6

"Like if Betty Boop went to jail for biting a cop at a suffragette protest?" Nomi says. "I think I can look like that, hold on!"

Clothes fly, forcing you to dodge shawls, pumps, and multiple feather boas. After a moment, Nomi emerges in a poison-green dress with fringe and bangles, a Carmen Miranda fruit hat they've also decorated with Halloween spiders and tiny Día de los Muertos skulls, and enough makeup on their face to cover the Radio City Rockettes for a whole weekend. They check themself out in the ormolu mirror (also '80s cereal mascot themed), check to make sure they can still do the Charleston (they can't, at all), and then entwine their arm in yours.

They're already on the move—Nomi is frighteningly quick—as they hurry down the wine-colored carpet of the hallway toward the grand hall. Then they bang through the double-doors into a scene of upper-class disreputability, all loosened ties and stumbling wine moms taking crooked selfies. The live band plays the Chips Ahoy commercial music your parents used to dance to as Nomi makes their way through the crowd, greeting and gladhanding.

"Michelle, good to see you again, how is Jane doing at Williston? Really? Oh that's simply awful! What? I'm Nancy of course! We met at—yes, I was quite a bit smaller then! This is my cousin Emerson, you met him a few weddings ago, the last time he could get away from Oberlin."

If Nomi is aware that people are looking at them like they're an alien, they show no sign of it. You recognize some local cops making extra money working security. You could join Nomi in mingling: you'd raise your profile, but it'd make your date happy.

Nomi might be on to something. I chat people up.

I've gotta impress my date! I talk to people.

I can't risk police attention. I fall back and stay quiet.

No way, I'm not scared of cops but I don't want Nomi to get into trouble. I keep a low profile.

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