10
Ginny isn’t crazy about the whole cheeseburger-party thing.
“I thought we could order some room service together and watch a movie. You know, Netflix and chill.” She frowns as she catches my gaze in the reflection of the bathroom mirror where she’s busy putting a deep-conditioning mask on her hair.
I know I’ve been out of the dating scene for a while, but I’m pretty sure Netflix and chill means something else. Still, I refrain from correcting her, lest it lead to another conversation about my relationship status.
“We will when I get back. I promise.” I flip open my suitcase and pull out my favorite sweatpants. “I won’t stay long, but I think I should at least make an appearance. Don’t you? Won’t it be weird if I keep staying holed up in here? Don’t you usually socialize with the other contestants?”
Ginny sighs. “I guess. I’m just getting a little bored. I think I’m stir-crazy from hiding in this room, you know?”
As a matter of fact, I do know. The Huntington Spa Resort is a nice place and all, but being trapped in here with my twin is beginning to feel like a bedazzled prison sentence. Every time I turn around, Ginny’s coming at me with a brush or an eyelash curler or lip liner. The sheets on my bed are stained from self-tanner, so it looks like I’ve been rolling around in Cheeto dust every night before hitting the hay. I barely recognize my own reflection in the mirror, and I can’t remember the last time I cracked a book.
I need some space.
A cheeseburger party in yet another hotel room isn’t exactly an escape, but it’s as close as I’m going to get until the pageant is over. “I’ll stay for an hour or less, and then I’ll come right back. Deal?”
“Fine.” Ginny snaps a shower cap over her hair mask and leans closer to the mirror to inspect her face. The swelling has gone down quite a bit, but she’s still not even close to being back in beauty queen form. Her complexion is covered in red splotches and she looks weirdly out of proportion, almost like a Picasso painting. Her cheeks seem normal-size but her lips are still comically huge and one eye is bigger than the other.
It’s been nearly forty-eight hours since our visit to the urgent-care clinic. The doctor told her she’d be back to normal in three if she was lucky, and Ginny’s always been lucky. Her life is definitely charmed. We both thought she’d be ready to compete by tomorrow.
Neither of us mention that now, though. I’m sure Ginny is still holding on to hope, and I don’t want to upset her. Besides, maybe she’ll wake up tomorrow and miraculously look like herself again. God, I hope so. The talent preliminaries are tomorrow. I managed to survive the interviews and actually did okay in the swimsuit competition, but talent is another matter entirely.
“You can’t go like that, though.” Ginny spins around to aim a disgusted glance at my Hogwarts T-shirt and sweats. “No way.”
“Yes, I can. It’s casual. Torrie specifically said to wear sweatpants.” I gather my hair, plus the five pounds of extensions attached to it, into a messy bun.
Ginny pulls an alternate sweatshirt out of her closet and shoves it toward me. It’s pink. Because of course it is.
“Who’s Torrie, again?” she asks.
“Miss Tennessee. She seems really nice.” I snatch the sweatshirt from her hands and glare at it. “Is this really necessary? It’s a cheeseburger party.”
“I know, but you’re supposed to be me. And right now you look a little too much like . . .”
“Like myself?” I snap.
She blinks, and in an instant her expression changes from annoyed to hurt. “Well, that is the whole point of taking my place. Remember?”
Right. How could I forget? For days, I haven’t been allowed to wear my own clothes, use my own name, or in any way act like myself.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I’ll wear the sweatshirt.”
I shut myself in the bathroom to pull it on, not so much for modesty reasons but because I feel like I might cry all of a sudden.
I felt so good after the swimsuit competition. As cheesy as it sounds, I was proud. But now I’m being reminded once again that I’m not actually good enough to be here. Taking Ginny’s place is supposed to be a privilege, not just a favor.
Why should I miss being Charlotte?
“You might want to rethink the messy bun too,” Ginny says through the door.
I fling it open. “The bun stays.”
“It could damage your extensions,” she counters.
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I say hotly.
We’re bickering like we did when we were teenagers, but I don’t care. She’s getting on my last nerve.
I grab a room key and tuck it into the kangaroo pocket of Ginny’s pink sweatshirt. Have I mentioned the sweatshirt is cashmere? Who wears cashmere sweats?
Beauty queens, apparently. And as much as I hate to admit it, the sweatshirt is super comfy. Maybe even the softest thing I’ve ever worn, damn it.
Couldn’t she be wrong about something? Just once?
“I’ll be back in an hour or less,” I say, pausing by the door.
Ginny ignores me because it seems we’re fighting now, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid by escaping for a little while. Perfect.
