Chapter One In preparing for this pageant, how much did you spend on wardrobe?
To-Do List: 1. Study for algebra final
2. Paint nails
3. Rob bank
"Can I borrow two thousand dollars?" I look hopefully across the lunch table at my best friend, Justine Renault, who, unlike me, is incredibly rich.
Yeah, while my grandfather spent the sixties selling "love beads" out of a beat-up version of the Mystery Machine, Justine's grandfather was busy going to Harvard medical school and inventing some sort of super-important surgical thingy that "revolutionized twenty-first-century medicine" and made a bajillion trillion dollars. Can you say, "Life is so not fair"?
"For what?" she replies absently, turning a page of the (yawn) Newsweek magazine spread out beside her lunch.
In addition to being incredibly rich, Justine is also incredibly smart, which means she reads the most boring magazines ever. Seriously. I can't even read the covers of her magazines without going to sleep.
And for the record, I know this looks bad. But I swear I don't normally go around asking my friends for large sums of money. Or any sums of money, for that matter. This is a special situation. The special part being that I'm desperate.
Plus, I'm totally going to pay her back -- with interest, even. I had Riley Pilkington, the school's resident math whiz, figure out a repayment plan and everything.
"Oh, you know," I say casually. "College application fees, cheerleading camp, stuff like that."
Justine looks up, frowning. "But the PTA is paying for us to go to camp this year. And you already mailed all your college applications. We went to the post office last week after practice. Remember?"
Rats. I totally forgot about going to the post office together last week. And that the PTA is paying for cheer camp.
Sigh. Why do I even try to lie? I totally stink at it.
Sure enough, Justine's expression has gone from confused to suspicious. "What are you up to?" she asks, narrowing her eyes.
"Nothing," I say innocently.
"You're lying."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are. You're twirling your hair. You always twirl your hair when you're lying."
I start to shoot back that she's the one who is lying, because everyone knows I would never, ever engage in behavior that could cause split ends, but then I notice the clump of blond hair wound around my index finger. "Er, that doesn't mean anything," I say, yanking it loose. "And I wasn't twirling. I was...finger-combing."
Justine ignores me. "Just tell me what's going on," she says impatiently. "You know you will eventually, so you may as well get it over with."
"Nothing! I already told you."
"Presley," she says threateningly.
I blow out a breath. "Oh, all right. I need it to buy a new evening gown."
"You want me to loan you two thousand dollars for an evening gown?" She looks at me as if I'm deranged. Not because she's appalled I would pay that much for a dress but because she knows what the dress is for.
And what is that, you ask? Well, Justine would call it a "cattle market," or if she was really worked up, a "misogynist tool of patriarchy," but to non-insane people, the Miss Teen State contest is generally what's known as a beauty pageant.
(Shhh. Don't tell anybody I used the b-word, okay? You're supposed to say "scholarship pageant." All the major pageants did away with the b-word back in the eighties because it's not politically correct. Which is great and everything, but seriously -- who wants to be called a "scholarship queen"?)
Yep, that's right. My name is Presley Ashbury, and I'm a beauty queen. Big hair, fake tan, sparkly rhinestones -- these are the things that make my heart go pitter-patter. So if you cringe at the sight of a tiara or have a bunch of freaky feminist issues, you should probably make a break for it now, while you still can. Otherwise, you're going to end up quizzing me on current events and helping me practice my talent routine, because Miss Teen State is only two weeks away.
Aaack! Why did I have to think about that? Now I feel all nervous. Although, that could be because of the scary way Justine is scowling at me. I'm not sure.
"It's not just any evening gown," I say lightly, trying to ignore her I-can't-believe-you expression. "It's a fully liquid-beaded Mark Taylor original." I reach into my messenger bag and pull out the picture I printed off the Queen's Closet website. "See?" I push the picture toward her, my face hopeful.
Maybe she'll forget about her pesky little moral standards once she sees how unbelievably gorgeous this dress is. I'm not kidding; on a scale of one to ten, this gown is, like, a twenty-five. The girl who is selling it must be crazy. Or broke. Just a basic Mark Taylor gown starts at around six thousand, so I can only imagine how much she paid for it originally.
