Didn’t You Use To Be Queenie B?

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Mise en place: French culinary phrase meaning “putting in place,”

referring to the organization and preparation of ingredients that a chef will require for the menu items to be prepared during a shift.

New Year’s Eve 1999

It is too hot inside. Too noisy. Too much booze and too many drugs and more people than she ever imagined she’d know. But she knows them. Kind of. They certainly know her. The whole world does.

The balcony overlooking Times Square isn’t any quieter.

Only cooler.

Cold.

January in New York City.

In a few minutes, anyway.

New year.

New decade.

New millennium.

But not really.

That will be 2001, but, as always, facts don’t matter.

What’s the big deal, anyway? The earth isn’t keeping the same time humans do.

Hell, not even all humans keep the same calendar.

It’s all a construct. All that Y2K nonsense. No way the world is going to end when midnight strikes because the computers get confused. If anyone is going to end her world, it’s going to be Queenie B herself. She’s been trying a long time, and . . . nothing.

Sipping her cocktail—something gin heavy and cranberry light—Queenie feels the numbers clapping—Bam! 49.

Bam! 48.

Bam! 47.—counting down on the giant Discover Card light board, kitty-corner to where she stands.

Below, a giant Father Time puppet seems to float, accompanied by an equally colossal red dragon.

The masses whoop, champagne corks pop from their bottles, everyone is ready for the crystal ball to slide down its pole into the year 2000.

Inside the apartment—can it be called an apartment when it’s bigger than a mansion in the burbs?—Dick Clark is speaking.

From the television.

An eighty-inch monstrosity all those who’s whos in New York gather around instead of watching it all unfold from the balcony.

Fifteen seconds. Ten.

Others crowd onto the balcony.

Queenie presses up against the railing to make room.

She even smiles at those crushing her, laughs with them.

Someones she should know but can’t remember.

It’s hard, when there’s no telling whether she’s actually met those someones acting as if they’ve been long acquainted or they simply recognize her signature black hair and red lips on sight.

Queenie B. Goddess of the culinary world. Superstar. The who’s whoest.

. . . three . . . two . . . one . . .

Happy New Year. Happy 2000.

Cannons shoot literal tons of confetti into Times Square.

Fireworks sparkle.

Queenie slams back her gin-heavy drink, takes a flute of champagne offered and slams that back too.

She kisses the men.

She kisses the women.

Everyone whoops and she kisses and kisses and kisses.

Everyone.

So many someones.

None of whom matter to her. Where those who do went, she doesn’t want to think about.

Queenie takes several kamikaze shots from a tray on the long, black-marble bar.

Down.

Down.

Down the hatch.

Two more.

She throws back that heavy ink-black mane Osvaldo once claimed had sentience all its own, to do a line with the twentysomethings cheering her on.

The world, blurred by way too much alcohol, comes into sudden and sharp focus before blurring again.

Too much of one.

Not enough of the other. Queenie B knows the balance. Too well. Hers is off. The world is fuzzy.

Someone is calling her name.

A voice she knows.

A face familiar.

Her brain takes its sweet time catching up.

Saskia.

Sweet Saskia.

The girl thought she’d landed her dream job when Queenie B herself pulled her out of a line of hopefuls to be her assistant.

Her keeper.

Her PR disaster fixer. Poor Saskia. Poor kid. She doesn’t jibe with the “if money can fix it, it isn’t a problem”

mentality.

Good thing Queenie B can afford to pay her well . . .

Queenie is in the elevator.

She is pressed up into the corner, spandex and sparkle hitched up to her hips.

There is a man thrusting between her thighs, his face buried in the luxury of her hair.

She has no recollection of how she got here, or when, or who this someone who is no one truly is.

His hair is black, like hers, and whatever he’s doing inside her, he’s doing it well.

He’s making her groan.

He’s lighting that fire, lighting her up.

Queenie feels it in the roots of the hair he’s buried in. And then he’s done, and she’s not. She pushes him down, onto his knees. He doesn’t protest, but gets to it.

Ah, there it is. That glimmer. That roar. Dulled by alcohol, but still pretty damn good. Queenie pulls him up by his hair. She kisses him without opening her eyes, feeling for the elevator buttons that will send the car on its trajectory down.

Up.

It doesn’t matter.

She’s finished.

Time to go.