Pretty Ugly: A Novel (15 page)

The judges motioned for Miranda to join them and Theresa at their table. Feigning surprise and innocence, she pointed to herself with a raised eyebrow as if to say, “Me?”

“Yes, Miranda,” one of the judges called across the room. “Could you come up here for a moment please?”

“Um, of course.” Calmly, Miranda ambled to the judges’ table, exaggerating her pregnant gait as if every tender step was causing the baby to crown. Uncle Wes stood at parade rest, while Bailey tried to hold her smile, preparing for the inevitable humiliation to come.

Every video camera in the room (sixty-two including phones) followed Miranda as she made her way to the judges’ table. When she saw her cameraman friend Freddy shooting her, she wished she’d insisted he keep the sixty-seven dollars. Reaching the table, she smiled and asked innocently, “Is there a problem?”

Spitting out words as if they were hairs in her curly fries, Theresa yelled, “Yes, there’s a problem. A pretty damn big problem!”

The lead judge, an obese Methodist named Margaret Flagg, raised her hand to Theresa. “If there’s a problem, we will deal with it, but let’s do without the coarse language, okay? There are children present.” She sighed. “Miranda, there are some … concerns about Bailey competing in the Princess category.”

Miranda nodded for fourteen seconds. When she was sure she wasn’t going to cry she said, “I see. What kind of concerns?”

“Well … this is partially our fault.” Margaret blushed. “We should have caught it before the pageant began, but because of Bailey’s history and reputation, it was somewhat … unexpected.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “First of all … Bailey’s photographs…”

Miranda’s spine stiffened.

Margaret took a beat and sighed through her nose. “They’re … what’s the word…?”

“Pornographic,” blurted Benny Callaghan, a veteran pageant judge who always dressed like the most fashion-forward member of a barbershop quartet.

“Excuse me?” Miranda said, a bit louder than even she expected.

“You heard me. This,” Benny said, holding up one of Bailey’s gorgeous new photos, “is obscene.”

Miranda did not know what to say. Part of her was relieved they just wanted to discuss the pictures, but another part was disappointed that they couldn’t tell the difference between art and smut.

“It’s art, Benny.” She lowered her voice to protect the children. “I thought gay people understood art.”

Watching from the relative safety of his podium, Uncle Wes ordered himself at ease and walked the edge of the stage to hear better.

Margaret stepped in. “Okay, let’s calm down. ‘Pornographic’ is an … inappropriate word, Benny—”

“Well, they’re inappropriate photos. Bare backs, pinup poses, in one of them the poor girl’s wearing nothing but black stockings!”

“That picture was inspired by a very famous photo of Ann-Margret, considered by many to be a work of art!” Miranda was practically shouting.

“I don’t care what inspired it. If the FBI found these on the Internet, someone would go to prison for a very long time.”

“That’s crazy!” Miranda said, but she nonetheless made a mental note to update Bailey’s Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr pages as soon as she got back to the room.

“Who cares about some stupid dirty pictures?!” Theresa screeched like a Disney witch. “She cheated!”

Margaret sighed heavily. “Okay. Miranda, Theresa claims that Bailey doesn’t meet the age requirement for the Princess category, which is ten years old.”

Miranda’s anger quickly turned to self-possession. “She’s ten. I’m her mother. I know how old she is. She’s ten.”

“Then when’s her birthday?” Theresa barked.

Dammit! With all her plotting, Miranda had forgotten to memorize the fake birthdate she’d put on Bailey’s application. A bead of sweat slid down her rib cage. “Excuse me?”

“When is Bailey’s birthday!?”

The two women glared at each other until Miranda feared she would be turned to stone. “You know, Theresa … I don’t have to answer to
you,
” she said, enunciating in a way that implied more hostility and vulgarity than actual profanity ever could.

Theresa let out a sarcastic snort. “Oh, come on! Our girls have been competing against each other for seven years. Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

Miranda shrugged. “That’s not the first word I would use to describe you.”

The other mothers could barely contain their glee. It had been a long time since there’d been a public dust-up like this, and the first with such marquee names. It was the same feeling their husbands got watching their least-favorite Nascar drivers smash into the wall.

Theresa’s anger could have fueled an army. “Fine. If that’s how you want to play it, fine.”

