Page 56 of The Accidental Beauty Queen
Buttercup responds as any smart dog would. She covers her face with her paws and lets out a whine.
The round of applause this elicits is so loud that I barely hear it when the head judge calls out, “Time.”
And for a wild, wonderful moment, I believe in magic. I believe in the crown. I might even believe in myself.
14
Buttercup and I win the talent competition.
I hardly believe it. I was only trying to get through those ninety seconds and survive with enough points to keep Ginny in the top twenty. But when the emcee announces the winner of the talent prelims, it’s my name that she calls.
Well, technically she calls Ginny’s name.
But in this instance, Ginny’s name is good enough. Because what I just did onstage with Buttercup wasn’t my sister’s talent routine. It was mine. For the first time in days, I performed as myself.
And I won!
I scoop Buttercup into my arms and return to the stage to accept our plaque, along with a huge bouquet of red roses. The bouquet is so lush that I can’t hold on to it and Buttercup at the same time. I place her back down on the ground and she prances in place, seemingly aware that she’s every bit as much a winner as I am in this scenario.
“Good girl,” I tell her. “Very good girl.”
Her big, batlike ears swivel to and fro.
All the hoopla feels nice. I can’t deny it. I also can’t deny that my sense of accomplishment would be greater if Gray Beckham weren’t on the judging panel.
I tell myself that he’s not the type of person who would give me a better score than I deserve. After all, between the two of us, I’m the dishonest one. Still, the memory of our recent, ahem,encounterlooms.
I can’t help feeling like I’ve cheated, and I don’t just mean the whole pageant.
But as the emcee beams at me, she clears her throat and makes another announcement. “I’m happy to tell you, Miss Texas, that your performance received a near-perfect score. You received a ten from all but one of our judges.”
I blink. “What?”
She means a ten fromonejudge, right? Not all but one of them. Gray obviously has a healthy appreciation for theliterary works of J. K. Rowling, but I’m dubious about the rest of the judges. I can’t exactly picture that guy fromThe Bachelorettewith his head buried in a book.
There I go, jumping to conclusions again. Clearly I’m wrong, because the emcee meant what she said.
“You got five tens and one nine,” she says.
My mind reels.
“Thank you.” I sniff. My eyes fill. I did this.Idid. I would have won the talent prelim, even if Gray hadn’t been on the panel. “Thank you so much.”
I press the plaque to my heart with one hand and clutch the bouquet in my other. The roses are deep crimson, just like the ones resting in my mother’s arms in the photograph on Ginny’s nightstand.
I close my eyes, fighting the tears that are threatening to spill down my face. When I open them, I see the current Miss American Treasure coming toward me, carrying something sparkly.
It’s a tiara.
The crown is much smaller than the one my mother wore, but the design is exactly the same.
My face crumples as she secures it to my head full of hair extensions and styling products. Tears stream down my cheeks. I have officially become a cliché. I’m one of those GIFs of sobbing pageant girls that make the rounds on social media every year when the Miss America pageant is televised. It’s ridiculous.
But I can’t help it. Other than playing dress-up with my mother’s crown as a kid, this is the first time a tiara has ever come in contact with my head. Ginny’s bedroom at Dad and Susan’s house is stacked with them. It’s practically a tiara warehouse. She’s got homecoming queen tiaras and crowns from so many pageants that I’d never be able to name them all if I tried.
I was never envious of all my twin’s beauty queen hardware. Honestly. At least not that I realized. But the crown feels so right on my head, and knowing that it looks just like my mother’s did makes me never want to take it off.
Warmth blossoms in my chest. I take a deep breath—the deepest one I’ve taken in years. Something has shaken loose inside me. It seems that Ginny isn’t the only one who’s been walking around with a beauty queen–shaped hole in her heart.
