“So I suppose you think you’re not doing Prettiest Doll? All that work, all that money down the drain?”
“I’m doing it. I didn’t say I wasn’t doing it.”
“You did in your note.”
I’d forgotten. “I am doing it,” I said. “Not because of the money, though.”
I didn’t look in her direction, but I could see her smile a little, knowing she had Prettiest Doll to look forward to.
“They seen you dance a hundred times,” she said. “You probably can’t win if you dance.”
Now I didn’t say anything. Her words hung between us in the dark car, which was just starting to get warm as we pulled up to the curb at home.
sixteen
THE next two weeks were mostly a blur. I had homework to make up: French vocabulary work sheets and reading “The Ransom of Red Chief” and finding the volume of a bunch of prisms and cylinders. Mrs. Fogelson said I couldn’t make up the work in her class because the kids had finished their Boston Tea Party videos. She said I could make a presentation about Chicago to the class instead.
Every day, I came home after school and practiced for the pageant: walking, twirling, smiling, posing. Remembering to make eye contact and look over my shoulder and hold my hands out and pointed down and say “Yes, ma’am” and “Thank you, ma’am.”
Mama came up with practice interview questions. I answered “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and “Who is your best friend?” and “If you could spend the day doing anything at all, what would it be?” “What’s your favorite subject in school?” and “What’s your favorite animal?” and “If you spent the day with your mama, what would the two of you do?”
“I wouldn’t make you bake cakes,” Mama said after she asked me the last question. We were sitting in the kitchen while Mama unfolded the paper turkey with the accordion-pleated tail and set it in the center of the table.
“I didn’t say you’d make me. I just figured that’s what you’d want to do.”
“That’s what I do for fun. Myself. I wouldn’t make you do the same thing I like doing unless you liked doing it, too.” She crinkled up her brow, looking at the turkey, which had gotten all creased and bedraggled in the Thanksgiving box. Then she said, “Maybe eating cakes. Maybe we could do that together.”
I laughed. It was like she was making a joke.
“See?” I said. “There’s stuff we both like.”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” she said, still looking worried, but I wasn’t sure if it was still because of the turkey.
Imogene tried to be a good friend.
“You’re going to win for sure,” she said one day at lunch, just as the bell rang.
I balled up my paper bag and tossed it into the garbage can from where I sat on the bench. “Nothing’s for sure.”
“You’re so pretty,” she said, standing up, waiting for me to zip my jacket. “You’re not even pretty. You’re beautiful.”
Her saying such an extreme thing made me laugh. “No, I’m not. Not beautiful.”
“You are. You didn’t used to be. But you are now.”
I realized I wasn’t sure what the difference between pretty and beautiful is. Is beautiful just prettier than pretty? “Beautiful is too much. Beautiful is like a fabulous model or a star. It’s something extra. Something you can’t describe,” I said. “That’s not me. Pretty’s enough.”
“Something more than just looks,” Imogene said. She sighed as we started walking toward the hallway. “You don’t even get what it’s like for average-looking people. What it’s like to know you aren’t pretty.”
She sounded almost angry. I stopped walking and put my hand on her arm. “I didn’t think you cared about what you look like,” I said.
She jerked her arm away. “Of course I care, Liv. Everyone cares. How can I not care?” We started walking again. “When it’s all anybody thinks about.”
“You don’t wear cute clothes or makeup. Not even lip gloss.”
“What’s the point? What difference would it make?”
“I could teach you how to do it. So it would make a difference. There are things you can do. Tricks.”
“Like what?”
“Like when you put on mascara. The stuff to make your eyelashes look long,” I added, because I wasn’t sure she knew what it was. “Before you put it on, dust a little powder on your lashes. It makes them look thicker. And for your lips, a cream lipstick with a shimmer will kind of perk up your skin.”
“I wouldn’t want to be too shiny.”
“Then you can use a beige or light brown top coat. Just a little. There are all kinds of things you can do.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” she asked.
“The same way you know about horses. Being around it so long. You just learn it. All the tricks.” We split apart to walk around a clump of seventh grade boys. Back together, I said, “It’s all just tricks.”
“I don’t know how you remember it,” Imogene said. “It just kind of leaks out of my head.”
“Because you don’t care. Not really,” I said when she started to argue. “You think you do, but you don’t. Not in the way that counts.”
“It feels like caring when I look in the mirror and see this drab, plain girl looking back,” she said, shrugging but not mad anymore.
“Not plain,” I said, turning to head down the other hall to French. “Beautiful.”
She kept walking, but I turned around and saw her laughing.
“Really! ” I yelled, and she looked back, smiling, so I know she’d heard.
whazzup? Dan IMed me that night.
doing homework, I IMed back.
We talked like this almost every night. Totally unromantic. It was okay. I figured there were two ways to go with someone like Dan: either I could be sad and pine away for him, or I could force myself to think of him as just a friend. Without even talking about it, that was what we’d both decided to do: force ourselves to be friends.
i wish u had skype, he said.
the webcams r too expensive
well save up for one then
i might, I said.
