Chapter 5: Dress up
The album stayed on the coffee table for three days. It became a fixture, a conversation piece. Michael would flip it open sometimes, point at a photo, and ask, “What club was this, Papa?” or “What were you drinking here?” Angel, initially flustered, had warmed to the gentle interrogation, his answers painting a picture of a vibrant, nocturnal world the twins had only ever seen in movies.
It was on the fourth day, over a breakfast of Angel’s fluffy pancakes and strong coffee, that Chris brought up the school email.
“So, this parent-teacher mixer thing is on Friday,” he said, pouring a river of maple syrup. “At the new bistro downtown. ‘An informal opportunity to foster community between guardians, students, and faculty.’ Sounds painfully boring.”
Michael snorted. “Translation: two hours of watching Mr. Henderson try to not stare at Mrs. Greer’s chest while our parents make awkward small talk about the football team’s losing streak.”
“We have to go?” Alexandra asked, not looking up from her phone where she was checking lumber prices.
“Strongly encouraged,” Chris said. “Especially for seniors. ‘Building bridges before graduation.’ It’s basically mandatory.”
Angel wiped his hands on a floral-print apron. “Well, we’ll go. It’s important to be involved. What should we wear? Something nice?”
Michael and Chris exchanged a look. A silent, twin-language conversation passed between them in a flicker of eyebrows and slight head tilts.
“About that,” Michael began, a slow grin spreading. “We were thinking.”
“Oh no,” Alexandra muttered, finally setting her phone down.
“Hear us out,” Chris said, leaning forward. “It’s all going to be office dads in bad polos and yoga moms in Lululemon. It’s a sea of beige and pastel. It’s gonna suck.”
“So your solution is…?” Alexandra prompted.
“We want to stand out,” Michael said, his eyes gleaming. “We want to have the cool parents. The interesting ones.”
Angel blinked, holding the spatula mid-air. “I don’t understand.”
Chris pointed a finger toward the living room, toward the album. “We want you to dress like that. Like you did. Just for one night.”
The silence in the kitchen was absolute, broken only by the drip of the coffee maker. Angel’s face went through a series of rapid transformations: confusion, disbelief, a flash of something that might have been panic, then a deep, contemplative stillness. He looked at Alexandra.
Alexandra’s expression was unreadable for a moment. Then, a slow, dangerous smile curved her lips. It was the smile of a wolf spotting interesting prey. “You want us to roll up to your school function looking like we just walked out of a 2003 time warp?”
“Yes,” both boys said in unison.
“Angel in the micro-skirt?” Alexandra pressed, her voice dropping to a husky register.
“The whale tail. The platforms. The whole deal,” Michael confirmed, nodding eagerly.
“Baby,” Alexandra said, turning her gaze to Angel. “The ball’s in your court. It’s your history. Your clothes. Your body.”
Angel set the spatula down carefully. He untied his apron, folded it, and placed it on the counter. His movements were deliberate. He walked to the kitchen window, looking out at the bird feeder where a cardinal was pecking at seeds. The domestic present confronting the ghost of his audacious past.
“Why?” he asked softly, not turning around.
Chris’s voice was earnest, lacking its usual cocky edge. “Because after seeing those pictures, it’s not just ‘our parents.’ It’s you and Mom. You had a whole life, a whole identity, before us. It was powerful. We’re proud of that. We’re not embarrassed by it. We want to show you off. The whole you.”
“It might cause a stir,” Angel said.
“Good,” Alexandra rumbled. “Fuck ’em.”
Angel turned. A faint pink blush was high on his cheeks, but his dark blue eyes were clear and steady. “I would need to find the clothes. I think… I think some things might be in storage. In the vacuum bags in the attic.”
Michael was out of his chair so fast it screeched. “I’ll help you look! Right now!”
“Finish your breakfast first,” Angel said, the familiar, gentle motherly command returning. But he was smiling. A small, secret, excited smile.
