The Pretty App (14 page)

“Cheers,” I said, tapping her water bottle with mine. It made me think of my brunch at Bubby’s with Leo in Chicago. I wondered what he was doing, and who he was doing it with. I wondered if he was trying to forget about me just like I was trying to forget about him.

A
udrey and I stared out the window as we zoomed along the LA highway past palm trees, apartment buildings, and In-N-Out Burger joints.

When the driver slowed to curve onto a winding street called Hillcrest, I had a feeling we were getting close. I’d imagined the Pretty App campus so many times, and now I was finally about to see it. I had to sign a release form saying I was aware that there would be cameras in every room except the bathrooms, and that I was subject to being filmed at any time. It made me nervous, but I figured I had signed up for that. And I wanted to go through with this, I really did.

The town car moved slowly up the road past beautiful Spanish-style houses with white and yellow stucco fronts and red-tiled roofs. I’d never driven up a road so steep. The houses seemed to be built into the side of a small mountain.

“Look,” Audrey said. I followed her gaze to the white
HOLLYWOOD
sign, bright and shiny in the distance. And then I saw a camera crew filming shots of the famed sign from a park a hundred yards away. “This is so LA,” Audrey said. “Let’s take a picture of you for Lindsay’s blog with the Hollywood sign in the background.” We waited until the driver slowed, then rolled down my window. I pointed to the sign and smiled, my nerves fluttery as everything started to sink in. I was in LA, about to be on a television show, and I had no idea what to expect.

The driver eased the car around a wide circle surrounded by white fir trees. A small sign marked
17 HILLCREST
pointed to a gated driveway. The driver swiped a fob over a keypad on a gray plastic pole, and the gate swung open.

Audrey and I exchanged glances. “Just take a deep breath,” she said, and I did. We only drove a few yards before an Olsen twin–size woman dressed in all black nearly crashed into our car. “Stop, Jerry! Wait here!” She was shouting so loudly that we could hear her even though the windows were closed. She waved a clipboard wildly over her small, dyed-red head.

Our driver—Jerry?—rolled down the window and said, “I’ve got a guest drop-off.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, indicating Audrey.

The woman looked annoyed. “Guest pick-up!” she barked into her radio. Then she shoved her head into the car between the window and doorframe into a space so small I was sure she’d get stuck. “
Hi
,” she said, grinning
like we’d caught her stealing something. “I’m Marsha, and you must be Blake.”

I nodded, too afraid to speak. The thin lines on the woman’s face put her around thirty-five. Two splotches of blush dotted her sunken cheeks.

“I’m one of the producers here on
The Pretty App Live
,” Marsha said. She seemed so thrilled about it that I wondered if she was being fake. “So you can direct any and all questions about filming to me. General concerns and problems can be written down on an index card outside your bedroom door, which we may not get to depending on our production schedule. Right now we’re going to leave your friend here, where she’ll be picked up by an escort and taken to the house on the
Pretty App Live
campus that she’ll be staying in along with the other guests and the legal guardians for our under-eighteen contestants. You’re free to visit her there.”

She was talking about Audrey to me like she was a vet and Audrey was my cat.

“Uh, okay,” I said, and then I turned to Audrey. “That’s okay, right?”

“Sure, Marsh!” Audrey said in a fake-cheery voice, sticking up her thumb. “Sounds A-OK!”

I tried not to smirk. Marsha gave Audrey a tight smile, and then returned her gaze to me. “Blake, as soon as the car crosses that yellow line, you’re on SBC Network and Public property.”

“Get it?” Audrey said. “
Public property
?”

Marsha looked at Audrey like she hated her. Then she
turned back to me and said, “When you cross the yellow line, please know that you’re subject to being filmed at any time of day and night, with the exception of when you shut the door to go to the bathroom. If you forget to shut the door to the bathroom, you are subject to being filmed.” She smiled like that tidbit was normal. “The cameras may follow you anywhere on the
Pretty App Live
campus, including the guesthouse where your friend is staying. So please don’t be alarmed when you see them,” she said. “The crew is going to cut footage from your arrival to open up tonight’s live premiere. The show is debuting a new format, where our team will work around the clock to have already-shot footage available alongside live performance.” Marsha forced a smile filled with glistening white teeth that definitely weren’t the ones God gave her. “So relax and enjoy yourself,” she said. The mole on the top of her lip looked like she’d eaten a chocolate chip ice cream sandwich and forgotten one of the chips. She had to work her neck into a right angle to get her head out of the car.

