“Like candle wax?” Mia asked.
“Why would we?” Jemma asked.
Tyra wrinkled her nose. “Because hairy legs are ugly. And shaving your underarms decreases body odor.”
Shaylinn twisted to smell her armpit. Smelled fine to her.
“Our goal today is to get you femmes beautified so you can meet the task director general on the Safe Lands ColorCast and attend the entertainment orientation,” Tyra said.
“I don’t want to meet the task director general,” Naomi said. “He ruined our lives.”
“This is mandatory,” Tyra said, “so you may as well make the best of it.”
“Fine,” Naomi said. “When I meet him, I’ll demand he take me to see Jordan.”
“Where are the men being kept?” Shaylinn asked, wondering where Omar might be.
“Please, ladies,” Tyra said. “The task director general is a wise man who deserves our respect. It’s a privilege to meet him.”
Naomi flubbed her lips. “None of you deserve my respect. You’re clearly all insane.”
“Let’s get back on track, all right? Wyndo: slides.” With Tyra’s words the picture on the windows changed from the Safe Lands logo to a picture of three women captured mid-walk, laughing, dressed in clothing that hugged their curves and bared their arms and legs. They wore high-heeled shoes and clutched each other’s arms as if they might fall over at any moment.
“Beauty,” Tyra said. “It’s every woman’s birthright, if not duty. It makes us happy, desirable. But one mustn’t judge beauty, for what’s beautiful to me may not be to you.”
Naomi coughed. “Hairy legs.” Shaylinn snickered.
Tyra pursed her lips. “Wyndo: next.” The screen flashed to a woman in a flowing red dress. “Wyndo: next.” Three women wearing yellow and black. “Wyndo: next.” A close-up of a woman’s red lips exhaling black vapor. “Wyndo: next.” An overweight woman dressed in a tight yellow dress that looked more like another layer of skin than clothing.
This time Mia giggled.
“Don’t judge.” Tyra scowled Mia’s way. “Melana Georjan is the star of Big is Beautiful.” Tyra pointed to Mia. “You. Come stand beside me.”
“What did I do?” Mia asked as she approached Tyra.
“You volunteered to be our first project, okay?” Tyra said. “One of the best things about living in the Safe Lands is the availability of glamour. The freedom to be beautiful.”
Shaylinn scooted to the edge of her seat.
“We are beautiful,” Jemma said, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
“But you do nothing to display it.” Tyra’s gaze roamed over Mia’s body. Shaylinn had always envied Mia’s looks, but Mia looked plain next to Tyra. Tyra was so sleek and vibrant in her black pants, while Mia looked faded in Old jeans and purple knit top. “Mia, you have so much potential beauty just waiting to be enhanced. You’re tall and have a great figure. Your skin is relatively clear, your coloring is nice. You don’t even need Roller Paint. You simply need some glossy clothes and to lighten that drab hair, maybe give it some curl. Perhaps some blue contact lenses or … lavender?” She tapped on her handheld Wyndo. “What do you think, Matron?”
Matron exhaled a plume of green vapor. “She could use a posture class as well. She slouches.”
Mia’s eyebrows sank low, and her eyes flashed. “I’m the prettiest girl in Glenrock. Why don’t you pick on someone who needs help? Like Shay.”
The impact of Mia’s words made Shay jump.
“Mia!” Jennifer said.
Jemma took hold of Shaylinn’s hand. Shaylinn looked down at her lap, noticing how tight her big legs made her dress, and how chubby her fingers were compared to Jemma’s.
“Sor-ry,” Mia said.
“You’ll all take a turn,” Tyra said, “then we’ll go to the salon and get started. Shaylinn, why don’t you come up next?”
Shaylinn shook her head. “I don’t want to.” She wanted help—to be beautiful. But she didn’t think she could take the humiliation.
“I’ll go next,” Jemma said, standing up.
“No, I want Shaylinn,” Tyra said. “I want to use Mia’s comment to make the point that everyone has something beautiful about themselves.”
“May as well get it over with, honey,” Kendall said, giving Shaylinn a side hug.
Jemma sat down, and Shaylinn made her way forward. She was taller than Tyra by a full head. She was sure her girth and frizzy hair made Tyra look like a stick drawing.
