Human Doll Page 9

  “Exactly the point I was trying to make,” Sinthia said. “Believe me, if I thought my life was in danger because of the show, I’d be the first one to resign. No TV show is worth dying for. But even if I did leave, I wouldn’t pressure others to do the same. That would be a decision each of us would have to make for ourselves. We just need to calm down and wait until we hear more.”

  “Sounds good. Have you found a replacement for Monica yet?” December said to Sinthia.

  “Excellent question,” Sinthia said, “and the answer is ‘yes.’ We’re all starving – my blood sugar levels are plummeting! – so let’s get started on the chow. Then we’ll talk about the new girl.”

  The guests agreed to this plan, and soon they were loading their plates with fried chicken and other delights from various containers. Then they returned to the longest table and began to eat.

  “You did a great job, explaining everything,” December said to Sinthia. “This was a good idea, getting everyone together to share the news.” The two were seated next to each other, with David on Sinthia’s other side.

  “Thank you,” Sinthia said. “I want to build this team into a family, and families bond best over meals.”

  “Gabe told me you cancelled your scheduled procedures. Is anything wrong?”

  “Now isn’t a good time. I need to concentrate on keeping the team happy. Surgery would just be a distraction for me. I’m still lovely enough to let the scalpel wait.”

  Sinthia gave them time to get a good start on their meals. Then she said, “Now, is everyone ready to hear who our new cast member will be?”

  All the girls agreed.

  “Our new sister,” she said, “will be Joleen Perfecta.”

  Several girls already knew her, and they cheered their approval.

  “For those of you who don’t know Joleen,” Sinthia said, “she’s a red-haired beauty from New Mexico. Her main talent is lip-syncing, like Monica. She’s not a muscle queen, though. She’s a plus-size queen and a fabulous actress. Usually traditional stage directors don’t hire drag queens to play female characters, unless the part is super-campy. But directors have even selected Joleen to play Shakespearean roles. She is truly amazing.”

  “Maybe she’s sleeping her way to the top!” Amanda said. “Bring out the reinforced casting couch.”

  “For all the gigs I’ve been hired for, over the years,” Sinthia said, “no one has ever asked me to sleep with them to get the job. I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted.”

  “This may be a little off-topic, but it’s related – slightly,” Velvet said. “I used to perform at a club where the same gorgeous guy used to give me huge tips every night. Eventually we started talking and he turned out to be a great guy. After my last show for the night, we’d go back to his place and I’d get dolled up as a different actress each time. That way, he eventually made love to every hot leading lady in Hollywood.”

  “Sounds romantic, in a kinky sort of way,” Babette said. “Whatever happened between you two?”

  “We’ve been married for seven years,” Velvet said.

  “Congratulations,” December said.

  Kellista, who’d been listening to Velvet’s anecdote, turned to December. “Your partner is Dr. Gabe from Stitched, right?”

  “Sure is,” December said. “We were roommates in college. He does my plastic surgery.”

  “Wow, he knows you inside and out!” Amanda said.

  “That’s true!” December said with a laugh. “He’s the only doctor who has ever worked on me.”

  “Are you two married yet?” Velvet asked.

  December smiled and shook his head. “We talk about it, but it hasn’t happened yet. But it will, eventually.”

  “I overheard your story about your boyfriend,” Georgia said to Velvet. “You are so lucky! If I had a great boyfriend like that, I’d marry him in a heartbeat.”

  “Don’t you have a boyfriend?” Velvet replied. “You’re so beautiful, I can hardly believe it. You must spend all your time working.”

  “That’s true!” Georgia said. “But why do you say that?”

  Velvet shrugged. “I used to be like that, years ago. I was afraid to get into a relationship, so I spent all my time working. I’d created an excuse for being by myself.”

  “That does sound like me,” Georgia said. “Thank you for telling me that. I need to keep that in mind.”

  With that, Georgia and Velvet swapped phone numbers, so they could talk more in the future.

