The door handle turned—the dressing room was clearly marked with a pretty hand-painted sign which Damaris had done—and I sat up straighter, perked my lips up into a smile and took a deep breath.
The door opened and she walked in. The first thing I saw was the caramel-brown skin of her pedicured toes, her feet laced into strappy stilettos of royal purple metallic leather, tied up the ankle with tassels dangling down.
She was dressed to the nines in a woman’s silk jumpsuit in ultramarine, a slit flared leg below a tie-waist and thin straps over sharp clavicles leading to a slight drape neck which revealed a hard, bony chest.
I folded my arms.
Anthony Alcantara had changed his hair. The slick weave was gone, replaced with shoulder-length braids studded with hardware which flashed and jangled in the light from the bulbs which surrounded the mirrors. He was made up, too, and he carried a designer leather clutch under one arm.
He stood there in front of the closing door and, putting one hand on his hip, raised one groomed eyebrow at me.
“I heard you were having a party without me,” Anthony grinned, his full lips parting to reveal pearly whitened teeth. “How very dare you.”
I stood up. “How did you find out?” I could barely control my temper.
He didn’t say anything, just catwalked over to the other side of the dressing room and perched on the counter with his legs elegantly crossed. He smiled at me, fluttered his eyelashes and shrugged.
There was no time to react, no time to figure out what was going on, because the buzzer went again and I got up and strode across the room to answer it, stabbing the button so hard it got stuck.
“Did you really think I was going to let you greet the new girls without me?” Anthony simpered from his perch.
I turned and glared at him as I went back to my spot. In any other circumstances, I would have started reading him and given him a dose of the ballroom, my speciality when the houses faced off, combining vogue and the art of throwing shade into a seamless flow.
But I had just let a brand new girl into this very building, and I could hear her feet tapping on the floor outside. The door opened again and a melodious voice called out, “Baby’s coming home!”
She flung the door open and walked in slowly with arms outstretched, looking around. She was tall, a little over six feet, and slim, with straight, light auburn hair in curtains around her face, green eyes and a thin, hooked nose.
She was wearing a pale pink top, long-sleeved and asymmetrical, which reached halfway to the knee on one side over skinny black jeans, and which was ripped and shredded so badly that I could see the freckles all over the milky white skin of her arms and torso.
The drag mothers sent us a white girl?
Her eyes landed on Anthony and I saw, I actually saw her subtle double take.
“Oh my god!” She breathed. “Hi!” She went over to him and air-kissed him.
“Hi,” Anthony smiled back at her.
She took a step back and looked lost for words, slightly flustered, as if she couldn’t figure out what to say next. She was looking at Anthony. They were looking at each other.
I got down from the counter and the movement was enough to break her out of it. She turned to me and smiled as well, but not as brightly as she had smiled at Anthony. I met her in the middle and we air-kissed.
“Hi,” she said to me.
The shock of Anthony showing up unannounced was almost enough to throw me, but you wouldn’t catch Giltie Conshens falling off a skyscraper. I’d grow wings before I had a chance to splat on the sidewalk.
I’d like to think they sent us an idiot. That would make my life easier. But you could never count on that. So I had to assume this chick was sharp.
And if she was sharp, she would instantly pick up on any negativity between La Tata and myself. And she would know that was a little hole in the fabric of this house, that if she picked at, she could get to start to unravel.
And if she was ambitious, she was going to seize on that information like a hungry she-lion tearing into an antelope carcass.
So I forced myself to smile as brightly as I could, and I tried to make it look friendly.
“Giltie Conshens,” I said, holding out my hand.
She accepted it and shook my hand, a firm and masculine handshake. “Of course,” she said. “I’m so excited to work with you. I’m Clarion Call.” She grinned.
I had never heard of her. When she first walked in and I didn’t recognize her, I wondered if it was because she looked dramatically different in drag.
But no.
As I expected, Larry’s Last Drag had sent us a nobody.
But on the plus side, she was visibly pretty even as a boy and, although not as thin as Marcus Fong, she was slim and not muscular. I could tell she made a fishy enough queen.
Clarion Call turned back around to Anthony and actually walked back over to him, forcing me to follow unless I wanted to look like I was trying to put distance between all of us.
“You must be Damaris Rae,” Clarion Call beamed at Anthony. I could see his smile in the mirror. “I heard that the House of Ellegrandé headliner was the fishiest queen in New York, and may I say you are absolutely gorgeous.”
Anthony blushed, which only made him prettier, and ducked his head in embarrassment as Clarion Call came to a stop near him.
“I’m La Tata,” Anthony said, looking up shyly at Clarion Call. “Anthony Alcantara,” he added.
“Oh—” Clarion Call looked mortified.
“It’s okay,” Anthony said. “I take it as a compliment. Damaris is my friend.”
Clarion Call smiled back. “Clarion Blackwood,” he said. Then, his grin got even bigger. “I’m so stupid,” he said. “I saw her in real life last year at the Big Heavy Ball.”
“Really,” Anthony said, putting out his hand and resting it on Clarion’s forearm. “It’s fine.”
