Prettiest Doll (19 page)

Even the hotel was silent. Usually at hotels with conference rooms there are people in the halls at all hours, stumbling around, laughing and whispering. They aren't pageant people. They're businesspeople who've stayed up late, drinking. The pageant people are always in their rooms early, the girls asleep, the moms fretting, trying to remember if they've packed the extra Magic Tan, if there'll be enough time in the morning to iron the baton-twirling costume again. Pageant moms can always think of one more thing that needs doing.

That bird-pin lady at the front desk had looked all admiringly at Mama, thinking how hard she'd worked, but she didn't know the half of it, what Mama does. So much. There's always something last-minute to remember, another fake nail to paint, another sequin to sew on.

The bird-pin lady got to go home and stop thinking about her day at the reservations desk. Or maybe she thought about it, but there wasn't anything more to
do.
She could watch TV, knit a baby blanket, tell her husband about the businessman who'd dug around in the outdoor trash bins looking for something and left trash all over the parking lot. That had really happened once. I was nine. I heard the clerk say, “But, sir, you're on the surveillance video,” and the man say, “What is this, CIA headquarters? I want to talk to your supervisor!”

Maybe I slept a little. When I looked over at the alarm clock on the bedside table, it was 4:13. I stared straight up into the blackness, straining to hear sounds from the conference room at the end of the hall. Sometimes the workers start early, setting up chairs, hanging banners, putting the trophies out on a table so all the girls will know what they're shooting for, what's at stake.

But I heard nothing. It reminded me of Dan's father's house, vast and hushed in the early morning, Dan's half brother and half sister standing silently in front of their closets, choosing clothes for school, Suzy Jacobson pouring coffee, anxious to get to the barn, where the horses snorted and pawed the dirt, waiting. All those rooms, and no one talking.

The blackness swirled and I started to fall and right before I felt it wrap its arms around me I had the funniest thought, that if Mama didn't have pageants to think about, there might be nothing else in her head.

 

“Olivia Jane,” she whispered. “Come on, honey. It's pageant day.”

I groaned. I think I said, “I'm not doing this.”

“Come on, honey,” Mama said, not in a whisper now. “Up and at 'em. Let's get ready to rumble,” which is what she always says.

I forced myself up to sitting, my hair a mess around my face, my face still hot from sleep.

“Your interview's at eight, and Miss Denise will be here any minute,” Mama said. “Come on. Brush your teeth and wash your face. And then put your gown on.”

“I gotta pee first,” I said grumpily and slammed the bathroom door.

A few minutes later, I sat on the closed toilet lid and watched myself in the mirror as Mama set my hair in hot rollers. I was wearing my burgundy gown, still warm from the ironing Mama had given it on the fold out board in the wall by the door. I had a big towel over my shoulders like a stole, to make sure the dress didn't get wet or stained.

“Ouch!” I said as she jabbed a bobby pin into my scalp.
“Ouch!”

“Hush! ” Mama said. “Don't be a baby.” She worked fast, prying each pin apart with her teeth before sliding it in place.

When she was finished, I couldn't help laughing. “I look like Marie Antoinette in her wig.”

“Who?” Mama said, not r eally paying attention. She stared fiercely at the snowy folds of my skirt. “You think I got all the wrinkles out?” she said, but before I could answer, there was a knock at the door and we heard Miss Denise half whispering out in the hall, “It's me, Janie!”

She was wearing black jeans and a bright green blazer and too much perfume, the kind some movie star makes, because if you're a movie star, then you know what men like. At least, that's what Miss Denise says. “Well, good Lord, girl! ” she said, squeezing herself into the tiny bathroom with me. “Don't you just look
fantastic!”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Ooh, Janie, this dress is perfect.
Per-fect.
It sets off her skin so
nice.”
Miss Denise put her makeup cases on the counter and looked me up and down, hands on her hips. “Oh, yes. Perfect. Don't you think, Olivia?”

“I think it'll make the judges think of Christmas,” I said.

“Oh, yes. Definitely. Yes, indeed,” Miss Denise said, nodding, still judging. “You'll knock their socks off.”

