“Do you need anything other than Fritos?” I asked. “Because I’m not making two trips. I have too much to do getting them ready for this thing tonight, and Iris said if you aren’t ready by seven-thirty, she’s taking away your Xbox. And, by the way, you didn’t hang up your tux like I told you to, and it fell on the floor, so now it’s wrinkled. I left the steamer in your room, because I don’t have time to do that along with everything else.” I hadn’t planned on asking him to steam the wrinkles out, but I figured it was worth a try.
His brow momentarily darkened. “Why can’t I just put the tux in the bathroom while I’m showering and let it get steam that way?”
See what I mean? Lazy … or stupid-smart? Very dangerous.
“That’s worth a try,” I said as I started out of the room. “Decided on if you want a soda or not?”
“Nah, too many empty calories.” As if the Fritos wouldn’t be.
Soon after my father’s death and the reality of our financial situation became clear, not only did the restoration and redecorating of the house stop, but all of the help was quickly let go. Since I was the only one of us with much experience taking care of a house or cooking, it fell onto my fourteen-year-old shoulders to take the lead. It gave me a purpose, and a way to avoid sitting in my room all day thinking about my dad, so I was more than willing to assume the responsibility. It never occurred to me that the role might be forever, but even that probably wouldn’t have stopped me, because at that time I was mostly just terrified of being sent to an orphanage or somewhere equally Dickensian. Iris still got some money from a trust fund at the beginning of each financial quarter, and I quickly learned to get money for groceries and household incidentals the first day the check arrived. She had never learned to adjust the spending habits she’d developed in her youth, and the money was always gone long before the next disbursement. So, typical Buck, he used my stewardship of domestic affairs to get himself some corn chips without ever having to get up from the couch.
No sooner had I placed the snack into Buck’s hands than another cry of, “Chris!” came from upstairs. Kimberly again. Buck looked at me with something close to sympathy, although I wasn’t sure if it was for me or for her once he said, “Mom has her totally freaked out.”
“Well, we can’t afford for our wine bill to double, so I guess I’d better get up there and see if I can calm her down.” As I walked up the stairs, my cell phone buzzed, but it was only a text from Vibol, one of the study group kids, with a question. It’s not like anything in my history would warrant my expecting an invitation from a schoolmate to go out and be social on a Saturday night, but the human heart has a bad habit of being hopeful.
The next two hours flew by in a frenzy of silk organza, hair products, and for Iris, another bottle of Chardonnay. But by seven-thirty, all three members of my stepfamily were standing by the fireplace in the formal sitting room, having their picture of perfection taken by me with Iris’s iPhone. As she checked to see if the photo met with her approval, Iris asked, “Do you think it would seem desperate to email this to all of the society section editors?”
“Yes!” Kimberly, Buck, and I all said in unison.
She looked up at us like she wanted to say something, but a hiccup distracted her. “Maybe I should have one last drink before we go. But first, I need to use the powder room.”
Once she’d walked out of the room with impressive grace, save for a little stumble going from the well-trod antique Oriental rug to the chipped marble of the entry hall, Kimberly looked at Buck and me with disarming fear and vulnerability. “Do I really look okay?”
“I’d do ya,” Buck said in his version of high praise. “I mean, if you weren’t my sister and all.”
Kimberly smiled at him appreciatively. “Thanks, Buck.” Then concern returned to her face as she looked directly at me. “Well?” she asked.
Remember how I mentioned that Kimberly and I always had a complicated relationship? Well, this was one of those times where I definitely had the upper hand and a golden opportunity to really screw with her psyche. It was just too tempting!
But if there’s one thing that I’ve simply never been good at—and trust me there are thousands—at the top of the list is lying. So I told her the truth. “You look like a princess in a fairy tale.”
Kimberly blushed, softly whispering, “Thank you.”
“She should, as much as that dress cost,” Buck said. I suppose he was making an attempt to lighten the moment.
“Shut up, Buck!” Kimberly said, swinging her dainty arm with impressive force at his shoulder.
“Ow!” Buck rubbed where the blow had landed.
Iris stomped back into the sitting room, still lifting the billowing skirt of her gown as she readjusted her undergarments. “Would you two stop it! Damn it, now I’m not going to be able to relax over a last drink. Chris, go get us a cab. Please.”
I slipped out of the room as she began to lecture them on what an important night this was for the family’s future. I couldn’t help but think how fitting that I was missing a speech that started that way, and for maybe the, oh, ten thousandth time I felt that pang of loneliness orphans must feel anytime they see a family doing the sorts of things that families do together—weddings, funerals, Autumnal Balls at The Plaza—and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking for the ten millionth time about my father, and what this night might have been like if he were still alive.
I was kept from losing too much time down that rabbit hole by the convenient appearance of a cab in the distance. I dashed down the stairs, waving an arm, and within a couple minutes, it drove off with Iris still lecturing Buck and Kimberly. I might have heard something about a scheme to make it look like they were getting out of somebody else’s limousine, but I couldn’t swear to that, because, honestly, the cab hadn’t been as big of a distraction as I’d hoped. Its taillights hadn’t even faded out of view before I was sitting on the front stairs with my head in my hands, indulging in one of my I-don’t-think-unreasonable funks. Homework could wait a little while longer; I had self-pity to bathe in first.
