Chapter 5
FIVE
“Dakota?” It was Savilla Finch, my old classmate whose father owned—and reigned over—the Rose Palace.
She’d cut her teeth on society events both in New York and our little town, and she stood before me now in a flowing mint-green dress, thick-rimmed rectangular glasses, and an old-fashioned pillbox hat with a swath of netting hanging over one eye.
She held an old-fashioned-looking camera in her hand.
“Savilla?”
She stared at me, her smile fixed, her eyes unblinking. We’d been in school together, but education, learning, books had never really been her thing. “Gosh… you look… different,” Savilla said, tilting her head as she took me in.
I felt like a specimen being observed under a microscope. “Good different? Or bad different?”
She pursed her lips as she considered. “Good, very good,” she decided. “You learned how to use makeup, and you’re thinner.”
Oh, yay. A thirty-minute tutorial and a year of picking at Aunt DeeDee’s food while grieving had done wonders.
“Nice… shoes,” I said. I hadn’t looked at her shoes, but she didn’t seem to notice as she kicked up a gold six-inch heel covered in rhinestones… or actual diamonds?
“Do you think so?” She leaned toward me conspiratorially and put a finger over her mouth. “I stole them from Mommy’s closet. She doesn’t even know they’re gone. Gosh, it’s been…”
“A while,” I said, tucking my hands in my pockets. “You’re a photographer now?”
“An artiste,” she corrected, pronouncing the word with an ee where the i should’ve been. “What are you doing? And here? I thought you, like, broke back horses.” She drew out the words for a beat too long as she narrowed her eyes with a questioning, and perhaps even suspicious, look.
Um, that’s not a thing, I wanted to say. I eyed the row of crowns behind her. “I’ve come to case the joint.”
Savilla stared at me and then broke into a grin as if she realized I was joking. “You’re funnier than you used to be.”
“I’m actually…” I had to make myself say the words. “I’m a contestant.”
“Oh, goody!” she exclaimed, her voice pitching up an octave in excitement.
Pageants she understood. “I’m a contestant too.
” Savilla carefully brushed a finger under her eye as if wiping away a speck of dust. “Well, not really. I’m an ‘honorary attendee,’ but I can’t, like, win because my family runs things.
You know, it’s a contest of interestings. ”
I squinted, trying to understand her meaning. Savilla had always spoken her own kind of language that the rest of us had to interpret if we wanted to converse with her. “You mean a conflict of interest?”
“No,” she frowned, like I was slow on the uptake.
“Contests of interestings. The most fascinating women from the East Coast descend on The Rose once a year, and this year I’m planning to capture it all.
” Savilla held up the camera and wiggled it in midair before lowering her voice in a breathless and conspiratorial whisper.
“Oh my goodness. Did you see the police here already? A missing crown, if you can believe it!”
A missing pageant queen decades ago and now a missing crown. How exciting! I could almost see the headlines, the swirling rumors, the speculations like thought bubbles above the heads of eager pageant fans: What else might soon disappear from The Rose?
I started to ask when exactly the crown had gone missing, but a woman who must’ve been in her mid-forties yet somehow had nary a wrinkle on her forehead walked up to Savilla and whispered something in her ear.
A much older man, slightly stooped but still surprisingly spry, followed behind the woman at a distance, stopping to nod at the workers and contestants streaming past him, their arms filled with organza and chiffon.
I would know this couple anywhere. This was the Mr. and Mrs. Finch, Savilla’s father and stepmother, the two people most responsible for the Rose Palace Centennial, an event projected to bring more than ten thousand people through their gates that weekend.
Their expressions were strained, likely from the police presence at their event, but at the sight of Savilla, Mr. Finch visibly relaxed.
As Mrs. Finch briefly admired her rail-thin reflection in a nearby mirror, one of the passing contestants beamed at Mr. Finch. He was obviously a favorite.
“StepMommy and Daddy, this is Dakota Green,” Savilla said. “You remember her?”
The woman’s eyebrows attempted to turn down, to no avail. “Oh, yes. You poor dear.” Mrs. Finch spoke in one of those northeastern accents that had gone the way of Katharine Hepburn films. “We attended your mother’s funeral, isn’t that right? Or, perhaps, we sent flowers?”