Storming to the edge of the stage, she stuck her macilent finger in Bailey’s face and shouted, “When’s your birthday?”

Misa and Jinks ran screaming for their parents.

“What’s wrong?” Theresa sneered. “Period got your tongue?”

Bailey did not want to get involved. This was
not
her fight. So she held her perfect smile, ignored the crazy woman screaming at her from the edge of the stage and prayed for an adult to step in.

“I’m talking to you, you fat little pig! When is your goddamn birthday?”

Margaret winced. “Theresa! Language!”

“Hey!” Miranda screamed and grabbed Theresa’s shoulder. “Get away from my daughter!”

“Don’t you ever put your filthy hands on me, you bitch!” Theresa threw back her arm, intending to shrug off Miranda’s hand, but in her rage she misjudged the distance and backhanded the seven-months-pregnant woman hard across the face.

The audience audibly gasped and took one step back, while every member of the camera crew instinctively took one step closer.

Rubbing her cheek, Miranda looked at Theresa and waited for an apology she knew would never come. It had been a long time since she’d been in a fistfight, and pregnant or not she wasn’t going to let some spray-tanned ogress hit her in the face and get away with it, even if it
was
an accident.

Without another thought, Miranda leaned in and slapped Theresa hard across the face. The familiar, resonant
pop
of skin hitting skin echoed through the hall. The crowd gasped again. Miranda covered her mouth, immediately ashamed of herself, but Theresa just smiled like a teenager who’d finally been given permission to drag race the family car and made a fist.

The punch only grazed Miranda’s chin, but the intent behind it knocked out everyone in the room. In her thirty-nine years, Theresa Kennedy had done a lot of things she wasn’t proud of, but punching a pregnant woman—even one she despised—was arguably the worst. None of that mattered now. The genie was out of the bottle, and she was pretty sure that genie was going to hit her back.

Rubbing her chin, Miranda recalled the words of her late father: “If you can avoid a fight, do it. But if you can’t, then find your opponent’s most vulnerable spot and hit them there hard, fast, and often. The worst thing you can do is let a fight escalate. Shut it down as soon as you can. And remember, there is no such thing as fighting dirty. You either kick their ass, or have yours handed to you.”

So Miranda took a step forward and kicked Theresa in the vagina.

The room became a vacuum. There was no air, no sound, no past, no future. There was only that moment.

“Are we done?” Miranda went to Theresa, who was now bent over, gasping for breath. “Theresa?”

“Ahhhh!” Theresa screamed and lunged at Miranda, who reflexively snatched two handfuls of Theresa’s brittle, faded hair. With her left hand, Miranda yanked hard, tearing out a handful of extensions and leaving a noticeable bald spot. Her right hand, meanwhile, worked itself into a fist at Theresa’s scalp, lacing the hair between her fingers, attaching to her head like a tumor.

The other adults jockeyed for better angles, standing on chairs or holding their cameras high over their heads. Whether it was fear of getting involved or just a base desire to see two unlikable women beat on each other, no one even considered stopping them. Contestants pushed their way out onstage to get a peek. Even Benny and Margaret couldn’t help but gawk. No one, however, was more engaged than the producer of the reality show, who stood several yards away thinking about the new BMW this footage was going to buy her.

Theresa had never considered the complexities of fistfighting a pregnant woman. Aside from the obvious tackiness of it all, practically there weren’t many viable targets. Yes, she hated Miranda, but her baby shouldn’t be forced to pay for her mother’s bitchiness. Body blows were off-limits, as was anything that could cause Miranda to fall and hurt the baby: tripping, shoving, or tackling. The only acceptable mark was the face, but with Theresa unable to control her own head, all she could do was blindly swipe at it with her open hand. She connected only once, leaving three perfect scratches down Miranda’s cheek, making her look like she’d been attacked by an angry French-tipped cat.

“Let go of my hair, goddammit!” Theresa screamed.

Miranda turned Theresa’s head so they were eye to eye. “Are you going to stop?”

“Fuck you!” Theresa spat and kept swinging.

Again, Miranda thought of her father’s advice, and with her free hand began punching Theresa repeatedly in her fake breasts, not too hard but enough to get her attention. It was a good strategy. After only a few punches, Theresa started to panic, screaming any excuse she could think of for the fight to stop.

