Page 8 of The Accidental Beauty Queen
“No,” I manage to mutter.
Has she forgotten that I’m on vacation? During the school year, my alarm goes off every morning at five o’clock. I’m not planning on cracking an eyelid until the Florida sunshine is bright enough to penetrate the thick hotel curtains.
“Charlotte,please,” she wails. “It’s an emergency.”
I swear, if she wants me to walk that obnoxious dog in the middle of the night, I’m going to lose it.
“Is the hotel on fire?” I ask, keeping my eyes clamped shut. “It better be.”
“Worse!” She flips my bedside light on, and I blink against the sudden assault of brightness. “Look at me.”
I rub my eyes, and I’m so drowsy that at first I can’t tell what she’s going on about.Whatis her problem? Did she break a nail? Did one of her meticulously groomed eyebrow hairs grow back overnight?
“Look at my face! What’s happening?” She’s screaming now, and the panic in her voice, sharp and raw, snaps me into consciousness.
I sit up, reaching for my glasses on the nightstand. Ginny wails again and helps me shove them in place.
“Is it still bad?” she asks.
I blink, certain that I’m either seeing things or that I’m still asleep and this odd conversation is just a dream. No... a nightmare.
Because the person sitting on the edge of my bed looks nothing like my beauty queen sister. She’s a stranger with a blotchy, swollen face, narrow slits for eyes, and lips at least four times the size of Angelina Jolie’s.Notin a good way.
I peer more closely, trying in vain to see someone recognizable beneath all the swelling. “Ginny?”
She starts to cry, and I wince. Asking her to verify her identity clearly wasn’t the response she was hoping for.
“Of course it’s me,” she says through her tears. “Who else would it be?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Buttercup shimmying her way underneath the bed. Even Ginny’s devoted dog is freaked out by her appearance.
“We need to call nine-one-one. Like, right now.” I reach for my iPhone, but Ginny snatches it from my hands before I can push a button.
“No! Are you crazy?” She throws my phone across the room, and it lands somewhere in the pile of sparkle at the foot of her bed.
“Look, I know you’re upset. But clearly you’re having some kind of allergic reaction. You need a doctor.” I reach for the hotel phone on the nightstand, and Ginny swats my hand away.
I swat back at her, and in an instant we are slapping at each other like we did when we were eight, fighting over the haircut I gave her Miss America Barbie.
“Stop!” I leap from the bed, out of striking distance, and cross my arms. “You need help.”
“I know that.Obviously.” She gestures toward her face, which already looks worse than it did just a few moments ago. “But we can’t call nine-one-one. They’ll send an ambulance, and everyone up and down the hall will see me like this.”
I want to slap her again. For real, this time. “Are you seriously worried about a beauty pageant right now? You could go into anaphylactic shock, Ginny. You coulddie.”
For a second, Ginny doesn’t say anything. She stands there quietly, and I wait for my words to sink in.
She lets out a deep, shuddering sigh. “You’re right, okay. I know I need to get to a doctor. But no one here can see me like this. You can’t call nine-one-one. Promise me.”
At least she seems to appreciate the seriousness of the situation. “Fine. But get dressed. We’re leaving right now.”
I’ll have to get an Uber or a cab to take us to the closest hospital or something. I vaguely remember passing an urgent-care center earlier in the day on the way to the theme park. It was in a strip mall just down the street. With any luck, they’re open twenty-four hours.
I tug on my jeans, sneakers, and myTalk Darcy to MeT-shirt—always a hit when I wear it to my boozy Thursday-night book club. Ginny looks at it and shakes her head, clearly not getting the joke. Either that, or the head shake merely represents her general disapproval of my wardrobe. It doesn’t matter. I’m just relieved that she’s still well enough to judge my fashion sense. Maybe she won’t die, after all.
“Okay, let’s go.” I shove my room key and cell phone in my back pocket and march toward the door.
“Wait.” Ginny moves to block my path. She’s thrown on a red baby-doll-style dress with tiny white stars scattered over it. She’s not wearing her sash, but she still somehow looks like Miss Texas.
