Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  I frowned. “No?”

  “On VDolls?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t been on VDolls in weeks,” I admitted. I just didn’t have a spare minute in the day to be checking forums with.

  “So they say,” Damaris said, a glint appearing in her eye. “They’re changing the format.”

  I sat bolt upright, grinning as Damaris did the same. “Format change, ding-a-ling, shake that thing,” we both held out our arms and did the format change dance, which was that stirring-the-pot dance move you used to do in middle school, followed by ringing a bell up high with your right hand for ding-a-ling, while shaking your left down low and pointing your finger, like you were telling someone to hurry up and move their ass to do something.

  They we both burst out laughing.

  Anthony shook his head. “Drag nerds.”

  Damaris pssh’d and pretended to smack him upside the head.

  “So what’s the change?”

  “Wait,” she said, looking at the empty table, then at the staff behind the counter. “Do we need to get something? Are they going to get mad?”

  I waved her away. “I practically live here.”

  It was weird Damaris didn't know that, but she had only been to my place a couple of times. She had practically been agoraphobic when she lived at the club.

  “So,” she said. “They’re saying that there will be no Contessa Day this year.”

  I gaped at her. “No Contessa Day? How would that work?”

  “Word is….” she folded her fingers together, raised her eyebrows and regarded us both. “Rolling announcements.”

  “Sorry,” Anthony said, raising one finger. “Is Contessa Day the day the contestants are announced?”

  We both nodded fervently.

  “So, what,” I said. “They do, one per week for three months?”

  She held up her hands. “Could be. There’s a lot of speculation.”

  “When is the normal Contessa Day?” Anthony piped up.

  Damaris looked at me. “Take it away, mod,” she said with a smile.

  I felt nervous as I turned to Anthony to address him directly. Meeting his eyes sent a sparks washing over me. “Contessa Day takes place in the mid-point between the audition deadline and the start of the new season,” I said. “Approximately three months between each stage.”

  “So…” Anthony looked back at me. “Under the normal schedule, it’s about three months until the Contessas will be announced, and six months until the next Vivesse season starts?”

  I looked at his skin, smooth and very fine, poreless and without a wrinkle. I looked at his white teeth and how carefully his eyebrows were styled. I felt the urge to touch his face, feel it with my fingers.

  “Right,” I said quickly, feeling I had gotten distracted and waited awkwardly long to respond.

  “So my idea,” Damaris said.

  “What is it,” I asked, turning to her.

  “If we don't have to wait three months,” she said. “See what I mean?”

  “But how would you guarantee that outcome?” I replied, instantly gauging her meaning.

  She shrugged. “That’s out of our hands. But this is something. Anything. Right?”

  “So when you said idea…” I said, shaking my head.

  She laughed. “Don’t make fun of me,” she reached across the table and tried to swat me.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anthony’s eyes were all big again. “You lost me back at idea.”

  Damaris grinned at him. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s not even an idea according to her,” she jerked her thumb at me.

  “Miss Thing, when you try to register that one at the copyright office,” I looked at her over an imaginary pair of reading glasses. “They are going to read you the riot act.”

  “What you talking about the riot act in a copying office?” Damaris squealed and then burst into laughter. She laughed so hard she had to put her head down on the table on her folded arms.

  Anthony shook his head, looking between us. “I still have no idea,” he said.

  I leaned forward, waving Damaris’ away. Her shoulders were still shaking with laughter. “Ignore her. She was just pointing out that if they change the format, then any Contessa who was announced early on would have an advantage over the later ones in terms of promotion.”

  “So what does that have to do…” Anthony frowned slightly and placed his hand on Damaris’ shoulder. “Damaris?”

  She sat up, panting, and lifted her hair out of her face. “I’m okay,” she gasped.

  “If,” I said, “one of us was made a Contessa and then if they announced it really early, then it wouldn’t be a three-month wait. It could be a lot sooner. And if the club is in as much trouble as Damaris says it is, then every week, maybe every day, could matter.”

  “And…” Anthony looked at me. “Forgive me if I get this wrong and sound stupid, but we care about this because the idea is, more people will come to the club if one of us is going to the pageant?”

  Damaris shrugged. “People will come if there’s someone famous. Point blank.”

  “Exactly, it’s publicity,” I said. “It’s a draw, you know.”

  “But what makes you think that if one of us is selected,” Anthony went on, “Keeping in mind that it hasn’t happened at our house since the early eighties, what makes you think that they would pick us to go early?”

  Damaris and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Hope,” she said, smiling.

  “I hate to burst your bubble,” Anthony looked from her to me and back again. “But there’s no way to make this happen. It’s totally out of our control and, on top of that, it’s extremely unlikely. I’m sorry, but this is not a plan. I hesitate to actually call it an idea at all.”

  He was looking at us so earnestly with his big blue contact lenses, so prim in that little blue denim playsuit.

  Damaris and I took one look at each other and we were gone. I laughed so hard my stomach started to cramp and I actually ran out of air and started to gasp like a fish.

  “What?” Anthony asked over and over again as we practically died. His eyes got bigger and bigger and he started to look so distressed that Damaris had to hug him even though she was still laughing.

