Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
“SO YOU TOLD HIM NO , RIGHT?” EVA ASKS.
Lucky for me, Eva gets up early, even on the weekends. It’s why I’ve called her first thing in the morning for advice instead of Kat, who doesn’t get up until eleven a.m. on Saturdays at the earliest.
“Not exactly,” I say, pushing the last bits of soggy cereal around in my bowl.
“I know I’ve been ready for Regina Moon Dee to make a comeback for years now. But are you?”
Even if I am able to muster the courage to take my drag out of mothballs, it doesn’t solve the bigger issue. “Maybe?” I reply. “But even if Aaron’s open to hiring Regina, he’s definitely not interested in dating her. So if he finds out I’m Regina, there goes my shot at being with him again.”
“Okay, not to question your taste in men, but do you even want to be with someone who doesn’t like drag?”
I pause. Is Aaron really the dream guy I’ve made him out to be if he’s not interested in something that used to be such a big part of me?
That’s the thing, though. Drag was a big part of my life, but it isn’t anymore. I’ve learned to live without it. What I’m considering now is just a temporary fix. Something to pump up business at the Pink Unicorn and get it going again. At some point, I can find someone else to take over. Maybe even have a rotating roster of karaoke hosts. And then my life as Regina Moon Dee can be put to rest once again.
“To some people, drag can be a little… confusing, I guess.” I flash back to my last day performing. “Besides, I wouldn’t do it forever. I’d stop before he ever finds out my true identity.”
“And how exactly are you going to do that?”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me!”
“Okay, okay. Let me just think about this for a second,” she says, her voice getting louder. She’s struggling to be heard over someone screaming for help in the background.
No, not screaming. Or crying, which was my second guess. I eventually realize it’s Mom, singing a Beatles song in the living room. At eight in the morning.
“Why is Mom doing karaoke this early?” I ask.
“She just joined the church choir. It’s her way of warming up before Saturday rehearsals.”
I hear “Is that Rex?” in the background, the sudden absence of the karaoke track, a mic being dropped, and, “Rex!” my mother yells into the phone. “Why don’t you come to church with us tomorrow? And come hear me sing in the choir!”
I massage my brow. “I might have a conflict tomorrow, Mom. I’ll try,” I say, knowing full well that I won’t.
“Rex,” my dad’s voice booms in the background. “Too busy to come to church, ha? I’m sure it’s because you’re studying for your law school test. Right?”
For whatever reason, my father has been under the impression that I’ve been preparing for the LSAT for the past few weeks to apply to law schools.
Maybe because I lied and said that I was.
“Yes, exactly,” I say. “I’m studying.”
“Good. You need a top score to get into a good program, anak. Make me proud, okay? But take a break and come and support your mom tomorrow at church. Don’t let us be the only ones to suffer.”
“What?” Mom shrieks.
“I mean the only ones to enjoy!” Dad says. “Ai! Aray ko!”
Even from over the phone, I can tell that Mom is pinching one of his love handles. My ear fills with screaming and laughter.
“Hold on,” Eva says. “Let me go into a different room and spare you.” The sounds of our parents’ roughhousing recedes into the background.
“Much better,” I say.
“Agreed,” Eva says. “Hey, do you want me to tell Mom tomorrow that you actually showed up at church but sat in the back pew so she didn’t see you? I can just text you what Father Jim says for his homily, in case she tests you on it.”
I snap my fingers. “That’s it, Eva. You’re a genius.”
“Tell me more.”
“You’ve always been the smartest one, the best student—”
“About the plan that you obviously just thought about, dummy. What is it?”
“I can be in two places at once. With your help. So you’ll have to come with me to the Pink Unicorn tonight. I’m going to hand my phone over to you for the evening.”
“Uh, okay?”
“Just don’t go through my photos.”
“Ick. I definitely will not,” Eva says. “But speaking of photos, you should send me a few pics of you in drag. Even if they’re old. We don’t have enough time to take updated ones. I’ll just figure out a way to doctor them up somehow.”
“What do you need pics for?”
“Duh. For publicity.”
My heart skips a beat. “Publicity? For tonight?”
“You want to prove you can pull in people, right?”
“Well, I was going to invite Kat.”
“That’s not enough, Rex. I’ll get the word out on socials this morning. It’s not a ton of time, but we can try to get at least a few diehard Regina Moon Dee fans to come.”
Eva’s right. If I want to prove to Aaron that I can bring about a karaoke renaissance for the Pink Unicorn, we need to attempt to bring in a bigger audience tonight. And advertising Regina Moon Dee’s comeback would definitely help.
