“Don’t worry about that now,” Audrey said. “We can talk—Oh, great, ice.”
A lanky woman with brown hair and full lips extended a plastic grocery bag full of ice toward Audrey. The former beauty queen shrank from the dripping bag and Jodi handed it to Stella.
“Sorry about the drips,” Jodi said. “The bag’s all there was backstage.” She made a shield of her clipboard, clasping it to her chest.
“Good thinking,” Stella said. She placed the bag carefully on Kiley’s ankle and the girl winced. “We really should prop your foot up.”
I put down my bag of styling tools and helped Stella lift the girl’s foot into place.
“Thank you,” Kiley said in a small voice. “I want my mom.”
“Of course you do,” Stella said, looking from Audrey to Jodi. The latter said, “I called her already; she’s on her way.”
Audrey, becoming aware of the ring of girls peering over the stage, shooed them away. “That’s it for today’s rehearsal, ladies,” she said. “Get changed and meet me out here in thirty minutes for notes.”
“But I didn’t get a chance to run through my number, and tonight’s the talent competition.”
Even before I looked up I knew the voice belonged to the dissatisfied Tabitha. She stood with one hand on her hip, staring down at us from the lip of the stage. She was undeniably beautiful, with cascades of blond hair, light green eyes, and a curvaceous figure tapering to long legs. Her beauty had a packaged air to it, though, like the Madame Alexander dolls I collected when I was little, with their pristine clothes and hair and perfect painted features. So perfect I didn’t ever play with them; they weren’t snuggly and fun.
“Like it matters, Tabby. You’ve been doing that routine for years—ever since you entered the Miss Vanilla Swirl contest.” This came from the elegant African American girl Audrey had called Brooke.
“Well, it won me that title, didn’t it?” Tabitha said in a self-satisfied voice, apparently impervious to the snideness of the comment. “And Miss Camden County and Miss Coastal Bathing Beauty and Georgia’s Lovely Lady and—”
Tabitha seemed set to enumerate titles for hours, ticking them off on her fingers, but someone interrupted with, “But it didn’t work for Miss Magnolia Blossom last year, did it? You came in—what?—third runner-up? Maybe you’d
better
practice—if you don’t win Saturday, you don’t get another chance, do you? This is your last year of eligibility. Next year you’ll be too
old
.”
A smothered giggle greeted this comment and Tabitha swung on her heel and stalked off stage.
Audrey heaved a sigh and seemed about to say something, but the EMTs and Kiley’s mother arrived simultaneously and chaos ruled for a few minutes before they bore her off, Sam the camera guy trailing them to the lobby.
“Scratch her from the program,” Audrey told Jodi as soon as Kiley was out of earshot.
Jodi hesitated, then obediently made a note on her clipboard.
“Where should I set up the manicure stuff?” Stella asked, indicating her kit.
Audrey made a “don’t bother me” gesture.
“I’ll show you,” Jodi offered and the two women headed to the right.
I retrieved my tote and was about to follow them when a bald man, both thick arms covered from wrist to bicep with colorful tattoos, signaled Audrey from the stage. “Ma’ am,” he said, “you need to look at this.” He held up a section of the mat.
“What now, Marv?” Audrey asked. Stairs at either end of the stage led down to audience level, and Audrey climbed the steps on our left. I trailed after her out of sheer curiosity.
“Look at this,” the man said when we stood beside him. He bent to flip over a mat section, causing the waistband of his jeans to dip alarmingly. “You can see the Velcro strip’s been cut off.”
“What?” Anger and alarm rang in Audrey’s voice.
I leaned over and fingered the mat. The textured plastic over a squishy core of some kind was supposed to have an inch-wide strip of Velcro on its end, I could tell by looking at the intact mats, designed to mate with a similar strip on another section and secure them together. But the damaged mat had nothing but a few snippets of thread where someone had cut away the Velcro. “Someone wanted the mat to slip,” I said.
“Impossible!” Audrey said. She squatted to inspect the damage and ran a finger along the mat’s underside. “Who would do this?” she asked in a less certain voice.
The man held up his hands defensively. “I don’t know, ma’am, but it wasn’t any of my crew. The boys brought the mats out and shoved ’em together. They didn’t notice anything wrong, but they didn’t have a reason to look. It’s not their fault.”
