Accounting for Cole (Natural Beauty) Read online

  I turned to Gretchen, pleading for aid with my expression, but she didn’t see it. She was busy sipping her wine and staring at the empty stage, bobbing her head offbeat to the house music.

  I blew a raspberry and silently itemized the contents of my purse, just in case I needed a weapon of some sort. I might have had a fountain pen that could inflict considerable aggravation.

  “Move!” the woman bellowed, right as a lavender-shirted bouncer made his way to the stage. About freaking time.

  “Ladies, is there a problem here?” he asked. He crossed his arms over his burly chest and gave us each a chastising look.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “The show is about to start, so you need to take your seats.”

  “That’s the problem! These heifers took our table!” the brick house said, jabbing a finger in my specific direction.

  Awkward.

  “Heifers? Are you freakin’ kidding me? You’re like the lovechild of Goliath and Godzilla.”

  The bouncer turned his head to the side and coughed in an effort to disguise his obvious chuckle.

  Beth sidled up to him and touched his arm, forcing him to turn his attention to her face via her décolletage.

  He grinned, smarmy bastard.

  “That’s not quite true,” she purred, rubbing his massive bicep in a manner I thought was far too familiar for a stranger, but that was just Beth. Beth was grabby. Always had been, even back in high school. I remember one field trip when she disappeared for half an hour in a history museum. The teacher sent me off in search of her, and I finally found her huddled in a corner of the deserted Lost Colony exhibit with a college intern. He had a similar grabby-hands problem, judging by the placement of his palms on her caboose.

  “The table was empty. True, it hadn’t been cleared off, but we’re patient. We know the waitstaff is very, very busy tonight with all these out-of-towners here. Now, if the table has a true reservation on it, we’ll be more than happy to move.” She batted her false eyelashes at him and cocked her blonde head to the side coyly.

  The bouncer sized her up, giving her a head-to-toe assessment that ended with a wink, and then turned to the Goliath in a sundress. “Sorry, Freda. You’re a regular. You know club policy. If you leave your table unattended for any period of time it’s considered open.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” she bellowed, voice deepening again. She slammed her bottle onto the table, and I heard a splintering sound.

  I cringed.

  “I paid good money for my ticket.”

  The bouncer nodded. “So did everyone. I just enforce the rules, and they don’t change for different shows. I hate to say it since you’re a good customer, but move along now or we’ll have to ask your party to leave.”

  She stared at him agape and agog, screamed loudly and wordlessly, grabbed her bottle by the neck, snatched the arm of the wayward table-mate who’d finally returned, and shoved her way through the crowd.

  “Sorry for the inconvenience,” the bouncer said. He bobbed his head at Beth and turned on his heel toward the backstage area.

  Beth gave him a swat on the rear as he passed.

  “Oh yeah, I like it rough,” he called back.

  “I could tell,” Beth returned brightly.

  I eyed her with malice.

  “What?” She shrugged. She sat on the chair nearest the stage, gave a little wave to a member of the floor staff, and pointed to the residual mess on the table. “People do things for me because I’m sexy,” she said.

  “Me, too,” Gretchen said, finally floating back down from La-la Land to interact with us. “Macy, if you’re ever going to get a man, you need to learn how to work it.”

  I groaned.

  The music changed and the lights in the club dimmed even lower. Other than the lights over the bar, the only illumination in the room was the spotlight trained on the microphone.

  A long, toned leg enmeshed in black fishnet hose and ending with a six-inch Lucite platform pump appeared from behind the rhinestone-spangled curtain.

  Someone in the room whistled as the player behind the curtain extended a hand, dangling from a limp wrist ensconced in a long, black satin glove. Its owner wriggled long fingers, showing off a faux diamond on one finger the size of my gearshift knob.

  RuPaul, on the backing track, instructed the person to work. He…er, she took the commandment to heart.

  A man I thought for a moment was Ru herself sashayed onto the stage in a lime green organza ruffled mermaid dress.

