“It’s perfect,” he said.
“It’s not,” said Justin, scowling. “I’m not a drag queen. I’m a boy.” He caught sight of the probation officer, who was probably having the time of her life making notes of all the unseemly shit going down. Both Rose and Helena were in full make-up and Rose – in a crimson lace bra – was discreetly adjusting a chicken fillet. And Helena – stuffed to the max – was wearing that bra, the one with the nipples like rocket nose cones.
Ms. Dupree stared. Justin stared back for a moment. “Hey, Cher,” he said.
Sheila’s head whipped round reflexively. “Cher? Where?”
“Hey, Justin,” said Ms. Dupree.
He folded his arms. “Well, isn’t this a coincidence?” he said.
“It is,” she said. “I don’t exactly go around telling my colleagues that my maiden name is Barrow.”
“Yeah. And I don’t exactly go around telling my friends that my sister is a narc.”
“Narc?” said Cher.
“Narc,” said Justin, and flounced downstairs, closely followed by Sheila.
“I’m sorry,” said Helena. “He never told us that his sister worked for the probation service.”
“More to the point he never told us his sister was named Cher,” said Bunny. “Like, how the fuck do you conceal that kind of information from drag queens?” His brain finally made the connection. Ears. Justin and his sister not only had the same ears, but the same penchant for bleach, and the way the darker hair curled around the top of her ear was almost identical to Justin’s. Same eyes, too. “Well, this changes the game.”
“It does not,” said Cher Dupree. “My connection to this case is purely coincidence. You are still obliged to provide a suitable environment for…” She looked at Miss Rose, who had one perfect black brow arched at a fuck-you angle.
“We do,” said Helena. “We’re nurturing, loving, supportive…”
“He’s wearing a bra.”
“Precisely,” said Bunny. “Supportive.”
“And lipstick,” said Cher.
Rose gave her a withering look. “Well, excuse me if I want to dress up and feel pretty. I’ve been wearing a series of orange sacks for eight fucking months.”
“Fine,” said Cher. “But you need to lose the drag if we’re going to the doctor. Come on – I got you a visit, but we’re gonna have to hurry. It’s a cancellation.”
“What about the monitor?” said Rose.
“I’ll deactivate it. But only for the visit, and you’re not allowed out of my sight. Understand?”
“Wait,” said Adam. “What about medical privacy? As far as I know you’re not allowed to sit in on a doctor’s appointment without patient permission.”
Cher narrowed her lips. Adam, who was an only child and consequently fascinated by the similarities between siblings, was delighted to see that it was the exact same mouth that Justin made when a beer line clogged. “You been doing your reading, huh?” she said.
“You’d better believe it, Sister Barrow. When I’m around the library is never closed.”
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” she said. “Hurry it up.”
As soon as she was out of the door, Helena headed towards it, obviously meaning to sneak downstairs, disappear somewhere and listen. It was a mercy magicians were good at keeping secrets, because Helena had a bad habit of hearing everything.
“No, you don’t, you gossip hound,” said Adam. “And take off those tits. If Elon Musk sees those nipples he’s gonna try and aim them in the general direction of Mars.”
“And what would the fuck would Elon Musk be doing in a drag bar in Pittsburgh?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he heard I read the hell out of him for launching a shitty car into orbit. You only have to look at his Twitter feed to see that man has some kind of public humiliation fetish.”
Adam went down to the bar, moving as stealthily as his size elevens allowed him to move. He could hear voices just beyond the door and hung back.
“Have you been to see Nana?” Justin was saying.
“No, I haven’t had time.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“Yeah, I know. One of the many reasons why I haven’t had time.” A pause. “How’s she doing, anyway?”
“Okay. Good. Still got the…you know…”
“The bag?”
“Yeah,” said Justin. “They don’t think her bladder’s ever gonna be right again, but at least they got it all out, I guess.” Adam heard movement on the floor above and froze, but Justin was still talking. “You do something different with your hair?”
