Red

by Alison Cherry

  “As ready as I’m going to be.” Felicity struck her first pose.

  The opening trumpet riff began, and she started dancing, trying to block out Ella-Mae’s voice and concentrate on the steps. Ginger, on the other hand, swayed to the music with a blissful expression on her face and hummed along:

  Red is the color of my kissable lips,

  and red is the color of my heart.

  Red is the color of the pain I endure

  whenever life keeps us apart.

  Red is the color of my passion for you,

  it’s been this way right from the start.

  Red is the color of my sizzlin’-hot love,

  and red is the color of my heart.

  Felicity’s muscle memory kicked in, and at first the routine went surprisingly well. But when she reached the difficult series of Maxie Ford turns near the middle of the second verse, she stumbled and lost her place. Ginger clapped to emphasize the downbeat and shouted, “Shuffle ball change! Cincinnati flam! Come on, Felicity, pick it up!” But once Felicity lost the flow, she had a hard time getting back into her groove. Even when Ginger started tapping along with her, she didn’t get back on track until close to the end of the song. Her last sets of scissor wings were crisp and impressive, but when she struck her final pose, she wasn’t surprised to find her mother scowling at her.

  The fog of resentment receded, and panic rushed in to take its place. She should have practiced more, regardless of what she thought of Ella-Mae. If she performed like that at the pageant, her art school dream would be dead in the water faster than she could say “national redhead sanctuary.” Plus, she had made her mother furious, and she wasn’t about to get away with it.

  “What was that?” Ginger demanded. “Have you been practicing at all? God, Felicity, I’d have kept a much closer eye on you if I’d known things had gotten this bad! You are really far behind, and you’re going to have to work your little butt off to get back in the running!” She massaged her temples.

  Felicity squirmed, amazed at how small her mom could make her feel. “Mom, it’s going to be fine. I’ll work harder. I’m just a little rusty, that’s all. But the pageant’s not for two weeks, so I have plenty of time to get it perfect, and I will. I swear I’m not going to embarrass you.”

  “You’d better not. How does it look if the pageant director’s own daughter can’t even stumble through a three-minute routine?” She thumped the table where the speakers were sitting for emphasis. “Jesus, you can do so much better than that, and you know it. You could win if you just worked harder! But you have to want it, Felicity. The judges have to see that fire in you. Do you want to win? Do you care at all about helping this family, after everything I’ve sacrificed for you? Or are you just going to let this prize slip right through your fingers? Because if you’re not willing to work, I’m wasting my time trying to help you.”

  Felicity looked deep into her mother’s eyes and saw the fear that lurked behind the anger. It wasn’t just her own dream that was on the line. Ginger had put everything she had into preparing her daughter to be Miss Scarlet. And now that dream was crumbling to pieces, and it was all Felicity’s fault.

  Felicity swallowed hard. “I want to win,” she said.

  “Good. Then let’s get to work.”

  If there was one thing Ginger knew how to do, it was whip a pageant girl into shape. For more than a decade, nearly all the pageant mothers in town had hired her to coach their girls. But business was lagging this season, as all the other parents feared Ginger might sabotage their daughters in favor of her own. As Felicity practiced her Maxie Ford turns over and over, she cursed the fact that she was being subjected to twelve girls’ worth of attention. But she also had to admit that her mom’s methods worked wonders. Two hours later, she was drenched in sweat, and her tap routine was flawless.

  “That’s enough for now,” Ginger finally said. “Let’s take a quick break, and then we’ll work on your walks and poses and your personal introduction. Go get the rest of your competition shoes.” She handed Felicity a water bottle and a towel, then patted her sweaty back. “You really pulled it together, baby. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” Felicity said. Much as she hated to admit it, her mom’s approval made her feel better.

