Chapter Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
Callahan
Thankfully a web search for “Baltimore burlesque Mother Goose” is all it takes to figure out that we can find Lylah’s roommate performing at a small club a few blocks from Penn Station at nine o’clock the next night.
“I’ve never been to a burlesque show before,” Annie says as we wait for the show to start Saturday evening. “How about you?”
“Oh, I go all the time,” I mutter.
“Really?”
I glance over at her with an eyebrow raised—a sarcastic What do you think?
“Right, right. I forgot. You and fun don’t get along.”
“The relationship has thawed a bit recently,” I say, catching her eye for a second too long for comfort. We both look away right as the lights begin to dim.
A curvaceous blonde-haired white woman in a short ballerina-type dress with a plume of large pink feathers atop her head takes the stage and welcomes us with exaggerated coquetry and an accent that I think is supposed to be French.
“My name is Madame Belle époque, and tonight, my darlings, we are going to tell you some bedtime stories. But of course not to put you to sleep.” She winks.
“In fact, we hope that you will find our stories quite a bit more…rousing than the iterations with which you might be more familiar.” She continues engaging with the crowd for a while, flirting with various members of the audience and cracking jokes relying on hyperlocal references that Annie seems to understand despite her short residency here.
She does seem to have a way of instantly settling in wherever she pleases.
Finally, the show begins in earnest, the first performer introduced as Miss Mary Land taking the stage in several layers of gingham silk and a bonnet, a stuffed animal lamb tucked beneath her arm.
She gyrates to the remix of a song I recognize from one of the playlists Inés sometimes puts on while cleaning—“Sheep” by Pink Floyd.
It’s all more strange to me than enticing, especially when her attempt at removing her corset goes awry and she’s unable to get it off until the moment the music stops.
Everyone applauds loudly as she gathers up her discarded garments and runs off the stage.
“Wow, that corset was harder to get off than me on an SSRI!” Madame Belle époque quips. “But isn’t Miss Mary Land the loveliest little shepherdess you ever did see?”
“That’s Bo Peep,” I mumble to Annie. “She’s mixing up her livestock-minding girls.”
She shushes me.
“And next up, my darlings,” Belle continues, “we have the lovely, the ultratalented, the ultraflexible, Elodi Maker!”
“I think that’s them,” Annie says, nudging me. “El. Lylah’s roommate.”
We watch as Elodi lip-syncs while dancing and contorting their body in all sorts of frightening and impressive ways. But, though we literally wait at the edge of our seats, the goose never makes an appearance.
“Maybe they perform a second time and will bring it out then?” Annie suggests.
The rest of the show continues without another appearance from Elodi Maker, and absolutely no sign of the goose in any other acts.
Meanwhile, I watch all sorts of performers doing all sorts of vaguely suggestive things onstage while slowly shedding layers of clothing, and yet all I keep thinking about is Annie, and specifically the moment where I unbuttoned her coat and revealed the warm, curvy shape of her beneath.
Which I’m pretty sure is not what any of these performances are supposed to be making me think about.
Why can’t I simply transfer my desire in the direction of any of these objectively beautiful people? Why do I have to only have eyes for the brash, gorgeous woman seated beside me, laughing at Belle époque’s bawdy closing monologue?
I mean, I know why. It’s the same reason I couldn’t hook up with Mindy when given the opportunity: Something inside me needs connection before I can think of someone that way. And connection has never been particularly easy for me.
But with Annie, it’s been easy from the moment I met her. Not just easy, but unavoidable. As if she walked into Virtu and immediately launched a harpoon into my chest, linking us before I could even register the danger.
And it is dangerous. Because she’s going back to New Jersey in a few weeks, and whether she cuts the rope or yanks out the barbed head, I’m worried I’m going to be left to slowly bleed out.
“Come on,” she says, tugging at my sleeve—her preferred method of getting my attention—as the lights brighten again and everyone around us stands. “We need to go talk to El before they leave.”
I’m anticipating having to concoct some sort of story about why we need to get backstage, but security winds up being just a petite stagehand who doesn’t think twice before telling us that El is in the second dressing room on the left.
We go in to find them along with two other performers, removing their makeup in a mirror.
“Elodi Maker?” I ask.
“Yes?” they say, finding us in the reflection. Registering that Annie is standing beside me, they continue, “If this is a request for a threesome, I’m flattered, and you two are super cute, but I’m actually seeing someone right now. We’re trying out monogamy, so—”
“Huh?”
“We’re not here to proposition you.” Annie takes over, much less thrown by El’s assumption. “Although you are super hot, so I’m sure you get that a lot.”
“Oh, I do,” they say with an appreciative grin. “But if that’s not what you’re here for, then…”
“We’re actually here because your roommate told us you have a taxidermy goose that belongs to a client of ours. We need it back.”
“Lylah said you were using it for the performance tonight,” I add. “But we didn’t see it.”
“Oh. Yeah. The goose. I was going to use it tonight, that’s true.
I thought it would make an interesting prop.
Except I brought it in for dress rehearsal two nights ago and some of the troupe got, like, really upset.
A bunch of them are, like, hardcore vegan, and they refused to perform with it in the building.
Which I understand. It was sorta unnerving.
Especially dressed in a little straw hat and glasses.
” El holds their circled fingers up to their eyes, mimicking the look.
“Thought it would be cheeky but kind of just emphasized how dead it was.”
“So where is it now?” I ask. “Back at your apartment?”
“Ah. No…” Elodi grabs another makeup removing wipe and rubs it over their mouth to take off their lipstick. When they’re done, they say, “I actually lent it to a friend.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Weren’t you supposed to give it back to Lylah so she could return it to where she stole it from?”
“Well, yeah. And I will. But my friend is a photography student at the art school and he’s got this big project due.
He said the goose would be perfect for the assignment when he saw it in my car the other day.
So he’s borrowing it. He’s supposed to bring it back to my place tomorrow night, though.
And then Lylah can do whatever she needs to do with it. ”
“We would really rather not wait,” I say. “Can you give us your friend’s info so we can get in touch with him? Then it will save everyone a lot of time.”
“Sure, I guess.” Elodi whips out their phone and reads out a number, which I save to my contacts. “His name is Roland. Roland Eady.”
“Is it too late to call him?” Annie asks, glancing at the clock on the wall showing that it’s almost eleven.
“Oh, nah. Rolly’s a real night owl. He should be at his studio until at least four in the morning. He says that moving in darkness inspires his mind’s eye.”
“Of course. Mind’s eyes are notoriously light-averse,” I grumble.
“Really?” they ask. “You should tell him that. He’ll be happy to know there’s science behind it.”