by Lila Dare
“Thanks.” I laughed, whisking hair snippets off her shoulders with a towel. “Good luck tonight.”
Her face sobered. “Yeah, thanks. I really need to win. The Miss American Blossom scholarship money is my only hope for vet school after I finish my undergrad degree next May. I’ve got it all figured out. With what I make waiting tables and the money from the band’s gigs, I still need to win Miss Georgia Blossom and be at least third runner-up at the national pageant. Thanks for the cut.” She strode out, leaving the door open.
With a focus like that, I had no doubt she’d end up as a vet, or whatever she wanted to be. I thought of my own lack of focus at her age, the two years at the University of Georgia drifting from art classes to business classes, the decision to attend beauty school, hanging on to the relationship with Hank long after it was clear we had different priorities and values, my return to St. Elizabeth after the divorce. Maybe I needed to be more Brooke Baker-ish in my approach to life, I decided, slipping combs into the container of germicide. I needed goals. Not vet school or fame as a rocker chick, but something beyond “work at Mom’s salon, live in an apartment, and see what turns up.” I was saving for a house, but not in a really determined way. Maybe I should go around with a Realtor and look at what was on the market. Maybe that would inspire me to get more serious about my saving. Maybe I’d even get a part-time job to make it happen quicker.
I had resolved to ask my best friend, Vonda Jamison, if she could recommend a Realtor, when the door edged open and a soft voice said, “I think I’m last.”
I turned, astonished, to see Rachel Whitley, the salon’s shampoo girl, hovering on the threshold, her expression a blend of amusement and embarrassment. “Rachel! What in the world are you doing here?”
“I’m, like, a contestant,” she said, plopping into the chair and spinning it around. The navy blue robe she wore over her costume belled out at her ankles.
“Really?” Seventeen-year-old Rachel, who would be a senior when school started up, had never struck me as the pageant type. With her style choices ranging from Goth to grunge and her makeup leaning toward kohl-rimmed eyes that made her look like a raccoon and matching black nails, Rachel struck me more as the anti-pageant poster child than a beauty queen wannabe. “Is this a joke?” I asked suspiciously, tempted to check the hall to see if Mom or Althea lurked out there, ready to burst out laughing.
“No,” she said with an impish grin. “It’s a dare.”
“A dare?”
“Yeah. Like, some of my friends bet I wouldn’t have the nerve to do this. If I make it to the finals, I get to drive Shannon’s new Mustang for a week. If I win, I get it for a whole semester.” She grinned at me and I noticed the Goth makeup was gone, leaving her great skin and Nile green eyes unadorned.
“What happens if you lose?”
She shrugged. “I have to wash it every week for the whole school year. And, like, wax it.”
I cocked an eyebrow at her.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said with a half shrug. “And it’s a slick ride.”
I surveyed her shoulder-length black hair with its multiple layers. She’d been known to hack at it with nail scissors and, for all I knew, hedge clippers … and it looked like it. At least it was free of the electric blue stripes she’d sported a couple weeks back. I didn’t think there’d ever been a beauty queen with hair quite like this.
Correctly interpreting my silence, she said, “I need you to make my hair look more … more mainstream.”
“How much time do I have?”
“I have to be on stage in forty minutes.” She looked at me hopefully.
“Okay. The best we can do for tonight is make a few surface changes. Let me get Stella.” I whisked out of the room to Stella’s lair next door. She was just finishing up M16 Morgan’s nails when I burst in. I explained the situation as concisely as possible and she rummaged in her purse for a makeup bag as she accepted Morgan’s thanks.
“Oh, Rachel, this will be such fun,” Stella greeted the girl with the first genuine enthusiasm I’d seen from her all day. “We don’t have much time, so let’s get to it. First things first: what’s your talent?”
“I whistle,” Rachel said, trilling a bar from “Whistle While You Work.”
I’d always found whistling shrill and annoying, but Rachel’s was surprisingly musical. “Isn’t that from Snow White?”
She nodded. “I do, like, a Disney medley with part of a song from Mary Poppins and one from Cinderella.”
“Let’s see your costume,” I said as an idea bloomed.
