#beautifulmistake

Chapter 3 - Dark Bars

The first time he heard it that night, he thought he imagined it. He was doing a set at one of his regular club gigs downtown, and he knew his head hadn’t been as in the game as much as usual. He’d been thinking about her since that night working the party, for no reason he could name, so when he first thought he heard her weird bird voice among the laughter out in the dark of the audience, he kicked himself for being ridiculous. But when he heard it a second time, a laugh like nobody else’s, his stomach fluttered as he realized. Shit. She was here.

He shifted from absurdly pleased at the notion– had she gone out of her way to look up when he’d be performing again? –to suddenly thrown. He was too much of a professional to let it show in his performance, but in his head it brought up all kinds of rookie shit, like second-guessing his whole goddamn routine in the middle of things; she’d probably dig the social media stuff, but the race jokes would be a bridge too far.

Inwardly he side-eyed himself. Since when did he care that somebody didn’t like his material? Since when was he ever, when he engaged the audience in the act, torn between hoping not to see somebody and hoping to catch a glimpse?

Still, he couldn’t stop tracking her reaction. She wasn’t consistent, so every time she dropped out he was sure he lost her. Sure enough, she didn’t laugh through much of the racial stuff– lot of white girls didn’t know how –but she didn’t walk out, either, because eventually he’d hear her again.

When the set was over, he packed up his shit in record time in hopes that he’d catch her, surprised at his own eagerness. Feeling absurdly high school about the whole thing, he threaded his way through the lobby, trying not to make it too obvious he was looking.

Shit. He should have known. Of course he wouldn’t have to look hard. Her height and her heels stuck her way above the crowd, plus she had a knack for finding just the right light. Even in the dark club, of course he’d just have to look for the one bare bulb in the place that would emphasize her cheekbones.

“Excuse me, miss, but the Narc Anon meeting’s down the block.”

She turned her eyes to him but not her body. “You know you’re pretty fucking racist.”

“You’d know, white girl.” Christ, he was grinning like an idiot. “What are you doing here?”

“Wanted to see what you did when you were off the leash. Guess that was it.”

“Come on, I heard you laughing, bitch.”

She eyed him. “You heard me?”

He felt self-conscious suddenly, but tried to play it off. “You have kind of a– distinctive laugh.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Like goddamned Woody the Woodpecker.”

He jumped to reassure her, a little too quickly. “Nah, it’s nice!” He walked it back a little. “I mean, give me anything but those hipsters who think nodding shows that you thought something was funny.”

She shifted against the wall she was leaning on to face him. “Well, lucky for you I’m desperately avoiding going home.”

Okay, between that and her crying in the closet at Prisca, now he was curious. What the hell, he thought. “Well, long as you got nowhere to be… you want to get a drink?”

She eyed him a moment, and he half-expected she was going to laugh in his face. But at last she tossed him a grin. “My sponsor will kill me. Let’s go.”

They hit up a different dark bar just a few blocks away. Violet suggested it; he was amused to find she already seemed to know the area, like she was a regular. He laughed to himself; of course rich bitch liked to slum it. As they settled in and ordered, Roy considered what to say to her. He could tell this girl had a hell of a story, and he had to admit he was curious about it. He had a way of getting people talking; he prided himself on being able to chat with anybody, and judgmental as he was, he had a knack for the kind of ribbing that put people at ease. But It turned out he didn’t have to bother. Miz Violet Dardo had come out ready to put on a show, and girl didn’t just have a telenovela; hers was a nighttime soap written by a sexual sadist.

The poor-little-rich-girl stuff was par for the course, involving a distant, pilled-out mother and a rich corporate daddy who may or may not murder brown hookers in his spare time. But Violet herself was trans, as it turned out, which explained her ridiculous height. She’d been stone cold certain since she was six years old, and had waged a full-on war with her parents until they ponied up for the transition. That deal might have been a mess in any old family, but for the Dardos there was some crazy rich-people shit going on, too– battling for control of inheritances, child advocate attorneys, abusing loopholes in trust fund terms. Threats were made on both sides of the aisle, ranging from reeducation camps to good old fashioned blackmail. But in the end, Violet got what she wanted, a complete physical overhaul into the woman she was meant to be. All for the low, low price of a move to Manhattan where no one knew them, an NDA with her own goddamn parents, and the constant ambient hostility of everyone involved.

Roy listened, mostly without comment. He wasn’t easily rattled, and had certainly heard some sick stories in his time, but something about the cold, corporatized way it had all gone down made his skin crawl. He was no stranger to family strife, but it was supposed to be yelling and crying, not legal actions and hush money.

“Jesus,” he said when she was through. “And here I thought my creepy uncle fucked me up.”

“Oh, I got three of those. Except now I’m safe because they’re all disgusted by me.”

“Well, I’m glad the situation’s improved.”

