Page 2 of Life Out of Order

“That would be an improvement.” Nadia makes a U-turn on Western Avenue and gets honked at by a bus driver. “You’ll blow it for us all if you show up looking like a punk. You know they’re expecting Imelda May, not Patti Smith.”

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Back to my place. You need a do-over.”

“There’s no time, it’s almost nine.” Martial law still hasn’t been lifted in Chicago, and curfew is in effect from ten to six—we need to be indoors in an hour. But as much as I don’t want to go to this party, I don’t want our plan to fail, either, so I grudgingly accept when Nadia insists we’ll be quick.

Nadia lives in a tiny apartment in a huge building on Lake Shore Drive, near Belmont. In the elevator, I am forced to look at myself because all the walls are mirrored. I’ve gone through a few bouts of depression in the past, but now I realize that this time I’ve gone farther down the rabbit hole than I knew: I look terrible, unwashed, slump-shouldered, ratty. Nadia looks great: her hair is bronzed and sprayed into a stiff chignon, her dress is dark red and poufy under her black cashmere coat. She has her heels in a zippered shoe bag and is wearing little fur-trimmed black boots. The elevator doors open and Nadia races down the hall, unlocks her door and drags me over to her bathroom. “Strip. Here’s a towel. Go wash your hair.” I obediently remove my clothes and hop into the shower.

Fifteen minutes later Nadia is blowing out my long black hair while I sit on her bed. She expertly puts up the front into victory rolls and uses a curling iron to make ringlets down my back. She holds out a slinky silver dress, stockings, lipstick-red four-inch heels. Nadia is curvy and I am not, but the dress fits well enough. “I can’t wear these shoes in the snow,” I say. She pops them into a shopping bag and I put on my Doc Martens. She hands me a clasp purse and I transfer my phone, keys and Carmex into it. “Oh, wait—sit,” she says. She starts to powder my face. “No,” I say, “I hate makeup.”

“You have to, it looks wrong if you don’t, with that dress.”

“No one will notice.”

“Submit,” she demands. I do. It’s easier than putting up a fight.

“Don’t you get sick of spending so much time on hair and makeup?” I say peevishly. Then I feel bad; I know that hair and makeup is the least of Nadia’s troubles. “It’s almost over, if you don’t fuck it up,” she replies.

When she’s done I look like a real rockabilly girl, with heavy eyeliner, dark lips and even rouge. She has tamed my thick eyebrows, and suddenly I look less homeless and more like a lady from a Klimt painting who has escaped from her gold background into Nadia’s mirror. “Vast improvement,” Nadia says, and I have to agree. She kisses my ear. “Come on, let’s go.”

We are running late, and by the time we get to Nick and Caralora Lamont’s huge house in East Rogers Park it’s almost ten thirty. This is a terrible neighborhood for parking—we drive around and around, Nadia prays to the Parking Gods with no results. I’m getting very nervous, but at last she finds a space two blocks away from the party and we make a run for it. There’s a beautiful, huge vintage car parked right in front of the Lamonts’ house, obnoxiously taking up more than its share of parking space. Fargo Avenue is quiet; everyone has been off the street for half an hour, and all the deep boot prints in the snow are disappearing. Snowflakes flicker and whirl in the porch light as we run up the steps.

Caralora opens the door. “I was afraid you weren’t coming,” she says. “You’re almost the last ones.”

“Never fear,” Nadia says as we leave our boots with all the others by the front door. She hands over our tribute of booze. “You look magnificent,” she tells Caralora. C-lora is studying urban planning and models part-time; she and Nick are identical twins. She has outdone herself tonight and looks impossibly glamorous, wearing a strapless glittery red gown and magenta eye shadow. I always feel inadequately feminine when I’m with C-lora. She air-kisses me and I half hug her. Before Caralora transitioned we used to date, but that seems like some other life now. We’re never quite confident with each other these days.

