True Colors

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

  “Don’t worry about it, kid,” Georgia said.

  “Um, excuse me,” a blond girl pushed her way in front of me. “Don’t you have to be from Michigan to participate in this? I thought we didn’t get to other states until the regionals?”

  “She’s from Michigan, honey. She just got a little confused,” Georgia said.

  The blonde girl looked at me like I was a complete moron. “Did you just move here or something?” she asked rolling her eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said. So what if I’ve lived here for a while. It wasn’t any of her business. My face got hot, and I went to the bathroom to cry. I was blowing my nose when I heard a group of girls come in.

  “Did you hear one girl forgot where she lived? What a loser,” somebody said.

  “I know. Did you see the girl in the short red dress? Ew.”

  I heard the girls walk out and was about to leave the stall when I heard the bathroom open.

  “Landry? Honey, are you in here?”

  Oh crap, it was my mom. I held my breath, but then she knocked on the stall door. “Sweets, I can see your shoes,” she said.

  “Go away.”

  “I just thought you might want to go out and get some ice cream,” she said.

  I opened the door. “It’s not over, is it?” I asked.

  She shook her head and said they were about to have everybody line up again while they narrowed the group down to ten.

  “No, I’m staying and finishing this,” I said and went over to the sink to fix my makeup. I was not going back on TV with raccoon eyes. I couldn’t get all the mascara from under my eyes with the crappy bathroom soap, so I borrowed Mom’s concealer to cover it up. A couple girls came in to do last minute touchups on their makeup, and Georgia poked her head in the bathroom and told us to line up.

  “Good luck,” my mom whispered as I went to line up. Like I had a chance. I got back in line behind Desiree. The room was silent. Everybody was wondering who’d get chosen and who would cry on stage. I didn’t have to worry either way — I wouldn’t get chosen, and I was all cried out. All I had to do is stand there and pretend to be excited for everybody else who was picked. I figured the camera wouldn’t be on me at all, but Desiree was the second name they called. She shrieked, and I gave her a hug just like all the pageant contestants always do. Nobody else hugged anyone, so I probably just made myself look even stupider. They called the rest of the names and then had the audience clap for us losers who were still standing on the platforms. We walked off stage, and Georgia put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Nice job, kid,” she said. I thought she meant because I hadn’t crashed into anybody this time, but she said I showed a lot of “class” hugging Desiree when her name was called. She said there were free “promotional items” in the lobby. Mom and I walked to the lobby, and they gave me a big plastic bag filled with stuff. They assumed Mom was a contestant, so they gave her a bag, too.

  We went back up to the room so we could check out all the free stuff. This time there were actual Little Rose makeup samples. Little tubes and jars with French words on them. And a makeup palette with shimmer powders, eye shadows, lipsticks, and blushes. There was even a tiny eyeliner and lip liner pencil with a teensy sharpener. Not worth making a fool out of myself on live television, but still cool. The lipsticks were too dark on me and so were the eye shadows, but I could wear the rest of the stuff. I tried using the lip liner, but it looked like I had a chocolate ice cream ring around my mouth.

  “Your dad wanted you to call him when it was over,” Mom said as she cracked open a free soda. I wondered what to tell him. Did I tell him everything went okay and then destroy the tape of me crashing into the other girl on stage? I didn’t get a chance to get my lie straight because my dad called on the cell phone.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “It went okay, but I didn’t get picked,” I said.

  He said the judges must have been blind and said he was proud of me for going up there. He might not have been so proud had he seen me body slam another contestant and forget where I was from. Grandma got on the phone next and said modeling wasn’t a good career for young girls anyway. Then she went on about how she used to model for a department store when she was a teenager. Just what I needed to hear — how my grandmother could cut it as a model, but I couldn’t.

  “I was proud of you for going back up on stage,” Mom said after I got off the phone.

