Choir Boy (22 page)

“Well, I’ll be fucked to bleeding. She fell asleep. Kid, did you fall asleep?” Anna Conventional sounded less alert than earlier.

“Not asleep,” Berry said. “Just thinking.”

“Can you think and wash your hair at the same time? Moisturizing shampoo, then a little conditioner.” Anna Conventional didn’t seem too interested in Berry’s nakedness under all the foam. She picked over several shelves of beauty stuff while Berry showered, rinsed, and conditioned.

“You’re lucky I’m here,” Anna Conventional told Berry as she did his hair with gel, a hot curling iron, and a blow dryer. Berry’s hair had never looked so big. His head had exploded. “If it was just Maura giving you a makeover, she’d go overboard with the cosmetics. Don’t tell her I said that. She thinks if one layer is good, ten must be better.”

“I heard that,” Maura said.

Berry dried off and wrapped himself in a fluffy bathrobe. Maura didn’t see Berry naked, not that it probably mattered. For the next hour or so—it felt like fifteen million sermons—Maura and Anna Conventional worked on Berry’s face with brushes, pads, and fuzzy pipe cleaners. Berry’s job was to look straight ahead, or up, or to one side, to open his mouth, or close it, as they directed.

“You know,” Maura said. “Canon Moosehead is a great guy. I found him sensitive and caring, and a hell of a kisser.” “You kissed Canon Moosehead?” Berry jerked forward. Anna Conventional restrained him with one hand while brushing with the other.

“No moving,” Anna Conventional said.

“Fie was very upset,” Maura said. “We talked it over. He’s a wronged individual, I gotta tell you. So I comforted him.” “How . . . how much comfort did you end up giving him?” Berry smudged his lipstick.

“Oh, a fair amount. You gotta save something for the second date, ya know.”

“Second! You mean—”

“Sunday night. He gets so strung out after services.” “Does he know . . . that you’re . . . about your ...”

“Ya know, not sure. You think it matters?”

Anna Conventional puffed flour in Berry’s face. He sneezed. “Hey, watch that. No olfactory responses until your face is in place.” Berry tried to hold his breath. “So isn’t this Canon guy some kind of pew-kisser? So he should be Reverend Tolerance, right?”

“Uh,” Berry said. “Before he started busting stiffies, Canon Moosehead was pretty uptight.”

“Maybe he’s mellowed out. Trouble broadens the mind. I gotta say, Maur, your life thing is really trippy, it’s like the ultimate life as art trip, or maybe art as life. I dunno,” said Anna Conventional.

“Speaking of art,” Maura said, “you think she’s about done?”

“Give me a few more minutes,” Anna said, concentrating. “God, I wish I could put this in the magazine. We’d win a Pulitzer for makeover-related journalism.”

“They have a Pulitzer for makeovers?” Maura said.

“Or maybe it’s just a Nobel Prize. I forget.”

Berry just resigned himself to being putty and letting the two of them work on him. He didn’t go back to sleep, but he did drift into a space where nothing mattered. Makeovers seemed to be haircuts times ten.

Finally, Anna Conventional nodded to Maura, who grabbed a mirror and plunked it in front of Berry. The image looked unlike anything Berry had seen in the mirror before. It was like that moment, a year after Berry joined the choir, when he’d first figured out the tiny face he saw was his own, and that he was a separate person like the other people he saw everywhere, and not some disembodied vantage point. Except, this time, he saw an alien supermodel instead of himself.

“Oh my God,” Berry breathed.

The person facing him had fascinating dark eyes and proud cheekbones, a pouty but not bratty mouth, and feathery black hair. As a boy, Berry could never approach a girl like the one he saw. The hormones had furnished the raw material for this candy face, not just tits but also softer features.

“Nice,” Maura said. “Definite Pulitzer material.”

“I went for subtle,” Anna Conventional said.

“Hey, my third or fourth middle name is subtle.”

“Now it’s just a matter of clothes,” Anna Conventional said. “We want something that shows off that bust and those hips, without necessarily making too much of a big deal out of his doohickey.”

“I don’t suppose we could tuck it,” Maura said. Berry wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded hideous. He and Anna both shot Maura dirty looks. She tossed up her hands. “Fine, fine.”

They made Berry try on a few trillion of Anna Conventional’s dresses and blouse/skirt combos. He got twitchy by the time they settled on a purply-blue stretchy dress with a low-cut front, leading to stretchy lycra over the tummy and then a foofy gathered skirt made of some kind of tulle. “Yes,” Anna said. “Yes, yes, yes, definitely yes. I haven’t worn this since Bush the first. You gotta be skinny to pull this baby off.”