“Coats upstairs,” Caralora says. We run up in our stocking feet like children. I love this house; I’ve been to a hundred great parties here. At the landing I look down over the crowd. The place is packed with people I don’t recognize. If I didn’t know better I’d think that Nick and C-lora have made a new set of friends—whiter friends, friends who dress like their own great-grandparents, lots of crew cuts and sharp suits, vintage dresses and bright lipstick, with a smattering of shaved heads and unpleasant tattoos. I wonder where all these people came from—did we hire actors?

Mr. and Mrs. Lamont are in Paris. We leave our coats in the massive pile on their bed and put on our party shoes. “We’ll never find these coats again,” Nadia says. Every coat is black; the pile is like a big hunk of negative space in the middle of the bedroom.

As we slowly navigate back down the stairs in our heels, I can hear the band tuning up. We elbow our way into the kitchen. Nick Lamont is mixing cocktails. Nick and Nadia clasp hands briefly, surreptitiously, then we all glance around to see if anyone noticed. They have each sacrificed so much to make this night possible.

“Ladies,” Nick says, bowing to us slightly, each in turn. He looks sharp in his purple suit and slicked-back blond hair. He’s grown a thin mustache since I last saw him. When I look closer I realize he’s drawn it on with eyebrow pencil. He winks at me. I love Nick.

“Where’s Junior?” Nadia asks him.

“In the living room.” Nick smiles and blows Nadia a kiss for luck as we turn to leave the kitchen. “Lookin’ good, Alba.” I find that I like this new glamorous me, at least for tonight. It’s nice to attract attention if I don’t have to live up to it. Nadia takes my hand and leads me through throngs of strangers into the living room. A tall Christmas tree blinks and shimmers; in years past there would have been strings of Hanukkah lights turning our faces blue and a Kwanzaa kinara on the mantelpiece for good measure, but tonight all that must have been hidden in some closet as soon as Mr. and Mrs. Lamont left for the airport. Junior Olson, Nadia’s ostensible boyfriend and the object of this evening’s operation, is holding court from the sofa, and he makes room for us. Nadia seems perfectly calm as she snuggles against him and Junior puts his arm around her. She isn’t small, but Junior is massive: with his facial tattoos and air of menace he looks as though he’s been working his way through college in the WWE. I avoid him whenever possible; I hate pretending that I’m okay with all his bullshit.

I try to sit primly next to Nadia, mindful of my knees jutting up because of the heels. I press them together and tilt my legs to the side. It’s strange to be bossed around by clothes; in these clothes I’m more girly and much less casual. Now that we are here, with Junior and his friends, the potential consequences of what we’re about to do run through my mind and I feel the familiar grip of stage fright. Nadia takes my hand; hers is clammy. What now?

Zach: Nadia finally arrives, to my enormous relief. I was beginning to think she wasn’t coming, that something had happened to her. I’m sitting in an armchair that’s almost obscured by the Christmas tree, so I can see everyone without being seen. I feel jittery—things are in motion and out of my hands. When Nadia sits down beside Junior he relaxes, he softens. I almost feel sorry for him.

There’s a girl with Nadia, someone I don’t know. She looks a little spooked, like a Victorian governess who thinks she’s losing her mind, with her enormous, heavily made-up eyes and her unnaturally white face. Has Nadia ever mentioned this girl? There’s something about her, a fey wildness that’s disturbing but attractive. The last thing I need tonight. I wonder who she is?

Alba: The band launches into “Let’s Have a Party,” and some of the guests head into the parlor to dance. The music is loud enough that we have to raise our voices to converse. Nadia tells Junior she’s thirsty.

“Get the ladies a drink, Buddy,” commands Junior. A short, long-haired guy in an Infernum T-shirt looks up from his phone and asks, “Whadulya have, girls?” “Zombies,” says Nadia. Buddy slouches off. Junior says, “What’s the good word, darling?”

“Alba is sulking, Junior. We have to cheer her up.”

Junior tries to look concerned. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s having an existential crisis.”

“Well, a couple of zombies will fix that, no problem.”

Nadia simpers. “Is that the best you can do?”