“They’re my friends. And they want to enter the pageant, too.”
“Is this some kind of ploy for attention? Are you trying to get back at me for something?” Her voice rises with every word and while I’m not willing to break eye contact, I can feel the eyes of every person in the registration room on us.
“Oh, are those the questions you ask all the contestants? I didn’t see them on the form.”
She points a perfectly polished pearl-pink finger in my face. “Don’t you do this. Don’t you drag these poor girls into our issues. This pageant isn’t some joke for you to make an example of me.”
“Why does it have to be that? Why do you have to make that assumption, Mom? How come I can’t enter the pageant without it being a joke or revenge?”
She crosses her arms with her lips pursed together in a tight knot. “You can’t enter unless I sign the release.”
I knew it would come to this. “And why wouldn’t you?”
Her voice softens. “Besides the fact that I’m unsure your intentions are pure?” She licks her thumbs and wipes a spot on my shirt above my chest. “I don’t want you to embarrass yourself.”
I open my mouth, ready to snap back.
“And more so, it’s not fair for you to subject those girls to this. They’ll be ridiculed, Dumplin’.” The nickname burrows beneath my skin in a way it never has before.
There are so many things I could say, but instead I cut right to the bone. “Mom.” My mouth is dry. “If you don’t sign that form, you’re saying I’m not good enough. You’re saying that most every girl in that room right now is prettier and more deserving than me. That’s what you’re telling me.”
A long silence sinks between us.
My mother has never encouraged me to enter the pageant. I remember sitting in the kitchen with El the summer before freshman year, decorating our new matching day planners when I ran upstairs for more markers. When I came back down, I lingered in the shadows of the hallway as I heard my mom say, “Ya know, dear, you might think about entering the pageant when you turn fifteen.” El brushed her off, and I waited a few beats before sitting down at the kitchen table. That day was, like, realizing for the first time that the religion your parents subscribe to doesn’t work for you.
I watch my mom, waiting for her to crack.
“Fine,” she says after a long moment. “But don’t you dare expect any special treatment or allowances.”
El’s eyes are wide as she watches us file through the door. I see the question on her lips.
I nod once.
Mom walks past me to the table and signs her name to my form.
THIRTY
I sit at a table with Ellen, Millie, and Amanda as my mom stands in front of the registration table and claps her hands together, silencing the room. “Welcome, ladies.” She clears her throat. “You are about to embark on a path that has been weathered by many before you and will be by many after you. Clover City’s Miss Teen Blue Bon—”
The heavy door at the back of the room creaks loudly and every head, including my own, turns.
“Am I too late for registration?” asks Hannah Perez, her tone flat.
My jaw drops. Along with everyone else’s.
With her clipboard in hand, the younger woman from the registration table rushes to Hannah. She looks over her form and instructs her to take a seat.
Hannah sits by herself at an empty table.