Berry stared at the debutante in the mirror in the frilly low-cut dress and bare feet. She looked glamorous and untouchable, but also vulnerable. Shy and anxious for someone to shield her from the world. A soft minx whom some man could, should, come and possess. Berry felt inadequate to take care of the girl in the mirror. She needed a powerful man, not the boy who blinked at her loveliness. Where had Maura and Anna found the lushness they’d grafted onto Berry’s skin?

“Wow,” Berry said. “I can’t believe this is me. I mean, wow. Gotta admit, I’m impressed. Blown away, even.” Anna Conventional took a bow. “So can I take it all off now?”

“Are you insane?” Anna Conventional laughed, scandalized. “We must take you out on the town. You had your snow tires fitted, now you gotta be road tested.”

“She’s just nervous,” Maura said* stroking the back of Berry’s neck. “God, I’ve waited ages for this. It’s Okay, Berry. It’ll be fine.”

“Nerves have nothing to do with it,” Berry twirled in front of the mirror despite his reservations. He practiced tossing his head with a smile. “If someone from school or choir sees me like this, I’m fucking dead.” The girl in the mirror pouted. Berry wanted to kiss her.

“They wouldn’t recognize you anyway,” Maura chortled. “All they’ll see now is a hot mama chula with perky tits.” “Anyway, we’ll go places nobody knows you,” Anna Conventional said. “Think we could sneak her into Merry Queen of Scotch?”

“She’s got a fake ID,” Maura said.

“Wow, kid, you get around.”

“My dad’s a failed role model,” Berry explained.

“Flawed heroes are the best kind,” Anna said in an artistic pronouncement sort of voice.

“Uh huh,” Berry said uncertainly.

Maura really wanted to take Berry to the Booby Hatch, the city’s tranny hangout, but Anna Conventional vetoed that for now. “It’s just a little overwhelming. Lots of your fellow, er, professionals tend to congregate there, and so do a lot of would-be clients.”

“I hate you artsy fartsy types,” Maura said.

Berry wasn’t sure whether Anna Conventional and Maura really liked each other. They both focused a lot on Berry.

Merry Queen of Scotch was darker than the karaoke bar he’d gone to with Maura and Wilson, and it had a line out front. It had fewer tables and chairs than the strip joint Marco had taken Berry to and no stage. Swords and kilts dangled around the bar. But the bar also had purple neon strips behind it, and a pirate hung over the pool table.

When Berry and friends got there, it was already past Berry’s normal bedtime. The club was just starting to fill up. Maura got Berry a virgin daiquiri with a big umbrella.

Clubbing turned out to be boring. The club was a crowded place where speech died in the rumble of music. Maura and Anna Conventional seemed to enjoy standing around and sipping drinks. Occasionally someone they knew would drift past and they’d make a huge pantomime of waving and smiling. Then they’d go back to standing and making signs at each other or shouting in each other’s ears.

“Hey,” Anna Conventional told Berry. “That guy thinks you’re cute.” She pointed at a man standing in the corner who wore a nice suit and blue tie. “Of course, you’re jail-bait, but he doesn’t know that.”

Berry could hear Anna Conventional if she stood right beside him and shouted. Berry wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about the random stranger checking him out. He definitely was, though. Berry looked into the stranger’s eyes and saw something like reverence.

“It just shows we did a good job,” Anna Conventional said. “People find you hot and a convincing girl, which I never doubted. We had good raw material. This is what it’s all about.”

“We’re hanging out, just the girls,” Maura shouted, as if labeling the situation would make it appeal to Berry. “We’re having girl talk. We’re sharing feminine mysteries. We’re girlbonding. We’re
doing girl stuff
.”

“Uh huh,” Berry said.

“Why don’t you try giggling?” Maura said. “It’s a wonderful feeling, a release. Here, we’ll all giggle together. One, two three . . .” On three, Maura made a rattling cans noise in her throat. Anna Conventional made a half-hearted attempt to join in. Berry just watched them as if they were insane.

“You didn’t join in,” Maura accused.

“Look, I really appreciate the girlbonding and all. It’s just that I feel a little weird. This is all kind of new to me, and I’m really not used to acting like a grownup. I mean, what do girls my own age do?”

“Giggle,” Maura offered.

“Play with makeup. Obsess over their weight. Masturbate in secret. Listen to bad bubblegum pop. Write inane letters to magazines about how they like this boy but can’t tell if he likes them back, or how some boy likes them but they just want to be friends,” said Anna Conventional.

“Sounds great,” Berry said.

