Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 02 - Goons 'n' Roses Read online

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, throwing my arms around her. ‘Congratulations.’

  I dragged her suitcase into the lounge and Cocoa jumped up on her, demanding to be patted.

  ‘He hasn’t changed,’ she said, following me into the lounge.

  ‘He’s got a boyfriend now.’

  ‘Awwww,’ she said, scratching behind his ears, ‘you’re all grown up.’

  ‘Thanks for doing this,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you about the engagement over the phone, so when you asked me to dog sit, it was perfect. I get to see you, and take time off work to get the wedding organised.’

  ‘Sorry you won’t see much of me before I go,’ I said.

  ‘It’ll be great. When you get back you can tell me all about Las Vegas and I can bore you stupid with wedding plans.’

  At 7pm Martine turned up with pizzas and a bottle of fake tan. ‘What do you think?’ She whirled on the spot while pointing at a new wig. Her normal wigs added inches to her height; this one was a stylish, smooth, deep-black bob.

  ‘Classy,’ I said in approval.

  ‘Very nice,’ Susie added.

  ‘I got it for the daytime,’ Martine said. ‘I don’t really have any daytime wigs. Martyn refuses to wear them.’

  ‘It probably wouldn’t go over well at his work,’ I said. I liked the way Martine discussed Martyn as if he were a different person. It allowed me to believe that he was. I had tried to mentally assimilate the two very different people into the same body. I had not been at all successful. ‘Speaking of Martyn,’ I said, ‘he hasn’t had any problems getting time off work has he?’

  Martine looked confused for a moment and then she let out a laugh. ‘Oh no. Silly me. Didn’t I tell you? He owns Mayfair Accounting.’

  ‘Owns it?’ Mayfair Accounting was one of the largest accounting firms in Sydney. It had over ten branches.

  ‘He’s so boring, all he does is work, work, work. Got to widdle.’ She dumped the pizza and fake tan onto the kitchen bench and sashayed off to the toilet.

  ‘Is Martyn her boyfriend?’ Susie whispered.

  I shook my head, trying not to laugh. ‘No it’s her, during the day, when she’s not in drag.’

  Susie’s mouth was still formed into a perfect O when Martine re-emerged from the bathroom.

  ‘I got Hawaiian and Meat Lovers and of course Vegetarian for moi, but there’s plenty to share. Do you eat meat?’ she asked Susie.

  ‘Umm yes,’ Susie said.

  ‘I haven’t let a morsel of it pass my lips since I read that it gives you cellulite.’

  I could see Susie staring in bewilderment at Martine’s legs, which were long and lean. There was no place at all for cellulite on those legs.

  ‘You, by the way,’ Martine said to Susie, ‘look fabulous. And what is that I see sparkling on your left hand?’

  ‘Oh,’ Susie said shyly, ‘my boyfriend Liam and I got engaged.’

  ‘No way,’ Martine shouted. ‘Girlfriend, that’s fantastic. Oops, I nearly forgot.’ She rumbled around in her ginormous handbag, finally pulling out a bottle of bubbly. ‘Chanel, get the glasses.’ She reached back into her bag and pulled out another bottle. ‘And put this in the fridge.’

  ‘Are you going to be able to fake tan my arm if we drink all this?’ I asked.

  ‘I take offence at that question. It’s not even a whole bottle each.’

  ‘True,’ I said as I popped the spare bottle into the fridge. There was a knock on the door as I was reaching up to get the champagne flutes out of the cupboard.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Martine said.

  Mum was standing at the door with a couple of bottles of bubbly in her hands. ‘Welcome Susie,’ she said, prancing into the living room. She shoved the bottles at me and then swept Susie up into a hug.

  I could see the look of confusion on Susie’s face.

  ‘You remember my Mum, Lorraine?’ I said.

  I’m sure she remembered her. She just didn’t remember this woman. The Lorraine she had met had had a tight perm, and worn a dour brown dress to my graduation ball. This Lorraine dazzled and shone, with her glowing skin and her stylish clothing.

