“Cole,” I whisper under my breath when the microphone is clear from my mouth. He does know more about beauty pageants than anyone would guess.
He knows the one answer no one can object to.
“Well,” the emcee says into the microphone, “I think we all can agree on that, right, ladies and gentlemen?” That cues another round of applause.
Then it’s over. My first event in the Fiftieth-Annual Meteor Regional Pageant and Talent Competition Showcase.
“Thank you,” I mouth at Cole as I follow the other contestants down the stage steps.
I did it. It may have taken one Kendall and many Quintanillas, but I did it. I managed, for the first time, not to screw up a Miss Meteor event.
My relief only lasts until that night, when I find new patches of stardust covering my thighs.
Less than one day. I had less than one day of what it feels like when this goes right, when I don’t let everyone cheering for me down.
Less than one day. That’s all the time my body would’ve had to wait for these new starfields to show up on my skin.
If the stardust had kept up its slow crawl, I would’ve been fine. The tasteful one-piece Cereza chose for me for the swimsuit competition would have covered it. But now the stardust is crawling up my back and down my thighs.
That tasteful one-piece stares from where it hangs on my closet doorknob, taunting me with every sparkling reason I cannot wear it onstage.
Chicky
IT’S A PACKED house when we arrive for the swimsuit competition, and my ears are still ringing with the argument Lita and my sisters had about waxing, of all things.
Thankfully, Lita won. No waxing. Fresa is still fuming.
“Just contestants past this point,” says Mrs. Kendall, who is, of course, holding a clipboard and looking official. She looks at me like I’m something gross she stepped in, and I bristle.
“I’m Miss Perez’s manager,” I say, channeling sixth-grade me as I step forward with my arm through Lita’s. On her other side she’s carrying a strangely bulky bag. I make a note to ask her about this later.
“Contestants only,” Mrs. Kendall says more firmly, stepping forward.
My sisters head for their seats, and I’m about to follow when I catch a glimpse of Kendra through the doorway, her golden hair pinned up in an elegant knot.
“Friends and family and . . . little helpers are free to take their seats in the audience.”
“Right,” I say, feeling Lita shrink a little under her gaze. “Because we wouldn’t want anyone’s family members being inappropriately involved in pageant business. Might be a conflict of interest, right, Mrs. Kendall?”
Her self-important gaze becomes downright murderous, but Lita giggles, straightening her slumping shoulders.
“I’ll be back with the pageant director,” Mrs. Kendall says. “Melody Summers? She’s a close personal friend of mine.”
She disappears, and now I’m laughing too, Lita’s and my strange friendship stalemate melting away for the moment. “Close personal friends, right,” I mutter. “More like close personal Botox buddies.”
“Stop!” Lita says, clamping a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing too loud.
“I should probably sit,” I say, unlinking our arms. “But I’ll be in the front row if you need anything.” I clear my throat. “You know, as your manager.”
“Right,” Lita says. “Officially.”
“Okay,” I say, the tension creeping back in. All the unsaid things. “Good luck out there.”
“Thanks.”
It’s only as she flattens her bag to step through the doorway that I realize I forgot to ask her what’s inside. But like, how bad can it be? She probably just brought her stuffed Marvin the Martian to keep her company or something.
I take my seat next to Fresa and command myself to chill.
The lights go down, same as they did last night, and a buzz of anticipation ripples through the crowd. I’ve told myself since middle school ended that I’m above this pageant and everything it represents, but when Uva grabs my hand and squeezes it, I squeeze back. It’s not just about destroying Kendra anymore, or even about the money for the diner.
I want Lita to win because she’s Lita, and the world needs a little more of her magic in it.
“And now . . . ,” says Mr. Hamilton, who has (of course) volunteered to be this year’s Miss Meteor emcee. “May I present your first contestant for the Fiftieth-Annual Miss Meteor Swimsuit Competition!”
The crowd goes wild, and instead of rolling my eyes like I normally do, I clap along with them until my palms sting.
