Beauty Queens (34 page)

“Who messes with Miss Teen Dream?” Ladybird Hope asked.

“Nobody,” Taylor answered. She smeared mud and tree sap to camouflage her face and arms till she seemed an outgrowth of the island. She almost sensed the black shirts before she saw them on their way to the beach and the other girls.

“I think they might be messing with our pretty. What do you think we should do, Miss Texas?” Taylor whispered. She wasn’t sure if she’d said it aloud or inside her head. It was hard to tell the difference anymore.

“A Miss Teen Dream doesn’t rely on others to solve her problems. She tackles her issues head-on, with a smile and a wave,” said her other self.

Tears filled Taylor’s eyes. “You’re so right.”

“Of course I’m right,” said her other self. “I wrote the book on right. Silent Somersault?”

“I think so, yes.”

When Taylor had won Miss Dustbowl County, she’d wowed the judges with her signature gymnastics move, the Silent Somersault, a series of revolutions that happened so fast, no one could hear her feet and hands touching earth. Now she flew in a beautiful blur of spandex and sequins, a girlish ninja star arcing through the air. And
when she brought her feet down on the men, snapping their necks like cheap drugstore straws, they never heard a thing. Carefully, quickly, she pulled their bodies into a nearby ravine.

“Cover ’em up good,” said the other Taylor from her perch in a tree. “They’ll come looking. And take their walkie-talkies, too.”

Taylor nodded, but secretly she worried that the judges wouldn’t like this. It seemed a little
overt.
She might lose a point or two and have to make it up in swimsuit or talent. But it had to be done.

With a heavy sigh, Taylor examined the hands that had done this thing,
her
hands, as if seeing them for the first time. The long, slim fingers. The mud-caked knuckles. The strip of pale skin on her fourth finger where her sweet sixteen ring had been. She turned her hands over and over, palms to backs, backs to palms, marveling. She bent her fingers to inspect her nails and the frown returned.

No. This was all wrong. What had she done? When did this happen?

“Oh, no,” she said as her eyes filled with tears. “I broke a nail.”

The next morning, Duff found Adina by the lagoon tending to the fishing lines. His eye was swollen and purplish, and Adina wished she could feel some satisfaction that Mary Lou’s punch had been so effective, but she only felt the pain of betrayal.

“Adina. Can you just stop for a sec and listen to me?” he said.

“I’m working. You’ll have to deal.” She expertly repaired a section of the line that had been nibbled by fish.

“I’m sorry,” Duff said at last. “I never meant to hurt you.”

Adina allowed a small “ha!” She kept her focus on the line as she blinked back tears.

“I don’t blame you for hating me.”

“Gosh, it’s so nice to have your approval,” Adina growled.

Duff dug at the sand with a stick. “The producers asked us to keep personal blogs to attract a fan base. Sinjin was the most popular, of course. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I mean, I’m just a bloke on a boat trying to figure out who I am and what I want to do.” He offered a small, apologetic shrug. “Anyway, I was reading about Casanova, and something clicked. I settled on that persona and started blogging about my supposed conquests. I was getting more hits a day than the other chaps, and the producers were talking spin-off show and … I just didn’t know how to stop.” Duff waited for Adina to say something. When she was quiet, he said, “I’m really, really sorry. I’m a messed-up guy. But I do really like you, Adina. I didn’t lie about that part.”

Adina’s mind was tempted with flea-market promises: He’s only lost. Confused. Wounded. You could save him. Change him.
Make
him. It would hurt a little. Maybe a lot. And then he would love you forever. And his love would prove your lovability. She remembered what her mother said the day Johnny, husband #3, moved the rest of his guitar collection into the rented U-Haul and drove it away to live with a Hooters waitress named Fragile. Her mother had curled her hair and put on a fresh coat of lipstick and stood on the porch, watching the U-Haul’s shadow clawing along the street. Adina waited for her mother to throw her coffee cup. Call him a bastard. Do a little dance. Instead, she said softly, “What’s wrong with me?” Adina had hated her mother for saying that. And she hated that some part of her asked the same thing now.

Don’t cry,
she told herself, and yanked hard on the fishing line, stumbling as she dislodged whatever was stuck.

