Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  His words shot into me and then started bouncing around, buzzing like an angry hornets’ nest. I clenched my fists.

  “We—” I tried to find something to say, but the buzzing was everywhere, and the hornets were starting to sting. “We have to work together.”

  “Have to?” He hurled the words at me. “Why have to? No. No have to.” He was so angry, his language was breaking down.

  We took him back after he fraternized. He was being given a chance to audition for Vivesse. He got me to agree to give him special coaching.

  All of this for a baby drag who couldn’t lip-synch an instrumental track. The amount of special treatment he was getting was mind-boggling.

  Even more incredible?

  His earth-shattering sense of entitlement.

  Because he wasn’t even a baby drag. Not really. We called him a baby drag because he acted like a baby drag and he had the abilities of a baby drag, but he wasn’t.

  He had been doing drag for, what, eighteen months now?

  In that amount of time, he should have progressed to a certain level, passed certain milestones, become a competent performer with a repertoire of solo and group numbers and a unique and well-defined character.

  But he hadn’t. He had just remained in this state of arrested development where all he knew how to do was get himself dressed and made up, and walk in heels, and that was it.

  So calling him a baby drag was like cutting him slack and saying that he had an excuse for not being able to do anything, when the real facts were that he had just point blank refused to learn. He had never made any effort and he had never listened to anything I told him to do and he had acted like a two-year-old whenever I gave him feedback.

  Was I going to say all of that to him right now? No. Obviously not. Not after what happened on Saturday. What I did had made me look like a bully.

  “If we don’t work together,” I said calmly, “then how is this going to, you know… work?”

  His chest was heaving and he was staring at me accusingly. “Don’t be so fucking condescending. You were the one pretending to be nice.”

  A flare of some strong emotion in me, pushing hard against my insides like it wanted to break out.

  What I had done made me feel like a bully. And now I was scared I was a bully. And I was going to have to be super-sweet to precious little Anthony to make sure that I wasn’t.

  The real problem? I wanted to be sweet.

  I wanted it to be like Friday morning. I wanted it to be like Friday night when we had had so much fun at the rehearsal.

  I couldn’t look at him.

  “I knew you were lying,” he said. “So why didn’t I figure out you were lying about that, too?” He took a handful of braids in each hand and tugged on them.

  The bitterness in his voice curdled something in me, cooking raw fish by pouring lemon juice on it. I shook my head and mumbled.

  “You know why I did it?” Anthony asked. It sounded like a rhetorical question and I figured I wasn’t going to like the answer. “Damaris told me to give you a second chance. That’s why.”

  My head shot up to look at him. “She did?”

  “Yes,” he said, folding his arms, his voice taking on an icy tone.

  He had given me a second chance?

  So him giving me a second chance was, what? Allowing me to pick him up off the ground when he was broken up over Marcus Fong and/or Damaris Rae? Him kindly allowing me to take him to dinner and letting him crash at mine when he was sobbing so hard he couldn’t speak?

  Well, I sure was grateful for the opportunity.

  But. Clearly. I was just a bully.

  So what did I know?

  He shook his head. “I don’t know why, but I thought you were actually being different. On Friday.” He glanced at me.

  I was so ashamed of myself all of a sudden, I couldn’t say a word. I just stared at the ground.

  “And now my big reward for all of that is, what? Having you as my roommate!” He raised his eyes to the heavens dramatically and held out his open palms. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  After Damaris, Marcus and Anthony had walked out on Monday, Duane had gone out to see the drag mothers. I had tried to do some work while I waited for him to get back, but the whole time, I kept trying to crush the panic that kept popping up, eating at the edges of my consciousness like an acid.

  It had put me on edge and it had made me mad. Really mad, and I didn’t know why. I had projected it onto Duane Tyrone. And onto Angel. But they didn’t cause it. It had come from somewhere else, and I didn’t understand where.