“Miss Aurelia Renee Stevens is a junior at Meteor Central High School,” the judge intones as the first girl walks onto the stage, half turning in her blue one-piece and white high heels. I can see the Vaseline on her teeth from here, and I wonder idly how much of it she’s swallowed.
“Her hobbies include scrapbooking, voice lessons, horseback riding, and playing with her dog, Spud.” Aurelia finishes her strut across the stage and heads back toward the curtain, her smile never faltering, her heels never missing a step.
Three more contestants follow: Jodi, who likes cataloging whale sounds; Kim, who trains her pet birds to chirp along to pop songs; and Irena, who reads to seniors for the neighboring town’s summer library program.
My enthusiasm is decidedly waning when Mr. Hamilton pulls the mic close a fourth time. “And now, a momentary musical interlude while we get ready for hometown . . . resident, Estrellita Perez!”
The “musical interlude,” of course, is Meteor Central High’s twelve-person marching band. They file onto the stage in their uniforms and launch into what I know will be at least a six-minute-long version of the school fight song.
“I can’t just sit here,” I mumble, standing up to pace. “I’m so nervous.”
“Go with her,” Cereza says to Uva. I don’t bother to argue.
I’m pacing the aisle with her shadowing me when I hear it: two of the cornhole groupies from the other day, whispering.
“Do you think Kendra did it?” one of them asks, giggling.
“It had to be her. I mean, who decides to wear a scuba suit to a swimsuit competition without a little manipulation?”
“You’re sure that’s what it was?”
“Hand to God, I went back to give Josie her lip gloss right before! It was . . . kind of hard to miss.”
“Oh-em-gee that is wild, I mean I was expecting a kids’ one-piece with a unicorn on it or something super tragic, but this is next level . . .”
They go on, but I’m not listening anymore. Because I know there’s only one girl behind that curtain who would walk out onstage in a scuba suit.
And she’s up next.
I whip around to Uva, who’s following at a respectful distance. “Please tell me none of you knew she was switching her costume to a fucking scuba suit.”
The look on my sister’s face is enough to tell me they had nothing to do with it. “What are you talking about?” she asks.
But I can’t even answer. Because of course my sisters didn’t have anything to do with it.
“Lita went rogue” is all I can manage to say, and then I’m frozen, my mind’s eye awash with ten thousand dollar bills floating down a giant drain. With Kendra’s smug face as she waltzes across the stage as the new Miss Meteor, becoming even more invincible.
I did this, I think. I could have just suffered through my last two-and-two-thirds years of high school in silence. I could have saved us all from this.
“We have like one minute before the song is over,” Uva says, panic evident in her voice. But Fresa and Cereza are already behind her.
“What’s wrong?” Cereza asks, and Uva tells her in hushed tones, that horrified expression still stuck on her face.
“I’ve got this,” Fresa says. “Get up there and stall them, bitches.” She slaps a stuttering Uva on the ass before sprinting backstage.
Uva heads for the stage, but I can�
��t let her go alone. I need to be closer. To be doing something. This is my mission, after all.
The marching band bows and leaves the stage to tepid applause, but before the curtain can open to reveal Lita in a scuba suit, Uva and I step up to the microphone.
In the space between the curtains, I see the girl with the headset shrug, but no one runs up to tackle us or anything, which I think is a good sign.
But the bar for good signs is also criminally low right now, so who knows?
“Is this thing on?” Uva’s voice is too loud in the room, and I wince along with half the audience.
“I think so!” I say in my best “I don’t hate people” voice. The crowd chuckles.
“Well,” says Uva’s slightly quieter voice as she steps back from the mic. “It’s time for a . . . new segment of the Miss Meteor Pageant, which is the local . . . business showcase!”
The crowd, to my utter astonishment, applauds, and Uva goes on, her voice ringing confident and clear through the room as Fresa works what is hopefully magic backstage.
“Selena’s Diner is a local favorite,” I say, thinking of Mr. Bradley talking down to my mom and standing up straighter. “With a fusion of hometown favorites and cultural flavor, not to mention the atmosphere, it’s the perfect place for a pre- or post-event snack!”