The next few days were a whirlwind of clandestine activity. The attic was explored, yielding plastic-sealed treasure troves. Alexandra took charge of the operation with military precision. She brought the sealed bags down to their bedroom, and a strict “No Entry” rule was imposed on the twins.
“You’ll see the reveal. No peeking,” she’d bark, shooing them away from the master suite.
Sounds of rustling plastic, the thump of shoes, and low, intimate conversation filtered through the door. Once, the boys heard Alexandra’s roaring laugh followed by Angel’s breathless, “Oh, it still fits… just.”
The morning of the mixer, the house was charged with a nervous, giddy energy. Chris and Michael dressed in their own version of sharp—dark jeans, crisp button-downs, leather jackets. They looked like two young gods, polished and impatient.
“When’s the grand unveiling?” Michael called, pacing the living room.
“When we’re fucking ready!” Alexandra’s voice boomed from upstairs.
Another twenty minutes passed. Then, they heard it. A sound they had never heard in their own home: the distinct, confident clack-clack-clack of high heels on the hardwood floor of the upstairs hallway. Not the soft tap of Angel’s usual kitten heels. This was a solid, commanding strike.
Chris and Michael froze, looking at the staircase.
Alexandra appeared first. She descended with her usual athletic grace, but the look was pure, concentrated menace. She wore black, skin-tight leather pants that hugged every muscle of her thighs and calves. Her top was a simple, sleeveless black mesh shirt, sheer enough to show the dark swirl of tattoos on her shoulders and the powerful cut of her torso beneath. Her wolf-cut hair was aggressively styled, her makeup sharp, her lips a dark red. She looked like she owned every nightclub in the city and was considering buying a few more.
“Damn, Mom,” Chris breathed, genuinely impressed.
“You clean up… violently,” Michael added.
Alexandra smirked, leaning against the banister. “Just warming up the crowd. Wait for the main event.”
They waited. The heels clicked again, closer to the top of the stairs. Then Angel appeared.
The air left the room.
He stood at the top of the staircase, one hand lightly on the railing. His long, white hair, usually a cloud of curls, was iron-straight, a dazzling, platinum sheet that fell like a waterfall, past his shoulders, past his waist, ending just above the backs of his knees. It was a transformation so complete it changed the shape of his face, highlighting his delicate jaw and the dark blue pools of his eyes, which were lined with smudgy black kohl.
He was wearing low-waisted, flared jeans in a light wash, the denim soft and worn in all the right places. The waistband sat so low on his hips that a smooth, pale expanse of his stomach was visible, leading down to the undeniable, lime-green flash of a whale tail peeking over the back. The jeans flared dramatically over the towering, platform-heeled sandals—chunky, beige soles with multiple straps that criss-crossed up his ankles.
His top was a cheetah-print, off-the-shoulder number, the fabric clinging lovingly to the swell of his chest. The sleeves were long, tight to his wrists. A thick, silver belt with a diamond-shaped buckle sat on his hips, glinting in the afternoon light streaming through the window. Silver was everywhere: stacks of bracelets on both wrists, multiple thin necklaces layered against his collarbone, rings on almost every finger. His ears, which the boys had only ever seen with simple studs, were a constellation of silver hoops and studs—sixteen in total, they would learn later.
He looked like a supermodel who had time-traveled. He looked dangerous and exquisite. He looked nothing like their Papa, and yet, entirely like their Papa. The shyness was there, in the slight hesitation of his step, in the way his free hand came up to nervously touch a necklace. But it was layered over with a powerful, resurrected aura. This was the person from the photos, made flesh, and aged with a profound, quiet confidence the twenty-year-old version couldn’t have possessed.
He descended the stairs slowly, carefully, the platforms making his gait a graceful, rolling sway.
Chris and Michael were statue-still, their mouths dry.
Angel reached the bottom, his cheeks flushed. He looked at his sons, a question in his eyes.
Michael found his voice first. It came out as a choked whisper. “You have a tramp stamp?!”
