My Fairy Godmother is a Drag Queen

by David Clawson

  “It’s really not important,” I said. “Would anyone like some tea? I’ll pour.”

  I busied myself with serving, and we all settled in on the overstuffed couch and chairs, loading our plates with finger sandwiches and decadent desserts. My stomach still wasn’t quite sure it was ready for food, and my mind still had doubts that this was really not a trick, but as J.J. happily informed us of Kiki’s strategy for returning Kimberly’s reputation back to the pedestal from which it had so recently tumbled, I began to accept that we had seemingly dodged a bullet.

  “So Kiki doesn’t want you to go anywhere without either Chris or me as an escort from now on,” J.J. said.

  “For how long?” I asked, already freaking out a little bit about having missed a full day of school. I figured it was going to take me a couple days as it was just to catch up on all of the work I hadn’t done this one day.

  “It could take a while for this thing to fully blow over.”

  Kimberly brushed a scone crumb off her blouse. “When you say anywhere, you mean, like, to society events or whatever, right?”

  “No, Kiki said she doesn’t want you leaving the house without one of us. At least for the next couple weeks until the worst of it is over with. If you’re photographed alone, it makes you look like you’ve been abandoned, and that people are embarrassed to be seen with you, which reinforces the negative image. If you’re always with someone, it looks like people are sticking by your side, and therefore, you must not be as bad as it seemed, and it’s just another case of the media trying to make money by tearing you down. Things could blow over pretty quickly if she can get that narrative going.”

  “So, I can’t even go to … the gym by myself?” she asked.

  J.J. shrugged. “So the three of us will have a great reason to hang out a lot for a while. That’s not so bad, right?”

  Being in high school, I actually had the least time flexibility. I was out of the house a little after seven thirty in the morning and rarely home before five in the evening, and then fixing dinner, picking up the house, and homework began. But J.J. suggested that other than classes he needed to attend, he would try to study and do as much as he could from our house, so that he would be available to get her out of the house enough. He told her this, glancing at me a lot, and I realized he sounded kind of happy about all this because it meant he and I would see more of each other. And when I envisioned coming home from school and finding him in my living room, basically waiting for me, even if Kimberly or any of the rest of the family were there, it made me smile.

  But.

  Damn it!

  I realized there was a fly in the soup. And a really big one at that. While it would be great to spend more time together quantity-wise, the highest-quality time that J.J. and I had been sneaking for ourselves had almost exclusively been while Kimberly was attending events without him. If either J.J. or I had to be with her at all times outside of the house, and it had to be the three of us together inside the house, that meant J.J. and I would never have any time together alone. While that wasn’t all that much different than the way things had basically been for more than the last month, my birthday was just over a week away, and that was the day we had promised each other that we were finally going to have sex. And sex was not something I wanted to have with Kimberly (or anyone other than J.J.) close by.

  I put down my tea cup and plate, and cleared my throat. Giving J.J. what I hoped was a loaded look, I said, “Um, next week is my birthday.”

  I could tell by the way J.J.’s smile slipped away that he caught my meaning. “Oh. Right.”

  “So, we’ll all go out together,” Kimberly said as if we were idiots and she’d just solved the issue of world peace. “Maybe Mom and Buck will even come. That way, Chris, you won’t have to cook your own birthday dinner for a change. Won’t that be nice?”

  I painted on my best attempt at a smile and nodded.

  “Oh, shit!” Kimberly exclaimed. “That’s next Tuesday, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, why?” I answered.

  “J.J. and I are supposed to go to that whatchamacallit dinner. You know,” she said, nudging J.J., “for that foundation.”

  “We’ll miss it,” J.J. said.

  “But aren’t you the honorary Chair?” she asked.

  He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “Shoot.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. It looked like I wasn’t going to get the birthday present I’d really, really, really been looking forward to after all. For most of my life I’d trained myself not to expect much on birthdays anyway, first because my dad and I had never had much money for anything but necessities, and since his death because I just tried to remind myself to be grateful for anything I had. I guess it might seem silly, or shallow, or immature, or just like teenage boy hormones that this little disappointment hit me so deeply, but it did. Happiness can be a dangerous thing; it can make you greedy for more.

