Page 22 of The Accidental Beauty Queen
Hopefully not, but maybe I should try to invent a timeline, just in case. Before I have a chance to give this any thought, someone shouts my name.
Correction—my sister’s name.
“Ginny! Omigod, I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Where have you been hiding yourself?” A blonde with the biggest updo I’ve ever seen throws her arms around me, and I get a mouthful of Aqua Net.
I squint while I hug her back because her chignon is seriously stiff enough to poke an eye out.
“I haven’t been hiding.”Liar, liar pants on fire. “Just getting some beauty rest.”
Beauty rest.
I sound like a 1950s housewife. Does my sister actually talk like this? Does anyone? Other than those silly Miss-American-Treasure-do-not-disturb tags, I mean.
“You look perfect, as always.” She sweeps me up and down with her gaze, and I hold my breath.
But like Miss Nevada, she seems to be perfectly content believing I belong here. She’s obviously one of Ginny’s friends, and shestilldoesn’t realize I’m a fake.
“Seriously, you look amazing,” she says.
“Thank you.” I beam. Then it dawns on me that she and Miss Nevada haven’t said a word to each other.
“So sorry. Where are my manners? Lisa, have you met...” For a second, I panic. My gaze flits to the blonde’s sash. These things are basically name tags.Thank God. “...Miss Arkansas?”
They introduce themselves to each other, and soon we’re chatting like a trio of sorority sisters. I can’t quite believe they both think I’m Ginny. If this is my first test, I’m passing with flying colors.
Miss Nevada wrings her hands and lowers her voice. “I’ve heard these judges are pretty tough. My roommate came back from her interview this morning in tears.”
Miss Arkansas goes pale.
“She wascrying?” The bird in my chest flutters its wings again.
Miss Nevada nods. “It was brutal, apparently. One of the judges didn’t ask her any questions at all. She just handed her a mirror and told her to spend three minutes describing the person she saw in her reflection.”
What kind of hellish mind game isthat?
I panic for a beat, trying to figure out what I could possibly say about the person I’d see in the mirror.
She’s a phony.
She’s a wreck.
She doesn’t belong here, no matter how beautiful she looks on the outside.
I think I might pass out.
“Six judges at three minutes apiece is only eighteen minutes.” Miss Arkansas’s perfectly lined eyes turn steely. “Eighteen minutes is nothing. We can do anything for eighteen minutes, right?”
“Of course we can,” I say, but it comes out sounding more like a question than an affirmation.
Eighteen minutes is about the same amount of time I’ve been standing in the sky-high pageant shoes, and I’m pretty sure my feet are bleeding. So yeah, it’s quite a bit longer than she thinks it is.
Maybe Lisa realizes just how daunting eighteen minutes can be, though. Because she’s still dwelling on the mirror question. “It just seems like such an unfair tactic, don’t you think? I mean, they’ve got our entire life right in front of them. The questionnaire was definitely thorough.”
I agree with her because it seems like the appropriate thing to do. “I know, right?”
But my mind snags on something she said, and a whisper of dread snakes its way through me. Ignoring Ginny’s strict order to smile at all times, my face falls and I frown. “Wait. What questionnaire are you talking about?”
“Are you kidding? How could you forget the All About Me information sheet?” Miss Nevada eyes me like I’m an elderly lapdog with a memory problem. “We turned them in last month along with all the other entry forms. It was three pages long. I felt like I’d written my autobiography by the time I finished filling it out.”
