Pash even backs me up with a little ex-boyfriend therapy. We burn _____’s hoodie in a field by the Oink Joint, along with every mixed CD he ever gave me. It’s harsh, but so was he—it had to be done. Otherwise, I’d be too tempted to obsess over him.
At work, Pash remains skeptical of my plans to participate in Miss Bluebonnet. “You’re selling out,” she says when I clock in, fresh from the Curl Up & Dye Hair Salon, sans blue hair.
But Pash doesn’t understand. She wasn’t there when my mom picked my mess of a self off the kitchen floor without a single criticism. Plus, this one pageant is a tradition with the Cavendar girls. My g-ma scored that crown, and so did my mom; I should at least try. Not that I expect to win. Let’s get real. Come Saturday, it’s going to be the Corbi show from start to finish.
And don’t worry. The minute the crown’s awarded, I’m going back to my Manic Panic blue.
There’s another nugget of info from the Great Bliss Cavendar / Pash Amini Best-Friend Reconciliation that I must share. Hold on to your hats, kids, this one is a real doozie.
Pash and Bird-man are officially an item. Sort of. You heard me. My bombshell BFF and our stick-figure Oink Joint manager have coupled up.
I really have no way of explaining this shocking turn of romantic events, so without further ado, I give you Pash Amini in her own words:
Bliss, I was in a bad place, okay? You abandoned me, I was, like, two inches off the ground depressed, and my “Pash Amini Best iPod Mix Ever” project was going nowhere. It was Saturday night, and Bird-man was lecturing me about how to clean the grill, and I dunno, I just grabbed him. I wanted to hit him, but somehow I ended up kissing him. There’s no excuse, but I did it. Of course, I immediately shoved him away and said, “Get over it. That will never happen again.”
But the thing is—and here’s where it gets weird—Bird-man is an amazing kisser. It’s like he’s got lightning bolts for lips. I kept thinking about it. I had to go back for more. And I also couldn’t help thinking about what good friends we had become since I wasn’t hanging out with you.
At first it was just a desperation thing, but you know what? Once Bird-man gets over that trying-too-hard-to-be-cool thing, he really is . . . cool. He’s smart, he’s funny, knows all sorts of fun useless information, and he has an open mind about good music.
Of course, he’s hopeless on the fashion front, but I’m working on that. Did you notice, he shaved his starter mustache? Yeah, you can thank me for that.
God, he’s a good kisser.
Then Pash flops on my bed with a dreamy sigh.
“You’re not going to make him get a Mohawk, are you? Because I don’t think the world is ready for a half-bald Bird-man,” I say, trying to adjust to the weirdness of Pash and him as a couple.
“Never!” she promises.
“Well, then. I’m really happy for you.”
She bolts up, all defensive and sharp. “Don’t be yet. Bird-man’s
not
my boyfriend. He’s just a . . . development.” Yeah, right. Something tells me Pash and Mr. Lightning Bolts for Lips will be an official item sooner than later.
And honestly. There’s no denying Bird-man’s well-intentioned heart. He’s a good guy, not the type of prick who would take your favorite Stryper T-shirt on tour and bequeath it to some random trollop he hooks up with while conveniently forgetting you ever existed.
As Pash is schooling me in the finer points of all things Bird-man, my dad knocks on the door. “Bliss, telephone. Someone named Malice? In Wonderland?” He asks like he’s unsure if I would really know someone with such a name.
“Thanks, Dad. I got it,” I say, reaching for the phone.
“Hey, Malice, what’s up?” I can hear the sounds of a four-alarm derby fiesta in the background. The Hurl Scouts are busy getting ready for next Saturday’s championship game, a rematch against the Holy Rollers that will be pretty pointless.
“Ruthless!” Malice shouts. “Please tell me you’re at least coming to the bout to cheer us on.” I can hear Kid Vicious, Crystal Deth, and Emma Gedden crowd around Malice’s phone.
“Yeah,” Crystal yells, “you’re the soul of our team.”
“I can’t. That’s the same night as my pageant. I’ll be there in spirit,” I offer. As if that ever means anything.