  “We’ll just do it the night before,” Kimberly offered.

  “Or the night after?” J.J. suggested, I knew thinking of his stupid legal/political concerns about my still being underage the day before my birthday.

  “Whatever,” I said. Again, I knew the way I was feeling was stupid and selfish. After all, at issue was a fundraising event for a charity that did really amazing work, and here I was feeling sorry for myself. Obviously, the actual day didn’t mean anything compared to the dual significance of the personal milestone and the relationship advancement, but I’d been looking forward to the symbolic neatness of doing the deed on my eighteenth birthday. I mean, becoming a legal adult and having adult relations with the love of my life on the same day. How cool would that be? Like something in a movie or a novel or something otherwise artistic. Why, oh, why was life always messing up my attempts to get some order and some metaphorical poetry into it?

  “So you’re sure you’re okay with that?” J.J. asked, watching me closely. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

  Kimberly rolled her eyes and took his hand. “You have nothing to apologize for, silly. Right, Chris?”

  “Right.”

  “Isn’t he the best boyfriend ever?” She leaned over with puckered lips, and after an uncomfortable glance at me, he gave her a quick peck.

  “That’s it?” she asked, unsatisfied.

  “In front of your family?”

  “Oh, Chris doesn’t care.” Then she got an idea that clearly excited her. “Hey, he should invite Duane to join us all for dinner! Don’t you think?”

  J.J. nodded his agreement. “Sure, why not?”

  “There, it’s settled,” Kimberly said.

  “Well, I still have to ask him,” I said. “He might have a school project, or rehearsals, or a show, or who knows what.”

  Kimberly frowned.

  “But I’ll ask him.”

  She smiled.

  J.J. did his best to follow suit, but I could tell he was worried that I wasn’t really happy with the situation. Which, of course, I wasn’t. But what could I do?

  If I’d only known then what a roller-coaster ride my birthday would turn out to be.

  CHAPTER 12

  PERSUASION

  A week and a couple days later, I found myself sitting on the floor of Kimberly’s bathroom while Duane experimented with her make-up. When I’d invited him for the celebratory dinner planned for the day after my birthday, he’d happily accepted, but when he asked what I was doing on the actual day, and I said nothing, he insisted we spend it together.

  Between school and having to escort Kimberly around when J.J. wasn’t available, I’d been even busier than usual for the last week, so when the day arrived, I asked if it would be okay if we just ordered pizza and stayed in. He said it was my day so if that was what I really wanted, then that’s what we’d do. And that’s what I really wanted. I figured it would be easier acting like I wasn’t depressed if we were just hanging out than trying to pretend I was having an amazing time somewhere supposed
ly “fabulous.”

  When Duane had first arrived, he’d almost immediately gone up to help Kimberly get ready for her date, as he usually did if he was around on a night she was going out. I’d never have predicted it, but the two of them got on like a drag queen afire. It never failed to bemuse me the way they both got so much pleasure from powders, creams, exfoliants, and all of that stuff, and how much they enjoyed sharing the passion. It was like they’d found the sister they’d never had. (Duane did have two biological sisters, but from what he’d told me, they were less, um … polished? glamorous? civil? … than Kimberly was.)

  When the doorbell announced J.J.’s arrival, I’d left them to continue their preparations and raced downstairs hoping for a moment alone with him. But Buck beat me to the door. The one time he actually got his lazy ass up off of the couch was the one time J.J. held a dozen red roses, which I could tell from his expression were meant for me, but he had to pretend he’d brought them for Kimberly. From her place on one of the wing chairs, Iris oohed and ahhed over how beautiful they were. Then motioning her wine glass at me, she told me to go put them in some water.

  “Oh, let me help,” J.J. said.

