Beauty Queens (25 page)

“They gave up,” Taylor said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “They just … left us. We did everything they asked, and they left us.”

Nicole put a hand on Taylor’s arm. “It’s okay, Taylor.”

“No. It’s not okay. It’s not okay at all.” Tears beaded along Taylor’s thick lashes. “This … this was my
last year!”

Taylor pushed through the gathered girls and ran toward the jungle as fast as she could.

“Should we go after her?” Jen asked.

Adina shook her head. “Let her go. She just needs some space.”

Please fill in the following information and return to Jessie Jane, Miss Teen Dream Pageant administrative assistant, before Monday. Remember, this is a chance for the judges and the audience to get to know YOU. So make it interesting and fun, but please be appropriate. And don’t forget to mention something you love about our sponsor, The Corporation!

• I am a winner of Li’l Miss Lone Star, Miss Dustbowl County, Junior Miss Waco County, Miss Purdy Boots, Little Miss Perfect, and Miss GlowWorm. I am proud to represent as Miss Teen Dream Texas.
  
• I was voted Most Likely to Rule the World in a Scary Way. But I am used to dealing with petty jealousy.
  
• My role model is former Miss Teen Dream Ladybird Hope, and I aspire to be like her in all ways.
  
• Personal motto: “God made me beautiful. The least I can do is share it with the world.”
  
• My mom left when I was six to go “find herself.” Some people are just weak and you have to pity them.
  
• I am not weak. I do not need your pity.
  
• Nothing scares me.
  

Taylor’s legs were strong and they had carried her deep into the jungle. She’d climbed over rocks and cut through heavy growth until she could no longer run. She settled beneath the sheltering apron of a bush and let go. She couldn’t understand. She’d always been a good girl. A perfect girl. No one had tried harder than Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins. And what had it gotten her?

“I can’t be what they want me to be.”
It was what her mother had said.

Taylor couldn’t remember her mother very well. She had been six when Mrs. Hawkins had walked out before dawn, leaving Taylor with a lingering kiss on her forehead and a wound that lasted much longer. She remembered small moments, and these moments came to her now: A birthday cake cradled in her mother’s hands, with white peaks of frosting and animal crackers around the edges. The two of them on the swings at the park, kicking their legs higher and higher. The light catching her mom’s face as she stood at the kitchen sink, unmoving, the water running over the untouched dishes. Her parents squaring off in the open doorway of their bedroom. “This life is killing me, Chuck,” her mother saying in a voice hoarse with tears while her dad stood in his army greens, quiet as always, his hands worrying the edges of his hat. Her mother sitting in the half-light glow of the television well after Taylor should have been in bed. Beside her, a cigarette burned down to ash in an aluminum pie plate. The TV glittered with beautiful women parading in evening gowns, their smiles holding so much promise:
Everything can be yours! All
this and great shoes, too!
Taylor’s mom wasn’t smiling, though. The familiar sadness had settled into her eyes and mouth.

“Tay-Tay, whatcha doin’ up, baby?”

Taylor didn’t answer, only snuggled into the comfort of her mother’s lap to watch the show. Girl after girl shimmered on the small screen. They were the most perfect things Taylor had ever seen.

“That’s a nice dress. I like yellow,” her mother said without enthusiasm.

“Will you brush my hair?” Taylor asked.

“Hold still.” Her mother brushed sweetly, softly, and to Taylor, it felt like the world was just this — her mother, the beautiful girls on TV, the caress of a brush in her hair. They watched till the end when a golden girl from Texas won the shining crown and took her tearful walk amidst flashing bulbs. It was late, and Taylor’s eyelids were heavy. She could just make out the sound of her mother crying softly as she rested her face against the top of Taylor’s head.

“I’m sorry, Tay-Tay,” she murmured. “I can’t be what they want me to be. I can’t do it.”

“I’m sleepy,” Taylor said with a yawn.

Her mother carried her upstairs and put her to bed. “You be a good girl, now. Be Mama’s strong little girl, and you’ll be okay.”

The next morning, her mother was gone. At first, Taylor had been fearful. How could a person just disappear like that? What if other people and things began to disappear — her father or the TV? She gathered her toys around her and tied them together with jump ropes like a sculpture, each one tethered to another. She pitched her pink Barbie camping tent nearby and tied the toy sculpture to one of the poles.

Two weeks later, Taylor saw Ladybird Hope on TV talking about her life in pageants, how it had given her the confidence to go after her dreams. Taylor left the safety of her tent and padded into the kitchen, where her dad sat reading the paper and eating a bowl of cornflakes.

“I want to be Little Miss Perfect,” Taylor announced.

Her daddy signed her up. The ladies at the church saw to it that she got her dresses and lessons. And when they placed that first crown on her head, Taylor found her calling. They loved her. If you did everything right, they had to love you. That mantra had seen her through countless pageants. But this time she’d done everything right and they were leaving her anyway. You couldn’t be perfect enough to keep the world from betraying you. There was no way to win this game playing by the rules that had been set up so long ago. No. You had to rewrite them. You had to play your own game.

Her cheeks were wet. Taylor didn’t usually cry; it was hell on the mascara. Only amateurs cried. Angrily, she wiped the tears away and talked through her affirmations:

“Never count a pageant girl out.”

