UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Two deep breaths later, I grabbed a scalloped bronze handle and pushed open the massive wooden door. Three men dressed in black held cameras on their shoulders and aimed them in my direction. Camera lights shone in my face.
“Hello!” I called out, because for some inexplicable reason it was easier to do all of this when I was being filmed. I’d spent so many years doing some kind of acting: acting like I didn’t care every time one of my tests came back with a C or a D, acting like the daughter my parents wanted, acting like I was the biggest bitch in school who wasn’t afraid of anything, even when I was.
This wasn’t really hard compared to all of that.
“Is anyone here?” I asked sweetly, hearing my melodic voice echo in the cavernous main hall.
I peeked into the first room, smiling as the cameras followed my every move. A long oak table held twelve elaborate place settings: Antique china sets with varying patterns were arranged next to crystal wine glasses. Silver candlesticks in the shape of tree branches held tall white candles. Renaissance-style paintings were framed in gold, and dark wooden beams crisscrossed the white stucco ceiling. It was like staring at a page in Elle Décor. It was unlike any other home I’d ever been inside.
I moved into the next room, and that’s where I saw the six other contestants sprawled on plush white leather sofas in front of a faux fireplace.
I might’ve had a panic attack were it not for the camera lens staring me square in the face. Every single one of the contestants was breathtakingly beautiful. I’d purposely avoided looking at their pictures online, and I know how stupid it sounds that I was surprised, but I thought this was supposed to be a contest of high school girls who just happened to be pretty, like me. But these girls were in an entirely different league: They were even prettier than the ones you see stomping down the runway. They were the kind of girls you saw in Vogue lounging in a dark forest wearing couture, the kind of girls who look like movie stars, the kind of girl picked to ride a white horse in a flowing dress while her boyfriend sniffs her, like in the Ralph Lauren perfume ads. (Even though anyone who’s ever ridden a horse knows that all you can smell while riding a horse is the horse.)
“Hi, I’m Blake,” I said. I scanned each of their perfectly symmetrical faces, their collection of charming noses, wide eyes, shining manes of perfectly styled hair. And I could tell even while they were seated that at five feet nine inches, I was the shortest one in the room, and at one hundred and thirty pounds, the largest.
The girls sized me up, too, but they didn’t seem at all worried.
“What’s up, Blake? I’m Casey Clark from North Carolina,” said a girl with teeth whiter than Chiclets. Her barely existent roots were the color of peanut shells, but her platinum highlights were so well done you hardly noticed.
“I’m Delores Abernathy,” said a girl with auburn hair that spilled over her shoulders in fat waves. Her boobs were Ds and her eyes were periwinkle (and possibly enhanced by color contacts). She was the kind of girl who could make farts sexy. Or the name Delores.
“I’m Sabrina Ramirez,” said a girl with hair almost as dark as mine. She was dressed up more than the others in a red cocktail dress. Her long legs were tan, and her open-toed heels showed off neon-pink toenails, which didn’t quite go with the dress, but as Lindsay had told me when she’d picked out the same polish color for my toes, “Hot pink looks youthful, and that’s the whole point.” Lindsay had put the polish in a polka dot Kate Spade makeup bag next to tweezers and Bumble and bumble Surf Spray. “America wants something beautiful, something better. You have to give them hope, Blake,” she’d said. She’d made Audrey and me laugh, but I could also tell she was kind of serious from a style perspective.
“I’m Betsy Greenberg!” said an enthusiastic girl with wide-set eyes and limbs longer than most NBA players.
“Amy Samuels,” said a nervous-seeming girl with a southern accent. I saw freckles peeking through her foundation. Even dressed down with two braids falling over her shoulders, she was so stunning that I had a hard time looking away.
“Cindy Manger,” said a girl with full lips and a platinum-blond bob like Gwen Stefani’s.
Every single one of them was more beautiful than me. If LA didn’t kill me, it had to make me stronger. “Nice to meet you all,” I said. And then I made my way to the plush white sofa and took a seat. Up close, I noticed that I was also the only contestant with any clogged pores, which never mattered at Harrison, because kids there had actual zits.
“Amy here was just telling us how corn grows,” the girl named Sabrina said as the cameras filmed her. She gestured toward Amy, who wore a jean overall top and skirt. Sabrina rolled her eyes at me and stifled a fake yawn, and Cindy laughed, both of them clearly making fun of Amy. The cameras panned to get my reaction, so I gave Sabrina and Cindy a you’re lame look. Because here we all were in the same situation: on national television competing for something we all really wanted. To pick on someone felt sort of cliché. Which, if I was being honest, was kind of applicable to my entire mean-girl high school routine. “I hate corn on account of how bloating it is, but I’d love to hear about it,” I said to Amy, who gave me a grateful smile. Then she described in painstaking detail how important it was to plant the seeds two to four inches apart.
