Chapter 22
It’s total chaos. Yankee Hat’s two friends are trying to pull Tyler off Yankee Hat, but Tyler has a vise grip on his T-shirt collar.
“Tyler, stop!” I scream.
A swarm of other Marais revelers flood over to us, hovering close enough to watch.
“Racist asshole!” Tyler shouts into Yankee Hat’s face.
I grab Tyler’s hoodie, which is already halfway off his body, and pull. Between me and Yankee Hat’s two friends, Tyler finally comes off Yankee Hat, but not before his hoodie flies off with a rip and Tyler’s elbow clobbers me in my left eye.
I yelp in pain as I fly backward into the crowd.
“WE DO NOT FIGHT IN THE MARAIS!” blares a woman’s commanding voice.
The street suddenly goes quiet. Tyler gets to his feet, his face still red. The woman chases Yankee Hat and his two friends away, yelling after them, “We are fighting gay babies now?! You should be ashamed!” The drunken dudes scurry off.
My eye is throbbing. Through my one good eye, I see that the woman who’s making everything better is Tsui Ennui—she’s out of her wig.
In its place, she has a stocking cap on her head, and she’s wearing a sweatshirt and jeans instead of a pearlescent bodysuit, but her face is still layered in thick, shimmering makeup.
“What a gay mess!” she cries. “I heard this gay commotion from my dressing room!”
Then, when she catches sight of me, Tsui frowns.
“Come here, mon chouchou. Let’s take care of that eye. It’s a little swollen and red.”
“Thanks,” I say, wincing as I walk toward her.
Tsui loops her arm in mine and gently guides me toward an unmarked door right next to the club. For the first time since he decided to fight a stranger on the street, Tyler notices me.
“Ben, are you okay?!” says Tyler, rushing to my side. “Did he hit you?”
“No, you did!” I shout, tears surging to my eyes. Tyler flinches as if I’ve slapped him. “I told you to ignore him!”
Tyler’s face goes from flushed to pale before my eyes. Or eye.
“I … I couldn’t let him say that racist shit to you,” he stammers.
“Didn’t I tell you?” I rage. I’m seeing red now, not rose. “I already know guys are thinking those things—I didn’t need to stick around and hear it! And this is perfect—while you’re trying to be my savior, I’m the one who gets hurt.”
Tyler’s mouth falls open. He looks devastated. I’m devastated, too, because now I realize that the perfect moment was bound to end before it could really begin. My instincts had been right: Tyler and I could never work, even if we wanted to be together.
We’re valued too differently by the world, and it’s something that he’ll never be able to fully understand.
“Okay, shh, shh,” tuts Tsui, taking me into a side entrance of the bar we were just in. Somehow, even after everything that’s happened tonight, I feel completely safe following a drag queen I don’t know into a dark back room in Paris at almost five a.m.
Tsui leads us into a cramped dressing area with walls painted black.
Feathery, sequined costumes hang on racks.
Mannequin heads line the walls, each wearing a different wig.
Every surface is streaked with smudges of makeup.
Tsui sits me down at her vanity, where her mirror is lined with light bulbs, half of which are dead.
When I look at my reflection, I see my left eye is swollen and red—that’s definitely going to turn into a bruise.
How am I going to explain that to Mademoiselle Alvarez in the morning? (Or in an hour?)
Not to mention what I’ll tell Mom—considering I’ll likely be sent home tomorrow. (Or today, rather.)
Tyler stands behind my chair quietly, like a puppy with his tail between his legs.
Tsui says to me, “Let me get you some ice, mon chouchou.” She swans to a door at the far end of the room—which I assume leads to the back of the bar—and calls out over the noise of the music, “Oscar, glace, s’il vous pla?t.”
A big, burly man with hairy forearms comes to the door to hand Tsui a cup of ice—and then he kisses her, right on the lips.
“Merci, mon amour,” says Tsui.
Oscar closes the door again, blocking out the noise of the bar. Tsui breezes back to my side.
“Ben, I can’t even tell you how sorry …” Tyler starts, but I look away.
Tsui kneels next to me and dumps the contents of the glass into a stocking and rolls it into a ball, turning it into a makeshift ice pack.
“Don’t worry, these are clean,” Tsui says, sniffing them once to make sure. “There you go. Unfortunately, you will have a black-butter eye in the morning.”
I wince at the shocking cold of the ice on my face. And I’m struck by the phrase black-butter eye. Even the French word for an injury sounds gourmet and decadent.
“So, tell me, mes chouchous,” Tsui says to us as I ice my eye and Tyler stands there awkwardly. “What is the tea? Why are two nice boys like you getting into fights with the trolls? It is very boring.”
Boring?
She tsks, but she can’t help but crack an amused grin.
“That idiot American guy said something disgusting to Ben,” Tyler says hoarsely.
“Oh, is that so? What was this ‘disgusting’ thing?” asks Tsui.
I tell Tsui—it hurts to even repeat aloud—but she doesn’t look surprised, not even a little bit. She sighs. “That is boring,” she says. “I am sorry you had to hear such ignorance.”
