Free Drag Teen by Jeffery Self Page B

boyfriend or what?”
    “Uh-huh, he is.”
    “So what do you have to feel bad about? You’re young, you’ve got a cute boyfriend, and by the time I’m finished, you’re going to look marvelous.”
    “Well, you saw him.”
    Bambi began drawing on my new thin eyebrows. “I did. And your point is?”
    “Well, he’s really hot. Like epically hot. Everyone in the bar stared at him when he came in. I feel like it’s only a matter of time before he wakes up and realizes he could do way better than me. My friend says nobody ends up with his or her first boyfriend, and she’s probably right. Right?”
    Bambi looked at me through the mirror. “Self-pity is an ugly color on you, darling. It’s an ugly color on all of us, except maybe Joni Mitchell. Tilt your head back, look at the ceiling, and don’t blink.” She began tracing my eyelids with the pencil. Not blinking was proving to be quite a challenge. “Until I met my husband five years ago, I’d been single since, well, most of my life. And I used to blame it on this or that, but it wasn’t until I started performing in drag and letting myself feel as free as I feel now that I realized why.”
    “Why?” I asked, accidentally blinking. “Sorry!”
    “It’s like RuPaul says: If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?”
    She finished with the eyeliner and moved on to fake eyelashes, meticulously dabbing on small strips of glue.
    “I know what it’s like to be a seventeen-year-old gay boy who can only feel confident in a pair of heels, darling, but all that talk from those famous gay people saying it gets better is horseshit unless you put in the effort. Understand?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “Close your lips and keep them closed so I can finish my wise old fabulous queen speech, and also so I can put your lipstick on. Everything is temporary, darling—the bad stuff, sure, but the good stuff too, and you won’t come close to really living and enjoying what you’ve got in front of you until you accept that annoying little truth. Life is short. Don’t be like I was. Don’t take until you’re middle-aged to enjoy it. You’re seventeen—make mistakes, get your heart broken, get booed at, humiliate yourself, get jealous of guys you think are more handsome than you flirting with your boyfriend in bars … but remember that even your worst feeling, or meanest thought about yourself? It’s all temporary, so just enjoy it.”
    “But the good stuff is too?”
    “Yep. And sometimes? That’s going to really suck.”
    We were both quiet suddenly. The room was too, as it went from one song to another in the bar outside. The short gap of silence felt like forever. Within it, Bambi placed a bright green, curled, cropped-at-the-shoulders wig on my head.
    “Look,” she said, with the flourish of a magician completing a trick.
    I saw myself in the mirror and gasped. I looked like a real, honest to God, legit drag queen. Not just some boy in a dress.
    “I look …” But I couldn’t finish the sentence, not in that moment. Words failed me.
    “ Stunning , darling.”
    “Can I take a selfie with you?”
    Bambi rolled her eyes as she began to put her makeup tools back where they came from. “You kids reach for a camera the minute anything feels even the slightest bit okay, don’t you?” she said as leaned in beside me and immediately struck the kind of pose that told me she was no stranger to taking a selfie.
    “Perfect,” I said.
    I dug into my pocket and felt the list of John Denton To-Dos. Seth had handed it over to me when we left. There at the top of the list was glamour. I picked up a makeup pencil.
    “What’s that you’re doing?” Bambi asked.
    “It’s silly, but for this pageant they say the four keys are glamour, talent, heart, and soul.”
    “Well, if that face of yours isn’t glamour, then I don’t know what else is. However, if you’re thinking of using one of my makeup pencils to write, you better