  “Chris can manage,” Iris assured him.

  Reluctantly I nodded my agreement, but J.J. wasn’t going to be deterred. He stuck his head into the living room and said, “Mrs. Fontaine-Bellows, how many times do I have to tell you, I like helping. My mom says hello, by the way.” He did this whenever he wanted to distract her.

  This perked Iris right up. “She did? Why that’s so kind of her. Give her my love.”

  Before she could ask him to come tell her more, he pushed me towards the kitchen, throwing a fake punch at Buck as he passed. After flinching, Buck compensated by playfully threatening, “Don’t fuck with me, Kennerly, or I’ll beat your bitch ass into next week.” This, of course, got him called into the living room for an admonishment from Iris, which, knowing the way J.J. was always thinking two or three steps ahead, was probably what he’d intended.

  As soon as we were through the swinging door, J.J. spun me around, took me into his arms, and gave me a passionate kiss. I blindly reached out to put the roses onto the closest countertop, and then reached my arms around him.

  “Happy Birthday,” he said, once we finally came up for air.

  “Thanks.”

  “You know those flowers are really for you, right?”

  “I suspected they might be. And I should probably get them into some water.”

  “But then I’d have to let go of you.”

  As I pushed him away—and some people say climbing Mount Everest is hard, how little they know—I said, “Well, if some people didn’t have charity dinners to attend, some people could have held onto some other people all night.”

  He dropped his arms, letting his head slump forward like a rag doll. “Cruel, cruel man.”

  I laughed. “Yep, that’s so me.”

  I picked the roses up and moved over to the cabinet where I kept the crystal vases. I turned to look at J.J.—it was always such a pleasure to be able to look at one another with our true emotions in our eyes, not having to pretend we felt nothing in case anyone was watching —and found him smiling at me with a certain secret pleasure.

  “What?” I asked.

  He slipped his hand into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a beautifully wrapped package about the size of a small book. “I didn’t want you to have to wait until tomorrow for all of your presents.” He slid it into a corner of the counter. “Open it later. If you should happen to miss me at some point during the night.”

  “As if I’ll be thinking of anything else.”

  “I love you.”

  Every time he said those words it was like a supernova of joy exploding inside me. I just didn’t yet know that supernovas burn so brightly because a catastrophe is taking place. That lesson would come later.

  “Yoo-hoo, I’m ready!” Kimberly’s voice called from down the hallway.

  “You’d better go,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”

  J.J. pointed at the package he’d tucked into the corner, and blew me a kiss before disappearing out the door. As I filled the vase with water and arranged the flowers, I tried to get all of my emotions under control, but I still had to wait at the doorway for a few breaths before I was ready to push through.

  Looking as beautiful as ever in a strapless midnight blue gown, the diamond choker that was one of Iris’s very last pieces of serious jewelry sparkling wildly at her neck, Kimberly laughed at something Duane had just said. Or, given how much makeup he himself was wearing, maybe I was supposed to switch-over to calling him Coco. I’d find out soon enough, no doubt.

  “There’s the birthday boy,” Kimberly said as I approached with the vase of flowers.

  “But these are for you,” I said, handing her the bouquet.

  She held her arms out for them, admiring their beauty, but then said, “Nope, it’s your birthday. Why don’t you keep them?” She drew her hands back and smiled with satisfaction.

  One of the reasons to analyze everything from every possible angle, to imagine every possible reaction, to try to predict every possible thing that can go wrong, is so that you’re never taken off guard. And her unexpected generosity definitely took me off guard. The vase almost slipped out of my hands as I found my throat tightening and my eyes stinging. Maybe it was being in love making me a more emotionally sensitive person, maybe it was finally starting to feel like I was developing a real relationship with her, or maybe it was old-fashioned guilt over using her as a beard without her knowledge. While I knew for her the flowers were just a way of saying thank you for defending her in front of Kiki, Kimberly’s unanticipated kindness almost ruined my birthday.

