11
RUBY
The last thing I expect to see as I step forward to be crowned second runner-up in the Miss Tulip event is Morgan friggin’ Matthews sitting in the third row of this rapidly overheating pop-up tent thing the town dug up from somewhere. She gives me a little smile and wave, and I nearly stumble as I collect my roses and sash, because what the hell, Morgan?
It was weird enough that she followed me into the bathroom last night, but this is next level. What is she doing? Is this some kind of revenge for last weekend? Is she gonna serve me papers in front of this whole audience? I mean, I googled her. I know her parents are willing to sue anything that moves.
Shit, I thought it was bad enough she’s been hanging out with my neighbor Aaron, which means I’m inevitably going to run into her going next door someday. I never thought I’d have to worry about her popping up here too.
My fake smile falters for half a second, and I fight the urge to lick the Vaseline off my teeth. I flick my eyes to Mom instead, trying to ground myself in her presence. She’s standing up now, her fingers stuck into the corners of her mouth, pulling her lips up like an extra-deranged version of the Joker. I smile bigger, letting my perfectly bleached teeth have their moment in the spotlight, my red lipstick pulled tight as I clutch my roses.
The host keeps going, deeming Lily Carter first runner-up and crowning Melanie Cho the new Miss Tulip, and I stay frozen, staring blankly at the back of the tent, making my mother proud. Beside me Lily takes my hand and squeezes. Pageant speak for help me not lose it.
I let myself, for one second, remember when it was Morgan’s hand in mine, and then I stuff it back down. She’s not here for any good reason. There won’t be any more hand-holding. There can’t be.
“Dammit,” Lily says, the second we leave the stage. “I thought I had this one.”
Lily and I have been doing pageants together since we were babies. In another life, one where my mom wasn’t inherently suspicious of everything and everyone, we’d probably be best friends.
As it stands now, we’re more like very polite coworkers.
“Sorry, Lil,” I say as we head to the dressing area. “I thought you had it too.”
She shrugs and disappears into a blur of taffeta and crying girls, and I head straight for the corner where I stashed my stuff earlier. If I can get out of the changing room and into my car as soon as possible, I’ll minimize the risk of both my mother coming backstage and melting down (a frequent and embarrassing occurrence) and having to find out whatever horrible reason Morgan has for being here. (Which has to be bad. Because, why else?)
I get changed as quickly as possible and grab my kit, pushing past a dozen or so girls. I give Melanie a quick congratulatory hug, wiping her obligatory happy tears off my cheek, and yank open the curtain separating us from the rest of the tent. Then I lift an emergency flap and duck out the back.
“Hey,” Morgan says the second I’m outside. And shit, we’re alone here. Behind the tent. Where no one goes. How did she . . . ?
“Just get it over with,” I say, holding out my hand. I’ve never actually been served with papers before, but I imagine alone behind a tent works just as well as standing in my driveway.
Morgan scrunches up her face. “Okay.”
She slaps something into my hand, but it’s definitely not paper. It’s my lucky eyeliner, the only real splurge that’s just mine. They don’t even sell it at Walmart; I have to order it straight from Sephora. I was freaking out all morning looking for it.
“Where’d you find this?”
“You left it at the diner yesterday.”
“And you came all the way here just to give it back?” I tilt my head. “Why?”
Morgan looks at the ground, toeing a patch of dead grass. “I wanted to thank you for the other day. For taking care of me when I was hurt. I know you missed a pageant, and they seem really important to you. I was hoping this would make us even?”
And that is so misguidedly sweet that my stomach does a little flip.
“Thanks,” I say, turning to go. “For my eyeliner and for not suing me.”
“Still with the suing? Why would I?”
I look back at her, eyebrows up. “I hit you with my car.”
“I fell, remember?” she says with a little smile. “You just happened to be there.”
I shake my head. “What’s your deal, Matthews?”
“No deal.”
“Did you really drive all the way out here just to give me this?” I ask, holding up the eyeliner pen.
She shrugs. “Maybe I also wanted to see who the new Flower Princess was going to be. Seems like crucial information to have now that I live here.”
I smile; I can’t help it. “Miss Tulip,” I correct her. “And it’s Melanie Cho.”
Her eyes crinkle a little as she leans forward, close enough that I can feel the heat of her skin against my cheek. Her breath against my ear. My heart thudding so hard I swear the whole world can hear it.
“You should have won,” she says.
I swallow hard. “I—”
“Ruby, I have been standing out there waiting for you. What are you doing?” I jerk back to find my mother walking up beside us, her face pinched.
