The Beauty Queen Read online

  Chapter 4

  “I like Lynn,” Marly said after she left, “but I wish she wouldn’t condescend to me like that.”

  “Lynn condescends to everybody,” I said. “Including me.”

  “I guess so,” she said. “Is it because she’s so short?”

  “You’ve been watching too much TV,” I said, “arriving at snap psychological judgments like that.”

  “It made sense,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I think Lynn’s like that because that’s what her parents are like. They always act like I’m a germ or something, but very politely, because I’m Lynn’s friend. Tolerant, but overbearing.”

  “I don’t know,” Marly said.

  “She’s a good person,” I said. “She just thinks she’s a great one.”

  “Why don’t you call Doreen and see if you can borrow her dress?” Marly said.

  “Later,” I said. “There’s no rush. How’s your diet going?”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ve been on it all day, and I haven’t felt tempted once. Of course, the first day’s the easiest.”

  “I hope it’s not one of those fad things,” I said.

  “It’s not,” Marly said. “Just simple starvation. Always popular.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “That’s no way to lose weight.”

  “What do you mean that’s no way?” she said. “It’s the easiest way of all. Just forget food exists for a while.”

  “You’ll need nourishment,” I said. “Green vegetables and protein. The only thing you lose by starving yourself is your health.”

  “You sound like a gym teacher.”

  “You sound like an idiot if you think you’ll be okay without eating.”

  “Okay,” Marly said with a sigh. “I’ll eat.”

  “Cottage cheese,” I said. “Skim milk. Carrots.”

  “I’d rather starve,” she said. “Besides, what do you know about it? You’ve never had to lose a pound in your life.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “I had to lose five pounds when I played Anne Frank. The director wanted a really thin Anne. It was awful.”

  “How did you lose it?”

  “I didn’t eat for a week,” I said.

  Marly laughed.

  “Okay,” I said. “For a week in an emergency, maybe. For a whole summer, you’ll kill yourself. People have to eat. It’s biologically necessary, like breathing or drinking.”

  “I’m going to drink,” she said.

  “Don’t say that,” I said. “You sound like Dad.”

  “He doesn’t drink that much any more,” Marly said. “I think Sally’s a good influence for him.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Schoolteacher,” she said. “Third grade.”

  “That is wholesome,” I said. “Dad must be growing up.”

  “I really think so,” she said. “They’re going to buy a house and everything. The whole suburban deal.”

  “I wonder if they’ll have more kids.”

  “Do you think so?” Marly asked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “It sounds like it,” I said. “Why else would they need a house? Besides, Sally’s young. She probably wants to mother somebody. Other than Dad, that is.”

  “Dad was really proud last night,” Marly said. “I mean, he was proud of you too, but he kept saying how nice I looked on stage, and when they announced my average, he said he started the applause, even though they said no applauding for individual achievements. He couldn’t help it, he said.”

  “That’s nothing new,” I said. “He’s never been able to help it.”

  “But it was really nice,” Marly said. “I liked it when they applauded.”

  “You’d better watch it,” I said. “It can be addicting.”

  “Is that what it’s like for you?”

  “Usually,” I said. “Last night they could have been applauding Santa Claus, for all it meant to me. But when it’s because I’m good in a show, it’s the greatest thing in the world.”

  “I’m going to be a surgeon,” Marly said. “I thought about it last night and I’ve decided that’s what I’m going to be. And when I operate, they’ll applaud me.”

  “I don’t think they even do that on TV.”

  “For me they will,” Marly said. “And then I’ll go to the jungles and be Dr. Marlene, Saint of the Yukon, or something. I’ll operate on the natives and, instead of applauding, they’ll worship me.”

  “Now that’s a worth-while ambition,” I said. “Have you discussed it with your guidance counselor?”

  “Yeah,” Marly said. “She said med schools discriminate against women, and have I considered nursing?”

  We were laughing when Mom came in. “Now that’s what I like to hear,” she said, as she put her bundles down. “The sound of my two girls laughing. What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing we can explain,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said. “Laughing at me again?”

  “Mom.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’d rather you were laughing at me than at each other. Did you see today’s paper?”

  “I bought a couple of copies,” I said.

  “It’s a beautiful picture,” Mom said. “I bought five copies.”

  “It’s a terrible picture,” I said. “And what do you need five copies for?”

  “I don’t need them,” Mom said. “Although I would like to have one for my scrapbook and one to send your Aunt Doris. The others are for you.”

  “For me?”

  “It seems to me that you should be honored,” she said. “Not to mention the fact that it’s proof you can do something. You competed with fourteen other girls for that title, and you won. The way I hear it at that precious theater of yours, they hardly have anybody compete with you any more.”

  “They still have auditions,” I said. “It’s just that I win them because I’m the best.”

  “Best in a theater that size isn’t saying much,” Mom said. “But nobody was scared of you in that beauty contest. You won that honestly, and I think you should be proud to show it to people.”

  “Send your copy to Aunt Doris,” I said. “It’s just her speed. But don’t expect me to send my copies to Elia Kazan or the Royal Shakespeare Company. They’re interested in talent, not looks.”