“Whoops, watch your pea head,” Audrey said when Marsha was out of earshot. Then she turned to me. “What the hell was up with that lady? And why was her head so small?”

“I have no idea,” I said. Audrey opened her mouth to say something else, but right then someone opened the car door on my side. A skinny guy introduced himself as a production assistant and explained in great detail how my new microphone and amp would work.

I clipped the microphone onto my collar, and then a
knock on Audrey’s window made us both jump. We turned to see a hot guy with dark brown hair wearing what looked like a safari uniform. He gestured to a Jeep Wrangler and tipped his khaki-colored hat. “You ready for a ride, little lady?” he said to Audrey.

“Now this is more like it,” Audrey said, kicking her legs out of the car and waving to me from outside. “You’re going to do great,” she said as the driver rolled up the window. “Call me if you need anything,” she yelled through the glass, holding an imaginary phone to her ear.

I raised my hand in a wave. “Thank you,” I mouthed, and she nodded.

My nerves were crackling as the car coasted around another bend and a gleaming white mansion came into view. It was Spanish-style, just like the others on the street, but even larger and more grand. A fountain sprayed water into a lagoon-like pool where a black swan swam among ducks. Bright green cedar and cypress trees shaded an immaculately landscaped lawn. Shrubbery lined a white-stone walkway, and light pink rosebushes grew wild along the sides of the mansion. Wooden beams framed each window in dark contrast to the white stucco exterior. It was so breathtaking I almost didn’t notice the camera crews set up at the entrance to the long walkway.

The car slowed and stopped near the cameras. A buzz came over the driver’s radio, and he pressed a button to hear Marsha’s unmistakable high-pitched voice. “Jerry? Tell Blake to exit the vehicle without claiming her luggage or bringing any personal items. I’d like her to proceed to
the entrance of the mansion as though she does not have any bags with her. And have her wait for my go. Do you read me?”

“I read you,” Jerry grunted. Then, to me, he said, “They’ll bring your luggage when the shot’s over,” which I already kind of knew. You never see the
Bachelor
contestants exit the limo hauling a suitcase.

I looked out the window to see Pia Alvarez. I was momentarily starstruck even worse than with the Liam Hemsworth look-alike. Pia had flowing, golden-brown hair and deep-set, dramatic eyes the color of a hazelnut. She wore tight black leather pants and a matching leather corset. She had to be sweating, but she looked amazing. Her green-gray eyeliner lifted up into a slight cat-eye, and her lips were a matte, ’50s-movie-star kind of red.

“You ever see a celebrity before?” Jerry asked, and I heard a twinge of a southern accent in his words for the first time.

“Only at concerts, really,” I said. Unless Airport Liam Hemsworth had been the real deal. “Not up close, like this.”

“I’ll put the window down on my side so the camera won’t see us but so you can hear what’s going on out there,” he said.

Pia seemed to be listening to something someone was saying into a mic in her ear as a skinny guy adjusted the lighting on her face. Pia nodded and then smiled into the camera. “Our next contestant is arriving now,” she said. “Blake Dawkins is the daughter of gubernatorial candidate
Robert Dawkins, and a senior at Harrison High School in South Bend, Indiana. Where’s that?” Pia asked sweetly, scratching her head like she’d been stumped.

“Cut!” a man called. I turned to see an older guy in his forties stride toward Pia. He had a dark beard streaked with gray, a tan face but a pale forehead—like he played golf on the weekends and wore a hat.

“You can’t make fun of small towns, Pia,” the man scolded her.

South Bend.
Small?

“Oh,” Pia said. “Okay. Sorry. Let me try it again.”

“Yes, that’s the idea,” the man said, clearly annoyed. He strode back to his chair. “In five, four, three, two,” he said, and then he held up his index finger and pointed it at Pia.

“Our next contestant is arriving now,” Pia said. “Blake Dawkins is the daughter of gubernatorial candidate Robert Dawkins and a senior at Harrison High School in South Bend, Indiana.”

“Blake is a go!” Marsha shouted over the radio.

