Chapter Two. Sarah Lynn
CHAPTER TWO
SARAH LYNN
Six Days Before the Pageant
“Thank you for stopping by Smoothie Palace, and have a delicious day.” I smile with all my teeth as I hand Mr. Mackey back his loyal customer punch card, the kind of smile that is like a gun, making whoever it’s aimed at feel super special.
Smile like you mean it, Sarah Lynn, is one of my mother’s mantras.
It works for pageants and for sketchy old men like Mr. Mackey, who Hannah swears eyes my ass every time I turn around to blend his chocolate bananarama.
But Mr. Mackey’s wife is a member of the board of Miss Lone Star Princess and has been selected as one of the judges this year.
Beauty is a weapon. That’s another thing Mom says.
But so is kindness. “Oh, and Mr. Mackey, I got an extra punch on there for you.”
“Well, aren’t you a sweetheart?” He gives me a wink, which he never does when his wife is in the passenger seat. I’ve been on the stage enough that I bet I could maintain my smile through a plane crash if I needed to.
Suddenly Hannah is beside me, wet rag wiping along the counter.
Our manager is always telling her to tie her hair back, and she does, winding it into an unkempt ball that wobbles on her head as she talks animatedly with her hands.
She has the kind of hair that needs a seriously time-consuming curl routine.
Frizzy tendrils pop out around her face at random, and despite the colorful butterfly clips haphazardly shoved in, you can’t be sure she isn’t cosplaying as a tumbleweed.
“Yeah, Mr. Mackey,” she says, mocking my cheery tone. “Have the day you deserve.”
His wiry caterpillar eyebrows twitch together. The squeaky wheels of his brain are working overtime as he tries to figure out if he’s being insulted, but Hannah has handed him a verbal Escher staircase where the steps loop back on themselves. It’s only an insult if he deserves one.
He looks back to me, and my smile sets his world back on its axis.
Just as the automatic drive-through window soft-closes on him, Hannah adds, “You old pervert.”
Olivia, who’s been waiting to Windex the glass, shushes Hannah. She tries staring disapproving daggers at us, but it’s no use. We’re laughing so hard that Hannah snorts, which has me clutching at my stomach for relief.
“We’re gonna get in trouble,” Olivia whines, peering over her shoulder to check if Mr. Mackey has pulled away yet.
“Relax,” Hannah says, once she catches her breath. “He couldn’t hear us past all that hair in his ears even if he wanted to.”
Olivia catches her giggle in a cupped palm. She is so quiet, it’s like she doesn’t even want her laugh to make a sound. She puts the spray bottle away, and turns to start refilling the fruit containers.
While the shop is empty, I go to the break room to grab my purse. “I have a surprise for y’all,” I say, pulling out two gold folders and handing one to each of them.
Hannah opens hers and flips through the pages, then looks up at me blankly. “Miss Lone Star? Sarah Lynn, what the hell is this?”
“Surprise!” I throw my hands up and wiggle my fingers for full effect. “You two are going to be princesses.”
“Very funny,” she deadpans, trying to hand the forms right back to me, but I don’t take them.
“This”—I tap the application on top—“is exactly what you need to get over your stage fright.”
A few weeks back, when it was just Hannah and me working the last shift together, I heard the faint sound of music coming through the door of the walk-in freezer.
I pressed my ear up against the cold steel and listened.
It was Hannah, singing. And it sounded beautiful.
Her voice made my ribs tingle, made emotions I couldn’t name fill my throat with sandpaper grit.
After closing, I had her covering all my favorite songs.
She only ever sings for me when the shop is empty, never in front of people she doesn’t know well.
It feels wrong, her hiding her talent away, like she’s stealing something from the world.
Last week, she let it slip she once dreamt of being on Broadway, but when she tried out for choir freshman year, things didn’t go so well. I froze up like I was on bad Wi-Fi. Just stood with my brain buffering right there in the auditorium.
“You want me to overcome my stage fright by getting up on a stage?” Hannah asks now.
“It’s just walking.” I shove the papers back to her chest, then hand her a pen. “Walking in a dress and smiling. Anyone can do that.”
“I’ll do it with you, Han,” Olivia says, sucking in her lips to hide her smile.
Olivia is like one of those flowers that only grows in the shade.
She’s pretty, actually, if you ever take the time to look at her.
But she styles herself like she’s trying to vanish—her dark-blond hair a veil she never quite lifts, wearing baggy T-shirts and opting for stiff black slacks at work instead of the second-skin leggings the other girls and I wear.
“Well, look at that,” I say, hand on my hip, clicking my tongue behind my teeth. “Olivia has the balls. Do you?”
Hannah sighs in a way that makes Olivia and me know we’ve won her over.
Olivia squeals, fingers steepled under her nose.
“This’ll be so fun.” She twirls around and grabs three one-ounce measuring cups, the ones we use for energy boosters in the smoothies.
She fills them with pineapple juice and passes them out.
“To the Lone Star Princess Pageant,” she says, raising her makeshift shot glass.
Hannah rolls her eyes. “What the hell.” She clinks her glass to ours and downs it like she knows what she’s doing. “I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?”