It began at a Missouri City roadhouse, back in the blurry nether-time before her move to Manhattan; Crystle drank two daiquiris and two glasses of water and waited for the ‘celebratory’ night to end, her flight to New York scheduled for the day after the next. She and her friends bumped into an acquaintance – an ex–Elkins Knight football player, bloated with confidence from four years of throwing balls and the night’s several Budweisers. And only passing by, hitting on one of her friends, giving her the expected congratulations before trying to be funny and reminding her of the obvious, of what she already knew: Hey, don’t fall now, that last girl fell on ’er ass! Crystle rolled her eyes and turned away, got caught up in another conversation about what Donny and Marie Osmond had been like in person (amazing, she’d said). Of course, like anyone even remotely associated with the competition, she’d already studied, scanned and memorized Rachel Smith’s fall; it was the great tragedy of last year’s pageant. Miss U.S.A. falling down? Old news. But there was something weird about hearing the warning in such a non-industry, non-threatening environment, coming from the last person she expected would remember. Hearing it there hammered home just how notorious the event had been. Made her realize, coldly, and for the first time, just how many people were watching – even beer-bloated footballers, it would seem. Before bed she found the clip on YouTube and watched with her fingers laced together over her eyes, rigid, as if she were a scared little girl watching a late-night thriller on TV.
Soon, watching the clip became part of her nightly ritual, before the laborious process of removing her makeup, scrubbing her face, applying revitalizing creams unavailable in North America, sent in small white boxes from Northern Europe or the Middle East. Before donning her ice mask or applying tea bags or even Preparation H to tired, dark-circled eyes. Before her Focus on Success! meditation tapes and the extra crunches she’d added to her routine, even though she was at her breaking point in terms of weight training and cardio. It was what she watched before bed, before her stomach calmed and her thoughts could drift. Sometimes she’d take a Gravol, sometimes two; sometimes it was Alka-Seltzer, sometimes Pepto-Bismol. As the months slipped by – those gloriously cool months in Manhattan spent jogging through Central Park, days slinking toward July and her booked flight to Vietnam – she switched to sleeping aids: Nytol, Sominex, sometimes Unisom (always over-the-counter, never prescription – she wasn’t about to gamble with her reputation). The video invariably upset her stomach, made her anxious and on edge. Or it set her thoughts turning, locking her into winding circles of insomnia: fears of potential repeat performances in Nha Trang. The thought of slipping, hitting the hard stage floor. Having to hold a smile throughout the rest of the botched walk, only to collapse in the wings, knowing everything was finally, chillingly over. Or having to endure the remainder of the competition, knowing any recovery was futile, that victory was stolen away with the petty twist of an ankle.
Anxiety, butterflies in the stomach, stage fright: these were nothing new. She’d slogged through six years of semi-finals, four years being first runner-up (or best loser, she thought) to some evidently ‘superior’ (i.e., Caucasian) competitor. It was plain fun and excitement the first time around, way back in 2002, when she strutted out as Miss Fort Bend County, winking at her friends and feeling like she was simply testing the waters and playing a role – no long-term investment, no deep attachment to some paltry win. When she’d made the semi-finals, though, things got serious, and fast. As soon as she figured she actually had a chance, giddy excitement gave way to deep, bowel-churning anxiety. In the intervening years of intensity, she thought she’d conquered disquiet and despair, being first runner-up to Lauren Lanning two painful years in a row, 2005 and 2006, only to repeat the double set of losses to a different girl, Magen Ellis, in 2006 and 2007. And she thought she knew anxiety’s secret name, its trembling guts, its icy sweat and stink of fear, as she clasped hands with Brooke Daniels at last year’s Miss U.S.A. competition, final round, and Donny and Marie Osmond cruelly cut to commercial after an agonizing stretch of silence just before the awful judgment came down. Posing in her bikini before the intimidating celebrity panel, hoping the extra panty tape was keeping her swimsuit in place. Yes, she thought she’d faced fear, chased it off cowering and defeated. But the video struck like a rattler in the Texas grass, a black widow in the unshaken shoe. And it was unspeakable, where all the other challenges could be talked away, shared with Team Crystle, or worked out of her system with huge, heaving sobs.