“That’s your cue,” Jerry said, sounding bored.

“I should get out of the car? And walk to Pia?” I asked. Why weren’t they explaining more of this?

“I’d just do whatever seems natural,” Jerry said. “But what do I know? I’m just the escort.”

Pia was staring at the car. It was now or never. I couldn’t stay in the car the whole time. I reached forward and shoved open the door. A camera was suddenly in my face, but instinct told me not to look directly into the lens.

Whatever seems natural
, Jerry had said. I could be natural.
It was just like acting, which I’d loved, and which I’d wanted to take classes in when I was younger. My parents forbade it, because they said acting wasn’t a proper hobby for a young lady. But I’d been acting ever since I could speak, when Nic would write plays and make me perform them for hours after school and every weekend.

“Hi, Pia,” I said as I made my way up the white-stone steps. My shoulders were back, and my gait was relaxed. There were no crowds around, so what did I have to be nervous about? I’d had eyes on me my entire life. What were a few million more?

I walked along the path to where Pia stood. “I’m so excited to be here,” I said, and Pia looked taken aback that I was talking to her.

“That’s great . . .”

“Blake,” I said, in case she’d forgotten. I flicked my shiny, jet-black hair over my self-tanned shoulder. This camera stuff was even more fun than I could’ve imagined when I’d practiced. I kind of liked the lens in my face. It was like having a friend who always wanted to hear what I had to say. “This contest means everything to me,” I said.
A whole new life. A way to show people that I can be important, that I can do good things.
“It’s a way to show people the new me.”

“Well, that’s great,” Pia said again, looking like she wasn’t quite sure how to get a handle back on the conversation.

“And I love your new single, ‘Man-Child,’” I said. Then I hummed a few bars, because I actually have a sort-of okay voice. I looked over and saw the director grinning into
his video monitor.
Love this girl,
he mouthed to another woman who stood next to him. So I hummed a few more bars and then sang the chorus. “
Oh, Man-Child, will you ever grow? Or will you always be a child at play?
” At this point, Pia seemed to get her groove back and joined in, and we both sang: “
Man-Child, Man-Child, please don’t break my heart on a swing set
,” and then Pia starting clapping. “You’ve got pipes, Blake Dawkins,” she said.

I smiled wide for the camera. “Thanks, Pia,” I said. “That means a lot coming from you.” And then I took off along the walkway because I figured my job there was done. I swung my hips just so: suggestive, but not like a hooker. This was way easier than I’d thought it would be. All I had to do was tell myself to act confident, and it happened.

“Cut!”

I turned to see the director heading in my direction. He strode past Marsha, Pia, and another guy holding one of those black-and-white clapperboards you see in
Us Weekly
pictures taken on movie sets. “That was fabulous, Blake,” he said. He extended his hand. “I’m Rich Gibbons, the director here on
The Pretty App Live
. You’re a natural.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said, a little more nervous now that the camera wasn’t on.

“I’d like to get a few more shots of you exiting the town car. And I love that sound bite about how you want America to get to know the new you. Maybe you could look up at the mansion and have a tender look on your face, like this really is going to be the place where the New Blake gets her start.”

“Sure,” I said, smiling so he’d know I was game for anything. The advertisements running on TV for
The Pretty App Live
said the entire country would vote for their favorite contestants. That meant I needed to get as much time in front of the camera as possible.

The crew filmed me exiting the car at least six times (so much for reality TV), each time with varying expressions of hopefulness on my face. When we were finished, the driver brought me my luggage and Marsha glued herself to my side. “You’re going to enter the mansion now, Blake,” she said, and I thought,
Well, yeah
. Then she combed back a flyaway strand of dyed-red hair. It was the kind of red that probably looked good on the bottle, but looked a little purple in person. “And you’re going to be introduced to the six other contestants who’ve already arrived,” she said.

“Okay, great,” I said. “Thanks, Marsha.”

“Good luck,” she said, like I might need it.

T
wo deep breaths later, I grabbed a scalloped bronze handle and pushed open the massive wooden door. Three men dressed in black held cameras on their shoulders and aimed them in my direction. Camera lights shone in my face.

