I briefly struggled with whether to go to the Post’s website first or to log onto Skype, but I decided to let Duane break the news. I had this vague notion that getting bad news from someone who cared for you was easier, so I thought I’d test the theory. Except that Duane wasn’t there. His Skype was still on from our conversation the night before, his cam showing the gown he was working on fitted onto his dress form, but the room was Duane-less.
With growing dread, I went to the homepage and saw the headline in bold, black writing—SKINNY BITCH!!!! —over a picture of Kimberly looking lovely (and, yes, skinny) in her green wrap-dress as she entered the museum the night before.
Accor ding to their “sources,” she had told an overweight woman named Wanda Cartwright that fat people shouldn’t use elevators because they might break them, and then if skinny people got stuck in the elevator with them, they risked being eaten like the Donner Party, because fat people couldn’t go long between feedings.
I knew that some pretty outrageous things had come out of Kimberly’s mouth, but this comment seemed a bit much. But then I realized the only way I’d be able to get Kimberly’s side of the story was to wake her up before I went to school, and since she generally slept well past my departure time, I was trying to decide if it was cowardly of me to consider leaving for school a little early today just to be safe. Because, after all, wouldn’t it be nicer to let her sleep a last few peaceful hours in ignorant bliss than to wake her up with this kind of news?
That’s what I was thinking when Duane spoke from the Skype window behind the Post article. “Would you like cream and sugar with your scandal this morning?”
I clicked his window to the front to find him sipping from a steaming cup of coffee. “What the hell should I do?” I asked.
“Just make sure you do something with your hair before you open that front door, you hear?”
“I just woke up,” I said.
“I’m just saying, you don’t want that bed head being the family’s next embarrassment.”
“Duane, I’m serious. Should I wake her up or not?”
He looked momentarily surprised. “Oh, shit, she doesn’t know yet?”
“You know they all sleep in late.”
“I just thought—oh, hell, honey, pack a bag and RUN!”
“Yeah, that helps.”
“That’s what I’d do.”
“And miss out on the drama? Really? You?”
“Hmmmm, good point.” Duane looked at his creation on the dress form before continuing. “If it weren’t for this travesty, I’d hightail it over there to get a front row seat to watch that travesty.”
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate the sentiment.”
“So what the hell happened?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. She seemed fine when she got home last night.”
“So you don’t think it’s true?”
“Do you really think Kimberly knows what the Donner Party was?”
“Good point.”
“Do you know if anyone else has picked up the story?” I asked.
Duane froze with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth, then clearing his throat, took a sip before answering, “Child, you really did just wake up, didn’t you? It’s everywhere.”
“You mean like Perez Hilton or whatever?”
“I mean like the New York Times.”
Oh. This was bad.
But before my stomach had time to twist itself into a tighter knot, I heard a tapping downstairs. Someone was at the front door. I looked at the clock, then said to Duane, “It’s barely seven o’clock. Who would knock that early?”
“My money’s on the grim reaper or Jenny Craig with an Uzi.”
“You’re a big help. I’ll be right back.”
I grabbed my robe, and although the floor was cold against my bare feet, I left my slippers, because I didn’t want them making any noise that I could possibly avoid. I’d only reached the second floor when I heard the tapping at the front door again, so I tried to speed up my descent while still trying to be quiet. Once I reached it, I put my eye to the security glass, and I was surprised to find J.J. No sooner had I turned the doorknob than he burst in, grabbing onto me to keep me from falling over, and pushing me behind the door to keep me out of view from the camera flashes outside.
“What’s going on out there?” I asked, putting my eye back to the glass of the closed door, now realizing there was an entire sea of people outside.
“You guys don’t know?” he said, running a hand through his short brown waves and looking filled with dread.
“I just found out about five minutes ago, but everyone else is still asleep.”
“I’ve been texting her for over an hour.”
“She’s started turning her phone off at night, or else it wakes her up at all hours.”
I sighed. “I wish you felt you could text me.”
“You know why I can’t.”
“We could be careful. I swear I wouldn’t say anything incriminating.”
“Chris, please, not now.” He began to pace the front hallway, rubbing his hands together and looking very tense.
He was right. This was not the time to bring up the complaint I had the most trouble suppressing. I tried to remind myself that back in the day, people hadn’t texted, and a few years before that, they hadn’t even had cell phones. To my generation, that’s like not having the wheel, or fire. I mean, seriously, how did people even live like that? If not being able to text with J.J. was any indication, it was a life arguably not worth living.
As J.J. took off his pea coat, he said, “My mother is so pissed.”
“Why is your mother pissed?” Kimberly’s voice said from above us she stood at the top of the stairs. J.J. and I both froze.
“J.J., Chris, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice still rough from sleep.
It’s probably going to sound very shallow of me to admit this, but at that particular moment, with the world seemingly crashing down around us, the only thing I could think of as she walked down the stairs, still tying her silk robe closed over her short nightie, was that this was the first time J.J. was seeing her without makeup, without her hair done, without any of the polish that countless hours in front of the mirror usually provided, and the girl still looked ravishing. It made me suddenly aware of what I must look like, especially after Duane’s comments about my bed head, and I had the quickest flash of jealousy. And, then, even less flattering to myself, the thought passed through my mind that she deserved whatever the hell this mess was into which she’d gotten herself. That brief feeling of superiority didn’t last long, though, because I quickly reminded myself that if anyone was responsible for whatever situation she was in, it might very well be me.
