“So,Amber, is it?” I asked. I paused, trying to use up minutes.
“Yes, Amber. It was my mother’s favorite stone, and she has always said I was exactly what she ordered, and so she named me Amber. How did you get the name Savannah?” she asked. Then she flipped her hair back with her perfectly French-manicured nails, revealing her absolutely flawless skin, but not following my lead in the slightest.
“Oh, it’s a long story.”
Vicky missed the clue.“I named her Savannah because I grew up here and have always loved this city. It was my favorite place and she was exactly what I ordered as well.”
“Oh, that is one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard. Isn’t she the sweetest lady you would ever want to meet? I could just put her in my purse and take her home,” she said, lifting up her pretty little designer bag and opening it up like she wanted Vicky to hop in. I knew at that exact moment that attempting to follow any journalistic agenda was hopeless.
I was sitting at a table with two women who didn’t quite measure all the way up to the normal scale. They were normal on their own scale, the beauty queen, live and breathe, never-had-a-greater-dream kind of scale. That scale required little interactive conversation. So, I just sat back, drank my Earl Grey tea, ate my crab cakes, and watched them dine on skimpy salads, water with lemon, and the fancy house tea while they told their own stories back and forth as if hearing them for the first time. That is exactly what I did for two solid hours.
Amber sipped her water with her left pinkie sticking out as if she was competing even now. “Savannah, your mother said you were never interested in beauty pageants.” I nodded emphatically, assuring her she was exactly right.“Well, I’ve competed in pageants ever since I was little. I’ll never forget the very first one. It was called ‘Little Miss Savannah.’ I’ve lived here all my life, so that’s why I competed in ‘Little Miss Savannah.’” I about rolled my eyes, figuring she was certain I couldn’t have come up with that on my own. This made me feel fortunate that I hadn’t moved here until I was old enough to ensure my escape from such things.
“I was pathetic. I’d never been in a pageant before, and my mother had never seen a pageant for little girls, but I entered it anyway. We had to compete in swimsuit and “party dress,” they called it. So, my mom bought me a metallic fuchsia swimsuit and white sandals, that are back in style now, you know, the kind where the strap goes between the toes, not those flip-flop kind of things. I can’t believe people even wear those today. Can you, Miss Victoria?” she asked, looking over at my mother.
“Well, they do make some cute ones nowadays,”my mother said rather diplomatically. I propped my foot up on her side of the booth.
“Well, I don’t think ladies should be caught dead in those things. They ought to outlaw them this side of the Mason-Dixon line. They are just ghastly. Anyway, my mother bought me those cute ones where the strap comes up between your toes then connects to a strap that buckles around your ankle. Now, the white and fuchsia kind of clashed. I probably looked like all feet,” she said, laughing at her own story. She put her hand over her chest as if it was almost more than she could handle.
During her treatise I gave a few nods, a few smiles, and a few raised right eyebrows, assuring them I was mentally present. My mother kept looking at me to gauge my politeness level. She even cast a couple of “this girl is a little too much” expressions my way. I was glad she had us to compare to each other.
“Oh, I bet it was as cute as it could be,” Vicky said to reassure her.
“Well, I doubt it, and it only gets worse from there. Then,Mama bought me a pretty little pastel pink church dress—notice I didn’t say party dress—and she put black patent-leather shoes on my feet, with white knee-socks,” she said, doubling over in laughter. Even I knew that would have been a pretty pathetic combination.
“You’re not serious,” Vicky exclaimed in true horror.“She put a pink dress on you and black patent-leather shoes?”
“Yes, and sent me out there on that stage to compete against eight-year-old pros with absolutely no modeling experience of my own. I clomped around on that stage from one end to the other. I had no idea what in the world I was doing, but I was too young to know any better,” she said, beside herself in hysterics now.
“That is just awful . You poor thing. Were you scarred?”Vicky asked in all seriousness.
