Trying the Knot (35 page)

Once Evangeline took the stage, it was her
mission to hold the town hostage till she was fully drunk on their
swooning adoration. Kate barged past the director and watched from
the wings. She was not about to miss Vange’s singing debut in front
of a mass audience.

From the edge of their seats, the spectators
lurched closer like death-starved buzzards preparing to swoop down
for the kill. Vange clenched the microphone tightly in her
trembling hand, and her heart-shaped mouth in all its painted red
glory could be seen quavering from the highest row of back
bleachers.

As the music began, the crowd simultaneously
sucked in their breaths. The fiendish vultures boiled over in a hot
swell of skepticism. Their heady breaths and sweaty anticipation
revealed a longing to devour this mere dreamer who had the audacity
to think she could show up an entire town with the power of her
singular instrument.

Shaking at the end of the runway as if on a
guillotine platform, Vange’s voice arose like a soft whisper from
nowhere. In the wings, Kate chewed her bottom lip, shut her eyes
and felt her two crossed fingers dig into her thighs. Then the
supernatural occurred, Vange was swept up into a state void of
anxiety. Her dark lush voice saturated the auditorium with ageless
wisdom to beat back the banality of the scavengers hovering around
her. Imperturbably, the female David sang well enough to conquer
all of Goliath’s monstrous doubts.

Kate hung back with her mouth agape as Vange
sang “Someone to Watch Over Me.” She prayed Vange could feel her
encouragement. The audience slumped in defeat in their bleacher
seats, for Evangelica had enchanted them into submission with the
darkly sweet melody of her song. By the time she reached the
rousing climax, the crowd whimpered groveling and submissive at her
feet.

When the gymnasium exploded upright, it was
to express their acceptance with thunderous applause. The social
misfit was elevated beyond their reach – she became more than their
sister, mother, neighbor, daughter or friend. And she radiated
cosmically aglow on the runway. The boisterous ovation resonated
with acceptance. It was music to her ears, and while she lingered
for what the director considered distastefully too long, she left
them longing for more.

The spotlight reflected a sparkling glint in
Evangelica’s eyes that mesmerized the audience, whose energy soared
blissfully around her. They continued to pound away, inebriated
from her stage presence. Evangelica, who had barely ever left the
city limits but had combed its dredges, successfully projected
worldliness more sophisticated than anything they had personally
encountered. That night she was elevated permanently into the local
folklore. Her lush, full voice had forever entrenched its way into
their hearts.

Thoroughly enamored, Kate forgot her
anxiousness for the pageant to be over with. Standing as if her
conifer costume had taken root, Kate forgot she already should be
squeezed into her evening gown. The time was fast approaching for
her to hobble across the stage in heels and an ill-fitting borrowed
prom dress in order to reveal what her favorite holiday was.

On her way to the locker room, Evangelica
discovered Kate lingering overwhelmed with awe. Breathing heavily
and sweating slightly, Vange asked defensively, “What? Didn’t you
think I was capable?”

Speechless, Kate shook her head trying to
find the right words, but Vange risked no chance of hearing
anything resembling doubt, and she snapped, “Don’t worry, Kate,
I’ve got this.”

When her time came, Kate unenthusiastically
paraded around the stage in a gown that made her look more like a
white cloud than a celestial virgin. She did not care if she
stammered through her rehearsed answer, “Thanksgiving is my
favorite holiday. It encompasses all the warm family feelings of
Christmas without any of the commercialism.”

Standing frozen on her designated stage mark,
Kate watched Vange shimmy up to the microphone in yet another
sparkling, form fitting dress. Nyda-the-Living-Dead insisted wildly
from the wings the gown was obscene because the back was cut so low
it flirted with the crack of indecency. Nyda rushed out on stage
and wrapped a shawl around the offending contestant in order to
reign in her burlesque act. Undaunted, Vange was the only girl who
mildly flirted with the Master of Ceremonies, “I love all holidays,
Dick. I’ll gladly seize any opportunity to make merry and be
festive.”

