Miss Meteor

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  “I figured it was about time to take back the Ring Pop,” he says, opening the package to reveal the biggest one I’ve ever seen, in every color of the rainbow. “We’ve deprived ourselves long enough.”

  My family clearly doesn’t know what’s going on, but they can tell it’s a moment, because they’re as quiet as they’ve ever been while Junior slides the plastic ring onto my middle finger. “There,” he says, surveying my outfit with satisfaction. “Perfect.”

  “That’s adorable,” Fresa says, like it’s anything but. “And you’re still not going to the evening gown competition like . . .”

  Mom and Dad clap their hands over her mouth at the same time, smiling at me as she flails between them.

  Junior takes my hand, and I’ve never cared less about what I’m wearing. I’m Chicky Quintanilla, reigning beer pong queen, the first openly pansexual girl in Meteor’s history. So what if I’m not wearing the right costume? I’m dressed as myself.

  The boy with his hand in mine thinks that girl is pretty great, and better than that, so do I.

  “Watch me,” I say to my silenced sister, throwing a wink at the lot of them before pulling Junior out the door into the purple dusk.

  Lita

  I DON’T HAVE the nerve to ask if Cole is actually doing what I think he’s doing, if he’s really considering raiding his family’s old dresses.

  If Kendra catches him, I’ll be lucky if I ever see him again, because Kendra might actually kill him.

  And then me.

  “Maybe we should have gone over there?” I ask Uva.

  “Behind enemy lines?” Uva says. “Have you no self-preservation instinct?”

  Like with all the Quintanilla sisters, there’s more warmth behind the words than the words themselves suggest.

  They talk to me a little like they talk to each other.

  “Uva?” I ask as we walk to the pageant grounds.

  “Lita?”

  I think about the things Cole was trying to tell me the night he held me in the middle of the road.

  “Are we friends?” I ask Uva.

  She laughs. “Honey, I have helped in a plot to rhinestone-adorn your ass. I think we can safely say yes, we are friends.”

  It’s a feeling like drinking Bruja Lupe’s manzanilla tea on the coldest nights in Meteor.

  Cole was right.

  I have him.

  I have Junior.

  I have Uva and Cereza and Fresa.

  I have Chicky.

  Chicky and I have each other, in a way we maybe never did before.

  I will have them, a little bit, even when the sky takes me. I will take a little of them with me.

  No matter what happens tonight, there’s still a chance for me to walk off that stage less lonely than when I first walked onto it.

  Cole is waiting for us at the outer edge of the curtain.

  “I’m gonna keep watch.” Uva looks around, ready to guard us from prying contestants, especially the one contestant who would probably get me out there in the Meteor Central High mascot suit if she could. (The Fighting Space Rocks, an inexplicable mascot considering there is only one Space Rock, and that rock wouldn’t fight anyone.)

  Cole crouches, setting down an old dress box, the kind lined with tissue paper. I kneel across from him.

  “It’ll probably go down to your shoes, but I think it’ll work.” He opens the lid and pulls out the dress.

  Strapless. Blue. A fabric that’s the thinnest velvet I could ever imagine.

  “First question,” Cole asks. “Do you like it? Or at least like it enough to wear it for the next few hours?”

  I can’t answer him. This dress is spinning its own spell, even deeper than the ring of fellow contestants in that borrowed bedroom.

  Because this dress looks like the sky. The bodice is the blue of almost-night over Meteor. The color darkens as it runs down the skirt, to the deep blue of the midnight sky above the crater.

  “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I manage to tell him.

  As Cole unfolds it, the last of the sun winks off it. It’s speckled with translucent gold sequins that begin sparse on the bodice and thicken toward the bottom of the skirt. It’s like the stars coming out as the sky deepens.

  “Where did this come from?” I ask.

  Cole looks down at the dress, a little sad. “It was my grandmother’s.”

  I try to catch his eye. “Cole.”

  His grandmother. The first Miss Meteor, decades ago.