  While Ginger checked on the twins, Felicity went up to her room to retrieve her heels—black ones for her personal introduction, red ones to go with her swimsuit, and silver ones to match her evening gown. She also checked her voice mail, but there were no messages, and her email in-box was empty, too. She tried not to let it bother her too much; Haylie probably just needed some time to cool down. But Felicity couldn’t help feeling as if she had done permanent damage to their friendship.

  She returned to the basement, buckled her first pair of shoes, and spent the next hour practicing her poses and pageant walks—bouncy and energetic for the swimsuit portion, smooth and elegant for the evening wear competition. Ginger hovered and buzzed around her like an annoying dragonfly, adjusting Felicity’s body by millimeters and saying, “Feel that? See how that tiny head tilt makes such a difference?” It all felt pretty much the same to Felicity, but she tried her best to remember each angle and posture. Then she practiced her thirty-second introduction over and over as her mom corrected her inflection and pacing, told her when to pause and smile, and reminded her over and over how important first impressions were. She didn’t seem to remember that several of the judges had known Felicity since her birth.

  Finally, Ginger nodded with satisfaction. “Good job. I just want to do one last thing, and then we’ll be done. Can you put your tailcoat on and try your tap routine one more time? I brought it down for you.”

  Felicity was exhausted, and the last thing she wanted to do was repeat her routine. “Why? It’s not like it’s any different with the jacket.”

  “Just put it on, baby.” Ginger pointed at a chair in the corner, and Felicity noticed for the first time that her costume was draped over the back.

  “Why is it in plastic?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “It’s just a little surprise for you. Go on, take a look!”

  Felicity approached the chair with apprehension. She had chosen her tap costume because it was simple and classic: a short black jacket with tails, a black sequined tank top, black pants with tuxedo stripes, and a silver belt. It wasn’t nearly flashy enough for Ginger’s taste, and Felicity was terrified of what her mom might have done to it. But when she peered down at the jacket, it looked exactly the same as it always had. What was her mom so excited about?

  “Look at the back!” Ginger urged.

  Felicity picked up the jacket and flipped it over.

  The back of her simple, no-frills tailcoat was now decorated with an enormous red heart made of tiny, sparkly jewels. It looked like something Topher Gleason might wear to a Valentine’s Day dance. Felicity was speechless with dismay. “Wow,” she choked out.

  “Isn’t it amazing? Linda at the tailor did such a wonderful job. I knew you would love it. It spices up the outfit so much, don’t you think? This’ll really make you stand out to the judges, especially because it matches your music. Try it on!”

  There was no use resisting. Felicity freed the costume from its plastic sheath and slipped it on over her tank top. Her mom squealed with delight when she turned around and displayed her bejeweled back.

  “It’s perfect,” Ginger declared, squeezing her. “Perfect for my winner.”

  Felicity submitted to the hug. “Thanks, Mom,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. “It was really nice of you to do this.” She tried not to think about how much money her mom had probably spent on this jacket.

  “It was my pleasure. Now do the routine for me one more time. I want to see how the jacket looks when you dance.”

  So Felicity sighed, laced her tap shoes back up, and did the routine again, the heart on her back winking and sparkling in the light.

  10

  MONDAY, MAY 17 />
  When Felicity got to school, Ivy was waiting at her locker alone. Felicity held out her coffee cup to see if the morning routine was still intact, and she was relieved when Ivy reached for it with no hesitation. Her friend took her customary gulp and handed the cup back with a sigh. “Felicity, this has to stop.”

  “What, the coffee? I only have one cup a day.”

  Ivy frowned. “No, not the coffee. You and Haylie have to make up. All she did the entire weekend was obsess over why you didn’t nominate her for prom queen. I can’t listen to it for one more second or I’m going to puncture my own eardrums with a fork.”

  So Haylie’s fury was subsiding—that was good news. Angry Haylie was impossible to reason with, but hurt Haylie just needed love and validation, things Felicity could easily provide. “I tried calling her seven or eight times to apologize, but she never got back to me,” Felicity said. “I assumed she was still too pissed to talk.”

