Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight: The Derby Cavendish Stories

by Don Bassingthwaite

  “Dibs,” I said out of reflex.

  Matt pouted. “I saw him first. You were too busy admiring Beth-Anne’s ensemble.”

  I bit my lip and looked back at Beth-Anne. It was the eternal struggle: battle the forces of darkness or rest my eyes on some juicy new eye-candy. And on second glance, the evil around Beth-Anne didn’t seem that evil. She certainly didn’t seem to notice it as she chatted away with Rick One while surreptitiously manoeuvring her casserole into a prime position on the buffet. In fact, I hadn’t noticed before, but Rick was wearing a sweater that was very nearly as ugly as hers: sky blue with big golden bells and bright red ribbons. A sweater perfect for the co-chair of the Bluewater Belles and Beaus. I turned to Matt. “Let’s find out who the new boy is.”

  “He’s still mine.”

  “Runner-up can have the kugel.”

  ※

  With Beth-Anne’s evil sweater still nagging at the edge of my senses, we went to the font of all Dinner Club gossip: Rick Two, a.k.a. Lucy. Somewhat to my surprise, he hadn’t donned the obvious matching sweater to Rick One’s. Usually they were the kind of couple that didn’t feel complete if they weren’t coordinating with each other and their tiny dogs. However, it was easier to talk to Lucy without being distracted by glittering yarn in mind-bending patterns. With far more tact than Matt could have mustered, I inclined my head toward the newcomer and said, “You don’t see kugel at a potluck very often.”

  “It’s refreshing, isn’t it?” said Lucy. “So comfortable. So unassuming. It won’t win him any points with the ladies who lunch, but when you look like that, no one cares what you cook.”

  “Who is he?” blurted Slack Jaw McPlumperson.

  Lucy gave us a knowing little smile. “Let me introduce you.” He led us to the end of the long buffet where the future Mrs. Cavendish was trying to squeeze his kugel in between Hamish Stewart’s iron-tough apple crisp and Loreen Carmichael’s sherry-heavy sponge trifle. The basement was getting crowded as members of the Dinner Club arrived. More and more of them seemed to be wearing hideous sweaters in all the colours of the season. Had I read my invitation carefully? Was there actually an ugly sweater theme to the party? How could I have missed that?

  If only I’d listened to my instincts.

  “Derby, Matthew,” Lucy said, “this is Aidan. He just moved in up the block from us.”

  The dreamboat smiled and held out a hand as big and meaty as a Grade-A steak. While Matt goggled at the size of that mitt and all it implied, I seized the day and Aidan’s hand. His grip was strong, his skin rough. While I’m not normally a gusher—verbally—it took a lot of control to keep my tone casual. “You work with your hands,” I observed.

  “Don’t let the kugel fool you,” said Aidan in a voice as rich as his hair. “I’m a carpenter.”

  The opening was too much for Matt to resist. “Oh, so you’re used to handling a lot of wood.”

  Lucy and I froze in horror, but Aidan just laughed, a deep rumbling chuckle that rolled through the church basement and my lower torso. “I like you,” Aidan said, wrapping a hand around Matt’s shoulder. “Wine?”

  The delightful tremors of Aidan’s laugh turned into sour jealousy. He liked Matthew. Matthew?

  “Well,” said Lucy. “It looks like my work here is done. Has anyone seen Ricky?” He turned around—and found himself face to face with his missing husband. And his husband’s sky-blue, bell- and bow-bedecked sweater. Lucy’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Oh my god, Ricky! What are you wearing?”

  “Isn’t it . . . gorgeous?” asked Rick One—and grasped Rick Two’s arm.

  This time there was no mistaking what happened. Even without second sight, I saw the evil that Beth-Anne Morrison had carried into the room stretch shadowy tendrils from Ricky to Lucy. One moment Lucy was wearing a trim burgundy shirt—the next, a sweater that was the twin of Ricky’s.

  And now the darkness was around Lucy, too. “It is gorgeous!” he said, then in unison with Ricky, “We’re gorgeous!” They both turned to me. “Where’s your sweater, Derby?”

  I jumped away from their reaching hands and swept my gaze around the room. Had I really been so blinded by beauty and lust? Everyone was wearing the sweaters, even people I know wouldn’t have been caught dead in more than one shade and a neutral. But maybe dead was exactly what they were going to be if I couldn’t get to the bottom of this.