We all made small talk while the cameras rolled and filmed the entrance of Maddie Foss, Delia Lee, and Jessica Torres with their perfectly styled hair and cheekbones so high and sharp they looked like weapons. Then came Charisse Fuller, who looked like a six-foot-tall version of Kerry Washington. The final entrance was Murasaki O’Neil from Minnesota, who told us to call her Mura, and who looked vaguely familiar, like maybe she already was a professional model.
As I stared around the room at everyone’s face, something became alarmingly clear: I was the odd woman out. I was pretty, sure. Beautiful, even. The best-looking girl at Harrison High School. But I wasn’t a supermodel in the making. This room was a beauty pageant on crack: Every single one of these girls could have a career modeling. Or in movies. I knew my own limits (how could I not? I’d been raised in a family that reminded me of my limits on a daily basis), and the next Gisele Bündchen I was not.
My heart picked up speed. What the hell was happening? Because even if being from Harrison High like last year’s contest winners got my Pretty App profile an extra look, it wouldn’t have gotten me here. Not with this crowd—no way. It would take something more. It would take a reason. A motive.
I let my mind go to the places I hadn’t let myself imagine, and maybe an outsider looking in would say how stupid and foolish I was for not figuring it out earlier. And I guess I am pretty freaking stupid when it comes to everything I continue not to assume my father is doing behind my back. Maybe it’s self-preservation, but I can’t go there when it comes to him. I can’t reconcile that the same man who used to read me stories at bedtime is a lying, deceitful monster.
Our next contestant is arriving now. Blake Dawkins is the daughter of gubernatorial candidate Robert Dawkins, and a senior at Harrison High School in South Bend, Indiana.
It had struck me as odd when they had mentioned my father during my introduction outside the limo, but now it felt like a puzzle piece slipping into place. How could I have missed it?
We need to rehab your image, Blake.
He’d said that so many times over the course of his campaign. There were the photo ops of us volunteering across town, and the lectures about what I wore and what I posted online. But this? Cheating to get me into a beauty contest? He’d always done whatever it took to secure money and power, but I hadn’t even realized he knew anything about the Pretty App before I was announced as one of the nation’s winners. He’d certainly never mentioned it, and I’d figured it was just like any other app for teenagers: something he barely noticed. And then, when I’d won, I figured he jumped on board to support me when he realized everything it could do for his campaign. But that was back when I thought I deserved to win. That was back when I thought the prettiest girls in their respective high schools would look like me. But now that I was here and realized I didn’t belong here, it was obvious that he’d gotten to Public and made them pick me. It wasn’t even that far-fetched: My father was already a huge investor, and he was likely soon to be a very powerful political ally. Why wouldn’t Public want to strengthen that bond by giving him exactly what he wanted?
A chill coursed through me. He’d done this to me—his own daughter. And now here I was, with no way out. I tried to breathe, tried to make sense of what was happening to me, while a camera was fixed on my face.
I watched Cindy smooth her platinum hair and arrange her boobs when the cameras weren’t watching. I held back tears as the cameraman filmed Betsy pouring seltzer into a champagne glass. She held the glass up and said, “Here’s to the most beautiful girls in America,” and I swear she looked at me sort of funny right before she took a sip.
I tried to take shallow breaths so I wouldn’t cry. My father had used me as a pawn. I’d seen more beautiful people today than I’d ever seen before in my life, and I couldn’t compete with them. I didn’t want to compete with them. I didn’t want to embarrass myself on national television in front of millions of Americans who would see that these girls were far more beautiful than I was. I didn’t want to lose a contest for the one thing I thought I was good at.
Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.
But it was happening. The tears were coming. They were rolling hot and thick down the sides of my cheek.
“Blake?” Amy said gently. “Are you all right?
Sabrina glanced over. “Oh my God,” she practically shrieked. “What happened to Blair?”
“It’s Blake,” Amy said.
The cameras whirled to face me. One of the men stepped so close I could smell his Old Spice deodorant as he lifted his camera to get a better shot.
Tears blurred my vision, and I knocked over Betsy’s seltzer-champagne as I did the only thing I could.
I got to my feet and ran.