I nearly drop my dress. “Nothing!”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Just someone from school.” I shift slightly between them.
“I’m Morgan,” she says, holding out her hand around me and clearly missing the point.
My mom shakes it, a skeptical look on her face. “Ruby’s never invited any school friends to her pageants before.”
“Oh, well, I wasn’t invited, per se. I—”
“We’re just about done,” I say, cutting Morgan off. “I’ll meet you by the car, Mom?”
My mother stares at me for a second before pulling the dress out of my hands and turning toward the parking lot. “Don’t be long.”
“Your mom seems nice,” Morgan says as soon as she’s out of earshot.
And, shit, that fake politeness—that attempt to pretend my mother was anything but rude—is mortifying. I drop my chin. “Why are you really here, Matthews?”
“I just wanted to return your—”
“Well, you did. So I guess that’s it, then?” I try to make my voice sound hard.
The surprise—and hurt—on Morgan’s face makes my head buzz. I hate this. So much.
But not as much as I hate the talk I know I’ll be getting from my mom on the way home.
“Yeah, I guess it is.” She looks pissed. And, oh god, I deserve that.
“Who was that you were you talking to?” my mom asks when we’re halfway home. “You two seemed friendly.” I don’t miss the accusation in her voice.
“Just someone from school, like I said,” I mumble, because if there’s one thing I definitely don’t want to talk about with her, it’s Morgan Matthews.
“What was she doing there?”
I sigh. “She was just returning something I forgot at the diner last night. My eyeliner.”
“You two were standing awfully close.”
“I couldn’t hear what she was saying. It was really noisy back there.”
Mom hums a little to herself and looks out the window. “I just don’t want anyone to get ideas about you, Ruby. I know how you get.”
How I get.
I squeeze my hands a little tighter on the steering wheel, remembering when I was thirteen and my mother decided I was getting a little too close to Katie Seawell, a frequent flier on the pageant scene just like me. Katie was different from the other girls, at least to me. Her smiles looked real, and she laughed loud and often. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be her best friend or if I just wanted to be her. I’d find excuses to make sure we always got ready together. We’d fix each other’s makeup and make fun of the judges, and it was . . . nice.
After a particularly tough loss, my mom came backstage and caught her wiping my tears and telling me over and over again that I was beautiful and that it would all be okay. And maybe it would have been if my mom had gotten enough sleep, or if Billy hadn’t just left, or if I hadn’t let my latest celebrity “girl crush” slip over breakfast. But she didn’t, and he did, and I hadn’t yet learned the importance of keeping my mouth all the way shut.
That’s when it was decided that I was no longer allowed to get ready with the other girls. Or ever talk to Katie again. After that I just kind of shut myself off, and all the other pageant girls learned to stay away.
Mom taps her nail against the armrest and then fixes her gaze on me. “Enough about that, though. Would’ve loved to see you get a win today.”
“Sorry.” I keep my eyes steady on the road, clenching my jaw ever so slightly.
“You hesitated during your interview.”
“I didn’t hesitate; I was being thoughtful.”
“It looked more like you didn’t know what to say.”
I bite my tongue until it hurts and then force out a smile. “I did know, though. I paused, Mom. I didn’t hesitate.”
“You need more sessions with Charlene if we’re going to take this to the next level,” she says. “And you were sloppy during talent too. Maybe we can get some private tap lessons, because those group classes don’t seem to be working.”
I shake my head, swallowing down the truth that it’s not the tap lessons, it’s me. I can barely stand to practice anymore. Every clap of my shoe against the floor makes me feel like one of those marionette puppets, with my mother holding all the strings.
“I never did like group lessons,” Mom continues. “If you want to excel—”
“We can’t afford private lessons right now, and besides, they told me last time that they won’t take any more postdated checks.” I sigh. “Maybe there isn’t a next level for me.”
“I’m not throwing away your future just because we’re broke. I’ll pick up extra shifts if I have to. We both know I’m sitting next to the future Miss America right now.”
I rub my hand over my forehead and let it drop. Because every time she says “throwing away your future,” the like I had to when I had you is implied. Nothing like spending another Saturday afternoon feeling guilty for being born.
“Hey,” she says, messing with the strap of her purse, “I just want more for you.”
“There’s no way I’ll make it to—”
“You deserve to have what I didn’t.”
And what she didn’t have was a lucrative career as a beauty queen, apparently. Mom was winning every pageant she entered the year she got pregnant with me, and she had her sights set on Miss Teen USA. She was somehow even more beautiful then, before her mom kicked her out and cut her off, before my dad left her six months pregnant and alone, before the weight of the world fought with Father Time to press creases into her skin.
