he led Albert back into the main part of town, towards the Northwest part of town, where Cheyenne’s birthday party awaited them.

♢

Evening, Party at Matriarch Lounge (watercolor on canvas)

The club was lit in a kaleidoscope of colors that changed from table to table. Bertie and Willow were in the middle of a gathering just off the dance floor. They gave their love and “happy birthdays” to Cheyenne and chatted with a few other guests, most of whom were in drag. The party wasn’t one the “Indisputably Iridescent Cheyenne Mighty” would call big, but anyone who was important to her was there, and they all held glasses of champagne.

Bertie wore an elegant canary yellow dress with an open back that went down to her shins. On her feet were heels with an intricate woven pattern of straps. Her wig was a curly mass of red she’d kept pulled up off her forehead. Her earrings were a pair of three long crystals, cloudy inside, but no less shiny. Willow’s dress was a lilac thin cut with a cutaway at the thighs. At the top of the neck and up along the shoulders were little studs of a slightly darker purple that connected in the back.

Layla Lines clinked her press-ons against her glass for everyone’s attention. The chatter went quiet, and someone turned down the music. There was a loud cat-call whistle from the back of the room.

“Love you, too, Theo,” Layla said into her microphone. “Give it up for the first show of the night, Roxy on the Rocks!” Everyone clapped and cheered, and from behind where Layla had been, a giant cake was wheeled out, sparklers going, music building.

Bertie watched as the right notes played, and at the peak of the buildup, a snare drum hit, and Roxy popped out of the cake and sang “Happy Birthday” in her best rendition of Marilyn Monroe. Her dress glimmered in the spotlight. She merged the end of the song into “Fly Me to the Moon,” which she’d mastered her version of over the past few years in her drag career. She trilled the right notes, hit the highs perfectly, carried the long notes without flutter, and when she needed to get low, she got low. She swayed and shook at the audience, and everyone cheered.

The music smoothed out and transitioned into another song, a more mellow one, which Roxy was not performing, despite the calls for an encore. Instead, Roxy went over to Cheyenne, who’d moved to the head table since talking to Bertie and Willow. She kissed Cheyenne, both hands cradling her face. Cheyenne turned to the crowd, linked arms with Roxy, and they both made their way through more conversations.

Bertie and Willow sipped their champagne down to the bottom reserves and swayed with each other as the music faded in and out of the chatting, and the song changed again.

At the end of that song, Bertie and Willow made a quick stop in the dressing room to check themselves one last time before their performance. Bertie rushed through the check-up so that there was less chance for Willow to bring up the point Cheyenne had made the night before that they’d be good partners in more than just their drag shows.

Layla Lines announced them as “Beaming Bertie and Whimsical Willow” just as she had since the first time they’d performed, and they came out dancing to an exciting tempo, which led to them singing George Harrison’s “What is Life.” Despite their heels, which seemed determined to prove them wrong in choosing them in the first place, they performed the first song superbly, Bertie kept track of every swap of verse between them and looked only at Willow when they shared the chorus. There was whistling and cheers and clapping to the rhythm. The multi-colored lighting filled the stage around them and made their dresses shine.

For the next song, they stepped down from the stage, mics still in hand, made their way to Cheyenne’s table, and sang John Denver’s “Shipmates and Cheyenne,” in which they shared every verse. During the second verse, Bertie was surprised at Willow falling behind by half a beat, and she hoped the offset lyrics made it seem as if Willow was singing an echo on purpose.

They stepped back onto the stage for the third song, which was the Foundations’ “Build Me Up Buttercup.” Bertie told Willow to take the lead so Willow could have the spotlight she’d been wanting lately and, Bertie figured, a chance to redeem herself after the misstep in the last song, which she hoped nobody had noticed. During this performance, Bertie and Willow went into an intricate, step-focused dance they’d been working on for weeks, which brought the highest cheers of the night. At the end of this song, they both did a curtsey, thanked the room and Cheyenne for the party, and stepped back off the stage.

Layla thanked them and announced it would be a bit longer before another performance, so she deejayed, playing mostly upbeat synth tracks.

On the way back to a table, Bertie saw Cheyenne, who waved them over.

“You look like you’re getting along great as a couple,” Cheyenne said. “I’m so glad I convinced you two to get together.” She got up and tried to lead Roxy to the dance floor, but Roxy stayed behind. Cheyenne kissed her and went onto the active dance floor–lights dazzled, colors shot across the room all over the dancers.

Roxy said, “You know how much she likes to watch people squirm.”

Bertie’s face went warm. Her makeup suddenly felt a little too thick. Roxy walked away to join Cheyenne, and Bertie looked at Willow and forced a chuckle.

They found a table by the nearly full-wall canvas painting of splotches, splashes, and stripes of every color, like a Pollock painting. With all the dancing light around, Bertie could see Dimitri’s signature down by her feet, the way Dimitri had flourished the serif of each letter in his name.

Bertie said, “All that stuff I was saying at the amphitheater,” she paused, and the words caught in her throat again.

Willow looked up.

“I think I’m—” The words still weren’t quite right.

Willow said, “You let the smoke get to you too much back there?”

“That’s not it,” Bertie said. The song ended, and Bertie wished she knew where to get a fresh drink. She told herself she would be okay, but she also didn’t want to lose a friend. She told herself Willow would be okay, that in time, maybe not soon, but eventually, they could spend time together again. Bertie knew she should have the right words by now, if the right words existed. She leaned towards Willow. She wasn’t sure that they were going to be the best words, but they were going to come out.

What Bertie could remember about the night of the assault flashed through her mind in quick, yet repeated, senses: the long coat George had been wearing, and which he’d pushed back off himself once he’d got Bertie to the bathroom; the smell of liquor and cologne and cigarettes all muddied together; the pain of George’s arms on Bertie, his thrusts, the pain that would leave blood and then turn to bruises, which would then turn to scars on Bertie’s mind.

“I don’t want to,” she thought more, and the thoughts got in the way of the truth. She had to push them all aside to get anything said at all. “There’s been so much, I mean you know. It’s made me not want to be with anyone.”

“It’s okay,” Willow leaned closer. “Take care of yourself first.”

“You’re taking this better than expected.”

“No, because I see it now,” Willow said, “You don’t think I can be serious with anyone.”

“What?”

“It’s like you insinuated earlier, I must get around a lot, right?”

Bertie, for the first time that day, knew exactly what to say: “That’s not what I meant.” But that’s not what she said. She didn’t say anything. She just wanted to go home and be alone for a while, maybe binge RuPaul with a pint of cookie dough ice cream. Before she could register it, she watched Willow stand and walk out. Bertie slid her wig off slow and let it fall into her lap. The party continued. The kaleidoscope kept shifting around her.

Bertie stared at Dimitri’s painting beside her, the thin canvas covered in the multicolored result of Cheyenne having told Dimitri she would display whatever he wanted to paint. He brought this one to her three days later, and it hung there ever since. Bertie thought of the painting at home, and that lone woman walking away from everyone else in the fog and the mystifying light. She brought her wig close against her chest, arms crossed, hands kept warm at her underarms, and before she let the tears come, she left the Matriarch Lounge, passing everybody without a word, holding her wig in this protective embrace.

♢

July 21, 2026