  “Some girls don’t have looks,” Mom said. “They’d be happy to have just that and forget all about the talent.”

  “Some girls just have talent,” I said. “And I’d change places with them in a snap.”

  “Were you pretty when you were young?” Marly asked Mom.

  “That’s what I like about your sister,” Mom said to me. “She phrases things so tactfully.”

  “You know what I mean,” Marly said. “Did you win beauty contests?”

  “I never entered one,” Mom said. “My parents wouldn’t have liked it. I wish I had though. I could have won, I know it; and then maybe I would have made something of myself. Just one good scholarship, and I could have met the right man. My whole life would have been different.”

  “If you were so pretty, how come you didn’t meet the right man anyway?” I asked.

  “Because I was in nursing school,” Mom said, looking away from both of us. “You never meet men in nursing school. When I was in high school, I dated. The best boys in the school used to ask me out constantly. But my parents were strict with me. They said I was too young to know what I wanted and made sure I had a profession to fall back on. They were right in a way. I’m grateful that I have my degree. It’s what keeps us alive, after all. We could hardly count on your father to support us. But if only they’d encouraged me, I could have studied some other field and gone to college like all the other girls in my class. All my friends went to college and met nice boys there. I was the only one not to. I went into nursing instead, and by the time I graduated, everybody was taken, and there was nobody left for me except your father. So I grabbed him up, and I’ve been sorry
ever since.”

  “I thought you liked nursing,” Marly said.

  “I do,” Mom said, with a sigh. “I’d be very pleased if either of you went into it as a profession. The hours aren’t very good and the pay could be a lot better, but it gives you a real feeling of satisfaction, and that’s important too.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said. “I get it when I do a part well.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” Mom said. “You’re not helping anybody when you act. You’re just indulging in childish fantasies.”

  “Adult fantasies,” I said.

  “You’ll outgrow it,” Mom said. “How was graduation last night?”

  “Very nice,” Marly said. “They applauded me.”

  “Applause,” Mom said. “That’s all I hear about in this house. You don’t hear me saying my patients applauded me. What is this you girls have for the sound of applause? Give me money any day.”

  “They don’t pay you for being smart in junior high school,” Marly said. “I wish they did.”

  “They won’t pay you in high school either,” I said. “But you’ll clean up in college.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself,” Marly said. “Mom, I want to be a doctor.”

  “It’s a good way to meet men,” Mom said.

  “A real doctor,” Marly said. “Not just the wife of one.”

  “I’m not stopping you,” Mom said. “If you can get the money, I won’t object. Just don’t expect me to pay for eighteen years of advanced training.”

  “It’s hardly eighteen years,” I said.

  “Well, that’s nice,” Mom said. “Have you been researching it? Maybe you’ve decided to be one too.”

  “Not until they applaud in the operating room.”

  “Wait a second,” Mom said. “They like girls to have ambitions like that in beauty contests. Doctor. Schoolteacher. Jobs where you help people. But the kind that takes brains.”

  “Mom, I’m not going to say I want to be a doctor just so they’ll give me a couple of extra points.”

  “It’s not a lie,” Mom said. “You might end up being a doctor. Besides, I think it would be nice. Your mother’s a nurse, so you want to be a doctor. She proved to be an inspiration, but you aren’t satisfied. You wanted something more than the simple satisfactions of nursing. You wanted the challenge of being one of the few women doctors in the country.”

  “Mom, I’m the one who wants to be a doctor,” Marly said.

  “I’m sure you won’t mind if Kit borrows your ambition for a while,” Mom said. “Brains and beauty. It would really impress them.”

  “I hate to be practical,” I said. “But I don’t have the brains to be a doctor, and I certainly don’t have the ambition. All I want is a simple life at the theater, acting my poor little heart out in childish fantasies.”

  “I’m glad you see it is childish,” Mom said. “Besides, that’s what all those girls say. Actress. Judges like a girl to have a real ambition. Maybe you should stick to schoolteacher.”

  “Sally’s a teacher,” Marly said. “Third grade.”

  “Speech therapist then,” Mom said. “They like speech therapists too. They’re girls with the talent to be actresses, but without the selfishness. So they help other people, little children, by teaching them how to say parts of speech.”

  “A noun is a part of speech,” I said. “You mean sounds.”

  “I’m sure if you know that much about it, you’ll do fine with the judges,” Mom said. “That should take care of ambition. Did you find an evening gown to wear?”

  “Doreen has one. Lynn said I should ask her.”

  “What does it look like? What color? Have you seen it?”

  “No,” I said. “But Lynn described it. She said it was demure.”

  “Demure,” Mom said. “What does that mean?”

  “It means Doreen didn’t shock anybody at the prom with it,” I said.

  “What color?”

  “White,” I said. “Possibly pale pink.”

  “Those are bad colors for you,” Mom said. “I wish they weren’t, but they are. You can’t carry innocence.”

  “I haven’t had to in a long time,” I said.