  “She is. But she also keeps saying she thinks we’re losing you and that you don’t like us anymore. She’s afraid you’re still going to be fighting by prom and that ‘everything will be ruined.’ And she made me go shopping for pageant shoes with her for three hours. Seriously, Felicity, you have to do something.”

  “I hate that we’re not speaking, too, but I can’t talk to her if she won’t listen. Will you tell her I really want to work things out whenever she’s ready?”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell her.” Ivy was quiet for a minute as she picked at the fraying sleeve of her hoodie. “Hey, Felicity?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why didn’t you nominate her?”

  The prospect of thinking up another lie made Felicity feel heavy. “I … I really can’t talk about it. I’m sorry, Ives. Can you just trust me when I say that it had nothing to do with Haylie? And that I feel awful about it and wouldn’t have done it if there had been another option?”

  Ivy shrugged. “I just don’t get how something like that is unavoidable. Are you in trouble or something?”

  “Well … kind of.” It was both frightening and comforting to say that out loud for the first time. “But I’m handling it.”

  “Trouble like ‘I plagiarized my English paper,’ or trouble like ‘I have six dismembered bodies in the trunk of my car’?”

  “Closer to the first one. But it’s nothing like that.”

  “Does it have to do with Gabby? Did she force you into this somehow?”

  Felicity swallowed hard. “I … I mean, I really can’t …”

  “Okay, I get it. You can’t say. But is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Thanks, Ives, but I don’t think so. It’s just something I have to work out on my own.”

  “If you say so. But if you need me, just ask.” The first bell rang, and Ivy turned to go. “I have to get to physics.”

  “Okay. I’m really sorry you and Haylie got caught up in this. And I’m extra sorry you had to go shoe shopping.”

  “It was horrible, Felicity. It was worse than that day with the bikinis freshman year.” She shuddered at the memory. “See you at lunch, maybe?”

  Felicity was so relieved to be welcomed back to her usual table that she felt as if she might levitate, but then she remembered her prom committee meeting. The juniors and seniors were voting for prom king and queen this morning. “Crap, I have to count ballots at lunch,” she said.

  “Okay. Hey, I have a swim meet at four-thirty, if you and Haylie want to come. Maybe you could talk.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Tell her I’ll meet her there.”

  “Cool. Later.”

  As she was closing her locker, Haylie’s friend Vanessa passed by with a few other girls from the dance troupe. “Hey, Vanessa!” Felicity called.

  Vanessa’s face hardened when she spotted Felicity. She gestured for her friends to go on without her. “What’s up?” she said with a tight smile.

  “Listen, I was hoping you could text some of the dance troupe girls and tell them to vote for Haylie today. If we all vote for her, maybe we can bump out some of the cheerleaders and—”

  “Way ahead of you,” Vanessa interrupted. “A bunch of us are already voting for her. I thought you’d be voting for yourself, though.”

  “Haylie cares about it more than I do. I just want her to have a chance.”

  Vanessa’s expression softened. “That’s cool of you,” she said. “I’ll text the girls again to make sure, okay?”

  “Thanks. That’d be great.”

  Felicity made it to History of Redheadedness just as the bell was ringing. Mr. Cavender was standing at the front of the room, next to the large poster that proclaimed YOUR MC1R GENE IS YOUR MOST PRECIOUS RESOURCE! He was holding a stack of hot-pink ballots by the corners, as if he were afraid the color might rub off on his hands.

  “Good morning, future leaders of America,” he said. “Before we continue talking about Queen Elizabeth the First, I’m going to distribute your prom court ballots. Please vote for one boy and one girl. The top five nominees will be posted outside the main office after school.”

  When Felicity got her ballot, she checked the box next to Haylie’s name. Then she folded the paper in half and slipped it into the envelope on Mr. Cavender’s desk, awash in the calm that comes from finally doing the right thing.

