Too Straight To Be Chic

“Well, that was embarrassing,” Rachel said to Testy Lesbiana.

“Why?” Testy demanded. “The girls said you looked great!”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

They sat in the Grand Hotel employee cafeteria, three floors down from the Extravaganza! Theatre, deep in the bowels of the great, towering building before the first show Saturday night. Rachel’s plate was full of blue meatloaf and brown Jello, and she stabbed at lettuce leaves that were too tired to resist the fork.

“I spent so much time buying all-new makeup,” she lamented. “As if having the perfect shade of blush would have made a difference today.”

“Now, honey, stop beating yourself up about it. Everybody knew Cynthia had that part sewn up before any of the rest of you even went on stage.”

“Now you tell me!”

“You knew that as well as I did.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. But, Testy... I am feeling so goddamn old these days.”

“Look who you’re talking to.”

That afternoon, backstage at Extravaganza!, there had been an in-house audition. Although all the dancers were signed to six month, meant-to-be-ironclad contracts, sometimes fate intervened and performers left in the middle of the term. This had happened most recently when one principal girl got pregnant and disappeared amid a flurry of pink and blue be-ribboned presents and expectant showgirl jokes. Management, in the person of Miss Honoré Jerques, Extrav!’s infamous and ancient company manager, had decided to promote from within rather than scour the city for another lead-worthy girl.

“There were only five of us there, anyway. That should have been a clue. Everybody else was smart enough to know it was a waste of time.”

“Don’t be so sure. They probably just didn’t think they could compete. You, for one, are pretty damn impressive, Rachel.”

Rachel rolled her eyes again. “Yeah, I’m fantastic. Enough for ‘Orrible Honoré to stop the whole group twice just to give me a million corrections. I swear, that woman lies awake nights trying to figure out new ways to embarrass me.” She took a savage bite from her fork. It could have been either salad or beef, there was no good way to tell.

“Well, she’s a demon in human flesh, that’s been proved scientifically. No real human could smoke that much and not spontaneously combust. Don’t let her get to you, gorgeous. You know that’s why she does it. She just likes to keep you all in your place. Underneath her industrial-strength heels where she can grind you down at her leisure.” Testy dabbed a crumb of meat loaf from her lips with her exquisitely folded paper napkin. Rachel watched and said nothing. The drag queen always managed to look as if she were sharing tea with royalty along the banks of the Thames, even if she were really just scarfing mystery-meat from a plastic tray in the dingy fluorescent light of the Grand Hotel’s employee cafeteria.

“Yeah... whatever you said,” Rachel told her, and stabbed at the brown mass on her plate again.

“What else happened? This can’t be about not getting a part that you knew Honoré’s favorite Princess Cynthia was all lined up for, anyway.”

“Oh, Test, I guess I’m just living in denial. I really did think I might get the job. I’ve done principal before, you know, in Paris and Tokyo and Spain... I guess I thought that counted for something. I forgot the only thing that matters here is whether that bitch in the office gets wet looking at you or not. And I obviously don’t do it for her.”

Testy chuckled. “Honey, I’ve been crossing paths with ‘Orrible Honoré since the first trading post got set up in this valley, and I don’t think anybody does it for her. At least, not in about, oh, fifty-some years or so.” She waggled her eyebrows comically. Testy’s round, bald head, sloped, inconsequential shoulders, and decisive paunch all backed up the waggle. Rachel couldn’t tell just exactly what it was meant to suggest, but she laughed anyway. “That’s better. Now, tell Auntie Testy what else happened.”

Rachel shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

“Tell. If it’s gossip, you know I’ll hear eventually, and then won’t you feel terrible for not having been the one to clue me in? Come on, girl, spill it.

Rachel shrugged. Her meat loaf and salad had converged on her plate till she could no longer tell any difference, and she turned to a pathetic brownie, huddling under a scoop of ice cream and looking chilly. “It was just at the mall today. When I was buying makeup. There were these two girls there, and I guess they sort of shocked me.”

“You were shocked? That doesn’t seem likely. What were they doing, performing full-on sex acts for a quarter?”

“No, they were just sitting there. As if that would shock me, anyway. I lived in Hong Kong, you know. But these girls, I mean, they were chic, Test. They had on these little black leather skirts, and their hair was really cute and short–”

“And they were wearing makeup in shades like ‘plum’ and ‘aubergine’ instead of boring old red and pink?” Testy interrupted. “Yeah, I got the picture. So what did they do to shock you? You could have just asked them where they bought their lipstick if that was such a big deal.”

Rachel shook her head. “It wasn’t that. Although I wish we could wear something less retro on stage sometimes. But it was just... well, they were going through their bags and showing each other the stuff they’d bought, and then one of them reached over and kissed the other one. Full on, lips and tongues and everything. I mean, it lasted for awhile. And I thought, well, that’s it. If I’m not gay I’m never going to be in fashion anymore. I’m finished. I felt like a dinosaur. I might as well have been standing there in pink hair curlers and a house dress.”

“Let me promise you, it wasn’t that bad,” Testy said.

“Oh yes, it was. You don’t know.” Rachel slumped. Her red hair against the lurid purple banquette put Testy in mind of certain ill-advised cartoon sequences she’d seen once when unaccustomedly up early on a Saturday morning. “I want a cigarette,” Rachel added.

“Oh yeah, that’ll fix things. Go work on killing yourself before the lesbians and Honoré do it for you.”

“Get off my back, Testy. I need something to distract me. I’m depressed. Come on, come for a walk with me outside. You won’t even smell my smoke that way.”

“Not a chance,” Testy shook her head, smiling fondly. “I have mending to do if you’re going to look half-decent onstage tonight. And Heddy needs to have that new Finale backpack re-padded. Poor girl got dents in her shoulders last night.”

“I don’t know how you can tell what she needs, Testy. I’ve worked with her for five years now and I still can’t understand a word she says. How can somebody live in the U.S. for so long and still have such a thick accent?”

“Oh, a good dresser has ways to understand what her girls need, babydoll. I even understand you, and that’s no mean feat, believe me.”

Rachel started dropped utensils back onto her tray with loud thunks and clanks. “I’m easy, Testy. I just want eternal youth and employment. What’s so hard about that?”

Testy hooted with laughter. “Oh, be careful what you ask for, girl! You never know who might be listening!” She cackled loudly as the dealers and porters and maids all turned around to watch.

“Testy, maybe I am a lesbian,” Rachel said as they got up together and carried their trays to the kitchen. “I think I love you.”

“I love you, too, doll,” Testy told her. “Now get over all this drama, go suck on your cancer stick, and come back and be gorgeous for second show.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?! That’s ‘Miss’ to you, young woman!”

The two threw their arms around each other, Testy’s coming up only to Rachel’s waist, and rolled out of the cafeteria.

NEXT UP: THE GYPSY TELLS ALL (Monday 8/10)