And she's only asking two thousand dollars for it! You have no idea what an awesome deal that is. I mean, Justine and I could probably sell it after Miss Teen State and make money. It would be an investment. You know, like mutual funds. Except way better because mutual funds don't "mold to your curves and sparkle outrageously under stage lights."
Unfortunately, Justine isn't interested in admiring Mark Taylor's genius.
"I don't care if it's made out of diamonds sewn on by magical fairies," she scoffs, shoving the picture back at me. "You know how I feel about those contests."
Sigh. So much for her being seduced by brilliant evening gown couture. Ever since the public library had Feminist Literature Month last fall, Justine has been on this whole Gloria Steinem, women's rights, blow-up-the-glass-ceiling-with-dynamite craze. Which means she now thinks beauty pageants are evil and degrading and blah, blah, blah. The list goes on and on. Let's just say that allowing someone to give you a numerical score based on how your butt looks in a swimsuit isn't exactly a feminist's idea of a rockin' good time.
I tried to point out to Justine that maybe it's a teeny-tiny bit hypocritical of her to have that kind of attitude about pageants, considering she's a CHEERLEADER (hello -- surely, jumping around in a little skirt cheering on a bunch of guys isn't exactly proper feminist behavior either, right?), but she says it's not the same thing because "cheerleading is a legitimate athletic sport."
Plus, she's on this whole quest to get our state education system to pass a law that says schools have to provide cheerleaders for girls' sports teams just like for boys. So, you know, she's like an inside agent, working for gender equality or whatever. I don't know. We used to argue about it a lot, but now we've basically agreed to disagree. Not about girls' teams having cheerleaders -- I think that's a great idea too -- I mean about pageants being degrading and pointless. (And just to clarify -- I totally support women's rights; I just don't see what my wanting to be Miss Teen State has to do with them.)
Justine and I have agreed to disagree about a lot of things in the ten years that have passed since we first met in Mrs. Dixon's second-grade class. Or rather, in the ten years that have passed since Mrs. Dixon tricked Justine into becoming my personal tutor by telling her she was a "classroom assistant" and giving her a red teacher's pencil.
Poor Justine. She thought she was going to get to grade papers and decorate the special bulletin board outside in the hall, and instead, she ended up teaching me how to read. And write. And whatever else you learn in second grade. Basically, if it hadn't been for Justine, I'd be totally illiterate.
I know. It sounds sort of mean of Mrs. Dixon, but I can see why she did it. I mean, there were, like, a gajillion kids in that class, and we didn't have an aide or anything. I can just picture the moment when Mrs. Dixon, probably on the brink of a nervous breakdown, realized that the teeny-tiny girl with the red braids and purple glasses was a child prodigy who was already reading Harry Potter by herself and could multiply decimals in her head. And then, when she realized all it took to sucker said child prodigy was a meaningless title and a fifteen-cent pencil...well, it must have been like winning the teacher's lottery. Lucky for her, Justine's parents don't believe in private education or children skipping grades; otherwise, Justine would have been either off at some school for geniuses or in, like, tenth grade.
Lucky for me, too. Because Justine and I have been inseparable ever since then, despite our million or so differences. I guess there's just something about bonding over "The cat sat on the mat" that you never get over.
"Well, what if it wasn't for a pageant?" I say quickly, before she can launch into a lecture about how I'm setting the women's movement back fifty years. "What if I was going to wear it for something else?"
Her eyebrow lifts. "Such as?"
"Prom," I say automatically.
"Prom was three weeks ago."
"Oh. Right."
Rats! Does she have to remember everything? It's okay, though. I still have the mutual fund angle. I'll tell her to think of it as an investment, not a dress.
But before I can open my mouth, the bell rings.
"Ohmigod, we're going to be late!" Immediately panicked, Justine leaps out of her chair and starts frantically gathering up her stuff. FYI: Justine is obsessed with being on time. She's always convinced she's about to be late for class or cheer practice or wherever, even though she's never been late for anything in her life. Seriously. Even her period is freakishly punctual. Every twenty-eight days, between the hours of five and seven in the evening, no exceptions. And that's natural. She's not on the Pill or anything. But that's Justine for you. She's even got her ovaries whipped into shape.
I close my mouth. Oh, well. Maybe I can grovel after school.
I normally spend the two-minute walk from the caf to the main...
