Chapter 65

Much Gayer, Noisier, More Bohemian

Than the Ordinary Masked Ball

I’d been to the Exotic Art Fest’s big bash a few times before when it was held at Alwun House. The indoor galleries had been filled with titillating art and costumed revelers, and the party spilled out the door onto the surrounding patios, strung with colored lights and peppered with sculptural artwork. Tables were filled with aphrodisiac food, like big bowls of boozy whipped cream into which you could dip gingersnaps, or maybe something else. Performance artists, stand-up comedians, and burlesque performers entertained the crowd on a small temporary stage set in the garden. The place was always filled to overflowing, especially on the ultimate night, the night of the Masquerade.

And now the Masquerade was here, at the Grand Phoenician Theatre. I wove my way through the belly dancers, human peacocks, and satyrs who swarmed the lobby. I felt much better after eating a chicken fajita pita, but was distracted by several thoughts:

Could Candy have really killed Babette, even accidentally?

Who was Jesse, and what was he/she doing with my boyfriend?

And could that mermaid stand upright, or would that buff fisherman dude have to wheel her around in a wheelbarrow all night? And how did she get those seashells to stick to her—Afflech!

“Ivy!” The Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow galloped up to me. They all still wore their stage makeup, and nothing else except Speedos. The Tin Man’s was silver to match his body paint, the Lion had glued fur to his Speedo, and the Scarecrow had bits of straw sticking out from his.

“You guys look great,” I said. “But doesn’t that straw itch?”

“Like crazy,” the Scarecrow admitted.

“But he rather likes it,” said the Lion. “You see, our friend is a bit on the maso—”

“Ivy, thank God.” The art fest’s stage manager, a slight man with a pierced tongue, had come up beside me. “One of the acts didn’t show, so you’re on in fifteen. Have you checked your rigging?”

“I did earlier, after Wizard, but I’m going to check it again before I go on.”

He looked at my outfit. “You’re wearing that?”

The old Candy was curvier than me, so her costume was a size or two too big for me. Still, a saggy leotard was better than the cameltoe my too-small leotard had gifted me with in the past.

The stage manager eyed my saggy butt (the costume, not my bottom inside). “I think you should change. It’s not exactly eroti—”

“I am the exotic part of the show,” I said with as much dignity as one could do in a saggy-butt leotard.

“Wait,” he said. “You’ve got—”

“Exotic!” I called back and went into the theater’s house.

It was crowded there too. Partiers stood in the rows and filled the aisles and lined up at tables full of food and drinks set up over sheet-draped seats in the back of the house. Entertainers performed on a small six-foot-high platform set in the middle of the Phoenician’s stage. A few of the front rows were reserved for people who wanted to watch them, and more audience members milled around the platform onstage. The mix of audience and performers could have been annoying in a typical theater setting, but the artistic minds behind this night had got it right: the beautifully and bizarrely costumed party attendees didn’t distract from the performance, but added to the general feeling of Carnival.

I made my way backstage, climbed up the twisting metal staircase, and eased myself onto the catwalk. I checked the rigging for my aerial silk, examining it closely and tugging on the knots. All as it should be.

Applause from the audience below. The performer before me had finished. I let down my aerial silk, the stretchy piece of red fabric I would use in my performance.

“And now...” A man dressed like the emcee from Cabaret stood behind a microphone on a stand. “The incomparable Ivy Meadows...” He peered at the sheet of paper in his hand, then up at me. “...Tree snake,” he finished.

“Serpent of the air,” I hissed at him. “Serpent of the air.”

Pretty sure he heard me, but the music began right then. Nothing to do but jump, as it were. I wound my legs around the fabric of the silk, and gracefully slid into my first position, a Ship’s Lady.

The audience laughed.

Must be something going on below. I scanned the partygoers, but no, they were all looking at me. A few pointed. Guess I shouldn’t have worn the baggy leotard. Oh well. The music modulated and I dropped into my next position, a Half Moon. More laughing and pointing. I heard someone say, “I’ll bet you twenty bucks it stays on for the whole performance.”

Stays on? Was my leotard coming off? I did a quick check; no, everything was fine. I flipped into my next position, the Upside-Down Splits, and I saw it. A Post-It. On my butt. Damn Logan and his messy car. I carefully slid my hand toward the offending note, then tucked it in my cleavage. “You owe your friend twenty bucks,” I said to the gambler below me.

The audience laughed. They were with me. I could see it.

Usually you can’t. See it, I mean. We actors are usually onstage with the lights in our eyes, kept from the audience by the invisible fourth wall created by the nature of drama and by the fact that we were deep into our character’s lives. Tonight, though, I wasn’t a character. I wasn’t even an actor. I was a performer. I took the chance to watch the people who were watching me. There were flocks of women in Mardi-Gras-style feathered masks, bare-chested men with tats and piercings, cat people, and elves and…the Phantom of the Opera, a dashing man with swept back hair, a black and crimson cape and the same exact skull makeup I saw at the séance. Logan.

I nearly dropped his sticky note right on his skull-faced head when I saw the woman with him. She wore a Dia de los Muertos skull mask, a full-skirted black satin ball gown, and a crown of marigolds in her straightened dull brown hair, and she walked with teeny tiny steps across the stage. “Candy!” I yelled at my friend. I didn’t care that I was in the middle of a performance. “Candy!”

The masked woman stopped and slowly turned her face to me. So did the rest of the audience.

“You have candy?” said a guy dressed all in black rubber.

“What kind of candy?” said another who wore a fur diaper. “Do you have any of these suckers that look like peni—”

“I’m the exotic part of the show!” I yelled. “Candy!” The Phantom grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the stage, disappearing into the crowd in the wings.

I hung in midair, physically and emotionally. Candy was alive, but she didn’t want me to see her. She didn’t want me. It hurt more than I thought it would. A swell of the music brought me back to reality. I hit a final pose in the aerial dance piece, barely registering the applause. I slid down my silk, stepped lightly onto the stage, and exited into the wings.

Candy was with Logan.

I stood for a moment backstage, where the murky blue lighting matched my mood. I watched the revelers around me, feeling like an outsider who’d crashed the party.

The Post-It note scratched me. I took it from my cleavage and moved closer to a light, where I could just make out a scrawled message. “Ready to roll?” it said. I peered at the signature.

Babette.