Here We Go Again, page 24
“When he died,” Logan repeats in a low voice, “you thought you had to always play it safe to avoid becoming him.”
The hazel of Logan’s eyes is too intense, too seeing. Rosemary looks down at the black surface of the water. “I am like him. I got unhealthy, and I coped by self-medicating.”
Logan wraps her slick legs around Rosemary’s, tilting her body so all her weight is resting on Logan. She doesn’t even have to tread water, but she keeps circling her arms anyway. “I’m going to say the same thing to you that you said to me in Santa Fe. You’re not like your dad. Because you do believe in therapy. Because you try so damn hard all the time.”
Rosemary finally stops fighting and lets herself rest against Logan’s body.
“You’re allowed to be a flawed person, Rosemary. You’re allowed to take risks and make mistakes.”
“It doesn’t feel that way sometimes.”
Logan murmurs in understanding. “I get that. But I need you to know something, Rosie.” She melts a little, hearing that nickname in Logan’s coarse whisper. “Your brain is the most beautiful thing about you. And I’m including your soft ass in this list.”
She barks out a laugh and breaks the quiet tension of the moment.
“I’m serious,” Logan deadpans. “Your brain is an asset. Not a liability.”
And that’s when Rosemary stops laughing and starts kissing her. She kisses her like they weren’t just talking about dead dads. Or, maybe, she kisses her like they were. She kisses her like she unearthed something important about herself, and Logan didn’t run away.
Logan tangles around her even more as she kisses her back just as fiercely. She’s weightless, drifting in the circle of Logan’s arms. “Acres and acres and acres of you,” Rosemary mutters.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ROSEMARY
“I’m bored,” Logan declares one hazy, lazy afternoon.
Much to her apparent chagrin, no one responds. Joe and Remy are working on their puzzle, while Van Morrison sings about how these are the days from the record player. Rosemary has her laptop on her thighs, and she’s writing all the imperfect words.
Apparently frustrated that she didn’t get more of a reaction, Logan throws her paperback across the living room. “I said, I’m bored.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to do about it,” Rosemary answers without looking up from her laptop.
“Joe!” she shouts. “I’m bored!”
“Boredom is a sign of a lazy mind,” Remy calls back from the kitchen.
“Or a neurodivergent one!”
“Hmm. Fair point.” Remy comes to stand in the threshold between the kitchen and the living room. “What’s the cure?”
Logan languishes on the couch like she’s fainted and needs to be revived. “I don’t know. It’s a deep-seated boredom, and it’s filled my bones with lead and my brain with worms.”
Joe rolls into the living room behind Remy. “It happens to be the Fourth.”
“I don’t want to celebrate the Fourth of July.” Logan shudders. “America is being a shady bitch, and I’m not going to her birthday party.”
“What about a different sort of party…” Remy teases with an impish smile.
Logan perks up like Odie when someone picks up his leash. “What kind of party?”
He waits for a beat, and Logan wiggles in anticipation. “An underground amateur drag show, perhaps?”
Logan turns her hands into paws and starts panting.
“Are drag shows illegal in Mississippi?” Rosemary asks.
“Not yet. But we do tend to get fewer protesters and bomb threats if we keep these things hush-hush.”
“Where is this clandestine drag show?”
“At a church out in Pascagoula.”
The house goes quiet for a moment. Then: “A secret, underground, Fourth of July amateur drag show at a church?” Logan repeats slowly.
“It’s a good church,” Remy says. “One where they truly love all of God’s children.”
“Well, then, I’m in!” Logan shouts.
Remy turns to Joe. “What do you say? Can Rita Morenhoe handle one last ride?”
Joe’s expression flits from horrified, to hopeful, to elated, to crushed all within the span of a few seconds. “I-I couldn’t possibly… I-I don’t have any of my stuff anymore.”
Remy’s eyes twinkle. “Lucky for you, I think I might have something that will work.”
And that’s how they all end up agreeing to go to an amateur drag show on the Fourth of July.
* * *
Rosemary is too embarrassed to admit she doesn’t know what a drag king is, but when Logan steps out of a Goodwill dressing room in a three-piece suit, she decides drag kings are her new favorite thing.
