My wife’s taken poison again. I must go, I’ll slip out so nobody notices. How frightfully unpleasant.—colonel alexander vershinin
Marianne recruited Derek and me to help decorate the condominium association clubhouse on Friday evening and Saturday morning. Though my two best friends worked best friends worked beside me for most of the three hours that night and three hours the next morning, their private projects became more and more frequent. I smiled. When all twelve volunteers finally wiped the sweat from their foreheads Saturday at two, the clubhouse shone with hundreds of shining silver stars suspended from a sky of black streamers. A stage was erected on one end of the room, for the contest festivities, and the dusty industrial carpet was covered with hard blue mats that someone had sweet-talked from the
“Ow!” I exclaimed as Marianne pulled my braids tighter. We were at the kitchen table doing final prep work.
“Just hold still, Bekah. I’m hurrying ’cause we’re almost late.” Marianne, her hair already pulled back into a purposefully messy twist with a fedora pin, was French-braiding my hair around both sides of my head; the hair would meet in a braided bun at the nape of my neck. She pulled my hair again when her twin brother appeared from the basement. “I thought you left already,” she growled.
Chris smiled, “How are you today, Annie? Is the PMS still bad? You look good, Bekah.”
I fingered my new wisteria-print dress. “Not so bad, yourself,” I replied. Chris was wearing a sleek black and white suit. His ubiquitous silver chain was only a white circle under his shirt—it almost looked like a celestial smile. Marianne tightened my braids viciously. She quickly finished the updo and pinned it to my head.
“How’s my hair?” she asked me, pulling curly strands out of the twist to frame her face.
I stood and adjusted neckline of my dress so it covered more of my chest. Both Marianne and I communicated with the exaggerated gestures of people who know they’re being observed. “Your hair is great, Marianne, and in an hour, you’ll be crowned Miss 37th Ward!” I enthused, adding a hand clap for emphasis.
Marianne grabbed my arm and stared, “Ohmygosh! Eyeliner! Do you have any?!”
I moved towards my room, “Yeah, I have an indigo pencil somewhere . . .”
“No,” Marianne shook her head. “You need black eyeliner—and sparkly. Crap, do you remember where I put my sparkly black eyeliner? Nevermind, we have ten minutes—I’ll go find it.” Kicking off her silver stiletto pumps, she bounded up the stairs barefoot.
Chris was bent over the kitchen counter, shaking with silent laughter. “Does Annie always get excited about ward activities?”
“Oh, Chris, you poor ignorant boy,” I shook my head. “The Mr. and Miss 37th Ward Pageant is so much more than your average ward activity.”
“Is it really?”
I wandered towards him and filled a glass with water from the PŪR filter. “You’ll see. It’s kinda like the closing social and the elder’s quorum dinner and the date auction and a ward dance and a popularity contest all rolled into one.”
“Hm.” Chris stood at our gleaming stainless steel sink; he got out the dish soap and a steel-wool pad, turned the water on hot, and started scrubbing at his fingernails.
“Marianne will be back to her normal, sunny self tomorrow when it’s over.” I approached Chris and watched him scrub the outside of his nails, when dark brown dirt was stuck in his cuticles. “Out darn spot, huh?” I misquoted.
He smiled. This rare expression lit up his angular face. “Somethin’ like that. I’ve been working at the shop since seven this morning—motor oil just doesn’t come off like it used to.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Taking the soap and Chris’s hand, I gently rinsed away the oil from his cuticles. He raised an eyebrow; I looked down with a half-giggle. “Which auto shop do you work at?”
“Mitchell Garage on 800 West—my old boss in
“Um, does,” I looked down at the brown water running down the drain, “does Nyx work with you?”
“Yep. It’s funny; Nyx can rip a motor to pieces and rebuild it better in less than an hour, but she begged me to take her to this pageant-slash-everything tonight.”
“I guess everyone has their contradictions.” Chris’s left hand was clean, so I addressed his right.
“Contradictions, huh?” he asked. I tilted my head up—Chris’s face was relaxed for once. He opened his mouth to speak again—
“Hey, Bekah! I found—” Marianne stopped in midstride, her flared red skirt swirling around her. I dropped her brother’s hand into the sink. Her eyes were black-lined slits. “Chris! I thought I told you to get out of here by six! Our dates are coming, like, now, and you’re still hanging around hitting on Bekah! so get your mexican low-rider off my property before someone sees!” She screamed, punctuating her commands with a fist on a cabinet.
