Wonderland (16 page)

A
s I was walking to the twins', I tried calling Aaron again. It rang once, twice, and then he picked up. “Hello?”

“Aaron! Where the fuck have you been?”

“What do you mean? I was driving home and had my phone turned off. What's up?”

“I think you know. What the fuck was the big idea? Did you think I wouldn't find out?”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Alex.”

“Like fuck you don't. Someone saw you, Aaron.”

“Saw me what?”

“Saw you paint my doorway.”

“The graffiti? Don't be crazy, Alex. I would never do that.”

“Bullshit, Aaron! Do you have Steven?”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“No, Aaron, I'm not. You've lied about everything. I called your work, I know you quit a year ago. I know you weren't in town for work. Come clean. Now.”

“Alex, it isn't what you think.”

“Where are you, Aaron? Put Steven on the phone.”

“I don't have your boyfriend, Alex, and frankly, I am disgusted you think I would even have it in me to do something so insane.”

“My neighbor saw you graffiti my door. If you did that, who knows what else you'd do. Tell me, why the club?”

“What?”

“Why do I have to go to the club tonight to get Steven back? What's there?”

“This conversation is over, Alex. Call me to apologize when you realize how insane you sound.”

“Don't you dare hang up on me . . .” I screamed into the phone but the line was dead. When I called back, of course, his phone was off. Why had he even answered? Why was he lying? What did he want? Did he think that this was the way to get me back? Was this all some elaborate plot to get me to realize how much I missed him, how much I still loved him?

There was a small whisper of doubt in my brain, telling me that it wasn't him, telling me that he couldn't have done it. He did still love me, it was obvious in how he looked at me, in how he'd fucked me. Hell, he had said it flat out the night before, although yeah, sure, he'd been drunk and about to cum.

It had to be. Everyone had been asking me who might have had cause to come after me or Steven like this, and it fit. Steven had exes too, but did he have exes who'd shown up randomly like this, with eyewitnesses to their vandalism? But then why would he have gone up with me to my apartment? And was that police car there driving ever so slowly in the street watching me?

Okay, Alex,
I told myself,
you're overthinking and you're paranoid. It's nearly time to go to the club, and then not only can you have a few drinks and relax, you can figure this all out.

I buzzed the twins, and ascended again to their condo in the clouds. Had it really only been this morning that I'd left? Had the drunken fourgy only been last night? I banged on the door, and Jesse opened it up.

“Wow guys, you look great.” They always did, but they were over the top tonight, Jesse in white with a black tie, Colton in black with a white tie.

“Thanks!” they said, each squeezing one ass cheek as they pulled me inside.

I brought them up to speed, and they both again expressed their doubts that Aaron could be behind it. “I know we just met him, but he just didn't seem crazy,” Colton said.

“Here's my number, call me maybe,” Jesse added, earning him a punch in the shoulder.

“Really though, Alex, you're basing it all on what the Walrus saw through his peephole. And until a day ago, you'd never even had a polite conversation with him, and now you're taking his word over a guy you've known for how many years?”

“We were together for six.”

“And did he give you any indication in that whole six years or in the three since that he's a deranged lunatic willing to stop at nothing to get you back?”

“I mean, don't get us wrong, you're great in bed, and clearly, that ass is worth kidnapping for but, really . . .”

They did make a kind of sense, and what's more, I really wanted to believe what they were saying. “But then who has Steven?”

“Maybe it's just some random nutcase. The city is filled with them after all. We'll be with you tonight, and if anything happens at this party, we've got your back.”

“We'll get him back tonight, or we'll all go to the police tomorrow.”

“Is Dinah coming tonight?”

“And Twitten.”

“The whole gang.”

“So what exactly is the point of this show anyway? Fundraiser?”

“The Queen of Hearts is retiring.”

“Retiring? Didn't she just start this summer?”

“Yah. Came out of nowhere, what, seven months ago?” Jesse looked at Colton for confirmation.

Colton nodded. “Yeah, around then. And now she's done. Moving on to some new bar, to grace them with her divine presence.”

“She's just a drag queen, guys.”

“But what a queen!” they said as one, and sighed dramatically. We laughed. It felt good to laugh. “Okay, let's go. I want to be there early, and get a good table. And then,” I said, “we will see what we will see.”

T
he club was silver. Everything gleamed in candlelight from the tables set up around the dance floor-turned-stage. Silver mylar curtains sparkled along the wall. The music, normally the thumping throb of house, was a more mellow trance. The Hatter, in a silver jacket and sunglasses, waved to us as we came in.