  Aidan stared at Ricky and Lucy. “What the dingdong is happening?”

  “Fuck dingdong,” yelped Matt. “We’re screwed.” He wavered between hiding behind me or throwing himself at Aidan, then pressed himself against the beefy carpenter. I can’t say I blame him. When you’re facing evil, make every second count. “Do something, Derby!”

  Faces were turning to us. We were surrounded. Beth-Anne stood behind Ricky and Lucy. Hamish Stewart, sweater embellished with a herd of reindeer in tartan scarves, closed in from the right. Loreen Carmichael, her sweater bearing a full-on depiction of the Nativity, including the wise men and their camels, came at us from the left. I held up a hand and invoked the First Name of Power.

  “Armani!”

  The darkness flinched back, then rose up. The crowd roared and surged at us with outstretched arms. I ducked away, pushing Matt and Aidan along, but I wasn’t fast enough. Hands caught Matt’s sleeve. He shrieked once before the sweaters swallowed him.

  When the Bluewater Belles and Beaus parted again, Matthew Plumper wore an ivory sweater decorated with a massive ball of mistletoe. He raised his head and gave me a look filled with shadows.

  “Oh, Matthew,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck,” said Aidan.

  Matthew smiled at him. “I’ve got mistletoe.” He ran his hands down his belly. “Want to kiss me under it?”

  I caught my breath. Some small part of Matthew was still in there! There was still hope! “Aidan, get behind me and hold on tight!” Raising my arms, I started shouting more of the Great Names, battering the unknown darkness with their power. “Gucci! Prada! Lagerfeld!”

  Matthew and the others stumbled back and I dared to hope that Aidan and I might make it to the door, but suddenly I felt Aidan’s powerful grip leave my waist. I threw a glance over my shoulder. Too late. Aidan wore a sweater, too, and to add insult to injury, it sported a mighty and virile candy cane thrusting up from the knitted waistband.

  “Oh, bitch,” I said through my teeth. “Now you’ve gone too far.”

  I stabbed a finger at Loreen Carmichael. “Kenneth Cole!” She gasped and staggered to the side. I leaped into the gap she left, throwing the Names of Power around like a cheap label whore. “Calvin! Donatella! Gianni!” I was at the long buffet table. I rolled under it, came up on the other side, grabbed the first casserole dish that came to hand, and lifted it high, ready to throw, as I howled the most powerful name of all. “Coco!”

  “No!” cried the sweater-possessed crowd in unison. “Not the Pyrex Verde covered oblong!”

  I paused and looked up. Above my head, I held Beth-Anne Morrison’s Tijuana Serenade. Apparently that ugly avocado vintage casserole had more power than I thought. Advantage: Derby Cavendish. I scanned the room slowly. “Show yourself or the oblong takes a swan dive!”

  The darkness shivered and drew together into a nebulous shape that hovered above the crowd. Big dark eyes stared down at me, glittering—and strangely sad. The thing’s voice came out of the air. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

  “Well, what did you want, then?” I asked it. “Look at these people. They can’t handle this. Good lord, a bottle of sherry and this whole thing could get really ugly.”

  “I just wanted to enjoy a party. Is that so wrong? I just wanted to feel . . . pretty.”

  “This is your idea of pretty?”

  The spirit bristled defensively. “There’s a lot of love in these sweaters. Just because they didn’t come with a des
igner label doesn’t mean they don’t have their own beauty.” The possessed crowd shifted menacingly. Things might still turn ugly even without the sherry, and I didn’t have the strength to take out the darkness controlling them.

  I looked back up at the spirit. “What will it take for you to leave these people alone?”

  I could swear that its shadowy expression turned into a pout. “I want my party.”

  Out in the crowd, Matt’s face looked up at me. Aidan’s, too. And Ricky and Lucy and Beth-Anne and all my friends. How could I let them suffer? I sighed and lowered the casserole.

  “I have a proposition for you. . . .”