“I went a coupla shades lighter. You like it? You don’t think it’s too yellow?”
“Nah. You could go platinum and get away with it. You got the right coloring for it.”
“Aw. Thanks. Listen, I gotta…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You take care of yourself,” said Cher. “And no harvesting piss from Nana, okay?”
“Yeah, I don’t do that any more.”
Harvesting piss? Adam mouthed, to himself. What fresh hell was this? He didn’t get to ask. The door above opened, and Rose came down, looking all of about fourteen years old in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. There was no trade about this one: even in boy clothes Rose was as pretty and delicate as her namesake.
Cher deactivated the ankle monitor, and they all three took a ride in an official smelling car to a tired looking doctor’s office. Rose went in, and Adam waited outside with Cher.
She wasn’t a talker. She sat with her legs crossed and her arms folded, body language totally closed off. Adam attempted to feign interest in a pile of elderly Reader’s Digests on the coffee table, but after the third article about cancer and rescue dogs he gave up and surrendered to his curiosity.
“So,” he said. “Justin doesn’t talk much about his family.” Other than that cousin in Philly, of course, but that was kind of a minefield, on account of the incest. Adam thought it was best not to mention him.
Cher gave him a long, sidelong look, as if deciding how much she wanted to reveal. “He’s ashamed of me,” she said.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s not.”
“Yeah, right. Did you miss the part where he called me a narc?” She sniffed hard. “Excuse me for wanting to do something better with my life than cheating drug tests, running scams and drinking my welfare checks.”
Adam said nothing.
“He didn’t tell you that, did he?” she said. “We had no money growing up. There were seven of us kids and Dad was allergic to work. We did everything illegal you can think of, just to make ends meet. If someone died in our neighborhood he’d send us round with doggie bags to load up on the buffet table at the wake. Then in the night we’d go round and strip the copper pipes out of the empty house.”
Well, that explained why Justin didn’t talk much about his family.
“He’s never been anything but honest with me,” said Adam. Justin was scrupulous when it came to money. He noted down everything in inventory whenever he did it, right down to the last cocktail cherry. “And I firmly believe he’s the best bartender in Pittsburgh.”
“He should be,” said Cher. “He got a head start in that department. Kid was getting fucked up on Jägerbombs before he’d even hit puberty. He was Dad’s favorite because he knew how to mix a Rusty Nail. He got away with everything. Everything. I caught the little shit blowing our cousin and Mom was like ‘Oh, is he gay? Shoot. I had twenty bucks riding on that.’ He’s the goddamn golden boy. Everyone’s favorite.”
“He’s very loveable,” said Adam.
Cher groaned. “Great. He’s got you drinking the Kool-Aid, too. Friggin’ awesome.”
The door opened, and Rose stepped out, waving a prescription.
“Strep,” she said. “I got me a dose.”
“So much for prison doctors,” said Adam, but Cher remained unabashed.
They took a quick diversion to the pharmacy, then back to the bar to reactivate Luis’s
tag. “Are you going to be okay?” asked Adam, as they went back upstairs. Helena had disappeared. The custom bra was doing its nipply thing on the dress form in the corner. Justin appeared to be hiding. He didn’t seem particularly sold on the whole Lust thing, which was a sentence Adam could barely believe just scurried across the surface of his mind. “You have to take your pills,” he told Luis. “Don’t stop taking them as soon as your throat feels better, because people always do that with antibiotics and it’s a mistake. You have to—”
“—finish the course,” said Luis. “I know. The doctor told me. Are you going to be a really naggy drag mom?”
“I’m shocked that you didn’t see that coming, but yes,” said Adam, heading for the kitchen. “It’s for your own good, Miss Rose.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And what about tonight?”
“What about it?”
“It’s Burlesque Night,” said Adam, leaning against the work surface. “My date night with Ryan, because according to Helena all that wiggling around in giant martini glasses makes me cunty—”
“—it does,” said Helena, darting past the kitchen door for a flyby read.
