Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
Since I didn’t have any other official duties until that evening, after the guests dispersed I excused myself to grab a sandwich and a drink before heading back to my room to make a list of everything I’d discovered since I’d stepped across the threshold of The Rose.
I knew Aunt DeeDee and Lacy needed to mingle and be on call for any last-minute emergencies, so I told them I would see them soon.
I narrowed my eyes at them, but they gave nothing away.
“You go grab lunch, and we’ll see you this evening,” Aunt DeeDee said, her tone much like the one she’d used to send me off to bed when Momma had worked the night shift.
I walked outside the 1950s and got my bearings before heading to the 2000s, which featured contestants floating around displays that ranged from 9/11 to the Olsen twins.
Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” played through the tent, and I caught sight of a small group of contestants huddled together and doing a last-minute run-through of their skit, which seemed to be an homage to the reality TV show Survivor, based on the skimpy island clothes they wore.
At first I didn’t see anything that would warrant Lacy and Aunt DeeDee sending me in this direction, so I wandered around the edges, watching the crowd milling about, attendees grabbing sample cups of French Toast Crunch and Trix Yogurt.
My mouth puckered at the combo before I saw a solitary Mrs. Finch, eye to eye with a cardboard cutout that I could only see from behind.
I followed a circumference around her and watched Savilla break away from a group of guests and come to her side.
Savilla’s eyes flashed with… something. Anger? Or was it shock?
I skirted behind them to view the row of cutouts they were studying, cardboard likenesses I’d recognized in the foyer on the first day as the winners from 2000 to 2009.
Savilla was rubbing reassuring circles into her stepmother’s back. I followed their eyes to the sign at the bottom of the image of particular interest: Miss 2001, Exhibit Coming Soon to the Rose Palace!
The cutout featured two women with a man, Dr. Bellingham, between them.
He smiled proudly into the camera, happy to have two beautiful women flanking him.
The woman to his right was obviously a young Glenda Finch.
She wore no sash but held a single rose.
Her smile was toothy and didn’t reach her eyes.
I could envision her having only just flung the losing sash from her body before pasting on the runner-up smile for the camera.
The woman to his left wore a sash that read Miss 2001 and a crown—the one that my aunt had been accused of stealing only days ago.
This was the cutout that had been missing from the row of images greeting guests in the long entryway on my arrival. It was also an enlargement of the photo that had been cut up in the archives.
I squinted, trying to recalibrate my vision as I took in the image of the other woman in the photo with Dr. Bellingham.
To the attendees who passed it without a thought, this was one of many sights, sounds, and smells assaulting their senses.
They had nothing personally invested in this pageant.
But for me, I couldn’t stop staring at this other woman, the original winner of 2001, head and all.
The figure in the cutout in front of me had to be the elusive Cathy Peabody.
I couldn’t pull my eyes away because she looked remarkably similar to the person standing in front of me: Savilla Finch. In fact, if I hadn’t known that this photo had been taken more than two decades ago, I would’ve thought it was Savilla.
I shifted from foot to foot, realizing how uncomfortable my tight dress had become, as I pieced together what this photo meant.
Could the original Miss 2001, aka Cathy Peabody, be Savilla’s birth mother?
Could that be why, according to the forgotten police report, she’d taken Savilla with her on the morning after she’d won the crown?
Perhaps she’d never competed to win the pageant but instead to get close enough to her daughter to steal her away.
But she’d been found within hours. Something had gone terribly wrong, and then… she’d disappeared.
My eyes drifted back to the man in the center of the cutout: Dr. Bellingham, the person who seemed somehow present in all of this. I moved closer to Mrs. Finch and Savilla, who spoke to her stepmother as the older woman composed herself, glancing around to ensure no one had seen her shock.
“Everyone knows you’re the real Miss 2001, StepMommy,” I heard Savilla say, her words tense. “This is just a nice little way to remember this… this other woman.”
Savilla’s voice caught on the last words, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t tell whether or not she knew that this other woman—who had somehow disappeared off the face of the earth—was actually her mother.