Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  “Were you the only one who auditioned those years?” Anthony asked. “I don’t even know who the other artists were at that time.”

  “He did,” I said.

  “Who did?”

  “Duane Tyrone did,” I said. I had closed my eyes again, but I opened them to look at Anthony.

  He was staring. “Duane Tyrone did?”

  I looked at him, at his face, his slender limbs in the pajamas. “Duane Tyrone has auditioned for Vivesse every year for the last thirty plus years.”

  “Wait, what?” Anthony looked confused. “You and Damaris auditioned last year.”

  “Well, that’s the only year he missed, then.”

  Anthony shook his head again. “I thought… haven’t you been here for seven years, and Damaris four?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So… wait. I don’t get it.”

  I started counting. “The first year, Calleen and DT auditioned. I was too much of a baby to be allowed. Second and third years, he let me. But I was so green. Those auditions were terrible. But Calleen had just left and I guess he, I don’t know. He didn’t care. Then Damaris came and it was all about Damaris.” I shrugged.

  “I thought you and Damaris had been doing it every year for… for years,” he said. “That’s what… I mean, I thought that’s what Marcus told me.”

  “Marcus don’t know shit,” I rolled my eyes. “Only reason I was allowed to do it last year was because Damaris sweet-talked Duane.”

  Anthony’s mouth and eyes opened wide in shock. “I can’t believe this…”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because—you’re. You’re Giltie Conshens,” Anthony said, gesturing vaguely at me.

  I snorted. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Anyway, that’s why I had to tell him you wanted to audition as a condition of coming back. I knew he wouldn’t consider it if it was just for me. Besides, it would be too easy to shoot down as self-promotion if I asked for myself.”

  “So is that the only reason you wanted me to come back?” Anthony’s eyes were on me and I had to look away from them. They were very dark in the low light of the room.

  Yes.

  Well.

  It was my last resort, I would put it that way.

  At the time I had managed to delude myself that I was actually important to DT, and I thought that I had proved myself enough he was going to actually, finally, give me a chance. That he was going to actually, finally appreciate me.

  So when I asked Anthony to come back, it was my reason at the time.

  It wasn’t my reason any more.

  Anthony pressed his cheeks with his hands, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I can’t believe he was auditioning…”

  I looked at him and my lips pursed because I was trying to suppress a smile. Instead of looking away, he kept looking at me, and he could see I was suppressing a laugh now, and he laughed, put his face in his hands and I laughed, too.

  “Oh my goooood…” He shook his head back and forth while it was still in his hands, then face-planted into the comforter, shaking.

  He was laughing. It was contagious and I started laughing too, so hard that the bed shook. It was a lot worse than the laughter in the café earlier this evening. Every time we looked at each other, we set each other off again. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe or make a sound. Anthony shook his hands and arms, trying to shake off the laugh that had him paralyzed with his face a rictus. It didn’t work. The bed covers slipped down to pool at my waist as I gave in and the laughter made tears stream down my face thicker than the tears had earlier.

  I managed to reach the box of tissues on the nightstand and tossed it to him. He covered his face with them, still laughing. I wiped my face too, but I still couldn’t stop.

  When it did stop, I felt the strongest urge to reach out to him, open my arms and have him climb into them. I ignored it, though. I did.

  I didn’t deserve to even think about that.

  Let alone do it.

  I didn’t deserve to touch him.

  I didn’t deserve to want to touch him.

  “So is that why you wanted Marcus out?” Anthony asked. “Don’t answer that, actually. It’s obvious now, so there’s no point trying to lie.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again.

  When he said the word lie, it burst a bubble I now realized had formed around us, a bubble where Anthony and I were sitting and lying in the same bed at midnight and that was okay, not only okay, we were enjoying it and I was feeling warm and at home and comforted.

  The sheets had fallen to the point where the waistband of my boxer-briefs was visible. I pulled them back up my bare chest and the comforter too.

  “Since Damaris was sick,” Anthony said. “You thought that DT was going to choose Marcus to audition and you couldn’t stand to see that happen.”

  I hugged the comforter to me. “I didn’t just think it. DT told me.”

  Anthony blinked, his mouth hanging open. “What?”

  I nodded.

  “Damaris didn’t tell you that,” I said. “Because she didn’t know.” I took a deep breath and let it out through my nose. “Duane told me he was going to wait as long as possible to see if Damaris would be able to audition. And if she couldn’t, then it would be Bone China.”

  I looked at my nails, with the galaxy pattern that she had painted on so carefully. They had been growing out for too long. I needed to get them done again.

  “She didn’t even say…” I shook my head. “It was just obvious that he was going to take first candidate for himself.”

  “Wait,” Anthony grinned. “He’s the first candidate?”

  I nodded, and his smile looked so genuine that as I looked at him, into his eyes, I felt something unfold a tentative, delicate petal within me. And I felt myself smile back, hesitant, and the moment felt so fragile that a breath could shatter it.

  “What’s the point of having your own drag house,” I said quietly, “if you can’t damn well audition for a pageant every now and then?”