She screamed as the bloated body washed toward her.

“Something’s not right on this island,” Sinjin said between kisses, and Petra grew quiet for a moment.

“Was that a double entendre?”

“No, luv. I’m serious. That girl — the barmy one …”

“Taylor.”

“Yeah. Ahmed said she was wearing a man’s black shirt. Where did she get it?”

“Maybe it was in her luggage all along?” Petra said, but she didn’t really believe it.

Sinjin mulled it over. “Say, you’re not, like, a competing show designed to give our show a hard time? Like a Survivor Versus Survivor concept? And you’re the surprise we have to figure out. Like you’re really the Sirens who lure us off course and we have to resist you.”

“Did you just make a reference to Greek literature?”

“I suppose I did.”

“Totally crushing on you in a Homeric way.”

Sinjin waggled his eyebrows. “I fancy a bit of the Homeric way.” Petra went in for a kiss and Sinjin stopped her lips with his fingers. “You’re sure you’re not some sort of creepy double agents connected with those black shirts?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Give us a kiss and make an honest pirate of us,” Sinjin said.

“Oh my God! Adina just found a body,” Nicole said, racing by.

“A body!” Mary Lou said, her heart beating faster. Could it be Tane? Was that why she hadn’t seen him? She tried to put that thought out of her mind as she ran toward the lagoon with the others.

They dragged the body onto the beach and rolled him over.

He was wearing a black T-shirt. But other than that, there was no way to know who he was.

The red phone rang and MoMo grabbed it quickly. “It is you, my dove?”

“Now, who else would it be, MoMo?”

MoMo smiled, then frowned. “When is MoMo to receive his weapons, Ladybird? Already, I have funneled one billion dertmaz into your account through secret means and killed everyone involved with the transaction. Also, you have said unkind things about The Peacock in the press.”

“Oh now, MoMo, you know that’s just politics. Once I’m president, I’ll lift the sanctions against your country.”

“You are the femur of my institution, Ladybird Hope. Long may you wave. When you are president, our union will set free the doves of entropy. When can we be together as we were in the hot tub here at Camp Peacock?”

“Remember, MoMo, we’ve gotta keep that part a secret.”

“We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.” MoMo giggled.

“That giggle is disturbing, MoMo. I’ve told you about that.”

“I am sorry, my dove. It’s just that I have been thinking about our agreement and making the amends to it.” MoMo played the finger drum set he kept on his desk beside a bust of himself and one of General Good Times.

“You see, I have in my possession a very special video, which would make your election to president very difficult.”

“I thought you destroyed that, MoMo.”

“I hear you might get rid of the MoMo.”

“Now, why would I do that?”

“I am thinking a June wedding. Is very nice in the ROC in June.”

“MoMo? Have you been nipping off the crazy juice again? You and I can’t get married.”

“Why not? Is perfect way to solve all our problems. Will be like royal wedding, and our faces will be on plates for the peoples to eat from. And we could to have the situation comedy on television. Maybe with nutty neighbor who borrows our plunger and makes to ogle the breasts of our daughter all the time.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end.

“Okie dokie, Peacock,” Ladybird purred. “First we do the arms deal and you secure The Corporation’s rights in the ROC. Then we’ll plan the wedding. Three days.”

“I count the time like my hemorrhoids.”

“TMI, MoMo.”

“TMI to you, too, my darling.”

Agent Jones had been summoned to the conference room.
Urgent
was the only word on his pager. Ladybird sat waiting for him on the flat-screen TV. She did not look happy.

“Agent Jones. Report on the girls.”

“Um, no change. They’re doing okay. In fact, they’re proving to be surprisingly resourceful.”

“Resourceful? You want to talk resourceful? Resourceful is being from a backwater town in Idaho and making it from Miss Teen Dream to Corporation stockholder to presidential candidate without letting your lipstick go cakey once, Agent Jones. Resourceful is trying to figure out what to do when your secret arms deal and your foolproof plan for gettin’ elected go to H-E-double-hockey-sticks.” On the screen, Ladybird Hope spray-painted an assault rifle with a stencil of her name in bubble letters.