  After the lunch meeting was finished, Velvet approached December. “I wanted to thank you again for talking with me at your agency,” she said. “If any gigs come up that I can help with, be sure to let me know.”

  “Thank you, Velvet,” he said. “You have plenty of talent – the right project for you just hasn’t surfaced yet. I’m sure something will come up soon. Once a project comes along, more will follow hot on its heels. I do appreciate your follow-up. It never hurts to check back. So what do you think of this whole ordeal we’re facing – the cast members who have died?”

  “I’m glad we’re all talking about it. We can’t stick our heads in the sand like ostriches and hope that problems just pass us by. Life can be tough, but the work still needs to get done.”

  “That’s an excellent attitude,” December said. He then noticed that Sinthia was beckoning to him from one of the tables. “If you’ll excuse me, our lovely hostess requires my attention.” With that, he gave Velvet a quick hug before joining Sinthia.

  At the table, Sinthia said, “There’s plenty of your bread and dipping oils left, so be sure to take them home with you.”

  December laughed. “Are you kidding? Gabe has banished carbs from our home. You can keep the bread and oils. Or if anybody else wants them, they can have them.”

  “How’s your friend? The black-and-white woman with the cold hands?”

  “You mean Viveka. She’s fine. She’s always busy with tons of projects.”

  “That’s the lady you drink dirty martinis with, right?” Sinthia smiled. “Just thinking about that makes me jealous. It makes me want to be your fag hag, even though we’re both fags. Can you and I go out for gin-and-tonics sometime?”

  “Of course! The next time we meet to talk about Sinthia’s Cabaret, we’d do it over cocktails instead of lunch.”

  “Liquid inspiration,” Sinthia said with a smile. “Just what a production meeting needs.”

  - - -

  It was a Thursday morning, and Viveka Megamega was overdue for her weekly beauty regimen. Again she looked at her naked body in her bedroom’s full-length mirror. As usual, Oberon watched from the foot of the bed.

  She’d been particularly busy, so she would need to step up her efforts to rejuvenate her face and body. Her problem areas were even drier and coarser than usual. She felt tight and itchy, like a snake that needed to shed its skin. This session of exfoliation and moisturization would need to be especially vigorous.

  This time, she spent twice as much time in the shower, scrubbing herself with the loofah sponge. As always, she followed this procedure by applying steel wool to spots where the skin had grown especially thick.

  Next, she refreshed the linework of her tattoos with her special pen. Then came the extensive moisturization round. Eventually she rinsed off the moisturizers and began the filler injections.

  Her beauty regimen was time-consuming and some parts of the process were fairly painful. Still, it never bothered her that she had to spend more time than the average woman in tending to her beauty needs. In no way was Viveka like the average woman.

  After she’d finished with the injection round of her regimen, she rested on the bed. Oberon curled up next to her and she stroked his beautiful black fur. She wondered if there was anything good on TV, so she looked around the room, trying to spot the remote control. As she looked, she noticed a framed black-and-white photo on the dresser.

  The photo brought a wistful smile to her lips. It showed a young w
oman in a white sweater and skirt. She was thin and plain-looking, with short, curly dark hair.

  The girl was her daughter Athena. She’d inherited the curly hair from her father.

  Years ago, she’d decided to have a child, so she made love with an attractive man who she knew but didn’t love. She didn’t want to live with and have to tolerate a husband. She simply wanted a child to raise and instruct.

  At that time, Viveka was teaching at a university. She wanted her daughter to have a stable home and a hard-working mother she could admire and respect. She hoped her child would grow up to become a visionary and a leader. That was why she’d named the child Athena, after the Greek goddess of wisdom.

  The problem was, Athena had no interest in setting her sights so high. She didn’t have it in her. She wasn’t clever, gifted, or high-spirited. She didn’t even see the need to wear makeup. She was a simple soul with simple needs. Her only ambition was to work in a bakery. She enjoyed kneading dough. She liked the smell of bread baking.