She rose and untied the robe, displaying a Cinderella-ish blue dress with white apron tied at the back, emphasizing her small waist. Lace-up black granny boots completed the look. “My mom loaned them to me,” she said, kicking out one foot.
“Kerchief,” I said, as Stella blurted, “Scarf.” We exchanged a triumphant look.
“Your hair,” I explained to the bewildered Rachel. “We don’t really have time to fix it, so we’ll cover it with a kerchief for tonight, like the one Cinderella wears when she’s scrubbing the floor. I’ll go find one. Stella, you get going on the makeup.”
“These brows—” Stella was saying as I hurried out the door and down the hall.
I paused before the first door I came to past Stella’s, ready to knock, when an angry voice from inside said, “You can’t do this! I have rights. Elise is my daughter and—”
“Oh, please, Mama,” a young girl’s voice said. “I don’t even want—”
“I will ban you from the pageant if you don’t return to your seat in the auditorium, Mrs. Metzger.” Audrey’s tone would freeze motor oil. “No one except staff and contestants are allowed backstage. I told you that yesterday.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t exclude mothers.” She tittered, but fury thrummed in her voice.
I backed away from the door, not wanting to interrupt the argument to ask for a scarf. Turning, I bumped into Marv, the bald man who found the mat sabotage. I didn’t know if he was the stage manager, the security man, or a combination of the two. I asked him.
“I own this place,” he said, apparently not offended by my assumptions. “For my sins.”
I was going to follow up on that, but the argument in the room behind us got louder and we both looked at the door.
“Here we go again,” he said lugubriously. “Just yesterday I had to show Miz Metzger out, but she’s not the sort of woman who stays shown out, if you know what I mean. Miz Faye called me a coupla minutes ago, said she was creating trouble again. I don’t know why I didn’t just sell this place when Aunt Nan left it to me. Probably because no one would buy it,” he answered his own question.
The door slammed open so hard it ricocheted against the wall. I jumped. A woman in her late forties stalked out—followed by Audrey and the young flautist—rage vibrating in every line of her massive figure. She probably topped out at close to six feet and two hundred pounds. Dyed blond hair showed darker at the roots. Her face with its slightly pug nose might have been attractive in an aging Doris Day-ish sort of way, if it weren’t knotted into a scowl that would put a gargoyle to shame. At the sight of Marv, she stopped. “If you so much as lay a hand on me, I’ll file assault charges,” she said. She crossed her arms over an ample bosom.
“This way, Miz Metzger,” Marv said, gesturing with one arm.
She wheeled to face Audrey. “Don’t think I don’t know exactly why you want to keep me out of here,” she said meaningfully. “I know what goes on.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Audrey said through clenched teeth. She held her clipboard like she wanted to bat the woman with it. “Nothing ‘goes on,’ Mrs. Metzger, except normal pageant activities.” Before the other woman could respond, Audrey said, “I’ve got a dozen things to do before the show kicks off in half an hour. Thank you, Marv, for taking care of Mrs. Metzger.”
“I don’t need taking care of!” the older woman
shouted after Audrey, standing on tiptoe to see around Marv. “My baby Elise needs taking care of.” She clung to Elise’s arm. “If she weren’t so set on competing—”
“But, Mama, I don’t want—”
Mrs. Metzger cut her off. “I heard what happened today with that poor girl falling off the stage. This place is a death trap. If my Elise so much as scrapes an elbow, we’ll sue. I have a lawyer friend—”
“Okay, that’s it,” Marv said, his voice a good deal sterner. “Out. O-U-T.” His bulk blocked the hallway and he stepped toward Mrs. Metzger, herding her toward the lobby. No small business owner wants a litigious troublemaker on the premises. Not waiting to see who triumphed—my money was on Marv—I hurried after Audrey, catching up with her before she entered the Green Room. A hum of conversation leaked out, punctuated by vocal warm-up exercises and what sounded like a dozen cats yowling. Bagpipes. Good heavens. I wondered briefly how anyone learned to play the bagpipes in this area. I didn’t think you’d find much under “Bagpipe Lessons” in the Camden County yellow pages.
“Any chance you know where I can find a scarf or large handkerchief?” I asked Audrey.