  I thought I understood now. The panic was because my plan to get rid of Anthony had worked. And I should have been happy that it worked, but I hadn’t felt happy.

  The panic had been something in me trying to say that my plan been a bad idea, a very bad idea indeed.

  When I opened my mouth to speak, I knew how easy it was to lie. So, so easy. “We need you.”

  Not we.

  That wasn’t what I meant.

  “And,” I said slowly. “It seems like now, you need us.”

  My words seemed to have an impact. The fight went out of him. He drooped like a dropped marionette and slumped onto the couch arm rest.

  If he was telling the truth about his financial situation, and I assumed he wouldn’t voluntarily put himself through that kind of humiliation, then Anthony was going nowhere. I didn’t need to convince him to stay. Despite what he had claimed to DT on Saturday morning, he had no other options.

  So it was okay. It was all fine. There was no need to panic. He was staying anyway, no matter what I said or did.

  But in the moments when I was gripped with panic on Monday night, thinking he was gone, the question kept occurring to me of when I was going to see him again. How I was going to see him again. I was suddenly looking at a future with no Anthony in it. And I started panicking.

  So now that I knew what it was to lose him, the question was, what would I say to get him to stay if I had to? Would I say anything?

  I sighed. “I think we have to audition. I think sending an artist to Vivesse is the only way this house is going to ever make something of itself again.”

  He pursed his lips, as if he wanted to lick them, but couldn’t because he didn’t want to disturb his carefully applied nude lipstick.

  “Noble of you,” he deadpanned. “How do you manage to be so… unselfish?”

  I stared back at him for a second.

  Oh no… she didn’t…

  She didn’t.

  Damaris wouldn’t tell anyone about Selfish Talk… would she? She wouldn’t tell Anthony about it. Would she?

  I couldn’t believe that she would. I couldn’t be in a world where she would betray me that way.

  I felt foolish all of a sudden, with the way I had been feeling all nervous and tight-chested and getting downright—getting emotional about this. I was getting all emotional over Anthony Alcantara.

  On the scale of things that made me want to puke my guts out, that ranked above a dressing room blow job between drag sisters. It ranked so far above it, it was up in the clouds and the sisters were sweating in the Earth’s core.

  And while I had been on this bleeding heart trip, Anthony had a full magazine and was squinting through the cross-hairs at me, lining up his sight.

  I told myself that he had come back to prove a point or get even with me. I had told myself that just minutes ago, only to lose sight of it thanks to some kind of chest pain which I should probably seek medical attention for. I should probably be making an appointment with a cardiologist.

  All because of some stupid dreams and the fact that I was deeply, deeply sexually frustrated because of a bad relationship that had gone on too long.

  I cleared my throat. “Of course I want to place at Vivesse,” I said, bland and careful. “I just told you the other day it’s been my dream since I was a little boy. And,” I said carefully. “I know how much good it would do my house if
I did place.”

  He stood up off the couch arm rest. “You know, I’m getting a little tired of rules,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “You don’t say.”

  He ignored my sarcasm. “When I was in high school, I was too scared to ever break a rule that anyone could see. But I broke all the rules in secret. I had figured how stupid and arbitrary it all was. But I toed the line.” He did lick his lips now, and combined with a flick of his golden eyes to mine it was such a sensual gesture I almost fell off my seat. “Now…?” He made a tsk sound with his tongue. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be doing that.”

  I couldn't move, I was pinned to the spot by his eyes.

  He narrowed them. “Cut the shit, Machyl, you’re doing exactly the same thing.”

  “I want—” I croaked. “I want what’s best for House Ellegrandé.”

  He started to roll his eyes.

  I couldn’t lie to him any more. I didn’t want to, I didn’t care any more. And apparently he already knew, because Damaris had sold me out. “And what’s best for me,” I finished quickly. “I want the best of both worlds.”

  He looked down at me skeptically. “Hon,” he said, his eyebrows delicate in their disdain. “As a bisexual, let me tell you, best of both worlds looks real different in the cold light of reality. And stop trying to front and pretend you’re a good little drag daughter. You just keep doing whatever the fuck you want to, and that’s insubordination, manipulation, plotting, etcetera.” He cocked his head to one side. “So stop being such a big fat hypocrite, because it’s not cute, and besides, you fail pretty hard at hiding it.”

  “Are you… threatening me?” I was completely bewildered.

  “Why would I ever do a thing like that?” He asked innocently. “And me one step from being on the streets. I’m here on your mercy, master.”

  “I predict,” I said coldly, “That your conception of the streets is not getting the suite at the Four Seasons.”

  He didn’t laugh. “I’m not threatening you. But Damaris did tell me everything. So like it or not, it’s a level playing field now. You want to hold it against me that I fraternized, but the antics you have been up to would put you in front of the drag mothers if DT knew.”

  When he met my eyes, a thrill ran through me so strong that I felt like it would shoot me up out of my seat and make my head spin around.

  It wasn’t fear. I wasn’t afraid of his threat which he had claimed was not a threat. There was another possible reason for Anthony to come back.

  It was possible he wanted it. That he really wanted it now. That getting kicked out of New York drag, which was permanent and for life, had been the kick up the pants he needed to realize what he was losing.

  It was possible he had come back because of ambition.

  “We’re equals,” he said, looking at me and sending a chill down my spine. “And if we’re going to do this, we’ll do it as equals.”

  Anthony ambitious, fierce, giving face, confident, like the moment he had walked into the dressing room on Tuesday, like he owned the city, if that was Anthony ambitious, I was on board.

  I was so on board, my apartment might as well be a cockpit. No pun intended.

  “Do what?” I said, and I felt my mouth turning up into a little bit of an old smile.

  If he was here to be ambitious, we were in the same boat. Damaris and I had found a way to be ambitious, to be Selfish. Maybe Anthony and I could—I stopped that thought right there. I was going into fantasyland again.

  He grinned. “Make sure as hell we both submit an audition tape to Vivesse. Duh.”

  Okay.

  I was going to talk to Damaris and find out what she had told him to do.

  But I was impressed.

  This time, I actually was. No word of a lie.

  And I grinned back, and I laughed. I laughed and laughed and laughed, slapped my knee and laughed.

  He started laughing too, and doubled over the arm rest of the couch, his braids hanging down upside down, shaking.

  I had no idea what the fuck was going on in my life.

  Everything was fucked.

  And right at this moment, I was loving it.

  Anthony and I arrived together for the photoshoot at eleven. And we were actually running a little late. We had been talking about what Anthony was going to do for his audition.

  I had agreed to reschedule his first coaching session for later today, thought we hadn’t agreed on a time yet.

  So we would be alone again.

  I couldn’t wait.

  Ellegrandé was waiting for us.

  We were last through the door and came in to find the other two gathered in front of her, and wearing street gear, loaded down with big duffles and gym bags and wig boxes, they looked very out of place next to her polished extravagance.

  Ellegrandé was a big girl, but she carried herself with gravitas, like she was the prow of a ship cleaving the waves of the deep. There was a reason Duane Tyrone had outlasted almost every other drag artist of his generation. He was good.

  Ellegrandé had never tried to modernize. She was always the picture of eighties wow glamor, with sideswept updos overflowing with cascading curls and jeweled brooches and shoulder pads and brocade wrap dresses and eyeshadow in shades of flamingo, mandarin and turquoise. And it was something to behold, like a vintage music video come to life.

  Her presence at the bar night after night was the soul of House Ellegrandé, her sheer force of personality taking the club down the years into the history books and into the stuff of New York legend.

  And I had to give credit where credit was due. I had to give her credit for keeping this place going when most of her contemporaries had long since gone out of business.

  “Let me take this opportunity,” she purred in her trademark Ellegrandé tones, “to welcome you ladies to the House of Ellegrandé, New York’s original drag cabaret.”

