"There used to be a mechanic shop next door, and I heard that one of them said something like, 'You know, it's the oddest place, because you could have one car pull in, and out comes a man. Then two hours later, you see this very tall woman with big hair come out, get in the car and drive away.'"
Right now, there's a real woman with a long ponytail in the lingerie room, carefully studying the merchandise. Chris asks if she needs any assistance. "I'm looking for some multi-colored hair extensions that I can braid into my hair," she says. "I really want to find something I can take home to freak my parents out."
John Johnston
Boys will be girls: Rick Smith as Bianca (left) and
Chris Gradford as Morganna.
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Chris leads her by the arm into another room. He's got just the thing.
Bill's transformation complete, Betty and Chris leave the shop and head down Broadway to the Atrium Bar and Grill, a neighborhood beer joint that Chris is slowly turning into a cabaret club. Last month it began hosting drag shows, burlesque and other performances under the name Studio 554. The Atrium's owners have entrusted Chris to reshape the place into a meeting ground for the same eclectic mix of people served by the store: gay, straight, cross-dressing, transgendered, he-males, she-males -- everyone.
But tonight it's still got the feel of a run-down dive. And when Chris and Betty walk in, men with scraggly beards and smudgy glasses of draft beer stare, both buzzed and confused. Betty paces the room in a cat walk Bill perfected with Chris's help but never makes eye contact with any of the people at the bar. Betty didn't come here for conversation; she came to look good, and she does.
"Betty is one of my biggest challenges, because Bill is large and very mannish," says Chris. "But we always manage to make him look great. He's so enthusiastic. He loves it. I swear, sometimes he races down the mountain to get here. He can get to Studio Lites from Evergreen in fifteen minutes. He just loves it so much; it makes me feel so good."
"I do think I look good," Betty says. "I think I have pretty nice legs. It's like va-va-voom! It's just like everything else that you worry about in your life just goes away."
But reality will cut this night short. Bill's wife has a dead battery, and he needs to shift back into man mode, drive to the suburbs and give her car a jump. So they return to Studio Lites, where Betty goes into the ladies' room, emerging as Bill, dressed in a heavy coat and worn jeans.
"Sometimes I think I just want to dress all the time," Bill says. "But that's another thing that Chris does for you. He puts the brakes on. He says, 'Keep it a fun thing. Don't let it take over your life. You have too much too lose.' Still, it's sad to take it off when the night's over."
Bill puts a baseball cap on his head, climbs into his truck and revs the huge engine.
He's left his pantyhose on.