She stared at me, distracted, and ran a hand through her hair. “I can’t be bothered with that. Ask the girls.”
I RETURNED TO RACHEL AND STELLA, TRIUMPHANTLY waving the blue and white kerchief a girl named Hayley had produced. Halting on the threshold, I gazed in wonder at the transformation Stella had worked on Rachel. She’d tweezed the thick brows into a clean arch and used liquid liner and earth-toned shadows to emphasize Rachel’s beautiful Nile green eyes. Sheer foundation and a peachy blush finished the look. Rachel’s squarish chin and strong jawline always looked a bit androgynous under the flat black-and-white Goth makeup she usually wore; now, she was striking.
“You look fabulous, Rachel,” I said. “Your friend better plan on walking to school next month.”
She beamed at me and could barely hold still long enough for me to secure the scarf around her head so just a few strands peeked out. “There. That’ll do for tonight. I have a plan for tomorrow, so show up at Violetta’s early.”
“Will do,” she promised. “Thanks.”
Stella hugged her and said, “Break a leg,” before Rachel danced out the door.
Chapter Five
THE TALENT SHOW BEGAN WITH A FEW REMARKS from Audrey and the introduction of the judges. The two men and a woman had seats at a narrow table shoehorned in front of the stage. Each stood and waved to the audience as he or she was introduced. The channel nine weatherman from Jacksonville, Ted Gaines, had heavy blond hair flopping onto his forehead and big white teeth that probably financed his dentist’s last vacation. Audrey introduced the second judge as Renata Schott, a former Miss South Carolina Blossom and runner-up to Miss American Blossom 1990, who was now a motivational speaker and actress. Almost six feet tall, with a pronounced widow’s peak, black hair, and lovely olive skin, she smiled a hello to the crowd. The third judge was a “prominent St. Elizabeth’s businessman and major sponsor of the pageant.” His attempt at a royal wave looked more like a drowning man signaling for help.
The evening got off to a rousing start with a fifth grader from St. Elizabeth Elementary School belting out the National Anthem. Seated beside Stella and Althea with my mom on the aisle (I had called them when I found out Rachel was competing), I gave Audrey props for knowing how to get the audience involved. Unfortunately, the first contestant was a singer who had considerably less talent than the ten-year-old and suffered by comparison. The audience, composed mostly of parents, friends, and supporters of the contestants, applauded politely. The baton twirler performed next, followed by Morgan with her M16. When the last booms of the “1812 Overture” faded, Althea whispered, “Well, at least knowing how to fieldstrip an M16 is a useful skill, unlike twirling. What does knowing how to toss a baton in the air get you?”
Still wearing the red, green, and black caftan, she might look like she’d wandered in from the Serengeti, but she had the old Althea’s caustic sense of humor.
“Sssh,” Mom cautioned us as the emcee introduced Rachel.
We fell silent, captivated by the sheer sense of joie de vivre Rachel exuded, as much as by the musicality of her whistling. Enthusiastic applause sounded when she finished and Mom beamed like Rachel was her daughter instead of her employee.
“Stella, however did you persuade Rachel to give up that black eyeliner and nail polish?” Mom asked. “She looks just darling with the new makeup.”
Stella looked pleased with the praise. “She really wants to win, I think, and she’s smart enough to realize that looking like Elvira isn’t going to get her the crown. She—” Stella broke off, staring across the half-full auditorium. “What is Darryl doing here? I can’t believe—” She jumped out of her seat and took off down the aisle.
Since the emcee announced a fifteen-minute intermission just then, she didn’t disrupt the show. I watched as she came up to her husband, a wiry man with dark red hair, standing along the left-hand wall, halfway to the stage. Stella put her hand on his arm and he jumped. The crowd, milling in search of restrooms or chatting with friends, blocked them from view.
“What in tarnation is that about?” Althea asked. She, too, had watched Stella’s rendezvous with her husband.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly, “but Stella’s been weepy all day. I’m afraid she and Darryl are having problems.”
“Every married couple does,” Mom said calmly. “They’ll work through it. It won’t help them if their friends and acquaintances are gossiping about them.”
