When A Drag Queen Speaks...

Seeing the town took two weeks, and at the end of that, Rachel still had no idea why they’d come to New York or how long Testy planned to stay.

“Test,” she broached the subject one afternoon at Rockefeller Center. They were sitting on a bench in the Channel Gardens, staring up at the tops of the buildings, where they’d spied half a dozen people hanging over the edges and staring back at them.

“Bastards,” Testy groused. “Lording it over us that they still have access to those terraces up there. You know they were all supposed to be public, originally? Why, when Rock was building this place, he had plans for each one to represent a different county, with all kinds of imported plants and things. I gave him the idea. It was going to be great.”

She sighed. Rachel watched her.

“Rock? You mean—”

“Never mind, doll. So, what do you want to see next?”

“I don’t know, Testy. Shouldn’t we be… doing something? Finding this friend of yours? Not just wandering around and sightseeing?”

Testy folded her arms. “Honey, we’ve been looking since the moment we got here. I’ve been looking. You didn’t know how to. But there’s been no sign, and I’m beginning to wonder if maybe it’s the wrong month.”

“Wrong… what? You’ve been—Testy, you’re not making sense.”

“Yeah I am, doll. You just don’t have all the information. But don’t worry about that. What say we go apartment shopping, settle down and see what this wormy ol’ Apple has to show us in six months or so. Say, around the holidays. Maybe New Year’s.”

“What? New Year’s? Testy, you didn’t ask me to move here.”

“Well, I kind of did, but you weren’t really ready to hear that part, so I didn’t push it. What are you going to back in Vegas, anyway? Go crawl back to Honorė, who probably won’t even remember your name? Try out for some other show, even older and tattier than Extrav!? Is that really what you want, doll?”

“It’s what I thought I’d be doing a little longer,” Rachel said. “I mean… a little while, anyway.”

“Oh, doll. Come on. Give this a try. For your Auntie Testy. You know you really want to.”

And when a determined drag queen says things like that to an indecisive, aging chorine, there’s little or no chance she’s going to be refused.

“But Testy, really… six months?”

LaLesbiana patted her hand. “We’ll see, darlin’. But it’ll be good. I promise.”

And so that was settled.

NEXT POST: MISS HONORÉ STRIKES GOLD (Monday 11/16)