  ※

  I don’t remember much of the Bluewater Belles and Beaus Christmas potluck after that, but I’m told that after a strangely confusing beginning, it was the best one yet. Everyone enjoyed themselves—especially that nebulous party-loving spirit to judge by the taste of refried beans and sponge trifle that lingered in my mouth the next morning and the spare tire that grew around my waist in the week that followed. Yes, my friends might not have been able to handle possession by the spirit, but I was more than a match for it. I offered myself up to spare them. People tell me I was the life of the party. They don’t know how true that is.

  The spirit stuck to our agreement. It left me at the end of the evening’s festivities and I haven’t seen it since. With a few trips to the gym to restore my abs to their washboard glory, there was no lasting harm done—until Matt called me one morning. “Oh my God, Derby, they’ve put pictures from the potluck online.” He could barely contain his laughter. I reached for my laptop and found the pictures as fast as I could.

  I was in every single one. And in every single one, I was wearing a different Christmas sweater.

  Let it be known that Derby Cavendish is not one to hide the truth on the rare occasions that he makes a mistake. I have saved Christmas at least twice, but it was Hanukkah—Hanukkah with the Silverman family—that very nearly defeated me.

  Nearly.

  It began when my dear friend Aaron Silverman, a.k.a. Miss Mitzy Knish, a.k.a. the Jewish Hot Pocket, threw himself down on my chaise longue. “They’re moving Hanukkah, Derby!”

  I put aside my research on the legendary one-eyed serpent idol of Chakuja. “That seems unlikely, Mitz. Who exactly are ‘they’?”

  “My parents!” Aaron clutched a throw cushion. “They got a deal and booked a cruise over Hanukkah, but they still want to see the family, so they’ve moved our big Hanukkah dinner up by ten days this year.”

  I did some quick calculations in my head, converting Hebrew dates into Gregorian, then double-checking my work through the Julian, Sumerian, and Mayan calendars for good measure. Ten days before Hanukkah didn’t produce any particularly auspicious or potentially apocalyptic dates. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Aaron. He shrieked and hurled himself back on the chaise. “It’s my show, Derby!”

  “Of course it is,” I said quickly, making a mental note to stick the invitation in a more prominent spot on my refrigerator. Yes, after years of sharing the stage with other queens in badly lit bars and second-rate cabarets, Mitzy Knish finally had her very own holiday spectacular in a badly lit bar: the lumber yard presents gelt in showers—a hanukkah extravaganza, best ass contest to follow. “But that’s not supposed to start until eleven thirty. Throw in the warm-up act and you won’t need to be onstage until midnight. Plenty of time for a family dinner and a quick puke before you squeeze into your dress.”

  Aaron gave me a withering look. “What else is it?”

  I thought again. Had I missed something? Feast of the Immaculate Conception? Feast of St. Eucharius? Sammy Davis Jr.’s birthday? (It’s more significant than you think). Then it hit me. The Hebrew calendar is tied to the lunar year as well as the solar. Hanukkah begins on the twenty-fifth day of the month Kislev, when the moon is always past its third quarter. Move that forward by ten days . . .

  “A full moon,” I said.

  “Exactly,” said Aaron miserably.

  When our Aaron was a young sprig on the gay bush, he had a life-changing encounter at summer camp. Two life-changing encounters if you count making time with his first boy crush—young Aaron really learned how to pitch a tent that summer—but more to the point he also got a rather nasty bite from something that the camp counsellors could never quite identify. Aaron was pumped full of antibiotics, his parents were called, lawsuits were threatened, and no one thought anything more about it. Until a couple of months later when the moon rose full and Aaron started sprouting more hair than most teenage boys.

  Fortunately, Aaron had read his share of horror and fantasy novels—let that be a lesson to people who say they’re a waste of time—and pretty quickly grasped that he had become Teen Wolf, Jewish Edition. There was none of the confused “Oh my God, why do I keep waking up sweaty and naked and sexy in the woods when there’s a full moon?” that afflicts people in movies. Aaron was already hiding one secret, so he just started hiding another, and while he eventually came out as fabulously gay, I was the only one who knew that his occasional need to get down on all fours and pee on things was more than just a puppy fetish.

  Unless he gets really stressed, though, Aaron can control the change even on full moon nights. The launch of his show wouldn’t have phased him, but his show and dinner with the family? That was a recipe for disaster.

  “You could just tell your parents that you’re performing that night,” I suggested.