  He smiled bigger and half-laughed, looked up at me through his lashes, then looked down again.

  “It’s just the way it is,” I said. “She’s my drag mother, and her decisions are… her decisions. And the opinions and beliefs she bases those decisions on… I’ve tried everything I can, to change them…”

  “Have you considered running as an independent?” Anthony inquired politely.

  I started laughing, thinking he was joking, but when I looked, he was poker-faced with the big eyes again.

  “I’m just a joke to you, right?” He said quietly. And he actually started getting up and going.

  I reached out, wordless, but his back was turned. No. No, I took it back. I took it all back. I would take it all back if he just wouldn’t leave.

  “Wait— Please—” The word slipped out before I could stop it.

  He did stop then, and turned around slowly as if in disbelief.

  “I really thought you were making a joke,” I felt like I was begging but I didn’t know what I was begging for. “I don’t think you’re a joke.”

  “What do you think?” Anthony was half-sitting on the edge of the bed, as if ready to go at any moment.

  “I think—” I wanted to say something complimentary but at that moment I felt so attracted to him, my face went hot and I couldn’t get the words out.

  “Don’t bother lying,” he muttered, getting up.

  “I haven’t been lying. I was just thinking while I was running that Damaris was right,” the torrent of words came pouring out and I couldn’t stop it. “We should have included you. You would be incredible by now.”

  Anthony was facing me now, standing at the end of the bed. “I know,” he said. “The last few days have been quite eye-opening for me. You wanted to keep me down, feeling small, feeling bad. You knew I was the competition you had to worry about.”

  I stared at the comforter and nodded. I couldn’t deny it. I wasn’t going t
o deny what I had done wrong, not any more.

  It didn’t hurt Anthony to know that I had tried to hurt him, and succeeded, because he already hated me.

  And right now, I could have him curled into a ball and crying on the floor, if I chose to. If I told him a particular thing about a person who did have the power to hurt him.

  But I chose not to. I chose to take that information to the grave with me.

  It was just odd that he hadn’t put two and two together. He had just taken it on face value that Damaris was so determined for him to be great now that she had left. She even wanted him to be her successor. How flattering.

  But did he even question why she hadn’t been quite so helpful when she was still at the club?

  If he hadn’t, I didn’t want him to. I wanted him to never ride that train of thought as far as that station. I would dynamite the tracks if I had to.

  “I’m sorry, Anthony,” I said.

  “What?”

  I looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He looked nervously away from me, playing with his hair, and after a moment he said, quietly, “It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t, but—

  What was I supposed to do?

  What was I supposed to say?

  I didn’t know, and the word seemed so inadequate it was a mockery.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said it at all.

  “So are you just going to laugh off my suggestion?” Anthony said, crossing his arms but still there.

  “Your suggestion?” I echoed, mystified.

  “About being an independent,” he said. “The other day you mentioned institutional applications. But Clarion told me the other option is to run independently.”

  When he said the C-word, I clenched my hands unconsciously. My blood ran cold. I couldn’t think about that with him standing right there in front of me. I felt so bad about it, I wanted to hide under the covers.

  “It’s not—” I stammered for the words, pawing for them like a lost pair of glasses somewhere nearby on the floor. “It’s not an option for us. For New Yorkers.”

  He frowned. “That’s not what he made it sound like.”

  “It’s punishable with expulsion,” I said flatly. “If they find out, and they will obviously find out if you end up on the show.”

  He knit his brow and actually scratched his chin, a picture of puzzlement. He looked so incredibly cute, I almost couldn't stop myself smiling.

  “That’s weird…” he trailed off, as if speaking to himself. “Okay,” he said. “Never mind, then.”

  I massaged my forehead. “I gotta be honest, Anthony, I can’t talk about these auditions any more today.”

  He sighed. “Okay,” he said. He uncrossed his arms. “I should…” he pointed vaguely toward the door. But then he said, “Why did you leave today?”

  “Me?” I wasn’t expecting such a direct question.

  “Yeah. You.”

  I rubbed my hand over my mouth. “I got frustrated,” I said. “And I had words with Duane Tyrone.”

  He frowned. “I thought you had a good relationship,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” I said, rubbing my hand over my mouth again. “What, um. What happened after I left?”

  Apart from, um. Apart from that.

  “Well…” he said vaguely.

  Oh. Wait. Did…

  He didn’t see me, did he?

  Or did—did C-word?

  No. No, it wasn’t possible.

  Or was it?

  Ice water was running through my veins now instead of over my skin. Had they seen me watching them?

  “We did the tour,” he said, meeting my eyes with no suggestion of any malice or mocking behind them.

  It must be okay. I was just being paranoid. They hadn’t seen me. I would have heard about it by now if either of them had.

  Calm. I needed to be calm.

  The tour… I remembered. Ellegrandé had promised to take them on the tour after the photo shoot, followed by cocktails.

  “You know, it didn’t go that well,” Anthony said tactfully.

  “It didn’t go well,” I said.