Some nights Crystle would slow down the footage, pausing the screen at the precise moment Rachel loses her balance. By pausing and scrolling, she managed to isolate and expand the aching split second of film when everything turned to shit – Rachel’s beautiful smile suddenly transforming into a wide, O-shaped distortion. Crystle stared into the pixilated void of Rachel’s gaping mouth, seeing an automatic muscular reflex, seeing supreme shock and disappointment, seeing it all as dark fortune: it could happen to anyone, the stage floors were glossy, the cameras were bright and the flash of bulbs could disorient or even blind, and some of those high heels were absolutely treacherous. Who’s to say it wouldn’t happen again? Who’s to say it wouldn’t happen to her?
Later in the evening – the Miss Universe Competition 2007, held in Mexico City in May – Rachel Smith (miraculously) managed to clear the hurdles of the general competition and was selected to compete in the semi-finals. Despite her fall, the judges were suitably impressed by her overall talent, her petite figure and flawless skin, her unique ethnic composition and her obvious intelligence. But the live audience thought differently. When Rachel was called upon in the question round, the auditorium erupted in boos, hisses, profanity. Crystle knew this was more political than personal – the Mexican audience probably believed the show was rigged in the American’s favour (it was Trump’s project, after all, conducted in English, and Miss Mexico – who calmly cleared the evening-gown competition without incident – tellingly didn’t make the semi-finals). But, politics aside, it disturbed Crystle to the core: the look of humiliation on Rachel’s face, the shame of having to slog through her answer before such a withering, high-decibel chorus of disapproval. Crystle could read the defeat, the clear signs of surrender. Had Rachel expected mercy, sportsmanship, support from the crowd? What a twist of the blade, Crystle sympathized, to realize that she wasn’t encouraged, wasn’t liked, wasn’t even tolerated, but hated.
It could happen to you, Crystle told herself, staring at the screen. It could happen to you, black girl, southern girl, American. In the line at the supermarket, at the bank, turning in the dark in her queen-sized bed, the thoughts sent her squirming. In interviews with the press and in pep talks with her parents. It could happen to you, she thought, even on the Mercy, as Lieutenant Croft pointed toward some strange, ominous machinery meant to suture ruined skin.
Lieutenant Croft turned to speak before pushing through the doors. Crystle found her rehearsed expression. She stopped rubbing her arms and found a spot beside Miss India, her skin the smoothest espresso, beaming at a near-ecstatic Vietnamese photographer who snapped her picture from three feet back. Croft’s mouth was opening and closing, but it would take her a few more seconds to catch his drift. When thoughts of the video returned, her attention was always compromised. Things would refocus shortly. Until then, she assumed an expression of genuine fascination.
‘So if I could have your attention, we’ll get on –’
She hadn’t always felt so empowered, so in charge of her bearing. Indeed, there was a time when the thought of being a professional model – let alone who she was today – would have been ludicrous. Thinking about the three P’s, the quiet afternoons in her parents’ backyard, could sometimes bring a glimmer of those truly distant memories, of a time and place and self she now hardly recognized. Coursing through the gleaming hallways of Elkins High School, a freshman, a stack of binders pressed protectively against her chest, avoiding the squash and rush of unselfconscious faces
as they slammed against their lockers and laughed. Watching a crowd of girls her age flirting with a group of seniors – Elkins Knights, all of them, tall and smooth-skinned and loud – and feeling the familiar twinge of discomfort, the pang of envy at the grace with which her peers could josh and flirt with men three years their senior, who were undoubtedly experienced in sex, in things done in cars and at parties, at hooking up. Feeling a sharp divide in confidence even though it was clear that Crystle was the one always getting the stares from the older guys, the guys who thought scoring a freshman made them studs, calling her bangin’ behind her back, simulating doggy style with swaying thighs to the laughs of their jeering crew. Crystle pitied the less-fortunate-looking girls, the too-skinny ones who were hollowed-out and fragile, ribs and shoulders poking through cotton like they were made of sticks, or the big, bloated girls, pale asses like dump trucks, losing a sense of possibility in the prospect of boys and romance. Who’d want to rub up against their bones, their flat chests and butts, at formals or post-game parties? She dialed up her locker number, felt enchanted (saved from such a horrible fate, but nevertheless cursed with what she thought was a kind of survivor’s guilt: having to be responsible for her God-given excellence, having to protect what was important) and looked down, down into the rest of her afternoons: cutting across the gym floor with the blue and gold Castle of Champions banner overhead, making her way across the parking lots and streets to work another shift at the Kroger pharmacy squatting mercilessly off Highway 6, its field of carts scattered haphazardly between the road and the sliding doors.