“That’s right,” I said, actually having no idea.
“Some kind of tragic accident, wasn’t it?” she asked.
“Um… cancer,” I answered.
“Yes, of course. Terrible.” Mrs. Finch’s gaze followed a young woman who held boxes stacked atop one another. She didn’t say a word and instead snapped her fingers at the girl, who froze and turned around to head back from whence she came.
“Pretty… you know, deadly,” I said, bringing Mrs. Finch’s attention back to me.
She acknowledged my snide comment with a faux grin. “So glad you could make it, though I don’t remember your application. Fred, dear, do you remember a Dakota Green?”
I didn’t mention that Aunt DeeDee had told me she’d slipped it in last minute.
“Not that I recall, but I’m a forgetful old man these days.
” Frederick Finch’s eyes flickered to me and he offered a charismatic smile that featured even, white teeth.
“But the name Dakota Green. Yes, I certainly remember you and your family. Your aunt is DeeDee Green, isn’t that right?
” He tilted his head in a mannerism similar to his daughter and took my hand in his own.
At seventy-five, Mr. Finch was no longer handsome like he’d once been, but I could see how his eyes could’ve turned heads a couple of decades ago.
They were the color of forget-me-nots, a flower that grew in the hills nearby.
It was an open secret that he’d had many love interests over the years, that he was a philanderer, but neither he nor Mrs. Finch seemed to let it affect their union.
Perhaps that’s because Mr. Finch was rich.
Very rich. Like, rich enough to buy up Aubergine and most of Virginia if he so chose.
He didn’t though. Instead, he gave generously to annual town events like the Peach Festival and the Rose Palace Derby, to the subpar school system that educated a thousand or so kids every year, and of course to the annual pageant in his ancestral home that brought in a steady stream of tourism.
“Dakota is a contestant this year,” Savilla told her father, beaming as if I was her new pet project.
“Ah. Yes, perfect. A breath of fresh air.” The comment startled me, made me wonder if Aunt DeeDee had been talking me up, planting the idea of needed change in the minds of these pageant people.
“Well, my dear,” Mr. Finch continued, “you have a startling resemblance to your aunt, our very own Miss 1990, though perhaps you shouldn’t mention her this week.
Some of the judges might not be on the best terms with her. ”
I tried to keep my expression neutral as I recalled the male judge she’d told me to avoid.
Mr. Finch studied me longer this time, and I had the sudden urge to hide in the curtains or blend into the wallpaper, even though his expression was neither judgmental nor predatory.
Just curious—delighted, even. I made myself arch my shoulders and stand up straight like the queen I needed to become.
I met his gaze until my eyes caught the jewelry on his right hand.
He wore a pinky ring with the Rose Palace insignia: a crown with a rose springing up from the center.
“Do you like it?” he asked, holding his hand up for me to admire. “It’s my personal design.”
I fidgeted with my polished nails. “Lovely,” I said, in a voice that hardly sounded like my own.
Mr. Finch changed the subject. “I hope you’ll take this opportunity to network with other young women across the East Coast. Now that we’ve met, I believe that your aunt mentioned you’re in need of a full-time job?
You know, we’ve been discussing putting an actual museum on the back side of the property in the original house that my great-grandfather built.
Perhaps your aunt could take you back there sometime this week, talk to you about joining us here? ”
“Sure,” I answered. “The pageant has always fascinated me.” I smiled, wondering at my new ability to lie, to turn on the charm so easily. Perhaps Aunt DeeDee was right. Maybe this show was in my blood.
“Or… perhaps Savilla could take you instead. She’s helping out this year.
” He signaled proudly to his daughter. “She had the brilliant idea to offer a little teamwork exercise during our opening ceremony this evening, a bit of a twist on our first-day hat tradition. I know she’ll do great things when she takes over all of this someday. ”
At the mention of the tradition, I felt all three pairs of the Finches’ eyes on my bare head, and I silently—and unfairly—cursed Aunt DeeDee for not making me adhere to this one thing.