  ‘Geez,’ Susie said to me, ‘when you said she’d changed…’

  ‘I know,’ I shook my head, ‘suddenly I’m competing with my own mother.’

  Mum laughed in delight and flopped down on the couch.

  There was another knock on the door. When I opened it, Bruce was standing there with Lancelot. ‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ I said.

  ‘You mean you aren’t really having a party that you didn’t invite me to?’

  Lancelot saw Cocoa and started yipping in excitement. Bruce released him from his lead and the two dogs ran off together, racing around and around the living room.

  ‘Susie is going to think this is a mad house,’ I said over the noise.

  ‘Speaking of Susie,’ Bruce said, handing me a bottle of bubbly and a cheese platter. ‘I thought she should meet me and Lancelot before you go. Otherwise she might think I’m some weirdo.’

  ‘She’s still going to think you’re a weirdo,’ I said affectionately, as I closed the door after him.

  Martine commandeered my iPod, rang for more pizza and the party really took off.

  We had to leave for the airport at 8 the next morning so I kicked everybody, except Martine, out at 11pm. She stayed to tan my arm.

  ‘Should we put masking tape around the top?’ I asked her drunkenly, as we viewed the delineation between my natural tan and the area which had been encased in the cask.

  ‘We’re not painting a room,’ she said. ‘We want it to blend.’

  I watched in concern as she rubbed the tanning lotion into my skin while muttering about albino scarecrows.

  ‘We probably should have done this a little earlier,’ she said when she’d finished.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re meant to let it dry completely before it comes into contact with clothing.’

  ‘Why didn’t we do it earlier?’

  ‘I usually do it naked. I forgot we were only doing your arm.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, trying not to picture Martine naked, ‘I’ll wrap it in a sarong to protect it.’

  When she had gone I wound a sarong around my arm and hopped into the right side of the bed so that Susie was lying next to my untanned arm.

  ‘That stinks,’ Susie said.

  ‘I know, sorry.’

  I’d closed my eyes and was almost asleep when Susie said, ‘Hey, can we turn that glow light out?’

  I flicked my eyes open. The glow light, a small, glowing plug in a power point, was my vigilante against the dark. ‘What if you need to go to the toilet in the middle of the night?’ I said. ‘Those stairs can be a bastard.’

  ‘I’ll use the light on my phone.’

  There was silence for a while during which I wrangled with my mind.

  ‘I’m right here,’ Susie said quietly.

  ‘I know. But the nightmares are worse in the dark,’ I whispered.

  ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘I’ll just have to shut my eyes tighter.’

  I felt the covers shift a little as she reached out her hand and found mine. And for the first time, in a very long time, I couldn’t remember my nightmares when I woke in the morning.

  3

  What The???

  ‘Chanel, Chanel,’ Susie said, shaking me awake. ‘It’s ten to eight.’

  I knew there was something I had to do at eight. Now what was it?

  ‘Shit.’ I sat bolt upright in bed and stared at the clock. I had forgotten to set the alarm. I had ten minutes to get dressed and make it downstairs for the cabs we had organised to take us to the airport. Thank God I had finished packing the afternoon before.

  I jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs, grabbing the clothes I had laid out the night before. I turned on the shower and jumped in, squealing as the icy water hit my skin. It was just starting to warm up as I
turned the taps off and towelled myself down.

  ‘Do you want me to make you a coffee?’ Susie called from the living room.

  ‘No time,’ I said, squeezing some toothpaste onto my toothbrush. ‘I’ll have one at the airport.’ I scrubbed my teeth, brushed on a layer of make-up and then burst out of the bathroom. I still had three minutes.

  Susie grabbed my toiletry bag from me and zipped it into my luggage while I picked up Cocoa and hugged him.

  ‘Don’t forget a sweater for the plane,’ she said. ‘They can get really cold.’

  Never having flown before, I was going to have to take her word on that. I raced back up to my bedroom and dug through my wardrobe till I located a light wool, zip-up sweater. I threw it on and then raced to help Susie carry my bag down the stairs.

  Everybody else was already there, climbing into the minivan cabs we had pre-ordered. I handed my bag to the driver to place in the luggage trailer and waved goodbye to Susie before clambering into one of the cabs and slumping against the window.

