The Beary Best Holiday Party Ever (2 page)

No, of course not.

“—but between us, I think we could make this the
beary
best party ever!” He laughed. “Get it?” He laughed again. “
Beary
best?”

Ron almost said something inappropriate but noticed the look Billy was giving him. It was almost like Billy could both hear what Paddy was saying and read Ron’s mind.

Ron smiled with effort. His boss at the call center where he worked said customers could
hear
a smile in your voice. “Yeah, that’s pretty funny, Paddy.”

“Maybe we could make it the name of this year’s party!”

“Maybe,” he said, meaning no such thing. Beary Best Holiday Party Ever? He could see the banner in his mind now.
No. No way!
This year’s party
would
be the best ever. But the
very
best, not the “beary” best. And it would be his ideas that made it so. “But you know the party is six months away and—”

“—and we don’t want to wait until the last moment. Some guys say that’s what’s been wrong lately. That Mel’s been relying on inertia rather anything else the last few years.”

Aarrggghh!
Now
Paddy
was reading his mind!

“What say this Sunday?”

Ron sighed. Paddy wasn’t going to let this go. And he did go to The Male Box almost every Sunday night. What was he supposed to do? Go to The Watering Hole instead? Yes, The Watering Hole did let the Heartland Bear Clan hold their meetings there for free, but Sunday night was karaoke night, and he
hated
karaoke with a passion.

He looked over at Billy. At least Billy would be at the Box. Performing, of course.

“Okay,” Ron said. “Why not?” Although he could think of dozens of reasons why not.

“Excellent! Then I’ll see you there! If we meet at eight, we can still catch the show if you like. And I know you like that show.”

You do?
How much
did
Paddy know about him? It felt vaguely stalkerish.

“Sounds good,” Ron said. It sounded completely awful. How was he going to face the man? Especially considering how they’d met? Would the memories fill his mind? Pictures of Paddy all….
No! Don’t go there.

It was hard
not
to.

“All right, then!” exclaimed Paddy. “See you Sunday. Eight o’clock. Back patio?”

“Sure,” Ron replied, resigned.

“Okay. Later!”

“Later,” he echoed.

“And congratulations again. You really do deserve it.”

God, Paddy sounded so warm. How did he manage it? Considering what a jerk he was.
And I’m the only one who knows. I’ve seen him exposed.
In more ways than one.
He’s pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes.

Then he got an idea.

Why not play along? Get Paddy to expose himself even more. Let his guard down. Then Ron could show everyone the
real
Paddy and get rid of the guy for good.

He smiled. This time it was real. “Thank you,” he said, and by God, he
could
hear the smile in his voice. His boss was right.

How great was that?

Ron signed off and then turned to his buddy. “So, Billy. What do you have to drink? I think this calls for a toast.”

“Uh-oh,” Billy said. “What
kind
of toast?”

“Why, for the best of things,” Ron said, his grin spreading. “The
beary
best.”

And finally, the pall that had lain over him since early that evening was lifted, and he felt as good as he should have from the beginning.

B
ILLY
SAT
next to Ron on the back patio of The Male Box as they waited for Paddy to show up. The back patio was almost empty since it was so early—which made him all the more nervous.

Billy was wearing a dress, of course. This time a gold-sequined cocktail dress. It was too small for his large body. Billy’s… well…
middle
was straining the sequins near bursting point. His cleavage was thoroughly visible. His big, very hairy cleavage. Funny that Ron hadn’t even blinked at Billy’s
ensemble
, though. He had actually even complimented him on it. Five years ago his reaction had been different. In fact, he’d been quite critical of the outfit Billy had been wearing the night they’d first met. Strange the changes a few years could bring.

“I appreciate you waiting with me,” Ron said. His stomach was in knots. He wasn’t looking forward to being alone with Paddy.

“
No hay problema
,” Billy said, sipping his martini. “I needed a little liquid fortification before the show anyway.”

“Really?” Ron blinked. It was only then he noticed that the hand holding the martini was shaking, ever so slightly. “
You’re
nervous? After all these years?”