I slip the Miss Texas sash over my head. Ginny watches me in the reflection of the mirror, but says nothing. I can tell watching me take her place is more painful than she realized it would be.
But it was her idea, not mine. I didn’t want any of this. I have nothing to feel guilty about.
Then why do you?
I push this question as far from my thoughts as I can while I make my way to Torrie’s room. I know I’ve got the right one when I hear music and laughter streaming into the hallway. I knock three times, and the door swings open almost immediately, revealing Torrie and about eight to ten other contestants.
Girls are sitting on both beds, the love seat, and the floor, and to my immense delight, they’re all wearing actual sweatpants. Some are even in their pajamas. If not for the glam hair, lashes, and extreme tans, they’d look like any normal bunch of friends getting together for a night in.
“You probably want to take that off.” Torrie gestures to my Miss Texas sash. “At my last pageant, a girl got honey mustard on hers and it wouldn’t come out. She legit had to compete in the evening gown competition with a yellow stain covering one of her state letters.”
My jaw falls open in horror, mainly because if such a terrifying thing happened to anyone in this room, it would no doubt be me.
“Note taken.” I slip the sash over my head and drape it over a hanger in the open closet, where all the other guests at this little shindig have discarded theirs. A quarter of the country is represented, from New York to California. It’s like a sparkly Congress.
“Everyone, this is Ginny Gorman from Texas,” Torrie says, waving at me with a flourish, Vanna White–style.
I’m welcomed with a chorus of hellos. Torrie’s roommate, Miss Virginia, introduces herself and I take a seat on the floor, crisscross applesauce.
“Didn’t we compete together once?” A willowy brunette narrows her gaze at me over an onion ring.
The servings are small. Miniscule, actually. Each burger is cut into quarters and we’re all sharing single orders of fries and onion rings, but I don’t care. It’s food. At this point, I’d happily gnaw on one of the paper napkins.
“I think we did. What was it? Miss . . .” I grab a handful of fries and shove them into my mouth, buying time.
“Miss American Daydream,” she says. “I’m sure that was it.”
Thank goodness. I nod and reach for a section of cheeseburger. The food tastes so good I’m afraid I might start drooling all over myself.
“So how did it go for everyone today? Any horror stories?” Torrie plops down beside me on the carpet and then slides the basket of fries between us. She’s definitely my new best friend.
“When I came out of the ballroom, my pageant coach told me that the double-sided tape on my swimsuit top was showing,” a blonde stretched out on one of the beds says. “I wanted to die.”
“If that’s the worst thing that happens to you during this pageant, I think you’re safe,” someone says.
I nod. “Agreed. I wet my pants in my first pageant.”
The room goes silent.
“I was four years old,” I add.
Torrie bursts into laughter, and everyone else follows.
“Oh my God, you’re hilarious. Thanks for that. I needed a good laugh,” the blonde says.
One by one, we bemoan the struggles we’ve experienced thus far throughout the preliminaries. The tales are an assortment of self-tanning mishaps, lost earrings, and broken stilettos. One poor girl had a strip of false eyelashes fall off during her personal interview.
“It started coming loose, and then it just slid down my face like a black fuzzy caterpillar.” She sighs.
Torrie and I exchange a mortified glance, and then she says, “What did you do?”
“I left it there until my three minutes was up. I figured acknowledging it would just draw attention to it. Was that the wrong call?”
There’s a beat of silence, during which we all conjure a mental picture of an eyelash caterpillar crawling down her face. A snicker escapes me. I can’t help it. Within seconds, the entire party collapses into a fit of giggles.
For the first time in days, I actually let myself relax. I’m having fun. I remind myself that I’m supposed to be Ginny, not Charlotte. But as the evening progresses, I let my guard down just a little bit.
The conversation turns to the judges. Torrie thinks the former Bachelorette contestant is hot, and I let my opinion fly.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think it’s gross that he’s judging a pageant. He’s a man. It just seems a little archaic.”
The girl on the other side of Torrie snorts. “More archaic than anything Bachelor related?”
Point taken.
“Okay, so maybe it’s on-brand for him. But what about the other man on the panel? What’s his excuse?” I roll my eyes.
I shouldn’t be drawing any attention whatsoever to Gray. But thoughts of him have been flitting around my consciousness all day, and now I’ve gone and done it.
My cheeks burn and I drop my gaze, focusing intently on the tiny pile of fries on the paper plate in my lap.
“You mean Gray Beckham?”
I shrug, feigning nonchalance as best as I can. “I think that’s his name.”
“Judge number six?” The willowy brunette is the first to speak up. “Yep, that’s it. He owns the Miss Starlight pageant.”
