Chapter 20
TWENTY
“I called home once a week and… I lied.
I didn’t want anyone to worry about me.”
—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,
Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes
The Wednesday after the Fourth of July, when I picked Hallie up, she was vibrating with excitement. “Today’s the meeting. You didn’t forget, did you?”
“Of course not.” How could I possibly forget? Hallie had a running countdown. She was weirdly excited for this pageant meet-and-greet.
“I don’t want to be late.”
“We won’t be late.”
“’Cause if we’re late, Audrina said we can’t come in.” Audrina said a lot of things, it seemed.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure they’ll let us in if we’re late. But we won’t be late.”
Megan Tillman’s house was one of those McMansions in a new subdivision built on the outskirts of Two Harts.
These planned communities were popping up more and more between Houston and Two Harts, like an encroaching plague.
With them, they brought an army of leggings-clad moms and more drive-thru coffee huts than seemed reasonable.
I bet Megan fit in very well here. She was probably their leader.
“It’s not too late to leave and go do pretty much anything else. We could take a trip to Disneyland. It’s only a twenty-hour drive,” I said, after parking the car on the street a good block from the house. It appeared that a lot of people were going to be at this meeting, more than I’d expected.
“No way.” Hallie climbed out of the car and slammed the door. By the time I met up with her, she’d already started down the sidewalk.
“Too far? Okay, what about Sea World?”
“Where they torture whales? No, thanks.” Hallie slipped her hand into mine, her palm small and sweaty. “I am kind of nervous. Everyone is going to be there.”
I glanced down in surprise, my heart melting at the slight tremor in her voice. The kid just wanted friends. I squeezed her hand.
“Not a thing to be worried about. Except that you might have to help me lug my purse back to the car.” I patted the oversized black crossbody bag. Some might call it an overnight bag; they might be right. “I’m taking all the food I can’t eat.”
Hallie giggled, the sound making me smile. We climbed the steps to the front door and rang the doorbell, waiting for what felt like forever. Finally, Megan opened the door and gasped in surprise, although her forehead didn’t move an inch.
“I didn’t think you’d be coming,” she said.
I opened my mouth to answer and paused when I got a good look at her outfit. Her knee-length dress was snow white with a lace overlay. On it, a brooch of what looked like the profile of a dog. And there was the hat. It was huge, white, and feathered, tilted at a jaunty angle.
“Um,” I said slowly, unable to take my eyes off that hat. “You said it started at four. We’re ten minutes early.”
Megan frowned. “You must be mistaken. I’m sure I told you it started at three thirty.”
“No, you didn’t.” I pulled out my phone and thumbed to the invite she’d texted me. I’d checked it no less than three times in the last hour.
Megan waved a dismissive hand. “Must have been a miscommunication. Come in. Come in.”
We stepped into an entryway, a large space with vaulted ceilings that reached the second floor and showcased a fancy crystal chandelier.
Megan paused to inspect us. “You two obviously did not see the dress code. This is a garden meet-and-greet, after all.” Somehow her voice had taken on some weird affectation like she was a very rich white woman in the South circa 1850.
I looked down at Hallie’s purple t-shirt and jean shorts.
My outfit was the same except in black. “I saw that it was in the garden and figured it was casual. I didn’t see anything about a dress code.
” Hallie, still clutching my hand, scooted closer to me.
I straightened and looked Megan dead in the eye.
“Is there something wrong with what we’re wearing? ”
She waved her hand around yet again. Maybe she hoped a magic wand would appear and she could make us disappear.
“Well… shorts are most definitely not garden party wear. I could possibly find something for you two to borrow.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head, the feather on her hat trembling.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’d have anything that would fit. ”
Hallie turned her face into my side. Megan was really starting to piss me off. Who says stuff like that? And to a child? Yup, I was clearing out the snack table. Maybe I could take a hand towel or two from the bathroom.
I smiled at Megan. With lots of teeth. So maybe not an actual smile. “That’s so kind of you to offer. Although you are so much older than me, so I’m sure your dresses are much more… um, mature.”
Megan’s eyes narrowed and I swore I could hear her grinding her teeth.
“Should we get to the meeting? I don’t want to hold anything up,” I said, my voice sickly sweet.
“Yes, fine.” She gave her dress an aggressive tug. “You’re in luck, though. We haven’t actually started. We’re mingling. You do know how to do that, right?”
We passed by a giant, five-wick candle and I wondered if I could throw it at Megan’s head. Just for funsies. “I think we can manage to do that.”
Stiff-legged, Megan marched us through the house, all very minimalist beige and white without a trace of a toy or a shoe. If I didn’t know better, I’d say a child didn’t live here at all.
About forty people, all women and little girls, in various states of conversation were already in the garden.
They all wore hats. Big, fancy hats to match their fancy garden dresses.
I had a moment of feeling self-conscious and forced myself to push it away.
It wasn’t my fault that we were underdressed.
Especially when our hostess was going out of her way to make me look like a fool.
But I was no fool. Sometimes foolish? Yes. But not a fool.
The backyard was beautiful with a shimmering pool set off a distance.
Elegant outdoor furniture in the same white and beige color scheme mingled with exotic, leafy plants in enormous planters on the large, paved patio.
Mae and Chris’s backyard was bigger, but Megan’s was more sophisticated.