Billy gave him an unmistakable look of surprise. “Hell, yes. How can you
not
know that after all this time? I’ve told you I’m always nervous before I perform.”

“
You
?” How could a man who had been wearing a deep lavender negligee covered in dozens, if not hundreds, of plastic swans and a matching headdress the night they spoke for the first time be nervous about
any
thing?

“I repeat:
hell
, yes. I think I’ve been waiting in dread for years for the night some jock from my high school shows up in the audience. I have nightmares of someone shouting, ‘I knew you were a fag!’ during the height of my number, and then I freeze up and can’t finish.”

Ron looked at his friend, dumbfounded. He’d always figured nothing could throw Billy off. How else could a man that big and shaggy perform in drag in front of so many people for a living? And he did make a living at it, too, at not one, not two, but three bars (including a lesbian bar). Billy had given up his Evil Day Job in payroll at a large company to do drag the same year the two of them met—and made more money at it.

Billy was one of Ron’s biggest heroes, and that was something Ron would never have imagined the night he first encountered him. First he’d sat in astonishment as the short and wide Wookie did his “Walking ’Round in Women’s Underwear” number. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. And the laughter. People were making fun of him. Couldn’t he see that?

Then unable to stay away, he’d come back to the bar a week later to see “Billy the Bear” (his apparent stage name) sing in a huge blond wig, a negligee covered with rows of little pink swans, and matching rubber boots. He’d also been unable to stop himself from approaching the bear at the bar after the show as he drank a cocktail, still in his outfit. Billy had been standing. Sitting would have meant crushing dozens of plastic swans under his considerable butt. Up close, Ron had seen them for what they were. His planned words went out the window, to be replaced by, “Are those swans those little cups they fill with mixed nuts at weddings?”

Billy had turned to him, an eyebrow raised. He gave a scratch at his beard—shaggy, neither trimmed nor Santa Claus thick—a gesture Ron would come to see a million times over the years. “I got them in a storage-locker auction,” Billy said. “Yeah, wedding favors, I guess.” He pulled one of the swans out enough for Ron to really see it. Sure enough, it was the kind of thing that would have been at each place setting, filled with peanuts or pastel mints. “Took me three days to sew all these little bitches on. I’m not a seamstress. I had to hot glue them on the boots, and still half the fuckers fell off.”

Seamstress.

Not seamster. Not even tailor.

Another reason Billy surprised him.

He opened his mouth and—without knowing it—he changed his entire life and began the most important friendship he’d ever had.

“Seamstress?”

That was when Ron first saw Billy give one of his characteristic shrugs. It made his big incredibly hirsute man breasts jiggle (like bowls full of jelly). “That’s what Mom was. I don’t know the guy word for it. I don’t think a tailor would sew swans onto a negligee, do you? Tailors are more fix-your-tux kind of guys, right? Besides, I am a drag
queen
.”

“I don’t understand,” Ron had somehow managed to say. Two other men in dresses were watching from Billy’s left, as well as what was apparently a real woman with a huge wild red wig.

“Well,” Billy said, adjusting his swan hat, which on closer examination appeared to be a centerpiece, “when I saw what I’d won in the auction, I wasn’t sure what to do with them. They sat in
my
storage unit for a couple months. Then one martini-filled night, it hit me. I was watching
Thoroughly Modern Millie
—you know, the one with Julie Andrews?—and I
knew
what to do!” He grinned his big lopsided smile. “I was going to make a flapper dress out of them!”

Ron had stood there, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, unable to put words together to describe the swirl of emotions he was experiencing. Shock, fear, discomfort, outrage, and more. Billy’s act had shocked him enough. The big guy’s blasé attitude left him unable to use his best tool: his words.

“What is it, tiger?” the woman with the huge red afro-wig said, joining in on the conversation.