Chris straightened his lapels and bowed, “Of course, your highness. Whatever you desire, I will do.” His sister rolled her eyes. Chris left out the front door.
Silence reigned for a moment. “Um, so did you find the eyeliner?” I asked.
Marianne shoved something into her white beaded clutch, “No.”
“Well, thank you so much for helping me get ready for our date, and inviting me, and taking pictures, and everything, really.”
“Whatever.” She ran to the door and flung it open, “Trevor! Ready to go?”
I grabbed my purse and shoes and stumbled into the entryway. Trevor Dixon was resisting Marianne’s embrace. Cole Douglas loomed beside him in a large black suit with a red tie. “Hi,” I greeted both of them, but all attention was on the thundercloud brewing between the power couple. “Marianne,” her boyfriend whined, “what was that freak doing driving away from your house?!”
Twisting her hair, the accused looked to the ceiling, “Who are you whining about now, Trev?”
“Chris,” Cole stepped forward and stared at me for a significant moment, “the new kid.”
Trevor jumped in, “Yeah! You and him just keep running into each other, don’t you?”
“Trev,” Marianne sighed, “I have no idea why I’ve put up with your paranoia for so, so long, but now we’ve just gotta go to the pageant and smile for the pictures, ’kay?”
“Don’t humor me,” he complained.
“Oh, calm down,” Marianne threw open a door and was met by a blast of electric humidity. A few drops peppered the walkway.
“Uh, oh,” I announced, hoping for pity.
“What now, Bekah?!” One moment of kindness towards her brother, and Marianne was using her Trevor-voice on me.
“It’s raining; I’m wearing silk,” I added.
“So?” whined Cole. He hopped with impatience.
“Argh! Will we never get out of here?” Marianne opened the hall closet and handed me her long black wool dress coat. She took Trevor’s elbow again; he was too passive-aggressive to stop her.
* * * *
When we reached the clubhouse, Cole grabbed my arm and grinned. “Why don’ we stay out here for a while?”
No matter what Chris said about me, I wasn’t falling for that line twice. “Why don’t we go inside first?” Wriggling away from Cole, I hurried after Marianne and Trevor.
Escaping inside didn’t help too much though, since Derek, Marianne, and Trevor were all backstage preparing to compete. The place was already well packed—Trevor’s outburst had cost us some time. I walked towards a table where Heather Powell sat with her fiancé, Jon something-or-the-other. She jerked her head away from me and casually flung her purse onto the empty chair.
I sat in an empty chair at another table. No one seemed to notice for a minute. Then Sarah Krewsen (from somewhere in Arizona; majoring in accounting) turned and looked down her long nose at me, “Actually, that seat is saved.”
“Sorry,” I whispered, collecting my napkin, Marianne’s coat, and the glass of Sparkle Punch[1] I’d already drunk from, I wandered to the back of the room. Charlie Ramirez’s wheelchair was pulled up to the very last table. Graça—sparkling indigo, black, and ivory—sat on his lap. She and Charlie were feeding each other from a plate of hors d’œvours. “Uh,” I interrupted, “do you mind if I sit at you guys’ table?”
Charlie nodded, “It’s a free country.” He promptly returned to whispering sweet nothings in Graça’s ear. I leaned on my hand and watched BYU catering start serving the front tables a plate with Teximati rice pilaf, overcooked green beans, and pot roast with gravy. I took a roll from the basket in the middle of our table and shredded it over my bread plate.
Cole appeared with the food. “There you are!” He glanced at Charlie and Graça, made a petulant-child face, and turned back to me. “You look really hot in that dress,” he informed me. I pulled up the neckline of my dress and surreptitiously pulled down the extra fabric at my back.
A loud shout erupted in the opposite corner of the room—Chris, Nyx, and several more of our ward quirky nonjoiners had just shared a hilarious joke.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Marielise Kimball, her bony figure clad in a pink t-shirt and long khaki jumper, stood on the stage with a microphone, “Welcome to the twelfth annual Mister and Miss 37th Ward Pageant!” Most people clapped, a few shouted and whistled, Chris and Nyx’s table laughed harder. Marielise waited for them to quiet down. “First, we start with the gentlemen—and what competition we have here today. Our first contestant, from
I watched a few people in the room lean over to their dates, probably to ask who Trevor was. Trevor strutted out in a ruffled powder-blue tux, waving his fists in the air and grinning. The applause swelled but ended quickly as Trevor stopped at the appointed place on stage and melted into the background.
