‘Jägermeister,’ she says, taking a sip herself. ‘A little Dutch courage. Another?’ she asks, holding the flask out to me again.
This time I take a couple of much bigger sips. I’m so thirsty that the liquid is like heaven. I make to give it back again, but she indicates I can have more if I want, so I take another sip and then two more just for luck. I can hardly taste the liquor any more, it’s like drinking juice.
‘Finish it if you want, I have plenty more,’ Pink says.
‘Thank you,’ I say, taking one last sip before I hand it back to her with a hiccup. I can’t feel my lips any more. Or my face.
‘You’ll be fine. Just don’t let any of these bitches get to you,’ she says, shaking the flask, then draining the last drop herself before twisting the lid back on and slipping it back into her pocket. Then she pats my shoulder and leaves.
Locked in the safety of a toilet cubicle, stoned and now full of liquor, the walls shift around me. I fight to stop welling tears and blow my nose with toilet paper, which disintegrates around my nose and in my hands. Who am I kidding? I can no more pull this off than fly to the moon. After a few minutes, there are a couple of bangs on the cubicle door: ‘Jhoo hokay in there?’ someone calls out.
‘Bet she’s just emptying out some space so she can fit into that dress better. It looked a little tight.’ I hear Marilyn’s breathy voice floating in from the dressing-room, then she laughs cruelly.
I drop my head into my hands. These women are such pros. There hasn’t been enough time to prepare. I haven’t done a Rihanna routine in years. This is never going to work, and on top of all that, who knew that Marilyn Monroe was such a cow?
*
There are so many Madonnas to choose from: eighties Madonna, with the puff tulle skirt, crucifixes and streaks of colour in her hair. Then there’s yoga Madonna, all high-riding leotards and sculpted biceps. But the woman on stage is going for one of the most popular impersonator versions: cone-boob Madonna. I can’t believe her attention to detail. From the long blonde ponytail falling down her back (definitely fake; nobody has real hair that long, do they?) to the skin-tight, gold, boned bustier leotard with garters hanging down her thighs, and the trademark coned bra which sticks out about a foot off her chest. The whole look is finished with insanely high, black stilettos.
This Madonna is even wearing a replica headset with earphones and a microphone into which she’s lip-syncing ‘Like a Virgin’ in perfect time as she prances provocatively around the stage. I watch as she grabs her crotch, then tweaks the cone boobs with both hands.
Her non-stop energetic routine on stage makes me dizzy, and I stumble in the wings, clutching a curtain to steady myself. Beside me, Dania is riveted. As Madonna performs, she mouths all the words of the song and neatly mimics the actions Madonna is making on stage. She’s like a stage mother, living vicariously through her prodigy out there bathing in the limelight.
As I hear the applause from the audience, I feel like I’m having a weird dream after eating too much cheese. I’d almost forgotten there was going to be a real audience out there. My tummy lurches and I decide not to peer around the heavy red velvet curtains. If I don’t know what I’m facing, maybe I can convince myself that I’m just doing karaoke slightly tipsy, in some dodgy bar at home with a group of friends. Drunken denial is a much easier place to live in than harsh reality.
I catch a glimpse of Cher further back in the wings, warming up. She’s wearing a replica of the famous black-lace Oscar outfit and ginormous headdress. Sheesh, that thing looks like it weighs a ton. I watch her roll her shoulders, then windmill her arms, and that seasick dizzy feeling comes back again. My vision rocks as if I’m in a boat. I focus on my breathing and turn my thoughts to my own routine. The trick is to keep it simple: stick to the tried and tested Rihanna moves from my past.
I wring my hands, repeating ‘It’s just karaoke, it’s just karaoke’, over and over, hoping to trick my brain into making my stomach and knees believe it. I feel like I’m in a microwave, overheating from the inside. I glance out on stage and do a double-take as I catch a glimpse of Madonna pulling a zip down the side of her bustier. Wait, what is she doing?
My jaw drops as she shucks the cone boobs down her body and the bustier falls to the stage. She steps out of it, naked but for a nude-coloured, barely-there G-string and thigh-high, lace-topped stockings. I want to laugh and cry and vomit all at the same time. Applause from the audience ramps into high gear at the sight of Madonna’s perfect, surgically enhanced boobs, which barely move as she spins. Then she struts across the stage tracked by a spotlight and reaches for a suddenly illuminated stripper pole, which I hadn’t even noticed was there before, lurking in the darkness. I gasp and turn to Dania, expecting to see horror on her face at the sight of one of her performers going rogue. But she’s smiling, still clapping silently, mouthing the lyrics and swaying her hips as if she’s the one out there almost completely naked on the stage. The churning in my stomach ramps up as some kind of reality sets in through the haze. This isn’t just a celebrity impersonator revue show; Natalie has made a terrible mistake. It’s a celebrity impersonator show WITH STRIPPING. Natalie is going to freak out when I tell her. How could this have all gone so horribly wrong? The words ‘It’s not just like karaoke, it’s not just like karaoke,’ bounce around my brain.
Madonna mounts the pole and flips upside down, wrapping her thighs around the metal. I can’t watch. I lean forward and catch my first glimpse of the audience. A row of men, some clutching money, using it to lure her closer to the front of the stage, whooping and whistling. Madonna then executes a few impossibly complicated-looking moves before she slides all the way down the pole, then crawls along the edge of the stage, grinding her hips as the men take turns stuffing euro notes into her G-string. Out on the club floor, I spot Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga in the crowd, and Marilyn is there too, in her classic white halter-neck dress. Sitting on a man’s lap, twirling his tie around her fingers.
‘Like a Virgin’ starts to wind down, and the reality that I’m up next washes over me in a greasy rush of cold sweat. I’m paralysed, my knees jelly, my heart thudding loudly in my chest. Jägermeister-brownie bile bubbles in my stomach. The room warps, then spins on its axis as my mouth fills with saliva, and I know I’m going to be sick. I dry-heave, then cover my mouth with my hand and make a dash for the dressing-room. Cher, doing lunges, blocks my way, so I push her aside, and she swears at me in a babble of Dutch. I make it out of the backstage area, then through the door of the dressing-room, before the vomit comes in a wave. The women shout and jump out of my way as I run to a cubicle, drop to my knees in front of the toilet and heave violently into the bowl. As I retch, a cool hand lands on the back of my neck and sweeps my hair back from my sweating forehead.
‘Is everything all right, kära?’ I recognise Dania’s voice as I keep throwing up. Tears stream down my cheeks, and I nod, even though everything is not all right; it’s not even close to being all right. I heave again.
‘Did you eat something brown, kära?’ Dania asks. I continue crying, retching and nodding simultaneously.
‘Whatever it was, it must have been off,’ Dania says. Her talking about it brings on a fresh wave of nausea.
‘Here.’ Another voice, with a different accent. Someone hands me a filthy, make-up-stained, black towel, which I use to wipe my mouth and dab at the mascara trailing down my cheeks.
‘Somebody get David,’ Dania shouts.
Eventually, with nothing left inside me, I move to get up. I feel weak and depleted. Dania and another woman help me to a bench. It takes a minute before I place her. It’s Jennifer Lopez.
‘Give her some space, ja,’ Dania says, as she fans me with her hand. The movement doesn’t help my queasy stomach, and I push her hand away.
‘I’m fine, really. Thanks. Sorry,’ I say, not wanting to seem rude.
David appears, dressed in black, with an earphone headset like the one Madonna