by Paige Rawl
I stepped out of the car. “What’s up?” I asked Yasmine. “What is it?”
“Paige,” my mom interrupted. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to call you at exactly five p.m.,” I said the way I repeated it every time she dropped me off. I met Yasmine’s eye and we both smiled ever so slightly. Yasmine knew how worried my mom always got.
“Right,” said my mom. “Just check in to let me know you’re safe. Now come give me a kiss.”
“Good-bye, Mom . . .”
As my mom backed out of the driveway, I turned to Yasmine. “Okay, now what’s so exciting?”
She closed her hands into fists and shook them excitedly above her head. “My dad’s going to let Lila and me have a party at the clubhouse this summer. A really fancy one. For our birthdays.”
I had never been inside Yasmine’s neighborhood clubhouse, but whenever I drove past it, I could see a giant chandelier hanging by the two-story window. The clubhouse had a balcony that overlooked a pool, potted flowers, and a brick-and-iron fence wrapping all around the premises.
“No way!” I screamed.
“Yes, way!” We jumped up and down, right there in the driveway.
“Oh, my God, I seriously cannot wait,” I said.
Inside, we lay down on the great-room floor and spent the afternoon dreaming about her party. Never mind that it was half a year away; it was all we could think about. There would be music and swimming, a dinner buffet and a dessert bar. There would be boys and girls, together, and we would sit at tables beneath blue-and-white umbrellas, surrounded by trees and planted gardens. We would make a toast with soda pop to everything good: to Yasmine and Lila, to friends, to summer, to growing up.
Yasmine and I talked about color schemes for the party, considered the merits of balloons and streamers, discussed the guest list until the light grew dark.
Then my phone rang. It was my mother. I had forgotten to call.
“Mom, I’m so sorry,” I answered. “I totally forgot.”
“I was worried,” my mom said sharply. Then, with relief in her voice: “I just wanted to know you are okay.”
“Mom, what was going to happen to me? I’m just at Yasmine’s house.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I know. I just worry.”
I rolled my eyes at Yasmine.
Yasmine leaned over and called into the phone. “Lila and I are going to have a birthday party at the clubhouse, Mrs. Rawl,” she said.
“That sounds like fun,” my mom shouted back.
“Okay, Mom. Now you know I’m safe, so I’m hanging up.”
I turned back to Yasmine. “Your party is going to be like something straight out of TV.”
“I know. I can’t wait.”
“I wish it were happening tomorrow.” I sighed.
Dad
Perhaps you’re wondering about my father. I can’t really blame you; I wondered about him, too. I wondered about him for a long, long time.
But all I have to share is a single memory. It is literally the only memory I have of him, and it is not the happy sort of father-daughter memory that other girls get.
In March of 2001, I was six years old, near the end of my kindergarten year. Three years had passed since my mom and I had been diagnosed. We hadn’t seen my father since, and I no longer had any memory of him. He was a complete stranger to me.
We were in the living room watching TV when we got the call. My dad’s parents told my mom that my dad was in a hospital in Georgia. He had an AIDS-related infection, they said, and he wasn’t expected to live much longer. If my mother wanted me to see my father, ever again, she’d have to bring me immediately.
I was just a little girl, so all I knew was that we got in the car first thing the next morning and drove until nightfall.
I have a photograph from that visit. My mom had taken it knowing that it would be the last photograph of us together. In the picture, I am sitting on the edge of my father’s hospital bed. My usual grin is gone; I stare out at the camera, deadly serious. My father lies behind me. His mouth is open, his eyes are closed. Beside us is a stuffed angel I brought as a gift for him. In the center of the angel doll is a heart with a clear plastic sleeve; inside that sleeve my mom and I had slid a photograph of me, grinning out toward the camera. It is such a contrast: unsmiling me next to a smiling image of myself. It looks like I’m seated with a memory of a happier life.
While we sat in his room, my dad tried to speak to me, to my mother. His mouth opened and closed, but only a gurgling sound came out. Tears came out of his eyes, rolled down his cheek, and fell into dark spots on the hospital bed. After a while, he stopped. His mouth fell open again, and I knew he had fallen asleep.
When I woke in the hotel room, the morning after that visit, my mother told me that my father had died during the night.
I would never learn what he had been trying to say to us.
I would never, truth be told, understand my father at all.
My dad and me at my first birthday party.
March 2001, the last time I saw my father. I was so young. Too young to understand much of what was happening, or why my father was so sick.
Clarkstown
LAUGHTER
One morning in sixth grade, just before lunch, a boy in my class misbehaved by talking back to a teacher. Miss Fischer punished the entire class by making us eat lunch in silence. We were not permitted to speak through the entire lunch period. We were silent as we slipped sandwiches out of paper bags, silent as we opened little cardboard cartons of milk. Then, when lunch was over, we stood silently to return to the classroom.
That’s when a girl in front of me turned around. She made a face at me—her cheeks puffed out, her eyes widened. She looked like a balloon that had been overfilled, one that might burst any second and go flying all over the hallway. It lasted only a second or two, but that was enough. I burst out laughing. Quickly, I clamped my hand over my mouth, but I was shaking with laughter. I could not stop.