  He’s lending me something that’s part of his family’s history, passed down and priceless.

  Kendra really is going to kill him.

  “You’re gonna need all of us to protect you once your sister finds out about this,” I say.

  “It’s not Kendra’s.” He lifts his eyes to my face. “It’s mine.”

  The sadness in him deepens.

  “What?” I ask.

  “My grandmother,” he says, “she died before she ever really got to know me. She thought maybe I’d grow out of being a boy and start being a girl. She even thought maybe I’d be Miss Meteor one day.” He tries to laugh, but it’s pained. “So she left this to me.”

  The Cole in front of me is so much the Cole I’ve always known, that I wonder how anyone could have missed it.

  “I’m sorry you lost her before she really saw you,” I say.

  “Thanks.” He smiles like he’s shaking it off.

  “Cole.”

  He meets my eyes again.

  “I can’t wear this.” I fold the dress back into the box. “It’s beautiful. What if I mess it up?”

  “I don’t care.” He sets the fabric back in my hands. “It’s yours now.”

  For a second, the sparkle off the dress leaves me dizzy.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I want you to have it,” he says. “Do you know how long this has been in my closet? And it doesn’t belong there. It’s part of a life I never belonged in.”

  “Doesn’t Kendra want it?”

  His laugh is slight and bitter. “She says it’s too old-fashioned.”

  Too old-fashioned?

  This is the kind of dress Grace Kelly would wear to a ball. It’s a gown Libertad Lamarque would wear while sitting on a flower-adorned swing.

  “How is your family gonna take me going out there in this?” I ask.

  “That’s not for them to say,” he says. “I’m giving it to you, and it’s yours now.”

  I don’t know if it’s the light, but for the first time I catch the gloss on his eyes, the flicker of shine at the corners.

  “But won’t seeing it”—I imagine him watching part of a past that was never his cross the stage on my body—“hurt you?”

  “I think if I see it on you, it won’t feel like it was ever supposed to be mine.” He shakes his head at the box. “It’ll be a different dress. Because it’ll be on you.”

  He is giving me part of a life he did not want.

  I kiss him on the cheek, like I’ve done for years. “Thank you.”

  “You’re gonna be great out there,” he says.

  “What?” I ask. “No last-minute advice?”

  As he gets back to standing, he nods to Uva. “I think you’ve got plenty.”

  “Didn’t I say this whole time you should be in blue?” Uva asks.

  I see her already thinking about how to style my soft curls, and which shade of rose-gold lip gloss to put on me.

  Uva stops Cole as he leaves. “You did good, kid.”

  Cole smiles. And it’s still a little sad, or maybe just tired. But there’s a peace, a kind of slow breath in it, that he didn’t have when he was still holding that box in his hands. “Thanks.”

  A minute after Cole leaves, I notice for the first time how small the waist is cut.

  It was made for Cole’s grandmother, who—I know from the photos—was both a tall woman and one with a full chest. But in all other respects, my body is softer, with more to it. The fact that I have
smaller breasts will not make enough room for the way I do not have a slender, willowy rib cage or a waist that looks as though it’s been gathered tight with drawstrings.

  There is a reason Bruja Lupe’s curandera friends call me little, but never skinny.

  “Uva.” I lean close into the only Quintanilla sister I have right now. “I am never gonna fit in this.”

  “You really think that didn’t occur to me?” Uva asks, “You think I didn’t plan for the fact that the Kendalls’ legacy of bony asses is a little different than ours?”

  “Uva,” I say her name slower this time. “I will never fit into this dress.”

  Or I will, and the zipper will crumble onstage, live in front of a crowd of cheering, blood-thirsty pageant enthusiasts.

  They will be cheering on the zipper rather than me.

  Uva reaches into her bag and holds up something that looks like a cross between a corset and a leotard. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

  Uva looks around for where we can squeeze me into it, away from the other contestants.

  I lift the dress out of its box again.

  Strapless.