“That's what I think,” Mama said from the doorway. “You don't think it looks wrinkled?”

“I don't think so, Janie, no.” Miss Denise studied every part of me as though I was a car she was thinking of buying, then flashed her pageant smile at Mama. “You did good, girl!”

Mama smiled. “I was worrying all night about wrinkles,” she said.

“Now, Olivia, you haven't eaten this morning, have you?” Miss Denise unzipped one of her cases, getting ready for makeup applicating. “You don't want to be looking puffy onstage.”

Something changed on Mama's face. “Denise, I'm not one for having Olivia Jane skip meals.”

“I'm just saying—”

Mama's brow furrowed. “In our house, we don't believe in not eating for no good reason.”

Mama had been a yo-yo dieter when she was a girl. She knew how bad that was.

Miss Denise shrugged in a's uit-yourself kind of way, and also in a well-I'm-too-polite-to-say-so-but-have-you-looked-in-a-mirror-lately? kind of way. My heart broke a little, but Mama ignored her. She pulled an apple and a cruller and a plastic bottle of orange juice from her suitcase and handed them to me. “Here you go, baby,” she said.

I took a huge bite of the apple and chewed loudly on purpose. It tasted absolutely delicious.

Miss Denise fussed with her makeup brushes, pretending to ignore me. “How much time we got, Janie? Half hour? Forty minutes?” She looked at me, suddenly all business, and said, “Let's get a move on, Olivia. We're running out of time.”

I finished my breakfast while Miss Denise arranged her brushes and creams and gels and powders. Foundation and concealer, eyelash curler, false eyelashes, liner. Like at the dentist's office: all the tools for poking and scraping laid out. I raised my face to the light so Miss Denise could see her work.

She told me when to close my eyes, when to look up, when to purse my lips. Her eyes narrowed into slits. I knew it wasn't really me she was seeing. By the end, I would be invisible, hidden away.

“You been practicing your dance?” she asked. Wanting to let me know how mad she was about Mrs. Drucker, all the trouble she'd gone through to get me a lesson, how ungrateful I was, and full of myself, turning up my nose at that kind of opportunity.

“I'm not dancing,” I said. “I'm singing.”

Miss Denise's jaw dropped. She looked up at Mama, who was standing behind me in the tub, taking the rollers out of my hair. Then she looked back at me.

“What? Olivia Jane, are you out of your gol-darned mind?” she said.

“I'm doing it.”

“You been practicing? On your own? Janie, did you know about this?”

Mama shook her head as she fumbled with a roller, her lips folded into a thin, stiff line. “I did not. And I ain't too happy about it, neither.”

“Well, I can see why.” Miss Denise glared at me. “Olivia, I am taken aback by this.”

“It's all right,” I said. “It'll be all right.”

“Honey, have you heard yourself?” She shook her head. “I don't understand why you didn't go see Mrs. Elsie Drucker if you had your heart set on singing.”

“It will be all right,” I said.

In the mirror, I could see Miss Denise and Mama exchange a look. Mama shook her head and said, “I guess it's in the Lord's hands now,” and Miss Denise, who didn't care for church, said, “I hope He's wearing earplugs.”

Minutes later, I was finished. Looking at myself in the mirror in my gown, my hair-sprayed curls tumbling over my shoulders, my face shiny with new glaze, I smiled.

Mama stood behind me, her eyes going a little misty. “So pretty, huh?”

“Yes,” I said, but that wasn't why I was smiling.

It was because, for the first time, I could see myself under all that stuff.

 

We walked fast down the hallway toward the conference room. “Good luck!” the woman sitting at the table out front whispered after she'd checked me in.

Mama put her hands on my arms. “Now you just do your best, honey,” she said. “Remember everything we talked about. I'll be praying for you.”

Miss Denise pointed to my eyes, then to hers, then back to mine. “Eye contact.
Eye contact.
And smile,” she said.

I nodded, already not listening, going into myself. “I know,” I said.