Still, when I think of putting my image back out publicly, I can’t help but feel everyone’s eyes on me, and my face gets hot, as if someone’s focused a spotlight and turned up the intensity to maximum.
“Okay.” My throat is suddenly parched. I go to the sink to pour myself a glass of water. “I’ll send you what I have. Thanks for handling that. You’d think a bedroom drag queen would be better at social media, but I haven’t had an online presence in years. It’s progressed way past me.”
“You’ll catch up,” Eva says. “I’ll post something on Instagram and Facebook, maybe do a quick teaser on TikTok. Wait, does Regina Moon Dee even have a TikTok account?”
“Nope.”
“A virgin TikToker! Love it. People are going to be so excited to hear you’re going to be back in drag and performing in public again. Especially Mom. Have you told her yet?” she asks.
“I haven’t,” I say, taking a sip of water. “Could you tell her for me?”
Feedback from the karaoke system in the living room squeals in the background. I hear our mother, now joined by our dad, singing, “ I want to hold your haaaaam! I want to hold your ham! ”
“Just be sure not to let Dad hear about it,” I say. “I’ll already have my hands full tonight making sure Aaron doesn’t figure out that I’m Regina. If Dad came, too, it’d be a disaster.”
“I’ll be careful,” Eva says. She lets out a tiny squeak. “We’re going to have so much fun! It’ll be like old times. I just wish Tito Melboy was here, too.”
“Yeah,” I say simply.
“One of these days you should talk to him again. Don’t you miss him?”
I don’t say anything for a while and just listen to my parents singing loudly in the background.
“Be sure you’re at my place at seven p.m., okay?” I say.
She sighs, says, “Yeah, yeah,” and hangs up.
Don’t I miss Tito Melboy? Of course I do. I miss his throaty laugh, his chubby cheeks, and his hugs that last for days. I miss the smell of his floral perfume, the swish of his hips, and the way his hair comes all the way down to his waist when he lets it down. And most of all, I miss having someone else around who knows exactly what it’s like to have been feminine their whole life. To love wearing women’s clothes. To walk in heels as if they were born in them. Yes, I miss Tito Melboy. I miss my drag mother.
My own mom was always such a big champion of mine that I never thought I’d need another one. But the summer before my senior year in high school, I discovered what a gift it was to have a second mother. When Tito Melboy came into our lives.
I’d known that my dad and my uncle Melboy hadn’t talked in years, but I didn’t know why. Tito Melboy was my dad’s favorite brother, until he wasn’t. And though Tito Melboy also lived in California, he might as well have lived on Mars, because we’d never met him. Dad was content to avoid his brother by pretending he didn’t exist. All we knew of our uncle were half-told stories and angrily cut-off conversations.
When my uncle asked us for help, though, my dad couldn’t ignore him any longer. Tito Melboy was moving to the Bay Area from Los Angeles and needed a place to stay. And family always comes first when it comes to Filipinos, especially those in need. My mom gently reminded my dad that he needed to put aside whatever disagreement he had with his kuya and help him.
And by reminded, I mean harangued until he finally caved in and let Tito Melboy come stay with us for however long he needed.
When he and my dad arrived home from the airport, Tito Melboy threw himself into our house, leaving my dad to struggle with the four large suitcases he’d brought with him.
“Sharon, diyos ko!” he said, his voice as loud as a police siren. They hugged like long-lost friends. He had on men’s clothing, but only by strict definition. Jeans (skin-tight), a button-up silk shirt (in a festive pattern), and a pashmina scarf (definitely not men’s). He had a big torso with impressive cleavage, thick, hairless arms, and ample hips and thighs. A purple scrunchie held his long hair in a ponytail, which swung around his head like an elephant’s trunk as he moved through the house. And though he didn’t have on any obvious makeup, he must have been wearing something. His skin was too glowing to not have been enhanced in some way.
After finally loosening himself from my mom’s embrace, he examined Eva and me. “Look how big you both are now! Eva, how old are you?”
“I just turned ten!”
“Practically an adult. And you, Rex. Naku, gwapo talaga! You know, the last time I saw you, you were just a baby. You don’t remember me, do you?”
He gave me a hug. A cloud of women’s perfume engulfed me. My eyes watered, though I wasn’t sure if it was because of the scent, the hug so tight that it momentarily stopped my lungs from working, or the fact that in that one fragrant instant, it felt as if I’d found someone I’d always needed. Right then and there, I wanted to tell him everything about my secret life as Regina Moon Dee.
Just because he was feminine, though, didn’t necessarily mean he knew anything about drag. I had to make sure. That night after dinner, as Mom talked to a friend on the phone and Dad excused himself to work in the garage, I tried to find out.
