Pretty Ugly: A Novel (7 page)
And that’s why you’ll love our new reality show,
The Princess and the Queen
!
Nothing is more American than family, pretty girls, and hard work! And in
The Princess and the Queen,
you’ll see all that, plus we’ll take you “behind the scenes” to see how pageants really work! Sure, it’s easy being pretty, but it’s a lot like work to get there! (That would be a great slogan for the show! Another good one might be: “One is glamorous, the other is glamour
stressed
.”)
The show itself is genius in its simplicity. Basically, camera crews would follow me (a former beauty queen) and my multiple-award-winning daughter (a Southern Pageant Hall of Fame nominee) as we compete in the competitive world of children’s beauty pageants throughout the Southern United States. Cameras don’t lie! What you will see is the unvarnished truth of what makes beauty pageants the most popular entertainment events in the history of America!
And if that’s not enough, as someone who watches only reality shows, I give you my personal 100% guarantee that this show will be the most entertaining and highest-rated show in your network’s history!
Miranda then proceeded to cold-call every talent agency in Hollywood. When none of them called back, she made a solemn vow to never work with anyone who didn’t return a phone call. Undeterred, Miranda began contacting the networks directly, starting alphabetically with ABC and giving up when some smug intern at VH1 hung up halfway through her pitch.
And then she remembered Maggie Lester. In third grade, Maggie was Miranda’s best friend for about a month. Now living in Los Angeles, Maggie was married to a man who wrote for a popular animated show called
The Stupids.
Miranda friended her with a painstakingly casual, Oh-my-God-I-was-just-poking-around-on-Facebook-and-found-your-name-blah-blah-blah message. A few pleasant exchanges about careers, family, and the past twenty-four years passed before Miranda got to the point.
So … I feel bad for not saying something sooner, but please tell your husband how much I like his show. Really funny!! Seriously. My kids love it! You know … I’ve been doing some writing, too. I know. Crazy, right? But I have to say … I do think it’s pretty good. It’s a reality show. I don’t want to say too much, you know, for legal reasons. Not that I think you would steal it, but someone else might read this. But if you want, I could send you a secure copy (or a fax), and if you like it I wouldn’t mind if you gave it to your husband to pass along to his agent or the head of the network his show is on. And don’t worry … if they want to buy it, I won’t forget who helped me out!;)
Maggie never responded, and while disappointed, Miranda tried to remain stoic.
“I never would have thought little Maggie Lester would turn into some stuck-up Hollywood phony,” she told Ray while sitting in bed updating Bailey’s Flickr page. “I guess you never really do know people.”
Standing outside the hotel, her hands shaking with rage, Miranda read the Shooting Notice again and tried to figure out whom this fucking show could possibly be about. But in her heart, she knew. She knew it like she knew her own fears. If it wasn’t Bailey, there was only one other logical choice: Starr Kennedy and her grosshog bitch bag of a mother, Theresa.
Starr was arguably the greatest child pageant contestant ever. By the age of five, she had broken the record for most consecutive wins (thirty-six), and by seven had entered
Guinness World Records
for “Most Concurrent Beauty Pageant Titles” (fifty-two). Rumors were circulating that Donald Trump himself had been keeping tabs on her for the Miss Teen USA Pageant, rumors undoubtedly started by the publicist Theresa got Starr for her eighth birthday. One of Miranda’s greatest failures as a mother was that Bailey had never beaten Starr in competition. She did, however, take Starr’s crown for Little Miss Golden Roses when the girl was forced to step down over allegations that Theresa provided sexual favors to one of the judges.
Calling the charges “offensive and calculated,” Theresa demanded a hearing of the Golden Roses Council of Elders, two of whom recused themselves citing a conflict of interest. But after hearing the evidence, the council’s verdict stood. Bailey was officially named Little Miss Golden Roses while Starr was given the insulting title of Honorary First Runner-up. It was a slap in the face Theresa refused to accept, and she vowed to pull her marquee daughter from all future pageants sponsored by the Golden Roses Organization. However, Theresa’s refusal to appeal the elders’ decision lent credence to the rumors, which had grown to orgiastic proportions throughout the circuit.
