Complicit by Winnie M Li

Author:Winnie M Li
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Published: 2022-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

25

HOLLY STOOD NEXT to me, her newly red hair gleaming in the streetlight, as we crowded on the sidewalk outside a West Hollywood bar. It was ten p.m. on a Friday—in fact, my twenty-eighth birthday—and Clive had promised he’d work his magic to get us into a legendary drag night.

“Mateo, how are you, darling? Don’t make us wait too long, we’re on Robert’s list.” Clive said this as we pushed ahead of the line that was building: middle-aged gays, twittering fag hags, gorgeous young men, and an army of preening, immaculate queens, all eager to witness the newest rising drag acts this evening.

Mateo the doorman had immense, sculpted biceps. He smiled in recognition of Clive and waved us through.

It wasn’t just the three of us from our production. We’d also picked up Marisa (our makeup artist), Seth (our line producer), and Leila (our production accountant), who had been chatting in the production office as we wrapped work for the day.

“I can get us onto the guest list for my friend’s drag night,” Clive had bragged. “Menagerie at Dorothy’s. It’s an LA institution.”

And so the six of us caught the tail end of happy hour at a Culver City bar, scarfed down Korean tacos from a food truck, and now found ourselves in West Hollywood waiting to watch a drag queen competition. My stomach was full of short rib tacos and rum and Cokes. I was fed and buzzed and very glad to be away from the office, celebrating my birthday with work colleagues. There had always been something unique about the camaraderie that was quickly forged from working on a production. Filming away from my home city, this was even more pronounced.

I had only known Clive, Marisa, Seth, and the others for a few weeks, yet they were friendlier and more welcoming than Sylvia and Xander had ever been in my first year at Firefly. Maybe, cynically, friendships born of film shoots were simply more temporary, and everyone knew it. So someone could act like a close confidante after only a few weeks of collaborating, but once the shoot came to an end, and the last call sheets recycled, people would drift apart, knowing the friendship had served its purpose.

But for the time being, I thrilled to the instant affection, the footloose hilarity of these nights out. There was so much more spontaneity to LA than in New York, where everyone (or at least the people I knew) had their weekend plans mapped out far in advance.

And this—Korean tacos, a West Hollywood drag show—was a very LA night out.

Holly and I clung to each other, like two wide-eyed seafarers washed onto this fantastical new shore. As we entered the dimly lit nightclub and passed through a beaded curtain, the thump of remixed disco classics pulsed louder through my body. I knew drag scenes like this existed in New York, too, but I’d never been to one. My life there had been so circumscribed by my family, the restaurant, later my Ivy League and work circles.

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