“Let’s see now.” Tyra tapped her finger to her lips and examined Shaylinn. “You have a lovely complexion and lots of long, curly hair. And your features are nicely balanced. Threading that lip and those eyebrows will make a big difference right away.” She made a quick note on her Wyndo. “Are you pleased with your weight? If so, you could work to gain more and audition for Big is Beautiful.”
“I don’t want to be on the TV,” Shaylinn said. “And I hate being fat.”
“Shay!” Jemma said. “You’re not fat.”
“I’ll put you down for a cosmetic consultation, then.” Tyra fiddled with her Wyndo. “And you might consider breast implants. I honestly don’t know how you turned out so curvy with no breasts!”
“She’s only fourteen,” Jemma said.
“Right. Tall for fourteen. Wait to get implants until your body is done growing.” She fingered Shaylinn’s hair. “Your hair is quite damaged. Do you brush it?”
Shaylinn shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“You should never brush curls like yours. Or, if you hate the curl, you can have it straightened. Truthfully, with your round face, the volume of your hair isn’t helping.”
Tears welled up in Shaylinn’s eyes, and she hung her head. These were all things she knew to be true. Ugly, ugly, ugly, just like Omar had said when they were little.
“Your skin is beautiful. But most of you girls could use an acne program.” Tyra lifted Shaylinn’s hand to look closer. “Is that dirt under your fingernails?”
“It’s probably leather. I was working a hide when the enforcers came.”
“A hide? But you’ve showered since, haven’t you?”
“Yes, ma —” Shaylinn stopped herself before saying ma’am. “I like the showers here.”
Tyra sighed and tapped on her Wyndo. “Manicures and pedicures for all.” She then launched into a long discussion of the best types of clothing to wear depending on each girl’s body type, using Shaylinn’s shape to call out ways to slenderize a waist or create correct proportions. Each term Tyra used was like a key to unlocking a strange yet hypnotic new language.
When Tyra finally let Shaylinn sit down, Jemma moved beside her and whispered, “I think you’re perfect already.”
Shaylinn blushed and leaned against Jemma’s side. Maybe, just maybe, if she let Tyra make her beautiful, Omar would ask to paint her.
The public humiliation continued. Naomi disputed each criticism Tyra dished out, but Shaylinn felt like Tyra made many good points. Shaylinn would love to know how to make her eyebrows look sculpted, and while the idea of different-colored eyes and breast implants scared her, she couldn’t help wonder how a cosmetic consultation could help her be thinner.
They spent the rest of the morning in the spa, where they all received new hairstyles, waxings, manicures, and pedicures. Kendall talked Shaylinn into getting bright red paint on her fingernails and toenails. Shaylinn thought it looked ridiculous, but Kendall said it was glossy.
Shaylinn loved her hair now. The stylist left it long enough that a few tendrils still reached her waist, but it no longer frizzed; instead, it curled in wide ringlets. It was so pretty.
Tyra’s assistants wheeled carts of clothing into the spa, and the girls tried different outfits. Some of the clothing was so ugly that the girls refused to try it, no matter how much Tyra begged. Shaylinn didn’t care. She had a great time trying it all. The most ridiculous was a fiery pink dress covered in matching feathers that made her look like a fluffy bird. She str
utted out of the dressing room and chirped until she had everyone laughing.
“Fortune, have mercy!” Tyra ran across the room. “Absolutely not! Take if off! I told you simple and streamlined for your body, Shaylinn.”
“I was just playing.” Shaylinn went back into the fitting room and made a nasty face at herself in the mirror, mocking Tyra.
Someone tossed a blue and white gown over the door. “Try this one, Shay,” Jemma said.
Shaylinn lifted it down to take a look. The fabric was a beautiful floral print of navy, cobalt, periwinkle, and white. The dress had a V-neck—maybe too deep—an empire inset waistband, and a full pleated skirt that stopped just above her knees.
Shaylinn sighed at its beauty, knowing that something like this would never fit. She put it on anyway. She stepped out of the fitting room, smiling so wide that she covered her mouth with her hand.
“Oh, Shay! I love it!” Jemma said.
“Me too, honey,” Naomi said. “You look mad gorgeous!”
