No one wants to talk about the relief.
I don’t like to think about the pale, soothing calm that has swept over me in the more recent days following his “death.” I don’t want to know what it makes me. But I can tell Aubrey feels it too. Charlie may have been a liar and a cheat, but he didn’t deserve to die. And yet . . . I’ve been feeling relieved. There’s no other word for it. I’ve felt lighter. Charlie is missing from my life, but so are the worries, the letdowns, the disappointments.
And now I don’t know what to feel. Or what I’m supposed to feel, now that I know I was right and he’s really out there. There’s no instruction manual for this: What to Do When Your Boyfriend Supposedly Commits Suicide and You Know Your Boyfriend Cheated and You Find Out Your Boyfriend Is Alive After All and for Fuck’s Sake, You Wasted Three Very Important Years on Him.
These thoughts are running through my head as Aubrey and I follow Dana through what can only be described as a foyer—though not a very nice one—into a large common area where dancers in various stages of undress are applying makeup. Aubrey reaches out and squeezes my hand unexpectedly, then drops it again without looking at me. I glance at her, surprised by the random burst of affection. She’s not exactly the touchy-feely type.
“Meet the ladies,” Dana says wryly. “We all live here. Sleep here. Do pretty much everything here. The younger ones go to school here.”
“In this room?” Aubrey whispers, incredulous. Her expression is a mixture of guarded and shocked, like she’s doing her best not to offend Dana.
“Yeah. It’s a pigsty, but it’s free, okay? I’ll get my own place someday soon. This is just . . . my starter pad.” She cracks a grin and glides gracefully toward one of the mirrored tables. I notice that the room is lined with small vanities, almost as if it’s a makeshift dressing room for a bizarre, low-budget stage act. Then I get it: that’s exactly what it is.
“Who pays the rent?” I want to know. Dana grins again.
“Ignorance is bliss,” she says, rolling her eyes. I raise my eyebrows. “Just kidding,” she adds. “It’s the guys at the bar. They let us crash here in exchange for a certain number of hours. Anything after that is take-home pay. But,” she sighs, plopping herself down on a rickety folding chair and reaching for an eyeliner, “you’re not here to hear about that. You want to know about Charlie.” At this, one of the other dancers nearby glances up at us suddenly, knocking a tube of mascara from the vanity as she does. She has long dark hair and wears a sequined red bra with a black pleather skirt. Dana frowns in her direction, then turns her attention back to us.
“You say Charlie came through here.” Aubrey’s voice is tense. We’re standing next to the mirror, huddled in a clump like agitated birds. Dana pulls two pillows out from under her chair and tosses them in our direction, motioning for us to take a seat. I sit cross-legged and Aubrey tucks her legs up under her modestly, and now it’s like we’re two children at story hour.
“Charlie and I didn’t grow up together,” Dana starts, lowering her voice by a few pitches. “At least not consistently.” She lines the slope of her mouth in between words. I watch her fill in her lips with a dark wine red color. I try to picture her as she must have been before she became a kathoey. Thin and angular, with the cheekbones of a model—all of that would have remained the same. What might have changed is the curve of her hips, the fullness of her chest, the lack of facial hair. Maybe she changed her gender before she ever grew facial hair; maybe she never really felt what it was like to be a man, only a young boy. “I actually never liked Charlie when I did see him,” she continues. “He used to make fun of me, I guess because he sensed I was different. I tried to hide it for a long time.” Dana pauses again to apply another coat of lipstick. I feel restless and eager to get to the point, and I can tell Aubrey feels the same way; she’s picking at her sleeve the way I’ve seen her do so many times.
“He’s no good,” Dana says unceremoniously. “He only came here last week because he was desperate. He was in a bad place. Needed some cash. Needed to disappear.”
“Why did he need cash?” I ask. “Charlie had tons of money.”
“And why did he need to disappear?” asks Aubrey, who is practically jumping out of her skin. “Do you know where he went?”
“I wouldn’t try to find him if I were you,” Dana says. “Look at what he did to you. And you should have heard the stuff he said. But you won’t. I wouldn’t tell you if you were my worst enemy. Just trust me, you’re better off.”