“How the fuck do you do that?”
“Mirrors,” said Helena, and vanished again.
“Anyway,” Adam said. “What I was trying to say is that on Wednesdays I usually sleep over at Ryan’s place, unless—”
Luis held up a hand. “—I’m okay,” he said, suddenly very boyish, with his feet planted squarely apart. His size meant nothing in those macho moments, because Adam had seen his prison swagger, all shoulders and snarl. Luis had the look of some tiny creature with a secret weapon, like poison blood or the capacity to expand into a ball of spikes four times his current size. Anything to conceal the barefoot kid who had crawled into Adam’s bed the night before. “I’m fine,” he said. “Seriously.”
“Are you sure? Because I never did time in solitary and I can’t ima—”
“—Bunny, I’m okay. I’m a big girl. I can handle sleeping with the lights off.”
Adam opened his mouth to ask again if Luis was sure, but Luis had opened the fridge and was peering into it in a way that meant the subject was closed. “Is there any corned beef left?”
*
It was late, even by Justin’s standards. Tess had clocked off for the night, Helena had gone up to bed and he was alone with Devan, who was hanging around looking the way Ryan had once done before he’d graphically learned that Justin didn’t really do monogamy.
“Come on,” Devan said, his lips on the back of Justin’s neck. “I’ll do anything you want…”
Justin wriggled away and carried on stacking the beer drip trays.
“I think I’ve got a cucumber in the fridge if you want to get into that…”
“No,” said Justin. What was it people said when they didn’t want sex? Oh. Yeah. “I’ve kinda got a headache.”
Dev stared at him for a long moment. Yeah. Laugh it up. The slut turns down sex.
“I do that sometimes, okay?” said Justin. “I’m not just an entertainment center. I’m not just…Lust.”
“Since when did your reputation ever bother you?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Really?” said Dev. With his English accent he managed to make the word sound nine times more sarcastic than it was already. “Because you sound bothered. Is this because you’ve been going to church? Because you were a lot more fun when you didn’t understand how sexual guilt worked.”
Justin slammed the trays down into the sink, impatient. “I’m not guilty. I’m just not horny. Sometimes I’m not horny, okay? I have depths, you know. I have talents other than fucking.”
“Darling, nobody said you didn’t. I want you to explore those talents.”
“What? Drag?”
“Why not? You’re very pretty. Helena can paint you, Bunny can do your hair—”
“—and what do I do?” said Justin. “Where am I in this picture?”
“Up front and center. Being gorgeous.”
He snorted. Being gorgeous. Was that all? It didn’t seem like enough. Bunny and Helena had nothing but contempt for ‘looks queens’, and if he had to become a drag queen for any reason, Justin sure as hell wasn’t going to become a looks queen.
“What’s got into you lately?” said Dev.
Justin sighed. “I don’t know,” he said, and he didn’t. “All I know is I’m not dressing up in drag.”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll find another Lust. Half of fucking Pittsburgh is queuing up to do it anyway.” Dev slid off his bar stool and came over, wrapping his arms around Justin’s waist again. “Come on, love. We don’t have to fight about it. You don’t want to do it and that’s that. Why don’t we go up to bed?”
“Not tonight. I told you, I got a headache.”
It was a lame kiss-off and Justin knew it, but it worked. Dev left him alone in the bar. There was something faintly melancholy about an empty bar in the dead of the night, when all the chairs were up on the tables and all the beer taps were covered with towels, and the only light was the colored glow from the old Tiffany lamps above the bar. An all-pervading sense that the party was over. Justin shivered. It was only recently that it had started to bum him out, and he had a feeling it had to do with turning twenty-six. Having over a quarter of a century under your belt tended to make you look at things in a different way.