“I guess. You’d think if none of them could stand to look at me, I’d get a lot less shit.”

“If it’s that bad, why do you stick around?”

“Because they’ll get to keep my trust fund if I leave.”

He stared at her with his best bitch, please. But she stared back, unabashedly. “It’s eleven point three million. You’d stay too.”

He whistled. “Yeah, for that much, Daddy can saddle me up and ride me around the room. In fact, let me know if there are any job openings.” She trill-laughed at that, which made him bolder. “Better rich and miserable than poor and miserable. Baby likes her shoes, I see.”

“And her HRT.”

“Fair. A body like that can’t come cheap.”

“Lamborghinis never do.”

He snorted. “That good, huh?”

“I wasn’t playing around.”

“Must not have been, to get that much done under the hood. How’s it drive?”

She glared at him. “Bitch, it’s fucking perfect.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “According to whom?”

“Ask around.” She downed her cocktail, set aside the glass, and signaled for another all without breaking eye contact. “So are you joking to cover that you’re freaked out?”

That was more direct than he expected. Freaked out wasn’t the word for it. Sure, it was fucked up, her multi-million-dollar psychodrama. But most of all, it was sad, achingly sad in a way he didn’t usually like to think about; now that she finally felt like a human being, everyone who really knew her saw her as a monster. Cold heartless bastards like him didn’t like to dwell on that sort of thing. But he was pretty damn sure she didn’t want his pity.

True to form, though, he didn’t need more than a moment to come back. “I always lead with the asshole thing. I like folks to know what they’re in for upfront.”

Her lips quirked. “Me too. If they’re going to be scared off, better get it out of the way quick.” Her tone was joking, but even to him the words were all too real.

They chatted a bit longer after that, of lighter things than defense mechanisms and the state of her messed-up life. Eventually her phone buzzed, apparently with a text, and after checking it she stretched and began collecting her things.

“Curfew calling?” he asked.

“Yeah, my P.O. gets on my ass if I’m out too late.” She stood to go, then looked back at him over her shoulder. “Thanks for all the laughs.”

He grinned. “Least I could do. You paid for the drinks.”

He was on a weird gig when he met her. He’d been hired to MC a big fundraiser gala, some shindig for rich Manhattan liberals to get drunk and take each other’s money. Society types weren’t his usual crowd at all, but his name had started getting out there at that point, and he guessed those white yuppies liked the optics of themselves being photographed laughing at some slightly downtown Latino comic. Plus the money was good, better than most gigs he was called for, that was certain. So his crowd or not, he rented the tuxedo, checked his teeth were pretty, and put on a show for the ladies who lunched and the fat cats who bought the martinis.

He worked hard for this one, toning down his usual rapid-fire insult shtick, but not so much he didn’t sound like the guy they’d hired. He actually did research, first time he’d had to do that in a while. Figuring out what their bag was let him know just the right way to skewer it without taking things too far. Roy was no dummy, so he wasn’t about to sound like one. Folks like that liked to think of themselves as able to take a few lumps, but take it too far, and they’d turn on you in the time it took to flip the nickel to the help. It was a fine line to walk, but he nailed it, poking fun where he thought they wouldn’t mind, saving most of his real zingers for their Republican opponents, who they were clearly superior to because they hired their illegals to work indoors too. He was getting real feedback, good-sized laughs even from stiffs likes these, and but more and more as the night went on, he found himself holding out for the sound of one laugh in particular.

It was very distinctive, difficult for him to describe. He didn’t catch it often, usually only when he pushed his luck a bit and threw something out with real teeth. But he found himself starting to listen for it, a sort of high, light trilling almost like the song of a bird. Kind of weird, kind of pretty. In normal circumstances it was the sort he might have made fun of, but the fact that he was able to pull it out so rarely made him hang on it. He found himself starting to play to it, work harder for it, and every time that weird little bird laugh rang out, he counted it as a victory.

At the end of the night, when the monkey suit was off and the monkey had danced his last, he dutifully reported to the front office for the other half of his check. But instead of the frowning, pantsuited lipstick lesbian who hired him, there was another girl, dark hair, flashy dress, sitting on the desk there waiting for him. He had a vague memory of spotting her in the crowd, which meant she was a guest there, some relation or arm candy or paid escort to the political luminaries. And since somebody’s girl for the night probably wouldn’t be paying him, he wagered she was hooked up but good.

Hot girl, at least by some standards. Her face was beat for the gods, in the way some girls used it by the trowelful to make it look like they weren’t wearing anything at all. It would have fooled most dudes, but with his line of work he’d learned to clock it even in this light. Amid her glittery bath towel of a cocktail dress, she was all long, gawky limbs and pale skin, jutting with sharp bones. Not his type, he liked a little more meat on a girl, but something about her all the same. Like a model from the 90s or a rock star, back when they were all on heroin.

