Page 41 of The Accidental Beauty Queen
Each and every one of them is beautiful.
Any of these girls could have been students at my school—kids I interact with every day, kids I care about. I wonder how many of them have passed away since they moved across that stage.
My heart beats hard in my chest. I’m afraid to know the answer.
I give into the weakness in my knees and sink down onto one of the steps. I scroll to the top of the website and click on a tab labeledHistory of the Miss Starlight pageant.
My hands tremble violently as I read the truth about Gray Beckham.
The Miss Starlight pageant began in 2010, under the direction of tech billionaire Gray Beckham. Mr. Beckham, a graduate of Harvard with a double degree in computer science and English literature, founded Miss Starlight in loving memory of his sister, Sonja Beckham.
Crowned Miss American Treasure when she was twenty-two years old, Sonja Beckham went on to study medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and worked as a pediatric oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,Texas. She was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in 2009 and passed away six months later at the age of thirty-two.
The Miss Starlight pageant celebrates the life and work of Dr. Beckham and is devoted to celebrating young patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness by shining a light on inner beauty and honoring who they are in front of family, friends, and loving supporters.
I sit staring at my phone until it goes dark.
A million thoughts are spinning in my head. First and foremost, I hate cancer. I hate it so hard. It took my mom from me, before I ever really had a chance to know her. It took Gray’s sister. But look at him—he’s turning his family’s pain into something positive and beautiful for the very kids his sister devoted her life to helping.
And in my ignorance, I mocked him for it.
I feel ill.
How could I have made such a damning assumption about a man I didn’t even know? A man whom Iliked?
I keep hoping that if I wait here long enough, he’ll show up. I’m not sure what I’ll say if he does though.I’m sorryseems inadequate.
But it’s a start, right?
Minutes pass, and a few times I manage to convince myself that I hear the jingle of Hamlet’s dog tag echoing in the concrete stairwell. It’s never him, though. It’s just me, wiping my wet, tear-stained face with the sleeve of Ginny’s posh cashmere sweatshirt.
When I’m finally ready to face the outside world again, I get up and slip back into the hallway. The party is still going strong, if the sounds coming from Torrie’s room are any indication.
Good for them, I think.
My major faux pas from earlier seems to have blown over. I doubt anyone is suspicious enough to believe that I’m actually a librarian posing as her beauty queen twin, and if I knocked on the door, I’m sure they’d welcome me back into the fold.
I’m not feeling it, though.
I don’t want to be Ginny right now. The trouble is, I don’t want to be Charlotte either.
The room is dark when I let myself back into it with my card key, which seems odd. It’s only eight fifteen, far too early for bed.
“Ginny?” I whisper.
There’s no response, other than a snort that sounds more French bulldogish than it does human, so I tiptoe to the bathroom as quietly as I can and flip on the vanity light.
My plan is to strip down, take a hot shower and climb into bed. I just want to wash this horrible day away, but the vanity light casts a soft glow over the room and I catch a glimpse of something unfamiliar on the desk behind me.
I turn around and sigh.
When I left for the cheeseburger party, every available surface in our hotel room was covered with tools of the beauty queen trade—makeup brushes, contour and highlighting powders, hair spray, lashes, and every kind of sparkle imaginable.
But glam central has been cleared away, and now the desk is covered with room service trays. There’s a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs—my favorite—plus two fat slices of chocolate cake. Twin glasses of milk sit in pools of condensation. The spread has been there for a while, it seems.
“I wanted to surprise you with all your favorites,” Ginny says in the darkness. “You said you’d be back within an hour.”
After the revelation of Gray Beckham’s identity, I’d forgotten my promise to my sister. Is thereanythingI’m not going to screw up today?