The monitor sent me to Miss Fischer’s office, and suddenly everything seemed a lot less funny.
But there were a number of other sixth graders in Miss Fischer’s office. Apparently, more than a few of us had trouble getting through lunch without giggling.
Miss Fischer folded her arms across her chest and looked at us sternly. We looked down, shifted awkwardly on our feet.
“I will ask you to write me an essay about why you shouldn’t be suspended,” she said to the group. “If you don’t have it to me by tomorrow, you will be suspended.”
My cheeks flushed. I stared down at my sneakers. I was supposed to go to Yasmine’s house that night; I had finished my homework early so that I could go. Writing this essay would make that impossible.
When I told Yasmine I couldn’t go to her house, that I had to stay home to write the essay, her eyes widened.
“Seriously? You really have to?”
“I do.”
“For laughing?”
“Yeah,” I said. I felt grateful that she looked as shocked as she did. I hated getting in trouble, and somehow Yasmine’s reaction made me feel better about the whole thing—like maybe I wasn’t that bad, maybe the whole thing really was just a little crazy.
“What are you going to write?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I want to say that laughing doesn’t really seem like something a kid should be suspended for.”
Yasmine grinned. “As the very proud principal of Clarkstown Middle School,” she said, her impression dead-on, “I declare that happiness is an offense punishable by suspension.”
Now I was grinning. Yasmine always made me feel better about things.
“I am the very proud principal of children who never, ever laugh,” she continued. “You laugh, we punish. At Clarkstown, we prefer our children to be unhappy.”
And just like that, I felt better. I had been upset since lunch for having gotten myself in trouble. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so imp
ortant anymore.
That was the thing about having a best friend; simply sharing a bad situation with her was enough to make it go away.
I’d like to explain why, precisely, Yasmine and I became so close. Maybe if I could boil it down to a simple formula—my friendliness + her intensity; or my optimism + her sensibility—then it wouldn’t have been such a big a deal when it all turned sour.
But it wasn’t that way, of course. Who can explain what makes two people connect? All I know is that at the start of sixth grade, as lockers clanged and kids stuffed cell phones into their pockets before dashing off to science class, I had a friend the likes of which I hadn’t known before. I barely needed anyone else.
I trusted her, wholly.
First Pageant
“BE YOURSELF”
These days, what most people know about pageants comes straight from reality TV.
They’re funny, these television shows. They feature pushy stage moms who force their toddlers to prance onstage while wearing stuffed bras and fake, rounded rumps. These moms are outrageous: they encourage their young children to smoke fake cigarettes onstage, they dress their toddlers in skimpy costumes, and pit one twin against another in an effort to win.
All of these families are picked for ratings, of course. I know, because I’ve done pageants for over a decade, and I will tell you I’ve never once seen a child dressed like Julia Roberts’s character in Pretty Woman.
For me, pageants have always been a combination of four of the things I love most in the world: dressing up, singing onstage, speaking in front of people, and meeting new friends. They’ve helped me think on the spot and respond to all kinds of situations with warmth. They’ve taught me grace under pressure, how to encourage others, and what it means to think about community.
I loved them from the very start.
My mom signed me up for the Sweetheart pageant, the one from the brochure. I loved every second of it. I loved my floor-length lace-and-satin dress. The new haircut my mom had given me for the occasion (she’d snipped me some brand-new bangs in the bathroom just the night before, and I swear: she did a great job).
Most of all, I loved being backstage with all those other girls.
The first friend I made was Annie Edge. She was my age exactly and although that made her a competitor in our division, it sure didn’t feel like we were in competition. Annie had done plenty of pageants before, and she took it upon herself to become my personal tour guide to this amazing new world. For example, as we stood in line waiting for our one-on-one judges’ interviews, I noticed that the judges were handing some girls bananas.
“Why do they have to hold a piece of fruit?” I whispered.
“You are supposed to pretend it’s a phone,” she whispered back. “Sometimes they want to see you have a conversation.”
“With who?”
“Whoever you choose. Just make sure you sound friendly and grown-up.”
I liked that—using my imagination and acting grown up all in the same moment. I decided if they gave me a banana I would talk to Dr. Cox and pretend she was hiring me to work as a pediatric doctor. “Yes,” I would say. “Yes, I absolutely adore children.”
“Annie Edge?” one of the judges called.
She turned to me and raised her eyebrows in excitement. “Wish me luck, Paige.”
“Good luck,” I whispered. And I meant it.
“You too.” She grinned, and I could tell she meant it, too.
I didn’t get the banana question. Instead, the judge asked me if I would rather be a train engine or a caboose.
“Engine,” I said confidently.
The judge asked why, and I responded, “Because I would rather be a leader than a follower.”
I was proud of myself, then. Really proud, because it is hard to be asked a random question and come up with an answer—a good answer—on the spot like that.
I couldn’t wait to tell Annie how I had done.
Later, I made another friend, too.