Eva and I took Tito Melboy up to my room for our favorite summer night activity, watching RuPaul’s Drag Race on my little TV. I wanted to see how he responded to it, to see if he was drag-friendly.
Within a minute, I had my answer.
“Ay! You record this? This is my favorite show!” Tito Melboy squealed. “Raven is the best. She’s my makeup inspiration. Do you want to see?”
He whipped out his phone, and on the screen was a picture of a gorgeous plus-size queen with pageant-style hair piled high on her head and a ball gown draped around her. She looked like a goddess come down from the heavens.
“Is that you, Uncle?” Eva asked, astonished.
“Yes! Beaucoup Buko. The Empress of Manila.”
While Eva ooh ed and ahh ed over Tito Melboy’s pics, I took my phone out and shyly returned the gesture by showing him pictures of me as Regina Moon Dee.
He looked at the screen and then looked at me. His big brown eyes widened as he brought an open hand to his chest. “Is this you? Ang galing naman ng pamangkin ko! And wow, your color combinations are so very, ah… creative. Who taught you how to do this?”
“Mom, mostly. But a lot of it’s just me experimenting.”
“Ah. Of course your mom would encourage you,” he said, smiling. “Can I see what kinds of things you have?” he asked me.
I pulled out my stash of clothes, shoes, wigs, and makeup from the secret suitcase at the back of my closet. Tito Melboy sifted through everything. “How long have you been collecting all of this?” he asked.
“Ever since Mom started taking me shopping. Three years now.”
“You’ve been doing drag for three years?”
“Longer. Before that, I was just stealing stuff from Mom.”
“Since you were just a child! I guess talent must really run in the family, then? Although I think it skipped your dad.”
“He’s good at making other kinds of things, I guess.”
“Does he know about this?”
“No.”
“Good.” He picked up one of my wigs, a fluffy, blond piece, and poked his fingers through the large curls. “He wouldn’t approve.”
Here was that connection Mom had been talking about.
“Is that why Dad and you don’t get along?” I asked quietly. “He found out about my drag and got super-mad. Mom says it has something to do with you. Is it because you’re… bakla?”
I was afraid of Tito Melboy’s answer. I didn’t want to hear that my father disliked me for the same reason he had stopped talking to his kuya. Because he was gay.
Melboy sat on my small bed, making it groan under his weight. “Not because of that, Rex. Well, not exactly because of that. You should understand, when I was growing up in the Philippines, being bakla was not exactly the same as being gay here. In the States, if you are gay, you can be a lot of different ways, diba? You can be macho. In fact, the more straight-acting you are here, the more desirable. I learned this when I came here. But when I was a boy in the Philippines, if a bakla person was masculine, people would get confused. They would think he was being dishonest, trying to be someone he was not. That’s because people expected us mga bakla to be feminine. And since I always acted more like a woman, well… I was not always understood, but I was more tolerated. And sometimes even loved.”
“Even by my dad?”
“Oh, yes, especially your dad! He never cared that I was bakla. No one in our family did. Your lola died when we were little, so I helped your lolo around the house. I took care of your dad and your tito Reg. I cooked, I cleaned, I mended their clothes. They considered me their big sister, their ate . Actually, your dad? He was my biggest protector. He would always stand up for me against the neighborhood bullies.”
“So why did he get so mad at you?”
Tito Melboy reached up, pulled off the elastic tie that held up his long hair, and let it cascade down. As he talked, he pulled his fingers through the long, black strands. “We didn’t have enough money growing up, Rex. What we were making selling food at carts on the streets was not enough. So I began to look for ways to earn extra cash. I began to dress fully in women’s clothing and perform at bars. I was making a lot of money. But I was also getting into things I should not have. Drinking. Staying out late. And I had so many suitors. Some of them were not such good guys. I sometimes got attracted to the rough types, the ones who were bad news. It got to the point where I was barely home anymore. I fought with your lolo about it. And then I left home. Your dad was maybe around your age at the time, and he blamed me for abandoning him. Which I guess is true.”
Something on Tito’s face closed off, becoming hard. He stayed quiet for so long that I assumed he was done telling his story.
Eva cracked up at one of the Drag Race contestants’ jokes, which startled Tito Melboy.
He blinked a few times and turned to me. “Why don’t we have a little tutoring session tomorrow when your parents are at work, ha? Just don’t tell your dad.”
I couldn’t believe someone I was related to was so much like me. I had been convinced—and afraid—that my love of drag destined me to be the black sheep of the family. I should have known from Dad’s cryptic warning that my uncle had beaten me to it.
I nodded and smiled wide at Tito Melboy. He pulled me into his arms and gave me one of his everlasting hugs.