  “You’ll look like you’re trying to hide something,” Mom said. “You always look like that when you try to look innocent. That’s why you’re so good playing murderers.”

  “I only played a murderer once,” I said.

  “It was your best part,” Mom said. “I identified with your mother so in that show. I felt like trying to kill you myself.”

  “You don’t usually need a show for an excuse,” I said.

  “Kit’s going to do Anne Frank for the talent competition,” Marly said.

  “Oh,” Mom said. “The whole thing?”

  “Selections from her diary,” I said. “Greg suggested it.”

  “Greg’s a nice boy,” Mom said. “He has very fine taste.”

  “I should think so,” I said. “He goes out with me.”

  “Anne Frank,” Mom said. “That’s all right, but not a white dress. Green’s your best color.”

  “I don’t think Doreen would want me to dye her dress.”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t,” Mom said. “I was just thinking that you shouldn’t wear anything demure anyway. Not that you should be dressed shocking. But your skin stays so pale in the summer, I think you should show if off. All the other girls will probably be peeling from sunburn, and there you’ll be, with your pale skin, looking like a southern belle.”

  “Mom, this isn’t an audition for Gone With the Wind.”

  “Don’t you think so, Marly?” Mom asked, ignoring me. “Something that will make Kit look aristocratic.”

  “I guess so,” Marly said. “I don’t really see Kit as an aristocrat.”

  “They said the same thing about Queen Elizabeth,” Mom said. “But it’s all in the bearing. Kit does have very good posture, when she wants to.”

  “What’s for supper?” I asked. “Oops, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? About what?” Mom asked.

  “Marly’s on a diet.”

  “Why?” Mom asked. “She’s not the one in the contest.”

  “Mom,” I said, “Marly might want to lose weight anyway.”

  “It’s baby fat,” Mom said. “I had it at Marly’s age. She’ll lose it without any diets. Besides, I refuse to cook around either one of you. You’ll eat what I serve, or starve.”

  “Fine,” Marly said. “That’s what I want to do anyway. Starve off ten pounds.”

  “Fifteen,” Mom said. “Ten won’t make the least difference on you.”

  “Kit said I should lose ten.”

  “Kit doesn’t know everything,” Mom said. “In spite of what she thinks. Fifteen pounds off and you’ll look fine. Especially if you grow a couple of inches. And your complexion should clear up if you eat right and wash your face twice a day. I sometimes think you don’t wash your face as often as you might.”

  “I’m not obsessive about it,” Marly said.

  “Obsessive,” Mom said. “The words that come out of that baby. Listen, my love, twice a day is not obsessive. All the books say you should wash your face in the morning and at night, especially at your age. Unless of course you want to have pimples all over you.”

  “I’ll lose ten pounds,” Marly said. “And then if I feel like it, I’ll lose five more.”

  “Now that’s sensible,” Mom said. “Do you want me to ask some of the doctors how you should lose the weight? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind answering any questions I asked them. They have a great deal of respect for me.”

  “That’s okay,” Marly said. “I’m sure they’re much too busy to care about my diet.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mom said. “Just say Yes, and I’ll ask all the best doctors there about diets for you. It’s no bother really.”

  “Mom, I don’t want the entire hospital to know I’m trying to lose some weight,” Marly said.

  �
��I don’t know why not,” Mom said. “I told them all about Kit, and showed them the article in the paper, and they were very excited. I’m sure they’ll be happy to learn about your diet. I like bragging about my two daughters; especially when they do something really fine.”

  Chapter 5

  “You can’t just wear a bathing suit,” Mom said.

  “I know,” I said. “But the letter said—”

  “Letter,” Mom said. “You’d think the mayor would call and give specific instructions instead of having some secretary write you.”

  “He did call,” I said. “Right after the contest. The next day I think. And he mentioned the Fourth, and I didn’t think to ask what to wear.”

  “I refuse to have you parade around the streets of Great Oaks in a bathing suit. It’s not decent.”

  “Mom, I agree with you,” I said. “It’s just the letter says bathing suit.”

  “Maybe a wraparound. You didn’t tell me the mayor called.”

  “It slipped my mind.”

  “Slipped your mind,” Mom said. “An important man like the mayor.”

  “The mayor of Great Oaks is hardly important.”

  “Maybe not now, but the man has ambitions. Mayor, then congressman, and then who knows what.”

  “Right now he’s just mayor. I hear he’s running for re-election.”

  “You ought to know. Your friends are the ones running around with the crazy politics.”

  “They’re not crazy,” I said. “I don’t have a wraparound.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “What do you wear when you go to the beach?”

  “A robe. My terrycloth one.”

  “That’s all?”

  “It’s always been enough.”

  “You’re not a child any more. I’m surprised you don’t still change in the car, like we used to.”

  “When we had a car,” I said. “In the good old days.”

  “They were rotten days, and don’t you forget it. Sure we lost the car, but we lost your father with it. Speaking of which, he’s late with the payment again.”

  The payment was Mom’s euphemism for child support. Dad tends to forget about it when the sales don’t come in.