I watched this little exchange with a smile plastered on my face like it was made of rapid-dry plaster of Paris and I was hoping it would hurry up and dry to save me the effort of maintaining it.
It looked like Anthony was moving on swiftly from Marcus if nothing else.
The buzzer went and saved us all from the painful flirtations of Anthony Alcantara.
I went to press the button only to find that the plastic square was still in the down position from where I had jabbed it last time, and even though I thumbed it several times, it didn’t move and it didn’t open the door. I huffed. Apparently the damn thing was broken now.
I hauled the door open and went out into the corridor to the artist’s entrance to open it myself. A rush of cold air raised goosebumps on my bare arms.
“Sorry, the buzzer is broken,” I muttered, holding the door open.
Silence.
I raised my eyes to see a short white boy with curly dark brown hair in a dark blue wide check shirt and red bow tie. He had angelic blue eyes which were staring at me, very round.
Another white girl?
I just couldn’t believe it.
The drag mothers knew we were historically a black house and how important that was to our identity and our heritage. I didn’t think there had ever been a white drag artist at House Ellegrandé.
At that moment I caught myself and realized I was so annoyed by Anthony Alcantara, I had dropped out of character.
And this little white boy was standing here probably wondering if he had come to the wrong place.
Fuck.
“Hey queen,” I commanded the smile back onto my face like a drill sergeant to a shiftless recruit, and flung out my arms. “Come here, honey!”
I had to actually step over the door to deliver the hug, but once I had, and pulled away again, he seemed reassured, because he smiled a little.
I left my arm on his shoulder and led him inside. I closed the door behind us and spoke quietly.
“Sorry about that, sweetie, the buzzer just broke. How about this, I go back inside, close the door and t
hen you can do your entrance. Okay?”
He looked at me, then nodded, looking relieved.
I left him standing there and went back into the dressing room and closed the door.
Clarion Call and La Tata were both sitting on the counter, chatting. Tata was laughing. Clarion Call’s hair was falling into her face. It was cut just too short to tuck behind the ears.
They looked up when I came in and I ratcheted my smile up a notch. I noticed that Anthony’s faded when he looked at me, and I ignored that. I went and leaned against the counter opposite them.
The door handle turned and we all looked. The next thing I saw was a blur of legs swinging through the air like a pinwheel as as the new girl launched herself into the room with a perfect aerial followed by a backward walkover which ended with her sliding into the splits and holding her arms out, grinning and panting and looking around at us all from the floor.
I thought that was pretty risky, but I immediately burst into loud applause and the other two joined in. Before Clarion Call could go over, I started toward her. But she had leapt up as quick as a jack in the box and gone over to air-kiss La Tata.
“Damaris Rae, I do declare,” she squealed in a Southern Belle voice, which dropped as soon as she said her name. “I’m Lucky Penny. Such an honor to meet the headliner of House Ellegrandé.”
Anthony was doing the blushing and smiling thing again, and as I joined the group I wanted nothing more than to reach over and squeeze those cheeks until he protested in pain.
“I’m La Tata,” Anthony said, batting his lashes. “Damaris doesn’t do drag any more.”
“Oh—I—” Lucky Penny said, placing one hand on his chest and looking mortified.
“Sister, she’s so pretty, I made the same mistake,” Clarion Call piped up, turning Lucky Penny to her and air-kissing. “I’m Clarion Call. Formerly of Larry’s Last Drag.”
“Omg!” Lucky Penny enthused. “I love Larry’s. My husband and I always go there when we go to Willemsburg.”
Lucky finally seemed to register my existence and she turned and air-kissed me as well. “Thanks for letting me in,” she said, smiling politely. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…”
What, this queen hadn’t heard of me?
What, had she been hibernating under a rock for the last seven years?
“Giltie Conshens,” I said, ungritting my teeth with all the energy I could summon. I might as well have been wearing a mouth stretcher for how wide and forced my smile was. “And if I’m not mistaken, you’re joining us from House of Cosmosis?”
“Yes,” Lucky Penny smiled graciously. “That’s correct.”
Everyone was far too polite to gasp in astonishment, but I saw Clarion Call’s eyebrows rise slightly and felt a warm sense of satisfaction grow within me.
So this was proof that DT’s stock was not as low with the drag mothers as I had sometimes feared. If Synphonia was willing to give us one of her artists, that had to be a good sign. A very good sign, even. Maybe, against all appearances, things were on the up for Duane Tyrone.
“Anyway, I’m Luka. Luka Pennworth.”
When Lucky Penny stopped talking, both she and Clarion Call turned to La Tata as if waiting to see what she was going to say next.
I frizzled inwardly. That was the word to describe my nerve endings starting to fry, heating to the smoke point and sizzling.
“Ladies,” I said loudly and brightly, and, clapping my hands together, led the way to the tray of drinks. “Can I offer everyone a glass of bubbles?”
Three voices murmured their agreement and I picked up the bottle and unwrapped the foil. As I grasped the cold, smooth neck of the bottle with both hands and started to push the cork out with two thumbs, I saw that they were all still over there, gathered around Anthony like he was the queen of New York or something.