Savilla wagged a playful finger at him. “But not too soon, Daddy.” She took her stepmother’s arm. “The two of us wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
Mrs. Finch’s eyes continued to wander. She didn’t seem interested in agreeing with Savilla’s sentiment.
“I’m certain that you’ll find this week to be an enlightening and beneficial experience, and afterward, I’d love to hear what you think of our efforts here,” Mr. Finch added. “Good luck this week.”
“Daddy, I wonder if we could think of some things Dakota might enjoy when she isn’t busy with pageant duties…” Savilla thought aloud as she glanced at the long registration desk. “Aren’t you, like, really into animals? Didn’t you do that Future Farmers program?”
“Yes,” I said, ready to end this conversation and get to my room for a few minutes of silence. I was no longer accustomed to small talk. Bella and Bucket—and even Lacy and Aunt DeeDee—didn’t require much of me these days.
“Wonderful! We have a lovely apiary where we produce our own honey, and”—Mr. Finch proudly turned to his wife and chuckled—“we have a beautiful equestrian center with a dozen horses. You know, Gigi was once quite the cowgirl. She can tame the wildest beast.” He wiggled his eyebrows in a playful innuendo.
Funny stuff since word around town was that Mrs. Finch was a farm girl from the backwoods of Appalachia, a gold-digger with one hand on the plow and the other reaching for diamonds. They’d been married more than two decades, but small towns don’t forget.
He touched his wife’s lower back, and she jerked away from him as if he’d scalded her. Interesting. Maybe his charms no longer worked on Mrs. Finch.
“We have some of the finest stables behind the guest cottages as well as a fabulous collection of personalized saddles,” he continued. “In fact, I’m sure that Savilla or my wife could show you if you’re—”
“Yes, yes, they’re lovely,” Mrs. Finch cut in.
“But perhaps later, Fred. I have no idea the state of the stables with us so rarely on site. Besides, we mustn’t waste this young lady’s time any longer, and we need to get you back upstairs for your evening pills.
” Mrs. Finch pinched an invisible thread on his suit collar and dropped it to the floor.
“You know how your heart palpitates if you don’t take them on time. ”
Was it my imagination, or did this final sentiment send a little thrill into Mrs. Finch’s tone?
“Don’t let me keep you,” I said all too willingly, but before I could make a clean getaway, Savilla reached out a hand, touching the base of my jaw with her knuckles and tilting my face toward the track lighting.
“StepMommy, look at her,” Savilla breathed. “I would kill for those cheekbones.”
For the first time, Mrs. Finch leaned in, assessing and pleased. “Sharp, like cut glass. Stunning.”
“Do you mind if I take a quick pic?” Savilla asked me. “To show Dr. Bellingham? He does the best work. Gave me a whole new nose last year.”
That name set off an alarm in my brain. That was the man Aunt DeeDee had warned me about.
“Oh, um… maybe tonight after I’ve had a bit of time to properly prepare them?”
Oh my God. I’d rather my cheekbones not hang in some plastic surgeon’s office, the envy of Manhattan socialites. There had to be some circle of hell reserved for individuals who offered up their body parts as exemplars for the rich and famous.
“I guess you’re right. A bit more blush will bring them out spectacularly.
” Savilla sighed enviously and then seemed to remember something.
“You need to get settled in, and here we are talking your ear off. Registration is right over there. I’m sure DeeDee set up everything for you, but if you have any questions…
well, don’t ask me because I probably won’t know the answer.
” She giggled. “But there are plenty of people in black shirts to help direct you.”
Black shirts? I was in my Western wear, which meant Jemma Jenkins definitely hadn’t mistaken me for the staff and simply wanted to put me in my place. But… that would mean she felt threatened by me, which could not actually be a thing, could it?
“Our staff is phenomenal,” Mr. Finch said with an appreciative nod. “They’ll get you all sorted.”
My eyes bounced around the room to them. The staff, many of whom I recognized from church, school days, or running errands around town, seemed to be side-eyeing us, presumably holding their breath until the three Finches—or perhaps only the indomitable Mrs. Finch—exited.
Savilla pursed her lips and studied my forehead for a moment too long as if considering another photo op. “See you soon, que-een,” she said, drawing out the last word playfully.