  I asked what she meant, and she said I could have just stayed backstage or left after I messed up my line. I hadn’t realized it was an option. I just thought it would have been worse not to go back out with the other girls. Everybody who watched would have assumed I didn’t come back because I was crying backstage.

  I sat on the bed watching TV and ate a couple of free candy bars and drank some free sodas. Candy and pop were the only things sounding good to me after I had thrown up before. Besides, food tasted better when it was free. Someone knocked on the door, and I was afraid they were going to make us leave the hotel early… or maybe they realized we took an extra free bag and they wanted it back. I hid the extra bag in my suitcase while my mom answered the door. It was Mrs. Myeski.

  “Landry, I just finished reading your comment sheets,” she said. I nodded as I wondered what comment sheets were. “You got a lot of positive remarks on how you handled yourself up there. There are five agencies interested in you.”

  Even after I made a fool of myself? We sat on the bed, and Mrs. Myeski told my mom we should look into each agency to see if there was one which might work for me.

  “And just because they’re expressing an interest today doesn’t mean they will necessarily take you on,” she said. She said my mom could call to set up an appointment, and I would need to bring a picture with me.

  “This is an exciting opportunity for you, but only if you can handle it. A lot of girls get caught up in the glamour aspects of it, but it is a job and you have to look at it as a professional,” she said. She left us a sheet with the agency names on it and suggested we start researching them soon.

  “Is this something you want to pursue?” Mom asked as I stared at the names. Three of them were located in Lansing, which was an hour away. One was in Detroit, which was too far, but there was one in Grand Rapids owned by two women named Delilah Rice and Anita Carter. Mom chewed the side of her mouth as she stared at the sheet.

  “Let’s deal with this later. It’s too much to think about right now. Why don’t we do something fun? I heard there’s a great mall nearby. Wanna check it out?” she asked.

  I must have looked pathetic onstage if Mom was offering to take me shopping. Still, I can’t say no to a mall. I changed into jeans and a hoodie, and we got directions to Somerset mall. I picked out a few things to try on, but everything looked like crap on me. I was too tall for Capri pants (they looked like I was expecting a Noah’s ark type flood), but too short for the new jeans they were showing. I found a couple of halter tops on the sale rack, and even though I wouldn’t be able to wear them for months, I wanted to see how I would look in one of those tops. I mean, the judges didn’t find me too hideous if I got through two rounds of the competition, right? However the halter tops made me look extra skinny and flat. Models were supposed to be able to make anything look good, and so far, everything looked blah on me. The only thing which looked halfway decent on me was a sweatshirt, and everyone looks good in a sweatshirt.

  Mom could tell I was getting depressed clothes shopping so we went to the music store next. I hardly ever get CDs. I found a couple I wanted, and I was surprised mom was willing to buy them for me. Maybe I should humiliate myself in public more often. We went to dinner, and I had a hamburger and fries — my first real food all day. I was starting to have fun when I looked across the street and saw a sign advertising something on Friday. Just seeing the word “Friday,” reminded me of the word “Monday,” which reminded me I’d have to go back to school and face everyone who had seen me make a fool of myself on TV. My stomach
rolled over. There was absolutely no way I was going back to school. Not on Monday. Not EVER.

  “Do you want to head back after dinner?” Mom asked. I shook my head. “Well, I guess we don’t have to leave tonight. I could get the room for another night, and we could go see a movie or go back to the hotel and watch TV.”

  I started to say I never wanted to watch TV again when I got a brilliant idea. Tomorrow when we were supposed to leave, I could pretend to be too sick to go in the car. Then there would be no way I could get back in time to go to school on Monday.

  “Okay, can we stop at the bookstore on the corner?” I asked. “It’s huge. I didn’t realize Detroit had such great shopping.”

  “Sure. Wanna order a sundae before we leave?” she asked. I must have made a real fool of myself on TV if she was letting us stay another night and offering me dessert.

