Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2) Page 2

  I rubbed my temples, massaging the sensitive spot and trying to stave off the headache I could feel brewing. Just the thought of having to handle DT on my own was enough to trigger a migraine.

  It just wasn’t going to be the same without her. I knew that because I had just done three months without her, while she was in her bedroom and not working.

  We had always spent the nights laughing and gossiping and talking about men and when we got on stage together, we were having fun, enjoying ourselves and never taking anything too seriously.

  And now she didn't want to do drag any more?

  I knew she had reasons.

  But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt that she was gone.

  No Auditions

  “No auditions this year.”

  What?

  “What?” I said.

  He was looking away from me, as if trying to peer out the window at the streetlight.

  “No Vivesse auditions,” Duane said again, now looking at the TV ahead of him, which was off. “This year.”

  “I’m sorry?” Now it was me scrunching up my face. “I don’t understand what you said, Duane.”

  “House Ellegrandé,” DT said slowly, indicating our surroundings. “Will not be auditioning,” he mimed a film camera rolling, “for Vivesse,” he adjusted an imaginary crown and waved at an imaginary crowd, the ghost of a winner’s smile plastered on his face, “this year,” he finished by holding out his watch to me and tapping it with his chubby index finger while he shot me a look filled with daggers.

  “W-why?” I gasped before I had a chance to think and choose my words.

  “Because I say so,” Duane’s eyes flashed and he crossed his arms.

  I could feel my own mouth gaping open now and I grasped for a straw. But before I could come up with an argument, Duane continued talking.

  “This is my decision,” Duane said. “And it’s done.”

  I forced myself not to speak. Knee-jerk reactions were never a wise move. I needed to listen and figure out what Duane was thinking. Once I knew what was going on in his mind, I could figure out how to cater to his mindset.

  But Duane didn’t say anything. He just turned his head and looked out the window again.

  Duane didn’t look at me. He let out a big sigh that ended in a huff and leaned his hand on his chin.

  “You said it yourself today, when you were talking to Damaris,” I said. “House Ellegrandé has a real shot this year. I’m sure we do, Duane.”

  I didn’t point out all the hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours I had spent working for this year after year and didn’t I deserve a chance?

  Didn’t I deserve a shot at making something of myself?

  If Damaris or I placed in Vivesse, we would raise our house’s profile in New York and nationwide and internationally. And of course, improve our own careers. But you couldn’t just come out and say it like that.

  A New York drag artist might aspire to place in a big pageant like Vivesse, but she must always couch her success in terms of her house’s success.

  “If your chances are so good,” DT replied. “Why hasn’t it happened yet?”

  Well, that smarted like a pan of boiling water in the face. I’d take being accused of plotting over what DT just said any day.

  Especially given the Mount Eveready-sized irony of him making that statement

  Duane was hunched over, his spine curved like a cooked shrimp—he had terrible posture. “I doubt this year will be the exception to the rule.”

  When Damaris and I talked Selfish, I could openly say that I wanted to place in Vivesse so I could leapdrag up to House of Revêtte or House of Cosmosis.

  That wasn’t necessarily true, but I had the freedom to say it, if I wanted to. I could talk about it, consider the possibilities.

  The truth was that anyone who placed at Vivesse would find it easy to move up to either of those houses after the season aired. The big houses wanted the best talent and the smaller houses couldn’t stop them from getting it.

  I stood there, leaning my hip against the end of the couch with the opposite knee on the arm of the couch, and as I looked at Duane I realized that he was disappointed.

  Damaris had let him down by leaving.

  And we had both let him down by not getting into Vivesse.

  “You don’t know that,” I countered stubbornly. I shouldn’t argue with him now. I should continue to placate him and work on getting inside his head and persuading him that way. “You can’t see the future. If I don’t audition, there’s—”

  “I can see the future of this house if this keeps up,” DT turned around and made eye contact with me now. “Tonight we’re closed. No money coming in. How am I supposed to pay the rent? Keep the lights on? Pay artists’ fees?”

  I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes.

  It was just one night.

  “And tomorrow night, who am I going to put on that stage? Huh? My talent just walked out the door.”

  I opened my mouth. I did the programming, and I already had quite a few ideas of what we could do while building up our talent pool again.

  “You have more important things to do than audition,” DT said. “You helped create this mess, and you are going to help fix it.” He sat up straighter, ran his hand over his hair. “First,” he said. “You are going to train the new recruits.”

  “Of c—” I began.

  “Quiet!” DT hissed. “Wait until I’m done talking.” He took a deep breath. “We have two transfers.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  I frowned. “Tell me.”

  “You’ll find out who they are tomorrow,” DT said. “You can wait til then.”

  Fine. I wanted to go and look them up so I would know who I was dealing with before they showed up on the doorstep, but fine. I pressed my lips together and tried not to let any sullenness show on my face.

  “We have a DJ on loan for two weeks. A good one. So that’s two weeks of no live shows, just rehearsals that you will be running with Brooklyn and these new girls. They will be available every weeknight from seven to eleven and weekends all day from nine to six. Make the most of it.”