  This fact sinks into my chest.

  Strapless, as in, the shimmering patches covering my arms and crawling onto my collarbone will show.

  “May I suggest an addition?”

  A voice I’ve known my whole life on this planet warms me.

  Like a fairy godmother, Bruja Lupe appears. I wonder how long she’s been watching.

  Her ubiquitous bolsa isn’t on her shoulder. My guess is it’s on a chair in the audience, holding her place.

  Even the tourists know better than to take a bruja’s purse.

  Bruja Lupe takes the white lace mantilla from around her shoulders.

  She sweeps it onto mine, the fine weave fluttering in the wind.

  When it lands on me, it feels like her blessing for this whole stupid, messy thing I wanted to do before I left this planet.

  Tears prick the corners of my eyes and well in my throat.

  “What if I can’t win?” I ask, my voice breaking. “What if I can’t stay?”

  Water glints at the corners of her eyes, and I see it, all the grief she’s been holding back because she didn’t want to set its weight on me.

  Bruja Lupe sets her hands on my shoulders, the mantilla between her palms and my sleeves. “Then leave the way you want to leave.”

  Chicky

  I SMELL LIKE chilies and garlic, and Junior’s shirt is flecked with paint—of course this is our first real date.

  The streets are strangely quiet as we move toward the town square—the site of the final pageant event. I’m strangely nervous when I think of wishing Lita luck. For better or worse, tonight is the night.

  Junior and I pick through the debris of the street fair, and we’re quiet, but we don’t let go of each other’s hands. Not even when people pass and look.

  “Isn’t that the one that just told the whole town she’s gay?” old Mrs. Leary, owner of Meteor’s only pet store, asks her daughter as she helps her up the street. “What’s she doing holding hands with a boy?”

  “Pansexual!” we shout at the same time, Junior’s deeper voice carrying mine even farther, and we walk away laughing, but we still don’t drop our hands.

  Normally, the final event of the Miss Meteor pageant is held in the school auditorium like the others, but with the massive influx of new tourists our little rock stunt pulled in, the planning committee worked fast to move it outside just to accommodate everyone.

  It comes into view now, at the end of Main Street, a massive stage standing in the middle of town square, strings of lights connecting signposts to trees to the gazebo roof and back, crisscrossing like a web of smaller stars opening for the main event.

  “There they are,” I say, pausing to take it in from a distance.

  The giant, rocket-shaped clock on the front of city hall is about ready to chime seven. The evening gown competition will begin in just a few minutes.

  And then I spot Lita, standing on the side of the stage, and I’m running.

  She looks beautiful, her dress a soft blue that deepens as it moves down her body, dotted with golden sequins that look just like stars. Her curls perfectly frame her face, her lips shining rose-gold in the twinkle lights above.

  She has one arm tucked behind her back, a beautiful white lace shawl across her shoulders, the stardust just peeking through for those of us who know. Lita—and Cole—decided to show this town exactly who Lita is tonight, and I’m so proud of her I think my heart just might bust right out of my chest.

  She looks like an old-Hollywood movie star. She looks like a beauty queen.

  She looks right at home.

  “Lita!” I catch her right before they call the contestants onto the stage, and she smiles like she’s been waiting for me. “I’m sorry! The diner got slammed, and—”

  “They told me!” she says. “It’s okay!”

  As if to prove it, she pulls her arm around to the front. In her hand is a gold headband with antennae attached, springs with sparkly gold balls like the kind you’d find in the Halloween aisle at Meteor Mart.

  She’s taking it back. The word Royce threw at her like a weapon. The word that man used to try to make her feel like she deserved this less. She’s folding it into her shimmering, shining self like a streak of stardust, and I was wrong before.

  Now she looks right at home.

  “I’m so . . .” But I don’t know what I am, except that I’m tearing up, because we’re here. And not just for some shallow revenge plan against our middle school bullies, but to show this town we belong. That we deserve to shine as much as anyone.