  I rubbed my eyes and blinked. No, it wasn’t RuPaul. This guy was too broad at the shoulders, and much bulkier overall. I knew this all too well from my weekend reality television marathons.

  He was a RuPaul impersonator—got that? A female impersonator impersonating the world’s most famous drag queen. My head spun.

  “Welcome ladiiiiiieeees!” he sang into his mike, prancing around the stage in his sky-high heels and waving like a beauty queen on a parade float.

  The crowd cheered, and I could have sworn I heard Freda whooping it up in the back. She sounded downright jubilant.

  “Thanks for coming to our revue. You better love it! We promise the show won’t be a drag.”

  Rim shot.

  I groaned. Cheesy.

  “We’re so happy to be in your cute little town tonight, so hello, Jacksonville!”

  “Greenville!” some woman in the crowd called out.

  “Huh?” the MC bent his ear toward the voice and extended his mic to the crowd.

  “Greenville!” she repeated.

  “Oh.” He straightened his back, puffed out his prosthetic chest, and straightened his platinum wig. “Whatever, bitch,” he sang cheerfully before blowing the woman a kiss.

  Giggles sounded from the peanut gallery.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Well, let’s get this party started, oh-kay? Some of you hussies have to be in church in the morning, and I know how y’all are. You’re going be sitting in the pews acting like you weren’t here committing any number of sins the night before.” He narrowed his sparkly-lashed eyes and shook his head. “Shameful. I’m not one to judge, though. I just gossip and save the judging for Judy. Anyway.” Fake Ru walked to the side of the stage and put his mic into the stand. “Without further ado, please put your hands together for the comic stylings of Brawny Love!”

  The club exploded into applause, and a heavyset black man with over-plucked eyebrows and a damned convincing lace-front curly wing approached center stage and started his monologue.

  I listened for a while to his dissertation on acrylic nail designs, which was admittedly pretty funny, but when I realized his suit wasn’t much different than mine I slid my chair back and mumbled, “I’m going to get a soda.”

  Beth and Gretchen didn’t acknowledge my departure at all, being so hypnotized by the fake Lonnie Love’s routine, so they certainly didn’t notice when Freda the Hulk tossed the contents of her drink cup at me. She was about five feet away when I spotted her, and by then it was too late.

  She and her friends had found a new table about four rows back. I stood frozen for a minute there in the aisle with a few women looking over at me consolingly, but doing nothing. I forced a hiss through clenched teeth and closed my eyes to center myself.

  My personality is encoded with a limited number of responses to stressful social situations. One: cry. Two: shriek like a banshee with the devil on her ass. Three: Cataplexy. None of those seemed appropriate at the moment, so I squeezed my eyes closed, took a deep, cleansing breath, and thought of reasonable things like oil prices and the tax code.

  When I opened them, I felt a little better—a little less lightheaded, at least—and put one foot in front of the other with the ladies’ room my destination. I’ve got a memory like an elephant, but I certainly didn’t want any visual reminders of my awful evening via the soda syrup stain on my suit jacket.

  Even with my tunnel vision activated, I could feel the stares from the club-goers, an
d my cheeks and neck burned from the attention. “God.” I lowered my eyes to the floor and continued my maneuvering through the tightly packed tables. Mumbling apologies as I went, I brushed against the backs of peoples’ chairs, as they didn’t bother to slide in and make way. I had cleared the last few chair legs at the edge when I looked up, but it was too late to dodge the collision.

  I slammed front-first into something far too malleable to be a wall, and walls don’t smell like citrus and vanilla with an undercurrent of aftershave.

  Aftershave? My gazed tracked up from the men’s size twelve or so strappy sandals planted in front of my feet to find sheer black hose on very muscular legs, a leather miniskirt slung across narrow hips, a slinky one-shoulder top, a prominent Adam’s apple, and a whole lot of stage make-up.

  “Dear lord, you’re big,” I mumbled. It was true. He/She was even taller than Freda, but wore it way better. I guess. I mean…is that weird?