But the months and years snuck by, and in small, tentative trickles she let herself accept what she could no longer deny: the attention, the fawning, the advances on the phone, the boys handing her red plastic cups at parties, wrapping their hands around her waist when the gym was dark and shaking with hip hop. The second-hand whispers of he likes you, he’s into you, and Crystle’s cheeks flushing with blood and the most delirious embarrassment (of course he likes me, she thought, has he seen those other girls?). Slowly, she affected a kind of swagger, done with thinking too hard of other, less attractive girls, her eyes rising from the bottoms of lockers and spiral-bound notebooks to watch the sun slant across her afternoon classrooms with something like joy. Soon she could take time off from studying in her spare periods because she was already smart; she could run circles around the girls who were known as straight-A achievers. And how sweet the springs became when her head was dizzy with sunlight and pollen, and the lark sparrows and goldfinches sang, and she drove with her friends in her parents’ car to Houston, feeling the warm air blowing over her bare skin while they sang the lyrics to whatever song was on, didn’t matter if it was any good. Those dark, pitying feelings had been blown out by the sun and by vodka at parties and by the wet lips of boys her age or older, whose hands slipped down her back and squeezed what they could get away with. Screw it, she thought; she was desired, popular from day one without feeling like she’d donned a mask, and the A’s rolled in and soon college loomed so magical. And so it was a quote on a scrap of paper that suddenly made things snap together: the race goes not to the swift but to the one who endures. Hadn’t she endured? Hadn’t she endured those evenings in the lunchroom of the Kroger, with its rank scent of wax cardboard and carrots while the dance was thumping at the school? Or being rejected by the ‘smart girls’ just because she was gorgeous and they were not, or snubbed by certain so-called popular girls who turned to catty bitches whenever Crystle caught the eyes of their boyfriends? She’d endured – endured so much that victory, truly winning, was now only right.
But the leap from pretty to supermodel was still slow in the making. Crystle couldn’t remember the moment, couldn’t pinpoint an instant. Girlfriends offered their admonishing jabs when she felt ugly, or too skinny, or just plain dull: What are you whining about? they’d ask. You’re one to talk. Ugly? You’re perfect, you’re gorgeous, like no one I’ve ever seen. When she was comic and self-deprecating like her father, or when a boy didn’t return her gaze or her veiled flirts: It’s ’cause he’s scared, girl. ’Cause he ain’t never seen something like you. First it was walking through the mall and one day catching sight of herself in a mirror and not recognizing who she saw. Then it was whole rows of men turning their heads in theatres, in church pews, in restaurants. Pimpled gas-station crews having to focus on the hood of her car, windshield wipers soapy and dripping in their hands. Buttoned-up waiters trembling with memorized menus. Door-to-door religious witnesses suddenly forgetting why they’d come calling. They done broke the mould, or My oh my, I remember you when you was just a little, or simply Daaaaaamn, a drawn-out eruption from a passing window, the collective sighs of Missouri City falling to worship this mature, tall, full-lipped woman, neck so long it could reach the clouds that capped the city in its flatness. Suddenly she was the Crystle Danae Stewart, name recited by ninth-grade boys as they scanned the graduating photos of 1999, thinking ahead four impossible years, baffled that anyone so beautiful could have sat in their seats or stared at the same blackboards, doodling or dreaming their afternoons away.
Snap back. Pay attention. Crystle gave herself a shake. It was a strange adolescence, she thought, something she recognized as at once unbearably conflicted and sickly sweet. It made her hurt, ache, with nostalgia to think of it; the only way not to tear up was to imagine today as the logical fulfillment of all that promise. Pay attention. From beyond the next set of doors came the abrupt rush of voices: the rising, nasal twang of several women chatting rapidly in Vietnamese and breaking into full-throated, giddy laughter.
