Page 4 of Best Woman

“You’re wearing that to the wedding?”

The weight of River’s nearly biblical judgment, the horror dripping from their voice, has me gulping down a rather large bite of salmon Benedict, without chewing it.

Thankfully I have half a Bloody Mary left to wash it down with.

I roll my eyes and lock my phone, hiding the evidence of the blurry photos I took at Born to Bride.

“All the bridesmaids are doing the mall princess fantasy. At least I get to wear black and match the rest of the groomsmen.”

River, wearing a strappy, asymmetrical tank top so complex I can’t begin to comprehend how they shimmied into it, looks appropriately distraught at the mention—or mere existence—of a mall and that someone would procure a garment for a formal occasion at one.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to pull something for you?

Hannah G has a few red carpet castoffs that could always ‘fall out of an Uber’ on their way back to the showroom. ”

I’m currently wearing a skirt Hannah G once wore to a Marvel movie premiere and River once wore to “cocktails” with a married senator.

River is very generous about sharing the wealth, especially when they’re feeling guilty about missing a lunch date or forgetting my birthday, something that has happened almost every birthday since I’ve known them, five years and several sets of pronouns ago.

I’m mostly lucky that I’m Hannah G’s size and River isn’t.

The pop star and I share a similar build: flat ass, no chest to speak of, but long legs.

Meanwhile, River is tiny, maybe five foot four in the Margiela boots they favor, with light-brown skin and a shock of dark hair currently parted down the center and smoothed down with gel like the world’s sluttiest English schoolboy.

I grimace. “While the thought of transporting stolen property across state lines thrills me, I’ll pass. It’s going to be a disaster anyway. I should just lean in.”

River rolls their eyes, spots Kyle, and begs, “Please talk some sense into her!”

“She still complaining about the wedding?” Kyle asks, effortlessly hauling a case of champagne behind the bar—he never skips arm day.

Or leg day. Ignoring his actual paying customers, my buff bestie refills our Bloody Marys with a long-suffering sigh.

“At least they invited you to the wedding. Your family is so annoyingly PFLAG. Your mom sends you Pride care packages and, like, watched every episode of Glee because she thought it was supportive. You’re basically Lady Gaga to them.

” As usual, he is dressed entirely inappropriately for food service, shirt unbuttoned nearly down to his navel to show off deep-brown skin and a furry chest that sends bears, otters, and cubs alike into a feeding frenzy.

He props his head on his arms on the bar, the better to show off his biceps.

“ My family has spent most of my life desperately trying to figure out something to get me for Christmas that isn’t a coupon for conversion therapy. ”

“And I went to conversion therapy,” says Daytona, swanning in from the door, late as usual. “Hey, dolls,” she coos, blowing us air-kisses.

Kyle, River, and I give each other a look, the is she being serious or joking or both, yikes look we end up giving each other whenever Daytona references her family.

Daytona doesn’t notice, too busy tossing her trench coat on a stool and hopping up onto the bar, which Kyle keeps telling her to please not sit on lest the health department make a surprise inspection.

She shakes out her long dark hair, adjusting an eyelash and the rhinestone below it in the reflection of her phone camera, contour dark against the fading summer tan on her ivory skin.

Kyle picks our thread back up, because if every conversation halted to give Daytona a dramatic entrance, we’d never have time to talk about anything. “What did your parents get you for the holidays last year?” he asks me.

I squirm on the barstool. “Laser hair removal.”

“Amen to that,” says Daytona, leaning back over the bar, hair dipping into a carafe of orange juice that will no doubt still be served to customers, phone outstretched in hands tipped with hot-pink claws.

“Kyle, baby, plug this in and cue up my track. I just need to piss and then I’ll start the first set.

” She hops off the bar, landing with ease in six-inch heels, and struts toward the employee restroom she’s been asked repeatedly not to use.

Daytona Bitch is not officially booked to do drag brunch at Tony’s, the chic little Italian restaurant Kyle rules with an iron—yet limp-wristed—fist, but since we’re here every weekend anyway and Daytona will start performing something from Blackout within two hours of entering any given space, That’s Amore has become an “if you know you know” brunch event for our extended social circle and the twenty lesbians who follow Daytona to every gig she books, rain or shine.

Last Sunday she performed “Memory” from Cats, Celine Dion’s rendition of “O Holy Night” (it’s September), and a Nickelback song I secretly loved in high school.

River turns their attention back my way, though I’ve been attempting to make myself invisible on my barstool.

“Seriously, Julia, we can’t have you at this wedding in something off-the-rack.

This is your big I’m a gorgeous woman with amazing hair and a fabulous life moment with your entire extended family.

You need to be in ready-to-wear at least, if not couture. ”

“River has a point, babe.” Kyle’s phone is sitting on the bar and he sends some horny hopeful a photo of his penis with zero attempt to disguise what he’s doing.

“You’ve been hyping yourself up about this official debut for literal years, why not pull a real stunt?

” He smirks at the photo he receives in response, ignoring a straight couple at the other end of the bar passive-aggressively trying to get his attention.

The twisting feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with the freshness of Tony’s smoked salmon intensifies. “You should know better than to believe my bullshit when it comes to my family.”