“I am Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins. And I am Miss Teen Dream.”

“It’s always darkest before the ultimate sparkle.”

She let out a sharp whoosh of breath, stood, and stretched. She shadowboxed and circle-turned. Then she glossed her lips and took a bow. There was still a chance. She’d make it right.

A flash of light caught her attention. For a moment, she thought she heard deep murmurings. It could have been the echoes of the jungle and nothing more, but Taylor was the daughter of a military man, and her senses were sharp. She slipped between the trees, keeping her breathing soft, following the sound till it became more pronounced. Definitely voices. Male. One deeper; the other higher, younger. It sounded roughly like English. They were saved! Well, she would certainly have something to say to those Negative Nellies back at the camp who didn’t believe they’d be rescued.

She would march right up to these people, whoever they were, and let them know who she was and that everything would be okay. It was a good thing she’d taken the care to keep up her beauty routine every day, unlike the others. She gave herself a good sniff. Not too bad. Still, there was always room for improvement. With a hard
kick, she split a coconut, dabbing the sweet juice behind her ears and squeezing it between her wrists like perfume.

Through the breaks in the dense tree line, Taylor glimpsed men behind a barbed wire fence carrying guns. Their work boots and crew cuts said military to her, but they had no familiar identifying markers — no berets, no camouflage or flag emblems. Instead, they all wore the same black shirts, though one had pinned a Daffy Duck emblem on the back. It was odd. And unsettling. Taylor’s instincts, honed during countless pageants when the one who claimed to be sweet was the one to put Nair in your shampoo, came crawling up her spine and into her cortex. She hid herself.

“That ought to do it, sir,” one of the mystery men reported to a man in khakis and mirrored aviators, gesturing toward some crates.

“Good work, Agent.” Aviators man took in the Daffy Duck emblem. “Is that how you fellas dress these days, Agent?”

“Sir. It’s Casual Friday, sir.”

“And there’s a team-building exercise at four, followed by a Cinco de Mayo tequila party at five,” said a college-aged-looking dweeb in sneakers dribbling a basketball. Taylor made a mental note that when she returned home and won Miss Teen Dream, she’d start a charm school for clueless college boys. The world expected girls to pluck and primp and put on heels. Meanwhile, boys dressed in rumpled T-shirts and baggy pants and misplaced their combs, and yet you were supposed to fall at their feet? Unacceptable.

Aviators man shook his head and exhaled through tight lips. “Go on, Agent.”

Dismissed, the mystery men approached the volcano. One of them lifted a fake rock panel and punched in a code on a keypad. A hidden door slid open to reveal a brightly lit corridor. The men stepped inside and the door closed again as if it had never existed.

Taylor’s mouth opened in astonishment. What was going on here? Who were these people? She’d grown up on bases. She knew military. These people were something else. Keeping low to the ground, she
crept around the side to get a better look at what was inside those crates. She kept one eye on the young guy and the man in sunglasses, who had lit up a cigarette. Taylor’s mouth twisted in judgment. Clearly, some people were just too stupid to live. She would also work anti-smoking into her platform. Taylor watched the men carefully.

“Hey, Jonesy! Think fast!” The college kid fake-tossed the basketball. Aviators man didn’t move. “You flinched!”

“Did not.”

“Did so,” the college kid singsonged under his breath. He reached into a crate and pulled out a white jar. Taylor strained to read the label. It looked like Lady ’Stache Off.

Aviators man put up a hand. “You might not want to get that near my lit cigarette.”

“Why? Doesn’t it take an electrical charge or something to make it go off?”

“It’s a volatile compound. An explosive. The less handling, the better.”

The college kid chuckled. “Exploding hair remover. I can’t get over that.”

“Try.”

The college kid placed the tub back in the crate. “This stuff’s gonna make The Corporation rich.”

Taylor frowned. The Corporation didn’t make explosives — certainly not out of beauty products. She had no idea what this ill-dressed boy was talking about.

He twirled the basketball on the tip of his index finger. “I know what’s going on, you know.”

Aviators man pulled on his cigarette. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, I think you know.”

“Yes, Harris. I always know. What do
you
think you know?”

“What I need to know.”

“Which is?”

“Wouldn’t
you
like to know?”

Aviators man’s face remained stoic. “No. Not really.”

“Fine! Play hardball, Jonesy. I like that about you.”

“I’m not playing. I’m genuinely not interested.”

“The plane crash. The Miss Teen Dream beauty queens on the other side of the island?”

From the safety of her hiding spot, Taylor gasped and immediately put a hand to her mouth to silence herself. Aviators man’s head turned slightly in her direction and Taylor crouched lower.

“What is it?” the college kid asked.

“Nothing,” Aviators man said.

“So The Corporation was looking for those girls and the whole time they’re right here with us on the island.”

“The Corporation knows that, and they weren’t looking for them.”

An icy dread coursed through Taylor’s blood. It beat a warning in her temples.

“What do you mean?” the college kid asked.

Aviators man exhaled a plume of smoke. “We get some rescue crews here to pick up a few beauty queens, next thing you know, they’re taking a closer look at our operation. They find out about Operation Peacock. Do you know what would happen if people found out The Corporation is making an arms deal with MoMo B. ChaCha?”