  The prom committee congregated at lunch to count the votes. Madison tallied the scores on the dry-erase board as the count from each classroom was verified, making hash marks next to the nominees’ names. The votes seemed scattered at first, but by the time half the ballots had been counted, patterns started to emerge. Felicity was pleased to see that Haylie was doing well.

  Unfortunately, her own total was just a little bit higher, and it was still creeping upward.

  Felicity’s stomach thrashed as if she’d eaten live eels for lunch instead of a peanut butter sandwich. Being on the prom court would be a perfect bolster to her red cred. Her mind flooded with images of herself walking in the prom court procession and spinning around the floor in Brent’s strong arms during the special prom court dance. But if she beat out Haylie for a spot on the court, it would look as if she really had been trying to get ahead, and then it would be impossible to repair their friendship.

  Felicity didn’t need to be on the prom court. She needed Haylie back.

  It was time for more drastic measures.

  She surreptitiously angled her desk away from the rest of the committee, then set her paper lunch bag in her lap. Whenever she found a ballot with a checkmark next to her name, she quietly folded it up and slipped it into the bag. Her palms started to sweat, and she jumped at every sound, terrified someone might catch her—throwing a vote was a big deal, and she’d likely be tossed off the committee. But everyone was busy counting, and nobody looked her way, even when she shoved the bag full of ballots deep into her backpack. When the bell announced the end of the period, she said a silent prayer that she had managed to remove herself from the running. She spun around and looked at the whiteboard.

  The hash marks were gone, and the names of the top five girls and boys were written in pink dry-erase marker. Georgia Kellerman was in the top five, of course, as was Holly Lancaster, last year’s Miss Scarlet runner-up. Emily Dutton, a senior in the dance troupe, had snagged the third slot. Felicity was thrilled to see that Haylie’s name was fourth on the list.

  The fifth name was Gabby’s.

  It didn’t seem possible. There had never been a brunette on the prom court before. Maybe someone else had been cheating, too? But no one on the prom committee would throw the vote in Gabby’s favor. All the blondes and brunettes in the school must have banded together and voted for her while the many redheads on the ballot split the redhead vote. Madison was staring at the board, dumbstruck and furious that a brunette had beaten her out. Felicity quietly gathered her things and slipped away before Madison remembered that Gabby’s presence on the ballot was her fault.

  The hallways were absolute chaos at the end of the day as everyone s
warmed the main office. Felicity’s locker was in the opposite direction, and she had to use her heavy backpack as a battering ram to push her way through the crowd. In addition to the tears and screams of joy that always accompanied a prom court announcement, Gabby’s name sailed around on an undercurrent of incredulous whispers. Felicity was mortified when she heard her own name in the same sentence as her adversary’s again and again. She ducked her head and kept walking, hoping nobody would notice her and start asking impossible questions. Ivy’s swim meet didn’t start for another hour, but she headed to the pool early to hide from the rumor mill.

  Ivy spotted Felicity in the bleachers as soon as she emerged from the locker room. She jogged up the tiled stairs, adjusting her SHS Rubies swim cap. “Hey,” she called. “I’m glad you made it.”

  “Do you know if Haylie’s coming?”

  Ivy started doing lunges and windmilling her arms. “I think so. I want to congratulate her on making the prom court. She’s going to be insanely happy. Sorry you didn’t make it, though. At least Bitchzilla Banks didn’t either.”

  Felicity shrugged. “Whatever, it’s totally fine. I don’t care at all. I voted for Haylie.”

  “Good. Me too.” Ivy smiled. To Felicity’s great relief, she didn’t mention Gabby.

  “What are you swimming today?”

  “Just freestyle, one hundred, and four hundred. Coach is putting Grace in for butterfly, but she’s going to regret it. Bethany Chase from St. Sebastian is going to kick her ass.”

  “Good luck, Ives. You’re going to do great.”

  “Thanks. See you after.” Ivy jogged back down the stairs, positioned her goggles, and did a perfect, splashless dive into the pool for some warm-up laps.