  He/She cocked up a well-plucked eyebrow. “Whoa, there,” came the baritone voice, and its smiling owner took a step back. “You’re a bit sticky, sweetheart.”

  Blood suffused my cheeks yet again, and I returned my stare to the floor. “Sorry. I was headed to clean it up when we collided. Someone flung a drink at me.”

  “Did you punch her?” he asked with a chuckle.

  My head snapped up at that odd question and I finally made eye contact with the rogue impersonator. When I actually took in the full wonder of his face, my breath caught in my chest.

  It wasn’t his lips painted bright red that were so distracting, nor the long feather earrings that grazed his muscular shoulders. Not even the shiny black hair waving past his shoulders gave me pause. What froze me to that sticky cement floor and entranced me like a hypnowheel were his eyes. In the flickering club light with his pupils dilating and shrinking, they shifted between yellowish amber to the green of new grass. I’d never seen anything like them before.

  Those red lips quirked up in my lower peripheral vision and I looked down again at my sensible shoes again. Looking at them, I could focus.

  “No, I didn’t punch her.”

  “Pity,” the baritone said. “The cast loves a good fight. We’re overdue for one.”

  “Well, the evening isn’t over yet,” I mumbled. I looked back at the table to find Beth and Gretchen doubled over with belly laughs. Some friends.

  “That it isn’t.” He laughed a deep, rumbling sound that hinted at what thunder would sound like if thunder had arms and legs and eyes the color of turning leaves. He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Well, good luck.”

  “Uh…thanks.”

  He nodded, and then slipped into the hallway leading to the stage as discreetly as a six-foot four man wearing four-inch heels could manage.

  I stood there for another moment collecting my wits—recovering, really. I felt like I’d just learned Santa Claus was real and he liked to dress up like a girl. “Jesus.” I swallowed hard and shook myself before pushing my way into the bathroom, which was blessedly empty.

  After using scads of paper towels to clean up my jacket and blouse, I sat in a locked toilet stall idling away time by checking my email on my phone.

  Twenty minutes passed, and I knew I was being unsociable, even if Beth and Gretchen hadn’t risked abandoning the table to come find me. I left the bathroom and edged my way back to our table, the long way around to avoid Freda, just in time to see some sort of burlesque act making its way off the stage. The house lights came up and Beth turned around in her seat and looked at me, her eyes wide and voice excited. “What did you think of the guy with the hula hoops? I can’t believe he managed to keep that hoop moving around there. Imagine how much control of his muscles he must have.” She giggled and bit down into her bottom lip.

  I blinked at her a few beats and finally responded, “Yeah, he was just super.”

  Didn’t seem worth arguing about.

  While the revue crew reconfigured some props on the stage, the house staff made their way around the room and delivered orders of food that had been put in before the show started. A waitress placed a tray of cheese fries on our table along with three small plates.

  “Wait,” Gretchen said, finally coming out of her daze at the sight of hot melted cheddar and greasy crinkle fries. “We wouldn’t order that.” She pointed to the tray emphatically as if the waitress couldn’t surmise on her own the object of offense. “Do you think we get bodies like these,” she swept her hand down her person for emphasis, “By eating shit like that?”

  Personally, I had no real problem with “shit like that” but I hadn’t ordered it, either.

  The waitress shrugged. “That table over there sent it.” She hooked her thumb in the direction of Freda and crew who were all watching us with rapt attention.

  Freda gave us a little finger wave when we turned to look at her.

  I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “That’s…that’s so sweet of her,” Beth said, reaching out to pluck out a fry.

  I slapped Beth’s hand away. “Are you nuts?”

  “Ow!” She pressed her injured had against her bosom and cast a withering glower at me.

  I tapped my forehead in a “Duh!” gesture and handed the plates back to the waitress. “Sorry to make your job more difficult, but we don’t want this. Please return them to the woman who ordered them.”

  The waitress gave me a look of incredulity and took the items back with a sigh. “Never had anyone send back free food.”