I’m not sure how long I was lost in those unhappy thoughts before a voice said, “Child, if that frown gets any lower, you’re gonna trip someone.”
And then I looked up to see standing before me … Diana Ross?
CHAPTER 2
SAYING IT IS DIFFERENT
Okay, it couldn’t actually be Diana Ross. I knew that because she’s like a grandmother or something now, and this was a very young Diana Ross, wearing a shiny, long, tight, flapper-fringed gold gown like something out of The Supremes’ high-glamour period. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, think Rihanna without the piercings and tattoos. Or Beyonce in Dreamgirls, because I’m pretty sure she was really supposed to be playing Diana Ross, but for legal reasons they called her Deena Jones. Even Buck figured that one out. Lawyers.
“Um, so you’re supposed to be Diana Ross, right?” I said with a lack of certainty.
“Well, darlin’, who the hell else ever looked this fabulous?” she said, waving one glove-covered arm over herself like she was a part of a “Showcase Showdown” on The Price Is Right.
Now that I was paying more attention, I realized that “she” had a rather deep voice. But I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions and say something wrong, because some women just have deep voices, just like some men have high ones, and both sets must get really tired of the wrong, “Yes, ma’am,” or “No, sir,” from telemarketers and the like. And she was really, really beautiful, with smooth brown skin dusted over with some sort of shimmering makeup.
After a longer pause than was natural, I finally blurted out a confused, “Where did you come from?”
“You mean like Harlem, or what the hell am I doing on your street?”
“Um, the second one, I guess? But without the ‘hell.’ You’re perfectly welcome on any street, including this one. I’ve just never seen you before. Or anyone like you.”
“Mm, ain’t you
a flatterer.” She held out a gloved hand for me to shake, which I did. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Ms. Coco Chanel Jones. And don’t you forget it.”
“I don’t think forgetting is an option.”
“More flattery. I like that. Anywhoo, you asked how I came to be here. Well, it’s a sad tale, but you look like you’re trafficking in sad these days, so let’s just say that cab driver did not take kindly when I realized I left my purse at home. So he dumped this fine piece of African goddess down the street there, and then carted off your fancy-dressed friends. You don’t happen to have a spare Metrocard, do you?”
“Oh!” I said, feeling badly that I’d flagged down the cab that had just dumped her. (Him? Her? I still wasn’t sure.) Then, wanting to make her (him?) feel better, I said, “They’re not my friends. They’re my … family.”
“MM-hm, I heard that,” Coco said, pursing her lips. “Let me guess. You’re all sad because they’re going somewhere that you want to go. Am I right?”
I nodded reluctantly.
“Where?”
“It’s stupid,” I said.
“Don’t try Coco,” Coco said, wagging a gloved finger with a huge sparkling costume diamond ring on it at me. “You’re cute, but I get bored easily.”
It’s always a nice surprise being described as cute, but since I still couldn’t figure out which sex was calling me this, I shifted uncomfortably on the cement step. “Really, don’t worry yourself. It sounds like you have enough troubles on your plate.” But before she’d even had chance to say anything else, I found myself continuing with more than I’d meant to say. “It’d just be nice to feel included for once.”
Coco tapped the toe of one of her gold five-inch stilettos on the sidewalk a few times before crossing her arms over her chest, saying, “Don’t make me get blood on my new shoes kicking in your head because you won’t just say where it is you want to go. Do I really look like someone who has a tolerance for the repressed and soft-spoken?”
The look of good-humored intolerance somehow got me to actually blurt out to this complete stranger what it was I wanted. “The Autumnal Ball! Okay? There, are you happy? They went to the Autumnal Ball at The Plaza, and I wanted to go, too.”
And then Coco let out the most unexpectedly cruel cackle I’d ever heard, and I immediately regretted sharing such a personal pain.
But it turned out her laugh had not been cruel. That was just the way I heard it at first, because she followed the laugh with a huge smile, saying, “Child, fortune just gave you a big, wet, tongue kiss!”
“Huh?” I said. For many reasons.
She began to struggle up the steps in her tight dress and five-inch heels, putting a hand on one of my shoulders for balance. “Baby, we’ve got to get you cleaned up and pretty. I’m going to be your fairy godmother, ya hear?” she practically shouted in my face. “And when Coco says fairy, honey, she means fairy! Hey, now!”
I struggled to stand while trying not to make her lose her balance, all while attempting to figure out what the heck was going on.
“I’m confused,” I said.
Now standing one step below me, but with those five-inch heels, Coco was pretty much eye-to-eye with me. She put her hands on my shoulders, looked deep into my eyes, and said the most unbelievable words that I never thought I’d hear. “Child, I am taking you to The Autumnal Ball.”
“The … but … but … I don’t have a ticket.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But how—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But I don’t have a thousand dollars for—”
“I said, don’t worry about it.”
