I walked out of the office with my head held high. The bicycle courier was on his way back.
And then I had a meeting with the drag mothers.
My first ever, but it wasn’t going to be my last. Oh, no. Not now that I was a Contessa.
In fact, I thought I was going to enjoy this one.
The meeting was at House of Cosmosis, in the administrative block, in the same building as the club.
This business was so large, it had three floors of offices with rows of desks and meeting rooms and water coolers and all of that. It was reached by a separate entrance, of course, on the street perpendicular to the club entrance.
I waited outside, as DT had instructed, for him to arrive.
When he did, he wasn’t alone. Anthony and Clarion were with him.
A shock ran through me when I caught sight of Anthony, but I didn’t let it phase me. I smirked broadly at both of them, boldly making eye contact.
There, see.
I wasn’t seizing up with mortification and shame.
They looked subdued, and didn’t smile or say much, I had no idea why.
DT pressed the bell and the lock released, the door popping open. I followed him in and we all got into the elevator.
“I have some good news,” I said to the silent three of them, who were all standing there glumly as if heading to a funeral. “Some very good news. I heard from a certain person today, by the name of Jelly Sinclair.”
All three of them turned to look at me and I could see the shock in their faces.
Amazing.
I had been waiting for this moment all my life.
Even if I didn’t know it would be drag, didn’t know the specifics, I had been waiting for this.
This moment of triumph.
“Yes,” I whispered and grinned. “I’m going to be a Contessa. And I didn’t even have to audition.”
The elevator doors opened and I got out first. I didn’t even need to look at their faces.
“It’s Meeting Room C3, aka The Boudoir,” DT said heavily.
Um…hello?
After all these years of waiting, that was his reaction?
And then I got it. I got it, right then, as I looked into his face that still wore that hangdog expression, his eyes drooping like a bloodhound.
He didn’t want me to be a Contessa. He hadn’t wanted me to audition, and he hadn’t wanted me to get in. He didn’t want me to be the one who would bring House Ellegrandé back to the glory days.
He wanted that to be Damaris, and if he couldn’t have her, he didn’t want anyone.
I decided to ignore him. Nothing was going to tarnish my victory day.
Instead, to distract myself, I looked around. I got the impression these offices were a little more fun than the one I worked in.
First of all, it didn’t look like an office. It looked like the suite in a world-class boutique hotel, classy but comfortable, with a major dash of personality, from the plush purple carpet underfoot to the richly-colored sculptures dotted around the room.
As I looked at them, I realized they reflected the couches in the VIP area. There was a lipstick, a bon-bon, a handheld mirror, and so on. The style was cute, as if the artist had fun making them.
There were desks, but they didn’t look cold and impersonal and there weren’t any dull, regimented rows. I suspected they supplied employees with laptops instead of desktops.
Whoever was in charge here, I liked their style.
And in a few months’ time, I might just be getting to know these offices a whole hell of a lot better.
I smiled again, feeling a rush of churning anxiety combined with fierce exhilaration.
Oh, things were great.
“That’s it,” DT pointed at a chalkboard in an ornate old gilt frame, with The Boudoir written in chalk-look boilerplate.
He set off across the office. It wasn't a straight shot, either. He had to take a wandering path between seating areas and groups of desks, and Clarion started following him.
Anthony hung back, glancing at me.
His eyes sent a silver bolt straight into my soul. I ignored it completely.
“Do you think that was a good idea?” He whispered.
I rolled my eyes. Of course he couldn’t even be happy for me. Not to mention the arrogance of giving advice to a Contessa on what she should be doing or not doing.
Who was he?
Who was he, anyway?
I took off, following the other two, and he presumably followed. I didn’t actually care.
I started to hear a murmur of voices as I got closer. DT waited until we had all caught up, then knocked on the door and a voice from within called, “Come in.”
I wasn’t nervous until we went inside and I realized that I was not the first item on their agenda.
There they were, the drag mothers.
I had always pictured the drag mothers meeting in full drag. I couldn’t imagine it any other way than all of them resplendent and glamorous, shrouded in dramatic shadow, their long nails tapping rhythmically on the long, black table they were seated around on throne-like chairs.
Well, the reality was in front of me now.
They weren’t in drag at all. They were a bunch of middle-aged men sitting around a table in a well-lit room.
And it was a black table alright, quite a classy, glossy designer conference table at that, but it was covered in mostly empty pizza boxes and a couple of open wine bottles.
And reality delivered another punch, reminding me that they had been sitting there talking about me before I arrived, made me feel sick in the pit of my stomach. I swallowed nervously.
DT directed Anthony and Clarion to sit down, and took a seat next to Anthony. I went to sit as well, but a voice stopped me.
“Please stand, Giltie Conshens.”
I looked up. It was Synphonia who had spoken. She was an Italian-American New Yorker with a long, pointy, slightly cadaverous face and a widow’s peak that swept into black hair styled in a pompadour and a gold chain around her open-necked collared shirt.
“Just stand right there,” she said, pointing to a spot behind me and to my left.
Feeling self-conscious, I did as she said, shuffling to a different position until she seemed satisfied and nodded.
