Prettiest Doll (4 page)

“Olivia,” Miss Denise said, “I will not have that kind of language in this house.”

“Am bad at, then.” I always forget how Miss Denise thinks
suck
is foul language.

“Honey.” Miss Denise sat forward, like what she was going to say was a truth I had to hear. “You don't do tap. You don't do ballet. That's what the judges want to see from the girls your age. You're still doing what the six-year-olds do: shaking your hips, sashaying across the stage, a cartwheel or two. You do it
better
than they do. But it's the same old thing. And frankly, the judges are tired of it. They want to be wowed.”

We don't have tap or ballet studios in Luthers Bridge. The closest ones are in Joplin, which is too far to get to after school, with Mama working. Everything I knew how to do, I'd taught myself from videos Miss Denise had let me borrow.

“You got to face the facts, Olivia. Singing's your only option.”

I bit back tears. “I know I can't be good enough at singing to win.”

“You don't have to be the
best
,” Miss Denise said. “Why, you're so pretty, you don't have to be even second-or third-best. You just got to be able to get through your song without embarrassing yourself, and you'll win the crown.”

“If singing's not important, I don't see why I have to do it at all,” I said.

“Well, baby, because then it would just be a beauty pageant, and where's the fun in that?” Miss Denise took a last sip of pop. “Now come on. Let's work on your twirl a little. We're almost out of time.”

For the next ten minutes, I concentrated hard on my walk, with the twirl at the end, so the judges could get another good look. Miss Denise nodded the whole time, sliding floss deep between her back molars. “Work it, girl!” she said, her mouth wide open.

At the door, she held up my backpack so I could slide the straps onto my shoulders.

“Good Lord, honey, what are you lugging around in here?” she asked.

“Books.”

“Well, for heaven's sake. What are you reading that's so heavy?”

“First Facts About U.S. History. Math Trek.
A bunch of notebooks.”

Miss Denise laughed. “Can't you leave them in your locker?”

“I need them for homework.”

“Well, it's terrible for your posture.”

“It's okay,” I said. “I'm so used to standing straight that I do it anyway.”

“But all those other girls without training.” She opened the front door. “We're going to be a nation of hunchbacks. Mark my words.”

I laughed a little, thinking of teenagers walking around with old-lady humps, how we'd all look crippled and it would be from reading.

Miss Denise frowned. “Good posture's nothing to laugh at,” she said, drawing herself up tall to be an example. “ Those gol-darned teachers think they know so much.”

I stepped out onto the front porch. It felt good to breathe outdoor air.

“Tell those teachers about good posture,” Miss Denise said. “Tell them you don't learn everything in school.”

 

I walked down Mound Street, finishing the peanut butter fudge, trying to be happy to be done with Miss Denise for the day, to have nothing to do until bedtime except for a few algebra problems and a vocabulary sheet for French. But I couldn't stop thinking about Mrs. Drucker, how I was going to have to sing in front of her, how unprepared I was. I couldn't shake the feeling of doom.

Mound Street runs all the way through town, from the Kickapoo burial grounds on the north side to the bus station on the south, but there are only businesses on three blocks of it. From the rise at the intersection of Mound and Elm, I could see Mr. White leaving White's Shoes and Mrs. Hayes sweeping the sidewalk in front of the bookstore. Mr. Hutchins was taking in the flag in front of the American Legion post. Mr. White was swatting at mosquitoes on the way to his car.

All the stores on the east side of Mound are redbrick with green awnings, and all the stores on the west side are wood painted all different colors—white and gray and yellow and brown—with no awnings. You don't notice when you're walking from store to store, but up on the hill it's pretty obvious how mismatched everything is. I don't think there was any reason for it; it was just the way the buildings had been built back in the nineteenth century, no one paying any attention to what anyone else was doing, not caring whether anything matched. I kind of like it like that.