“Mom!” I stared at her, surprised and hurt. “I’m not gossiping. Expressing concern is not the same as gossiping.”
“You’re right,” she said, patting my arm. “I just know sometimes people need privacy to work things through.” Her blue eyes behind the lenses of her rimless glasses looked serious. I wondered if Stella had confided in her. “Do you suppose it would be rude to leave now? I really came just to see Rachel. I’m dead on my feet. You’d’ve thought we were giving away free money, as many people as came to the salon this afternoon.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should’ve been there.”
“What, you think you’re indispensable?” Althea asked. She stood and stretched, wooden bangles on her arms clicking together. She looked rather regal in the African garment. “I helped out and we did just fine. And, no, we can’t leave yet, Vi,” she said to Mom. “We’ve got to scope out the competition so we can strategize with Rachel in the morning.”
My mom made a sound that was half sigh, half laugh and said, “Well, in that case I’d better visit the little girls’ room before they start up again.”
“I’ll go with you,” Althea said.
“And I’m going backstage to collect my stuff so I can bug out of here as soon as the last contestant struts her stuff.”
As Mom and Althea headed up the aisle to the restrooms, I threaded my way toward the stage and the steps leading backstage. It was quieter backstage, but not much. The contestants who had already performed laughed and chatted in small groups while the girls who had yet to display their talents warmed up or stood tensely, psyching themselves up like athletes preparing to storm the field during a championship game. Several parental-looking people, mostly moms but one or two dads, encouraged their daughters with cheery smiles and pep talks. So much for the prohibition against parents. Mrs. Metzger was huddled with Elise in a fold of the curtain just offstage. Her wagging finger and Elise’s slumped shoulders clearly indicated she was haranguing her daughter about something. I didn’t see Audrey or Jodi, but I spotted Marv on the far side of the stage, talking to a stagehand.
As I neared my little room, I noticed the door to Stella’s room was closed. I raised my hand to knock but heard voices. Maybe she and Darryl were talking. I let my hand fall to my side and slipped into my room, quickly organizing my styling paraphernalia and tucking it into my kit. Stella’s door remained closed when I came o
ut, so I hurried through the narrow halls and returned to my seat just as the emcee announced Elise Metzger and her flute.
By the time the flautist finished, Stella still hadn’t returned. Mom, Althea, and I exchanged a look. “Maybe she and Darryl went somewhere to have a conversation,” Mom suggested.
“Maybe,” I acknowledged, craning my neck to peer down the aisles. No sign of Stella.
Brooke Baker took the stage then, launching into a vigorous drum solo that brought the house down. She twirled her drumsticks when she finished and flung them into the audience, setting off a scramble as people lunged to get them. Brooke laughed and ran offstage, waving to the audience.
“That girl’s something else,” Althea said, shaking her head admiringly.
The talent competition finished up with Tabitha shaking her booty in a tiny costume that showed off her splendid figure. In fact, her abdominal muscles were so clearly defined I wondered if she used body makeup to enhance them. I was probably just jealous, I admitted to myself, surreptitiously patting my stomach. No six-pack there. Never very regular about exercise, I’d slacked off even more than usual in the summer’s brutal heat, driving my car places I would normally have walked. I would do a few sets of crunches and squats when I got home, I promised myself.
As the contestants filed back on stage for their closing number, an interruption occurred. “Stop the exploitation of women,” someone called from the back of the auditorium.
Virtually everyone in the audience turned his or her head. The protestors from outside marched single file down both aisles, headed for the stage. They carried their posters high, swiveling them from side to side so people could read their slogans: “Women are people, not objects”; “Beauty is only skin deep”; “Earn a degree, not a crown”; “Pageants promote violence against women”; and my personal favorite, “Get out of your bikini and into a classroom.” I was pretty sure they didn’t mean to encourage nudism in the classroom. Althea stiffened beside me.
The contestants looked stunned, the audience broke into nervous laughter punctuated with angry murmurs, and the emcee looked from right to left, hoping someone in the wings would defuse the situation. No one appeared—where was Audrey?—and Dr. Yarrow led his band onto the stage and calmly plucked the microphone from the emcee’s fingers.