Chapter 44

"You look perfect Will, seriously," I say, looking him up and down.

"But are you sure this isn't too much?" he asks, checking himself out in the mirror again. "Maybe I should rather go with the red t-shirt. Maybe a button-up is too formal?"

"If Cameron loves you he won't care what you look like," I say with a sigh. "You know, maybe you should ask Grace. I could go and get her quickly?"

"Nope. She's probably getting ready as well," Will answers. "I think I should go with the Quidditch jersey. Cameron always loves it when I wear that."

"I think maybe a little less geeky could work tonight," I answer with a bit of a grin. "You know we are going to a drag club right? If you'd like to fit in you should be wearing pink."

"Really?" Will asks with a serious frown on his face.

"No Will, I'm just pulling your leg. E.J. just texted. Grace and him have been waiting in the lobby for the past fifteen minutes already."

"Yeah, I don't want to be late," Will says, looking down at his watch. "Shit. The show starts in like ten minutes."

"And it's still a twenty minute drive until we get there, depending on traffic," I mutter, already opening the Uber app on my phone, starting to type in the location we need to be at. "And seriously, I am ordering the Uber now, so if you want to grab another shirt, this is your last chance."

"Nope, I think I have everything," Will answers, now pulling on a black blazer.

"Got the ring?" I ask, looking Will up and down. It's not like I ever really looked at him in a way of how he looks, but he looks quite handsome tonight. If it wasn't for E.J. I might have been interested.

"Right here," Will answers, tapping his jean's pocket.

"Then we better get going. The Uber is six minutes away," I answer, opening the hotel room door and stepping out into the hallway, Will following right behind me.

"Brody?" Will says, taking me by the top part of my arm, making me turn around and face him.

"Yeah?"

"I'm doing the right thing? Cameron won't start running again, right?" he asks with the innocence of a small child.

"Fuck Will... You have two choices. You can go, and Cameron and you could live happily ever after, or you could decide not to go and never know how it could have ended up. You know, you can always look back and think how glad you are that you went, rather than wondering for the rest of your life what could have been," I answer. "I know it will be okay, no matter what happens."

Will breathes in deeply, and after a few seconds he lets him breath out loudly.

"Then let's do this shit," Will says, making his way to the elevator.

Half an hour later we enter a club with its name spelled out in big pink neon letters in front. A older dragqueen with a beehive and huge purple feather eyelashes takes our money and ushers us inside.

"Now you jus' go and take a seat anywhere ya' want," she says, showing us the inside of the rather seedy-looking, smoke filled club.

The decor looks like something from a late 1800's brothel with a stage at the far right, and little tables to the left. In the center is a dancefloor which I guess is made to look like a giant chessboard, pawns, queens, and rooks, painted on black and white squares where mostly women dressed up for bachelorette parties are twerking.

"Now I understand the name," E.J. says with a smile, pointing down at the floor.

"Yeah, Check Mate... I wondered about that," I laugh, watching a girl who is clearly drunk rip off a small white veil from her head and stuff it down her bra. "Looks like people are having fun here."

"I've never quite been in a place like this sugars," Grace says from the side. "But I am fixin' to try what that girl is doin'."

Grace points to a girl grinding up against one of the poles protruding from the ground.

"I would seriously pay to see that," I say with a laugh, taking Grace by the one hand, and E.J. by the other, leading them both in the direction that Will is walking in.

We take a seat and within a minute a waitress dressed as the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland is there to take out order.

"Passionfruit and lemonade for me," I tell her.

"Same here," E.J. replies.

"A beer and a whiskey on the rocks," Will orders for him and Grace.

A drag queen, dressed as Queen Elizabeth I walks onto the stage in front of the curtains just as the Red Queen bring us our drinks.

"Good night commoners!" she screams over the microphone just as a crowd of four big looking men walk in the door and onto the dancefloor. "You four! Oh, this queen would be very glad if you were to sit down in our presence. And you as well wench!"

It takes Her Majesty a few minutes to clear the dancefloor and get everyone seated in at the small chairs at the back, and the ones on the sides which I only see now that the dancefloor is open. A cute guy in a mesh shirt a few tables away from me catches my eye and winks at me, making me look away and grab E.J's hand which is resting next to his drink on the table.

"Now that we are all seated, I the queen of fucking everything, commands that our entertainment for the evening is about to start. Remember to go to ye old tavern," she says, raising her hand and pointing to the bar where a drag queen dressed as Queen Victoria is holding up a shot glass with green liquid in it. "This old queen is telling you to go and order a few of those Pawns, and don't forget our chess board platters which you can ask the queen serving you about. But for now, let's enjoy a peasant that has come a long way from a faraway land. Here at Check Mate we present to you... The one! The only! The fabulously awesome, royal... Lady Lalaland!"

With a huge applause that I can't help sharing in, the Queen Elizabeth impersonator leaves the stage as the curtains open to reveal a black stage with gold trim where waves of smoke rolling over the floor, Lady Lalaland standing on a podium with stairs at the very back, looking drop dead gorgeous as usual.

With trumpet music that sounds like it is supposed to announce royalty, Lady Lalaland walks down the steps and to the front of the stage. In a bright pink wedding dress, and a veil, and train that seems to be meters long, she walks the stage like a Milan walkway at fashion week. A huge pink plastic jewel glitters on her ring finger for the entire audience to see.

"Why, why... Just look how many people came to see little ol' me," Lady Lalaland says. "Such a pity you all missed my big day. It really went off without a hitch."

The entire audience goes mad, clapping loudly. I look over to Will to make sure he is okay. His eyes look a little bit red, but he seems to be controlling it.