I walked slowly down the awninged side of the street, where it was cooler, past Miller's Pharmacy and the Buried Treasure Thrift Shop and Nine Lives Pets and Feed, where I go with Imogene to buy fly spray and wormer and Vita-Hoof. Mrs. Hayes stopped sweeping when I passed and said hi and sorry about all the dust. Her son Cameron is in my grade and does barrel racing, which Mrs. Hayes hates because it's dangerous. “I wish he liked to
read
about barrel racing,” she always says, as a joke.

I kept walking, past the Dollar General and Creech's. I crossed Church Street, which is where all the churches are. New Faith Gospel was being painted, so there was scaffolding up. Mr. Jeffries and his son Carson were cleaning brushes at the spigot by the front steps. Carson looked hot in his heavy, paint-stained overalls. He's twenty, and when he was in high school, he was a state wrestling champ. Everyone thought he'd go to Mizzou on a scholarship, but he didn't get enough money. Now he says he's glad he didn't go. He says he likes painting, the way you get to see the whole town from high up.

I stood on the corner, looking past New Faith Gospel, trying to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Drucker's house. It's the nicest house in Luthers Bridge: three stories, made of red brick, with a fan-cooled front porch and square brick pillars and a low, flat-topped stone wall perfect for sitting on during the Fourth of July parade, except that Mrs. Drucker doesn't like kids on her property and chases them off with a broom, not even caring that the whole town sees. There are two big slippery elms, one on either side of the porch, which is ten steps above the sidewalk. The house was built by Mrs. Drucker's husband's grandfather when he owned the only bank in town. Everyone thinks it's a little unfair that Mrs. Drucker gets to live in the house, since she'd only been married to Mr. Drucker for a year before he died of a heart condition. That was forty years ago, but people in Luthers Bridge don't forget. They know Mrs. Drucker was really a Crabtree from Kirbyville and wonder why she didn't just go back there and give someone else a chance to live in the Drucker house.

I thought about how on Monday I was going to have to climb those ten steps and ring the doorbell and wait for Mrs. Drucker to open the glass-fronted door with the pleated chiffon curtain. I was going to have to say “Yes, ma'am” and “No, ma'am” because Mrs. Drucker has a thing about children being rude. I was going to have to pretend that I didn't notice the funny smell. I was going to have to sing.

It was still hot, but I felt a shiver, a quiet knowing that I needed to be rescued, and that, so far as I could see, there was no one around to save me.

THE next morning was chilly, as if the recent heat was a dream, or something I'd made up. I didn't want to get out of bed; when I finally did, the floor under my bare feet shot coldness up into my bones. I peeked outside while I was pulling on my jeans. No frost, but everything looked bare and gray. The street was wet, which meant it had rained in the night. It was funny that I hadn't known. Usually, the sound of raindrops on the metal awning over my window wakes me up.

My room is painted pink except for one wall of white bookshelves, but there are only a few books on them. Mostly they're crammed with trophies and crowns from all the pageants I've won or placed in. Some of the trophies are so big that they have to sit on the floor. At night I can just make them out: Little Miss Queen of Hearts, Little Midwest Princess, Ozark Mountain Doll, Glitz 'n Glamour Girl 2004, Adorable Missouri Miss, Lawrence County Sweetheart. I can't even remember all of the pageants I've won them for. A lot of the crowns are from when I was little and don't even fit me now.

I stumbled into the kitchen, where Mama was's itting at the table, sewing sequins onto my Talent dress.

“I thought there were enough sequins,” I said.

“A few more can't hurt,” she said. “Get a doughnut.”

Breakfast is usually day-old doughnuts from Creech's. I pulled a cruller out of the bag and poured a glass of chocolate milk.

“How long you been doing that?” I asked, sliding into my chair.

“Since five.”

“You tired?”

Mama looked up. “I should be asking
you
that.”

I broke the cruller in two and dunked one of the crescents into my milk.

“Now, Olivia Jane, you gonna come right home this afternoon?”

“It's Friday. I thought I'd go to the barn with Imogene.”

Mama put the needle in her mouth and peered fiercely at the sequin she was working on. She held the dress up to the window to see better how sparkly it was. When she started sewing again, she said, “Well, I want you to think about that.”