“Drag is all about playing around with gender,” Logan says as she eyes herself in a dressing room mirror. “Breaking and bending the cis-heteronormative rules. So let’s play.”
Logan puts together an outfit for herself with effortless finesse, repurposing donated (and often heinous) items into something new. “How are you so good at this?” Rosemary asks in awe.
“Halloween is my Christmas. I’ve been training for this my whole life.”
Unfortunately, Logan is momentarily stumped when she discovers there are no men’s suits in a women’s size x-small at the Ocean Springs Goodwill. “Have you ever dressed in drag before?” Logan asks after she’s overturned half the store.
“I think you know I haven’t.”
She taps her chin and considers. “Okay, but have you ever looked at an actor and thought I wish I looked like him.”
Rosemary’s mind immediately flashes to those middle school sleepovers where they watched Grease over and over again. John Travolta with those tight pants and loose hips, winning over Olivia Newton-John. “I guess as a kid I wanted to look like Danny Zuko, kind of…”
Inspired, Logan takes off and emerges moments later with a child-sized leather jacket from the boy’s section. She finds a plain white T-shirt, a pair of boyfriend jeans cuffed at the bottom, and black boots that also once belonged to a ten-year-old boy, probably. When Rosemary steps out of the dressing room in the ensemble, Logan whistles triumphantly. “There he is. Danny Zuko in the flesh.”
Rosemary catches sight of herself in the mirror and does a double take. She doesn’t look like herself, or like any version of herself she ever thought she could be. She looks like some badass fifties greaser, like a rebel without a cause.
Logan finishes off the look by tucking the T-shirt into the jeans and securing them with a black belt. She steps back and admires her handiwork. She bites down on her lip and groans rather obscenely for Goodwill. “Damn. I cannot wait to take these jeans off you tonight.”
Happy Birthday, America.
Back at Remy’s, Logan secures her thick hair underneath a hilarious wig that makes her look like she’s wandered off the set of Bonfire of the Vanities. She even bought an old pager to clip to the front of her trousers. For Rosemary’s hair, they use unholy amounts of gel and slick it back with a comb that Logan slides into Rosemary’s butt pocket when they’re done.
Using Rosemary’s makeup, Logan gives herself impressive stubble. Rosemary is heavy-handed with the eyeliner, and then they’re both fully transformed.
Joe’s record player is blasting “Dancing Queen,” and Remy is fixing whiskey sodas when they enter the living room.
“Not Remy,” he declares as soon as he sees them. He adopts an exaggerated French accent. “Je suis Madame La Tush.” And then, La Tush shakes her tush before passing Logan a drink and pulling her into a twirl at the same time. Remy’s drag persona looks like a slutty Marie Antoinette, complete with an elaborate powdered wig, white face powder over his dark skin, and rosy cheeks. There are even star stickers in the corners of his—her?—eyes.
Her lips are bright red, her fishnet stockings are white, and her heels are four inches high. The slit in the front of her poofy dress must require some intense tucking.
“You boys look fabulous!”
“So do you!” Drag King Rosemary says in a low timbre she’s decided to try out, because why not? She’s someone else tonight, like a character she’s invented in one of her fantasy novels.
Madame La Tush can-cans to the end of “Dancing Queen,” and Logan shouts over the music, “Where’s Joe?”
“She needed a minute to herself before joining the party,” La Tush says. “Now, who are you, sir?”
Logan cocks her chin. “The name is Chad. Chad Van Dyke.”
Remy hoots. “Love it! And who’s the new member of the T-Birds greaser gang?”
“Um…” Rosemary has no idea how to come up with a drag name.
“Danny Zukblow?” Logan offers.
La Tush shakes her head. “Manny Zuko? Kinhickey?”
“James Dick? Like James Dean, but you know. Dick.”
“Too crass and unoriginal,” La Tush declares with a head shake.
“Maybe I’m… Rebel Without a Cock?” Rosemary squeaks.
La Tush and Chad Van Dyke both lose their shit. “Yes! Rebel! Work it!” The madame snaps her fingers three times. Rosemary has no idea how to “work it,” but tonight, she’s Rebel. And Rebel gyrates his hips to the next ABBA song without overthinking it.