Dinah and her fiancé were already there, sipping red wine at the bar. Christopher aka Twitten was wearing plaid. I shook my head. Plaid was so overdone, and combined with the beard and glasses, just exacerbated his hipster twittiness. Dinah was stunning, though, in a short black skirt showing off her legs. I was feeling a little underdressed to be honest, and then I realized I never thought about what people were wearing. I noticed what they weren't wearing, like Brandon behind the bar, not wearing much and looking great doing it (how
did
that boy get abs like that?).

I had tried calling Aaron a couple more times but there was nothing. My phone had never been so ominously silent. I set it on our table right in front of me, ready to pounce the second it started vibrating. If I'd had any desire to watch the show, the five of us had a great table. I wasn't thinking about drag queens, though. I was thinking about Steven, and kept looking around, hoping to see someone staring a little too hard, hoping to see someone who looked like they knew where he was.

It occurred to me, then, that Steven and I had never missed a Queen of Hearts show. I thought of that first show, where he'd said he loved me for the first time. We had made a joke of it, that we said we loved each other at a show starring the Queen of Hearts. It was corny, like so much had been corny in our summer together. The sense of missing him was so big inside me, it made my whole body tremble. I felt the ring box through my pocket. Would he have said yes?

Of course he would have. He loved me. He'd said so, at this table, in this bar, at the first show starring . . .

The overture burst from the speakers, and I got caught up like I always did. Dinah giggled and clapped her hands; she never got out anymore, since Twitten came along. He was sitting next to her, his arms crossed, looking uncomfortable as hell. Like he had a stick up his ass, in a place where no one minded a stick up his ass.

And then there she was, the Queen of Hearts, in a gown of flowing red, a ruby-studded crown set in her black hair. She didn't walk onto the stage, she floated. She opened with a torch song, beautiful and romantic, about two separated lovers finding their way back to each other.

My phone vibrated. “Hello?” I whispered, trying to be as discreet as possible.

“Are you enjoying the show, Alex?”

“Where are you?” I scanned around the club. There were people on phones everywhere!

“Pay attention, Alex. There's someone here you know.”

“Where?” The line was dead. Dammit!

“What is it?” Jesse asked.

“It was him! He says there's someone here I know.”

“Other than us?”

“You're not being helpful, Jesse.”

“Oh I hope my little show isn't interrupting your conversation.” The Queen was standing in front of our table.

“Sorry.”

“Was it something you wanted to share with the club?”

I felt my face glow. “No, we'll be quiet.” The others were chuckling at my embarrassment.

“Well good, a pretty face like yours should just enjoy the night.” She smiled at me, and then waltzed off across the floor to chat with another table.

“She's very graceful,” Dinah said.

I hushed her. “Don't bring her back!” I kept scanning the crowd. I knew so many of them, or recognized them at least. There was the Hatter, in the booth and waiting for the Queen's signal to play the next song. There was the Caterpillar, holding court in his corner, dispensing treats to the fiending and the hurting. There was Allan, talking to Brandon at the bar. Ginger Jeff and Big Dick David and Bottom Bobby and Humpty Dumpty . . . so many guys I knew from the bar, but which one was I supposed to be looking for?

“It's the Walrus!” I nudged Jesse.

“Oh, I told him to come. I'll be right back.”
The fuck?

Jesse slid away from the table and went over to Walter, and brought him down to the table as quietly as possible as the Queen of Hearts was carried around by two backup dancers, both with swarthy good looks. Was it the Walrus? Had it really been him all along?

They watched the show but I watched the Walrus, and the rest of the crowd. Nothing seemed out of place. Everyone was glued to the numbers unfolding before us, as they built up faster and flashier. Then the Queen disappeared behind the curtain to change and we were left to watch the gyrating antics of her scantily clad dancers.

“Jesse, what did you invite him for?” I whispered.

“He needs friends. He's lonely.”

“I'm still not sure about him.”

“Trust me, he's harmless.”

“Walter,” I said louder. “Are you positive that the guy you saw painting my door was the one I brought up?”

The look on his face wasn't right. It was hesitant, and guilty, or was I just reading into it? “Yes.”

My phone vibrated under my hand. When I picked it up, I could hear the music that was playing coming at me both from the speakers and through the phone. Whoever was calling was calling from inside the club. I jumped to my feet and looked around as I said, “Where are you?”

“Seen anyone unexpected yet, Alex?”

“Who is this? Where are you?”

There was a sudden quiet and a slow song began to play. I sat back down. “Where are you?” I asked again, but the line was dead. The Queen of Hearts came back out, in a different outfit, a silken shawl draped about her shoulders.