  “They probably never noticed the giant roach that got sent with it.” I pointed to a dark spot beneath the top layer of potatoes.

  “Ew!” Gretchen shrieked, waving her arms around as if the aforementioned critter had been dropped down her shirt and not just onto her plate.

  “Wow! Okay. Sorry,” the waitress squeaked, quickly moving the offending items away.

  “That bitch,” Beth hissed. She narrowed her eyes at the other table and rolled up her nonexistent sleeves, raring for a fight. “Where did she even get a roach in here?”

  Gretchen repeated, “Yuck, yuck, yuck” and had dug a little tube of hand sanitizer out of her purse. She hadn’t even touched the plate and was still rubbing the stuff up to her elbows.

  I rubbed my palms against my tired eyes and sighed. “Read in one of those weird-but-true news stories that some people order feeder roaches from online vendors and carry a few around in containers in their purses. They’ll go to a restaurant, eat most of their meal, and then suddenly find…” I made air quotes with my fingers. “…that there’s a roach in their food. Bingo—free meal.”

  Gretchen and Beth both opened their mouths to say something, but before they could spit out whatever retorts they had the lights in the club went down and fake RuPaul made his way back to the stage.

  “Thanks for your patience while we freshened up, sweethearts,” he said, making a big show of straightening his bust. He’d changed into a metallic gold sarong-type thing that was accompanied by an outlandish fascinator propped atop his feathered wig. “We’re pleased to treat you with a delicious medley from our headline act. I know you bitches will just eat them up! Led by our own nationally-known superstar Nicole NotHerzinger, here are the Blowup Dolls!”

  The noise level in the room suddenly shot up about three hundred percent, and even Gretchen and Beth forgot their roach angst for the time being. They stood and clapped for the five-some led, to my surprise, by the black-haired miniskirt-wearing column I’d plowed into on my way to the bathroom.

  He moved with graceful ease to the center mic stand, locked his gaze in my direction, and when my eyes widened at his attention, he winked.

  I squeaked.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The fake Nicole Scherzinger stared right at me and smirked as if he was letting me in on a damned good secret. When the music queued up, he lip-synced to “Buttons” and gyrated in a surprisingly sensual fashion.

  I was rendered mesmerized by the sway of his narrow hips, entranced by how easily he ben
t his body. I loosened the top button on my ruffled blouse, almost exactly in time to the music, and slumped a bit in my seat before realizing what I’d done.

  Obviously keen to my discomfort, he smiled around his lip-synched words and glided to the other end of the stage, finally turning his attention to someone else.

  I slammed back the soda I’d nabbed at the bar on my way back from the bathroom and pulled my water bottle close to me. “I’m going to go wait in the car,” I said, leaning toward Beth and whispering as loud as I could.

  “Okay, bring me back a gin and tonic,” she said without turning around.

  I didn’t bother correcting her. I scanned the room for the nearest exit, found it near stage left, and made a beeline for it.

  Even in the midst of a humid North Carolina summer, the air outside was still more refreshing than the stagnant, sweat-tinged miasma inside the club. I took a deep cleansing breath and my shoulders finally inched down from my ears. I peeled off my sodden, stained suit jacket and made a brisk walk toward my sedan, noticing then the cola stain had seeped further into my blouse’s ruffles.

  “Great. Beth will say toss it,” I muttered while draping my suit jacket over the back of the driver’s seat.

  I settled behind the steering wheel, and must have dozed off because one moment I was digging in my center console for napkins, and the next I was studying the back of my eyelids. A banging racket at my right startled my eyes open, and I looked across the passenger seat and through the window to discover Beth frantically yanking on the door handle.

  “Unlock the fuckin’ door!” she shouted, and turned to make a quick glance over her shoulder.

  I hit the switch. “What’s going on?”

  She folded herself into the seat and pounded the dashboard, shouting, “Let’s go, go, go!”

  “Um…” I pulled my seatbelt across my torso and turned to her for explanation.

  “Go faster!” she screamed.

  “But what about—”