Logan cackles and Remy shouts “All tens for Rebel,” before a small cough from behind them renders the living room silent.
It’s Joe, sitting in his wheelchair.
Except, it’s not Joe. It’s Rita Morenhoe. And she’s wonderful.
Her hair is a brown crown of curls spilling down her back and framing her face. Her makeup is all earth tones, with shimmery brown eyes and clay-colored rouge, plum lipstick. But the dress is the main attraction: iridescent sparkles that dance like a disco ball and low-cut in the front with her perky breasts lifted majestically.
She’s smiling.
“Hot diggity dog, Rita!” Logan hoots. “You look incredible! How do you feel?”
Rosemary can see Joe beneath the wig and makeup, and he’s positively glowing. “I feel beautiful,” Rita says. “One last time.”
“I’ll cheers to that!” Logan holds up her whiskey and after everyone takes a drink, Logan goes into the kitchen and fills a low-ball glass with sweet tea for Rosemary. They take photos in character: Rebel leaning against the doorframe with his “whiskey” and a prop cigarette. Chad Van Dyke adjusting the knot of his tie. La Tush in Rita’s lap.
Remy and Joe rework their old choreography to accommodate Joe’s wheelchair, everyone dancing to the ABBA record, including Odie.
Then Odie is crying as the rest of them load into the Gay Mobile. Rebel is behind the wheel and Chad cues the Gay Shit playlist, and when they’re driving down the highway listening to Cher, Rosemary rolls down the window to let the sticky air hit her skin. Even though she didn’t drink, she feels drunk on this strange night already.
Drunk on the possibility of disappearing into this new persona, of becoming something she never dreamed of. Tomorrow, she’ll probably put on heels again, because she likes wearing heels. But tonight, she’s Rebel, and there are no rules.
The church in Pascagoula looks like any of the other churches they’ve seen on every street corner in the South. It’s a large, white wooden building with a giant cross in front. But there, next to the entrance and lit up by spotlights in the grass, is a line of old doors, standing upward, painted in the colors of the progressive pride flag.
When they get Joe out of the car and Remy back in his heels, Logan reaches for Rosemary’s hand, and they walk like that through the seemingly ordinary church parking lot.
It’s not until Remy leads them around the back that signs of the extraordinary start to appear. The thrum of a bass. Glitter on the walkway. A white feather boa hanging from a low branch on a beech tree. At the back door, a butch biker asks for the password.
“Willi Ninja,” Remy whispers, and then they’re in a giant basement with a stage erected on the far end. There are a dozen tables throughout the room, but most people are standing. A few drag queens gather around the makeshift bar, sipping martinis and flirting with the young man who’s playing bartender. A group of college students hover in one corner, looking both excited and out of place. A queer couple in street clothes is kissing in the middle of the dance floor. Close to the stage, people have clustered around to watch a queen do a gut-wrenching rendition of Celine Dion.
Logan goes to the bar to get a round of drinks and Remy takes Joe to an empty table, but Rosemary just stands there, mesmerized by the performer onstage. She’s a large Black queen with a silvery wig and a sequined dress, and Rosemary knows it’s lip-syncing, but she puts her whole heart and soul into it. In this church basement in Mississippi, she becomes Celine Dion. For the length of this song, she gets to be someone else too.
When the song ends, everyone claps and catcalls for Celine, and she takes several proud bows. Rosemary claps the loudest, caught up in the buzz of this supportive community. How could this ever be illegal?
There’s a hand on her lower back. “Hooked already?” Logan asks close to her ear. She’s got another glass of dark alcohol for herself and a ginger beer with lime for Rosemary. “She was so amazing,” Rosemary gushes.
“Is this your first drag show?”
Rosemary nods, and for some reason, that answer earns her a kiss. Logan stoops down and pulls her in close. “I can’t wait to see Rebel up there,” Logan purrs in her Chad voice.
Rosemary wants to protest—she doesn’t sing, doesn’t dance—but she stops herself. She has no idea what Rebel will do tonight.