“Maybe they were defective when Kiley supplied them,” Audrey said hopefully. Her eyes held a calculating gleam. “No one can prove they weren’t, so no one can blame the pageant. The accident wasn’t our fault. Just like the other incidents weren’t anyone’s fault.” She looked from Marv to me, as if daring us to contradict her.
Marv’s lips thinned at Audrey’s words, but he didn’t say anything.
“What other incidents?” I asked as Marv stacked the mats and shoved them toward the wings.
Audrey flipped a hand, as if to brush away a gnat. “Oh, nothing important. Just irritations. Somehow the sprinkler system in the dressing room went off and several of the girls’ evening gowns were ruined. And when the programs came back from the printer, they had a typo that changed ‘public’ into ‘pubic,’ as in ‘Huge Pubic Sale—Discounts Galore.’ That furniture store withdrew as one of our sponsors. Stuff like that.”
As she spoke, she crossed the stage to the wings and I followed. Scenery depicting white-topped mountains loomed to my right and a prop table sat immediately behind the heavy red curtains. Thick ropes and pulleys dangled like jungle vines, and I ducked around one. A giltframed mirror leaned against a wall and Audrey glanced at her reflection, rearranging a strand of her foxy hair. Above, catwalks and metal scaffolding for lights and other technical equipment crisscrossed below the roof. It smelled like sawdust.
“Do you think it’s deliberate?” I asked.
Audrey shot me a look over her shoulder, as if surprised by the question. “Maybe. No. I don’t know. I’ve certainly been involved with pageants where one or another of the contestants did . . . stuff to trip up a rival. Stains or tears on gowns, disappearing instruments or props, laxatives slipped into food—”
“Good heavens!”
Audrey gave me a condescending smile that said she found my surprise incredibly naïve. “Believe me, there’s very little some girls wouldn’t do to win a pageant, especially a big one with large scholarships and a prestigious appearance schedule at stake, like Miss American Blossom.”
“I had no idea.” I thought about it for a moment. “Were all the incidents aimed at Kiley?”
Audrey stopped and pinned me with a sharp look. “The incidents were not
aimed
at anyone. We’ve had a couple minor accidents, nothing more. Irritations. Certainly nothing the pageant could be liable for.”
Audrey seemed a heck of a lot more concerned with how the pageant came off than what happened to the girls. I couldn’t resist pushing her a little. “Kiley’s accident was more than irritating,” I pointed out. We were in a wide hall now, with doors opening to our left. “She could have been seriously injured.”
“But she wasn’t,” Audrey said in a discussion-ending tone. She pushed open the door to a cramped room with a light-ringed mirror set above a narrow counter. A hanging rack on wheels held what looked like old costumes: a moth-eaten tuxedo with a toga draped over it, a cancan girl’s petticoats, soldiers’ uniforms from a variety of wars, six cheerleader skirts and vests, and a gray rabbit suit with pink-lined ears and big feet. Grotty carpeting that might have been laid down in Sarah Bernhardt’s prime covered the floor, and the scents of acetone and, strangely, barbecue sauce lingered in the room.
“Here we are.” Audrey hovered at the door, obviously eager to get on to more important things.
I eyed the straight-backed chair in front of the vanity. “Any chance we could round up an adjustable-height chair?”
“Ask Jodi,” Audrey said. “She’s my assistant. I’ve got to run and give notes to the girls. And, on top of everything, I’ve got to tell—Never mind. After that, they’ll start getting ready for the talent competition which starts at six—we have to be done by seven thirty so the theater group can rehearse—so you’ll be busy.”
I nodded, wondering who she had to tell what. “Where’s Stella?”
“Stella?”
“Stella Michaelson, the manicurist from Violetta’s.”
Audrey’s mouth opened and she took a sharp breath. She recovered before I could puzzle over her reaction, saying, “I didn’t know that was her name. She’s next door.” Her head nodded to the right. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” She was out the door before I could think of anything else to ask her.