Leaving behind the shtick for a minute, he accepted the check mildly. “Thank you. Enjoy the show?” he asked, more out of politeness than anything.

Those exquisitely painted lips quirked. “Not as much as I expected. I thought you were really going to let us have it.”

Roy didn’t miss a beat. “Well, in that case, honey, your dress is ugly.”

Chapter 2: Mascara Tracks

The GM at Prisca was an old friend of Roy’s, so he could hit the guy up when he needed a little cash between gigs. He’d been working pretty regularly these days, but not too many people hit the clubs on a Wednesday night, and when some big spender rented the place out, David counted it as a favor to have somebody around who could tie a tie straight and wasn’t going to show up stoned. So a few months later, Roy put on his presentable face again for the second time in recent memory he’d be swimming with the whales. Only this time they were paying him to keep his remarks to himself.

A party like this, it was more like cater waiting anyway, so as long as he kept the drinks coming and the trays level, he could get away with a pasted smile on his face. He settled for gathering material for a routine he was working on in his head, identifying the Six Kinds of Rich White People you always saw at these parties. He was just getting into the idea of Brings Every Conversation Back to Either His Portfolio or His Prostate Guy, when David asked him to go grab another case of champagne because the busboy was puking up tabs of X in the alleyway.

He decided to be grateful for the temporary escape. He ducked behind the bar and made his way to the back room, but as he drew close, it sounded like there was somebody in there already, and he could have sworn they were crying.

He pushed into the storage room to see a lanky figure slumped on the table, swathed in expensive clothes and snot. Jesus Christ. It was the girl from the gala, all white skin and sharp angles, knock knees sticking through the slashed skirt of her gown, cowl neckline practically down to her navel, and red soles plain on her six-inch heels. He had a background in costume design and construction, so one look told him it cost a lot to look that cheap. But that beat face was a hot mess now, as big wet tracks of liner and mascara came streaking down her cheeks.

Not a whole lot threw Roy, but for some reason a girl who’d looked fit to stomp the world beneath her stiletto sobbing in a closet was enough. “Oh, hey, sorry– are you okay? Is there, you know, anything I can do?”

She was sniffling and downcast, but her response was lightning-quick. “Yeah, can you let me get caught sucking your dick? It’d really piss my father off if he thought I stormed off to fuck the help.”

It was the last goddamn thing he’d expected to hear. Unable to help himself, he burst out laughing. “I could, but what’s in it for me?”

He caught himself quickly, suddenly afraid he’d made it worse, but instead it seemed to help her pull herself together. She wiped her eyes, smearing her makeup further, and turned to actually look at him.

“I remember you. You were the MC at the fundraiser. What are you doing here?”

“Eh, I just do the comedy thing for cash. My real passion is waiting tables.” Mess as she was, she at least had the good graces to roll her eyes at herself. He grabbed one of the spare white table napkins and held it out to her. “No offense, but you look like hell.”

She sank both hands into her wild dark hair and bent down her neck. “I am hell.”

He snorted. “Mind if I asked what happened?”

She tossed her head back, and suddenly his eye was drawn to the white expanse of sternum above the neckline of her dress. Christ, she was a bony thing, with hardly a handful to either side, but the low cowl fell open just where the curves began to swell. Subtly sexy, like a high-fashion spread. At least it would have been without all the snot.

At last she grabbed the napkin and dabbed her eyes and nose, making a face at the paint that wiped away. “My family. That’s what happened. And… everyone.”

He leaned against the edge of the table beside her. “Ah, people. Fuck ‘em.”

“Well, damn, why didn’t I think of that?”

“Looking at you, I’d think that’d be your first thought.” Again he briefly wondered if he was being an asshole, jabbing at her while she was down like that, but it made her outright laughed, and hearing that bizarre trilling once again gave him an unexpected thrill.

“Look, honey… some people are just assholes. Maybe even most people. Nothing you can do about that, so it ain’t your fault if they act like it.”

“Really? That’s all you got for me? Some help.”

“Hey, if I was trying to help you, I’d tell you you all the places you got snot on yourself.” She rolled her eyes epically, but she seemed to be steadier now. She patted around for her handbag, a tiny little thing that probably cost as much as his apartment, then tottered back onto her enormous heels.

“Well, thanks. Better go put my face back on. Nobody will recognize me without it.” He had to look up at her as she stood. God, even besides them, she was tall. Amazonian even.

Watching her collect herself, he felt strange. Usually he didn’t have much feeling for the rich and beautiful besides contempt. But he found himself stopping her before she walked out.

“Actually, wait a second.” He dug around in his pocket for one of his cards. Fortunately he’d remembered to grab them before he left the apartment. “You ever need something, call a hateful bitch like me. Even if it’s for a laugh.”

She studied the card. “Haylock. I thought you were Spanish.”

He shrugged. “That way the cops don’t find me. But you can call me Roy.”