Miranda hated Theresa’s liposuctioned guts. Everything about the woman made her want to vomit: her sun-damaged skin, bleached blond hair, the way she stuffed herself into her tight Target jeans and clomped around like a Clydesdale in her Jessica Simpson stilettos. She looked exactly like the aging Florida stripper she was rumored to be. All that being said, Miranda found it hard not to admire Theresa’s Machiavellian approach to competition. Nothing short of physically assaulting another contestant was off-limits. Bailey had fallen victim to her psychological warfare many times, most recently at the Sweet Ray of Sunshine Invitational (Pigeon Forge, Tennessee) six months prior.
“Good gracious, Bailey!” Theresa said, seeing Bailey backstage, “look at your feet!”
Bailey had grown immune to Miranda’s criticism, but Theresa was a master at finding someone’s softest spot and plunging an acrylic nail into it.
“What’s wrong with them?” the girl asked softly.
“They’re so
big.
Are you wearing clown shoes?”
Theresa laughed at her “joke,” then put her arm around Bailey’s shoulder to physically sense the peak of the girls’ vulnerability and went in for the kill.
“Now, don’t you worry about a thing, sweetie. Not everyone thinks big feet are nasty. My granny had big feet, and she could climb a tree like a monkey! Just be careful and don’t trip, ’cause that would be
really
embarrassing. Not to mention, you’d definitely lose to Starr again. Anywho, looks like you still need to put your face on, so I’ma go. Good luck.”
She then used her bony thumb to wipe an inky black tear from Bailey’s cheek, and winked at Miranda, who stood by speechless, in awe of that bitch’s game.
Theresa’s warning became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and Bailey stumbled during her gymnastics routine, giving Starr the title, her third that week. Across the room, Miranda shot daggers at Theresa, who returned them with a frosty, shit-eating shrug.
Four months later, Miranda sent a gift basket of barbeque from Theresa’s brother-in-law’s restaurant to the judges of the upcoming Cinderella Model Search and Pageant (Bowling Green, Kentucky). The enclosed card read, “Be sure to suck the bones! Love, T.” Miranda then filed an anonymous complaint accusing Theresa of bribing the judges with gifts of food, an offense expressly forbidden in the Cinderella bylaws. Citing lingering questions surrounding Theresa’s history of judge tampering and wanting to avoid even a hint of impropriety, the Cinderella Organization banned Starr from competition without so much as a hearing. It turned out to be a wasted effort. While attempting a complicated series of back handsprings in a new gymnastics routine, Bailey snagged her toe on the hem of her skirt and fell, landing her as First Runner-up.
“That effing
skank,
” Miranda muttered. The reality show
had
to be about Starr, who else? Besides Bailey, there weren’t many contestants who warranted that level of exposure. Karolynne Simpson was a possibility, but she hadn’t been truly competitive since her father ran off to Miami with that Vietnamese lady-boy he met on Craigslist. Cashburn Tinsley? Surely that wonky eye prevented her from being on TV since it consistently prevented her from winning a title. Maybe it was just Starr.
Miranda wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Dammit,” she whispered. “Why can’t something good ever happen to
me
?” She turned to Bailey, who’d been staring into space, thinking about food. “Take the bags inside, baby. I’ll be right there.”
As Bailey pushed the luggage cart through the busy hotel lobby, Miranda stood outside ripping the Shooting Notice into hundreds of tiny pieces, imagining it was Theresa’s stupid face.
In a dark living room that reeked of old man’s pajamas and impending death, Ray slumped in a tattered easy chair and fought to keep his eyes open. His hospice patient, Marvin Daye, lay unconscious in the rented hospital bed next to him, wheezing through what was left of his lung. Marvin had smoked two packs of unfiltered Camels a day for sixty-four years, and for the past sixty-four nights, Ray’s job was to sit and watch him die. It was a pretty sweet gig. Every few hours Ray would change the old man’s catheter and roll him to prevent bedsores. On the rare occasion Marvin was awake, Ray would read to him or try to persuade the old man to drink some broth, but mostly he just changed his IV and watched ESPN. Marvin’s prolonged death also allowed Ray to play grab bag with three shoe boxes overflowing with medications. Ray had been catatonic in the chair for two hours. He was pretty sure it was Dilaudid. Dilaudid was the shit.
Faint music emanated from somewhere. Ray looked around for its source. The air felt like pudding. It was a good fifteen seconds before he recognized it as his ringtone:
Here I am, on the road again. There I am, on the stage. Here I go, playing star again. There I go, turn the page …
He unclipped the phone from his waistband and tried to speak. His tongue was pasty and thick. “This”—he cleared his throat—“this is Ray.”