“It pretty much sucks to be your age no matter what sex you are,” said Anna Conventional.

They went to the karaoke bar, where Berry could relax and sing a song he liked by Christina Aguilera. The crowd loved Berry, and he liked what he saw in their eyes. By the song’s bridge, he stalked like the stars on MTV and urged the audience to shout “Ho!” at intervals. He hit some impossible high notes, Mariah-style, and the crowd shrieked. When he got back to the table, Anna and Maura hugged him. “You were amazing! You’re getting into it!”

“That was fun,” Berry admitted.

“You just found your inner vamp,” Anna Conventional said. “I’m thinking big head-dress or tiara. I’m thinking rhinestone bustier and sequin gloves.”

“I love to sing,” Berry said. “Everything else is just show.” Another guilt wave about the evening’s missed rehearsal.

“Enough of this trifling,” Maura said. “Can we please hit the Booby Hatch now?”

“I dunno,” Anna Conventional said. “What do you think, Berry? You up to descending to the tranny underworld?”

Berry yawned nakedly. “Dunno. Depends if it’ll be more interesting than the clubs we’ve hit so far.”

“Don’t be a jerk,” Anna said without heat. “We’ll go for a little while, just to see what we think. Unless we’re rapturous, we’ll head on back. That’s why God made cars.”

The Booby Hatch was a mile or two away from downtown, in a run-down area of warehouses and massage parlors. From the back seat of Anna Conventional’s SUV Berry watched the neighborhood slide downhill as the car moved further north. “Hey,” Berry said. “Thanks for taking me under your wings and stuff. I know it’s a pain dealing with me.”

“You kidding?” Anna Conventional said. “This is the most fun Fve had in weeks.”

“This is a blast,” Maura said. “I just wish you were enjoying it more.”

“I am enjoying it,” Berry said. “I’ll try harder.”

“We’re here!” Maura pointed at a golden awning with a white neon sign that said “TBH” in cursive letters. The “B” looked like cleavage. A bouncer and a few women loitered outside. Anna Conventional found a parking spot right away.

The Booby Hatch was as dark as the other bars, but with textures of shade on purpose. The women in the room seemed to thrive on near-darkness, like anti-plants. The moment the trio entered, Maura rushed off the street. She kissed cheeks and hugged everyone in sight. Most of the girls there wore more makeup than Maura and they glistened shyly as if rapid movement might dispel their womanhood.

“They’re all jealous of you,” Anna Conventional whispered to Berry.

Berry couldn’t believe her. All these women looked so perfect and sophisticated, their hair in place and faces etched in strong lines. They looked realer than most women. They all socialized amongst themselves while they waited for someone/something else. How many of them were workers like Maura?

Something disturbed the equilibrium of Berry’s ass. Fingers thrust into the cleft under his skirt and squeezed. “Hey, stop that,” Anna Conventional swatted a man’s hairy wrist. He’d emerged from the gloom without Berry noticing him. He pulled his hand away, but the move upset the delicate balance Berry had striven for all night on his three-inch chunky heels. He’d been on tiptoe for hours.

Berry pitched forward, one knee bent and hands flailing. He knocked over one of the lacquer-headed goddesses standing by the bar and she fell face first into the puddle her own drink created as it landed. “Oh God!” Berry cried. He teetered and tripped on the downed girl, then flew himself into a full-on belly flop. Maura’s arm lunged and grabbed him at the last minute.

“Jesus!” Maura said. She pulled Berry to his feet. “Maddie, you all right?” The woman on the floor groaned and nodded. She raised herself slowly and with difficulty, then staggered to the bathroom to rebuild her face and hair. “Jesus!” Maura said again. “Berry, you have been drinking virgins haven’t you?” Berry nodded. “Everybody, this is

Berry. She’s still finding her T-legs!” Maura introduced him to all the bright figures. He wondered if their makeup glowed in the dark like the stars on Wilson’s ceiling. They all smiled at Berry. One or two of them shook his hand as if they wished him the Peace of the Lord.

Once Berry’s pupils dilated enough to suck light from every meager source in the room, he saw that Maura and the others weren’t alone. A dozen or so men crouched in the corners and at the fringes of the bar. They all looked older than the women there, and stubble clouded their faces. Most wore casual club gear, but one or two wore suits. They all sat nervously or patiently, Berry couldn’t tell which, and watched the women mingle. The men didn’t talk to each other. One of the women standing near Berry made eye contact with one of the men and smiled as if greeting a best friend. After they locked smiles, she went and sat on his lap. He bought her a drink and soon they sat skin-to-skin from neck to thigh.