How stupid was I?
“I—I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “You—you’re the headliner. I can’t believe I said something so stupid.”
I saw her pause, mid-chew, sigh heavily, and put her food down. Her head sagged forward and she seemed to be chewing just to get the food down as she leaned her head on her hand.
I saw her swallow, almost wincing as if it was too big to get down, then take a gulp of orange juice. She wiped her mouth with the napkin, still not looking at me.
“I’m the headliner, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I said that. Of course it will be you and Machyl, like it always is.”
Damaris was still sitting there with her head in her hands again. I peered at her. My first thought must have been correct—she was afraid she wouldn’t be allowed to audition this year.
“Damaris,” I said earnestly. “You—you are the headliner,” I looked at her, feeling my heart swell as I said it, and I wanted to get up and enfold her in my arms protectively.
“It should be you headlining, and if anyone at House of Ellegrandé, if anyone in New York City, for god’s sake, is chosen for the Vivesse competition, it should be you. You’re—you’re the reason I started doing drag. You’re amazing.”
And then I saw it.
I couldn’t believe I’d been blind to it all of this time. How could I, who knew better than anyone what a vicious sociopath Machyl really was, have not seen this coming?
How could I have been fooled by his act all of this time?
In Machyl’s mind, there was no reason why House Ellegrandé should submit two audition tapes for Vivesse.
Two was the maximum.
The minimum was one.
And Machyl wanted that spot all to himself.
And the minute Damaris got sick, Machyl had spotted an opportunity.
And all of this time when he was ‘Damaris’ best friend’ and the only one who was allowed to go to up and see her, he’d been carrying out his little plan.
And the longer she was sick, the more he sure he became that she wouldn’t be able to audition.
That was why Machyl was so concerned about the possibility of Marcus being chosen by Duane Tyrone to replace Damaris.
If Machyl auditioned on his own, he had a higher chance of being selected. Eliminating one girl’s audition tape would eliminate one small part of the competition.
Of course, the whole point of submitting to Vivesse as part of a drag house was to increase the chance of the house being selected.
A queen who was elevated to the position of Vivesse Contessa would benefit her house and her drag sisters would reap the benefits for their own careers.
That was why it was so very typical that Machyl would be trying to manipulate the audition process for his individual benefit, instead of working toward the bigger goal of promoting House Ellegrandé overall.
I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen it before.
Disgusting.
“If Machyl thinks he can get away with this—” I said, my voice shaking.
I was simultaneously possessed by an absolutely murderous rage and ice-cold terror, at the same time. Machyl was a psychopath, the kind you read about, the ones that had no empathy.
He would do whatever it took, and he would destroy whoever got in his way without a second thought.
I wanted to destroy him, I wanted to find him and choke the life out of him for what he was trying to do to Damaris, but as I thought about what Machyl had already done, how much he had already succeeded in manipulating me and those around me, a soul-deep horror crept over me.
If Machyl found out I knew all of this, I would become his target. And he would destroy me.
“I’m—I’m the reason you became a drag queen?” Damaris asked, to my surprise.
“Yes,” I said. “Of—of course.” I shook my head slightly.
She was the reason for all of it.
She hung her head again, and put her hands over her face.
“Another thing I fucked up,” she whispered.
I was so confused, I just stared at her.
“What do you mean?” I said, feeling as lost suddenly as if I had been dropped in that wilderness of forest where I’d imagined the truck dropping its barrel of toxic sludge, when Machyl showed up to terror-bomb me at home.
She looked at me and I saw, with horror, that there were tears in her eyes.
“I can’t do this any more,” she said, her face crumpling and she picked up her napkin and held it under her left eye, then her right.
“What do you mean you fucked up?” I said, feeling anger spread through me for some reason.
She gestured at me. “Look at you. You dropped out of high school. And why? Because of me.”
My heart started pounding and I felt anger, strange hot anger, rush through me.
What does she mean?
She was—she was my angel, who had brought me into her world on gilded wings and molded me in her own image. I looked up to her like a goddess. All I wanted was to be where she was.
“This—this is what I want to do,” I said, in a choked voice.
She shook her head and I heard her scoff.
“You should be in college,” she said. “Maybe you don’t need to with all that money. But you should be getting a good career.”
I blinked at her, speechless.
My instinct was to try to explain that I didn’t have any money, and my mother wasn’t really that wealthy, but that never seemed to work with people.
It never seemed to work to try to explain that at my school, I’d been considered sort of poor.
That wasn’t what stung, though.
I was used to people insulting me because they thought I was rich.
That wasn’t what made tears prick my eyes.
“I want to be like you,” I said, although I could barely get the words out, I was so confounded by everything she was saying. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time?” I said, desperate to explain myself.
“I don’t know,” she said, pursing her lips in disapproval, “but if you’re trying to be like me, that’s a really bad idea.”
“But—” I stared at her, dumbfounded. “But—” She was the reason I had dropped out of high school. Of course she was. “You— you taught me everything.”