  I nodded and didn’t say a word. I had turned around new shows and programs in less time than that.

  “Second,” Duane said, heavily, raising his eyes to mine.

  I didn't know why, but I felt a sudden sense of foreboding.

  “La Tata,” Duane said.

  I blinked.

  “You’ll be calling her. Tonight,” Duane said. “You will apologize. And you will get her back.”

  Get her back?

  Apologize?

  “I already talked to China,” DT said. “That ship has sailed. More accurately, that plane has flown. He’s already signed a contract back at his former house in London. Starts in a couple weeks.” Duane shrugged. “So,” he said. “It’s Tata.” He glanced at me. “You can talk now.”

  “You want her back to sit on a barstool all night? How is that going to help?”

  “She’s not going to sit on a barstool all night,” DT said, looking at me square in the face. “She’s going to perform with everyone else. And you are going to train her.”

  “Duane—” I protested.

  “The only reason she couldn't do anything is because you didn’t have the patience to work with her,” Duane said. “You are going to spend the next two weeks training her, one on one, starting at nine in the morning up to six in the evening on weekdays. Then she can join the group training in the evenings and weekends too. You call her tonight and you tell her to get her ass in here for nine am tomorrow and you work her until she has the polish to get up on that stage and not embarrass me and the name of Ellegrandé.”

  “I have to work,” I said instantly.

  “So take time off,” Duane snapped.

  Two weeks? Ten days? That was my entire annual vacation allowance, and most people didn’t even take the whole thing.

  “Oka
y,” I said to Duane in a calming tone, going toward him around the couch and starting to massage his shoulders. I would figure out a way to turn all of this to my advantage. “I’ll be there. Don’t worry, DT. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “You’ll train Tata?” He asked. “Starting tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know if I can get a space at Persimmon for tomorrow morning,” I said.

  “No,” DT turned around and looked up at me. “You can rehearse in the green room.”

  Oh, I did not just hear that.

  The green room?

  “I’m not paying for a studio space again,” he said. “We never had that in the old days. We rehearsed in the club or in the green room if the club was open. Push back the couches.”

  “There’s no mirror,” I said. “How can I teach without a mirror?”

  DT shrugged. “You could try facing them.”

  “But then they’re mirroring me, or I’m mirroring them,” I said, shaking my head. “It makes no sense. I need a mirror.”

  “So clear the chairs out of the dressing room,” DT snapped.

  “A full-length mirror,” I insisted.

  “I humored you on the studio before,” DT said. “And I never did notice a damn bit of difference in the dancing.”

  That hurt.

  Oh, that one stung.

  “How are we supposed to rehearse in the green room at night when the club is open?” I had my hands on my hips now. Because this was just ridiculous. “We won’t be able to hear the track we’re rehearsing.”

  “So, you come up here,” DT flung out his arm, indicating the tiny living room, which was filled with thirty years’ worth of drag clutter. “Besides, if you’re not here, how am I supposed to supervise the new girls?”

  I closed my mouth and just gazed at him for a long minute. That was another reason I had petitioned to move the auditions to an outside location. DT’s ‘supervision’ usually consisted of nonstop meddling in my work.

  “Okay, mama,” I lied, digging my thumbs in and applying more pressure.

  He mmmm’d in appreciation. “That’s good, child.”

  “So can I say something about Bone China now?” I asked.

  Duane blinked, leaned away from my massage, like he didn’t expect me to say that. As if it was a non-sequitur.

  Of course it wasn't a non-sequitur.

  “Go ahead,” Duane said imperiously.

  “Bone China,” I said, stepping back and folding my arms if he didn’t want the back rub. “Was a world-class queen, hard working and professional. Exquisite look, legs for days and talent to the rafters.”

  Duane closed his eyes and nodded solemnly.

  “But there was just one problem with Bone China, wasn’t there, mama?” I said, gently.

  Duane breathed out heavily through his nose and looked away.

  “I told you it was only a matter of time, didn’t I?” I said, still just as gentle. “I wasn’t a history major or anything but I could tell you from experience that it tends to repeat itself. It was only a matter of time before he went back to his incestuous ways, and we don’t stand for that here at House Ellegrandé.”

  Duane Tyrone wasn’t looking at me. He was nibbling on the corner of a brownie. I had set out a plate of brownies and a glass of sweet tea for when he got back from the drag mothers. It never hurt to prepare.

  I raised my eyebrows again. “We don’t stand for that, do we, Mama?”

  DT sighed hard through his nose again and put the brownie back on the plate.

  Duane had known that Damaris and Marcus were humping from the get-go, and he had turned an eye as blind as the queen from the eyelash glue mishap.

  And right now, I knew Duane was thinking of when he first found out about it, and I had told him straight that he needed to nip it in the bud.

  Duane looked at me again, and there was a glare in his eye this time. “That was different,” he said.

  “Different,” I deadpanned.

  The truth was very simple. DT had favorites, and Damaris was his most favorite of his favorites. What Damaris wanted, Damaris got.

  “You know as well as I do why he left London,” I continued. “He and his drag sister had been doing kai kai and that eventually blew up in his face like a blow job ending prematurely.”