  ‘Did you even brush your hair this morning?’ Mum asked. She, of course, looked immaculate. I hoped I could still hold my booze like she could when I was her age.

  ‘Slept in,’ I said.

  She passed me her brush and I ran it through my hair, styling it into place with my fingers. ‘That’s better,’ she said approvingly.

  Martine climbed in next to me. ‘I didn’t have time to do my hair either,’ she said, smirking as she touched her shiny wig.

  I could feel my excitement building on the drive to the airport, but it wasn’t till I held my boarding pass that I realised I was really going to Las Vegas. I’d never been overseas before. Hell, until last year, I’d never really been anywhere.

  I passed through customs and, with Mum and Trent, waited on the other side for the girls. As cross-dressers with male passports, they took longer to get cleared through. Mum had foreseen this problem and contacted customs at both ends to warn them. I got the feeling this sort of thing was more common in Las Vegas than Sydney.

  When they were all through we headed for a café in the departure lounge. ‘Can you get me a large latte?’ I said to Martine, passing her my wallet. ‘I need to go to the toilet.’

  The lighting in the airport bathrooms was the harsh fluorescent kind, making me look old and tired. I sighed and washed my hands while I examined the bags under my eyes, and then I slid my sweater off and stuck it in the top of my handbag. Geez, the skin on my face looked dehydrated and I hadn’t even gotten on the plane yet. I was going to look like I’d been mummified by the time I got to Las Vegas.

  I wandered back over to where Mum, Trent and Martine were sitting with Ronnie and Tammy, and claimed a seat beside Martine. Mum and Ronnie were caught up in an animated conversation about Twitter. I grimaced. I had thought very hard about unfollowing @hotbloodedlady a few days ago after I’d spat my coffee over the kitchen floor reading her morning tweet about what an amazing orgasm she’d had the night before. It had, unfortunately, coincided with the night of the thumping bed.

  Excited drag queens squealed and chatted around me, drawing curious looks from the surrounding patrons. Even with their subdued day make-up, the girls were an impressive sight. With their muscly legs and arms it was obvious they weren’t normal women. While some, the ones with more masculine features, were obviously men in drag, a couple of them, namely Jocelyn and Wanda, could have passed for super-models.

  ‘What seat did you get?’ Martine snagged my boarding pass out of my bag. ‘You’re next to me but… huh. You got the window.’

  She looked so disappointed I waved my hand at her. ‘You can have it.’

  Her face brightened and she passed me hers.

  ‘You fly all the time,’ I said, ‘don’t you normally get the window seat?’

  ‘Oh no, Martyn’s scared of flying. He always gets the aisle.’

  ‘You’re not scared?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She giggled nervously. ‘I’ve never flown before.’

  All the talk of being scared of flying was starting to make me nervous. I’d never flown before either. What if the pilot had a heart attack? What if the engine caught fire? What if we…

  ‘What the hell happened to your arm?’ Tammy asked, disturbing my terrifying train of thought. Tammy was one of the more masculine queens. Her large Roman nose and prominent brow were things even make-up couldn’t fix.

  I shook my head and sighed. ‘You know I broke it. The cast only came off a week ago so it looks funny.’

  ‘It looks freakin’ ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re not getting up on stage looking like that.’

  ‘Now, now Tammy,’ Martine said, ‘she’s got exercises and everything to get it back into…’ She looked down at my arm and squawked, ‘Holy mother of Batman. What did you do?’

  I looked at my arm for the first time that morning. It was bright orange. But that wasn’t the worst of it. It wasn’t even an homogenous bright orange. It was crinkled and blotchy and you could almost see the folds of the sarong tattooed onto my arm.

  ‘I wrapped a sarong around it like you said.’

  ‘After it had dried?’

  ‘No.’ Now that I thought about it, she had mentioned something about it needing to dry. ‘I was tired. But it’s orange. Why is it orange?’

  Martine pulled a face. ‘My bad. I was tossing up between the light and dark tanning lotions. Looks like I should have gone with the light.’