“And now, the BYU 37th Ward’s very own intramural rugby champion, he’s hot, he’s cool, he’s everything but lukewarm, he’s Jared Kroeger!” The applause turned to laughter and appreciative whoops as Jared appeared onstage wearing a head-to-toe padded muscle costume. He flexed his foam muscles as the audience yelled, “Give me more, Jared!” The shouts finally died down, and Jared took his place beside Trevor.
Marielise flipped to a new index card: “Our final contestant hails from
Trevor’s face switched from red to white to red again. He looked like he might cry. However, the contest continued, with multiple costume changes (Trevor was always careful; Jared was always outrageous; and Derek was always cutting-edge trendy), a talent show, a zany interview, and a pie-eating contest. Halfway through his first pie, Trevor ran offstage to vomit. He refused to come back even though the ward pounded the tables and chanted, “Trevor, Trevor!”
A decibel meter, in the end, determined the winner of the Mr. 37th Ward title. The audience cheered bravely for Trevor, since they felt badly for not liking him, but his applause could not compare to Jared’s and Derek’s. Derek, of course, won—his roommates and some of his female admirers pulled out canned noisemakers when the time came, and the walls shook with the cacophony supporting Derek.
“Oh, good, your just-a-friend won!” Cole slapped me on the back. The piece of bread I’d just swallowed popped back into my mouth, and I had to swallow again.
I wanted to congratulate Derek immediately, but he was surrounded by fans, so I instead slipped backstage to wish Marianne luck.
“So, you’re going to do it tonight?” MicKayLah Smith’s excited voice pierced the sea of black curtains I was caught in.
“Of course!” Marianne’s voice was close, somewhere on the other side of the curtains. “I’ll accept my sash just like Derek just accepted his, Derek and I’ll dance after they clear away the dinner stuff, and then I’ll tell Trevor to get lost.” Oh! I smiled, but I also felt a selfish pang of regret. If only I were as confident as Marianne—how much more could I express? Could I help my family stay together if I could speak to them all as boldly as she speaks to everyone?
“You really think you’re gonna win, then?” Nicholette Brown’s nasal voice always made the fine blond hairs on my arms stand up stiff. I found them, but I paused before pushing through the final curtains to gather courage to face the girls who envied my close relationship with Marianne.
“Well, if I were voting, Nikki, I’d definitely vote for you,” Marianne soothed. “You look so good tonight!”
“Of course you would,” Nicholette accepted the condescension with unusual grace. “I thought your lapdog would run too so she could be with you.” I pulled back the curtain and stepped forward, but my soft ballet flats (real used ballet shoes!) made no noise.
“No, she’s even prettier than you, Marianne. I mean, . . . um,” MicKayLah gasped and covered her big mouth.
“Ha!” laughed Marianne with knives in her voice. “Rebekah Cardim is the reason that maniac who tried to murder me with that bronze Christus is always hanging around! She can’t keep her slutty hands off him, or Cole Douglas! You know,” she lowered her voice so her audience had to lean in, “she and Cole totally hooked up a few weeks ago? Tonight he’s planned another big night, and I had to listen to him all about how she and him are going to third base this time.”
“Eww!” MicKayLah squealed, “Wait—is third base . . . is that . . . touching?”
“I guess girls with big boobs can’t help it,” Nicholette patted her own chest, which she’s water-bra’d all the way up to a large B-cup, “they’ve got more hormones.”
“And she’s so, you know: Big,” added Marianne.
This time, they heard me sob: Three pairs of heavily lined eyes looked past me for a moment, void of emotion. I stumbled through the curtain jungle and back down the stairs, hiding my tears from the lights. Cole was sitting closer to the front now, laughing and poking the foam muscle costume with Jared Kroeger. Graça and Charlie were still lost in each other far in the corner. I left Marianne’s coat hanging on a chair I knew she’d see, and I escaped the overheated clubhouse before its walls collapsed on me.
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