Roxy Berlin was a tall white woman with a Bettie Page haircut and bright red lips, dressed in cutoffs and a ripped black crop top that revealed a tattoo of twined red roses inked along the side of her torso. She was what my mom would call “big-boned,” but to me she looked like all she needed was Thor’s hammer to become a superhero. She was also wearing steel-toed boots with metal buckles and had a brassy magnetism that was apparent even from a distance. She greeted Mel with a kiss that left a red lipstick print on her cheek; she squeezed Steph while thumping her on the back with a ringed hand; and she kept her distance from Lisa, leaving a triangle of space between their bodies when they hugged.

Mel introduced me to Roxy, who offered me beer from a big blue cooler and told me to make myself at home. She and her friends had claimed a prime spot beneath a tree at the top edge of the park, where they’d spread a couple of fleece blankets over the ground. From up here, we had a good view of everything: the bowl of the park crowded with people; the palm trees lining Dolores Street; and the skyline of downtown San Francisco in the distance. Down the hill and past the playground was a stage, where a DJ was playing dance music that reverberated up the slope toward us. In front of the stage was a roped-off area for people to sit in lawn chairs or wheelchairs, and all over the park people were dancing and drinking and shouting and laughing. It was so different from the beach parties at Haley’s parents’ house on Martha’s Vineyard, which I remembered in palettes of sand and dun and white linen. Here, Dolores Park was a riot of color: electric blue hair and red vinyl hot pants, hot pink feathers and rainbow face paint.

I grabbed a can of PBR from the cooler and took a seat on the corner of the blanket next to Mel. She introduced me to the other Madchen band members, Talia Dutton and Jasmine Harris, before she spotted someone selling tamales and went over to buy some. Then I tried to not look like I was listening in on everyone else’s conversations. Talia, the drummer, was half Filipina and had dyed the ends of her dark hair hot pink. Jasmine, who played keyboards, was Black and had a shaved head and a lip ring. Talia’s boyfriend, Gabe, was trans, and he was also a sound engineer who was helping the band record a new demo—this time without Steph.