  I try to tell her all this with my eyes, because my throat seems to have closed completely.

  “Chicky?” Lita asks, as the girls all shuffle toward the stairs.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re my best friend in the world. My favorite thing about this planet. Just don’t forget that, okay?”

  “Lita . . . I . . .”

  “We’ll talk after. At the party. Over cupcakes. I just wanted you to know.”

  “It might not have gone like we planned,” I say, taking her lead. “But . . .”

  “Nothing ever does?” she asks, and her voice is a little proud and a little sad and I wish we had the last five years back. I wish it so much I feel like it’s visible on my skin.

  “Contestants to your places!”

  “Chicky, I’m going to hug you now if that’s all right.”

  “Yeah,” I say, laughing a little. “It’s all right.”

  The hug is one of those little kid affairs, like when you don’t want to leave your best friend’s house but your parents say you have to, and the hours between now and the next time you’ll be able to count all the sticky pennies in your piggy bank, or eat old Halloween candy, or play marbles, just seem endless.

  “Good luck,” I say into her hair, and then she’s marching up the stairs. Ready to shine.

  Junior must have been close by, because he finds me as they begin judging the gowns, each contestant displaying her choice as the judges confer.

  “Do you think she’ll win?” I ask Junior.

  “In a way, maybe she already did,” he says in that son-of-a-psychologist way. But he squeezes my hand, so I can’t even tease him.

  Though it probably feels like an eternity to Lita, it’s more like a second to me before Mr. Hamilton takes the mic.

  “And now, with the results of our evening gown competition in, here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! The announcement of the winner of the Fiftieth-Annual Meteor Regional Pageant and Talent Competition Showcase!”

  It’s hard to tell which I’m holding harder, my breath or Junior’s hand.

  “Just to remind you what’s at stake here, folks: The winner tonight will spend the year as Miss Meteor, sit on the planning committee of next year’s pageant, and of course, in honor of Meteor’s fiftieth anniversary, walk away with ten
thousand dollars in prize money.”

  “GO, LITA!” I yell, before I can stop myself, and Junior laughs with me as scandalized eyes dart our way in the crowd.

  “So, without further ado, the second runner-up in the Meteor Regional Pageant and Talent Competition Showcase, and the winner of the five-hundred-dollar cash prize is . . .”

  With every breath trapped in my body, I silently plead for them to not call Lita’s name right now.

  “Sara Rodriguez!”

  I’m so relieved I almost pass out, but I’m even more surprised when this girl—who is absolutely gorgeous, her dark-brown skin setting off the magenta of her strapless gown flawlessly—runs straight up to Lita and hugs her.

  “What?” I say, laughing. “Since when . . . ?”

  “Think this has anything to do with the mysterious drunken covenant?” Junior asks, and I laugh again, so loud people around us turn to hush me.

  When I settle down, I feel it in my somersaulting stomach that there are only two more spots to go. Runner-up, and the crown. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m pulling Junior through the crowd, realizing I’m too far away, that she won’t see me when they decide her fate up there.

  Our fate.

  People grumble and shout as Junior and I push through the crowd, two underdressed kids who are there and gone before they can lecture us about the sanctity of this moment. Like we don’t know better than any of them.

  We burst into the open air, a darkened area to the side of the stage where no one is standing, and I can tell we’re both holding our breath now.

  “The first runner-up, and the winner of the thousand-dollar cash prize is . . .”

  Has an envelope ever taken so long to open?

  “Estrellita Perez!”

  Something like an implosion is happening in my chest. She lost. But there’s a beaming smile on her face, a kind of acceptance, and her eyes are wide open as she hugs Sara again, and waves from the stage as the town claps around us, and it looks like she’s trying to take in everything she’s seeing all at once. Like she’s holding on to it.

  And I’m sad that we lost, but I’m so glad for everything we’ve gained, and Junior pulls me to his side as if he sees all that and wants to help me bear it until I can untangle it all, and I think: