Page 66 of The Accidental Beauty Queen
Those words, coupled with the appreciation in his gaze when he said them, make me believe I can do this. I can trust Gray Beckham.
Can’t I?
“No.” Ginny meets my gaze in the full-length mirror on the back of our bathroom door and shakes her head.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” I say quietly.
“This dress.” She aims a critical gaze at the crimson mermaid-style gown I’ve somehow managed to squeeze into. Ginny had it custom made especially for the Miss American Treasure pageant. “It’s all wrong.”
I agree. I feel like a bad Jessica Rabbit impersonator. The gown isn’t me at all... but since when does that matter? For the most part, Charlotte Gorman has ceased to exist.
“Maybe it will look better once I put on the shoes,” I say.
It can’t hurt. The hem of the dress is pooled on the floor. If I try to take a step, I’ll surely trip over a mass of red velvet.
“Nope. It’s just not right on you.” Ginny unzips the back of the gown. “Take it off. I’ve got a few other options we can try.”
I step out of the gown while she pulls an assortment of glittering frocks from the closet. One by one, I try them on. First up is an off-the-shoulder violet gown, with a voluminous tiered skirt that swallows me whole. There’s no way I could walk in this thing, much less glide. I’d get all tangled up in the skirt in a matter of seconds.
Ginny crosses her arms. “Next.”
I wiggle into a white beaded sheath dress that would probably look sophisticated on Ginny, but again makes me feel like a child playing dress-up. My sister sighs and points to the pile of dresses on the bed.
The next one is covered in feathers that tickle my nose. I sneeze four times in rapid succession. I take it off without bothering to wait for Ginny’s opinion. It’ll never work.
“How many evening gowns did you bring?” I ask as she pulls another one from the stack.
She narrows her gaze at the dress in her arms and flings it back onto the bed.
“That’s a lot of gowns.”
“It’s always good to have extras. In pageantry, you have to be prepared for the unexpected—spills, split seams, and all that.”
“Does it really matter?” I glance at the digital clock on the nightstand. We’re running out of time. Believe it or not, this impromptu fashion show is taking hours. “Didn’t you say I’m pretty much a lock for the finals since I won the talent competition?”
She gives me an odd look, and I correct myself. “I meanyou’rea lock for the finals.”
Sometimes I forget I’m not in this for the long haul. There’s only one preliminary event left after the evening-gown competition tonight. Tomorrow afternoon is the onstage-question portion of the pageant prelims. Each contestant will reach into an acrylic box and choose a question at random. She’ll then have two minutes to articulate a coherent response. All of this takes place on the fly, with zero preparation time. The question is read aloud and boom, the clock starts ticking.
Ginny might be better by tomorrow. It’s hard to say. Most of the lingering swelling in her face is a result of the nose injury I inflicted during my ill-fated baton lesson. Last night, she spent an hour in front of the mirror with a makeup brush and three different shades of contouring powder in an effort to slim down the damage. It didn’t end well.
But I know without a doubt that when the finals roll around, I’m out. There’s a rest day between the end of the prelims and the finals, followed by an entire day of rehearsal for the big production numbers that take place during the televised pageant finals. Think Sandra Bullock dressed as the Statue of Liberty inMiss Congeniality.
In short, my twin still has two and a half days before she takes the stage in the finals. She’ll be ready, come hell or high water.
“You can’t think that way,” she says. “The talent win definitely helps. But making the finals is never a certainty. At this point, you could still get knocked into the bottom half. It would just take something really big.”
Like being exposed as an imposter. Or getting caught in flagrante delicto with one of the pageant judges in a swan boat.
“We need to find a dress.” I swallow. The evening gown suddenly seems vitally important, not only to my success in the prelims, but to my very survival.
“Oh, wait! I think I’ve got just the thing.” Ginny brightens and makes a mad dash for her suitcase. “It’s a gorgeous dress. I’ve been dragging it around from one pageant to the next, but I’ve never worn it because it’s not really my taste.”
She’s rummaging through the bag, tossing things aside. I’m pretty sure I see a one-piece swimsuit fly through the air, contrary to Ginny’s insistence that she only packed bikinis. It takes monumental self-restraint not to bring attention to her blatant lie, but I manage to keep my mouth shut. After all, I haven’t exactly been a pillar of honesty lately.
“Ah! Found it.” Ginny lets out a little squeal as she pulls mile after mile of sheer pink organza from the suitcase.
I’m skeptical. It’s a lot of fabric, and despite the volume of all that chiffon, it doesn’t seem to actually cover anything. I can see every detail of Ginny’s hands straight through it, including her pastel lavender manicure.