  “We were in the studio the whole week,” Anthony said, sitting back down on the bed and curling up one leg. “Even our studio, it’s not as big as the other one we were in the first night, but it’s still pretty nice. You know? It looks modern, everything is really bright and clean…” he trailed off.

  I tried not to say anything.

  “I think they were expecting more of the same,” he said finally.

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that none of them had been to Ellegrandé before,” I muttered. “It just—every drag artist in New York should be required to go to House Ellegrandé, purely as education if nothing else…”

  “Well, I don’t know about educational,” Anthony said. “Maybe it’s a good thing you weren’t there. You might have yelled at them both and I don’t think that would have been helpful.”

  I frowned. “I wouldn't yell,” I protested. “I really don’t—”

  He looked at me reproachfully.

  I was about to say that I didn’t yell that much. But maybe the amount I did was already too much.

  “Just tell me what happened,” I said. “Don’t sugar-coat it.”

  “They were not impressed.” Anthony picked at the top button of his pajama top. “I… you know, I’d never gone to House of Cosmosis before Tuesday?”

  “Really?” I said in complete surprise.

  He looked down at his satin lilac knee, plucked the material. “No-one ever invited me.”

  I looked down, embarrassed.

  Damaris had never been to Cosmosis either, but that was because she didn’t go out. And in all the time I had known her, today was the first time I had seen her leave the house after dark.

  “Would you have come?” I asked.

  He looked at me sharply. “If you didn’t want me to go, then it probably wouldn't be very fun anyway.” He smoothed the fabric of his pajama leg, as if he was trying to make it lie perfectly flat. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  I nodded slowly. Yes. Cosmosis was amazing. That was undeniable.

  “So Ellegrandé was giving the tour and I kept thinking, we were all there just a few days ago drinking that champagne cocktail with the gold leaf and now…” He pursed his lips. “Kind of an anti-climax.”

  If I was honest, I had been dreading the tour part of the day. For the dressing room and the other backstage areas to be kind of plain and shabby was one thing. But people held the front of house to higher standards.

  “Did they actually… come out and say anything?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not in front of Ellegrandé. They were polite.” He huffed, harder this time than his previous sigh. “I mean, I’ve been to Larry’s Last Drag and—”

  “You have?” I asked sharply. “You said you hadn’t gone.”

  “When?”

  “On Friday morning,” I said. “When we were talking about it.”

  “I didn’t say I hadn’t gone,” he said. “I didn’t say that at all. I went with Sue Ellen the summer before she went to college. She wanted to see what the, you know, hip, Booklyn drag bar would be like.”

  “And?”

  “It’s nice!” He said. “It’s really nice. I liked it a lot. It’s somewhere you could just chill and hang out all night or even in the afternoon. You know they have that garden outside? They had these cosy couches and armchairs. And I loved the theme. The whole speakeasy thing was done so tastefully…”

  I stared. He noticed that stuff?

  “I just don’t understand why Ellegrandé is so different,” he held out his palms in supplication to the ceiling. “Why is it just painted black everywhere, with no decoration whatsoever? And why does it always smell of beer? Why are the toilets always so gross? And why isn’t there anywhere to sit?” He shook his head in frustration. “I could see exactly what they were thinking, you
know, I could see what was going through their minds.” He chewed on his full lip. “I didn’t want them to just judge it like that…”

  He was actually defending Ellegrandé. I could see that he was. That was something I had doubted for a long time. It seemed to me that he didn’t have any loyalty to Ellegrandé, just to Damaris.

  But I could see he was getting protective. Wanting to defend his house to outsiders. And that made my heart swell, I couldn’t deny that it did.

  “It’s really late,” he said, stifling a yawn and gesturing at the door. “I should go to bed. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

  I felt weird that he had just asked me that, but also delighted. He wanted to talk to me tomorrow. “Sure,” I said.

  He had already started to walk away, but then he stopped.

  “I met Clarion at Larry’s,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah, I did,” he said, turning back around to face me. The light from my nightstand was soft on his face. “I was still eighteen. He wasn’t in drag, he was working behind the bar. And he talked to me for like twenty minutes. And he gave Sue Ellen an alcoholic drink. Well, he gave it to me but I gave it to her. Then he told me he had a boyfriend called Julian.”

  “Julian?” I repeated. I couldn’t help wondering why he was telling me this. “Julian and Clarion?”

  He smiled wanly. “Cheesy, huh?” He shrugged. “I know what you're going to say,” he said. “I’m fraternizing again. But I don’t actually care any more, Machyl.”

  Just a few days ago I would have taken this opportunity to give him a lecture about fraternizing and how this was a great way for him to get caught again.

  I had always made it a point that anyone else’s business that could possibly affect me or anything I was trying to do, automatically became my business.

  And in the past, I would have justified it by saying to myself that if Anthony and Clarion started fucking, there was no way Anthony was going to survive a second expulsion from New York drag.

  I would have justified it by saying to myself that we had a big week ahead of us. If anything negative happened between them, a fight, anything like that, they would probably stop talking to each other and refuse to work together. The last thing we needed at such an important time was a lot more drama.