“I-I….” Ron swallowed hard and tried again. Tried to put it all into words. Finally: “You know they’ve all been laughing at you, right? How can you prance on that stage like that? Let them laugh at you?” The words were coming now, and Ron found the two emotions battling for dominance were anger and a desire to cry. “That getup.” He gestured to… well, all of Billy (or as he’d been introduced onstage, Billy the Bear). “You’re…
jiggling
.”

Billy’s other eyebrow rose high enough to almost disappear under the edge of his swan headdress. He pushed his hairy “breasts” together and then laughed. “Baby, if you’ve got it, you should flaunt it.”

Got it? Fat? Ron’s face blazed with embarrassment. He himself was wearing an untucked shirt even bigger than his size XX called for. He’d spent years figuring out ways to hide his overweight body. “Why would you
want
to?” he asked, astonished, hearing the voices of his parents in his head.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the red-wigged woman stand up straight. He saw anger blazing on her eyes. The other two drag queens standing behind her seemed to be angry as well. Just as she was opening her mouth, Billy raised his hand.

“I got this, Annie.” He took a sip of his martini. “Baby,” he said, now addressing Ron, “I’ve had people make fun of me since I was in kindergarten. I’ve always been a big boy. It sucked.”

The words were coming out of Ron’s mouth before he could stop them. “Then how can you prance around like that? You’re just begging for it. Those people
are
making fun of you. They’re laughing at you!”

“Those people aren’t making fun of me,” Billy said gently. “And the reason they’re laughing is because I’m
making
them laugh. All those years of people calling me names? I got harder—tougher—and I decided to turn their taunts against them.” Then, voice growing in strength: “Now
I
control who laughs. And even if they are laughing
at
me? I’m having fun! I’m laughing all the way to the bank, while they’re working at convenience stores. Or answering phones all damned day….”

That had stung.

“…or getting paid three bucks an hour as waiters and scrounging for tips. Or having heart attacks from the stress their manager jobs are giving them. Besides—” Billy did a little shimmy, setting the swans shaking and shivering all around him. “—there are plenty of men who
like
my body.”

What? What had he just said? Men who liked his body? “There
are?
” he asked, flabbergasted.

Billy rolled his eyes. “You don’t think I’m a
virgin
, do you?”

“I-I….” Ron hadn’t known what to say.

Billy gave him a lascivious smile, then leaned in, reached out, and unerringly—despite a heavy flannel shirt
and
an undershirt—found Ron’s nipples and gave them both a little tweak. “I can’t
imagine
a hottie like you is a virgin.”

Which was true, but what did that have to do with anything? Wait!
Hottie?

“You’re
not
, are you?”

Ron blushed harder. “N-No.”

“That’s because some guys like big men like us.” He turned around and wiggled his rear end. “And you know I tell no lies when I say some men really,
really
like big butts.” He turned back around. “Thank
God
!”

Ron had no response.

“Have you ever had a guy tell you after sex that he wished you were thinner?”

“Yes!” Ron barked. He had. More than once. More than twice. But the one that came readily to mind was “Cameron!”

“Who’s Cameron?” asked Billy.

Ron glanced over at Billy’s companions and was greatly relieved to see they’d lost interest in the conversation and were ordering cocktails. Talk about “Thank God.” He already couldn’t believe he was baring his soul to this complete stranger. But to have listeners-in? That would be too much.

Ron sighed. “Cameron was the second guy I ever had sex with,” he said as softly as possible and still be heard over the music the DJ was playing. “And right after we both came, he poked me in the belly and told me ‘thin is in’ and I needed to lose a hundred pounds.” He was surprised when he felt tears threatening. “Poked me!
Deep
.”

Annie and the two queens glanced his way, and he shut his eyes and turned away. Then he felt a hand on his elbow.

“I’m sorry he did that,” Billy said.

Ron sighed. “Fuck it,” he said dismissively.

Billy touched Ron’s face, turning him so he was looking into the big bear’s eyes. “Exactly. Fuck that.”

“Fuck that!” said one of the queens. Apparently they had regained interest in the conversation.

“And the horse they road in on,” chimed in the second.

“And twice on Sunday,” said Annie. “
Hey
! It is Sunday, isn’t it?”