We’d been rehearsing for the sportswear competition, and I thought I knew what I was supposed to do: I was supposed to show off my outfit—white skirt, white blouse, both embroidered with pretty blue flowers. Music played over the speakers, and someone was reading a description of my outfit into a microphone. I stood there, smiling, one hand on my hip. I stood the way I thought people would want me to.
That’s when one of the bigger girls, from an older division, leapt onstage. She was tall—taller even than my mother—and crazy beautiful, with long blond hair and very full lips and piercing blue eyes.
“You need a routine,” she said. When I stared back at her, not understanding, she smiled. “Here, let me show you.” She told me her name was Heather. Then showed me how to step in time to the music, look over my shoulder, and then pause, giving the audience a chance to really see my outfit.
“Look confident,” Heather said. “It’s all about confidence. Have fun with it. Be yourself.”
So I did. I listened to the music, and I step, step, stepped. I spun. I looked over my shoulder the way she did. Then I did it the way that felt right to me.
The music pulsed. Step, step, step. I put my hand on my hip. I waved at the audience.
Heather smiled, her crystal eyes twinkling. “That’s great! You’ve got such good energy. I’ll bet you do really well.”
Then this girl—this girl gorgeous enough to be a model, or Miss Indiana herself—hugged me.
God, it was just so much fun to be there.
The pageant flew by, a whirlwind of laughter, outfit changes, and how do I looks. Kids belted songs into microphone, danced in sync, and waved with all their hearts. I did it, too, and I’m telling you: every moment I was there, I felt myself becoming more confident, as if I were growing taller simply from being there.
I felt like I was reaching toward something, becoming a newer, friendlier version of myself.
If I could have stopped time, I would have. But one event led to another, and before I knew it, it was almost over.
Just before they announced the winners in our division, Annie whispered to me, “Guess what’s in my shoe.” We were standing backstage in our sparkling gowns, about to take our place for the big finale.
“What’s in your shoe?” I asked. I remember thinking, What a funny thing to say. What in the world could be in her shoe right now?
The girls were starting to walk out on stage, one at a time.
This was it: our big finish. We were about to find out who won.
Quickly Annie slipped off her shoe. She reached in and lifted out a piece of paper. It said, in handwriting that I could tell was her own: The winner of the Sweetheart Division 2003 is . . . Annie Edge.
I grinned at her. It seemed like such a good idea—hoping for something so much that you write it down and keep it with you everywhere. Like a way of making it happen just by thinking hard enough. I wished I’d thought of it.
“Hurry,” said one of the organizers. “It’s time.” Annie shoved the note back in her shoe, and slipped the whole thing back on her foot. In an instant, she and I were back onstage, smiling and waving with all our hearts.
The music played loudly, and lots of people in the audience held up cameras. I searched the room for my mom, and there she was, near the front. She was seated next to Heather’s mom, and she was beaming at me. She really did look like she was having a great time.
I suspected that she, too, was happy that she’d agreed to let me do this.
As the judges started to call the names of the winners, my mom and Heather’s mom leaned into each other, just a little bit, for support. My mom clasped her hands together and pressed them against her forehead. Heather’s mom rubbed her hands against her thigh. Both of them closed their eyes. It looked a little bit like they were praying.
I liked that she’d made a friend, too. I liked that this stranger, Heather’s mom, was rooting for me, almost as much as my mom was.
The judges announced the fourth runner-
up. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Annie. I caught Annie’s eye and we both smiled, ever so slightly. Annie looked so confident.
They announced the third runner-up. Again, it wasn’t either one of us. I saw my mom take a huge breath.
And then they announced the second runner-up. It was me.
I gasped. Out in the audience, my mother’s eyes popped open. She applauded hard and beamed at me, her face a mixture of pride and wonder.
Someone handed me a trophy. They handed me flowers—a bouquet of big, white roses. I took them and beamed.
My heart pounded. My cheeks ached from smiling. I was so thrilled, I barely even noticed the first runner-up. But then, when they called the winner, the winner of our whole division—it was Annie!
Everyone cheered, but I swear, I might have been cheering loudest of all.
All smiles after being crowned second runner-up at the Miss Indiana Sweetheart pageant.
We said our good-byes in a flurry. I hugged Annie, I hugged Heather, I hugged a bunch of other girls. My mom, I think, hugged everyone in the room. She and Heather’s mom exchanged numbers, and I was so glad, because it meant I would see Heather again.
“Just remember what I said, Paige,” Heather said. “Be yourself.”
I waved good-bye, then Mom wrapped an arm around my shoulder and walked with me to the car.
On the way home, with my trophy and flowers in my lap, I thought about that note Annie had written: The winner of the Sweetheart pageant 2003 is . . . Annie Edge.
It is a good idea, I thought. It is a very good idea to write a note like that and slip it in your shoe. I decided right then that I was going to do the same thing next year.
And there would be a next year, I promised myself. I was determined.
There was a next year. Then many more pageants after that.
When I returned to the Sweetheart pageant I slipped a note in my own shoe: The winner of the Sweetheart pageant 2004 is . . . Paige Rawl.