When the cork popped, this wasn’t exactly how I had pictured this moment. Instead of the gracious host, I felt more like the help.
The feeling intensified as I filled the glasses and loaded them onto the tray. If I picked this thing up and carried it over to them all, I really would look like a waiter.
I stood there and watched Tata talking to the two white girls, all of them seemingly oblivious to my existence, and clenched my hands. I couldn’t make a fist because of my acrylic nails.
I took a deep breath.
They clearly thought that Anthony was the headliner, that he had taken over the title from Damaris. It was amusing, about as amusing as mistaking a real gun for one that shoots a flag reading Bang!
This Lucky Penny had been at Cosmosis for a month as a reserve? Where had she been before that? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
And Miss Clarion Call, who didn’t even know that Harrie Debby had retired? I would never stoop so low as to stereotype, but in my experience, hipster queens from Booklyn all fell into the same category.
I was grinding my molars. I sucked my cheek between my teeth to stop myself.
Anthony was the recipient of dumb luck, and his fancy looks. But he didn’t have the social intelligence to see that the two new artists being swayed by him gave him an advantage which he could use to try to tip the balance of power in his favor. He couldn’t recognize this opportunity for what it was.
He was too insecure for that. The idea of using this chance to challenge me was enough to send him whimpering into a corner with his tail tucked between his legs.
But nevertheless, I was going to have to lay it on a lot thicker now that these girls had gone for him. Any hint of animosity between us was going to become immediately clear.
Drag queens might have a reputation for bitchy drama, but if you were welcoming two new recruits to your house and you wanted to get the best out of them, you had best make them feel wanted and at home.
“Sisters!” I called out. “Come and do a toast with me!”
They turned to look at me, and only when Anthony slipped off the counter and came toward me did the other two follow. They all took glasses and I raised mine.
“Our drag sister Shanghai Li’l can’t be with us this evening,” I said. “And our drag mother Ellegrandé has back pain today. But as the choreographer and programmer and longest-serving artist here at the House of Ellegrandé, I would like to welcome you.”
“Hear, hear!” Lucky Penny piped up.
We clinked glasses and everyone drank.
It wasn’t how I planned this moment. And even though I had bought this brand of cava before and found it very tasty, it didn’t taste quite so sweet on my tongue at this moment.
I couldn’t help looking at Anthony, standing there all prim and drinking delicately from the champagne flute. He looked up and met my eyes at the last second and something stabbed me in the stomach and I looked away.
What many people didn’t realize was that you couldn’t fake things. Not really.
By trying to fake things, you ended up actually doing them.
You were either doing things, or you weren’t.
So in the end, there was no faking.
It was unavoidable.
I didn’t know why he was here, or how he had found out about the rehearsals tonight, or even why he had started wearing heels as street wear. But I did know one thing.
I was going to have to make friends with Anthony Alcantara.
By the time I got everyone settled at the Portuguese restaurant two blocks down from the club, I was itching to speak to Damaris.
The fact of the matter was, she was the only person I had told about my plans. So I couldn’t see how to get away from the idea that she had told Anthony everything.
Which made no sense, because she wouldn’t tell Anthony.
Because what had I told her was Selfish talk.
It was very Selfish talk.
Very Selfish indeed.
So once everyone was sitting down and had ice water and I had placed my order, I said I needed to go and buy cigarettes and got up and left.
It was a
lie.
I didn’t smoke.
But smoking cigarettes was socially unacceptable, so everyone would be too embarrassed to question me.
And everyone knew that smokers were irrational and had a penchant for awkwardly interrupting social occasions for extended periods of time to service their addiction.
It was the perfect excuse.
Night was falling fast as I walked down the street and the lights were coming on. The neighborhood around the club was home to a rapidly rotating series of bars and restaurants which often seemed to close no sooner than they had opened.
I had noticed the Portuguese place recently when it popped up in my take out app when I was ordering dinner for the club. The food had been pretty good and when walking past I had noticed the restaurant decor was adorable, so that ticked the main two boxes.
DT wasn’t a fan of all this. His favorite diner had closed a few years back and he still had a chip on his shoulder about that. He said he was confused by the trendy foods on offer in the new places. So I doubted he would have wanted to join us at the restaurant even if he had been well enough to do so.
I came to a stop between a bodega and a Scottish whiskey bar and got out my phone. If there had been anywhere to sit or anything nearby, I would have gone there. There was a big park a fifteen-minute walk away, but I didn’t want to be gone that long.
She picked up the call on the first ring and she appeared on the screen.
“Hey,” she said, not smiling.
I could see a pillow in a blue tie-dyed pillowcase behind her shoulder and her hair was clipped up on the top of her head. I held my phone up higher in front of my face and screwed my ear buds in tighter.
“Hey,” I said, and the small image of me in the corner of the screen frowned. It was a lot darker in mine than hers and I tried to move closer to the beam of a security light outside the bodega without having it shine directly into my eyes. “So,” I said.
And at that moment I wished I hadn’t called her. I suddenly didn’t want to be having this conversation.
Damaris had told Anthony everything I had told her in confidence on the phone this afternoon, and I didn’t even know how to process that.
Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2) Page 7