When I hang up the phone, Pash looks at me. “You miss it, don’t you?”
“Nah.”
“You’re the worst liar ever,” she says before steering the conversation back to her and Bird-man, because we really haven’t discussed it enough tonight.
ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Sash Rash
H
oly moly, if I thought my mother’s tiara affliction was something to cringe at before, that was only a warm-up for who she becomes the day of Miss Bluebonnet. Ladies and gentlemen, behold: Pageant-zilla.
Every hour on the hour, I’m getting prepped, plucked, and prodded, and we’re not even at the country club yet.
Does she think I can really win? I want to raise my hand midway through the day and say, “Hello, remember me? I’m Bliss, I’m the one who gets the ‘Certificate of Participation,’ not the crown.” Not that it would stop her. She’s a woman on a mission, and this is my last-ever pageant, so what’s to rebel against? (Okay, yes, there is
much
to rebel against anytime girls are being rewarded for their beauty with a sparkly crown, but this is the new me, the mature me, the me that is trying to keep the peace.)
Two hours, one custom-made gown, and a hundred pictures later, I am parked backstage at my own mirror, doing my makeup. I’ve brought Pash with me to be my good-luck charm, but really it’s just to keep me company so I don’t go insane and start killing all the other annoying pageant girls.
As Corbi and all the Corbi wannabes run around backstage in an unspoken competition for who can be the most dramatic, Pash and I chill at my mirror. When I start applying the blue eye shadow, Pash starts pretending to go into convulsions.
“Stop it,” I say, laughing, making the application of my hideous makeup even worse.
“I can’t watch you do that to your face,” she declares.
“Hey,” I argue, “if I win, we get free Bluebonnet ice cream for a year.”
“Then spackle that glitter on!” she barks, flipping through someone’s abandoned copy of
US Weekly.
She makes fun of all the overhyped, underfed actresses. “I think you should donate your ice cream to these girls.”
“Yes,” I say. “For all the starving girls in Hollywood, this rocky road’s for you!”
This adventure would not be nearly as fun without the Pash Amini Show. Even my mom leaves me in Pash’s capable hands and buzzes around the audience, working the room as she likes to do in Pageantville.
At around 6:07, we are given notice that the show will start promptly at 6:30 and we should be ready in our “daytime formal” wear, which is a long-winded way of saying “suit.”
At 6:11, the backstage emergency exit door flies open, and in walks the craziest culture clash the Bodeen pageant world has ever seen.
All I hear is Emma Gedden’s voice say, “Drop the pink lip gloss and step away from the mirror.” I turn to see my entire Roller Derby team—every single one of the Hurl Scouts—strutting through the backstage area.
Crystal looks just as shocked to see me as I am to see her. “Ruthless, what happened to your hair? I’ve seen parade floats smaller than that.”
“Well,” I say, patting my teased and sprayed updo, “This is how we roll in Bodeen.”
“Exactly why we have to get you out of here,” Kid Vicious declares.
“What?” I ask, slowly wrapping my head around the surreal fact that my derby life and my pageant life are colliding in front of my very eyes.
“We took a poll,” Crystal says in between throwing a couple of hilarious I-will-fuck-you-up stares at Corbi, “and the Scouts decided we’d rather forfeit the championships than skate without Babe Ruthless.”
“I say you run,” says Pash, throwing her support to their cause.
“You freaks!” I say, completely flattered. “It rules that you came here. But there’s no way I can flee without killing my mom.”
And as if on cue, I hear her wandering through the dressing room.
“Bliss . . . ? Bliss Cavendar, where are you?” she calls.
I turn white, whiter than normal—translucent.
“Y’all, my mom’s coming. Hide!” I say, flailing my arms in full spazz mode.
They scatter in different directions, trying to blend in with the Miss Bluebonnet contestants. My heart is racing as my mom walks up to me.
“Hey, Mom,” I say casually.
Nuthin’ to see here. Move along.
She gives me this serious, “I’m about to give you a mother / daughter heart-to-heart talk” look, and I pray it will be a quick one.