At the table, Remy and Joe are whispering, but it stops as soon as they join them.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” someone calls out from the stage, and Rosemary turns in her chair to see a king dressed like John Wayne, using a microphone to hype up the crowd.
“Gladys!” Logan grabs Rosemary’s leg under the table. “MJ fucking Rodriguez, it’s frozen shrimp–selling, Brandi Carlisle–loving Gladys!”
Rosemary looks again, and it is the auto mechanic who fixed up the Gay Mobile. Remy shouts over the noise when he sees their shock. “I told you we are friends!”
“For those of you who are new to the Gulf Coast Amateur Drag Show, this is a chance for the untested queers, sissies, and missies to take the stage. But fair warning: our judges are a bunch of jaded bitches, and they will eviscerate you. Let’s get those bitches up here. Please welcome to the stage Girl George, Miss Maybell, Madame La Tush, and Deena Diva!”
The room erupts in catcalls and applause as Remy and the other three judges take the stage. There is a round of rehearsed trash talk between the judges, while Remy leans in and whispers something to Gladys. Then Gladys is back at the mic. “All right, my beautiful children, it sounds like we have a fresh young king ready to make his Gulf Coast debut. He hails from—well, from a teeny town no one cares about, so we’ll just say he’s from Portland!”
“Maine?” Someone shouts from back by the bar.
“No, the other one.” Gladys pretends to expectorate into a spittoon. “This Wall Street bro will steal your life savings and your wife. Please give a huge Mississippi welcome to Chad Van Dyke!”
Logan flies out of her seat in mock outrage, pointing at La Tush onstage. “Did you do this?”
Madame La Tush blows a kiss, and Logan makes her way up to the stage with a cocky swagger. Rosemary’s heart thumps in her chest as Logan forgoes both the steps and the wheelchair ramp and leaps her way onto the stage instead. There are probably only fifty people gathered in this church basement, but that’s still a paralyzing number of witnesses. But Logan—who has nothing prepared and, quite frankly, no musical talent to speak of—is grabbing the mic like it’s nothing. She stands in the center of the stage beneath three glowing spotlights, and she smiles like the crowd is already hers. It probably is.
“Hey, y’all,” she says in a sultry drawl. “Thanks for that warm welcome.”
The group of college girls cheers spiritedly. Logan looks like a masc god up on that stage, so of course every sapphic in the room is losing their mind. Rosemary is losing hers, too, even as the rest of her body riots from secondhand nerves.
“This song might seem like an odd choice for a ladies’ man like me, but I want to dedicate this performance to someone very special.” Logan points directly at her from the stage. “Rebel Without a Cock. We used to sing this song together when we were young, but I would always switch the boy to girl in my head.”
Rosemary feels like her heart is beating outside her body, like it’s been put in an airless jar for everyone at Amateur Drag Night to examine. Because the song Gladys cues up is “She’s in Love with the Boy” by Tricia Yearwood.
Rosemary gasps, and Joe reaches out for her hand. The guitar and piano kick in, and onstage, Logan is doing some sexy head bob, but in Rosemary’s memory, Logan is wearing an oversized T-shirt as pajamas, singing this song into a hairbrush; she’s in the backyard holding a camcorder, directing a music video to this song; she’s on that front porch swing, sharing one set of headphones, staring at the stars to this song.
The lyrics start, and Logan dramatically lip-syncs. She begins with a slow-ballad performance, eyes closed, hand to heart. But as the song picks up, Logan switches to a full-on interpretive dance. It’s horrible, but it’s also so damn funny, no one seems to care about her lack of coordination. By the chorus, everyone is screaming the lyrics along with her. Because obviously, all the Mississippi queers know Tricia Yearwood.
Rosemary laughs so hard, she forgets about her twisting stomach and exposed heart. And then, when Katie and Tommy are at the Tastee Freeze in the song, Logan leaps off the stage, shimmies her way to Rosemary and Joe, and drops to one knee at “Tommy slips something on her hand.”
Logan pantomimes proposing to Rosemary, and Rosemary’s brain knows this is all part of the charade, but the rest of her doesn’t get the memo. Her jar heart nearly explodes.
I would always switch the boy to girl in my head.