  That didn’t placate him, though. It just made him even more affronted. And seeing him all hot under the collar just made us burst into a fresh round of laughter. He eventually got so annoyed that he got clean up from the table and walked away.

  He didn’t leave, though. He just came back a few minutes later with a cold drink in his hand to find us both half-lying in our seats, exhausted and panting.

  “Are you quite finished?” He inquired after a sip of the peachy-pink liquid clinking with ice.

  Damaris sat up a little more, still leaning her head heavily on her hand and looking at him. “So what do you say, kid?” She smiled. “How about having two coaches?” She looked over at me. “Machyl, didn’t you say you’re supposed to be with him from dawn til dusk on DT’s orders?”

  I looked at her in surprise. “You really want to?”

  I didn’t know why, but when she left, even though we had that talk where we promised to see each other soon, one part of me felt like that wasn’t going to happen.

  That part of me had said drag was the only thing keeping us together and without it we would have nothing to talk about and nothing to base our friendship on.

  And Damaris was my closest friend.

  So I had been scared. I had been scared before she left, too, because I could tell she was going to leave.

  I was scared of losing her. I didn’t know what I was going do without her. I still didn’t.

  So there was a big, big part of me sighing in relief right now and feeling cosy and warm and happy, like sliding into a comfy old pair of slippers.

  “Yeah,” she was grinning, and frowning at the same time, for emphasis. “Yeah, it’ll be so fun.”

  “Okay
,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  Anthony would listen to her. Of course it would be a lot easier. Anthony listened to her just like Duane listened to her.

  But if she was there, then I wouldn't be alone with him.

  The moment I had that thought, it was like a light had been turned off inside me.

  Had I really been looking forward to it that much?

  I looked at him, but that just reinforced the cold and dark feeling descending inside me. He hated me. He hated my guts. He always had, ever since he walked into the club.

  Nothing had changed.

  It seemed like everything had changed but really, nothing had. It was the same old situation that it had been since the beginning of time.

  I thought I wanted everything to go back to how it had been before. That was what I thought.

  “So we’ll start tomorrow morning?” Damaris asked. “What’s the schedule he gave you two?”

  I looked at her in confusion. “But… we’re supposed to work on the new show during that time. Right, Anthony?”

  His head shot up when he heard me say his name, and our eyes met with a strange and sudden depth. I was transported, lifted out of myself as reality narrowed to two small points, his black pupils, and his blue irises around them. I was aware of his face but it was just context. I was transfixed in the traction beam of his gaze.

  “Uh—” I stuttered, breaking the eye contact with an immediate sense of loss. “Wasn’t it nine to— to six, Anthony?”

  I hadn't said his name so many times probably ever.

  “I think so,” he said in a barely audible murmur.

  “Okay, perfect,” Damaris clapped her hands. “So just pretend like you’re doing what DT told you and actually we’ll be getting you all fierce. And fab. And fishy. And femme. And on fleek.”

  Anthony giggled and pretended to push her away. She was poking him in the ribs every time she let out an adjective.

  She claimed she just wanted to be friends, but if that wasn’t flirting, I was a white suburban woman who drove a BOT and wore chunky highlights.

  “Just one issue,” I said flatly. “I have a little thing called work?”

  They looked up at me with twin expressions of confusion like they hadn't even considered this.

  “Well what were you going to do about him?” She asked, shaking her curls at me.

  “I wasn’t going to do those sessions,” I said. “DT told me to take vacation for that. I can’t take vacation for…” I huffed.

  “If I get offered to go to Vivesse,” I said softly. “I’ll need all my holidays I’ve been saving for a couple years now, plus unpaid leave, and… it’s not simple.”

  We all descended into silence.

  Damaris took Anthony’s drink without asking and pushed the straw aside to drink from the glass. I tried not to look.

  “Am I right in saying,” I said slowly. “That we’re proceeding on the agreement that making these auditions as good as humanly possible, and making sure we finish filming by next Saturday at the latest, is now our priority?”

  “This morning,” Anthony said, looking at me. “You told me the reason we needed to do this was because getting into Vivesse was the only way Ellegrandé was going make something of itself.”

  I swallowed nervously at having to look at him. “Uh-huh.”

  “And that’s changed now?” He looked at me, then Damaris.

  Damaris nodded. “We have to have a Contessa,” she said. “To save House Ellegrandé from going out of business.”

  Silence descended over us again.

  But then Damaris looked at me, and I looked at her, and she looked at Anthony, and he looked at her, and Anthony looked at me, and I looked at him.

  And we all smiled grimly and nodded.

  And I thought it was going to be okay.

  My phone buzzed. I looked at it, and my face grew flaming hot. “It’s, um,” I said. “It’s DT. He’s vexed I stormed out and haven’t apologized yet.”

  I wasn’t going to tell DT that I had tried to come back and see him earlier. No, I wasn’t going to be doing that.

  I stood up from the bench awkwardly. It was hard to get out of these benches, my feet always got caught somewhere.

  “I’m sleeping over tonight, remember,” Anthony said, and I looked up at him so fast while trying to get out that I damn near ended up on the floor.