“But how can I not worry about it? Worrying is what I do! About everything!”
With an unexpectedly calm smile, Coco put I finger to my lips. “And that’s why you need a fairy godmother. For the rest of the night you’re not allowed to worry about anything. You have one, and only one, responsibility. To have a dream come true and have the sweetass time of your sweetass life. Do you understand me?”
I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice other than to nod in agreement. Besides, homework could always wait until tomorrow.
Coco ooh’d and ah’d as we walked up to the third floor where my room was. I’d started out apologizing for the deteriorated state of the house, just like I always heard Iris doing on the rare occasion she had to let someone inside. But after Coco interrupted me to say that she lived with her single mother and four siblings in a two-bedroom walkup in Harlem, I decided to keep my mouth shut.
That didn’t mean she was very impressed with my bedroom. It was admittedly minimalist, but that was at least partially my fault. When my dad and I had first moved in, I’d asked to be put on the floor above the others, because I didn’t want to displace anyone, or give them any extra reasons to resent my entering their lives. It also gave me the chance to remove myself a bit from a situation I wasn’t entirely ready to embrace. And since the third floor had been where servants were housed back in the day, the decor was definitely utilitarian. But I had a bed (old, but surprisingly firm), a chipped antique dresser that must have been a piece of pride in its heyday, and a simple desk and chair. Luckily the desk was pretty large, because I generally had lots of books stacked on it, and the chair was comfortable, which was all I really needed to focus on my schoolwork.
The best part of the room was that I had my own little balcony. Since it was at the back of the house, it looked out onto the small garden alcove of one of our neighbors, the NYC version of a backyard. When the weather was nice, I often spent many hours there reading, enjoying the fresh air and the slightly muffled sounds of the city. Kimberly’s much larger room was beneath mine, and her much longer balcony stretched out below me. There had once been a time when I’d first moved in that I thought she and I might somehow bond over this shared experience, her escaping to read on her balcony, me escaping to read on mine, and our eyes would meet and we’d realize that we weren’t so alone after all. But that never happened. Kimberly wasn’t much of a reader.
To be fair, since it had just been my dad and me up until then, I’m not sure I really knew how to be part of another type of family. I’d never had a mother I knew, and I’d never had siblings, so my expectations were based on what I’d seen in movies and on TV. Iris and her children were definitely not like that.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Coco said as she looked through the clothes hanging in my closet. “That little cuntella was wearing this year’s Vera Wang, and their cheap asses can’t even buy you a suit?”
“How do you know what designer she was wearing?” I asked.
Coco raised a worldly eyebrow at me. “I’m your first drag queen, ain’t I?”
“Oh. So you are a he.”
Coco’s other eyebrow raised to meet its partner. “We prefer ‘she’ when we have put this much time and money into our appearance, thank you very much.”
“I can do that,” I said.
I guess I looked a little spooked, because she shook her head with a soft chuckle and said, “Shit, next you’re going to tell me you don’t even know you’re gay.”
And then I guess I looked more than a little spooked, because for the first time I saw a glimpse of whomever Coco was when she wasn’t in drag. Everything about her went sort of soft and quiet. “Oh, precious, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be until you’re ready. When am I ever going to learn to keep my big mouth shut?” She looked down at the floor, biting her lower lip.
So here it was, the moment I’d been dreading. And hoping for. When someone would say those words, “you’re gay,” and I wouldn’t feel the knee-jerk need to deny it.
Because the fact is that … well … I am gay. The idea of it had taken a few years to solidify in my mind, and in the last year or so I would even experiment with saying the words out loud—always when I was in the house alone—just to see if anything cataclys
mic would happen in the world, mine or at large. “I’m gay. I am gay. I like guys.” Little one syllable words that changed everything. But no lightning, no thunder, no turning into ash and dissolving into the ground. Nothing really, except for the feeling that somehow I’d done something wrong.
I don’t know if you’re gay or straight, or even if you are gay, if you’ve ever felt this way, but for me, I always felt like the words, “I’m gay,” needed to be followed by, “I’m sorry.” Dad, I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you by being something other than the man you thought you’d been raising all of these years. Straight girl with a crush on me, I’m sorry if you were having visions of a long romance and eventual marriage to the only guy you’ve ever known who would also rather watch episode after episode of Gilmore Girls reruns than football or a Transformers marathon. Straight person, I’m sorry if the differences in our sexual and emotional wiring make you uncomfortable. Because that’s something that seems to get forgotten in all of this talk of sexual “preferences.” Being homosexual isn’t just about sex. It’s about who we have emotional romantic connections with, whose arms we actually feel at peace in, who completes the—dare I say it—fairy tale of what romantic and domestic bliss is for that individual.
And then, after all of that hypothetical apologizing, I’d get kind of annoyed. You know what, yes, I’m sorry I’m gay and if that creates issues for you, but I’m having to deal with it, and so must you. Because it’s not changing, it’s not going away, it’s always been there, whether we’re talking about my history or the history of the world, so we’re all just going to have to deal with it. Case closed.
My Fairy Godmother is a Drag Queen Page 2