This is deeply, painfully true. When I first came out to my friends, I ranted for months to anyone who would listen about just how much I didn’t care what my family thought about me, all while I was avoiding their emails and video calls so I wouldn’t have to tell them.

My dad had to start the conversation by sending me a screenshot of my most recent Instagram post and the words anything u want 2 tell me? ??

Kyle hands me a mimosa and chucks my empty Bloody Mary glass into a bin. I take a slug, steeling myself for judgment.

“Honestly, I feel lucky that they’re including me as much as they are. And I’m already going to stand out as the only groomsperson wearing a dress. It should at least match what the other girls in the bridal party are wearing. It could be worse, Aiden could’ve made me wear a tux.”

“Oh, a tux could be superchic,” River says, eyes lighting up. “Very Victor/Victoria .”

“I don’t feel quite femme enough to wear menswear in public,” I shoot back. “And it would probably confuse my grandma. ‘What, are you a boy again now?’?” I ask in an approximation of her Long Island drawl.

“Could you at least let me dress you up for the rehearsal dinner?” River says. “I need to start building a styling portfolio outside of Hannah G and you’re the only person I know with her measurements.”

“Can you please convince her to get bigger tits so I can finally start enjoying the fruits of your attempts at labor?” Daytona, back from the bathroom, asks. While I share Hannah’s modest chest, Daytona spent six months’ worth of tips becoming a double G.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re a doll.” Daytona stretches her legs in anticipation of the twirls and dips she’s likely about to execute.

I say a prayer for the structural integrity of the tables—she has been known to leave broken furniture in her wake.

“And you, ” she says, pointing a claw my way, “are going to be a doll and let River give you the full Pretty Woman . Don’t you want to fuck a bridesmaid? ”

“Or a groomsman,” Kyle says.

“Who says I’m worried about getting laid? Maybe I’m going to focus on my brother and this beautiful moment of two souls becoming one!”

Crickets.

“Good luck with that, honey,” Daytona flips off the overhead lights, another thing she has repeatedly been asked not to do, on her way toward a tiny corner where a table has been moved out of the way to create an impromptu performance space.

Kyle finally decides to take the straight couple’s orders—the woman, who had looked mutinous, changes her attitude immediately.

I think I hear her call him “girlfriend.” River accepts a call and begins to talk Hannah G down from her latest fashion crisis.

“Of course you can’t wear real fur, you fucking idiot,” they hiss.

And then, just as Daytona starts to writhe to the opening chords of “Black Velvet,” my own phone vibrates with a call from Aiden Rosenberg . His ears must have been burning.

“Hey, future groom!” I’m trying so hard to sound cheerful that it’s bordering on shrill. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, best woman! Is that Alannah Myles I hear in the background?”

“It’s very strange that you know that.”

“My taste is both eclectic and impeccable. Listen, I wanted to call and give you a heads-up that Rachel’s maid of honor had to drop out of the wedding.”

I rack my brain trying to remember what I know about the minion in question. I vaguely recall a blond girl with a J name and overbleached hair smiling next to my future sister-in-law in the bridal shower photos. “Why, she didn’t like the dress Rachel picked out?”

Aiden and I have always been, as much as possible, brutally honest with each other.

It might have started when we were kids and Aiden was so confused as to why our parents were getting divorced.

“They hate each other,” I told him. “They fight every night after you go to sleep.” It had hurt, but he’d eventually appreciated that I hadn’t lied about it, and since then we’d always more or less told each other the truth.

Which is why he doesn’t hesitate to tell me what he’s calling about. “No, she, uh, didn’t want to walk down the aisle with…you.”

“One moment, please.” I slide off the barstool onto suddenly shaky legs and head outside.

Fort Greene is busy on a Sunday afternoon, even though it’s starting to rain, crowded with attractive young families.

MILFs and DILFs as far as the eye can see.

I shelter underneath an awning for the laundromat next door, but even seconds in the rain has my hair erupting in frizz.

“Wait, so…what?”

“Yeah, Jenna’s been Rachel’s friend since kindergarten and I guess they made some promise to each other that they’d be maid of honor at each other’s weddings. Jenna got married last year and honestly, the vibe at the wedding was weird . Her dad was strapped at the reception.”

“Like, with a gun ?”

“Yeah, can you believe it? Florida, dude. So Rachel was already feeling weird considering some of the stuff we heard last year, like she knew Jenna was pretty conservative but only recently started realizing conservative was code for bigoted asshole . Then I guess Jenna made some pretty gnarly comments at the bridal shower and Rach uninvited her on the spot.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry she had to do that.”

“Don’t apologize, Jules. I’m sorry that you even have to hear this, but I thought you’d want to know who you’re walking down the aisle with now.”

This is all so much so quick I haven’t had time to think about the inevitable replacement. “I’m sure whichever of the Rachels has been moved into first position will be fine,” I say, referencing my future sister-in-law’s squadron of identical besties.

Aiden laughs. “No, it’s uh…you actually won’t believe it. It’s Kim Cameron. You know, from high school?”

Kim Cameron.