There wasn’t an army of animal-shaped pool floats or towels draped off any place they could hang to dry.
There wasn’t a swing set or trampoline or sandbox.
Again, nothing in this yard spoke of a kid living here.
Elegant. Sophisticated. Magazine worthy. I hated it.
Megan immediately rushed off. Hallie tugged on my hand as we walked out onto the patio. She whispered when I leaned closer, “What’s mingling?”
Just hell on earth. But I kept it positive for the kid. I was the adult here. “It’s when you meet new people and get to know each other.”
“Oh.” She bit her bottom lip. “Um, what if I don’t know how to do that?”
I knelt beside her and took both her hands in mine. “Stick with me. We’ll do all the mingling. We will be a mingling machine. No one will ever again even want to mingle because they won’t be able to live up to our example.”
Hallie’s mouth quirked to the side. “Are you telling the truth?”
“No. Mingling is exhausting, but we have to get through all these people to find the food anyway.” I stood and held my hand out to her. “We got this.”
We turned toward the yard and got to work.
Forty long, tiresome, mind-numbing minutes later, I was seated at a round table, clutching a glass of lemonade and listening to a woman in her forties reminisce about her time as Miss Harris County 1996.
She still had the hairstyle to prove it.
Hallie had gone off somewhere with Audrina.
Which I thought was a little rude of her, leaving me alone with these people.
“Of course, I didn’t win but it was such a life-changing experience,” the woman said, absently patting her helmet of bleached blonde hair. “Honestly, I’d enter the Miss Two Harts pageant myself except for that stupid age limit.”
“Oh, come on, no one would bat an eye if you lied about your age,” another woman said. “You don’t look a day over twenty-one.”
I choked on my lemonade. Exactly no one would believe that.
Bleached Hair Woman laughed. “Stop.”
“It’s true.”
“I lied. Keep going. Tell me how young I look again.”
I rolled my eyes but since everyone was doing a great job of pretending I wasn’t here, not a one was paying attention.
I never understood why people, especially women, were so up in arms about getting older.
Some people don’t get the chance to grow old.
Grammie wasn’t even sixty when she passed.
Old people were awesome in an I-no-longer-have-a-filter-and-will-tell-you-exactly-what-I’m-thinking sort of way.
Even more, they knew themselves. You didn’t make it to your eighties without knowing who you were and being okay with it. I couldn’t wait to reach that point.
“Iris, how old are you?”
I swung my head to Megan. “What?”
“We were just saying that none of us could be in the pageant because of the age requirement”—she exaggerated a frown—“but then I remembered you were here.”
See? I was basically holding this chair down. “I guess I could, but…”
Miss Former Harris County Now Bleached Blonde Helmet Head gasped. “You just have to do it. It’s such an amazing experience.”
“Ah, no, it’s not really my th—”
Megan smirked behind her glass. “Iris isn’t really the beauty queen type, are you?”
Slowly, I turned and fixed my gaze on her face. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, please.” She waved a hand at me. “You’re not… really made for pageants.”
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “Why’s that?”
“Well, you know.” Her laughter had an edge of nervousness to it. I had a good four inches and at least fifty pounds on her so she had good instincts. “You’re not really into getting dressed up and all that. That’s what I mean.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough. Pageant girls have a certain look about them. That’s just not you.” She leaned closer, looking almost earnest. “You understand.”
“I must not be smart enough. Be real specific. Explain it to me like I’m a four-year-old.
I want to know how I’m not pageant material.
” She wasn’t exactly wrong. I’d join Disney on Ice before I signed up for a pageant and I didn’t know how to ice skate.
But I didn’t like her telling me this. I could do this pageant if I wanted to.
The other women at the table looked back and forth between us, riveted by what was unfolding before their eyes.
“Fine. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you in a dress, let alone something appropriate for a pageant.
Pageant girls carry themselves with poise and grace.
They… glow.” I felt like I was glowing right now, although it was probably sweat from having a “garden party” in the hottest part of the day in July.
“And there is a swimsuit category and you’re… you know.”
“I’m what?” I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. The other women at the table took the hint and leaned back in their chairs with the timing of a synchronized swimming team.
Megan snapped her mouth shut, her jaw ticking. “Pageant girls aren’t curvy.”
With a suddenness that made her jump (and that made me smile), I leaned forward. “I hope you aren’t saying something about my weight.”
The other women at the table gasped and Megan flinched.
I glanced around the table and realized that, yes, I was the biggest woman here. Both in height and weight. If I’d been younger, that might have made me self-conscious. In high school, I’d gone through a phase where I didn’t like anything about my body.
But having a big sister had helped in that regard.
Mae had been bigger and taller than me and she’d never once let anyone get away with judging her body.
She owned it. I guess I picked that up from her.
Megan could say what she wanted. That said more about her than me.
I was just fine in my skin. I wasn’t a size two or eight or whatever was considered “ideal” these days.
My size sixteen butt filled out my size sixteen jeans just fine, thank you very much.
And while my dislike of pageants was strong, it turned out I hated even more the implication that I wasn’t worthy enough to enter.
It almost, almost made me want to enter just to prove her wrong.
“Of course,” Megan said, her voice dripping with disapproval. “There is one more thing, though. Pageant participants need to have sparkling personalities. You have to be likeable and sweet. And that, Iris Sampson, is something you’re not.”
She might have been right about that.