“Hello!” I called out, because for some inexplicable reason it was easier to do all of this when I was being filmed. I’d spent so many years doing some kind of
acting
: acting like I didn’t care every time one of my tests came back with a
C
or a
D
, acting like the daughter my parents wanted, acting like I was the biggest bitch in school who wasn’t afraid of anything, even when I was.

This wasn’t really hard compared to all of that.

“Is anyone here?” I asked sweetly, hearing my melodic voice echo in the cavernous main hall.

I peeked into the first room, smiling as the cameras
followed my every move. A long oak table held twelve elaborate place settings: Antique china sets with varying patterns were arranged next to crystal wineglasses. Silver candlesticks in the shape of tree branches held tall white candles. Renaissance-style paintings were framed in gold, and dark wooden beams crisscrossed the white stucco ceiling. It was like staring at a page in
Elle Décor
. It was unlike any other home I’d ever been inside.

I moved into the next room, and that’s where I saw the six other contestants sprawled on plush white leather sofas in front of a faux fireplace.

I might’ve had a panic attack were it not for the camera lenses staring me square in the face. Every single one of the contestants was breathtakingly beautiful. I’d purposely avoided looking at their pictures online, and I know how stupid it sounds that I was surprised, but I thought this was supposed to be a contest of high school girls who just happened to be pretty, like me. But these girls were in an entirely different league: They were even prettier than the ones you see stomping down the runway. They were the kind of models you saw in
Vogue
lounging in a dark forest wearing couture, the kind of girls who looked like movie stars, the kind of girls picked to ride a white horse in a flowing dress while her boyfriend sniffs her, like in the Ralph Lauren perfume ads. (Even though anyone who’s ever ridden a horse knows that all you can smell while riding a horse is the horse.)

“Hi, I’m Blake,” I said. I scanned each of their perfectly symmetrical faces, their collection of charming noses, wide
eyes, shining manes of perfectly styled hair. And I could tell even while they were seated that at five feet nine inches, I was the shortest one in the room, and at one hundred and thirty pounds, the largest.

The girls sized me up, too, but they didn’t seem at all worried.

“What’s up, Blake? I’m Casey Clark from North Carolina,” said a girl with teeth whiter than Chiclets. Her barely existent roots were the color of peanut shells, but her platinum highlights were so well done you hardly noticed.

“I’m Delores Abernathy,” said a girl with auburn hair that spilled over her shoulders in fat waves. Her boobs were Ds and her eyes were periwinkle (and possibly enhanced by color contacts). She was the kind of girl who could make farts sexy. Or the name Delores.

“I’m Sabrina Ramirez,” said a girl with hair almost as dark as mine. She was dressed up more than the others in a red cocktail dress. Her long legs were tan, and her open-toed heels showed off neon-pink toenails, which didn’t quite go with the dress, but as Lindsay had told me when she’d picked out the same polish color for my toes, “Hot pink looks youthful, and that’s the whole point. America wants something beautiful, something better. You have to give them hope, Blake,” she’d said. She’d made Audrey and me laugh, but I could also tell she was kind of serious from a style perspective.

“I’m Betsy Greenberg!” said an enthusiastic girl with wide-set eyes and limbs longer than most NBA players.

“Amy Samuels,” said a nervous-seeming girl with a
southern accent. I saw freckles peeking through her foundation. Even dressed down with two braids falling over her shoulders, she was so stunning that I had a hard time looking away.

“Cindy Manger,” said a girl with full lips and a platinum-blond bob like Gwen Stefani’s.

Every single one of them was more beautiful than me. If LA didn’t kill me, it had to make me stronger. “Nice to meet you all,” I said. And then I made my way to the plush white sofa and took a seat. Up close, I noticed that I was also the only contestant with any clogged pores, which never mattered at Harrison, because kids there had actual zits.

“Amy here was just telling us how corn grows,” the girl named Sabrina said as the cameras filmed her. She gestured toward Amy, who wore a jean overall top and skirt. Sabrina rolled her eyes at me and stifled a fake yawn, and Cindy laughed, both of them clearly making fun of Amy. The cameras panned to get my reaction, so I gave Sabrina and Cindy a
you’re lame
look. Because here we all were in the same situation: on national television competing for something we all really wanted. To pick on someone felt sort of cliché. Which, if I was being honest, was kind of applicable to my entire mean-girl high school routine. “I hate corn on account of how bloating it is, but I’d love to hear about it,” I said to Amy, who gave me a grateful smile. Then she described in painstaking detail how important it was to plant the seeds two to four inches apart.