Our first drag lesson was on a scorcher of a summer day, the kind where there was so much heat it became visible, coming off the pavement in waves. It was so hot that my parents gave us permission to turn on the air-conditioning before they left for work, instead of just using the fans to save money. “Trust me, Rex, you’ll be glad we get to use the air con today. Drag is a mix of adding and subtracting, but mostly adding. You will have to get used to performing in hot circumstances—in many layers under heavy lights or outdoors in summer events. But for now, we stay comfy.”
He retrieved a large aluminum carrying case from one of his suitcases and flipped the latch open with a clack . I gasped when he opened it, revealing multiple levels that spread out, like a butterfly unfurling its wings. “One day I’ll buy you your own case,” he said, winking.
We sat at my desk with our respective makeup sets and lighted mirrors. As Tito Melboy went through his routine, I followed and copied him. I asked questions when I didn’t understand something he was doing, but mostly, I watched and listened as he told his stories. He’d learned a lot in his many years working the gay nightclubs in Manila and had even established his own house of queens. Since his drag persona was Beaucoup Buko, he called it the House of Buko.
“Back then, I was like a baby coconut,” he explained as he blended in his concealer. “Young, juicy, and sweet. Trust me, those men couldn’t get enough of me!”
I giggled. “You did say you had a lot of boyfriends.”
“Yes,” Tito Melboy said, his contour brush hovering over his cheekbone. “And not all of them were bad news. Some were actually very kind to me. Do you have a nobyo yet, Rex?”
I frowned, forcing wrinkles into the streaks of foundation around my eyes. “No. And I probably won’t ever. Not looking like this.”
“No, don’t say that, pamangkin.”
“It’s true. Maybe in the Philippines it’s different. People appreciate baklas there.”
“Ha!” Tito Melboy guffawed, a sound so abrupt that I almost dropped my blender sponge.
“What?” I was confused. “I thought you said no one cared that you were bakla?”
“No one in our family , Rex. I had my… what do you call them here? Haters?” he said. “Actually, did you know that people in the Philippines used to be more open-minded when it came to us mga bakla? Many years ago, before the Americans came, before even the Spanish came, people like us were respected. Even revered. Some say that the word bakla is a mixture of babae , meaning ‘woman,’ and lalaki , meaning ‘man’—because we were the best of both, as well as something beyond—a mix of masculine and feminine. Something like a third gender. A lot of people who were bakla were part of the babaylan, or spiritual leaders.
“And in that way, I think that we still carry on that tradition. We are performers, but we don’t just entertain, diba? We uplift. We inspire. We are special, you and I, Rex. And one day, I know with all my heart, you will find someone who sees that about you as much as I do.”
I forced myself to smile, wanting—needing—to believe that my uncle’s prediction would someday come true. But no matter how much I loved the femme parts of myself, I just couldn’t see another guy liking them, too.
Tito Melboy continued teaching me all throughout the summer. Not just about makeup and clothes or padding and tucking. He educated me about drag culture and Filipino history, too.
But I also managed to show my uncle a thing or two.
One afternoon, while chowing down on some bistek tagalog that he’d cooked for Eva and me for lunch, Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” began to play on the TV we’d left on in the living room.
“Rex made his own video of that song, Uncle Melboy,” Eva said, her mouth full of beef and onions. “He’s better than Lady Gaga is.”
“What is this?” Tito Melboy asked.
I sheepishly retrieved my laptop from my bedroom and showed him the video Eva mentioned. Dressed in a black latex bodysuit and long blond wig, I sang “Poker Face” as I danced around our backyard. It had almost 10,000 views.
“Wow, Rex! Ang galing naman! You can sing so high!”
“He’s the best singer ever!” Eva said.
Tito Melboy tousled Eva’s hair. “Yes, I agree, my darling. Do you just make home videos? Or do you also perform outside?” he asked me.
“I’m too young to go out on my own. And there’s no way I could hide it from Dad.”
“But you have such a talent! Not only are you beautiful, but you can also sing. Not everyone can do that.” He chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. “Rex,” he said, swallowing, “I think I have an idea.”
He had a way to get me to perform in public. A wonderful, perfect place called Dreamland.
I remember how happy I felt when I first saw it. And then when I first performed there.
I try to hold on to that feeling and try not to fast-forward past it, to the events that happened after. I need to stay positive. To not be afraid. Not if I’m actually going to go through with being in drag again.
My plan for a new karaoke night will work with me at the helm. It’s going to give the Pink Unicorn, and Aaron, the boost they so desperately need.
I can do this. I can perform as Regina Moon Dee again. And I can make sure that Aaron doesn’t realize that she’s me.
At least, I hope I can.