I sighed. The problem with just being friends was that there was too much feeling all locked away, so all that was left was boring, barely-knowing-a-person conversation. I couldn’t think of much to say to him that wouldn’t let all the locked-away feelings loose.
Then he IMed, got my first shot, and I felt everything flood through me.
did it hurt? I asked.
ya. i have to have them every day.
are you sorry? I asked.
not really
That’s good, I said. Back to the barely-knowing-him stuff.
I was trying to remember the French word for peach when he typed, sometimes it feels weird to admit that i care what i look like.
I put my hands up to type an answer, then set them in my lap. I thought for a long time. Finally, I typed, look who youre telling this to.
You’re the only one I’ve told, he said. lol
Why? I asked.
He said, because thinking about what you look like all the time is not so different from not thinking about it at all.
deep, I wrote, just to be funny. But my hands were shaking a little.
so how much did you practice today? He meant for the pageant.
2 hours
sad day
it was ok. miss denise said maybe the break did me some good. she says my smile is better
He didn’t answer for a long time. I was looking up asparagus in my English-French dictionary when he typed, What did she say about the singing?
that its still bad. Terrible. lol
I’d finished the last of my French when I realized he’d left me a last IM. All it said was your smile is amazing.
Mama and I drove to Jefferson City on the Friday before Thanksgiving. We pulled into the hotel driveway after dark. “Look at all the twinkly lights,” Mama said. “Ain’t this pretty?” She was always
like that in front of hotels: bowled over by the lights, the luggage racks on wheels, the parking valets smoking cigarettes off to the side of the building, where the people in the front lobby couldn’t see. I think she was just amazed to be in a place where someone else made the beds and cleaned the toilet. That was enough to make it grand.
“Pretty,” I said.
“Olivia Jane, you sound tired,” she said as we got out of the car and hurried, shivering, into the lobby. “We got to get to sleep early. Hair and makeup’s at seven.”
Mama was right. I was tired in my bones. I stood next to her while she gave the check-in clerk our reservation number and thought that all I wanted to do was lie on cool white sheets and watch cop shows in the dark, which was something special that Mama had just started allowing on pageant nights.
The check-in clerk was a dark-haired woman, not very old, fat enough so she didn’t have wrists. She wore the hotel company’s uniform, but she’d decorated the blouse with bird pins. I counted twelve, all with cheap, glittery stones for eyes. “I like your pins,” Mama said.
The woman smiled. “It’s a hobby of mine.”
“Birds?” Mama asked. I knew she was getting ready to tell about Grandpa’s taxidermy business.
“No. Pins. Collecting them.” She handed Mama the credit card bill and a pen. “I like birds well enough, though.” She looked at me. “They let you wear pins on your pretty pageant clothes?”
“Probably not,” I said.
The woman sighed and shook her head. “You’re lucky, being so pretty. Being in pageants. I bet you won a lot of ’em, huh?”
“A couple,” I said.
Mama laughed. “Oh, she’s just being modest. She’s won a bunch. How many, Olivia Jane?” Without waiting for me to answer, she said, “Twenty-three, I think. Twenty-three she actually won. That’s not counting all the ones she come in first runner-up.”
“Mama."
The woman laughed. “It’s okay, honey. Your mama’s proud. Let her be proud.”
“Well, now, that’s what I say.” Mama folded the receipt and put it in her wallet, then snapped her big purse shut. “But a lot of people say it’s a bad thing being so proud. Say us moms are pushy. Say we should just keep our mouths shut, pretend not to notice.”
“I know. I know. It’s a thankless job!” The woman shook her head, commiserating with Mama. “Well, I say good for you. Good for you both.” She looked right at me. “I’ll be rooting for you,” she said. Then she leaned over the counter and whispered, “You’re the prettiest one so far!”
“Well, now, wasn’t she sweet?” Mama said as we turned away from the desk and headed back outside to park the car. The automatic door whooshed open, and the bellboy, bored and pimply, looked us up and down. He smiled at me and looked away, the way eighteen-year-old boys often do, not sure whether being so much older made him look good to me or if he seemed creepy and sad for even thinking about smiling at a girl so young.
“Mama,” I said as she started the car and drove slowly into the crowded parking lot, “if I didn’t do pageants, would you be proud of me?”
“Well, now, for Lord’s sake, what kind of a question is that?”
“Would you be proud of me?”
“Well, of course I would.” She was squinting and hunching forward over the steering wheel, straining to see in the dark.
“For what?”
“Olivia Jane. I am too tired to play this game.”
“It’s not a game,” I said, but I didn’t say anything more until she had eased the car into place and turned off the engine. “Okay, now. What would you be proud of me for?”
She just sat for a minute, her thick hands still on the wheel. Finally she said, “I don’t know.”
I looked out the window at the battered SUV next to us. Through its passenger window I could see two baby car seats and, in the back, a cardboard box with CLEANING SUPPLIES written across the top flap. Were the babies in the pageant? Was the mama a maid who carried her work things around so she wouldn’t forget them for a job? Did the daddy come along, happy to carry the suitcase because the mama had both babies to get in and out of the car? Were they proud of those babies? Weren’t they supposed to be? Wasn’t that their job?