“I didn't tell you to drop out of high school,” she said with a trace of anger in her voice.
“I—I know!” I protested. “I hated school, and it was the happiest day of my life when I walked out of that place forever!”
“Well good for you!” She spat, the whites of her eyes showing in anger now. “At least you had the chance to get an education. Do you even know how lucky you are?”
I shut my mouth. This was turning into another money thing, and I hated that with a burning passion, the injustice of it, that everyone was going to fling it back in my face, forever, that I had been born so much luckier than them.
I was so angry, and surrounding that anger was a candy-coated sugary shell that wouldn’t melt in your hand, because I couldn’t be angry at her.
That was impossible.
I must be angry about something else, at someone else.
“I should never have taken you back into the dressing room like that,” Damaris said, folding her arms across her chest and looking at me. “I treated you like a Barbie doll and I played dress up with you, My Little Drag Queen. It makes me sick. I make myself sick with it.”
What?
I felt as if she had just slapped me across the face. I was in very serious danger of starting to cry. “The way you’re talking, it sounds like—it sounds like you hate drag.”
“I’m not a drag queen,” Damaris said acidly. “I’m a woman.”
She stared me down, until I wished I could melt into a puddle on the floor, but I also couldn’t bear to look away from her eyes, which were as dark as the black hole at the center of the universe and as furious as Kali’s g
aze. “I thought you, of all people, would understand that.”
Am I a girl?
You know you are.
No. Am I a girl to you?
I sat there, and Machyl’s words echoed in my mind. The last thing she needs is another tranny chaser who’s going to make her feel like shit about herself again.
I stared at my eggs Benedict, which were curdling on the plate in front of me, barely touched.
I should have left this morning, early this morning, after I jerked off in the bathroom thinking of her male voice moaning in my ear.
I should have realized that all I could do was harm her. Hurt her.
And that the right thing to do was to leave immediately, and never look back.
But I hadn’t. I had convinced myself, in weak self-indulgence, that I could help her.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Machyl always harps on about how he thinks you’re a woman,” she continued as if she was talking to herself, “and I’m just like What are you talking about. He just doesn't get it sometimes, he thinks it’s a joke or something.”
“What?” I said, because I had hardly heard what she was saying. What did she mean, Machyl said I was a woman?
“I told him, I can tell Anthony isn’t trans.” She shook her head. “It has nothing to do with—” She sighed. “The way you dress doesn’t make you a woman.”
“I—I know,” I said, and through my confusion I realized the conversation wasn’t going where I thought it was.
I thought she was going to get up and scream and shout at me, throw things and tell me to get out, I was a worthless pervert and she never wanted to lay eyes on me again.
“I’m a man,” I said. I took a deep breath. “I don’t know how I can explain that to people.”
She looked at me, then, and smiled gently.
“You don’t need to explain it to me,” she said. “I know you are.”
My heart melted as I smiled back at her.
“But—” I said, because I still felt confused and hurt by what she had said about me. “I am getting a career. That’s why I decided to stop school. I couldn’t see the point any more after I met you and found out you could do this for a living.”
She snorted derisively and I flared up again, feeling the defensiveness rising in me like a wall of concrete, hard and painful.
“I may not be any good—” I said.
She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant,” she said quickly.
“But—” I didn’t want her to feel forced to give me meaningless compliments and reassurances. I was worthless as a drag artist. We all knew that.
“You need to be more confident,” she said. “Believe in yourself.”
She thinks I’m not confident?
I knew I wasn’t confident… but to have her say it… I felt a hurt feeling in my chest and I crossed my arms.
“Well, like I said, I may not be very good but I still—I’m still making this my career, like you. This is your career.”
She sighed and swallowed the last of her bagel, gulped some more orange juice. She was looking off into the distance, and if I followed her gaze I thought she would be looking out the glass doors into the street.
“This…” she shook her head in frustration. “This is not a career.”
What?
“How can you say that?” I said, shocked to my core.
“We’re at House of Ellegrandé,” Damaris said. “We’re not one of the big girls like House of Revêtte or Cosmosis.”
“But—” I protested. “Ellegrandé is one of the original drag houses of New York. I mean, it was in Drag Queen Beauty Pageant.”
“That was thirty years ago, Anthony,” she muttered. “I don’t know if you noticed, but the bloom has kind of faded on the rose since then. Yeah, we had a Vivesse High Queen, but by the time she hit fifty, Calleen wasn’t exactly bringing in the crowds, no disrespect.”
“She was a legend,” I said. “This is the whole point of House of Ellegrandé. The legacy. It’s—it’s historical.”
“Well that legacy doesn't mean squat, let’s be real,” she said. “Drag nerds like Machyl and historians care, sure. To everyone else, we’re washed up.” She held out her hand toward me. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “This is nothing against Duane Tyrone. It’s not his fault. He does his best.” She took a deep breath. “But this is not a career. It’s a job, and I don’t know if you noticed, but we live in New York City…”
I pursed my lips. I had no idea how much money she made.
