Maggie’s door was open when I got home. Dash was asleep on her bed and she was at the computer, staring at a screen. I bent over her shoulder to see what she was studying and unwelcome words from a Web site popped out at me.
Imagine breaking out of your ugly cocoon! Escape those beauty trouble spots that prevent you from becoming all you can be. That’s what our newest theme show can do for you. Unleash the beauty now hidden by correctable flaws. Experience the best in dental, medical and cosmetic breakthroughs, put your hair in the hands of well-known professionals and your wardrobe into the expert care of dressers to the stars. Learn about the inner you. Show your real face to the world.
I skipped to the bottom of the page. “Interviews and auditions will be held…”
“Talk about something that defeats its whole purpose! Making people feel good about themselves for a minute and then pitting them against each other in a beauty contest that will make them insecure again. Have you ever heard anything so silly?”
Maggie remained silent.
“You can see now why I’m not having anything to do with it. If you don’t feel good about yourself going in, makeup and a new hairdo aren’t going to fix anything. Of course, makeup companies would go broke if they depended on me for sales.”
“I don’t blame you, Quinn. I understand why you wouldn’t want to be the hostess of this show.” Maggie’s voice was so soft and sure that I felt a rush of relief.
“You do? Good. I thought for a moment you might want to apply for the job.”
Maggie turned her typing chair away from the computer and stared at me incredulously. “Me? Don’t be silly. I’d never get a job like that. It takes someone who looks like you. Quinn, I want to be a contestant.”
Her face brightened with pathetic hope. “It’s my chance, don’t you see? I could get rid of the bump in my nose and have some fat liposuctioned from my thighs. It would make all the difference in both my modeling career and personal life.”
Bump in her nose? Fat on her thighs? That made as much sense as announcing she was going to have fur waxed off her back. She has no bumps, no fat and no fur.
“You can’t, Maggie. They’re looking for people who have a cocoon to emerge from. You are already a butterfly.”
I pushed back the thought of smarmy Frank jumping for joy at the chance to “ugly-up” Maggie with ill-fitting clothes and poor hair and makeup and then, by restoring her to normal, turning her into a beauty. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’d do it for ratings. Eddie was aboveboard but Frank…I wouldn’t put much past him.
Maggie looked at me with a serene smile at the corners of her lips. “Too late. I already have. I just got the e-mail. I’m supposed to be at the hotel at ten tomorrow for an interview.”
“I’m going to throw up.” After Maggie had left for her interview, Pete sat in my kitchen holding his head in his hands as Flash frantically licked Pete’s arm, trying to comfort him.
Finally I took pity on Flash and tempted him into the other room with a doggy treat so that he would settle down and watch The Andy Griffith Show with Dash.
“There is no use talking to her anymore, anyway,” I said when I returned. “She’s turned a deaf ear to us.”
“My wonderful idea for you is now an official disaster,” Pete muttered morosely to himself. “Why did I ever tell you anything about this television show?”
“Beats me.” I patted him on the back. “It isn’t your fault. You believed it would be good for me. We couldn’t have predicted that Maggie would get it into her head to be a contestant any more than we could have foreseen her breakup with Randy or the lost jobs. It’s crazy, Pete, and you can’t predict crazy.”
“I’m going to start photographing flowers and birds,” he announced resolutely. “No more models. No more human beings. I’m shooting only stuff that is content the way it is—mountains, deer and geraniums. I want nothing more to do with people who think that if they are prettier, thinner, thicker, wider, narrower, taller or shorter, life would be better for them. No more models—just horses, fence posts, lakes and a soup can or two thrown in for good measure.”
“Andy Warhol already used that idea. Besides, you are too good at what you do to give it up. You can’t help it that Maggie refuses to listen to us.”
“I tried to suggest that the length to which she is going and the importance she’s placing on her own looks are prideful and vain. She’s fixated,” Pete concluded. “Doesn’t it say somewhere that obsession with beauty comes dangerously close to idolatry?”
“Nothing fazes her. She’s got a one-track mind and that track leads straight to Chrysalis.”
“At least we can count on Eddie to send her home again,” Pete said. “He’s a straight shooter.”
“Straight shooter or not, I wouldn’t depend on that. Frank might see Maggie as an opportunity to make the show more interesting.”
“Nah, even Frank wouldn’t do that.” Worry creased Pete’s expressive face. “Would he?”
“If he does, Maggie’s going to need protection. Frank would happily carve Maggie up and put her back together backward for ratings.”
“I’m going to call him,” Pete announced, and headed for the phone.
It seemed like forever until he returned to the kitchen.
“Did you talk to him?” I pounced on Pete when he returned to the room.
“Eddie wasn’t there. He’s gone until tomorrow.”
“Who were you talking to? I cleaned three cupboards while you were in the other room.”
Pete flushed until he looked like he’d had a nasty experience in a faulty tanning bed.
“Kristy answered the phone. We talked awhile, that’s all.”
“Forty-five minutes.”
“We have a lot to catch up on.”
“You still have feelings for her.”
He glared at me venomously. “Quinn, you know absolutely nothing about this.”
“Of course I do. I know that when you try to keep something from me, the tip of your nose turns pink. It’s been that way ever since we were kids. It’s cherry colored right now so this must be a biggie.”
“I thought you were annoying as a child but you are much worse now.” Pete turned away. “It’s amazing. The older you get, the more maddening you get. I certainly don’t want to live next to you in the nursing home.”
“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”
I knew by the way his neck flushed and his head drooped forward that the answer was yes.
“And she doesn’t return those feelings.”
He turned around and I saw how miserable he was.
“I made a mistake when I broke up with Kristy. Eddie says she never married because of me, but she’s obviously not interested now.”
To my surprise, Pete looked me straight in the eye and said, “If that kind of relationship ever comes along for you, Quinn, don’t blow it like I did.”