  While we were in the bookstore, I picked up a copy of Young and Fun magazine with Talisa on the cover. The article talked about how busy she was, and there was a breakdown of her day: yoga at four in the morning, then hair and makeup, publicity appearances, meet with the songwriters for her album, meet with her vocal coach, meet with the music video show’s producers, tape the show, more publicity stuff, and then work on the album some more. There’s no way Talisa and I were even the same species. I mean, I come home from school, flop on the coach, and try to cram in as much TV watching as possible, which was a full day for me. Maybe the whole celebrity thing wasn’t for me. I always thought Talisa’s career was just standing around looking pretty except for the one hour a day she introduced music videos.

  ****

  Sunday morning, I heard Mom in the shower. I took out my new makeup case and dabbed a little of the deep plum lipstick on my eyelids. Last year when I got the flu my eyelids looked all red and weird, so I figured this would do the trick. However my mother just looked at me and said, “You’ve got something funky on your eyes.”

  I pretended I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow. “I don’t feel so good,” I said fake coughing.

  “I’m going to run down to get coffee,” she said. “I’ll bring you some tea, but you better be up and in the shower by the time I get back. Checkout time is at noon, and I’m not paying for another night.”

  So much for sympathy. “My throat feels weird. Maybe I caught something from one of the other girls. Somebody at the competition said they thought they had a sinus infection,” I said.

  She put her hand on my forehead. “You look fine to me other than the eye shadow you’ve got on. Didn’t you wash your makeup off last night? Seriously, we’ve got to be out by twelve. I’m not paying for another night.”

  She gave me her “I-mean-business-move-your-butt-now” look. No wonder Dad wasn’t exactly killing himself to move in with us. Who’d want to live with her? I could have Ebola or the plague or something, and she was worried about having to pay for another night. It would serve her right if I got sick and died right on the elevator — no, wait, if I died in the room so she’d have to pay for another night and replace the sheets I died on. I dragged myself to the shower and Miss Speedy was back with the tea and coffee in, like, ten seconds.

  “I brought you a blueberry muffin, but eat it while you pack,” she said, checking under my bed. “Landry, you’re not any neater on the road than you are at home. Your socks are everywhere.”

  As she went on about “how many feet did I have to need five pairs of socks anyway on a short trip?” I threw my clothes in an overnight bag. I didn’t care if my stuff got wrinkled because I never got invited anywhere to wear my good clothes anyway.

  We made it to the checkout counter with three minutes to spare so I don’t know why she was all freaking out. Of course, she ditched me in the elevator with all the bags and ran down the hallway to make it to the lobby in time. I had to drag all our stuff out front. A bellhop grabbed one of the bags to help me, and later my mom lectured me for letting him help because she had to tip him a dollar. All her sympathy for me had run out sometime last night after dessert. We got in the car, and she said I could put one of my new CDs in if I wanted. I said I didn’t feel like listening to music because I still felt sick.

  “Do you want to stop for some soup or something on the way home?” she asked. I shrugged and asked if we could get some cough drops before we got on the expressway. I felt bad for lying, but I had to admit I didn’t feel good. Sure my throat didn’t hurt, but I did have a headache and I was kinda nauseous thinking about school tomorrow, so in a way, I did qualify as being sick.

  “Here’s some money for cough drops and get some aspirin, too,” she said, smoothing back my bangs. “You’re probably just rundown from the excitement yesterday.”

  Let’s not forget the extreme humiliation I faced where all of the state watched me not only make a fool of myself but fail. I had been rejected on live television. How much worse could it get? It’s one thing to feel like you’re not pretty, but it’s another to be told you’re not good enough with everyone watching.

  When we got home, I had two messages on the answering machine from Ashanti and Devon. I called Devon back first because I figured she would understand what it’s like to get rejected by the American Ingénue people.

  “You’re back,” she said. “How was it?”

  “Well, at first it was cool. I was nervous, but I’m sure you saw how I made a fool of myself on stage. I blanked, and I almost died when I said the wrong city and then I ran into someone.”

  “It wasn’t too noticeable,” she said.