He wished Ryan was around, so they could take a shot at mixing that perfect drink, but Ryan was in bed with Bunny right now. Justin pictured them sacked out naked in Ryan’s big, modern bed, Ryan lying between Bunny’s long legs, his cheek resting on Bunny’s belly and with that monster dick tickling him under the chin in his sleep. Justin wanted to go round to Ryan’s place and ask if he could join them, but not to fuck. Just to curl up with them, or to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of whispers, and catch them making out. Justin often fantasized about that – about being left to strip off and smoke up while he watched the two of them go at it, two beautiful bodies and two big dicks. Two people who were so fucking into one other that one time they’d tipped over the edge and starting making full on love to each other middle of a threesome.
The way they looked at each other, the way they touched each other…it usually made Justin’s heart glad that there was so much love in the world, although every now and again – like now – it made him feel kind of lonely.
He went upstairs. The light to the attic stairs was on and the first thing he saw was the greasy ghost of the words THIS WAY UP. Back in the summer – Helena’s thirtieth, if he remembered rightly – someone had written the phrase on the wall in red lipstick. It had never been adequately explained why, but there had been a lot of booze and a lot of drugs around that night.
Justin rounded the corner, trying to remember if he’d left the light on, then almost jumped clean out of his skin.
Luis was sitting on the stairs, barefoot and shivering like a cartoon orphan, a pillow clutched in his lap.
“Hey,” said Justin, when his heart had crawled back down out of his throat.
“Hey.” Luis hesitated. Those eyes were something else, huge and almost black in the light from the naked bulb. His toenails glittered gold, drawing Justin’s eye to the electronic bracelet around one ankle. Bare brown legs, with a Band-Aid standing out lighter, where Luis had tried to shave around the bracelet and cut himself.
“Are you going to bed?” asked Luis.
“Uh, yeah.” It was gone three o’clock in the morning.
Luis hesitated again, his tongue darting out to moisten his lower lip. Justin prayed he wasn’t going to ask what he thought he was going to ask, because he was sad and heartsick somehow, and that in itself shouldn’t be a good enough reason to turn down this little scrap of absolute beauty. “Can I…can I sleep in here with you?”
Justin took one look and surrendered. “Sure,” he said, and opened the door. He waved the way to the bed. “Have at it.” He went into the bathroom, wonder
ing what the hell was wrong with him. Was this what being a good person felt like? Because it sucked.
When he went back into the bedroom, Luis was snuggled up with the comforter pulled up to his ears. “It’s nice and warm in here,” he said.
“Yeah.” Justin slipped beneath the covers in his shorts and t-shirt. He usually slept naked, but it didn’t look as though Luis had taken anything off besides his robe. “You want the light out?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Justin switched off the light. He lay stiff beneath the covers, listening to Luis’s slowing, steady breaths.
“Um…” he said, after a while. “Do you…did you wanna hook up or something?”
Luis stirred and turned to glance over his shoulder. “God, no,” he said. “I just spent eight months in prison. Do you have any idea how bored I am of sex?”
“Oh,” said Justin. “Okay.” In a way, he was relieved. “Goodnight, then.”
“Yeah. Goodnight.”
6
It was the last weekend before Christmas. The bar had been six deep earlier, but now it was slowing down, as everyone had finished grabbing their seats and their drinks for the show. Tess was tearing the tops off beers down the other end of the bar, while Justin was shaking up a fresh batch of a new sour apple margarita that Ryan had said ‘tasted like Sour Patch Kids in booze form’ but other than that hadn’t offered any clue as to why he liked it.
Ryan was supposed to be here. He always watched Bunny perform and Bunny was due to go on any minute. Well, in theory. Something was up, but Justin had no idea what it was. You never knew with drag queens: they could get bent out of shape if so much as a hair was in the wrong place.
“Get Helena,” Bunny said, poking her head around the door behind the bar. For once the problem was obvious. Bunny was missing an entire eyelash. “Tell her to get her ass in here already.”
Helena – who could never resist an opportunity to be useful – was gathering up glasses. She wore a fifties red polka dot number that made her look like a human strawberry shortcake, but the big skirt was clearly proving a pain in the ass to everyone.
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