She paused long enough to pick up a piece of lettuce and place it in her mouth as if she might blow up like a house.“No. In fact, when we were walking to the car, my mother said, ‘I bet you won’t ever want to do that again, will you?’ I told her that if I could get a new swimsuit, a new dress, and two new pairs of shoes, I would do it anytime. At that moment, she created a beast. That was how the journey of my career began,” she said, meaning every word she had just spoken. She had made a career out of beauty pageants.
Mother picked up a slightly larger bite of her own salad. Vicky at least appreciated food. She had a great figure for her age, but she wasn’t obsessed about her weight. And her excellent cooking was something she wasn’t going to let only other people appreciate. But in public, she ate a little more refined.“So what did you do next?”
“Well,my next pageant was the Miss Snow White Pageant. My mother had gotten it down by now. I had me a great party dress. This pageant actually had talent too, and I am a rather fabulous little singer. I mean American Idol didn’t appreciate me when I competed for them last year, but,well, that Simon Cowell, he’s just a mean ol’ meany.”
I determined she was of the ADD family too. “A mean ol’ meany, huh?” I tried to stop myself, but it came out anyway.
“Yes, just downright rude. I told him he needed to come to the South and learn some manners. I didn’t know what they taught him over there in England, but here we didn’t say such cruel things to people.”
“What did he say to you?”
“It’s just too horrible to repeat, Savannah.”
“Oh,we won’t tell anyone. I promise.” I figured I could blame rumors on any one of the other thirty million viewers who’d already heard.“Your secret is perfectly safe with us. Right, Mother?”
Even Vicky was dying to know about this, so she chimed in, “Yes, absolutely. Not a word to another living, breathing soul.”
“Well, OK. But I promised I would never even give him the privilege of repeating it. He had the audacity to tell me I sounded like the girl in the movie Shrek that made the bird explode. And if I sang much longer, he was certain he would have exploded.”
My hysterics were lost on her.“So anyway,” she continued.“In that pageant I competed in talent and swimsuit. And I won. I didn’t win talent but I did win the overall title, which let me compete in the state pageant. The girl who had won first runner-up and talent here in Savannah was able to go to the state pageant too. She beat me at state, which I still don’t understand how that happened, and I won’t tell you her name, because you probably know her, and I don’t want to sound petty.” She came up for air. “But after that, I had the bug and knew that one day I wanted to be Miss United States of America.”
“Oh,Amber, you’ve got to tell Savannah some of those stories you told me, about what the girls did while you competed in pageants. They are just hysterical,” Vicky prodded.
“Oh yes, do tell,” I added.
“Oh, I did see some funny things through the years. The funniest though was this one poor soul who I competed with my first year in Miss Savannah,” she said. She must have noticed my perplexed look, when she said “first year.” “Yeah, I competed in Miss Savannah United States of America three times before I won. And this will be my fourth time in Miss Georgia United States of America.
“Anyway, one of the girls was going to wear a dress her mother had made for her evening-gown competition. It was a one-shoulder-strapped evening gown in royal blue.” I had no idea how this girl remembered all of this stuff and wasn’t about to stop her to ask. “So, when she competed she didn’t think her gown fit
well, but she went out there anyway. After the pageant was over and she went to take her gown off, she realized that she had worn it backward. Worn it backward!” she said, heehawing and slapping the table. Vicky laughed as if she were hearing it for the first time too.
“Can you imagine walking out in a dress where your, your”— Amber leaned in closer and said in the most delicate of whispers— “where your boobies are in the back?”
I was ashamed I had even leaned in for that one. “She didn’t know she had her dress on backward because it didn’t have a tag in it since her mother had made it. Her mother came backstage and asked her if she couldn’t tell”—here we went again, as she leaned in—“that her boobies were in the back.”
I could only picture that poor girl being traumatized for the rest of her life. She would forever be known as the girl with her “boobies in the back.”