  Mum was laughing so hard tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘You tie-dyed your arm,’ she said.

  And I realised that was exactly what I’d done.

  ***

  ‘What am I going to do?’ I asked Martine. The plane was rumbling down the tarmac and she was dividing her attention between me and the window. I was trying not to think about the fact that we were about to become airborne. Physics had not been my strong point at school and I couldn’t conceive how such a large structure could possibly fly.

  ‘Don’t stress,’ Martine said, glancing at me. ‘It’s Las Vegas. I’m sure they’ve seen orange body parts before.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be orange.’ Even to my ears my voice was a whine, but it was nothing compared to the noise coming from the engines as the plane sped down the runway.

  Martine let out a gasp and turned her head so that her face was glued to the window. I couldn’t have seen anything out of it even if I’d wanted to. Luckily I didn’t. Instead I squeezed my eyes tight as my body was forced back into the seat. My nails dug into the arm rests as I tilted back and then suddenly, suddenly, we were flying.

  A few minutes later Martine turned her attention back to me. ‘Don’t stress about it. We’ll find a beautician and get something to remove it.’

  ‘Hope they sell paint stripper,’ Ronnie said, leaning over to stare at my arm.

  Martine turned back to the window, watching the clouds as they flitted past.

  It was easy for her to say not to stress. All I’d wanted was to go to Las Vegas and have fun, but now I looked like a freak.

  After they had served us lunch I put my chair back and pulled my blanket over me, making sure it was tucked in tight around my arm. I hadn’t been sleeping well, but the hum of the aircraft and the background chatter sent me off into a deep, safe sleep.

  Between the eating and the movies and the sleeping, the flight went faster than I had thought it would. We disembarked in Los Angeles and rushed to meet our connecting flight to Las Vegas, all of us, except Trent, tottering along on our high heels. Then we were airborne again and before we knew it the plane was descending into Las Vegas.

  ‘There it is,’ Martine squealed, pointing out the window.

  It looked incredible from the air. A sprawl of buildings with a line of high-rise hotels, nestled in amongst valleys and desert.

  ‘That’s where we are staying,’ she said, pointing at a pyramid. ‘The Luxor Hotel.’

  We raised some eyebrows coming through customs. They took the girls off to
private rooms and made them remove their wigs before they would clear them.

  A minibus from The Luxor Hotel was waiting for us out the front of the terminal. I stared wide-eyed out its window as we approached the hotel. I’d never seen anything like it.

  The huge, black pyramid rose majestically out of the surrounding concrete, an enormous sphinx lying in front of it like a sentinel. Pathways, lined with statues of animals with a goat’s head and a lion’s body, ran either side of the sphinx. And in front of it all, a towering obelisk speared the sky.

  ‘Wow.’ I had thought the Sydney Casino was impressive.

  ‘Double wow with a cherry on top,’ Martine said. ‘The only thing I’ve seen today that is more wow than this is your arm.’

  I punched her lightly on the shoulder before continuing my staring.

  We must have looked like country hicks as we entered the hotel, staring around us in wonder. To be fair to us though, we weren’t the only people who appeared to be overwhelmed by the inside of the pyramid.

  It had a sweeping atrium, lined with hotel rooms and balconies, and filled with activity. Egyptian architecture mingled with old-English buildings and more modern creations. Lights blinked and flashed and huge banners proclaimed the live shows currently on offer. Everywhere you looked there was something different to see. I could feel a little headache starting at the base of my neck.

  Mum came back from reception with our hotel keys and handed them out. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I got you a spare key for our room and asked for one for yours. Can you give the clerk your consent?’

  I walked over to the reception and smiled at the lady. ‘I’m Chanel Smith.’

  ‘Your mother wants a spare key for your room. I need to acquire your approval and note it on the computer. Company policy and all that.’

  ‘Of course she can have a key,’ I said.

  She handed me another swipe card which I traded with Mum for the key to her room.

  ‘Make sure you knock before you enter.’ She winked at me and then proclaimed that she and Trent were going for a nap. The way she looked at him when she said it made me doubt very much a nap was what she had in mind.