“It’s not my favorite on you,” Tyra said. “I’d rather see you in black, even a pale yellow.”
“I mimic no one,” Shaylinn said, quoting Matron, “and I love this dress.”
“But your skin is dark enough that pale yellow would be glossy with your dark hair.”
“I’m not changing.” Shaylinn ran her hands over the skirt, admiring the soft fabric and the piping that edged the inset waist. It made her feel like one of Jemma’s fairy tale princesses.
Shaylinn got to keep the dress. Jemma chose a lacy red dress with a black belt. Mia was wearing a slinky, floor-length black dress with bright yellow squiggly lines. Kendall picked a brown and orange floral chiffon dress. And Tyra talked Naomi into a royal blue satin dress.
Once everyone had shoes and jewelry to match, Tyra took the girls to a theater on the opposite end of the harem building. Shaylinn stumbled along in a pair of high-heeled white sandals. They’d seemed comfortable at first, but were soon pinching her toes and were becoming hard to walk in.
“Sit somewhere in the middle ten seats of the first three rows,” Tyra said. “We want the camera to make the theater look full, and we’ve only got about thirty people here tonight.”
A handful of people were already sitting in the front of the theater, including the older women from Glenrock —Jennifer, Chipeta, Aunt Mary, and Eliza. Mia hugged her mother. Naomi and Jemma ran to talk to the ladies. Shaylinn chose to stay beside Kendall in the middle of the third row. Seeing Mia and her mother together made Shaylinn miss her own mother, and Penelope and Nell too. Why weren’t they here?
A bald man stood in the center of the stage, fussing over a microphone. He wore black gloves and had a funny black tattoo that covered half his head. “Testing, one, two, three, four …”
Shaylinn glanced over her shoulder. In back of the room, in a small black booth, two men were working, one standing behind a camera as big as he was. Both men wore headsets.
“Those gloves he wears make me think of the evil Count Rugen, the six-fingered man from The Princess Bride,” Jemma said, sitting down on Shaylinn’s left. Jemma was always referring to that film. She lowered her voice to a whisper and seemed to say to herself, “Maybe it’s a sign Levi will come for me like Westley did for Buttercup.”
“Ladies,” Tyra said. “In a moment Luella Flynn is going to film an intro. It’s thrilling, I know. So I need you all to be quiet while we’re taping, but applaud when you’d like, okay?”
Shaylinn wondered how many of the girls would clap. Mia seemed to be enamored with everything around them, but Naomi and a few of the other Glenrock women were sitting with crossed arms, staring at the stage. Shaylinn decided she would clap only if someone made her.
Tyra greeted a familiar-looking woman who stood on the far right of the stage. The woman was wearing a blood-red sweater and a tight, black, knee-length skirt. Her brown hair was twisted into a mound on the top of her head and studded with what appeared to be diamond flowers. She held a microphone with the letters SLC displayed on a square box under the foam head.
“That’s Luella Flynn from the Finley and Flynn show,” Kendall whispered. “I guess we’re done with yellow and black. Just wait—everyone will be wearing those diamond flowers. And black and red. Jemma, you match her!”
Jemma groaned. “Now I’ll look like I mimicked her.”
Shaylinn thought back to the TV show she’d seen that morning. “But Luella had black hair.”
Kendall smirked. “She changes her hair a lot. The brown is new. And so is the length. Probably a wig.”
“Thirty seconds!” the cameraman yelled.
The women stopped whispering. Shaylinn continued to look back and forth between the stage and the men in the back, trying to understand what they were doing. Tyra ran onstage to retrieve one of Luella’s diamond flowers off the floor.
“Ten seconds!”
“I keep losing those little beasties,” Luella said, pushing at one of the flowers in her hair.
“In five, four, three, two …”
“Thanks, Finley,” Luella said, her smile radiant. “Precious viewers, I’m live at the Champion Theater in the Highland Harem, juiced to meet the new conscripts. But first, the task director general is going to present a short greeting to the new nationals.”
Luella went silent for a moment. “I haven’t seen our newest queen. Yet. Rumor is she’s seven months pregnant, which puts her delivery just two months behind Kendall Collin’s. Now, I’m as stimmed as the rest of the Safe Lands about the prospect of two infant nationals, so I promise to get to the bottom of this to-day so we can see this miracle woman for ourselves.”