“What?” I gape at her. “He owns a beauty pageant?”
The food in my stomach curdles into a sickening ball of grease and cheese. I feel sick.
Torrie nods. “Yes, he started it a few years ago.”
A shudder crawls up my spine. How could I have misjudged someone so much? He started his own pageant? I mean, how does that even happen? Was he just sitting around one day and decided he needed a bunch of beautiful women parading around purely for his enjoyment? Does he have some sort of Hugh Hefner complex? What makes a man start a business just so he can rank women in order of his preference?
This is worse than The Bachelor. Way worse. It’s even worse than Bachelor in Paradise, which Ginny made me watch once on her birthday. Trust me, it was like witnessing a reality show that had been filmed in a fraternity house during Rush Week. Gray Beckham and his depraved entrepreneurial spirit actually makes the entire Bachelor franchise seem quaint and wholesome by comparison.
Ew. Double ew.
Ew times infinity.
“That’s the most perverted thing I’ve ever heard,” I blurt.
I can’t believe I wasted even a second of my precious time feeling guilty about what I said to him earlier. And to think he tried to say he felt uncomfortable judging the swimsuit competition.
Who’s the liar now?
“Don’t any of you agree?” I glance around the room, searching for partners in my outrage, but no one says a word. Some of the women are frowning, and others seem to be trying not to look at me.
“Come on, y’all. It’s creepy. You have to admit,” I say.
Torrie clears her throat. “Um, Ginny? You’re familiar with the Miss Starlight pageant, right?”
I’m not.
“Sure.” I shrug.
Something in Torrie’s perfect cat eyes tells me I’ve just screwed up. Big time.
She clears her throat and speaks her next words with an exaggerated calm. “Then you know that it’s the charity supported by the Miss American Treasure organization, kind of like how the Miss America pageant supports the Make-A-Wish foundation.”
I blink. I’m still not sure where she’s going with this, but it can’t be good.
“It’s a pageant for little girls who are terminally ill,” she says flatly.
“Every girl gets a crown,” Miss Georgia, sitting on the other side of me, adds. “Every girl gets applauded and celebrated and told how special and beautiful she is.”
“Oh,” I manage to sputter. I try to swallow but my throat goes dry. “I didn’t realize . . .”
Every eye in the room is fixed on me.
“Seriously? You didn’t know?” The girl with the wandering caterpillar lashes sits up straighter on the bed, studying me. “How is that possible? It was all over our pageant welcome packet. Every one of us had to sign a pledge promising to act as emcee for the next Miss Starlight pageant in the event we’re crowned Miss American Treasure. The top ten finalists all show up every year to pose for pictures with the little girls and help the ones in wheelchairs get down the runway.”
Wow.
I try to imagine such a pageant, and I can’t. It’s too poignant. Too devastating. If I think too hard about sick little girls in tiaras, I’ll start sobbing. It sounds so . . .
So sweet. And heartbreaking. And not creepy in the slightest.
Quite the opposite, actually. The Miss Starlight pageant seems like a wonderful thing. A kind, compassionate thing.
Which would make the man who created it more of a real-life Prince Charming than the supervillain I’ve made him out to be.
Oh my God, what have I done?
My paper plate slips out of my hands, falling onto the carpet with a plop. It echoes throughout the quiet room.
I’ve accused a perfectly nice man—an honorable man who does things like make terminally ill children feel special and beautiful—of wanting to do nothing but ogle women in bikinis. I told him to his face that I think he’s pervy.
Why didn’t he say anything?
He could have berated me right there in the stairwell. He probably could have reported me to the pageant officials and told them I was unfit to wear the crown. Because clearly I’m not worthy.
He didn’t do any of those things, though. Instead, he’d just looked at me with that brooding glint in his moody blue eyes and tried to make light of my scathing assessment of him.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” I whisper. My voice cracks, which seems appropriate, since I suddenly feel like I’m coming apart at the seams.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it. You didn’t know. You probably just got the name of the pageant confused with another one.” Torrie gives my leg a pat.
“Yeah.” The willowy brunette nods. “Who can keep up with all the various titles? I need a spreadsheet just to plan my year. I’m at a different pageant almost every weekend.”
“Spoken like a true crown chaser,” Miss Virginia says.
Everyone laughs.
Everyone but me, that is.
I try to swallow. I can’t eat anymore—my throat is too thick with regret.
And shame. No wonder Gray Beckham refused to look at me during the swimsuit competition. He probably loathes the very sight of me.
I take a shuddering breath.
But he had looked, hadn’t he? He’d stared right at me when he thought I wouldn’t notice.