  Devon acted like it was nothing, so I started to feel better. She asked me what it was like backstage, and I told her about meeting Talisa and about how a lot of the girls had done pageants and stuff before.

  “Probably why a lot of them got picked. They already knew what to do and what the judges wanted,” she said. “Did you get any free stuff?”

  “I did get some candy and makeup and stuff. Oh, there are a couple of agents interested in me, too.”

  “Even after you messed up on stage and all? Listen, I’ve gotta go. India and Peyton are coming over so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She hung up so I called Ashanti, who said she had been waiting by the phone to hear from me. Her phone is right next to her bed anyway, but it was nice knowing somebody cared.

  “You looked so cute,” she said. “I loved your hat. My mom said you looked ‘darling.’”

  “Even though I messed up?”

  “Please, you were great. Just a sec, Dad! Hold up. Landry, my dad’s bugging me. He wants to say something,” she said.

  “Hi Landry. We enjoyed watching you last night. You did a great job,” Mr. Russell said.

  “Thanks, I just wished I hadn’t screwed up.”

  “You handled yourself well up there. You showed a lot of poise, and you should be proud of yourself. I’ll put Ashanti back on before she pulls my arm off.”

  “Okay, so give me backstage dirt,” she said.

  I told her about how nice Talisa was and how all the girls looked so much older than me. I told her the American Ingénue people thought my mom was the contestant instead of me. She wasn’t surprised because even her parents thought the girls looked way older than the age limit. I told her I got free makeup, and she could have some of my samples.

  “And I have enough free soda to last me forever, so I’ll save some for you,” I said.

  “Cool. Have you seen yourself on TV yet?” she asked.

  I was dreading it, so I told her I’d watch later. Much later. I got off the phone with Ashanti so I could work on my sick act. I sat next to my mom on the couch and started adding symptoms to my fake illness.

  “Mom, I feel like I could just fall asleep and, like, go into a coma. Wait, do you think I have mono?”

  “No, I don’t. You’d be a lot sicker if you had mono. I had it once in college, and trust me, I’d know if you had it. What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I told you. I don’t feel good,” I said, laying my head on the armr
est.

  Mom made me some tea and had me get into bed, which meant I couldn’t watch TV. I read until it was time for bed. My biggest fear is getting the stomach flu, but if I ever had to get it then I wished I could get it now.

  ****

  Unfortunately I woke up healthy. Even my skin was glowing for the first time. It was going to take an Oscar winning performance to get my mother to let me stay home today.

  “Mom, I think I’m going to throw up—”

  “Landry, I know what you’re doing. You’ve been paving the way so you can stay home, but it isn’t going to happen,” she said.

  She was smarter than she looked. “No, I’m sick.”

  “Do you honestly think it’s going to be any easier going to school tomorrow? Or the next day? It’s always going to be there, honey, so you’re better off just going and getting it over with,” she said. “Trust me. Once you get there, it’ll be fine. The worst part is the anticipation.”

  I said everyone was going to laugh at me, and she gave me the speech adults always give, but nobody ever believes about how, “Your true friends wouldn’t laugh at you.” Well, I obviously didn’t have any true friends besides Ashanti. Even Devon got all weird on me when I told her about the agents. After arguing for ten minutes, Mom promised to drive me to school all week and get me a subscription to Young and Fun magazine as long as I went to class. Little did my mother realize it was a weekly magazine so she would be paying more. Hah. But I still had to go to school.

  I put on a navy sweater and pants and wished I could just fade into the background. I knew I couldn’t hide, so I put on more makeup than usual hoping everybody would focus on how good I looked instead of on the fact I didn’t make the cut. Mom didn’t say anything when she saw me, so I figured I looked okay. Then she told me to blot some of the lipstick.

  “It’s a little dark,” she said.

  Even my mother’s a critic. When we got to school I made my mom drive around the parking lot so I wouldn’t have to stand outside with everyone and talk about the show.