“That’s not fair! You’re going to burst them! This is a sexual assault!”

Theresa thought about kicking Miranda in
her
vagina but worried that also might harm the baby. After two more direct blows to her now permanently misshapen breasts, Theresa decided to sacrifice what remained of her dignity and began wildly flailing her arms, hoping one of them eventually connected. Much like Bailey, she hoped that an adult would step in, but surprisingly (or not), not one did.

Bailey watched from the edge of the stage, knowing her beauty pageant days were finally over. No one was going to let her, or her mother, within twenty miles of a pageant for a very long time. It was an odd feeling. Bailey had been dreaming of retirement, but a part of her never thought it would actually happen. And now that it was here, she felt unprepared, like a test she hadn’t sufficiently studied for. Black, glitter-flecked tears ran down her face as she watched her pregnant mother repeatedly punch a horrible woman in the boobs, and even though the fight was technically about her, Bailey felt no responsibility. She was a civilian now. It was someone else’s job to get worked up over this nonsense. That being said, pageants had defined her entire existence since she was six weeks old. A part of her—albeit a very small part—would miss it. Any little girl can call herself a princess, but very few have the crowns to back it up.

As the host of the event, Uncle Wes figured it was probably his responsibility to restore order. Twenty years of vacationing in the Florida Keys had taught him a little something about breaking up hair-pulling catfights. Jumping from the stage, he planted himself firmly between the two women and attempted to hold them each at arm’s length.

“Miranda! Theresa! Come on, now! The girls are watching! You’re embarrassing yourselves!”

Grateful someone was finally putting an end to this—and satisfied she’d kicked Theresa’s bony ass—Miranda released Theresa’s hair and staggered backward into the crowd. Theresa, however, was too panicked to understand the fight was over and interpreted her freed hair as an opportunity to regroup.

“Aaarrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhh!” she screamed and flailed her arms with twice the intensity.

“Theresa! Stop it, now, sweetie! Everything’s okay! It’s over!” Wes took a step closer, trying to grab her arms, but he misjudged the distance and received a close-fisted blow to the top of the head.

“Oh, my Lord!” He doubled over just as Theresa’s other arm came down and snagged his hairpiece on her wedding ring, ripping it from the double-sided tape that anchored it to his grotesque pate. “My hair!”

Theresa finally opened her eyes when she felt what she believed to be some kind of animal attached to her hand.

“Ahhhhh! Get it off me!”

Again, Theresa flailed her arms, sending Wes’s precious trademark soaring over the heads of the onlookers and onto the stage, where it landed under the incriminating glare of the spotlight.

Seeing Wes without his hair, Theresa screamed again, believing she had scalped the child pageant icon.

“Oh, my God, Wes, I’m so sorry!” Then, unable to take any more, Theresa Kennedy fainted.

The crowd barely noticed. All they could see was the man who looked like a bizarro version of their beloved Uncle Wes.
This
man appeared to be at least ten years older than Wes claimed to be, and his imposing barrel chest now looked like regular old fat. Sweat had matted the remaining strands of hair to his lumpy head, and the double-sided tape hung down past his ear. The sixty-plus cameras zeroed in on him, and Wes realized
he
was now the focus of everyone’s attention. Contestants who didn’t immediately start crying looked at him with a morbid fascination usually reserved for burn victims or dead animals. Not since getting caught with Corporal Bowe’s phallus in his mouth had he been so overwhelmed with fear and humiliation. Straightening his jacket, the fat old bald man gestured to his hairpiece. “Bailey, dear, do you mind?”

“I don’t want to touch it,” she said. There was something so creepy and sad about the inanimate pile of hair in front of her. It reminded her of Henry, her dog who got run over by her drunk neighbor.

“Then kick it to me,” he snapped, then swallowed hard. “Please.”

With the toe of her sequined sneaker, she sent the mound of lifeless hair skittering across the stage. Audible snickers broke the tension, as the crowd started slowly coming back down to earth.

Thanking Bailey with a quick nod, Uncle Wes placed the rug back on his head, and with all the authority a man in a slightly askew toupee could marshal, said: “How about we all take ten minutes?”