Maybe I do owe her my future for stealing hers, no matter how much I wish I could get lost inside of an old muscle car and never look back.
“What if I’m not supposed to be Miss America?” I ask, like a prisoner begging for a key. “I haven’t won anything in ages. Not even the mall pageants, which don’t count. I don’t even think I’d qualify for a state competition.”
“Oh, Ruby,” she says, patting my leg. “Don’t ever doubt yourself, baby.”
“I . . .” I trail off, letting the misunderstanding ride. There’s never any use talking to her about this. But how does she not see it? How?
“I know we don’t have as much as some of the other girls, but you’ve got a mom that loves you and will do anything to get you where you need to be,” she says, tucking some of my hair behind my ear. “And that’s half the battle.”
I nod and turn up the radio, hoping a little music will drown out all the chaos in my head. I’ll be working off this debt as long as I live.
“Speaking of, I’ve got good news!” she says, twisting in her seat so fast I almost slam on my brakes.
“What good news?”
“I was able to register you for the county pageant after all.”
“You what?” The deadline was yesterday, and I know we can’t afford it. It’s one of the more expensive ones.
“There was money left over from last week.”
“That was for the electric bill.” I groan. “How’d you get them to turn us back on, then?”
“Chuck put it in his name, said he’s subletting the place. I put a little toward our closed account and the rest toward the registration fee.”
“That money could have brought us current!”
“That’s not for you to worry about,” she says, like it’s that simple. “You want something that will qualify you for state. Well, here it is.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I say through gritted teeth.
“This could open up a lot of doors for us, Ruby. A lot. You’re already the right age for Miss America, baby. Now we just gotta get you those titles, and this is a great first step.”
“This one doesn’t actually seem so bad,” Everly says, sliding the laptop across her bed. She’s got the county pageant website pulled up.
“It doesn’t matter, Ev.”
“But this one has a prize that your mom can’t ruin for you.” Shame heats my belly. No matter how much I try to keep her out of it, Everly always sees through the bullshit straight to how bad things are.
“Doubtful,” I say.
“Well, if she did, that would be really impressive, because it’s a scholarship to Hudson Community College for the top six finishers, and it includes a stipend for the dorms. It could get you out of your mom’s house for good.” She taps the screen. “This could be your way out.”
“I can’t leave my mom.”
“She’d be fine, Ruby.”
“Okay, in that case, let me just get right on crushing her dreams and abandoning her like everyone else has because Everly Jones said she’d be fine.” I’m being dramatic, but I can’t help it.
“What about your dreams?”
“I don’t have any of those.” I smirk, clicking her laptop shut.
She rolls her eyes and flops down beside me, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “You’re such a liar.”
“Come on, I’m about as likely to go to college as I am to win Miss America. You and I are not the same.”
“Ruby, I love you, but cut it out. I take pictures of people when they’re not looking. You restore cars and keep them running. If one of us is more equipped to have a career, it’s not me.”
“You really think so?” I ask because I never really thought of it that way.
She crosses her arms and stares at me until I reluctantly agree that she maybe has a point, and then I reopen her laptop to distract her with Netflix movies.
But later, after Marcus comes over with a pizza and everyone but me is asleep, I click back over to read about the scholarship. Because my guidance counselor did mention once that Hudson had a killer automotive tech program. And if I did have a dream, it would probably be that.
I always figured I would end up working at a gas station or something, scrapping parts for Billy in between pageants with Mom. It didn’t seem like “more” was really an option. But Everly is right; the prize covers tuition plus room and board in the new student housing building they put up last year. Finishing even top six could be tough in a county-wide pageant, but it might be doable if I really try. I click through to the website, trying to find the loophole or fine print, but it all looks legit.
It even says I can apply for grants to cover my textbooks and meals, but I don’t need all that. Books maybe, but I’ve been living on ramen and vitamins for as long as I can remember anyway. I’m sure I could get enough side work at Billy’s to at least cover that. And I’d be close enough to keep an eye on my mom. Maybe we could compromise even, like I still do some local pageants or whatever. Maybe this could be the first step, just not in the way she meant.
Everly snuffles and rolls over, and I power down her laptop, powering down my dreams right along with it. It was stupid to even think about. I’ve got responsibilities. I’ve got a duty. I’ve got . . . too much energy right now and no place to put it.
I pull out my phone and type out a text. Tyler replies right away.