“I bet her mother dressed her for the rest of her competitions,” Vicky said, finding her own self rather charming.
Amber showed a hint of compassion for the young lady who would forever be checking the tags in her clothes before donning her attire for the day. “Actually she never competed again.” Her sadness left as quickly as it had come, and the giddy storyteller was back.
“Yeah, I’ve seen a thousand incredible sights in my years. I’ve seen girls add ‘extra personality’ by winking at the judges during their swimsuit competitions when their mothers meant for them to add it in their talent competition. I’ve seen girls play drums who shouldn’t have, dance who couldn’t, and sing who,well, let’s just say dogs in the near vicinity are still not the same.”There was a final pause as she placed her napkin over her half-remaining salad.
“Oh, this has been fun, hasn’t it, girls?” she said, getting a nod and a smile from Vicky and as much as I could muster from myself. “I do hope we can do this again soon. I have a thousand more stories. And, Savannah, I just loved getting to know you. You are one of the neatest people I have ever talked to.”
“Thank you, I’m glad we had this time together too.”
“Well, I need to get home. I’m meeting with a dress designer today to see if she can copy a dress I saw Julia Roberts wear to the Academy Awards last year. I think it would be simply elegant to compete in. You know Julia Roberts filmed a movie here? I was an extra in it. She and I would have been great friends too, but they wouldn’t let me get near her,” she said, rolling her eyes. I was amazed at the discernment of the Hollywood elite.
“Well, kisses, kisses!” she said, leaning over to my mother and pretending to kiss her on the cheek. She came at me, but I shot out a hand and practically punched her in the stomach. And after another ferocious shake, she turned to descend the stairwell in true beauty-pageant style. Her tight white Capris were paired with a black sweater that had one shoulder out and a small sleeve on the other arm, seemingly similar to that backward-dressing victim. Her three-inch heels met each step with grace and ease. But she turned back suddenly, her pretty, preppy purse dangling from a dainty arm. “Oh, my word, I almost forgot. I’ve got to run to the drugstore and refill my subscription. I have allergies, you know. And no one wants to see a beauty queen with her nose dripping.”
“I think you mean prescription,” I said, trying to stifle my embarrassment for her. My mother cut me a glance because she knew it wasn’t polite to correct people in such a manner. But as far as I was concerned, my politeness quota had been tapped an hour and a half earlier.
“Yes, that’s what I said, prescription. So see you precious little ladies later.” And she went back into cascading mode.
I could not control myself any longer.“Oh,Amber.”With the mention of her name, she stopped and turned in model pose to see whatever it could be that I wanted now.
“Yes?” she asked still in full stance.
“I think . . . oh my goodness . . . I think I see your tag sticking out in the front of your sweater.”The look on her face was worth the two hours I had been forced to surrender. As she pulled the front of her shirt out to make sure there wasn’t a tag resting on her neckline, I decided to deliver her.
“I’m just joking,” I said, laughing. She didn’t laugh back. “Actually, I was hoping you’d let me see your Miss Georgia United States of America program book sometime.”Vicky looked at me with wide-eyed disbelief. Why in the world would I be asking for such a thing from Amber? I tried to dispel her thousand questions by adding, “The one thing I always enjoyed about Mother’s was checking out the hairstyles.” I know it sounded totally lame, but Amber would think I thought it was chic and Mother would think I just wanted to make fun of them. Both would believe that either was reason enough.
“Sure. I’ll drop it by this evening,” she said with a quick wave and a wink, and with that, pageant’s greatest ode to itself walked out the door, and the eyes of every man in the room followed close behind.
Mother wiped her mouth and placed her own napkin in her plate. “Savannah, thank you for being so kind. At least until those final moments.”
“It wasn’t too hard when you don’t have to say anything for two hours,” I said emphasizing the last five words. “Mother, truly, you must think that girl is over the top,” I said, getting up from my seat and holding out my hand to help her up as well.
She smiled and took my extended hand,“Slightly!”