  I cleared my throat, steadying myself with one hand on the table and getting free of the bench at last. “Oh yeah,” I tried to sound casual. “Well, you know where everything is, right?”

  He smiled at me without a trace of embarrassment. “I’ll knock if I need anything.”

  Once I had said good-bye and was out on the sidewalk heading back to the subway once more, all I could think was how desperately I needed for Anthony to stay far, far away from my bedroom door tonight.

  Or any night.

  By the time I got onto the subway, it was after ten. I kept yawning and every time I did, I yawned bigger until I felt like my head needed to open up on a hinge to accommodate the width of these yawns.

  And I hadn’t done a lick of work all day. How I was going to keep my eyes open to start working when I got home, I didn’t know.

  Damaris asked me if I could figure it out with my work.

  And I could. My physical presence in the office wasn't the issue. I could just tell them I was working from home, that wasn't a problem.

  The issue was that I wouldn’t be working from home. I would be coaching drag queens from nine am to eleven pm. And if I wasn’t working all day, then I was going to get behind. I was going to get very behind. It was already happening.

  I went in through the customer entrance again and found Ellegrandé at the bar. After what Damaris had told me yesterday, I didn’t think it was going to take much to bring him round to commit to the auditions.

  “Hey, mama,” I said, climbing up on a barstool.

  “Hey, baby,” Ellegrandé glanced at me slightly dismissively, then went back to her game of solitaire I could see she was playing on the counter behind the bar where she prepared the drinks.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “How’s it look like it’s going?” She muttered, not looking at me.

  “Not good,” I admitted. Very not good. I could only see two men in the entire place. Two white guys, standing near the wall of the empty dance floor, holding drinks and occasionally kissing.

  “There’s two in the john,” Ellegrandé muttered, moving the cards carefully.

  I repressed a sigh.

  This wasn't the time to question her about the lax standards she was setting with the new girls. My best guess was that she thought one or both of them would quit if she tried to assert the normal rules.

  “Mama,” I said. “Have you thought any more about the auditions? You know the deadline is midnight next Monday.”

  Without a word, she swept the solitaire game up into a pile and slapped it down on the counter.

  “What did I tell you about those auditions?” She turned to me.

  “Mama,” I said in a reasonable voice, lining my hands up in front of me on the bar top.

  “Machyl,” she said. Her voice loud and decisive on my name, dropped quieter when she continued. “Listen to me,” she said. “I spent more than thirty years putting everything I had into those auditions every year, hoping and praying that if I did, we would get another Contessa, maybe a Queen, maybe we would win the lottery ticket of getting a High Queen again. Calleen felt the same way. So that’s what we did. Year after year after year, we never got another Contessa.”

  She took a deep breath, as if trying to steady herself. Then she picked up a cutting board, took a knife and plucked a lemon from the bowl behind the bar. She started cutting it into a thin, neat slices.

  “When Calleen left, I was mad. Madder than I’ve ever been before. It felt like everything was over. She found a man, they got married, and he had a good job so she didn't have to work. She was going
to go back to school. She told me she was sleeping through the night for the first time in decades. Going to bed when it got dark. Waking up when the sun came up.”

  Ellegrandé frowned at the lemon slices, dumped them in a china bowl and started on another lemon.

  “Then Damaris came. I thought she had to be the one.”

  Ellegrandé shook her head, harder, as if she was trying to keep back tears, then went back to cutting the lemon almost viciously now. “We all saw how that worked out—ow!”

  She had cut herself with the knife. It dropped to the counter and she stuck her finger in her mouth. I got up right away and went around the back of the bar and took out the first aid kit, opened it up and handed her a cotton pad.

  “Hold that over it. Hard, to make the blood stop,” I said, and pushed his arms back and put the cutting board and knife in the sink and turned the hot water on. The lemon I dumped in the trash. And then I washed my hands thoroughly and dried them.

  “I’m old, Machyl,” Ellegrandé said. Her voice had dropped so low, I had to lean close to her to hear her words. “I know things have changed, and I don’t like it. But I don’t have to like it. I have to survive. So I’m going to change that now.”

  I handed her a band-aid and she put it on, wincing slightly. Then she said, “It’s all just so different. Calleen and me are traditional. I’m not saying there weren’t people doing all this man-woman-mixing thing in the sixties. There was. I remember we heard about a bunch of hippies in California that did shows, the Fagettes or some such. They mixed up the facial hair with the eyeshadow and all of that.” She huffed.

  “I know,” I said.

  “A customer, just a kid, told me a few months ago to change the sign out front. The one where it says about female impersonators? Told me it was offensive. And I told him, when I was coming up, and I came to New York City at the age of sixteen, female impersonation was an offense. How’s that for offensive? If you stood on a street corner wearing a hint of mascara, that was enough for you to get arrested and spend a night in the tank.”

  “I know,” I said.

  She looked at her finger where the band-aid was, then put that hand in her lap. “And back then, as a drag artist, you didn’t go with other girls. No-one would admit to that in public. Couples were a butch man, a real tough guy, you know with a white t-shirt with cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve, and then your femme, who wore the mascara and put his hair in curlers at night.”