Betty spins in her white dress in front of the dressing room mirror, but stops immediately as her mother walks in. She’s been pouting that the fluffy monstrosity is even on her. She can’t let her mother know she likes the way it twirls.
“Little girls would be lucky to wear this.” Louisa checks her makeup in the mirror, and after a quick inspection, dusts on another layer of foundation.
“I’m thirteen, and other little girls get to dress up for fun in these. I have to wear it on a stage.”
“You would,” Louisa agrees. She shows Betty the white strapped shoes she’d hidden behind her back. The pageant will look good on Betty’s college application. You have to start young, she reasons.
“Can I have my copy of Lord of the Rings back now?” Betty asks, putting the shoes on the bench behind her.
“If you’ll get rid of the snotty attitude and take that off.” Louisa unzips the back of the dress. The dress is nearly four hundred dollars, but she thinks it looks precious and perfect on Betty.
“Deal.” Betty wiggles out of the dress and steps back into her jeans. The faded t-shirt and star pendant necklace are more her style than the fancy dress, but it twirled pretty. Louisa hands back the book, and Betty goes to the front of the store to wait for her mother to check out.
“Louisa.” A syrupy voice interrupts Louisa’s quick browse through the aisle with studded purses.
“Sunni. How lovely to see you,” she returns. Sunni is put together. One of those women who pulls off perfect eye makeup everyday, which accents her equally perfect almond-brown-eyes and carefully-bleached-blonde-hair.
“Of course. Of course. How is that dreamy husband of yours?”
“Fine.”
“Oh, the whole state knows.” Sunni winks. “So what are you and Betty doing?”
“We’re here buying a pageant dress. Her first one.”
“Hmmm… I didn’t know you were thinking of getting into pageants. Too bad I had boys. We had such fun back in those days. Didn’t we?”
Louisa thinks back to the time Sunni spiked her coke with tobacco backwash. That’s one of the last pageants they’d done together. She shudders slightly.
“Yes. Good times,” Louisa lies.
“Well, it’s lovely to see you. Maybe we’ll see each other at an event in the city.”
“Maybe,” Louisa muses.
Louisa moves down the aisle further, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hips are slightly wider apart than the twenty-year-old-her, but she’s still thin. She’s still up with trends. She’s hip looking, even Betty says it without prompting.
She trips, feeling air suddenly on her ankle. She looks down. Her jeans have torn on a nail, sticking out of an old shelf. “I’m going to have to buy new pants,” she whimpers, thinking of what the girls would say later at dinner if she didn’t.
She knows where the jeans are in the store, but she hears Sunni cackle. So, she goes the long way, hoping to sneakily intercept some of Sunni’s conversation.
This will be a blessing and a curse. But, she has no idea.
“Her husband is the worst cheater, and she seems so happy. So naive. Like her whole life is easy. Running that awkward child of hers around. What was she thinking entering her into a pageant?”
Louisa can’t think. Her cheeks are hot, and the pants don’t matter anymore. Sometimes, when she hears something, even without evidence, she knows it’s true. Like right now, Louisa knows her husband is that cheater. Her beautiful, but often insincere husband. It doesn’t crack her foundation. Somewhere inside, she already knew.
Forgetting the dress, she searches for Betty. “Don’t think we’ll get that dress,” she says, smiling down at Betty.
“Does that mean no pageant?”
“No, not necessarily. I want you to learn how capable you are, but not this one we signed up for next month. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Since we didn’t get the dress can we go to the science museum?”
“Yes.” Louisa hugs her daughter tightly.
Betty struggles for a second, but then lets the hug happen, as if sensing her mother’s distress. “Science is better. I’m not pretty like you. I’m smart,” Betty says, walking to the car.
Louisa dodges in front of her daughter, leaning down to be eye to eye with her thirteen year old. “You’re the most beautiful little girl I could have ever hoped for. But that’s not what I wanted this pageant to be about. This would have been about your work ethic and practice, probably a little to do with your confidence. And even though, you are beautiful, know beauty never got me anywhere. I certainly don’t want you to rely only on yours. Broaden your horizon.”
Betty knows too well that her very beautiful mother couldn’t really mean that. Everyone talked about how pretty her mother is. It molded her mother into the center of attention, often. No one would say that about beauty. Especially someone that beautiful. She was only telling Betty that to placate her.
“I take that back.” Louisa starts. “You. I got you out of the deal. And that is the only thing in life I know I did right.”
“Mom are you okay?” Betty asks, watching tears fall from her mother’s face.
“I will be.”
writerssoulatmidnight 