High Heels and Lipstick (25 page)

I wanted to meet her when I grew up. Scratch that. I wanted to
be
her when I grew up.

Every episode of the show included a minichallenge. This week, each queen had to design a T-shirt that she would want her fans to wear. Taffy won the challenge. Queen Regna collected all the shirts and informed the contestants the shirts would be auctioned off for charity. She named the charity, one that had been set up in memory of a boy my age who'd killed himself a couple of years earlier because of bullying.

I could relate to that. Holly thought I dealt pretty well with being bullied, but she didn't know what went on in my head. I'd considered ending it all a few times. The only thing that had stopped me was that I really didn't want to give jackwads like Jim Frankel the satisfaction.

I made a mental note of the name of the charity. After the show, I could go online and bid on Taffy's shirt, if it was still available and hadn't gone so sky-high in price that I wouldn't be able to afford it without persuading Mom to sell the house.

Another feature of the show was confessionals with each contestant in his male persona, which were interspersed throughout the episode. Right after the minichallenge was an interview with Taffy.

“I'm thrilled that Regna's donating our shirts to that charity,” he said. “I was bullied in school myself. Every day. Called names, smacked around, threatened. Everything. Some days I couldn't even stand to leave my house. And—” His voice choked, and he wiped his eyes with his fingertips. “I tried to take my life. Twice. Thank God I didn't succeed, because I've led an amazing life since I got out of that school.”

He looked into the camera, and I felt like he was looking right at me. “That's what I want kids to know. High school is hell. Pure and simple, it's hell. I've been there. But you have a lot to offer, so stick around, okay?” Tears trickled down his cheeks. He brushed them away and chuckled. “Okay, that's enough. I don't want to spoil my makeup.”

“Wow.” Holly sniffled. “I hate that he had to go through that.”

“Me too.” It didn't seem to occur to her that I was going through the same kind of thing, so I didn't mention it.

I didn't feel like talking, anyway. I was awed by how strong Taffy must have been to get through all that. He'd survived high school, and now he was on national TV. The jerks that had shoved him around were probably in their hometown working dead-end jobs and wondering whether to have hamburger or spaghetti for supper. Taffy was making a life, and they probably had none.

More than ever, I wanted to be Taffy Sweet when I grew up.

We watched the rest of the show, including the main challenge, which was something about teaching younger queens who were still learning the ropes how to sew glamorous dresses. Taffy won that challenge too, making it the third of the six challenges so far that she'd won. In my opinion, she was a shoo-in to win the whole thing, but of course that wasn't my call. Queen Regna and her judges discussed each queen at the end of each challenge, and Regna made the final decision about who stayed, who went home, and who won.

I deleted the recording, and Holly and I started our homework. We had way too many assignments. It was rare for all our teachers to assign homework on the same day. I didn't know why they'd chosen to pile it all on today. It seemed like they'd decided to give us a break throughout September to ease us into our junior year, and now they'd decided to hit us all at once. It was only October. We didn't have to know everything yet.

I helped Holly with the psychology assignment and she helped me with algebra. I didn't really need help in that class, but Holly liked to explain things and she was a little better at math than I was. “I think I should send Taffy an e-mail,” I said between algebra and English, when we stopped for a snack break.

“Do it,” she said. “You never know. She might even answer you.”

“Of course she'd answer me. She'll want to encourage someone who's where she was not long ago.” At least that was my justification for sending it.

Honestly, I didn't know if Taffy would answer or not. The competition show was filmed several months in advance. That meant that while we were watching it, the winner and runners-up were already out on tour, and the other queens had returned to their clubs or moved on to bigger and better things. If I was right about Taffy winning the competition, she'd be too busy with touring and promotional appearances to take time to answer an e-mail from some sad-sack sixteen-year-old in Massachusetts.

But I could always hope. It wasn't like I'd lose anything by e-mailing her, just the few minutes it would take me to type something saying how inspiring she was.

That would have to wait until after we finished the discussion-guide questions our English teacher had assigned us over the chapter of
The Catcher in the Rye
we'd just read. I hated that book. Holden Caulfield whined so much he made me look well adjusted.

We weren't even finished our homework when Mom walked through the front door carrying her purse and a paper bag that looked suspiciously greasy. “Takeout again?” I said, setting down my worn-out copy of
The Catcher in the Rye.

“Yes, takeout again. Takeout is quick and easy.” She gave me a death glare. “Most kids
like
takeout. On the other hand, if it isn't to your liking, you can always learn to cook. It would be a better use of your time than whatever you're doing.”

“Um, we're doing homework,” I said. “I think that's a good use of my time.”

“And what were you doing before the homework?” She walked into the kitchen without waiting for me to answer. That was fine with me, because I didn't really want to answer her.

“I'd better go.” Holly started packing up her books and papers. Mom pretty much never invited her to stay for supper. She liked Holly; she just didn't like the idea of paying for one more person's food. It would have been better for our bank account if we didn't eat out three or four times a week, but Mom worked late and didn't always feel like cooking by the time she came home. Despite her suggestion that I learn to cook, I'd proven more than once that I was a disaster in the kitchen. The last time I'd tried anything more involved than a grilled cheese sandwich, it had taken half an hour to clear the smoke out of the house. And our upstairs neighbor had had to come down to shut off the smoke detectors.

I helped Holly gather all her things and walked her to the door. “See you tomorrow,” I said, hugging her. “Remember to wear blue and white. We have to show our school spirit.” I couldn't have cared less about school spirit. I just wanted our grade to win the participation competition the school ran every year during Spirit Week. We'd won our freshman and sophomore years; we had to keep the streak going.