“And, as a bonus,” Uva adds, “we’re running special pageant hours—open until ten every night this week.”
Uva glances nervously at me, and then at the curtain, which has not yet revealed Lita in her Fresa-approved swimsuit.
“Keep going!” I mouth to Uva, edging closer to the opening, trying to get an idea of how long it’ll be. “You can do this!”
“Our menu is . . . one of the longest in town,” Uva says, running out of steam quickly. “Beginning with appetizers, which include tater tot nachos, guacamole grilled cheese bites, carnitas sliders . . .”
Slinking to the curtain opening at stage left, I peer into a horrifying scene. One that makes me wish the Selena’s menu was about forty items longer.
Backstage, Fresa and Lita are squared off, Fresa brandishing the hip-hugging one-piece they’d agreed on a few days ago, and Lita, zipped into the scuba suit to her chin, looking uncharacteristically determined.
“I can’t wear the swimsuit, okay?” Lita is saying, protecting the zipper like it’s guarding state secrets. “I’m sorry, but I just . . . don’t feel like myself.”
Fresa opens her mouth to argue, but I step between them just in time, remembering twelve-year-old Lita huddled at the foot of Señora Strawberry clutching the newspaper full of girls that looked nothing like her.
“Fresa, no,” I say. “We’re not making her go out there in something she doesn’t feel good in. No score from any judge is worth that. We have to come up with something else.”
Fresa doesn’t speak right away. Lita looks guilty and scared.
Cole Kendall appears beside me, looking just as worried as I feel. The fact that someone else gets it is comforting, but it doesn’t make this any less of a disaster.
“I’m just saying if she didn’t like the outfit she could have told us yesterday!”
“I didn’t know yesterday,” Lita says in a small voice, and I wish I could ask what she means, but Uva is already nearing the end of the menu, and we’re out of time.
“Focus, Fresa!” I say. “You can accessorize anything! Make it work!”
My most beautiful and terrible sister closes her eyes, holding up a hand for silence. Ten seconds pass, then twenty. Before she gets to thirty, she snaps her eyes open.
“Fine, I can make it work, but I’m gonna need a fuck-ton of rhinestones and something that can stick them to a scuba suit.”
“And about a hundred more menu items,” I mutter under my breath as Lita discovers a baggie of rhinestones on the dressing table and everyone searches for glue, or tape, or anything.
“You guys, Uva’s not doing so good out there,” I say, but no one’s listening, and I realize it’s up to me. I bust back through the curtain, half an idea better than none at all, and take the mic.
“And now, for another new event!” I say, trying to ignore the eyes of my classmates and the town on me, feeling my palms start to sweat anyway. “A feature from Buzz, curator of the Meteor Meteorite Museum!”
Buzz, in the front row with his wife, looks at me utterly alarmed.
Please, I ask him with my eyes. With every atom of my body. For Lita.
He gets up and approaches the stage.
“Thank you! I’ll explain later. Thank you,” I whisper as I hand off the mic and dart backstage again.
Managing Lita through the cactus field pageants was never this labor intensive.
“Everyone, hello, my name is Buzz, some of you know me from the Meteor Meteorite Museum out on the highway.” The crowd applauds, but their enthusiasm is tepid at best. We’re on borrowed time.
“There’s literally nothing sticky anywhere,” Fresa cries.
“I found a Bedazzler?” Uva says.
“Please.” Fresa shoots her a withering glare. “I’m good, but even I can’t bedazzle an intricate shape on a scuba suit without at least two hours to spare.”
All seems lost, but Cole steps forward with purpose, and everyone turns to stare.
“Kendra,” he says. “I know you’re in there. Come out.”
The rack of dresses rustles, and Kendra steps out, somehow looking regal even as she’s discovered hiding in the wardrobe. “You rang,” she says, taking in the scene with a condescending sneer.
“The jig is up,” Cole says, and for the first time since we came backstage, Lita brightens. “I’m willing to bet you were responsible for this swimsuit catastrophe. As if you hadn’t done enough already.”
