“This is how I die,” said Wynonna, still lying on the floor.

“Seriously, man,” I said. “It was kind of fucked up. And, Wynonna, you’re not going to die.”

“Okay, I’m sorry!” said Holden, hands in the air. “I submit my official apology to Imogen, and Ezra, and the entire Special Olympics.”

“Herniaaaaaaaa!” Wynonna moaned.

“What, do you want an apology, too?!” said Holden, unhinged.

“I want you to kill me,” said Wynonna, sprawling onto her back, writhing like an ant under a magnifying glass. “Kill me now, before it’s too late.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Imogen. “We need to figure this”—she made an ambiguous gesture to her best friend, doing a variation of the worm on the floor—“out.”

“Think, think, think,” I said aloud, tapping my head like I was Winnie the fucking Pooh.

“What would a genius do in a time like this?” said Holden, because he apparently wanted to be a part of the conversation. “What would Shakespeare do?”

“What would… Shakespeare…” said Imogen, breathless. Her eyes lit up like sparklers. “Shakespeare! That’s it!”

“That’s it?” I said. “What’s it?”

Imogen grabbed my hand and tore off backstage, dragging me behind her like a human streamer.

“Wait!” I said. “What about Viola?”

“You’re Viola,” said Imogen. She turned and gave me a devilish grin. “You were always Viola.”

Fact: During Shakespeare’s time, all the roles were played by men. The male roles, the female roles, the female-pretending-to-be-male roles…

All men.

That was just the sexist state of things at the time. After all, who could trust a woman to accurately portray her own gender? Absurd!

But it meant that Viola was initially played by a dude.

Tonight, we were going to be digging deep into the roots of Shakespeare.

The trick was that I had to still appear like a woman to the audience—even though I was pretending to be a man. This meant that the makeup was staying on, and it was staying heavier than ever.

Imogen was my makeup artist. She stepped away from my face with a powder brush in hand. Scanned me up and down. She seemed less than impressed.

“How bad is it?” I said.

“What?” said Imogen. “No, no, your face is perfect. Everything’s perfect.”

Her gaze shifted downward.

“Everything except for your chest. Your chest is as flat as Texas.”

I glanced down at my chest. I was wearing the shipwreck dress—this low-cut, dirty-green thing, somewhere between algae and snot. Even though it was stretched a little tight on the shoulders, there was a definite excess of loose fabric in the front.

“You need a bra,” said Imogen.

She glanced down at her own chest. Her bra would maybe fit around the thickest part of my thigh.

She glanced at Wynonna, who was standing nearby, watching my transformation—miraculously healed from her hernia! Wynonna glanced down at her own chest.