“But what? Please tell me you’re not that selfish.”
She’s right. This isn’t a joke for Millie. This is about idolizing and studying these pageant contestants her whole life, and finally allowing herself to be one. My leg bounces up and down as I think. I don’t know that this would earn me any good karma. I might be too much in the negative for that, but I owe this to Millie. If I’m not going to go out there and grab life by the balls like she is, I should at least offer the courtesy of not standing in her way.
Hannah reaches over to my leg, stilling me.
I turn to her. “This is going to be a total disaster,” I tell her.
She smiles with her mouth barely open. “I’m kind of counting on it.”
FIFTY-FIVE
Boys get out of school to travel to football games, so I guess it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that every contestant is given the Friday before the pageant off from school. The extra day is spent in interviews and grueling dress rehearsals. We’re talking blisters, double-stick tape, and tears all over the place. This isn’t some low-budget high-school musical. This is Clover City’s Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant.
Last night, Hannah drove me to the community theater where my mom was setting up so that I could have my entire wardrobe approved. Seeing as I couldn’t wear my formal, I had to go for a sequined black mother-of-the-bride looking thing I found in one of Mom’s donation piles in Lucy’s room. It was wrinkled, but new with tags. My mom, Mallory Buckley, and Mrs. Clawson all made me promise to steam it before Saturday. As for a swimsuit, my options were limited to my black one-piece and the red and white polka dot one I bought last summer but hadn’t had the balls to wear. I chose the red. Go big or go home. Plus the black swimsuit has little lint balls all over the butt.
My talent costume was another thing. I dug through my room until I found the flapper headband I’d worn on Halloween. I had the black dress from Lucy’s funeral, and my mom agreed to lend me her black satin gloves if I returned them before she had to wear them for the formal wear segment.
On Thursday morning, as I’m getting ready, Mom comes in to see what I’m wearing for my interview. “I like that skirt,” she says. “But maybe add the teal blazer I got you for your birthday.” I look in the mirror, considering her suggestion, and nod.
We drive to the Silver Dollar Banquet Hall where the interviews and luncheon will take place today. The air-conditioning buzzes above the twang of the radio. With Thanksgiving next week, it’s getting pretty cool, but Mom’s got the air blastin’ because she’s got the “flashes.”
We park and she wriggles into her dusty-rose suit jacket. “Dumplin’, I love you. And I’m hoping you’ll make me proud.”
My stomach does somersaults. I don’t want to embarrass her. I really don’t.
“But,” she adds, “I can’t have anyone thinking I’m giving you special treatment, so we’re all business until Saturday night after the pageant.”
“Right,” I mutter. “All business.”
Okay, so this place really is all business. They’ve got us contestants lined up outside of the banquet hall. No one is allowed to talk to each other until after the interviews are completed, which really makes no sense because this doesn’t strike me as the type of thing you could cheat on. I mean, they pull questions from one huge list, and no one gets the same combination.
After the interviews is the luncheon, and after that is when contestants are allowed to set up their dressing room spaces. And that’s when shit really starts to get real. Tomorrow is dress rehearsals; Saturday morning is reserved for a light run-through before the show, which starts promptly at seven p.m.