The cameraman held up his hand. “We’re clear.”
Luella slouched and dropped the microphone to her side. “Just a little break for some product expos,” she told the audience. “Did I lose any more clips?”
“No, you’re fine,” Tyra said from the side of the stage.
“Is the new pregnant girl out there?” Luella squinted into the audience.
“Right here!” Mia waved and pointed to Naomi.
“Thanks a lot, Mia,” Naomi mumbled.
“Ug! I can’t see you, femmy! The lights are too bright.” Luella crouched and squinted at the audience.
“They aren’t going to make me go up there, are they?” Naomi asked.
“Of course,” Kendall said, “though they’ll make me go up first.”
“Why?” Shaylinn asked.
“Because I’m their spokesmodel. They want people to want to be like us.”
“Pregnant?” Naomi said.
“Exactly.”
“That’s so weird,” Shaylinn said. She hoped they escaped before that Ciddah woman summoned her, but after she got the magical cosmetic consultation.
“No, that’s psychotic,” Naomi said. “These people are nuts.”
“Back in thirty!” the cameraman yelled.
“Kendall!” Tyra tottered up the aisle on her heels, waving. “I need you.”
“Here we go.” Kendall eased out of her chair and inched down the row, using the seat backs as a crutch. Tyra urged Kendall to hurry, but the girl had only one speed. Slow.
“In ten!”
Shaylinn watched Tyra help Kendall up the short flight of steps to the stage. A woman swooped in, fluffed Kendall’s hair, and applied something to her face.
The cameraman spoke from the back of the room. “And five, four, three, two …”
On stage, Luella lifted the microphone in front of her chin. “I give you the task director general of the Safe Lands, Lawten Renzor.”
Scattered applause broke out from the small crowd. Shaylinn wasn’t about to clap for the leader of her captors. The man walked to the center of the stage. He was wearing a black suit with a black shirt and tie underneath. He didn’t look very special.
“Greetings, conscripts. As Task Director General of the Safe Lands, I oversee all facets of our beloved city. As you now know, female nationals are summoned to
serve a term in the Highland Harem every two years. Since you’re new to our city, we’ve asked you to serve immediately. This provides you with a safe place to learn our ways and a chance at a successful surrogacy.”
“Before we all catch the plague and die,” Naomi whispered to Jemma.
Shaylinn frowned. It was a morbid thought that seemed quite true.
“I’m sure you’ve discovered that the harem is a wonderful place to live,” the task director said. “Matron Dlorah informed me you’ve been through orientation, task testing, and have been ranked for surrogacy. Congratulations on making it this far.”
Jemma folded her arms. “Why’s he trying to turn being kidnapped into some kind of competition? It’s not like we chose to be here.”
“He’s just hoping we’re as dumb as the people who live here,” Naomi said.
But Shaylinn didn’t think that Tyra or Kendall were dumb. Tyra was blunt, but she knew her job and did it well. And Kendall was so nice.
“As you all know, Kendall Collin is our beloved queen,” the task director said. “You’ve likely seen her gorgeous face smiling at you from DigiBoards and Wyndos all over our city. My receptionist even has Kendall’s picture as the background on her GlassTop.”
This got a chuckle from the people in the front row.
“Let’s give a warm welcome to Luella Flynn and Kendall Collin,” the task director said.
Shaylinn looked back to the side of the stage. Arm in arm, Luella and Kendall walked toward the task director. He stepped back from the microphone and applauded. The Safe Lands nationals seated with the harem stood, cheering. One whistled. Another yelled Kendall’s name. Shaylinn wondered if she should stand. Mia had, but Jemma and Naomi were still sitting.
She stayed in her seat as Kendall and Luella reached center stage.
The task director hugged Kendall and kissed her cheeks. “How are you, Ms. Collin?”
Kendall peered at the audience and said in a thin voice, “I’m doing good.”
“You’re looking good!” Luella said into her microphone, and nationals in the audience cheered.
“Naomi!” a voice whispered. Tyra stood at the end of the row, waving.
“I’m not going up there!” Naomi said.
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