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loitered on the mezzanine, the lyrebird loitering in the mirror was definitely male. Some species you couldn’t tell, the males and the females looked the same—but otherwise, Sassy saw, all the men had male birds and all the women had female ones.
    Except Racquel.
    Well. Goodness.
    Sassy contemplated Racquel. Tall. Handsome. Straight shoulders. Deepish voice. Large, strictly conical breasts that never seemed to bounce. Always something—a scarf, a high ruffled collar, a feather boa—concealing the Adam’s apple area of the neck.
    Good gravy.
    â€œI feel awful,” Sassy told the maid she was working with at the time.
    â€œYou do? Why?”
    â€œI found out something I’m not supposed to know.”
    â€œOh, really ?” The woman turned to her with beady-eyed interest.
    Sassy knew at once that it had been a mistake to say a word. This maid was a catbird. Meow, meow. Sassy turned away and scrubbed hard at a brass ashtray to keep herself from saying any more. But she did feel awful, her chest clotted with a churning cakemix of emotions, mad sad I’ve-been-had, and she badly wanted to talk to somebody she could trust.
    Not Racquel. Lord. She felt hurt remembering that she and Racquel had sipped cappuccino and talked like friends. She felt queasy just thinking about Racquel sitting in the bathroom stall next to her— sitting , mind you—and peeing. The last person on earth she ever wanted to see again was Racquel. Well, put Racquel second in line after Frederick.
    In the maids’ locker room after work, Sassy traded mezzanine duty with somebody else for the rest of the week so she wouldn’t have to go near Racquel’s shop.
    Then she darted out, hunched as if she were battling a headwind, to get away from her insane place of employment. But as she approached the back door, the maids’ door, she nearly rammed into a flat emerald-green midriff. Racquel was standing there in the corridor. Waiting for her.
    â€œPlease don’t tell,” Racquel said, keeping her—his—voice low.
    Sassy reared back and barked up at him, “You used the ladies’ room!”
    â€œShhhh! What do you expect me to do?” He ran his French-manicured fingertips down his flowing skirt. “Go into the men’s like this?”
    â€œ Hold it!”
    â€œCan’t. I’m a coffee drinker.” He extended one long, shapely hand toward her in plea. “Sassy, please.” He was almost whispering, although the people rushing past were employees on their way home, bolting out the door, couldn’t care less about listening in. “Management doesn’t know. They’ll crucify me if they find out.”
    As one who had recently been hoisted on a cross made of her own good intentions, Sassy found herself feeling a grudging sympathy. Her tone of voice lowered to a grumble. “What exactly are you, anyway?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI don’t know enough weirdness to know what I mean!” Talking with this person who blurred her ideas of gender, Sassy felt existential nausea. Seasickness. No solid footing. No bedrock.
    Racquel retorted, “I’m not a child molester, if that’s what you—”
    â€œOh, for heaven’s sake, I don’t think that’s what I meant.”
    Racquel took a long breath and let it out slowly. Very quietly he said, “What exactly do you need to know?”
    â€œWhy you are masquerading as a woman.”
    â€œI like froufrou!”
    They stared at each other.
    â€œI like sequins,” Racquel elaborated. “I like velvet. Chiffon. Silk, satin, taffeta, tulle. I like high heels. I like long gloves. I like long gowns. And I most particularly like long gloves and long gowns edged with marabou. Or emu. With plumy headgear. Ostrich. Egret. Or a pheasant-feathered mask. Or a feathered choker. And I like—”
    â€œYou like fancy plumage,” Sassy said.
    â€œYes,