“But you’re the headliner,” I said.
“And what does that mean, anyway?” She muttered.
“You’re the only one who really does this as a career,” I said stubbornly.
She raised her eyebrows. “Shit,” she said. “You just made that sound so good.” She cast her eyes to the ceiling. “It could look glamorous, I guess,” she said slowly. “You think my life is glamorous?”
She met my eyes.
Of… of course. Isn’t that obvious?
It must have been written on my face, because she laughed humorlessly.
“You must be smoking some kind of reality-distortion crack,” she said, shaking her head. “Machyl told me where you live, too.”
The hurt feeling in my chest intensified. So he had told everyone. How had he found out, if it wasn’t from Marcus?
Don’t think about Marcus!
I quickly repressed the thought. That was a banned thought from now on. Censored!
“You think it’s glamorous to be poor?” She said, looking across the table at me.
“You’re—you’re not poor.”
She cracked up for real then, laughed, hard, and smacked her hand across her knee. She kept laughing, and I felt a terrible humiliation steal through me, that I had said something so obviously stupid.
I didn't get it, though.
“Everyone else has to have another job,” I said. “You’re the headliner and you live at House of Ellegrandé.”
She stopped laughing and looked at me. “Shit, you’re serious,” she said. “I was really hoping you were joking. I’m poor, Anthony. I was born poor, I grew up poor, and shit, after twenty-one years, bless me if I ain’t still poor.”
I shook my head, still not understanding.
“Do I need to spell it out for you?” She asked. “Machyl is a CPA,” she said. “Brooklyn was recruited here from China to do coding or whatever. Marcus,” she scoffed, “is a rich kid like you. Whenever he needs money he calls his daddy in Hong Kong and promises to start an MBA soon.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Did you not know any of those things? You’ve been here over a year.”
No, I knew all of that. I knew Machyl was an accountant, Brooklyn worked in IT and Marcus was from Hong Kong and his mother was Ukrainian. Of course I knew the basic information of everyone who worked at Ellegrandé.
She looked at my silence and shook her head in amazement.
“Do you not realize what it means, that I don’t have any of that?” She spread her hands. “This job is expensive. Wardrobe, wigs, make up, I have to take all of that out of my wages. It never ends. The pay is okay, but at the end of the day, it’s not enough.”
“You should try for more pageants,” I said. “You deserve to go to Vivesse. Really. Look at Oh My Darla. After Vivesse, she transferred to Revêtte from that small house in Gowanus.”
“You think I didn’t try?” She sounded irritable. “I tried. Ever since I got to New York. I auditioned for so many pageants. The real ones, not the pay-to-play vanity fairs. And Vivesse. Of course. Every year.”
She looked down at the table.
“I wanted to help Duane Tyrone,” she said. “He needs another pageant queen. Someone to raise the profile of House of Ellegrandé. I wanted to help myself.” She was looking down at her plate, tracing her finger through the crumbs. “Duane Tyrone thought I had a shot.”
“Of course he did,” I said quickly. “You’re—you’re so beautif
ul,” I said, with a quake of my heart. “You have more than a shot. As Duane Tyrone always says, you’re the fishiest queen in New York City.”
She laughed. “You’re prettier than me,” she said, her eyes lingering on my face. “And with your small size, let’s face it, you’re a lot fishier too.”
What?
“No—” I protested, feeling hot and cold at the same time. “That’s not true,” I said. “I’m just the house bitch, after all.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Well, you’ll never get anywhere if you keep talking like that.”
The hurt feeling in my chest intensified. I crossed my arms tightly across my chest and looked down at my uneaten breakfast, now cold and unappetizing. “Look, don’t be like that,” she said. “You have to be tough if you’re going to get ahead in this industry. You have to thicken your skin and sharpen your nails. Because nobody’s rooting for you but you.”
She reached across the table and squeezed my arm. I felt the hurt in my chest dissolve away and I wanted to get up and go sit next to her on the bench so she could put her arm around me. But I felt hesitant.
I thought this was a date, but now I wasn’t sure. She was treating me just the same as she always had, before last night.
I wasn’t sure what was going on, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. We were talking about something totally unconnected to last night and although I of course didn’t mind—I would talk about whatever she wanted, forever—it didn’t solve my confusion.
“You’re just too sweet for this,” she said, running her hand down my arm and squeezing my hand. “I would hate to see you turn into one of them.” She sighed. “One of us.”
I couldn’t wait any longer when I heard the sadness in her voice. I didn’t care if this was a date or not.
I got up out of my chair and went and sat down next to her on the bench.
“What’s wrong?” I said helplessly. “Is there anything I can do?”
“See,” she said. “I’m a woman. And how fishy I am doesn’t make me less or more of a woman.”
I saw a tear slip down her cheek and I wanted to wipe it away but I couldn’t, because she had already caught it.
“I used to think it did,” she said. “A long time ago. But I’ve known for a long time now that what I look like doesn’t change what I am inside.”
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