As she performed, Allan suddenly appeared on his knees at the side of the table, holding a tray of shooters. “Here, these are from Brandon,” he whispered. He slid them over to Twitten and Dinah and me and then crept out onto the dance floor to deliver the rest. The Queen was parading about, her number crescendoing. Allan passed the shooters to Jesse and Colton and to Walter, and I saw him shoot Walter a look. Was it disgust? Maybe Walter had been right about how our friends would perceive him. Allan went to stand up and leave just as the Queen swept by our table.

They collided, and both came crashing to the floor. We all jumped to our feet, and the Hatter hit pause on the music. The silence was filled with scattered startled conversation. Allan stood up, helped the Queen back to her feet. Her shawl was on the ground and Colton leaned down to grab it, but before he did, I saw it on her shoulder.

A star tattoo. I knew it well.

“Aaron? What the . . . ?”

S
he froze briefly, then swiped the shawl from Colton's fingers and wrapped it around her. How could I not have noticed it? It was so apparent now, I could see it in her (his) eyes. Behind the false black lashes, they were the same green eyes I'd gazed into for six years! The music started up again, and I watched the show, but now I noticed that she (he) kept looking at me.

“Aaron? Really?” Jesse asked.

“Dude, your ex is a hot woman,” Colton said.

“I can see it too,” Dinah said. “What are you going to do?”

“I have no idea. The caller said I'd see someone I knew. Is this it? Has Aaron really been living in my city and performing right before my eyes for six months now and I had no idea?”

The table behind us shushed us, and almost as one, we turned and said, “Shut up!” It was funny, or would have been if the floor hadn't just given out underneath me. I did my shot, the one Allan had brought, and then did Dinah's. “Hey!” she said, as I reached for Twitten's.

“I need this.” I tipped back the shot, and the three, so quick on top of the wine we'd been drinking since the show started, sent a wave of nausea through me. Aaron doing drag? It was impossible. I flashed back to him saying how everyone changes. He'd quit his job and disappeared. To do what? To come here and do drag? And why? To keep an eye on me? A once-a-month checkup that I was doing okay? That I was happy?

Or was his motive more sinister? I needed the show to be over with, needed to sit him down and confront him. The Queen of Hearts always vanished right after her numbers. Not tonight, I vowed. I was going to stop her leaving if I had to tackle her to the ground and rip her wig off.

Everyone was on their feet applauding and I realized the show was done. I jumped up, clapping, as she took her curtsey center stage, and when she came up from it, I saw her glance at me, just a fast one, but slow enough that I caught it. “Jesse! I need to talk to her. Help me!”

Jesse nodded. The Queen disappeared behind her curtain and the Hatter killed the show lights, replacing them with lasers cutting through the sudden fog, as the light trance music became his normal hard house. People rushed the stage to dance, but I rushed to the curtain, Jesse behind me, Colton behind him.

I pulled back the curtain, just in time to see her disappear into the changing room, where queens and strippers and go-go boys waited for their moment onstage. “We'll wait for her right here!” I said.

“We can't. There's a back door to the room that leads to the storage at the rear, and then out into the alley. That's how she arrives without anyone seeing her,” Jesse explained.

“Shit!” I did an about-face. “You guys wait here, I'm going out and around.”

As I ran across the dance floor and up the stairs, my phone vibrated. “What?” I answered.

“So you see.”

“Look, what's your game? Let me talk to Steven.”

“Steven? You're running after Aaron. Which one do you want?”

“Fuck you!” I threw my phone to the ground as I hit the doors and went running around the building, past the stoners smoking up in the alley, past the entrance to the baths. I rounded the corner just in time to see a rectangle of light open. The back door to the club! And there she came out of it. The Queen of Hearts!

“Aaron!” I hollered. “Stop!”

I dodged the badly parked cars and grabbed his arm. He turned his face away from me. “Is it really you?”

He turned to look at me, tear-streaked mascara. I let him go. Slowly, he reached up and took off his wig, and there he was. How had I not recognized him? It was hidden under makeup but I knew that face. He reached out to touch me with a gloved hand.

“I didn't want you to know.”

“What? What does this even mean?”

“Come with me to my place, and I'll tell you all about it. Don't hate me.”

“I don't. I'm just so confused. What . . . ? When . . . ? Why . . . ?” Too many questions were filling my head. Where did I even start? “Shit, my phone. Can you wait?”

“Yes.”

“Do you promise you'll wait?”

“It's out now. I don't have anything else to hide.”

I ran back to the front door, and grabbed my phone, thanking God it was still there with so many people flooding past for the post-show cigarette. One of them was Twitten. “Tell Dinah and the others I'll call. I have to go.” He barely had time to nod as I took off back around the building. I knew I'd get there only to find Aaron had left and I was already swearing at him in my head when I saw him still waiting for me in his gown, wig back on, leaning against his car.

“Get in. I'll tell you all about it.”