"Well, I guess it's fair to say that of course the fabulousness went without a hitch, since I didn't get hitched! So boys in the back there, I am on the market again!" Lady Lalaland points toward the four men that just came in before she came onto stage. The one gets up and flexes his muscles and blows her a kiss.

"Yeah sit yourself down! I already have the dress and the ring, so I probably should get married, but don't get excited Mister Muscle. I'm not that desperate yet," she says making the audience laugh and two of his friends shove him around jokingly. The fourth guy seems a bit broody, staring at a space on a wall where nothing in going on at all.

"Who here believes in bigamy?" Lady Lalaland asks. Not a single hand raises.

"Okay, so bigamy is either a very big word which you do not have the fabulousness to understand, or maybe I am being to modern here. So let's try again... Who here is married?"

A few hands in the audience go up into the air, including the drag queen behind the bar dressed up as Queen Victoria.

"Well those girls and guys know what I am talking about then! Bigamy is when you have one husband to many. Being monogamous and married is exactly the same thing."

Again the audience roars with laughter. Even I snigger a little bit.

"In any case. My wedding was a week ago. People were coming from all over. And there I was, little young, fabulous me, walking around a huge house is my silk suit, getting ready to say I do, when I decided I should rather say I don't. But let's not go into detail. It's one of those things which I will get back to after intermission when I have gathered some sympathy for myself from all you lovely people. In any case, I got a text later that day after I started running away from my wedding, saying that people were laughing at me. At first I wanted to cry. Okay... Maybe I did cry, but after two days she let me know that nobody was laughing anymore and my fiance had already moved on. I thought to myself... Lady Lalaland, you should make the most of this. You might not have been the longest running joke, but I was certainly the fastest, because not one of them managed to catch up with me."

The audience laughs again and roars with laughter, but Lady Lalaland doesn't seem to be a part of the joke, even though she was the one telling it. Even from the very back of the room I can see tears shining in her eyes, not being hidden away with her false eyelashes or weak smile.

"You there!" Lady Lalaland shouts to a guy in the corner. "Would you mind standing closer to the person who makes your life worth living."

The guy immediately gets up and goes to stand behind what I presume is his partner.

"Give it two more years and a ring on your finger and you'll prefer to stand next to our bartender over there," Lady Lalaland says.

At that the music starts playing I'm Getting Married In The Morning with a remixed beat I have never heard, with Lady Lalaland performing, two dancers popping out on stage who at one point carry her over the stage on her arms as she performs.

Inside I feel the jokes she's making is a bit cruel, especially considering the situation, but when she starts performing a song I get why she calls herself Lady Lalaland. Everything around you disappears and changes into a dreamscape on stage where everything you can ever think of is possible.

When the song ends I again look over to Will only to see tears streaming down his face.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Yeah... It's just... Maybe he really didn't want to get married. Maybe it is nothing to do with the things Jessica-Lynne said to him," he says, wiping his tears on his jacket sleeve.

"Right, now that I have that out of my system, I'd like to get a little bit serious over here. You see, this fabulous act by this amazing create isn't just satire. It's actually very real," Lady Lalaland says. "I really was to get married last week, and you should have seen the guy! And the ring! Oh my word! Body that could sink a fleet of ships. And a dick that could make any worn out queen scream for her life!"

At this even Will breaks out laughing next to me.

"And see! That's why in the olden days women had to be virgins until after the marriage. That way they couldn't run away screaming after someone showed an eggplant into them!"

This time it is Lady Lalaland's face that makes me laugh, rather than what she said. Sure, it's a bit vulgar, but I've seen some of Rupaul on Netflix, and this seems to be the thing some drag queens seem to go for.

"I never knew you were that talented," I say to Will through my chuckles.

"Oh shut up!" he answers, holding his stomach while laughing as well.

"In any case. I am still tired from all the screaming from the sex I had the night before the wedding. So maybe this cock in a frock should rather mouth the words to another song and earn the three thousand dollars they are paying me tonight? So I invite you all the single ladies, just like me to come and join in my escapades here on the dancefloor."

When Single Ladies start playing, almost everyone is on the dancefloor, and what looked like a comedy dinner show a few seconds ago, turns into a pop-rock concert with Lady Lalaland resembling Madonna in the Like a Virgin music video.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the brooding guy in the corner standing up.

"Duck!" I shout, pushing E.J. underneath the table just as the first bang fills the room.

For a moment everyone continues to dance, thinking that the shots being fired is part of the music, but as screams fill the air, and the music becomes background noise, a shuffling, and falling to the ground makes it impossible to know what is really going on.

Another shot shatters the disco ball in the middle of the dancefloor, making mirror pieces fall down like glitter onto people laying on the dancefloor, while others still try to run as more shots are fired.

I feel E.J. holding on to me, almost like he is trying to climb into me. I'm not aware of much more than that and the screaming around me. It's only when I hear a blood curling scream that makes the hair in my neck stand up next to me that I look up.

"Cameron!" Will screams again with an almost inhuman voice that makes my guts ache and pain spread through my body. He sounds like a wounded animal.

I look to the stage, and ripples of pain shoot through my chest, making me pull E.J. even closer to me, which I am sure will leave bruises on his little body.

"Cameron," I try to say, but not a word comes out.

Lady Lalaland is still standing on the stage. Her hands clasped over her chest. The big pink jewel sparkling against the light. Behind her hands the material of the pink wedding dress changes slowly to red, spreading like a virus taking over her body.

"Cameron!" Will screams again, starting to run through the wounded and healthy people, trying to get to the stage.

"Will," Lady Lalaland mouths as she falls to her knees, like she is taking the last bow of the evening.