For on Angel’s lower back, just above the defiant green whale tail, now fully visible as he turned slightly, was a tattoo. Small, elegant, in black script. It simply read: Alexandra.
Angel’s hand flew to cover it, the gesture instantly, adorably familiar. “Oh! I forgot about that!”
Alexandra’s laugh was a boom of triumph. She strode over, swatting Angel’s hand away. “Don’t you dare cover it. That’s my favorite piece of real estate on your entire flawless body.” She slid a possessive arm around his waist, her thumb stroking the tattoo. “Got it the night we got engaged. He was drunk on champagne and bravery.”
“I was not drunk,” Angel murmured, leaning into her. “I was sure.”
Chris finally exhaled. “Papa… you look… I don’t even have words.”
“You look expensive,” Michael said, recovering his bravado. “You look like we need bodyguards. This is the best thing that has ever happened.”
Angel smiled, the shyness melting into something warmer, more present. “The shoes are less comfortable than I remember. And these jeans… breathing is optional.”
“Worth it,” Alexandra declared, planting a loud, smacking kiss on his cheek, leaving a red imprint. “You are a fucking masterpiece. Now, let’s go make some suburbanites shit their sensible khakis.”
The car ride downtown was a surreal bubble of perfume, leather, and anticipation. Angel sat in the passenger seat, his posture careful in the tight jeans, his hair a stunning veil beside him. The twins sat in the back, feeling like the entourage to royalty.
The new bistro was all polished concrete and exposed ductwork, trying for urban chic. As predicted, it was filled with a murmur of polite conversation, the clink of wine glasses, and a sea of neutral tones. The teachers wore their professional-casual best. The parents were a catalogue of middle-aged conformity.
When the Hawk family walked in, the noise didn’t stop so much as it fractured, splintered into a thousand hushed, staccato pieces. Conversations trailed off. Heads turned. Glasses paused midway to lips.
It was like a panther had strolled into a penguin colony.
Alexandra led, her expression one of amused defiance. Angel followed, his head held high, his gaze soft but unwavering, his heels clicking a steady rhythm on the concrete floor. Chris and Michael flanked them slightly behind, their young masculinity a stark, protective contrast.
Their homeroom teacher, Ms. Albright, a woman in her fifties with a kind face and a penchant for cardigans, was the first to approach. Her eyes widened, did a rapid up-and-down sweep of Angel, and settled on his face with a dizzy smile. “Michael! Chris! And these must be your… parents.” Her voice only wavered slightly.
“Alexandra Hawk,” Alexandra said, shaking her hand with a grip that made Ms. Albright subtly adjust her stance. “This is my husband, Angel.”
“A pleasure,” Angel said, his voice, that familiar gentle chime, sounding impossibly dissonant coming from the Y2K vision before her.
“The pleasure is mine,” Ms. Albright managed. “My, what a… distinctive style! Very retro.”
“Thank you,” Angel said, smiling beatifically.
The evening unfolded in a series of similar encounters. Some parents were openly fascinated, asking where Angel got his belt, his shoes. Others were politely, coldly distant. A few of the fathers couldn’t stop staring, their glances flickering between Angel’s chest, his low-rise waistband, and the tattoo peeking out, with a mixture of shock and voyeuristic hunger. Alexandra’s glare usually cut those looks short.
The twins were in their element. They introduced their parents with palpable pride. “This is my dad, Angel,” Chris would say, and watch with satisfaction as the person tried to reconcile the term “dad” with the creature before them.
Michael was more brazen. To a group of his football teammates and their stunned parents, he said, “Yeah, my Papa used to rock this look back in the day. Killer, right? He’s got a whole album. Way cooler than my buddy’s dad’s golf stories.”
Angel, after the initial entrance, relaxed. He talked about the twins’ college applications with the school counselor. He discussed the symbolism in The Great Gatsby with the English teacher. He did it all while glittering in silver and animal print, a surreal and powerful juxtaposition. The clothes, instead of undermining him, seemed to armor him. He had chosen this. He was in control.