We all made small talk while the cameras rolled and filmed the entrance of Maddie Foss, Delia Lee, and Jessica
Torres with their perfectly styled hair and cheekbones so high and sharp they looked like weapons. Then came Charisse Fuller, who looked like a six-foot-tall version of Kerry Washington. The final entrance was Murasaki O’Neil from Minnesota, who told us to call her Mura, and who looked vaguely familiar, like maybe she already was a professional model.

As I stared around the room at everyone’s face, something became alarmingly clear: I was the odd woman out. I was pretty, sure. Beautiful, even. The best-looking girl at Harrison High School. But I wasn’t a supermodel in the making. This room was a beauty pageant on crack: Every single one of these girls could have a career modeling. Or in movies. I knew my own limits (how could I not? I’d been raised in a family that reminded me of my limits on a daily basis), and the next Gisele Bündchen I was not.

My heart picked up speed. What the hell was happening? Because even if being from Harrison High like last year’s contest winners got my Pretty App profile an extra look, it wouldn’t have gotten me here. Not with this crowd—no way. It would take something more. It would take a reason. A motive.

I let my mind go to the places I hadn’t let myself imagine, and maybe an outsider looking in would say how stupid and foolish I was for not figuring it out earlier. And I guess I
am
pretty freaking stupid when it comes to ignoring everything my father could be doing behind my back. Maybe it’s self-preservation, but I can’t go there when it
comes to him. I can’t reconcile that the same man who used to read me stories at bedtime is a lying, deceitful monster.

Our next contestant is arriving now. Blake Dawkins is the daughter of gubernatorial candidate Robert Dawkins, and a senior at Harrison High School in South Bend, Indiana.

It had struck me as odd when they had mentioned my father during my introduction outside the limo, but now it felt like a puzzle piece slipping into place. How could I have missed it?

We need to rehab your image, Blake.

He’d said that so many times over the course of his campaign. There were the photo ops of us volunteering across town, and the lectures about what I wore and what I posted online. But
this
? Cheating to get me into a beauty contest? He’d always done whatever it took to secure money and power, but I hadn’t even realized he knew anything about the Pretty App before I was announced as one of the nation’s winners. He’d certainly never mentioned it, and I’d figured it was just like any other app for teenagers: something he barely noticed. And then, when I’d won, I figured he jumped on board to support me when he realized everything it could do for his campaign. But that was back when I thought I deserved to win. That was back when I thought the prettiest girls in their respective high schools would look like me. But now that I was here and realized I didn’t belong, it was obvious that he’d gotten Public to pick me. It wasn’t even that far-fetched: My father was already a huge investor, and he was likely soon to be a very powerful
political ally. Why wouldn’t Public want to strengthen that bond by giving him exactly what he wanted?

A chill coursed through me. He’d done this to me—his own daughter. And now here I was, with no way out. I tried to breathe, tried to make sense of what was happening to me, while a camera was fixed on my face.

I watched Cindy smooth her platinum hair and arrange her boobs when the cameras weren’t watching. I held back tears as a cameraman filmed Betsy pouring seltzer into a champagne glass. She held the glass up and said, “Here’s to the most beautiful girls in America,” and I swear she looked at me sort of funny right before she took a sip.

I tried to take shallow breaths so I wouldn’t cry. My father had used me as a pawn. I’d seen more beautiful people today than I’d ever seen before in my life, and I couldn’t compete with them. I didn’t
want
to compete with them. I didn’t want to embarrass myself on national television in front of millions of Americans who would see that these girls were far more beautiful than I was. I didn’t want to lose a contest for the one thing I thought I was good at.

Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.

But it was happening. The tears were coming. They were rolling hot and thick down the sides of my cheek.

“Blake?” Amy said gently. “Are you all right?”

Sabrina glanced over. “Oh my God,” she practically shrieked. “What happened to Blair?”

“It’s
Blake
,” Amy said.

The cameras whirled to face me. One of the men stepped so close I could smell his Old Spice deodorant as
he lifted his camera to get a better shot.

Tears blurred my vision, and I knocked over Betsy’s seltzer-champagne as I did the only thing I could.

I got to my feet and ran.