With her cheeks flushing (making her even more attractive, naturally), Kimberly stopped halfway down the stairs and repeated, “Why is your mother pissed, J.J.? Does it have something to do with me? Why are you here so early?”
They say women have more sensitive hearing than men, and at that moment I definitely believed it, because while I couldn’t hear anything but the thoughts raging in my head, Kimberly tilted an ear towards the door, heard something, then rushed the rest of the way down the stairs and put an eye to the security lens. She spun around, asking us, “What’s going on?” But before either J.J. or I could answer, she ran into the living room, grabbed Buck’s laptop from beneath the couch, made a noise of disgusted annoyance at his vagina screensaver, tapped a few keys, waiting for whichever website she’d picked to load, and then … BEGAN SCREAMS OF EPIC PROPORTION.
With the whole household now awake, Kimberly told us, through broken sobs, her side of the story. She had been thinking about J.J.’s advice to help others on the ride to the exhibition, so when she got there, after stopping to talk to the press and waving to the cameras, she “saw this fat woman—I’m talking Jabba the Hutt fat—waiting for the elevator, and I thought we were both going to the same floor, but then when we got in and she press
ed the button, she was only going up one floor, and you know how all the health and diet magazine articles say you should start by doing small things, like taking the stairs if you’re only going a flight or two, so I said, ‘I find that the magazines are right about those little ways to kick start the metabolism, you know, like taking a flight of stairs,’ and then she started giving me this really dirty look, so I said, ‘I mean, if you care about what you look like, which is really nobody’s business but your own, although if you have a husband or kids, which isn’t, like, impossible, different men like different things and all, but for your family it’s important to do whatever you can for your health, and you really might want to think about them, right?’ And then, thank God, because she was seriously glaring at me by this point, the elevator opened on the second floor, and she got out, and she turned around and shouted, ‘Bitch!’ at me. I couldn’t believe it. I was just trying to help.” And then Kimberly turned her red, streaming eyes to J.J., saying, “Just like you told me to.”
From the arm of the couch he sat on, Buck stretched with a yawn and said, “I think it was good advice. She was just a cunt.”
“Buck!” Iris said with as much bark as she could manage through her Ambien fog. She sat in an armchair, holding her robe closed at the neck. “You know how I feel about that word.”
Buck rolled his eyes. “At least I like them,” he said, gesturing towards me.
My stomach dropped as I felt my whole body combust with heat. Why was I getting dragged into this?
“See, there’s another example,” Kimberly said, as a fresh jag of crying started. “I tried for all of those months to let Chris know it was okay if he were gay, and I think he just thought I was being mean to him. I’m just not good at anything!”
“Wait, what?” I managed to sputter.
Since she was loudly blowing her nose, she gave Buck a look, and he nodded. “Yeah, at the beginning of summer she told me she thought you were gay and afraid to come out, so we started saying all of that butt pirate and cock gobbler stuff. She thought if we joked about it, you wouldn’t make it some national crisis or whatever, since you’re such an uptight little repressed drama queen.”
“I am not!” I said.
“Dude, you take everything so seriously. Just relax. Especially, from what I hear, if you’re going to take it up the ass.”
“Buck!” Iris and I yelled in unison, perhaps the first time we’d ever been that much in sync. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the fact that J.J. guffawed.
Buck held up his hands in mock-surrender, then mimed zipping his mouth shut.
I was once again thinking more about myself than about Kimberly. I was lost at sea, realizing that those comments that had cut so deeply had actually been meant to show support. As crazy as it may sound to some, I believed them. Buck had always given me a hard time, saying I just didn’t get how they communicated, and this was the moment when I finally realized maybe it was me. Maybe my expectations were the reason we hadn’t been closer.
But that still didn’t excuse Buck making such an off-color comment in front of J.J. Disgruntled, I crossed my arms over my chest, and couldn’t resist trying to get in a little dig. “Nice screensaver, by the way.”
He shrugged. “It’s how I like to start my day.”
I’d hoped to raise Iris’s ire, but she was too busy fighting to keep one eye open to notice.
Kimberly had finally gotten some control over herself and rested a hand on top of J.J.’s. “Do you think your mother will ever forgive me?”
Surprised, J.J. turned to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “She’s not mad at you, Kimberly. She’s pissed at me.”
“At you? But because of what that lady said I said, right?”
“No, because she says I should have done more to prepare you.”
“Prepare me? For what?”
He motioned to the unseen mob that herded outside our house. “For that.”
“Oh. Right.”
“She wants you to meet with our media consultant. Today, if possible.”
Iris snapped out of her slumber to ask, “Is that expensive?”
“Don’t worry about it. We keep her under retainer.”
Iris nodded herself back into nodding off.