I’m a little confused why it’s “boring,” but I chalk that up to English not being Tsui’s first language.
“Unfortunately, ignorance is everywhere,” says Tsui. “Even in our own community. Believe me, a trans Asian drag queen such as I has heard it all. But we must keep ourselves safe.”
“That’s what I wanted to do,” I say, still not looking at Tyler. “Just keep walking.”
“Ben, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did that to you,” says Tyler miserably, burying his head in his hands.
“And I hate that I put you in danger just to let out my own anger. I just can’t stand bullying.
I couldn’t hear what that jerk said and not react …
not when you’re so amazing and so beautiful, and you’d just told me that story of how you’d been hurt before …
and he was so … I just couldn’t let it go when you’ve been hurt by that stuff in the past. It kills me that I ended up being the one to hurt you instead. ”
When I see the look in his eyes, I know he means it.
His usually perfect fluffy blond hair is all askew and jagged.
There’s a sheen of sweat over his face, and without his hoodie, his plain white T-shirt is a little damp in the pits.
Honestly, he looks handsomer than ever—that “James Dean daydream” vibe.
“Do you hear that?” Tsui says, smiling wistfully. “He just wants to protect you. It is the most romantic thing in the world. Just like my husband, Oscar.”
She steps away again and then returns to offer us a plate of pastilles—little cube-like candies covered in crunchy sugar. We both take some.
“Is your husband the bartender?” I ask, my teeth sticking together. Instantly, the sugar on my tongue makes me feel a million times better.
“Yes,” says Tsui, going gooey-eyed. “Oscar has had to get into some fights for me. Drag fans can get out of control. And when you are as beautiful as I am—”
“You were incredible, by the way,” says Tyler.
“You really were,” I agree. “You’re the best live performer I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“I know, I really am,” says Tsui, grinning and batting her perfect false eyelashes.
“I saw you both in the audience. You were having an experience. A moment. When I sing, I hope everyone that is a human—you boys, and even that man who said such boring things to you—will all feel the same thing when they hear music. That is why I do what I do.” Then her lip curls into a mischievous grin.
“That, and the tips,” she adds. “If you did not give me ten euros, mon chouchou, I would not have let you into my sacred dressing room.”
She throws her head back and lets out a mellifluous cackle. I laugh, too. Best ten euros I’ve ever spent.
“I joke, I joke,” she says. “But being serious … We fight by creating our art. By loving other people’s art. By helping each other. By continuing to live. By, how you say … reading boring assholes for filth.”
Tyler and I crack up, but Tsui’s gorgeous face remains stern.
“With our words! We do not do violence—do you understand me?” she commands. “I have seen too many sisters get hurt. It is very, very boring.”
Tyler and I look at each other, confused. Apparently, Tsui thinks boring means anything bad.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tyler says, completely earnestly.
Something about hearing Tyler call an off-duty French drag queen ma’am with total Georgia-boy politeness melts me completely; there’s no New York City in him at that moment.
I stand up, still holding the ice to one eye, and turn to Tyler, throwing my free arm around his shoulder.
“Thanks for fighting for me,” I whisper.
Relief sweeps over Tyler’s face, transforming it before my eyes.
I realize that even though I was terrified of standing up to Yankee Hat, and I wish Tyler hadn’t tried to punch him, I’m still glad someone stood up for me.
I wonder if Lucas and I wouldn’t have been so undone by the shame of that awful moment in the bleachers if I’d had the opportunity to stand up to Topher Willis and his goons.
But that’s in the past now. The present is looking so much more hopeful. It’s looking like my best friend.
“Always,” says Tyler.
Gently, he reaches up to remove the ice from my eye and he strokes the bruised area, frowning a little. “I’m sorry again,” he adds softly. “Do you forgive me?”
Instead of answering, I kiss him so hard that my whole face smashes against his, and my eye aches, but I don’t care.
“Young love,” coos Tsui. “Now that is a beautiful sight.”
Tyler whispers to me, “Je suis très désolé.” I’m very sorry.
“Je sais,” I whisper back. I know.
“Okay, mes chouchous,” pipes up Tsui, clapping her hands. “Now that Tsui Ennui has entertained you, rescued you, and educated you, this fairy godmother is very tired. I must get my beauty sleep. Back to your hostel or Airbnb or American tour bus you must go.”
She shoos us toward the door. I hand her back the ice as Tyler thanks her for the hospitality.
“Oui, oui, merci beaucoup, Madame Ennui,” I say, a bit overwhelmed with gratitude.
Tsui recoils, clutching her chest as if scandalized.
“Madame Ennui is my drag-mother. It’s Mademoiselle Ennui, mon chouchou.
” Then she beams, thinking of something: “Oh, wait one moment.” She snatches a pair of pink heart-shaped sunglasses from her dressing table and puts them on my face, careful not to brush against my bruise.
“There. Now even with your black-butter eye, you can always see Paris en rose.”