A pageant provides a codified public situation during which one may gaze, assess, and judge the relative merits of individuals without facing reprimand for doing so.
It was finally Saturday morning, the day of the annual Melva’s Miss Livermush Pageant and Scholarship Competition. I felt like I’d been guzzling energy drinks. I hadn’t, of course — I hadn’t been able to eat or drink anything but water because I was so nervous. My dress was wrapped carefully in plastic. Margo and I walked past the booths and food stands already set up for the Livermush Festival to the registration table.
Standing in line, my arms goose-bumped. Margo shivered beside me.
“I hope it warms up,” I said to the lady at the registration table, looking up at the grayish sky, “and doesn’t start pouring.”
HISTORICAL NOTE:
Once, at the Melva’s Miss Livermush Pageant of 1953, it started pouring. With thunder and lightning. A tree near the stage was struck by lightning and two contestants were injured — only mildly. Still, a rule was instituted that the pageant be called off at the first sound of thunder.
“Trust me, you’ll be so nervous you won’t notice anything up there,” the registration lady said reassuringly. “It’ll be like this weird dream that’ll be over before you know what happened.”
“Okay,” I said, smiling at her like a mechanical doll.
As we walked away, Margo whispered to me, “That was the least encouraging bit of encouragement I’ve ever heard.”
Margo and I followed the pageant coordinator, Ms. Anne Whitaker, to the greenroom that had been set up in the Arts Council building. All the girls were assigned a chair and a small cubby by the mirrors. We would change and get ready there. Ms. Whitaker explained all this quickly without blinking. She was a news anchor on the local channel’s Melva Headline News, a position that hardly seemed like a real job to me but apparently required monstrous amounts of pancake makeup even when not in front of television lights.
The pageant’s theme this year was “Tropical Wonderland!” so there were huge papier-mâché flowers, birds, and butterflies everywhere — on the stage, backstage, and in the greenroom as well. I had to admit that the enormous, multicolored flowers were impressive.
“Who did the decorations?” I asked Ms. Whitaker.
“Oh, a nice young man from Melva High School that we hired — quite a versatile artist. Jimmy Denton? Do you girls know him? We explained our vision to him, and he gave us this. We couldn’t have been more pleased with the result!” I faced the floor, my cheeks burning.
“All right, girls. Here you go. Blair here is helping us. She’ll direct you and make sure you’re ready for the stage at the appropriate times. She can answer any questions because she went through this experience last year.”
Blair happened to be TR’s older sister, a former Miss Livermush herself. She had dark, silky hair and large, long-lashed eyes. She looked at us with zero expression.
“There,” she said, indicating a dressing space with a limp finger. “Go to it.” And then she yawned. Clearly Blair had better things to be doing.
Then, “Heeeey, lady, you look GORGEOUS!” Blair’s voice boomed, all of a sudden becoming Little Miss Enthusiasm. “Wow, who did your makeup? You’re gonna look so good up there!”
It was Theresa Rose. She DID look gorgeous. She was already wearing a sleek black dress. Her long blond hair was piled on her head, and she had on dangly earrings so perfect that I could feel the toddler-urge to grab them from her ears and make them mine. TR saw us looking at her, and waved before turning to her bag to get ready. The clean lines of her back and shoulders shone golden.
I was not jealous for the following reasons:
1. Jealousy is an unbecoming emotion, and so I refused to experience it, and besides,
2. black formal dresses (so the default option! boring!) demonstrated a complete lack of creativity, whereas navy blue — well, now that’s adventure!
3. Jane Goodall, with her great, generous intellect, would never have been jealous of something so superficial and petty.
I turned to my own cubby to get ready. Missy Wheeler, her auburn hair now perfectly offset by the purple bodice of her dress, was using the cubby between Margo’s and mine. She was deeply immersed in mascara application beside me. She had a special technique that involved separating each lash with a safety pin. I, on the other hand, was a fluster of powders and lipstick. It had all looked perfect in the packaging, but somehow when I applied makeup, it never seemed to beautify as much as I hoped.
Missy frowned at herself in the mirror.
“Come on, Janice,” she said. “Wanna step outside and check our makeup? You can tell better in the natural light.” She grabbed a small mirror, and I followed her outside. “Hey.”
Missy and I turned. Jimmy Denton stood behind us in worn jeans and a T-shirt. He held a few papier-mâché flowers and birds in his arms.
“Hey, good luck, y’all. Good luck, Janice.”
He seemed nervous, almost apologetic. My tongue froze.
“Janice, uhh, I just wanted, uhh …”
He kicked a piece of string on the ground and trailed off. Total Awkwardness Olympics. Missy interrupted with her Teacher Voice.
“Thanks soooo much, Jimmy. Your decorations are amazing. Really cool. Janice was admiring them.”
He nodded and walked away. I looked at her, horrified.
“Did not,” I said to Missy. Using the tiny compact mirror, I started to apply the mascara I’d borrowed from my mom. I hoped to look doe-eyed like Susannah or like Audrey Hepburn or even mean, pretty-eyed Blair. My hands were still shaking, though.
“Did not what?” Missy asked.
“I did not admire his decorations. I can’t stand that guy.”
“Janice, here. Let me help you with that. I think your mascara might be, like, a hundred years old. Let’s use mine.”
I sighed and dropped the crusty mascara, then faced Missy, holding carefully still. She was good at makeup when it was called for, precise in her application. It soothed me to have someone touch my face gently. Missy studied my face in the sunlight, clicked her tongue approvingly, and then we headed back inside.
As soon as we returned, Blair appeared behind us again, her pretty face once more blank and cold.
“Don’t be disappointed if you don’t win,” she purred. “Not everyone’s really made for the pageant scene, and it’s the trying that counts.” She smiled wickedly. “Besides, the world needs women who can work in labs and offices without being a distraction.” She winked at us and walked away.
Missy’s face was blazing, and she fumbled with the makeup brushes. Strangely, Blair didn’t bother me at all. Nerd of cool, I thought. Blair, it occurred to me, was devastatingly boring. I felt bad for her.
But Blair had messed with Missy’s head all right. I spent the next fifteen minutes whispering reassurances to her. “Blair’s just a Sour Face,” I said. “Don’t worry about her — I mean, she’s TR’s sister,” and “You’ll never end up in some boring office. You’re VERY distracting.”
ANTHROPOLOGIST’S NOTE:
def. Sour Face: (n) a girl who always looks as if she’s experiencing a distinctly unpleasant bitter taste and maintains this dour facial expression regardless of what her actual emotions are. Such a girl is impossible to read.
There was no time to dwell on Blair’s baditude, though. It was time for the Miss Livermush Pageant to begin.