Filled with trepidation, the contestants
became jittery mannequins as their smiling lips dried to their
teeth while the dictator director rattled of her annual spiel about
how the pageant could not be successful without all the little
people, the social munchkins who were comprised of past contestant
losers, and their mothers and younger sisters.

Kate stood stiffly and did not doubt for an
instant that Heidi would be crowned Queen of Portnorth. It would be
impossible for the judges to select a sacrificial virgin queen
among this crew, without settling on Kate, who smacked of frigidity
and offered no stage presence whatsoever. So they were forced to
settle for the next best thing, which happened to be an outgoing
girl with a long standing boyfriend to whom she would become safely
engaged once relinquishing her royal duties; only Heidi fit the
bill.

Gussied up like cattle on one last ditch
effort to finagle their way off the prized butcher block, each
contestant was allowed one last trek down the runway. As Kate
walked her final walk, she recalled Vange’s inspired dress
rehearsal stunt. For motivation and inspiration each girl was
draped with the winner’s cape and crowned in order to practice
walking down the runway, but Vange had swung the cape out into the
phantom audience with irreverence as she briskly charged her way
back up the runway. There would be no such antics tonight, and Kate
meekly returned to her penned off position with the other
cattle.

Kate watched Evangelica walk her final strut,
and she wondered what Vange was thinking. Kate hoped Vange did not
harbor any delusions she had any serious chance of capturing the
crown, which would be a coup of magnanimous proportions. Brimming
with character, Vange would no doubt send the cubic zirconium tiara
blasting to bits if it was ever placed on her head.

As everyone rightly suspected, the crown went
safely to Heidi. Amongst snickers, one of the pigeon-toed Derry
girls teetered across the stage in dangerously high heels
considering her pregnant state, and she relinquished the crown to
the new Miss Portnorth. Kate felt genuinely happy for the slightly
hunchbacked queen because, with the exception of her wedding day,
this was probably the highlight of her life. Evangelica, holding
onto her talent award, was not so happy for Heidi and visibly fumed
under the spotlight.

During the annual Limestone Festival, which
was merely an excuse for the entire town to ingest mass quantities
of alcohol under one tent, Heidi reigned regal over her intoxicated
subjects. They dutifully paid homage to her bland beauty and big
80’s hair. The moment of glory was lost on Vange and Kate, and so
they danced a Tango amidst the country line dancing Garth Brooks
and Don Juana-bes. Evangelica even made T-shirts for her friends,
which she and Kate wore over their formals, advertising the
“W’Limestoned Festival.” The two loser contestants were sent into
hysterics when Thad nearly shook Heidi’s crown off as he exclaimed,
“Quasimodo, Queen of Shithole, USA!”

Kate’s proud mother later reprimanded her by
lamenting, “With all the respectable girls in the pageant, you made
a poor choice dancing wildly with Shayla Whiley’s daughter. Instead
of making a fool of yourself, you could’ve danced nicely with Queen
Heidi!”

Kate often wondered what would have become of
Heidi if she had not won, and her parents had not bought her a
coveted car to enable those faithful weekend trips home from
college to visit her boyfriend. The Ford Escort was probably the
reason Heidi dropped out, returned to Portnorth to get married and
became a home daycare provider. Six years and four kids later,
Heidi’s long locks were shorn, which caused the little hump on her
back to grow more prominent.

Of course, Evangelica won the talent award;
there was never any question, but she later claimed it meant
absolutely nothing at all to her. During the ceremony Evangelica
out-performed special guest Miss Michigan, who was a professional
pageant maven whose only ambition was to be crowned Miss USA and
Miss Universe. From that night on, Evangelica’s voice became a
renowned community asset, and she was asked to sing the National
Anthem at high school sporting events and the annual Little League
kick-off extravaganza. Her voice graced many local weddings, even
Queen Heidi’s.

It was not until her daughter Jule’s death
that Nyda Czerwinski finally resigned her position as pageant
dictator. The realization her own daughter would never be crowned
pushed Nyda over the edge, and she plummeted into the depths of
small town insanity.

Although the merciless dictator of queenly
attributes invited Vange to perform at subsequent pageants, Kate
thought it ironic Vange, who was never queen, became the staple
entertainment to liven up the otherwise dreary ceremony. If she
happened to be in town, Kate usually attended the shows and left
immediately after Vange’s performance.

