Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,33
hot July afternoon. And it didn’t stop. I went over, wondering which client was now having a drama-queen episode. I looked at the mass of text messages, and there was a list as long as your arm. Friends, cousins, clients, coworkers were all sending messages of congratulations. They loved me! I showed the messages to Alex and Regina, who quickly scanned them and nodded their heads in approval.
“Amanda?” Alex sang slowly. “I think the people have spoken.”
CHAPTER 13
And What Are Your Plans for That Cucumber?
The next night, I found myself driving to our local bowling alley. Monday night was the gay bowling league. I was on the only straight team. Us four girls: Jerri, Samantha, Regina Belle, and me. What brought us together is that all our husbands turned out to be gay. Well, in Regina’s case, one of several, making her batting average better than the rest of us simply because she had been married more times. So, since we loved the company of gay men, we figured it wouldn’t hurt to be surrounded by them holding sixteen-pound balls. We even had our team name embroidered on our bowling shirts: THE FAG HAGS, in very fancy script. In sequins. Strangely enough, we stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of gay men, transvestites, one transsexual, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. They rarely wore their official transvestite nun habits, owing to the fateful day when Sister Way Too Much’s habit got caught in the ball return and she was almost dragged into the bowels of the machine. From that day on, only facial makeup and short headpieces were worn by the Sisters. Very short, I might add.
When I walked in, I kept my head low. I wanted to slip in quietly with as few people noticing me as was possible. That plan went into the shitter when several of the bowlers recognized me immediately and began a standing ovation. Those who didn’t join in craned their necks to see what all the commotion was about. You would have thought I rolled a 300 game.
Right then, I did the most uncharacteristic thing I’d ever done in my life. I waved my hand with an Elizabeth II royal wave and followed it with a bow. This was so not me. All my life, I’d avoided being seen, being recognized, being photographed. And here I was, sweeping in the praise and adoration as the waves washed over me. So this is what it felt like to be a celebrity. I liked it.
Several of the guys clustered around me, gushing about my performance in the premiere episode of Things Are a Bit Iffy. As I changed into my bowling shoes, fans lobbed questions at me about my first episode.
“Was the slap real or was it staged?”
“Did you wish you hit Gilles harder?”
“Who are you going to punch next?”
“Did you have a boob job?” (I didn’t take offense at this last question since it was asked by Carla de Rossi, the league’s only transsexual.) The initial adoration and congratulations eventually died down, but throughout the night, men would drift by or shout “great slap” to me while I was waiting my turn to bowl. It must have had an effect on my bowling, because I rolled a 220, 231, and 267. It would all be forgotten in the morning, I told myself.
It wasn’t.
I didn’t realize how much my celebrity had spread. Videos posted on YouTube containing parts of the show were nearing 1,200,000 views by the time I got up. When I walked into my local supermarket and entered the vegetable and fruit section around 10 A.M., it really hit me how my life was changing—whether I liked it or not. Granted, I was wearing mini-stilettos, skintight cigarette capri pants, and a low-cut white linen blouse—just the kind of outfit you would wear to pick over zucchinis. As I made my way around the onion and potato table, I could feel dozens of pairs of eyes boring holes in my back.
I moved onto the lettuce and cabbage section, and I was keenly aware that not only was I being watched, but whispered about. I went about my business, thumping a cantaloupe, squeezing a vine-ripened tomato, when a man provocatively holding two casaba melons approached me slyly, puckering up enough to send off a seductive air kiss that said, “I want to get my hands on your tomatoes.” I ignored him—the price of celebrity.
But my adoring fans weren’t done with me yet. A