I rolled the costume rack into the corner and unpacked my kit, putting brushes, combs, curling iron, clips, gels, sprays, and my other equipment on the counter. It’d be cramped but workable. When I had everything set up, I wandered next door to find Stella. Her room was identical to mine, although period costumes, including a cape that looked like something
The Phantom of the Opera
or
Dracula
would wear, rather than cheerleaders and rabbits, hung on an extension rod that stretched the length of the room. The carpeting even had similar mysterious stains. Her polish bottles marched across the vanity in a neat line and a clutter of Q-tips and cotton balls obscured the countertop. Stella sat with her chin in her hands, gazing morosely at her reflection.
She jumped when I entered and pasted on a smile. “Hi, Grace. Isn’t this pageant something else? I asked Jodi—she’s really nice—how many girls we’ll be working with and she says there are sixteen for tonight and the swimsuit competition tomorrow and then it’ll only be eight after they announce the semifinalists. And they won’t all want our help, Jodi said, but I still think we’ll be busy.”
“Sounds like it,” I agreed. “Stella—”
She cut me off before I could ask what was bothering her. “I entered a beauty pageant once, you know,” she said. “When I was a junior. I was pretty enough when I was younger—”
“You’re gorgeous now,” I said. She was: her auburn hair set off her creamy complexion and green eyes that tilted up a bit at the corners, and she had a slim figure that many a twenty-year-old would envy. Although laughter and smiles had left their stamp on her face, the faint lines actually made her more attractive, I thought, giving her a character and personality that silicone-breasted, Botoxed, plasti-girls didn’t have. I could tell she didn’t believe me, though, from the wry quirk of her lips.
“—but I felt so uncomfortable up on the stage. I withdrew before the swimsuit competition. That was the end of my pageant career!” She laughed but glanced at her reflection out of the corner of her eyes, like she was looking for the embarrassed teenager she’d been. “I still have the dress I wore for the evening gown competition. I thought maybe Jessie might wear it to prom one day, although if she keeps growing, it’ll be too short. That girl has been shooting up like a kudzu vine. Darryl says—” She cut herself off and bit her lower lip.
“Let’s see what the layout’s like around here,” I said. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but the “No Trespassing” signs of expression and body language were too forceful to ignore. Stella followed me as I turned left in the hall.
We poked our noses into the rooms we passed and found another small dressing room and a cluttered office I figured belonged to Marv. A bigger dressing room at the end of the hall was clearly where the contestants gathered, with tatty sofas and occasional tables stacked with magazines and several clothes racks holding plastic-swathed costumes and dresses. We found our way out of the dressing room area to the auditorium, where Audrey Faye stood on the stage, reading notes from her clipboard to the upturned faces of the girls seated below her.
“. . . and remember the new lineup for the closing number.” She paused and knitted her brows. “There’s just one other thing. Something has been brought to my attention that may affect a contestant’s eligibility to compete in my pageant.”
Her
pageant? I turned a laugh into a cough.
Audrey lifted a hand to stave off questions from the wide-eyed young women in the audience. “I won’t act without verification, so you will all perform as scheduled tonight. However, if the information proves correct, I will have to take action.” She made eye contact with each of the contestants. “Any girl who suspects that poor choices in her past—that she ‘forgot’ to mention on the disclosure form—could tarnish the image of the Miss American Blossom pageant can talk to me after the show tonight. I’d certainly rather see a contestant resign of her own accord, with her privacy intact, than have to make a public display of . . . indiscretions.”
Stella and I had paused halfway up the aisle to listen and I noticed the man with the camera directly across from us on the other side of the auditorium panning the girls’ faces to get their reactions. They ranged from curious to nervous.
“What do you suppose it is?” Stella whispered, poking me in the back so I started moving again.
“Lingerie photos or something, probably,” I said. “Who is that guy with the camera?” I asked, watching him follow the girls as they filed out of the auditorium.
“Sam Barnes. Jodi Keen said something about him filming a documentary on beauty pageants,” Stella said. “He and Audrey Faye were at college together, Jodi said, so when he got the idea for the documentary, he naturally came to her. He interviewed Jodi on camera and she’s hoping the exposure will help her land a position as a national pageant coordinator.”
“Huh.” I thought having the camera around was a little creepy, making the pageant feel like one of those “reality” TV shows where everyone’s reactions are over the top because they know the camera’s watching. And I suspected emotions around here were already running high enough.