“Slightly?”
Then she laughed, wrapped her arm around my shoulder, and walked with me down the stairs and out the door to the street, whispering in my ear, “Drastically! But you have to admit she is very entertaining.”
“If that’s your choice of entertainment,” I said. It was a comfort for me to remember that somewhere underneath it all Mother was more human than I often gave her credit for. She gave me a kiss and said she was going to shop awhile. I sat in my car watching her walk down the street. She entered a quaint shop up from the Tea Room. In spite of it all, I was thankful that she was mine. And even more grateful that she wasn’t the girl who would be forever known as Miss Boobies in the Back. Some things were just too horrific even for willing participants.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Amid thoughts of high heels, bad talent, and evening-gown malfunctions, Mrs. Harvard’s words raced through my mind again and again: “Longevity is the key, and the question is what could be gained.” As far as I could tell, only two people had been involved in this pageant promenade longer than dirt: Mr. Cummings III and the director himself. As most things dysfunctional start at the top, that seemed the place to begin.
I headed back to the library to see what Mr. Cummings III was up to now. I wasn’t even sure if he was alive to be up to something at all, since his son had taken over judging for him, but I’d start at the top and work my way through those Cummingses until I reached Adam if need be. The Jackson, Mississippi, phone book held a Mr. Randolph Cummings III and IV.
I was probably stupid to just pick up the phone and call cold. What was I going to say,“Hey,Mr. Cummings, are you a creep? Do you take pleasure in rigging a beauty pageant? Do you not have a life?” As soon as I asked myself that, it was clear the real question was missing:Why? Why would Mr. Cummings be willing to fix a beauty pageant? What would he gain? Why was he the one chosen to change his scores, if indeed he had? Either he was a man with no backbone or he was a man who had something to lose.
I didn’t stand much to gain by a phone call. What was he going to do, give me a confessional right over the telephone line? This would take a trip to Jackson, Mississippi. Work started Monday, so unless I was planning to do a story on why people had fish heads on the downspouts of their gutters, I needed to head to Jackson.
I wrote down both the business and home addresses and phone numbers of all of the Cummingses, then made my way to Jake’s for a talk. Nearly there, I heard the clicking of high heels and the whooshing of cascading following close behind. My greatest horror and newest fear called out, waving her arms in front of her face and all but skipping down the sidewalk.“Savannah, hey it’s me,Amber.
Remember, we just had lunch together?”
“Yeah, I remember!”
“I have that program book you wanted. In fact I brought you all of mine. I was going to run them by your house, but figured you probably hadn’t even had time to get home yet. Do you want to sit down and look at them together?” she asked, hopeful. Looking at the stack of rather large program books, I politely declined.
“So you’ve done this three times already?”
“Yes, I know they say third time’s a charm, but to be honest with you, the third time su— Oh, my word, I almost said something very unladylike. Slap me and call my mama. But I believe four is fabulous, fantastic, and philanthropic. I’m not exactly sure what philanthropic means, but it is just a great word to say.”
“No, it’s OK, I understand,” I said, looking at her with pity at the possibility that she actually thought philanthropic started with an f. I was still trying to gauge whether she was imbalanced or simply overprocessed. “And sorry, I would love to sit down and go through these with you, but I have to take a really quick trip. But I promise, I will get these back to you very soon. Maybe we can even have lunch again.” I could have slapped myself.
“Oh, that would be wonderful. Let’s do it soon. I have a thousand more pageant stories to tell you. I know, let’s meet Monday.”
“Actually, I start work on Monday and my friend Paige and I, well, we set aside that day every week to catch up. How about Tuesday?”
“Oh, that’ll be just fabulous. I’ll try to go back and see if I can find some more pictures to show you. I could even bring my crown. Oh, Savannah,we are going to have so much fun! You take care now. I’ll see you soon,” she said, beaming.“I just know we are going to be the best of friends.”
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