[23—the BLT]

[CONTINUED]

"There she is," Bobbi suddenly sang out in a fakey man-voice, "Miss Sogeny..."

I wondered if there was something nefarious in her drink.

The people in the other end of the 'C'—whom I hadn't met yet, but were part of the group—stopped their chatter and turned toward the entrance.

I turned to see a tall figure with a beehive hairdo...precessing might be the best word, down the aisle.  It was a woman, I think, wearing a rainbow sequined poodle skirt, only without the poodle, and charcoal gray silk blouse. 

She moved in pulses, showing leg with each step.  She wore clear plastic shoes, with rhinestones on, which out-sparkled her skirt.  She was broad-shouldered, but thin of the waist, with ample hips that she accentuated by placing one foot directly in front of the other.

She walked with a purpose and her left hand drawn to her bosom, and she wore on her wrist, I swear, a corsage.

She looked like a truckload of Barbie dolls fell into a giant blender full of disco-balls and they made a one big doll out of the pieces.

She stopped when she reached the end of her runway, turned a glorious about-face, and sat herself regally in the middle of the long bench. 

"Tilly," someone on the other side said in a terrible falsetto.  Spread hands reached out to adore her and Topher got up and bowed to the knee, drew her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"The Archdiva has arrived," she spoke in her nasaly twang, "you may be seated.  This session of the BLT Council will now come to order."

She had an entourage, and the barista who'd sold me my coffee was at the head of the line.  She had her ticket book and pencil out.

"Can I get you something, Your Grace" she asked with exaggerated formality.

"Yas," Tilly said, mostly through her nose, "I'll have the Bacon, Lesbian, and Tomahto please—hold the Lesbians, they give me grief—and an order of Whorled Peas."

Her sycophants laughed and the waitress wrote it all down.  She handed the pad to Tilly, who signed it with a flourish and threw the works over her shoulder.

The assembly scattered, the barista heading back to the bar, and the others dispersed into the spaces left in the booth.

It was crowded now.

"What's the BLT", I asked Bobbi.

"The Archdiva did not address you," Tilly announced with an air of slighted authority.  She pointed at me with her long, clawed finger.  "Who is this to speak in front of the BLT Council without leave?"

"Forgive her, O Queen of Denial."  This was from Topher, who winked at me.  "She is new to Our World, and knows not the Customs."

"Diva Rabbit, do you speak for this girl-child?"

Girl-child?  Really?  That was way worse than little lady.

"I do not, Our Lady of the Hair Spray" Topher replied, clearly enjoying his role in whatever bizarre form of theatre was unfolding here. 

"But I speak on her behalf; I have seen into her heart, and it is pure; no Dane is she."

"Is that so," Tilly asked him, cocking her head like a parrot.  She beckoned to me with a finger.  "Come hither child, and tell me who Thou art?  I do not know Thee; surely thou must come from the Danelaw?"

What was going on here?  I looked around; everything looked normal, considering, but the words she spoke sounded like they were from a mushroom induced dream.  I wouldn't have been surprised to see a rabbit in a waistcoat emerge from the men's room.

"Approach the Archdiva, thou art sum-moned."

Everyone to my left got out of my way, so I went to her.

She leaned forward to me and gave me a long, sobering appraisal.  Then she spoke in a tiny voice several octaves above her 'normal' voice.

"And what is your name, sweetheart?"

"Dani."

"O Dani Boy...," she sang.

I was just watching the show.

"No?  Well, just plain Dani then."

She held up a finger and spoke to her right.

"The Archdiva has spoken."

"So Mote it be, Mistress of Things that Fit in Your Butt," a pair of transvestites in Lesser Drag answered her.

"So who are you, Miss Dani?"

"Just Dani," I replied, not knowing what else to say.  Nothing in my life so far had prepared me for this conversation.

"No," she corrected in a sour tone, "It's 'Plain Dani', I made a Pronouncement.  And I not the Archdiva?  Do I not have the tallest hair in the room?"

She stood up with the ferocity of a storm giant and glowered at her People. 

"Do my commands fall on dear ears," she illustrated with gestures, "is there some Kitten, who being not in my sight, I cannot see?  Am I outranked?  Am I not a vengeful Archdiva?"

"Forgive us, She Who's Will is the Woe of the World."

She reached into a glass of coke sitting on the table and flicked a claw full of ice at her Vice-Bitches.

"You are chas-tized.  Rise."

The got up and she turned back to me.  She put a finger over her lip and smiled.

"Now where were we?  Oh, yes, you were telling us how normal you're not.  Diva Rabbit speaks highly of you.  Tell me, Plain Dani, what are your super-powers?"

"I'm fluent in six languages."

That got 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from the Assembly, but the Archdiva remained unmoved.

"I have the highest GPA on record at my school."

She looked at her nails, but said nothing.

What would impress her?

"I can tie shoelaces with my toes."

"Your shoelaces, or someone else's?"

"How could you tie your own?"

"I don't know, see," she flashed me a seven-dollar smile, "but if you figure it out, I'll award you a thousand diva points."

"What can I redeem them for?"

"Nothing less than Im-mor-tality, hon, and don't you for-git it.  What else?"

"I think I scared my gynecologist."

"Lot's of women scare their fish-mongers dahlink; we call them 'skanks'.  Did you scare him because you had something he'd never seen, or something he'd seen all too often?"

"You cannot see what is not there."

"Ooh, a Riddle.  Give this girl ten diva points and a flower for her little doggie."

[CONTINUED]