  Clarion Call curtsied and Lucky Penny, seeing her, followed suit.

  I chewed my lip. She had never called it that before. It was House of Ellegrandé, Home to the Fishiest Queens in New York. She had never called it New York’s Original Drag Cabaret. It wasn’t New York’s original drag cabaret.

  “I’ll let you fine and fabulous queens get into your war paint,” Ellegrandé smiled at them like she was officiating the ribbon-cutting ceremony of a public monument. “Our photographer Salazar will be setting up in the green room. We’ll begin the photo shoot as soon as you’re ready and end the day with a quick tour of my kingdom and a cocktail, on the house.”

  Everyone clapped politely and murmured Thank you.

  When the door had closed behind her, I showed Clarion Call to her work station, which used to belong to Damaris, and Lucky Penny to hers, where Marcus Fong used to sit.

  “Do you have a steamer?” Clarion Call asked as she unzipped her gym bag and carefully took out a folded garment bag.

  I showed her where it was. At that point, the buzzer went and I looked around in surprise.

  Anthony, who was already at his station carefully pulling a headband over his braids, looked up as well. I didn’t know why I had looked at him at that moment, since I wasn’t exactly going to get any answers about who was at the door by looking at him, but I did, and he met my eyes in the mirror.

  A stab in my chest like an electric shock, and then a rush of something like fierce joy that made my heart beat faster and my head go light. My cheeks went warm and I looked away, getting up to open the door since the button was still broken.

  What was happening to me?

  “That should be Harley,” Lucky Penny sang out.

  Harrie Debby was here?

  I went down the corridor toward the artists’ entrance and opened the door to see that it was, indeed, Harrie Debby, in a dark gray suit and wire-rim glasses.

  “Miss Debby,” I curtsied, as was proper to a senior queen like she, and opened the door wider to let her in. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

 
“Hi,” she said warmly, shaking my hand. “Machyl, did I remember that right? Giltie Conshens?”

  I nodded, unable to suppress the nervousness that washed over me in her presence, just as it had in the club on Tuesday night. She was exactly who I wanted to be when I grew up.

  I actually felt more star-struck now that I knew more details about her day job and how far she had advanced in her career as a lawyer. That was how I wanted to do this, too.

  “Harley, please,” she said, winking at me. “Those days are behind me now. May the crown pass to those younger and prettier.”

  I actually felt myself going hot, and it wasn’t the flames-of-hell heat from earlier. Did he mean me?

  I gestured down the hallway, trying to get back my composure as I closed the door. “Please go ahead. The dressing room is just there.”

  “Thanks,” Harley replied, turning and walking briskly.

  I followed him, realizing that I should probably hold the door open for him, but he was quick, and he was in before I could catch up.

  Nevertheless, I was only a few paces behind and I was there to see what happened when he entered.

  “Pumpkin!” Lucky Penny cried, launched herself out of her seat at her workstation and before anyone could protest, had latched herself onto Harrie Debby and planted a big smacker right on her lips.

  Oh my Lord.

  I didn’t care if Harrie Debby wasn’t in drag right now, if DT had been there he would have had a heart attack.

  It didn’t matter if Harley Dullbent didn’t do drag any more—here, he would always be Harrie Debby, just as he was when he walked into House of Cosmosis.

  The horror must have shown on my face because when they broke apart and Harley went with Lucky to her station, I realized that Anthony was looking at me with a big smirk on his face.

  His expression was so mischievous, and so direct, and it was so obvious that he was gloating at me because of this display of PDA right there in the dressing room. But he also seemed playful instead of malicious, like he might laugh at any minute and wanted me to laugh, too.

  My face started burning so hot that I just looked away and sat down at my workstation. I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even look at him, let alone make any kind of response. I felt out of control, and that made me feel panicky. Again the question formed in my mind in big inflatable letters: What was happening to me?