  Viveka tried her best to encourage Athena to paint, to sing, to sculpt, to figure out equations. But none of those pursuits interested her. They had nothing to do with bread.

  Viveka’s mother, Abigail, had been a simple woman, with no ambitions beyond being a wife and mother. Eventually Viveka came to realize that her daughter had turned out like Abigail. This fact dismayed her, since there was nothing she could do to change the situation.

  At that time, Viveka and Athena lived in an ivy-covered brick building near the university. One day, Viveka walked into the living room and saw Athena dusting the knick-knacks on a shelf.

  Athena looked her way. “You have such a sad look on your face. What’s wrong, Mother? Am I dusting the wrong way?”

  “Of course not,” Viveka said. “I appreciate that you dust around the house without having to be told. That’s very good of you. I was just thinking you should be making art, instead of dusting it.”

  Athena set the dusting cloth on a side table. “I appreciate that you think I’d make a great artist, Mother. But I’m happy just making bread. Making art seems like a lot of work. I bet it takes forever! What if I spent hours making a piece of art and nobody wanted it? People may not need art, but they’ll always need bread.”

  Viveka nodded and smiled. “You have a point there. People will always need bread – very true. Do we have any of your bread here in the house? I’d like to try it.”

  Athena walked to the kitchen and came back holding a slice of bread and a glass of apple juice. She handed them to her mother. “I brought you some apple juice to wash it down. Haven’t you eaten my bread before?”

  “Of course I have. But I’m afraid I didn’t pay it very much attention. I took it for granted, and I’m sorry for that.”

  Viveka ate the bread. It was soft and flavorful. It didn’t thrill her, but then, it was simply bread. Bread wasn’t meant to be thrilling. It was meant to be nourishing.

  She suddenly and sadly realized that she was a poor mother. She was so busy trying to encourage Athena, she didn’t realize that she was, in fact, withholding love from her daughter. She was punishing the child for being herself.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t too late to correct the situation.

  “I’m proud of you, Athena,” she said. “You make wonderful bread. You’re great at doing what you love, and I think that’s fantastic. I’ll always love you, no matter what.”

  “Thank you!” Tears streamed down Athena’s face as she gave her mother a tender hug. “You’ve never said that before. I love you, too.”

  A few years later, Athena fell in love with the assistant manager of the bakery where she worked. She went off to live with him, and eventually, they moved to another part of the country. In time, Athena gave birth to a daughter, who she named Mary.

  Eventually, Viveka transitioned from teaching to consultation, artwork, and her various projects. But she still felt a strange rush of emotions whenever she thought about her daughter. For too long, her behavior and performance as a mother had been subpar. A good mother was supposed to be affectionate from day one, and she’d been far too miserly when it came to expressing love.

  The problem was, she had treated the raising of her child like a project. She had hoped to create another Viveka, without realizing that her daughter was an Abigail by nature.

  In the long run, she was glad that she’d opened the door to motherhood. She’d learned something wonderful from the experience. She’d learned to respect people for who they were, not who she wanted them to be. That, no doubt, was what led to her deep and wonderful friendship with December.

  Chapter 10

  Georgia Peechy started life as Carl Blanchard, the son of a warehouse supervisor and a cashier at a hardware store.

  Carl was chunky, with two equally chunky brothers, and he wondered if he would ever rise above being an unhappy middle child in a boring middle-class home. He knew he could never be like his dad, a beer-drinking father of three who sat in an easy chair watching TV every night.

  Carl enjoyed watching old Western TV shows and movies with his father. He would watch the square-jawed Western stars of years gone by and wonder if someday, he’d have a cowboy of his own.

