Page 85 of Eye Candy

“Touché, Kiwi. Touché.”

The last timeI’d performed at the Dragonfly Den, Sal the booker had called my act tame, so there was no way I was doing the swan routine again. It was time for the big guns.

Or the big bubbles.

In the 1930s, burlesque dancer Sally Rand debuted the bubble dance. Ever since, burlys, strippers, ballet dancers, circus performers, and dragsters have been doing iterations of it. My version wasn’t revolutionary, but it was always a crowd-pleaser.

For my Bubblegum Babe routine, I pumped air into eighteen glitter-filled globes, which were attached to a Velcro harness wrapped around my body. I looked like a cross between a slutty fairy and a parade float. I’d kept my usual pink hair, because pink fit the act, and used a whole can of hairspray to set it in a stiff pageboy above my shoulders.

I was determined to give a good show. I wanted the club booker to regret not offering me a slot here and to hear a full house cheer for me. I wanted Gerry to eat shit, and to do justice to all the years I’d spent working my ass off for a primetime slot in New York.

Mostly, I wanted to feel that my dad was right, and I belonged onstage.

Chase had facilitated this opportunity for me, but I’d more than earned it and I wasn’t going to squander it.

Tonight’s other acts included an aerialist, a piano accordioncomic, a drag king, and two queens. The first two had no elaborate costumes, and the dragsters had arrived fully made up, so I was in the janitor’s closet/dressing room by myself, which was a rare luxury.

The hum of a full audience was audible even tucked away out back in this dressing room, so already this was going better than last time I performed at the Dragonfly. If I listened carefully I could hear Lyssa’s laugh, which was comforting.

Lyssa had been ecstatic when I’d showed up on her doorstep, bags in tow. Even though it was one a.m. and she’d been asleep, she threw her arms around me and we danced around her kitchen. I’d invited Sonya, Greta and Francis to my performance tonight too, but their laughs weren’t as distinctive so I had no idea if they were here. They were probably very mad about the whole impersonating Teddy Bircher thing, but I liked them, and wanted to extend the olive branch. Especially to Greta, whose party at Lueur I’d ruined.

I chewed my lip as I waited backstage. I paced and waited. I lost a press-on nail, replaced it, and still waited. By the time I got the one-minute call, my bottom lip was a size and a half bigger from all the chewing, and at least two of my balloons were going flaccid.

But when I stepped onstage and into my light, everything felt right.

The crowd—a whole crowd! More than one person!—cheered when they saw my bubblegum confection. The bass was turned up so high that when the electro beats of my track started, the floor under me pulsed. As the lyrics kicked in, I strutted around the stage, rolling my shoulders in time to the vocalist’s coy promises.

In between steps, I scanned the crowd. My friends were by the bar—they’d all come, even Francis, and he had the most reason to hate me. When I turned in their direction, Lyssa bounced up and down, waving like a parent at graduation.

My headpiece was sculpted to look like a leaning tower ofbubbles that was taller than a small child. It wobbled as I fished a hatpin from my hair.

I’d just raised my fingertips to pop the first bubble when I saw him.

He was sitting at one of the cabaret tables in the front, his hand wrapped around a water glass, perched awkwardly in a seat that had been dragged so far forward it was nearly as well-lit as the stage.

Chase.

I lost concentration, and my pin glanced off the side of balloon number one and jabbed my thigh. It hurt, but I made a “silly me” gesture and pretended it didn’t, that it was all part of the show.

When I got my hatpin back under control, I took out three hip balloons in rapid succession, buying myself time to think as I undulated my hips in time to the music. Chase, now liberally sprinkled in bio-degradable glitter, mouthed something at me, like we were playing charades. I stabbed another few balloons and winked and wiggled when what I wanted to do was shake the man and ask what in Frida Kahlo’s good name he was thinking sitting up front like this. We both knew he hated crowds, and I had no idea what the other performers’ acts entailed—he might get roped into audience participation.

I slowly ran my fingers up my body and over my breasts, cupping and jiggling them for the audience. When I popped another balloon, Chase cupped a hand to his mouth and cheered, loudly, obnoxiously. I saw the person next to him glare, but he ignored them.

Now was the audience interaction of my segment. I stepped down off the stage, the follow spot trailing me as I’d asked the operator to. I leaned over and asked a redhead at a front row table if she wanted to join me onstage. But my chosen volunteer shook her head. I smiled and let her know it was fine and scouted for someone else, but before I could decide, Chase intercepted my outstretched hand.

I hesitated, butheledme, stepping up on the stage andwalking to stand in the middle. The crowd cheered him on, Lyssa the loudest of all.

I usually paraded my person, guiding them around a lap of the floor as I whispered in their ear. It looked like sweet nothings, but really, I whispered what I was about to do so they weren’t surprised. I always picked shy people, ones who would laugh and blush, rather than get too handsy.

There was nothing usual about this.

“You don’t need to do this Chase,” I hissed under the music. “Sit down.”

Chase’s eyes darted around the crowd he couldn’t see—the lights were too bright for his unaccustomed eyes—and even though he looked like a deer in headlights, he stood his ground. “It’s a gesture,” he whispered. “Keep doing your thing.”

I nearly melted into a sticky wad of pavement bubble gum right then and there.

Sweet, misguided Mr. Moral. If he wanted to show support, he could have just reposted me on social media. But instead, here he was, wanting to be seen with me as I gyrated with balloons.

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