Prettiest Doll (18 page)

“I wouldn't make you bake cakes,” Mama said after she asked me the last question. We were sitting in the kitchen while Mama unfolded the paper turkey with the accordion-pleated tail and set it in the center of the table.

“I didn't say you'd
make
me. I just figured that's what you'd want to do.”

“That's what I do for fun. Myself. I wouldn't make you do the same thing I like doing unless you liked doing it, too.” She crinkled up her brow, looking at the turkey, which had gotten all creased and bedraggled in the Thanksgiving box. Then she said, “Maybe
eating
cakes. Maybe we could do that together.”

I laughed. It was like she was making a joke.

“See?” I said. “There's stuff we both like.”

“That's what I'm telling you,” she said, still looking worried, but I wasn't sure if it was still because of the turkey.

 

Imogene tried to be a good friend.

“You're going to win for sure,” she said one day at lunch, just as the bell rang.

I balled up my paper bag and tossed it into the garbage can from where I sat on the bench. “Nothing's for sure.”

“You're so pretty,” she said, standing up, waiting for me to zip my jacket. “You're not even pretty. You're beautiful.”

Her saying such an extreme thing made me laugh. “No, I'm not. Not beautiful.”

“You are. You didn't used to be. But you are now.”

I realized I wasn't sure what the difference between pretty and beautiful is. Is beautiful just prettier than pretty? “Beautiful is too much. Beautiful is like a fabulous model or a star. It's something extra. Something you can't describe,” I said. “That's not me. Pretty's enough.”

“Something more than just looks,” Imogene said. She sighed as we started walking toward the hallway. “You don't even get what it's like for average-looking people. What it's like to know you aren't pretty.”

She sounded almost angry. I stopped walking and put my hand on her arm. “I didn't think you cared about what you look like,” I said.

She jerked her arm away. “Of course I care, Liv. Everyone cares. How can I not care?” We started walking again. “When it's all anybody thinks about.”

“You don't wear cute clothes or makeup. Not even lip gloss.”

“What's the point? What difference would it make?”

“I could teach you how to do it. So it would make a difference. There are things you can do. Tricks.”

“Like what?”

“Like when you put on mascara. The stuff to make your eyelashes look long,” I added, because I wasn't sure she knew what it was. “Before you put it on, dust a little powder on your lashes. It makes them look thicker. And for your lips, a cream lipstick with a shimmer will kind of perk up your skin.”

“I wouldn't want to be too shiny.”

“Then you can use a beige or light brown top coat. Just a little. There are all kinds of things you can do.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” she asked.

“The same way you know about horses. Being around it so long. You just learn it. All the tricks.” We split apart to walk around a clump of seventh grade boys. Back together, I said, “It's all just tricks.”

“I don't know how you remember it,” Imogene said. “It just kind of leaks out of my head.”

“Because you don't care. Not really,” I said when she started to argue. “You think you do, but you don't. Not in the way that counts.”

“It feels like caring when I look in the mirror and see this drab, plain girl looking back,” she said, shrugging but not mad anymore.

“Not plain,” I said, turning to head down the other hall to French. “Beautiful.”

She kept walking, but I turned around and saw her laughing.

“Really! ” I yelled, and she looked back, smiling, so I know she'd heard.

 

whazzup?
Dan IMed me that night.

doing homework,
I IMed back.

We talked like this almost every night. Totally unromantic. It was okay. I figured there were two ways to go with someone like Dan: either I could be sad and pine away for him, or I could force myself to think of him as just a friend. Without even talking about it, that was what we'd both decided to do: force ourselves to be friends.

i wish u had skype,
he said.

the webcams r too expensive

well save up for one then

i might,
I said.

I sighed. The problem with just being friends was that there was too much feeling all locked away, so all that was left was boring, barely-knowing-a-person conversation. I couldn't think of much to say to him that wouldn't let all the locked-away feelings loose.

Then he IMed,
got my first shot,
and I felt everything flood through me.

did it hurt?
I asked.

ya. i have to have them every day.

are you sorry?
I asked.

not really

That's good,
I said. Back to the barely-knowing-him stuff.

I was trying to remember the French word for
peach
when he typed,
sometimes it feels weird to admit that i care what i look like.

I put my hands up to type an answer, then set them in my lap. I thought for a long time. Finally, I typed,
look who youre telling this to.

You're the only one I've told,
he said.
lol

Why?
I asked.

He said,
because thinking about what you look like all the time is not so different from not thinking about it at all.

deep,
I wrote, just to be funny. But my hands were shaking a little.

so how much did you practice today?
He meant for the pageant.

2 hours

sad day

it was ok. miss denise said maybe the break did me some good. she says my smile is better

He didn't answer for a long time. I was looking up
asparagus
in my English-French dictionary when he typed,
What did she say about the singing?

that its still bad. Terrible. lol

I'd finished the last of my French when I realized he'd left me a last IM. All it said was
your smile is amazing.

 

Mama and I drove to Jefferson City on the Friday before Thanksgiving. We pulled into the hotel driveway after dark. “Look at all the twinkly lights,” Mama said. “Ain't this pretty?” She was always like that in front of hotels: bowled over by the lights, the luggage racks on wheels, the parking valets smoking cigarettes off to the side of the building, where the people in the front lobby couldn't see. I think she was just amazed to be in a place where someone else made the beds and cleaned the toilet. That was enough to make it grand.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Olivia Jane, you sound tired,” she said as we got out of the car and hurried, shivering, into the lobby. “We got to get to sleep early. Hair and makeup's at seven.”