“I have thought about it. I have all weekend to practice.”

“Prettiest Doll is coming up. And you got Mrs. Drucker on Monday.”

“I know,” I said, my heart sinking.

“But I ain't gonna make you. It's up to you. You're a big girl.” Mama looked over her reading glasses at me. Then she looked back down at her work. “Up to you,” she said.

It was so much worse than if she just forced me. The way she'd been squinting at sequins since before dawn. The way we were eating stale crullers, so there'd be more money for costumes and lessons and the motel in Jefferson City.

“All right,” I said. It came out furious, like I'd cursed. I was afraid she'd say I was being disrespectful.

But she just nodded. “I think that's a good decision on your part, Olivia Jane,” she said. “I think you're being very mature.”

After a minute, she asked, “So are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Tired?” She smiled, like it was a joke.

I didn't answer. I figured she could tell just by looking at me.

 

I walked fast along Prescott, keeping my head down against the cold, past the Dotsons' house and the Slaters' and Mrs. Springer's and the Guthries'. At the corner, I waited for Cyrus Holley to make a right turn in his beat-up Chevy truck. The bed was full of hay. My eyes watered from the cold.

Dale Hickey Junior High is at the southern end of Mound Street right before the bus station and the road out to the state highway. Lots of towns have middle schools, but Luthers Bridge still has junior high, which means we're just the seventh and eighth grades. I like it like that. In my opinion, sixth-graders are pesky and immature.

The best thing about eighth grade is Mrs. Fogelson, who teaches American history. She thinks of interesting ways to make history less boring. Fortunately, I have history first period. It really helps get me out of bed.

We were working on a class video. I was one of the news reporters covering the Boston Tea Party. I had to tuck all my hair into a tricornered hat and interview Governor Hutchinson and Samuel Adams. I liked thinking of good questions to ask. Mrs. Fogelson said I was the Katie Couric of eighteenth-century Boston.

Mama always says lots of anchorwomen and weather girls did pageants when they were young.

I found Imogene standing in our usual spot, in front of the gym. She was shivering in her Barnstable Farm sweatshirt. “I hate this,” she said. “I can see my breath.”

“I wish we lived somewhere warm,” I said. “In Australia, they celebrate Christmas on the beach. Because it's the Southern Hemisphere, so it's summer in December.”

“I hate the cold, but it should be cold at Christmas,” Imogene said.

Imogene always likes for things to be a certain way.

“I can't go to the barn this afternoon,” I said. “I have to go home and practice singing.”

“But it's the weekend!”

I was glad she sounded like she would miss me.

“I have Mrs. Drucker on Monday. I
really
have to practice.”

“But-”

“No, really. I suck. I suck intensely.”

“I'm sure it's not that bad.”

“Imogene.” I made her look deep into my eyes. “Really. You have no idea.”

“Okay, so sing for me. Right now.”

“I am not singing here.”

“Come on.” She pulled at my sleeve, leading me around the side of the gym, where no one else was standing. “You're always saying how bad you are. Let me hear.”

“Imogene! No!” I pulled my arm out of her grasp. “Quit making me! ”

“Well, how the hell are you going to sing in front of a stranger if you can't even do it in front of me?” she asked.

“It's easier in front of strangers,” I said.

Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like if pageants were held in the Dale Hickey Junior High auditorium, in front of Principal Sweeney and Mrs. Fogelson and all the boys I know. Les Dodge, who made out with Madison Belcher when he was twelve and she was fourteen. Joe DeWitt Jr., whose dad's in jail for cooking meth. Landon Terwilliger, the first boy I ever kissed, who once said all the boys voted me the prettiest, and when I asked who was the smartest, he said they didn't vote on that because who cared.

I'd never be able to walk around in fancy dresses and smile over my shoulder and pose for everyone to get a good look if people I knew were the ones looking. Then it would be like I was showing off.

“I hate you tearing yourself down,” Imogene said. “I'm sure you're not as bad as you say.”

“I am. It's like you and swimming.”

Imogene didn't learn to swim until she was eight, and even now she can't put her head down.