“You been doing pageants for a long time,” Mama said. “I got used to being proud of you for that. I ain’t gonna apologize.”
We sat, our breathing fogging up the windows.
“But if there was other stuff you did...” She sighed. “I don’t know what. But if there was, I’d probably figure out something to ... I don’t know. Like, I guess. But I don’t want you thinking that means I’m saying it’s okay to give up on pageants. Because it’s not.”
“I’m not thinking that.”
“They’re so good for you, Olivia Jane. The way they make you confident. The way you walk into a room and just, I don’t know, know you belong there. I could never do that,” she said sadly.
“Yes,” I said. “I can do that.”
“It’s a gift you got, the way you look. A gift. And you know, them people who say it’s not right for girls to think so much about how they look, they’re living in some kind of dreamland if they think that’s not what girls do anyway, And not just girls. Grown women, too. It’s what we do. It’s everything.” She looked at me. “And you’re just so pretty. So pretty. And I ain’t gonna say I’m sorry about that, or that it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not a bad thing. But—”
“No. No buts.” She turned back to the steering wheel and pulled the key out of the ignition. “Olivia Jane, we got to get up to the room. I am way too tired to do any more talking.”
“Me, too. I’m tired, too.”
“And you know we got an early start tomorrow.” She pulled herself out of the car and up to standing. She looked at me over the roof. “How ’bout a little TV tonight, honey?” she said.
“Okay,” I said, taking what she could give me.
“And maybe a milk shake if the coffee shop’s still open,” she said, pulling our suitcase out of the trunk. “How’s that sound?”
I nodded, knowing that, even if I said no, she’d order two in case I changed my mind and wait until I fell asleep to drink them both.
seventeen
THAT night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay alone in the bed closest to the window, listening to Mama snore. We’d turned the TV off hours ago and left the curtains open. The nighttime was yellow with parking-lot light. Jefferson City was asleep. No sound except, once in a while, a semi out on the highway, making me think the same old thoughts, making me tired, but not enough to sleep. Weary. Tired in my head.
Even the hotel was silent. Usually at hotels with conference rooms there are people in the halls at all hours, stumbling around, laughing and whispering. They aren’t pageant people. They’re businesspeople who’ve stayed up late, drinking. The pageant people are always in their rooms early, the girls asleep, the moms fretting, trying to remember if they’ve packed the extra Magic Tan, if there’ll be enough time in the morning to iron the baton-twirling costume again. Pageant moms can always think of one more thing that needs doing.
That bird-pin lady at the front desk had looked all admiringly at Mama, thinking how hard she’d worked, but she didn’t know the half of it, what Mama does. So much. There’s always something last-minute to remember, another fake nail to paint, another sequin to sew on.
The bird-pin lady got to go home and stop thinking about her day at the reservations desk. Or maybe she thought about it, but there wasn’t anything more to do. She could watch TV, knit a baby blanket, tell her husband about the businessman who’d dug around in the outdoor trash bins looking for something and left trash all over the parking lot. That had really happened once. I was nine. I heard the clerk say, “But, sir, you’re on the surveillance video,” and the man say, “What is this, CIA headquarters? I want to talk to your supervisor!”
Maybe I slept a little. When I looked over at the alarm clock on the bedside table, it
was 4:13. I stared straight up into the blackness, straining to hear sounds from the conference room at the end of the hall. Sometimes the workers start early, setting up chairs, hanging banners, putting the trophies out on a table so all the girls will know what they’re shooting for, what’s at stake.
But I heard nothing. It reminded me of Dan’s father’s house, vast and hushed in the early morning, Dan’s half brother and half sister standing silently in front of their closets, choosing clothes for school, Suzy Jacobson pouring coffee, anxious to get to the barn, where the horses snorted and pawed the dirt, waiting. All those rooms, and no one talking.
The blackness swirled and I started to fall and right before I felt it wrap its arms around me I had the funniest thought, that if Mama didn’t have pageants to think about, there might be nothing else in her head.
“Olivia Jane,” she whispered. “Come on, honey. It’s pageant day.”
I groaned. I think I said, “I’m not doing this.”
“Come on, honey,” Mama said, not in a whisper now. “Up and at ’em. Let’s get ready to rumble,” which is what she always says.
I forced myself up to sitting, my hair a mess around my face, my face still hot from sleep.
“Your interview’s at eight, and Miss Denise will be here any minute,” Mama said. “Come on. Brush your teeth and wash your face. And then put your gown on.”
“I gotta pee first,” I said grumpily and slammed the bathroom door.
A few minutes later, I sat on the closed toilet lid and watched myself in the mirror as Mama set my hair in hot rollers. I was wearing my burgundy gown, still warm from the ironing Mama had given it on the fold out board in the wall by the door. I had a big towel over my shoulders like a stole, to make sure the dress didn’t get wet or stained.
“Ouch!” I said as she jabbed a bobby pin into my scalp. “Ouch!”
“Hush! ” Mama said. “Don’t be a baby.” She worked fast, prying each pin apart with her teeth before sliding it in place.
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