  DT snorted. He raised his eyebrows and blinked in a mini shrug and soothed his hair back from his forehead with two big hands.

  “I heard,” I said, building up steam now. “They really go for that over there.”

  DT’s nose wrinkled as he smoothed his hair again.

  “Bone China told me,” I lowered my voice. I had DT back in my hands now, I could tell. “He walked in on two sisters in the dressing room.”

  Duane glanced at me, his face contorting in disgust.

  “In the middle of the afternoon,” I went on, staring at him very serious, and I had to tamp down the relish that wanted to come into my voice. I knew this would work. I knew it would work on DT. “One queen was sitting on the counter with her hands behind her mixed up in the make up—”

  DT started shaking his head.

  That only made me grin inside as I let a hint of concern flow into my voice. “Her sister was on her knees on the floor in front of her, head bobbing up and down like eating dick was going out style.”

  DT slapped a hand over his mouth and turned away, raising his other hand toward me and gasping, “Don’t say any more, I’m going to get sick, Machyl.”

  I could barely repress my desire to grin outright as I went for the jugular. “You know the worst part, Mama?”

  DT shook his head, the whites of his eyes getting big as he stared at me from where he was half-lying on the couch. “No,” he said. “No, Giltie.”

  “Both queens,” I said. “Were in full drag.”

  DT leaned forward on the couch suddenly and dry-heaved. “Macyhl!” He gasped. “Get a bucket!”

  I leaped up and ran over to the kitchen and grabbed a plastic bucket from underneath the sink and set it on the floor in front of him. He panted and gasped while I stood there and rubbed his back.

  “Full drag,” I said again. “Can’t you just see her wig spilling down over her sister’s thighs. Bone China said the queen getting it was wearing crotchless fishnet tights.”

  I smiled lazily as DT retched loudly. I was facing away from DT and he was hunched over with his face in the plastic bucket, so he couldn’t see.

  I knew he wasn’t really getting sick.

  Duane did this any time someone started to talk about kai kai in his vicinity.

  Sometimes I just liked to press DT’s buttons.

  Sometimes DT deserved it.

  “Take this away,” Duane sat up, dabbing at his mouth with a tissue and gestured at the bucket, which was perfectly empty and dry.

  I took it and put it back under the sink.

  “And get me a drink of water,” DT ordered from the couch.

  I got a glass from the cupboard and filled it from the faucet and carried it over to him.

  “Why did you have to go into so much detail,” he complained, rubbing his stomach. “You know it makes me sick to hear it.”

  “I know you would want to hear the truth about where Bone China came from. I know you wouldn’t want me to sugar coat it,” I said.

  “Come to think of it, maybe that’s the secret of London queens. Their dicks are candy-coated.” I grinned, not bothering to hide it now. “You know where they melt, right, Mama?” I laughed and slapped my thigh.

  Duane stared at me stony-faced.

  I rolled my eyes, laughing. “Mama, it’s something about the mouth and the hand,” I giggled. “Mmm,” I teased, poking DT’s meaty shoulder. “Candy dicks. Don’t say you wouldn’t, Duane.”

  “Go wash your mouth out,” DT pushed my hand away. “Don’t bring that filthy talk around me.”

  I laughed him off. “Anyway, Mama,” I said. “With a queen as fishy as Tata, it was only a matter of time, Mama. Bone China tried to
bone any femme who crossed her path.”

  I grinned to myself, but didn’t let the whole smile shine through. It would look too self-satisfied. Things had worked out pretty well like I planned for it to go.

  Obviously I knew that if it became obvious enough that Marcus and Tata were involved, it would force DT to make a decision, or face looking like he didn’t enforce his own rules.

  Although I had no way to know if he would really follow through. I knew Duane, along with all normal people, was disgusted by kai kai, but the question in my mind had always been whether that was strong enough to override his common sense when it came to his business.

  I had always figured common sense would win. And that seemed to be proved by the fact that Damaris got an out.

  So I couldn’t rely on that. I had to find a way to make Marcus Fong quit under his own steam.

  “Look, Duane,” I said calmingly. “Everything got very complicated there for a few days,” I said, going back to my gentle tone. “And I don't think we can ever figure out exactly who was to blame for any one thing. I just don’t think it’s helpful at this point.”

  Duane, who had been drinking from his tea glass, put it down at this point as if he was waiting to hear what I said next.

  “You know that Marcus and Damaris had been seeing each other on the down low,” I said, going closer to him to signal that I had no reason to shy away from the truth. “Well, Marcus put a stop to that because of Anthony. That was on Friday, you know, the day Damaris went back in her room.”

  Duane was looking back at me. I knew that Damaris wouldn’t have told him. The rift between them had been growing when Duane had trouble accepting that she was depressed enough to not be able to work.

  “So on Saturday I went and spoke to Anthony and told him that he and Marcus needed to stop being so public about it. They had already ruined her comeback weekend and really hurt her feelings. And Anthony pretended to go along with it and he solemnly swore to be better in future.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Well, you saw how that worked out on Saturday night. Not an hour after, you found him and Marcus in the dressing room.”