“Honeybunch, I just wanted to give you a good-luck gift for your big night,” she says. Then she hands me a bag, a heavy grocery sack that is a real departure from the Brooke Cavendar style of gift-wrapping. I open the bag and pull out—
no way!
—my skates.
My skates, my skates, my skates, my skates, my skates, my skates!
“Now, let’s get out of here,” she adds.
“Excuse me?” I say.
“Shania’s a natural. She’ll be Miss Bluebonnet someday. But you—you’re Babe Ruthless. And you’ve got a championship to win.”
It occurs to me she’s not only giving me my skates, but my freedom. I feel my eyes welling with grateful tears. Mom, not missing a beat, takes a visual lap around the dressing room and says, “Which one of y’all came up with that name, anyway?”
Malice’s tattooed arm sloooowly rises from behind a rack of frilly dresses as she steps out.
“Clever,” my mom says. “But I don’t wanna see it tattooed on her arm.”
“Done,” Malice says, before hugging her and shouting, “Thanks, Mom!”
Subsequent conversations will reveal that Earl was the one who went to war on my behalf. I’m not sure if he blackmailed her, put her in a headlock, or threatened to riot in the streets, but whatever he did, it worked. And that means more to me than anything that happens in the game.
And yes, mad props to Brooke for freeing me from the Miss Bluebonnet cage. It couldn’t have been easy for her to turn over those keys.
V Is For . . .
I
n what must be the quickest fortune reversal in our little league history, an hour later I am dressed in my Hurl Scouts uniform ready to go. I convince my girls to keep news of my return to the team a surprise.
“C’mon, we won’t tell anyone until the skate-out. Then Atom Bomb will announce my name,” I say, warming them to the idea.
“Yeah, everyone will freak the fuck out!” Emma adds, backing me up.
So, here we are, in our season championships with the Hurl Scouts facing off against the still-undefeated Holy Rollers. (Which I find boring at this point.
Yay, you. You won again, whoopty-freakin’-do.
) Everybody expects the Rollers to skate to victory without so much as a rip in their new fishnets.
Well, the great thing about life—as I am learning—is the unexpected stuff that happens along the way, and when Atom Bomb announces me last, the crowd really does go bonkers.
Ahhh. It’s good to be back, but it’s even better to see Dinah’s shocked expression. I smile as I watch her inner gears start to malfunction and a little puff of angry smoke comes out of her helmet.
It’s the you-got-served moment of the century, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t love every second of it.
From the infield, I catch sight of my family in the stands, wedged between a pack of burly rockabilly dudes with tattoo sleeves. Brooke looks hilariously terrified as she tightly holds Shania on her lap. Earl looks around, a little confused, like he’s waiting for instructions on how to behave.
It strikes me that if only I had a camera, this would be a perfect Cavendar family Christmas card, not that I’m in charge of those things. But it would be genius.
Razor blows the whistle, and the game is on.
Of course, I haven’t skated in two weeks, and it takes a couple of jams to shake off the dust, so Dinah and the Holy Rollers jump out to lead 11 to 6.
Their fans waste no time showing their support, shouting “Rollers! Rollers!”
But you know what? I did not lie to my parents, create a secret life, and run away from home just to have Dinah Might steal the stage on the one night my family gets to see what it is I turned myself upside down for. They may not be getting Miss Bluebonnet, but they are sure as hell gonna get a show from Babe Ruthless. And it starts now!
The next jam, I sneak right between the Holy Rollers’ Robin Graves’s legs to get through the pack. When I come back around the track to score, Emma balances on one leg, and I take a Texas-sized whip off her other leg that sends me flying to the outside, past all the Holy Rollers.
And we do it again and again and again, taking the lead. The crowd’s chant morphs from “Rollers! Rollers!” to “Ruthless! Ruthless!” The place is electric as everyone gleefully anticipates the Holy Rollers’ first loss.
I’m with you, people.
“The Holy Rollers may have God on their side,” Atom Bomb shouts from the announcer’s booth, “but these Scouts are about to earn their victory badge!”
I look up in the stands and see my mom and Earl and Shania, all standing and screaming. I even see my mom jumping up and high-fiving the burly rockabilly guys.
Now, that’s a Christmas card.