“They stole my show!” Miranda’s voice was so loud he almost didn’t need the phone to hear her. He slumped a little deeper in his chair.
“What?”
“They stole my show! They just up and stole it!”
Every weekend, Ray got at least one call from Miranda complaining about some perceived slight. The week before she had him paged at the hospital.
“Does Bailey walk like a softball player?”
Ray had just spent an hour in the ER helping remove an arrow from a fourteen-year-old girl’s leg.
“I don’t even know what that means,” he said.
“Yes, you do. They walk with that
stride,
you know? Like they know how to fix a motorcycle.”
“Are you drunk?”
Miranda produced the sigh that had become their shorthand for moving on from dead-end conversations. A lot of these calls ended with that sigh.
“Who—what show … what are you talking about?” He needed water.
“My pageant show! About me and Bailey? Remember? The one I’ve been working on for five years? How could you forget about that? Someone stole my idea, and now they’re doing
my
show about someone else!”
Oh.
That
show.
“Well … I’m really sorry, babe. That really … you know, sucks. It sucks. It does. It sucks. Sorry.”
There was a long silence before, “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“Um. I…” He exhaled. “What—what do you want me to say?”
“You could try to be a little more sympathetic. Dammit, Ray, why can’t you just support me for once?”
Ray sat up a little straighter. The peaceful, easy feeling of the Dilaudid had vanished, leaving behind a growing haze of impatience and exhaustion—serenity with a hangover.
“You’re right, Miranda. I don’t support you nearly enough. You know what, how about this … what if I quit one of my jobs and only work seventy hours a week so you and Bailey can stay home and we can sit around all weekend and support each other. How’s that sound?”
Silence.
“’Cause I’m happy to try having a family.” He breathed. “I’m already paying for one.”
After another moment of silence, he heard his wife’s small, sad voice cracking through the phone. “I just … I just really wanted to be on a TV show. I thought it would be a good opportunity. For us. For all of us.”
Ray exhaled the rest of his anger and rubbed his red, tired eyes.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just … really tired.”
“You work so hard, Ray. Don’t think I don’t notice.”
“I know you do. Thanks.” He looked over at Marvin and tried to remember the last time his whole family was in the same room together. Easter? What month was this?
“Just”—he cleared his throat again—“just try to not let it bother you so much, the show. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway, right? Maybe this is happening because something better is waiting right around the corner.”
She smiled. “Maybe.”
“I’m sure of it. So get some rest and make sure Bailey’s focused and ready for tomorrow.”
There was a sniffle on the other end, then the sigh. “Don’t forget to pick up the boys at Mom’s. Also, check on her knees if you have time. She can barely walk. I don’t think she’s taking her medication.”
“I’ll go by when I’m done here.”
“Okay. Good night. Sorry I was so…” Her voice trailed off, implying a behavior she’d frequently been accused of but didn’t want to validate by saying out loud.
“It’s okay. Kiss Bailey for me.”
“I will.”
“And I’m sorry about your show. I know you really wanted it.”
He could hear her smile on the other end.
“Thanks. Love.”
“Love.” Ray turned off his phone and dropped it on the matted rug at his feet. Letting his head fall back, he focused on a yellow water stain on the ceiling and tried to figure out when his marriage became the most difficult yet least time-consuming of his full-time jobs. Things used to be so much more fun, before the kids, before the pageants. Truth be told, the whole pageant thing didn’t even make sense to him. Before Bailey was born, Miranda had only competed in three pageants her whole life.
When Christie introduced them, Miranda was dating an abusive but charming asshole named Phil Hatfield, who explained away his violent behavior by claiming to be a direct descendant of the famous feuding family.
“Violence is in my blood, and I don’t know a man alive who can change his blood.”
Phil managed a regionally famous restaurant called Mom’s that had no menu and took no reservations. The dining room consisted of six four-top tables on the first floor of a massive plantation home on the bank of the river. Velvet flocked gold-and-burgundy wallpaper perfectly absorbed the natural light that streamed in from the floor-to-ceiling leaded-glass windows and gave the room a dim romantic hue even at midday. Dinner started promptly at seven, and the first two dozen people who showed up got to eat whatever Phil’s mother chose to cook that night. Leftovers were sent home with the diners free of charge, and latecomers were turned away even if seats were available, no exceptions.