  Luckily, J.J. noticed my distress and quickly diverted everyone’s attention away from me, and quickly got them out of the house. But not without one last look of loving concern over his shoulder as the door shut.

  “So now that the Spice Girls have had a musical on the West End, does that make them retro enough for me and the girls to build an act around them?” Duane was still straddling that undefined line between himself and Coco, but as he applied more and more eyeshadow, I knew that a pronoun shift was not far off.

  This was when I was sitting on the floor of Kimberly’s bathroom, and he was playing with her makeup, as she openly encouraged him to do. I still hadn’t recovered my spark since Kimberly had suggested I consider the roses mine, so I tried to bring my focus to Duane’s question.

  “Hm. Would this be Coco Chanel Jones and the Spice Girls?”

  “Or I could just be Scary Spice,” he said, considering several packages of different sized false eyelashes. “That might be easier.”

  “Are you thinking four-member Spice Girls or five-member Spice Girls?”

  He looked at me as if I’d just kicked a kitten. “As if the spice rack was ever truly full without Ginger!”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Sorry. Who would Aphra and Special Kaye become? And what about the other two spots?”

  “Special Kaye is so tall and lean, so that could work for Sporty, and Aphra has been known to wear a diaper in certain clubs, so she could be Baby. I mentioned it to my friend, Lolita Falana, thinking she could be Posh, but she wanted to call us the Spic Girls, which I said would get us beat up by some chollos, but she says it’s okay because she’s Latina, but I don’t know. First we have to figure out if changing acts is a good idea, although I’d really miss the outfits we have now. Life it too complicated, I swear.” Then he perked up. “Although, Anne Frank-Margaret would make a fierce Ginger!”

  At that point I may have stopped listening for a bit. It wasn’t that he wasn’t being his usual entertaining self, but I had a lot on my mind. For just a moment I got obsessed with the idea of telling him everything, realizing it would be a relief to not have to keep it all in to myself, and even as I knew it was the worst idea I’d ever had, and that it would be such a betrayal to J.J. that he wo
uld have no choice but to turn his back on me forever, almost against my will, I found myself interrupting him. “Duane—”

  “Child, please, can’t you tell I’m Coco now?”

  I looked up to see Coco glaring down at me with one raised eyebrow, a pair of very thick false eyelashes now waving like little bats with each blink of her eyes.

  “Well, what did you want to say?” Coco said. “Child knows better that to interrupt Ms. Chanel Jones when she’s brimming over with creativity.”

  “Oh, sorry, it’s nothing. You’re right; this is much more important.”

  “That’s what I thought. Do you have an opinion or not?”

  Since I hadn’t been listening to whatever it was that he was asking for my opinion about, I said, “Not really.”

  “Good. We’ll see how Buck reacts.”

  Buck? How had Buck come into a monologue about the Spice Girls? Or had he changed subjects? I suddenly felt very uncomfortable, because although Duane had never been subtle about his crush on Buck, I wasn’t sure if Coco had designs as well. And if that was about what she’d been asking my opinion, I may have just passed up my one chance to avoid a messy situation.

  The doorbell downstairs rang, which would probably be the pizza guy. It occurred to me that if I were fast enough, and if Buck miraculously got up to answer the door twice in the same night, maybe I could shove him out of it before Coco came down. I, of course, had no basis for this irrational fear of what Coco might have in mind; it was just a feeling. Of dread.

  “You’d better go get that,” she said. “And pick out the DVD. I’ll be right down.”

  Afraid to leave her to her own devices for even a second now that I knew something was up, I had no choice but to go when the doorbell rang again. As I raced to the door, passing by the living room to see Buck lying on the couch watching TV and Iris flipping through a thick fashion magazine, I grumbled to myself the question of whose birthday was it exactly?

  Once I’d paid the delivery guy, I carried the two pizza boxes to the kitchen, even though Buck had called out to leave them with him. I told him that I wanted to make sure there would still be some pizza left by the time I got the plates and napkins, and he called back that I was just selfish.