Now they were all looking. Synphonia, mother of House of Cosmosis. The Enchantress, of House of Revêtte, Polynesian. Larry, the Big Fat Hairy Drag Queen, mother of Larry’s Last Drag, who was actually a small, mousy white man who looked like the stereotype of a computer nerd. Princess Suzypants of Cupcake House was notable by her absence. Seated next to Ellegrandé was Lady Steezy.
The House of Steezy closed over fifteen years ago. I only saw her a few times a year, when she held her Vogue-Offs or attended the odd ball.
I had always felt an affinity with Lady Steezy. She was black, also from the islands—Barbados—and had grown up there as a child. Steezy was older than Ellegrandé. I thought she must be pushing seventy. Her weatherbeaten face pulled down under her eyes, full bags above deep creases.
I hoped she would smile at me, or give me some other sign of support. But she didn’t.
“Giltie Conshens,” Synphonia sat at the head of the table. “We saw the events of Friday night and we consulted your drag mother, Ellegrandé, who confirmed that you went against her wishes in the matter of rehearsal location. Is this true?”
“Yes,” I said, “but—”
Synphonia interrupted. “This is not a democratic process and there is no right to a fair trial. In the drag houses of New York, Mother Knows Best, and no child was ever granted the right to appeal.”
The mothers all made approving sounds and chimed in to support her.
“Your mother and your drag sisters are here,” Synphonia continued. “To hear our judgment on your fate.”
She cleared her throat.
And then everyone in the room was distracted by a noise from outside, like running feet, and the door opened and Luka Pennworth burs
t into the room, with Harley Dullbent hot on his heels.
“Don’t expel him!” Luka burst out, coming to a stop suddenly so that Harvey almost crashed into him. “Have they done it yet?” He looked around wildly at Duane Tyrone, Anthony and Clarion. “Have they??”
Anthony shook his head, but didn’t look at me.
I didn’t look at him either.
I was never going to look at him again.
“You can’t,” Luka practically yelled. “It was my fault. I know he should have told us the floor wasn’t sprung, but I know he was just doing it to try to save the House of Ellegrandé from having to shut down! I was the one taking a risk. I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve done those maneuvers on hard surfaces before without protection and I was just unlucky this time.”
I remembered how he had made his entrance to House Ellegrandé. By doing an aerial into the dressing room.
“I was—I was showing off,” he declared.
Harley wrapped an arm around his shoulders solicitously.
“No, Harl,” Luka shrugged him off and faced, not the drag mothers, but me.
“He’s my husband,” he said, anguish in his blue eyes. “He was just trying to defend me. But I didn’t ask him to do that and I was so mad at him—wasn’t I, Harley?”
Harley looked highly embarrassed. “Yes, Luka,” he said quietly.
Luka came toward me and I tried not to flinch. But all he did was touch my arm. “Please let us make it up to you. Please?”
He looked like he was about to cry.
I felt like I wanted to throw up.
I had only been nice to him, going and visiting him after he got out of the hospital, because I had been so scared that I was going to get sued, or Persimmon was, and I would be blamed. And because I felt so guilty about what I had done. So sickeningly guilty.
“Thank you,” I said, not sure if I was allowed to speak while I was standing here, on trial.
“What can we do?” Luka whispered, coming closer.
I glanced at Harley, pressing my lips together. I raised my voice. “Are you pressing charges against Persimmon Dance Studio?”
Harley shook his head.
“No!” Luka tightened his grip on my arm. “I kept telling Harl to stop because it would only make me look like a freaking idiot if someone cross-examined me in court making me explain why I was doing those moves in a dance studio even if the floor was what it was supposed to be. Anyway,” Luka said. “No-one is trying to sue anyone. Right, Harley?”
“That’s right, honey,” Harley replied. “With one condition,” he said, raising his index finger in the air.
Luka clearly wasn’t expecting this because his eyes flashed and he turned to glare at his husband.
“I want an apology,” Harley said, looking at me.
I didn’t sigh. I felt so much shame, right at that moment, that he had to ask. That I hasn’t just done the right thing and apologized on my own.
“I’m sorry, Luka,” I said. “That I didn’t tell you the floor was no good.”
Harley raised his eyebrows. “I think you’re forgetting some others,” he commented.
I knew he was right, but I could barely force myself to turn and face them, because it meant facing him.
“I’m sorry, Clarion,” I said, making eye contact with him. “Anthony,” I croaked, my voice going strange. “I’m sorry.”
Clarion looked down and muttered something. Anthony looked back at me coldly. He was wearing blue contact lenses and I had no idea what was going on behind them.
“And to me,” Harley said. “For using my name to promote your sordid little lies to the director of the dance studio.”
I stared. How did he know that?
He seemed to know everything.
But then the other shoe dropped. 80s had sold me out. That was what happened.
When the shit hit the fan and Persimmon started getting calls from lawyers, 80s must have found out that the smelly studio thing was a set up. And since he and Clarion turned out to be neighbors with benefits, or whatever, I could see how the truth got out.