Mama was right. I was tired in my bones. I stood next to her while she gave the check-in clerk our reservation number and thought that all I wanted to do was lie on cool white sheets and watch cop shows in the dark, which was something special that Mama had just started allowing on pageant nights.

The check-in clerk was a dark-haired woman, not very old, fat enough so she didn't have wrists. She wore the hotel company's uniform, but she'd decorated the blouse with bird pins. I counted twelve, all with cheap, glittery stones for eyes. “I like your pins,” Mama said.

The woman smiled. “It's a hobby of mine.”

“Birds?” Mama asked. I knew she was getting ready to tell about Grandpa's taxidermy business.

“No. Pins. Collecting them.” She handed Mama the credit card bill and a pen. “I like birds well enough, though.” She looked at me. “They let you wear pins on your pretty pageant clothes?”

“Probably not,” I said.

The woman sighed and shook her head. “You're lucky, being so pretty. Being in pageants. I bet you won a lot of 'em, huh?”

“A couple,” I said.

Mama laughed. “Oh, she's just being modest. She's won a bunch. How many, Olivia Jane?” Without waiting for me to answer, she said, “Twenty-three, I think. Twenty-three she actually
won.
That's not counting all the ones she come in first runner-up.”

“Mama.
"

The woman laughed. “It's okay, honey. Your mama's
proud.
Let her be proud.”

“Well, now, that's what I say.” Mama folded the receipt and put it in her wallet, then snapped her big purse shut. “But a lot of people say it's a bad thing being so proud. Say us moms are
pushy.
Say we should just keep our mouths shut, pretend not to notice.”

“I know. I
know.
It's a thankless job!” The woman shook her head, commiserating with Mama. “Well, I say good for you. Good for you both.” She looked right at me. “I'll be rooting for you,” she said. Then she leaned over the counter and whispered, “You're the prettiest one so far!”

“Well, now, wasn't she sweet?” Mama said as we turned away from the desk and headed back outside to park the car. The automatic door whooshed open, and the bellboy, bored and pimply, looked us up and down. He smiled at me and looked away, the way eighteen-year-old boys often do, not sure whether being so much older made him look good to me or if he seemed creepy and sad for even thinking about smiling at a girl so young.

“Mama,” I said as she started the car and drove slowly into the crowded parking lot, “if I didn't do pageants, would you be proud of me?”

“Well, now, for Lord's sake, what kind of a question is that?”

“Would you be proud of me?”

“Well, of course I would.” She was squinting and hunching forward over the steering wheel, straining to see in the dark.

“For what?”

“Olivia Jane. I am too tired to play this game.”

“It's not a game,” I said, but I didn't say anything more until she had eased the car into place and turned off the engine. “Okay, now. What would you be proud of me for?”

She just sat for a minute, her thick hands still on the wheel. Finally she said, “I don't know.”

I looked out the window at the battered SUV next to us. Through its passenger window I could see two baby car seats and, in the back, a cardboard box with
CLEANING SUPPLIES
written across the top flap. Were the babies in the pageant? Was the mama a maid who carried her work things around so she wouldn't forget them for a job? Did the daddy come along, happy to carry the suitcase because the mama had both babies to get in and out of the car? Were they proud of those babies? Weren't they supposed to be? Wasn't that their job?

“You been doing pageants for a long time,” Mama said. “I got used to being proud of you for that. I ain't gonna apologize.”

We sat, our breathing fogging up the windows.

“But if there was other stuff you did...” She sighed. “I don't know
what.
But if there was, I'd probably figure out something to ... I don't know.
Like,
I guess. But I don't want you thinking that means I'm saying it's okay to give up on pageants. Because it's not.”

“I'm not thinking that.”

“They're so good for you, Olivia Jane. The way they make you confident. The way you walk into a room and just, I don't know, know you belong there. I could never do that,” she said sadly.

“Yes,” I said. “I can do that.”

“It's a gift you got, the way you look. A gift. And you know, them people who say it's not right for girls to think so much about how they look, they're living in some kind of dreamland if they think that's not what girls do anyway, And not just girls. Grown women, too. It's what we do. It's everything.” She looked at me. “And you're just so pretty. So pretty. And I ain't gonna say I'm sorry about that, or that it's a bad thing.”

“It's not a bad thing. But—”

“No. No buts.” She turned back to the steering wheel and pulled the key out of the ignition. “Olivia Jane, we got to get up to the room. I am way too tired to do any more talking.”

“Me, too. I'm tired, too.”

“And you know we got an early start tomorrow.” She pulled herself out of the car and up to standing. She looked at me over the roof. “How 'bout a little TV tonight, honey?” she said.

“Okay,” I said, taking what she could give me.

“And maybe a milk shake if the coffee shop's still open,” she said, pulling our suitcase out of the trunk. “How's that sound?”

I nodded, knowing that, even if I said no, she'd order two in case I changed my mind and wait until I fell asleep to drink them both.

THAT night, I couldn't sleep. I lay alone in the bed closest to the window, listening to Mama snore. We'd turned the TV off hours ago and left the curtains open. The nighttime was yellow with parking-lot light. Jefferson City was asleep. No sound except, once in a while, a semi out on the highway, making me think the same old thoughts, making me tired, but not enough to sleep. Weary. Tired in my head.