Since Kimberly was afraid to go alone, J.J. had a major exam, and I was already late for school, I offered to go with her to meet with the consultant. I was feeling a bit responsible for her being in this mess, plus I thought I might be able to learn something. That’s how I ended up looking into the heart of darkness and discovering a few things about myself.
When I first saw Kiki Cacciatore as we were shown into her office by an assistant, I had a dark feeling of foreboding. At first I rationalized it by the severe, black and red, minimalist decor of the office, and the all-black clothes and severe cut and exaggeratedly black dye of her hair. But then the look of annoyed disapproval she gave as she watched Kimberly walk over to a chair reinforced my sense of doom.
“Well, you really managed to step in it, didn’t you?” Kiki said and then sighed impatiently, waving the assistant out of the room.
Kimberly stared at the floor, nodding her head.
Kiki looked over various printouts of the story covering her desk, shaking her head. “I hope J.J. learns something from this.”
Kimberly looked questioningly at me before asking, “J.J.? Shouldn’t I be the one to learn something from it?”
“Honey, I realize you’re a Fontaine, and that once upon a time that name meant something in this town, but my long-term strategy will be to suggest to J.J. that I prescreen his future dates.”
Kimberly swallowed uncomfortably. “What are you saying?”
“What you mean, what am I saying? Don’t you understand English?”
Kimberly looked to me for help. “Is she breaking up with me for J.J.?”
I hadn’t given Kiki’s words such a draconian interpretation, but now that she said it, my stomach dropped. “Are you?” I asked Kiki.
Kiki rolled her eyes. “No. As many things as I’ve been asked to handle for the Kennerlys, that, so far, has not been among them. Not that I would advise against it.”
Maybe it was to compensate for my feelings of guilt, maybe it was the confidence that being in love gives a person, maybe it was Duane’s sassiness rubbing off on me, or maybe it was just that subliminal conflict that comes from two opposing natures sensing immediately that there was no love to be lost, but something just rubbed me wrong about this woman, and without even thinking about it, I found myself staking my ground. I still very much doubt I would have done it for myself, but I was starting to question how many ways I might have misjudged Kimberly, and I was apparently ready to act in her defense.
“Excuse me, Ms. Cacciatore, or do you prefer Miss? I’m guessing it’s not Mrs.”
The way her shoulders tightened let me know I’d hit the sensitive mark I’d suspected lurked below her Armani armor. Then I continued, laying on a purposeful tone of innocence, “I mean, I don’t see a wedding ring.” Her eyes briefly dropped to her bandless left fourth finger before she lifted them to reconsider me. “Unless J.J. misled me, you’re paid by the Kennerlys to advise them,” I gestured to Kimberly, “or their proxies, on how best to avoid media mishaps. I’m not quite sure how it’s appropriate for you to be talking to Kimberly, the client, so dismissively.”
Before answering, she closed her eyes exaggeratedly to let me know I was trying her patience. “You’re the little stepbrother, Christopher, correct?”
“Anyone who knows me well enough to use my first name calls me Chris,” I corrected her. “Otherwise, Mr. Bellows would actually be proper etiquette.” I swear I had never been this snotty to anyone in my life, but something about this woman got my scruff up.
“Well, Christopher,” she sneered as she emphasized my full name, “seeing as she’s the client, and I wasn’t warned that I’d be babysitting two of you, I will expect you to sit quietly with your mouth shut while I advis
e her. Otherwise, you can wait outside.” Then very slowly, she added with exaggerated diction, “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Both a little intimidated and a lot outraged, I turned to Kimberly for reinforcement, but what I saw was a look of intense pleading to not make this day any worse for her than it already was. I immediately clamped my mouth shut, crossed my arms over my chest, and burrowed into my chair.
Kiki smiled with bland triumph, standing up to emphasize her advantage. “Now, Kimberly,” then throwing a quick, dismissive glance at me, before turning back to Kimberly, “is it all right with you if I call you Kimberly?”
Kimberly nodded.
“Excellent. Here’s the deal. I’m not the coddling type.” She looked at me again. “Even if she were the one paying. Which she’s not.” She turned her attention back to Kimberly. “I don’t know how long you’re going to be in the picture, but if you act like a spoiled blonde with a bigger chest measurement than I.Q. again, I don’t think it’s going to be long.”
I took in a breath to say something, but Kimberly quickly put her hand on my arm to silence me. Kimberly might have been intellectually lazy most of her life, but she wasn’t actually stupid. Obtuse would probably be a better way of putting it. But she, at the moment at least, seemed to be keeping a much cooler head than I was. It was a rather unexpected flipping of our usual positions. Then again, sometimes it’s easier to take abuse than watch it be given.
Kiki leaned forward over her desk with balled up fists resting on top of some printed reports. “My instructions are going to be very simple for you to follow. You have a nice smile, and you photograph well. You rode your arm candy status to a nice month of free publicity. Don’t push your luck. Don’t speak. Don’t open your mouth. Don’t offer any opinions. And especially don’t rub your anorexia in anyone else’s face. Everyone’s already going to think you’re a bitch; don’t help them out by proving it.”
My Fairy Godmother is a Drag Queen Page 11