So Harley must not have gotten a call from his lawyer last night. He got a call from my erstwhile shower BJ boy, Akaris. And that was why he suddenly changed from friendly in the dressing room to the god of hell fire a short period of time after.
“So the conscience of Miss Giltie Conshens really is as murky as her name suggests,” Synphonia said archly, almost mockingly. “Harrie Debby, please have a seat, my dear. Your blushing bride can do likewise. Welcome, Lucky Penny.”
Harrie Debby sat down, but Lucky remained standing. “What’s going to happen to him?” She asked, still blatantly ignoring all the rules of drag, even when faced with its doyennes supreme.
“That’s our judgement to make,” Synphonia said. “The dance floor issue is unfortunate, but secondary to our main interest. Giltie Conshens disobeyed her mother, and she must suffer the consequences.”
Synphonia settled back in her chair, like she was just getting started. I felt a thrill of foreboding run through me.
“We have heard of her plots, her manipulations,” Synphonia’s eyes stared into mine. “She repeatedly flouted and undermined her drag mother’s rules, expectations, wishes and intentions. She successfully ousted two of her former drag sisters and was almost successful in ousting a third. All to advance her agenda of competing in a pageant at the expense of her house.”
I turned to DT, looking to his face for answers. He told me at the hospital, what he wanted me to do. He had spelled out his terms very clearly. And I had done what he wanted. I had gone along and not argued.
And then he had pretended everything was fine to my face when behind my back he was selling me out to the drag mothers?
Coward, I wanted to say to DT.
You fucking coward.
“I wasn’t the reason Damaris left!” I cried, unable to take this outrage. “I’ll admit to everything else. Fine, I tried to make my own house a better place. I saw problems and I tried to fix them. We had one artist, Bone China, who was a tourist from London. That was a problem. We don’t need flighty, floozy types who are going to up and leave us in a jam. She was never going to be there for us in the long haul, so she had to go.”
After I made this speech, I looked at Lucky Penny for reassurance—she understood my point, surely—only to see that her cheeks had turned bright red and then she turned away from me, so she wasn’t looking at me any more.
And then I remembered that she was leaving in nine months because of the baby they were expecting.
And my face started to burn.
“You admit that you tried to oust your drag sister La Tata?” Synphonia asked coldly. She might not be in drag, but she was using her drag voice. It was high, cold and nasal.
I could feel Anthony’s eyes on me.
“You lied to your drag sister Bone China and incited a relationship between your sisters, knowing this was against your house rules in order to force Ellegrandé’s hand and lead to expulsion. Do you deny it?”
I met Anthony’s eyes and felt as if he had just fired into a target in the center of my chest.
Duane Tyrone didn’t know I had lied to Marcus about that. DT had suspicions but no proof. And Damaris wouldn’t have told him.
Anthony had openly threatened me last Sunday, the Sunday he moved in. He knew what Damaris knew, and he knew the consequences for me if the drag mothers found out.
He had done this?
Anthony had betrayed me to DT?
I stared at Anthony and I remembered the look in his eyes this morning, when I was making him come when I was deep inside him, and I remembered the hot chocolate kiss he had placed on my lips when he was in my arms the night before.
He told me he wanted to break the rules. And he had.
He was sitting there acting like he was such a good little girl, when really I knew he was a rebel.
I could scream at them that Anthony had left, or DT had expelled him. Either way
, he should be banned from New York drag forever, but he had been let back in.
Were they even aware of that? Or had Duane not told them once he realized it was a mistake to let Anthony go? After all, he told me himself that he tried to get Bone China back first.
I could tell them Anthony had hatched a plan to submit auditions to Vivesse behind DT’s back and against his instructions.
I could point at Anthony right now and shout, scream at the drag mothers that he had disobeyed Ellegrandé by fraternizing. I could point out that Damaris had done it too and got off scot free.
So why was I the one on trial in front of the mothers?
But if I tried to explain about that, I would also have to explain why I had done it. Maybe not even out loud to them, but inside, to myself.
I would have to confront the reality that I had done it all out of jealousy. Nasty, spiteful, poisoning jealousy that curdled my insides and my heart.
I had been obsessed with fraternization because some part of me knew I wanted to commit it. Repulsed by kai kai because I would never do it, because Anthony hated me, and it was easier to attack than defend.
I would have to stand there in front of the drag mothers and admit to myself that almost everything I had done was because of Anthony. Admit that once I opened the smallest chink of myself to him, he had gotten in and he had conquered me.
I would have to admit to myself that I had fallen in love with Anthony Alcantara.
Right as I thought these words, I met his eyes and the shock of it almost stopped my heart. I dropped my gaze, and I knew I wasn’t going to say any of it.
Synphonia had said herself that this wasn’t a democracy, just like the relationship between a parent and a child wasn't democratic. One made the rules, the other followed.
Mother Knows Best, after all.
A child could argue, use logic, be rational, or kick, scream and shout. None of it mattered against the parent’s authority.
But even more than that, I wasn’t going to say it because I wasn’t going to hurt Anthony any more.
So I said, “No, ma’am. I don’t deny anything.”
Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2) Page 40