“I hate color day.” She rolled her eyes. “Everyone's all dressed alike. It's boring. But for the sake of our class's reputation, I suppose I'll just have to deal. See you tomorrow.” She opened the door and paused. “Don't wear the boa, Evan.”

“It's the right shade of blue,” I argued.

“You'll just be asking for trouble. You know that.”

I shrugged. “It won't be any different if I don't wear the boa, so I might as well enjoy myself.”

“Okay. You know I'll have your back.” She sighed and left.

She always had my back. Sometimes it had to be hard to be my cousin, especially since she refused to turn her back on me just because our schoolmates thought I was a freak.

Her mentioning the boa reminded me that I hadn't put it away yet, so I grabbed the box from the coffee table and hurried into my room before Mom spotted it. She would want to know what it was and why I'd bought it. She would also want to know where I'd gotten the money for it. She didn't need to find out that some of the money Dad had sent me for school clothes was now in Idaho.

Mom was already sitting at the kitchen table with a loaded hamburger and a pile of steak fries on a plate in front of her. “We're sharing the fries,” she informed me. “I got you a BLT with mayo. That's what you like, right?”

“Sometimes.” I wouldn't have minded a hamburger. Hers smelled divine. But our usual takeout place made excellent BLTs, too, so I didn't complain.

I took a plate out of the cupboard and sat at the table. “How was school?” Mom asked as I arranged my food on the plate.

“Same old, same old.” I dropped a handful of fries onto my plate and decided that wouldn't be enough, so I took a second handful. They really piled the fries into their orders. A small order was usually enough to satisfy Mom and me, and this time it looked like she'd bought a large. Which was fine with me. I'd skipped lunch, so all I'd eaten since breakfast was the granola bar I'd had during my homework break. I was starving.

“It looked like you and Holly had a lot of homework.” She took a bite of her burger.

“Every class,” I said. “I mean, two of the assignments aren't due till the day after tomorrow, but we decided to do them today. Then we won't have to worry about them.”

“Good idea. I'd really like to see you be more responsible with your work this year. You had some problems last year.”

“Yeah.” I'd had problems in the classes I shared with Jim Frankel. It had been pretty hard to pay attention with a gorilla behind me whispering crap like “I'm going to chop off your hair, fag” every few minutes. He was the main reason I'd cut my hair from shoulder-length to practically a crew cut over summer vacation.

That, plus a crew cut would fit better under a wig.

I didn't see a reason to point that out to Mom. She knew I was bullied at school. She'd talked to the school about it a few times, and they'd promised to “look into it.” To be fair, they usually did, but the kids responsible tended to deny what they'd said to me. And I was pretty sure Mr. Lawrence, the vice principal, held me responsible for the way other kids treated me. After all, I was the one who chose to go to school wearing nail polish, scarves, and brightly colored shirts, some of which I found in the women's section of my favorite secondhand store.

“I just want you to do well this year,” Mom said. “I mean, you didn't do too badly for the most part last year. There were just those few issues with your grades. But this is your junior year. This is when grades really count for college.”

“I know, Mom.” She'd had this conversation with me pretty much weekly during summer vacation, when she wasn't reminding me that I should have gotten a job. I'd tried to find a job, but the only places I could have worked were around town, and those places all employed kids I didn't want to deal with during the summer. Bad enough I had to deal with them during the school year. I wasn't sure an employer would be as attentive to bullying as the school, and the school didn't do as much about it as I thought they should.

“Your father says he'll help with college.” She took another bite of her hamburger and took her time chewing. I figured that was to keep herself from saying that she didn't believe a word of my father's promises. Neither did I. In the six years since they'd split up, he'd kept maybe three promises of the dozens he'd made.

Then again, he hadn't been great about keeping promises before they'd split, either. That was one of the biggest reasons Mom had left him.

“I'll apply for plenty of scholarships,” I said. I didn't even know what I wanted to major in when I went to college. I hadn't considered not going. A college education seemed important, and in college I might actually meet tolerant people my age. But I wasn't sure what major would help prepare me for a career as a drag queen. Business, maybe, so I could manage myself and the income I hoped to earn.

We finished our supper without any more talk about school. I didn't bother asking Mom about her job. Every time I did that, I was treated to half an hour or more of hearing all about how the women at her office backstabbed each other and how the bosses were only out for themselves and didn't care about their employees. I understood that Mom needed to vent, but I wasn't really her target audience. She had her sister for that.

After supper we watched our usual game shows, and then I went into my room to finish my homework. At least, that was the excuse I gave Mom. As soon as I closed my bedroom door, I sat on my bed with my laptop.

The first thing I did was look up the T-shirt auction that had been mentioned on the drag show. Of course, the prices of the queens' T-shirts were already way above my budget. Each one was even more than I'd spent on the boa, and I'd spent too much on that. I had some extra cash, but nowhere near enough to bid on the shirts.

Next I did a web search for Taffy Sweet. I figured she probably had a website, and sure enough, I found one that included a few contact e-mail addresses. One of them was for a management company, which I knew wasn't what I wanted. I wasn't sure, out of the others, which I should use to actually get in touch with Taffy herself, so I addressed my message to all four and then spent fifteen minutes composing in my head before I dared to start typing.

I wanted to tell Taffy I knew what she'd gone through because I was going through the same thing myself. I wanted to tell her that I knew what it was like to not want to leave the house. But I was afraid I'd sound whiny, so in the end all I typed was,