The last time Evangelica was asked, she had
grown tired of delivering a performance that made the audience
wonder, “Heidi who won that year?” By that time, the pageant gig
had merely become a masochistic venue for her to prove she really
was refined queen material. On her final trip down the hallowed
runway, Vange wore ripped stockings and a short leather skirt, and
she grinded out the Tina Turner song, “I Might Have Been
Queen.”

She was never invited back to sing, and Kate
never again attended another pageant.

Gazing at the chrome refrigerator handle,
which alternated between darkness and shiny due to the blinking
Christmas lights. Kate clenched the serving platter in her sweaty
hands, and she remained seated on the linoleum floor with her legs
wrapped uncomfortably beneath her. As if mesmerized into a trance,
she did not wish to move again.

Kate found it ironic it was at a senior high
school Christmas party Vange and Nick messed around for the first
time that she knew about, and last night outside the bar was
perhaps the last time Evangelica would make love to anyone ever
again. It was not long after the infamous holiday party that Kate
wrote Vange out of her life for good. Now she wished her stepsister
and future husband had never met let alone shared an ongoing
infatuation. A small part of her hoped their flirtation would be
snuffed out once and for all in a hospital bed, and whatever
feelings they shared would die along with Vange, with whom she had
made no real effort to keep in touch following high school
graduation. Maybe in the back of her mind she always understood
what Vange’s intentions were, and Nick had been all too complicit
in perverting her hopes and dreams into a trash talk-show
nightmare.

When Kate’s mother died approximately a year
ago, Vange inconspicuously arrived at the funeral home and slipped
Kate the warmest, most sincere hug she could remember receiving. It
was that embrace which prodded her into asking Vange to be a member
of her bridal party and to sing during the ceremony. The fact they
had become stepsisters in the interim was immaterial, but rather it
was the hug that convinced Kate to let bygones be bygone.

They had maintained a conspiracy of silence
regarding Ed and Shayla’s unexpected union; it was as if they were
able to render the marriage nonexistent by merely not mentioning
it. Perhaps at Kate’s mother’s funeral, Vange knew more than she
let on, but she refrained from telling Kate. It seemed to Kate most
of her peers knew more than she did; Chelsea had the brains, Vange
was street-smart, but Kate was always in the middle.

Why, Kate wondered, why had their friendship
been filled with such a bevy of silent, unutterable understandings;
from the time they exchanged looks of horror while comforting Heidi
in the locker room, when they danced with wild abandon at the
festival proceeding the pageant, whenever Kate looked over and
caught Vange looking at Nick, and when they hugged at the funeral
home? They never really shared any deep conversations, but rather
mere psychic flashes of understanding.

Last night at the gathering at Chelsea’s
house, Kate attempted several feeble overtures resembling
sisterly-ness, but Vange aloofly avoided her the entire evening.
When Vange bowed out early in order to join the guys at the tavern,
Kate announced she was retiring for the evening, and Chelsea
accompanied the bridesmaids to the bar. Kate regretted not
confronting Evangelica because now she could only speculate the
reason for Vange’s peculiar standoffish behavior, which she was
prone to write off as jealousy.

Sitting on the kitchen floor, Kate felt a
slightly cold wet hand rest on her shoulder. She yelped with fright
as blood trickled down the front of her dress. The crystal platter
she held in her trembling hands fell to the floor, where it made a
dull thud and shattered.

Kate spun around and faced two bony kneecaps,
which were scuffed and poking out of tattered blue jeans. She
covered her mouth as Jack gasped and clutched his side. His bruised
purple left eye was swollen shut, and his spliced open lip was
bleeding profusely. Saturated with mud, blood, and rain, his
clothes were dirty and torn.

“What on earth happened to you?” she cried
out.

Holding onto his side, Jack staggered toward
her. Kate reached out and grabbed onto him before he hit the floor.
She situated him in her arms and placed his battered bruised head
against her chest. Rocking him gently, she whispered, “Talk to me,
Jack.”