Agent Jones stood with his hands behind his back. He knew from experience that silence was often the best offensive. In a moment, Ladybird inspected her stencil work and smiled. “I do love me some arts and crafts. Anyway. Me and the Board have talked it over, and it seems to us that we’re missing a valuable opportunity here. Why just drill when we can take over the whole dang country?”

“I’m not sure I’m following. And it’s ‘The Board and I.’
Me
is objective case.”

With tweezers, Ladybird added tiny sequins to the wet paint on the i in
Ladybird.
“MoMo B. ChaCha is a threat. Cost analysis of the pros and cons of the situation indicates that we need to eradicate the complications arising from the instability of the appearance of the girls on the island and strategize turnkey applications for phasing out less profitable product lines across all platforms.”

Agent Jones took a moment to digest this. “You want me to kill The Peacock.”

Ladybird continued her ministrations on the gun. “What we need to do is maximize the global content of our security infrastructure by curtailing non-dividend-paying future living possibilities through strategic planning initiatives at the weaponized level while strategizing turnkey profitability of the Republic of ChaCha through the implementation of dynamic platforms that will drive market share, synergize global objectives, and maximize global content.”

“So … kill.” Agent Jones made a gun motion with his thumb and forefinger.

“In a manner of speaking.” Ladybird sipped coffee through a straw. “What if we could catch MoMo in an act so heinous, so terrible, that the entire world would be on our side? We’d be justified in killing him. The world would thank us for doing its dirty work — and for marching right into his backward country and setting up a democracy. Along with lots and lots of cute shops.”

“MoMo’s already racked up a pretty impressive list of atrocities. What could you possibly nail him for that would be so effective?”

Ladybird managed a small smile. “Killing a bunch of teen beauty queens on live TV oughta do it, doncha think?”

Agent Jones had staged assassinations and coups. He’d taken out KGB agents and lowlife informants and still managed to sleep at night. Sacrifices had to be made for national security. But this wasn’t about security; it was about profitability, the country as corporation. It almost made him nostalgic for the Cold War.

He cleared his throat. “How will we manage that?”

“It’s time to bring the girls in. I’ll announce the rescue on
Barry Rex Live.
We’ll have a surprise for the public. Imagine: staging the Miss Teen Dream Pageant right there on the island! It’ll be a ratings bonanza! Then, just before the crowning of the new Miss Teen Dream, MoMo’s guards will leap out with their shiny new guns and kill the girls.”

“How are you going to get MoMo to do that?”

“Silly. MoMo’s guards won’t actually
do
it. It’ll be Corporation black shirts dressed up like Republic of ChaCha soldiers. MoMo will die in the resulting bloodbath. The world will see it live on TV, and once it’s on TV, it’s true. I promised The Corporation ratings, and I will deliver. With the world’s outrage on our side, we will march into the ROC to stabilize the country. The whole operation will be contracted out to The Corporation. Oh, and I am seeing huge merchandising opportunities with this. What do you think of T-shirts that say
ROC and Roll?”

“That is quite possibly the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard.”

Ladybird Hope cocked her head and smiled. “Well, thank you, Agent Jones. It’s sweet of you to say so.”

When Agent Jones was eleven, his dad had called him into the front room and explained that there comes a time in every person’s life when a choice defines him.

“Remember that,” he’d said. He was wearing the clown suit and
full makeup. Since he’d been laid off eighteen months earlier, it was his only source of income.

“Yes, sir,” Agent Jones had said. He was Bobby Jones then.

Then his dad laced up the multicolored shoes, put on the red felt nose, squeaked his bike horn, and drove away to make balloon animals at a six-year-old’s birthday party. Afterward, he stopped off at Tom’s Bar for four boilermakers and wrapped his sedan around a tree. The paper used a photo from the party for his obituary. The last image Agent Jones would ever have of his father was of a defeated man in a red nose holding a balloon animal.

That image came back to him now as he stood with the requisition form for coffee in one hand and the form for early retirement in the other. He could opt out. It would mean he’d never hit the top, never hit that sweet spot in his career that inspired envy and respect from other men. On the other hand, somebody else would have to be in charge of killing the beauty queens.