I waited until they'd gone in, then hurried down another hall to get to the door at the front of the conference room, where they'd set up the stage. The carpet was blue with swirls of gold dots, like galaxies of stars in space. Two little girls—blond, in sparkly dresses—stood by the wall, watched over by their mothers. “I'm gonna win!” the taller one said, nodding her head so hard that she tipped at the waist. “I'm gonna win, too!” the other one said, but quietly, not nodding. The taller one glared at her. “Winning only counts if there's just one,” she said. One of the women leaned down and whispered, “Chantilly, you hush!”

At the door, a woman wearing a red dress and a headset stood with a clipboard. “Olivia Jane Tatum?” she asked. “You ready for your interview, honey?"

"Yes, ma'am."

“It'll be another minute. Amber Dickerson's just finishing up. I'm Donna, by the way. I'm Mrs. Crosby's assistant.” She folded her arms across the clipboard, clamping it to her chest. “You done many pageants?” she asked. “You look like you done a lot of them.”

“I've done a few.”

“You girls all look so pretty. The little ones”—she glanced at Chantilly and her friend down the hall—“they're all so cute. But you older girls. Well, now you can really see. You know. The ones who've stuck with it this long, well, you're the pretty ones. The ones who'll be pretty grownups.” She opened the door and peeked in, then closed it, holding the handle so the latch wouldn't make a loud click. “The ones who give up on it have to find another hobby, I guess,” she said.

“It's not a hobby, exactly.”

“Oh, you're
right.
It's a
lifestyle,
isn't it?” She smiled. “You ever met Mrs. Crosby?”

Mrs. Crosby was the pageant coordinator. I'd seen her at the registration desk the night before. She had black hair except for a stripe of silver on the right side, flipped up at the ends. “Just last night,” I said.

“She's so
nice.
She loves all you girls. She used to be a schoolteacher. Second grade, I think. But she wanted to do something more. And she was tired of the boys. The way they couldn't sit still.” She peeked into the conference room again. “Amber's almost done. You ready, honey?”

“Yes, ma'am. I think so.”

“Now just relax. Have fun with it. And smile.” She laughed. “I guess you know that, right?”

The door opened and Amber Dickerson flounced between us. She wore pale pink, and her creamy, suntanned skin sparkled with body glitter. “Stupid question! ” she said. “Damn! ” She looked angrily at Donna, ready to argue if she said anything about watching her language. But Donna just smiled nervously and checked something off on her clipboard.

“What'd they ask you?” I asked.

“If I were stuck on an island in the middle of the ocean, what would I bring? Like, how many times have I answered
that
one? Is my hair okay?” she asked, puffing it up with her gloved hands.

“It's fine. What did you say?” I asked, only halflistening, waiting to hear my name announced.

“I don't know. A picture of my granny. A book. I don't know.” She shook her head. “Shit. I should have said a Bible. Shit.”

“Olivia Jane, you're on,” Donna said, holding one hand to her headset and pushing me gently through the door. “Good luck! ” I heard her whisper.

Out onstage, I felt myself smiling, holding my hands stiffly down at my sides, my head tall on my neck. I didn't even have to think. The parts of my body that had work to do just did it, without my even trying. I glanced out at the room, which, I could see now, was just a room, with rows of metal folding chairs, most of them not even being sat on. When I was little, I thought conference rooms looked like movie theaters, grand, the rows of seats extending back and back.

A few parents were clustered up near the front. Mama and Miss Denise were craning their necks, as if there were people in front of them they had to struggle to see over. I looked carefully for the judges' table, finding it in the front, just at the end of the stage and its little makeshift runway. Three judges, a man and two women. I knew the man and one of the women from other pageants. The women were in their thirties, both wearing the kind of sparkly, low-cut dresses that you're supposed to wear at night. The man was African American and wore a gray pinstriped suit with a blue satin handkerchief in the breast pocket.

Mrs. Crosby, holding a clipboard in one hand and a microphone in the other, stood in the center of the stage, waiting for me. Her face was lit with a school-teachery smile that said “Relax, dear” and “Get your fanny out here right now” at the same time. “Olivia Jane Tatum!” she said into the microphone. I heard scattered applause, Mama clapping hard, Miss Denise calling, “You go, girl!” I smiled big at each judge, meeting each one's eyes. The skirt of my dress bobbled stiffly as I walked.