  As he watched TV in his early years, he noticed that actors might play a particular role in one show, then a similar role in another. It was the same with movie actors. Clearly, the ability to play specific sorts of characters well was what turned mere performers into big stars. After all, John Wayne figured out how to play a macho tough guy, so he was able to transform perfectly into cowboys, soldiers and other manly heroes. Marilyn Monroe knew how to become an endearing sweetheart, and so she turned into alluring female fantasies time after time, in film after film, with flawless success. What were those amazing stars like in real life? Nobody knew and nobody cared.

  Eventually Carl shed his excess weight, and saw there was someone beautiful under the flab. In choir class, he discovered that his singing voice was incredible. In his third year of college, he dabbled with performing in drag at a local gay club.

  He experimented with a variety of drag personas. He tried being a Monroe-like femme fatale … a chatty, adorable housewife … even a spooky Goth goddess. They were all fun personalities, but he had to be selective. He knew, from watching old TV shows and movies, that his rise to fame would depend on selecting the right persona.

  One night, as he was watching one of his favorite old Westerns on DVD, he said to himself, “Too bad there aren’t any real cowboys out there.”

  At that moment, he realized what sort of persona would work best for him. He started making sketches and before long, a full-fledged character emerged in his mind.

  If he couldn’t have his own cowboy, he would become his own cowgirl.

  At his next performance, he introduced the world to Georgia Peechy, the guitar-playing, country-singing drag queen.

  - - -

  When Georgia was asked to appear on the Breakfast In NYC morning show, she was delighted to learn that guests of the show stayed in the St. Jerome Hotel, a skyscraper just down the street from the television studio. She was also happy to receive a room on the forty-second floor when she checked in. Surely the view from a room that high had to be marvelous.

  She checked out the view after entering the room and it was, indeed, awe-inspiring. It was so high up, she swore she could see the curvature of the Earth. It almost made her dizzy, looking so far down to see the ground. At least her balcony was equipped with metal security barriers to make sure she didn’t pass out and fall over the edge.

  After she’d settled into her room, she wondered whether or not she should visit the cocktail lounge. Whenever she appeared in drag in a non-performance public setting, she toned down the camp elements and could easily pass for a beautiful young woman. In such situations, a straight man would usually buy her drinks and try to pick her up. She always politely turned them down, without explaining that she was technically a male.

  In the end, she deci
ded to go down to the lounge. It did wonders for her ego, to have straight men hit on her, and she decided it would give her the boost she needed to excel on the morning show.

  Georgia put on her auburn wig and maroon dress and headed down to the lounge. She considered her maroon number to be her lucky dress, since she always seemed to meet interesting people while she was wearing it. She asked the bartender if he could make a pomegranate gin fizz to match her outfit. He laughed and said, “You must be a model. They’re the only folks who ask for a drink to match their outfits.”

  “You should be glad I’m not wearing plaid,” Georgia said.

  She had a good time, talking to various other guests of the hotel. She could tell they were wealthy folks, but that was to be expected. Cheap rates couldn’t keep a hotel of that caliber – and height – in business.

  An older gentleman in a black trenchcoat approached her table. “Hello there!” he said in a husky voice. “Aren’t you the performer Georgia Peechy?”

  “Yes, I am!” she said. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

  “You probably saw me when you checked in,” he said. “I was about two or three people behind you. I’m also staying at this hotel. My name’s Noah.” He held out his hand.

  “Hello, Noah!” Georgia shook his hand. “What floor are you on?”

  “The fifty-eighth floor,” he said. “In fact, I’m heading up to my room right now. I have some colleagues stopping by shortly for drinks.”

  “What business are you in?”

  “I work for a theatrical producer,” Noah said. “Most of my time is spent reviewing scripts. I work from home in Connecticut, but every few months, I come to town to meet with the rest of the team.”

  “How interesting! I wanted to mention, I’m delighted that you knew who I am. Are you familiar with my act?”

  “Yes, I am! In my business, I try to keep abreast of all the up-and-coming performers. Would you like to come up to my room and say ‘Hi’ to the rest of the team? I think they’d be interested in meeting you.”