  The look of horror on his face told me there was another secret in the Silverman family. “They still don’t know you do drag, do they, Mitzy?”

  “I can’t tell them, Derby! My father is a doctor, my older brother is a doctor, my younger brother is a lawyer, and I put on sequins and shake my fake tits for tips. Besides, I have to go. My dad’s family has a tradition of passing an heirloom dreidel along to the last unmarried child and my asshole lawyer brother tied the knot on a weekend bender in Niagara Falls last summer. This year, I get the dreidel.” He sat forward. “Would you come with me, Derby? I need you to keep me calm. And there will be latkes.”

  One answers when one is needed. “Of course I’ll come, Mitz,” I said, but even then I could feel a nagging misgiving and not just about latkes.

  ※

  Three things struck me as Aaron’s father opened the door for us on that fateful night a couple of weeks later. First, that my nagging misgiving was back and stronger than ever. Second, that the Silvermans’ house was so thick with the tantalizing smell of fried foods that I could feel my arteries hardening with every breath.

  And third, that Aaron’s father was completely shitfaced. I’ve known Dr. Silverman my whole life. He was my pediatrician and the first one to teach me—inadvertently and in a strictly clinical manner, of course—that warming up the lube before sticking it in is just good manners. I’d never seen him smashed before. Hiding my surprise, I offered him a smile and a bottle of wine. “Happy almost Hanukkah, Dr. Silverman.”

  “Derby Cavendish, welcome, welcome!” He took the bottle and studied the label. “Oh, now this is far too nice for us. I feel like I’d be the one giving this wine a hangover!”

  He guffawed at his own joke and I let him have a polite chuckle. Aaron, however, laughed hugely, which seemed to please Dr. Silverman. He turned and ambled back into the house. “Sheila,” he called, “Aaron and Derby are here!”

  The instant his father was away from us, Aaron grabbed my elbow and whispered, “If he tells you a joke, just laugh! And whatever you do, don’t let him corner you.” He shook himself, stood straight, and marched into the house. Wary now, I followed him with caution.

  Which was a good thing, because as we came around a corner into the living room, I felt as if I’d walked into an ad for some kind of Jewish spa. A lovely silver menorah stood on a console table, unlit in anticipation of the real Hanukkah, but a multitude of other candles had been pl
aced around the room to honour the spirit of the Festival of Lights. They stood on coffee tables, end tables, side tables, mantles, and bookshelves; so many candles that it was a wonder Dr. Silverman hadn’t already spontaneously ignited by mere proximity. I shaded my eyes against the brilliance. Aaron stopped at the door and shuddered.

  “Hold it together, Mitzy,” I told him. “Just imagine yourself on stage at the Lumber Yard belting out ‘Oy to the World.’”

  Before he could reply, the Silverman clan was on us.

  Mrs. Silverman hugged me fondly. “Derby, it’s been so long. I have to tell you about our cruise. The deal was so good, the cruise line is practically giving the trip to us. We couldn’t pass it up and I found the most adorable folding menorah to take with us. . . .”

  “Sheila, he doesn’t want to hear it.” Dr. Silverman pressed wine on me and on Aaron, managing in the process to turn me to face a younger, more sober version of himself standing beside a rather dour-looking woman. “You remember Aaron’s brother Ben and his wife Ruth. They’re going to make us very happy about seven months from now. Another doctor for the family!” He elbowed Ben knowingly.

  “Mazel tov,” I said to Ruth.

  “Don’t patronize me,” she muttered back.

  I took refuge in my wine glass and quickly turned. Aaron’s other brother, the lawyer, was there, smirking at my discomfort. He looked as plastered as his father, and if you knew David Silverman like I know David Silverman, you’d know that wasn’t a good thing. He’s slimy when he’s sober and mean when he’s drunk. Tonight, though, he just looked strangely smug. “Derby. Aaron.”

  Aaron’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “David.” He looked past his brother. “Hi, Rachel.”

  Ah yes, David’s bender bride. Maybe she was the reason he seemed mellower. I had to lean past him to see her and discovered a petite woman who looked more cute and less slutty than I would have imagined for David. She waved almost shyly and I smiled back. There was something vaguely familiar about her, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I didn’t get the chance to try again, though, as Mrs. Silverman reinserted herself.