[53] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • AFTERGLOW (Patreon)

The space is packed full of bodies singing, dancing, screaming, grooving, slurring, flirting, falling, tipping, beaming, swearing, meeting, being. Local drag queens periodically take a battered microphone from the DJ, snaking through the crowd as their chosen tracks blast out a decibel louder than the music that preceded. Between sips of a light beer that’s going straight to my head I thrust singles into the long-nailed fingers of the queens, scream-sing along with my castmates, let the sensory assault and alcohol beat the exhaustion and fears and doubts of the last 72 hours out of my brain and body.

The first beer blends into the second one. Mindy, our illustrious costume designer, glides into the room in full drag: well over six feet tall, a red-carpet-perfect mane of glossy curls tumbles down around a flawless made-up face. Her waist is nipped in beneath a gigantic breastplate, and all of it is squeezed into a sequined gown. The room rearranges itself around her. I turn around for a moment, turn back, and see a familiar silhouette standing being eclipsed by Mindy’s towering glamour.

It’s the CEO.

Stéphane. (I’d looked it up in the meantime, obviously).

Seeing the CEO of Cirque du Soleil show up at a divey drag bar in Brooklyn was not on my 2023 bingo card. Then again, neither was working for Cirque. So, here we are.  

He sees me, beams, and extends a hand to shake mine. The beer gives me just enough liquid courage to take the moment as it comes, and I can actually hear the man this time.

“Your act was incredible,” he says. “People couldn’t take their eyes off you!” I give my best megawatt smile and thank him. He continues: “And everyone wanted to take a photo with you! I had to be like, ‘I’m the CEO , uh, excuse me’–” he mimes elbowing through the crowd earlier in the night. “– I need to come over!”

“I think we need to chalk a lot of that up to Mindy here’s costume design,” I say, beaming and nodding at her glittering back, currently engaged in deep debate with the bartender. “And Vanessa and Patti’s makeup here.”

Would he say the same thing out of makeup and costume? The one I’m in right now, or the one from earlier tonight? I wonder wryly. I feel as much in drag as the queens around me. Not that anyone can tell. Whatever. Go with it.

“Your act was really something. Your stage presence– You’re absolutely magnetic.”

I fight back the old urge to deny it, dismiss it, minimize it. Just say fucking THANK YOU!

“I really appreciate you saying that, thank you so much.”

“You look quite young,” he says.

Is this flirting? Or networking? Is there a difference in a situation like this?

I find that I don’t care. Just fucking go with it.

“I’m not that young,” I laugh.

“No?”

“Lots of sunscreen,” I say with a wink.

I pivot the conversation back to him. Ask him what he thought about the rest of the production. Inquire politely if he’s able to attend a lot of these kinds of special events. Make sure to work in coaxing out some compliments about Matthew knocking it out of the park as a director. And then let the moment pass off to Mindy, who’s returned from the bar with fresh drinks. I fade into the background before I over-talk what seems to have been a wildly successful interaction, by my own generally-fumbling standards.

I take another couple laps around the room. Sit back against a quiet wall sipping some water and watching Sam set up a game of pool with Stéphane. Idly consider staying longer. End up leaving at 2:30am to get a New York bagel across the street at a 24 hour place as the beer I’ve drank starts to tip off onto the far side of a buzz.

Drifting in the surreality of the moment.

Lightning flashes. A huge crack of thunder booms out milliseconds after. A summer storm opens up. Torrential downpour slashes down in broad sheets.Safe and dry inside the buttery-yellow light of the deli, I watch slick puddles bloom in the dips and valleys of the darkening asphalt.  The few people left outside try to run for a few steps before they slow their pace, resigned to a soaked fate. It only lasts twenty minutes. Passes over as quickly as it arrives.

Time to go.

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Your next instalment of Tournelle du Soleil arrives tomorrow at 7am EST / 1pm CEST!  Until then, stay strange & wonderful - XO ess