Lita looks a little guilty at this, and I wonder if she’s just feeling bad for being so gullible. This really does have Kendra written all over it . . .
Cole pauses dramatically, and through the curtain Buzz discusses the geological surveys that proved too risky for Meteor to be built in the crater left by its namesake.
“Give me the hot glue gun,” he says finally, and Fresa gasps, but Kendra’s heavily lined eyes dart toward the floor as we all watch the drama unfold, spellbound.
“The what? You think I just have a hot glue gun? You’re out of your mind.”
“You think I just forgot about the time you called me crying to bring it to you at the Junior Miss pageant in Albuquerque in sixth grade?” Cole asks her, ice cold. “Or how you said you couldn’t compete without knowing it was there just in case?”
“Oh, go read the dictionary.”
“GIVE ME THE GLUE GUN!”
Kendra’s eyes narrow now, and she clutches her bag to her rhinestoned chest.
“You can pry it from my cold, dead, perfectly manicured fingers, Cole.”
But Cole only steps closer, holding out a thumb. “I swear on Grandma Geraldine I will smudge your eyeliner.”
Kendra’s mouth drops open. “Trust me, baby brother, your little friend here did this all on her own. And you wouldn’t dare go near this perfect cat eye.” But she doesn’t look entirely sure.
Cole steps closer again, mere inches separating his hand from what has to be hours’ worth of makeup. “Try me.”
In the moment, I believe he’d do worse than smudge her eyeliner for Lita. And I love him for it.
Kendra lets out a frustrated shriek and stomps to her bag, pulling out the glue gun and shoving it into her brother’s arms. “Fine, traitor, a fat lot of good it’ll do you.” She sweeps her eyes down Lita’s costumed body and flounces out, but no one notices. Fresa is already at work.
She barks orders, and hisses when the glue burns her skin, and I watch the curtain as Buzz says pointedly, “Now, I’m sure you’re all thinking, ‘Buzz, it sure would be nice to know how much of Meteor’s history we’re covering here tonight, now wouldn’t it?’” But Fresa has finished. She scribbles something onto a notecard and when she hands it to me I can see th
e raw tips of her fingers, glue drying painfully, her manicure ruined.
“Give this to the announcer and tell him to read it word for word. Then get that boring old dude off the stage.”
I don’t dare argue, I just dart out through the curtain and do as she asks, pressing myself against the back wall of the stage to wait, with the crowd, for whatever is going to happen next.
“Well, that was certainly unexpected,” says Mr. Hamilton with a chuckle. “But now, please put your hands together for Estrellita Perez!”
Lita parts the curtain and walks out, now mercifully free of flippers. Her full-body wetsuit is unzipped just far enough to show some cleavage, the sparkling one-piece my sisters approved just visible beneath it. On her feet, Fresa’s own boots gleam in the stage lights, lending an air of fashion to the ensemble.
The crowd mutters and mumbles, but I get to my feet. “Go, Lita!” I call, and she smiles.
In the booth, our Mr. Hamilton squints at the card and continues.
“Estrellita’s hobbies include feeding stray cats, linear . . . algebra? And visiting Meteor’s own most infamous attraction—the space rock at the Meteor Meteorite Museum!”
This is almost definitely the strangest list of hobbies ever listed by a contestant in pageant history, but when he reads the part about the space rock, Lita winks and turns around, showing off an almost-perfect replica of the rock in shining gems on the back of her scuba suit.
From confused muttering, the crowd changes tack completely. The hometown pride they feel anytime the rock is mentioned combined with Fresa’s—I have to say it, unbelievable—rhinestone-applying skills, have utterly won them over.
Lita reaches the edge of the stage and winks, blowing a kiss to Buzz in the front row before strutting back toward the curtain in Fresa’s borrowed boots.
The cheering goes on for a long time, and my heart, which I’ve sworn so often not to have at all, feels tender and full and hopeful for the first time in as long as I can remember.
Miss Meteor Page 16