Croft tugged at the hem of his sweater and continued. ‘Our main mission in the past few months has been to perform reconstructive surgery for children born with certain facial deformities, such as cleft palates and cleft lips. Since 1982, Operation Smile has provided surgical care to over 135,000 children around the world, from over fifty countries. The Mercy’s been proud to lend a helping hand throughout the entire South Pacific.’ He paused. ‘Does everyone know what I mean by a cleft palate or a cleft lip?’
The circle of contestants murmured and nodded, looks of concern and compassion breaking out on five troubled brows. Crystle caught Miss Guam’s eyes for a fraction of a second. Was that confusion, incomprehension? A glimmer, anyway. Oh, Guam, Crystle thought, mentally tsk’ing and feeling more or less back on the ball.
‘Rather than give you more of a tour – which, I gotta admit, must have been boring,’ an admission receiving some relieved laughter, ‘now we’re going to give you the chance to meet some of our patients. Through these doors are several children who’ve been through the final stages of their surgeries and who’re now receiving their concluding assessments. In other words, after today, they can go home for good. This has been a long and difficult process, but our doctors and nurses have been able to give them a fresh start in life. Now these kids’ll be able to eat, speak and interact the way they’ve always wanted to. And I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to meet you!’
Croft opened the doors with his shoulder. Beyond the or was a long, hall-like room, partitioned at a dozen points by white plastic curtains. Positioned according to some ship-based logic were half as many stainless-steel bed frames, topped with white mattresses and familiar blue sheets. The room teemed with activity, hummed with conversation: Vietnamese civilians, women, alone or in clusters, sat on black folding chairs or stood at the ends of the various beds, some bouncing small children in their arms. A baby bawled, its face muffled against fabric. Some of the closer women stood and scooted their chairs away from the doors, edging nearer to the beds. On each sat a child, wearing street clothes, shorts and T-shirts, sandals or running shoes. Crystle avoided looking at the kids too closely, afraid that staring would be rude. When she didn’t focus, their healing lips were reduced to smudges, a blur around their mouths, any scars mercifully indistinct.
She found herself standing somewhat awkwardly at the rear of the group, holding her palms again
st her thighs, scanning the ranks of Vietnamese mothers and grandmothers, their floral-patterned blouses and chestnut skin and thin black eyes summoning visions of the street she’d left behind only forty minutes back in the crazy sunlight and sluggish humidity of the Nha Trang harbour. Little reminders that this was no ordinary hospital, that they weren’t gathered on the upper floors of a walk-in clinic on some mundane street of Houston. Again awash in that sharp, utterly incomprehensible dialect, Crystle felt a painful stab of homesickness. She felt their eyes roaming over her limbs, inspecting her wardrobe, her sash, her figure, the long curve of her neck. Imperfect grins – some with yellow or broken or missing teeth – forced her to return the expression. Like so many of her public days of meeting and greeting, today demanded an unnatural amount of smiling. If it went on much longer, she’d have to duck into a restroom and apply some Vaseline to her teeth. She forced herself to return the women’s smiles for only a second before looking away, trying to orient herself in this swirl of activity, the sudden hush that fell as the locals noticed that a tour was underway – that a seemingly extraterrestrial quintet of striking, richly garbed women had entered behind one of the Mercy’s most senior officials.
Croft addressed the room in a slow, careful-sounding Vietnamese. Immediately the women applauded, shifting excitedly in their chairs, rising to their feet.
‘I’ve just let them know who you are,’ Croft said, above the claps.
The girls waved back modestly, but with a certain magisterial practice.
‘Many of these women speak English,’ Croft said. ‘I’ll let you visit with the children; I’m sure a quick hello would brighten their day. They’d love to get a picture with you, too.’
Crystle watched Croft drift toward a woman and get assaulted with hugs, a quick peck on the cheek. The girls were left to mingle and meet with the recovering kids, looking uncomfortable for only a cold snap of a second before they broke apart and attended to the various groups. Crystle found her stomach and bearing, feeling for the right mixture of sympathy, the right expression of interest. Closest to her sat a woman in her late twenties, holding a bald baby in her lap. Crystle approached and bowed. On the nearby bed sat a boy wearing a Spider-Man T, drawstring shorts, tiny Velcro sandals. He was about nine, small and thin, his knees scraped and scabbing. Faced with no other choice, Crystle really looked, and saw his mouth puckered with a swollen red line of stitching running at an angle to his right nostril, the right and left sides of his upper lip fused in an uneven stripe.
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