Beauty Queens

  The Jeeps came to a stop on top of the HELP stones. “Not bad,” Agent Jones said appreciatively. He cut one of the fishing lines.

  “What are you doing?” Shanti barked.

  “You don’t need them anymore, right? Now that you’ve been rescued.”

  “Yeah, but you could ask first. We worked hard on those.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “You didn’t hurt my feelings. You pissed me off,” Shanti said, glaring. “There’s a difference.”

  “Remember,” Petra whispered. “Play it cool.”

  Shanti forced a smile. “Um, no offense or anything. I’m not mad, I’m just kind of sad. And emotional.”

  Agent Jones patted her shoulder. “Understandable. You girls have been through a lot. Tonight, all you have to do is smile and wave.” He cut the other fishing line and let them both drift out to sea.

  The black shirts had been busy setting up a performance area on the beach. They’d constructed a wooden stage with a red curtain across the front. Now they were building a runway.

  “We’ve run out of wood,” one of the black shirts called.

  “Just take it from one of the huts,” Agent Jones shot back, and the black shirts tore the walls from Tiara’s home.

  “My place!” she cried.

  Petra wrapped her up in a big hug. “Come on. Let’s go get our game faces on.”

  Adina took Nicole aside. “I need you to cover for me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to find Taylor, see if I can get her to help.”

  “But how? She’s straight-up crazy now.”

  “Sometimes, a little crazy is exactly what you need.”

  The girls practiced their dance routine loudly. Nicole banged hard on her drum. Adina slipped into the jungle and ran for Taylor’s secret hideaway. It had taken on a ghoulish quality; Taylor had affixed several black shirts to poles outside her cave and lit them to make torches. In the firelight, Miss Miss seemed to undulate in some ancient dance. Taylor sat before the sculpture on her haunches, swiping mud across her cheeks in long, thick streaks.

  “Hey, Taylor.” Adina crept closer. “Whatcha doin’?”

  Taylor’s knife was at Adina’s throat quickly.

  “Whoa. Taylor, it’s me, Adina. Miss New Hampshire.”

  Taylor seemed to be trying to remember something. “New Hampshire … I don’t like you, do I?”

  “Not so much,” Adina said, swallowing hard. “Look, I know we’ve had our differences, but you know what? We’re on the same team. There are some bad people out there, Taylor. People who want to hurt us. You were trying to warn us that day, weren’t you?”

  Taylor took the knife away. “Lies. It’s all lies.”

  “I know. But we’re not going to let them get away with it.”

  “A Miss Teen Dream doesn’t complain. She offers a smile and an ambassador to the world.” Taylor frowned. “No. That isn’t right.”

  “Taylor, we’re going to get off the island. Tonight. There’s a boat and we’re going to make a break for it. But we need your help to fight off the guards.”

  “A girl’s best weapon is her smile,” Taylor parroted.

  “No. I mean real weapons. We’ve got to fight our way out of here before they kill us. Tonight. Look, just meet us at the volcano, okay? Taylor! Are you listening?”

  The wind picked up; the fire responded with a surge of desire. Taylor looked around as if she were seeing everything for the first time: the arsenal, the unassailable wall of green, the volcano stretching up from the land like an angry fist of rock. The humidity had wreaked havoc on her hair, which was a tangle of greasy blond. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. Her face was haunted.

  “I can’t be what they want,” she whispered, and it seemed to her that those words had come to her from long ago. An expression of childlike confusion came over her face. She put her arms around Miss Miss like a child seeking comfort. “I just wanted to be somebody.”

  “You are somebody,” Adina said. “You’re Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins. And you know a lot about the military, dance, bathing suits, kicking ass, and handling firearms. And right now, your Teen Dreams need you. Can you meet us at the volcano after the pageant starts?”

  Taylor’s mouth went hard. “They won’t want us like this.” As if snapping out of a dream, Taylor smiled and posed, but her eyes were still haunted. She spoke rapidly. “One thousand strokes will bring the lies to your hair. A lady never and a lady does and a lady always. Shine and sparkle.”

  Taylor flitted from spot to spot, turning pirouettes, waving to an unseen crowd. “Do you like me? Do you like me now?”

  “Taylor!” Adina snapped, but Taylor was beyond hearing. Reluctantly, Adina turned to go, leaving Taylor behind to blow kisses at an unseen crowd.

  CLASSIFIED

  The yacht, a sleek luxury model favored by rappers, movie stars, and moguls, powered toward the small island. This particular yacht had once been featured on the show Pimp My Sails and on the cover of Luxury Lifestyle magazine with a bikini-clad model drenching her body in champagne under the headline, “Get the Latest Hot Accessories.” The yacht had been sold to MoMo B. ChaCha through various channels because it was a symbol of wicked American excess, which The Peacock publicly disdained. But he liked the yacht’s heart-shaped hot tub, where he sat watching Ladybird Hope on a TV news hour calling him a threat to national security.

  MoMo chuckled and puffed on his cigar. He offered a cigar to General Good Times, too. “The lady pines for MoMo. Soon we will have our new weapons, and when she is elected president, there will be the big wedding and she will give us a secret McDonald’s in the people’s palace. Excuse me for a moment, General. I must dress.”

  MoMo searched his closet for the perfect outfit. He settled on the Elvis in Hawaii bedazzled white jumpsuit. In place of the sequined eagles on the sleeves, MoMo had commissioned ruby replicas of the ROC’s emblem, a fistful of feathers. He added the Elvis wig, the sunglasses, and the blue suede platform shoes, which brought his height up to a full five feet five inches.

  In the mirror, MoMo snarled and flipped up his collar. “Get ready, world. I am your Heartbreak Hotel.”

  MoMo called for his bodyguard.

  “Sir?” the man said.

  “What do you make of this arrangement we are negotiating?” MoMo asked, steely-eyed.

  The bodyguard looked nervous. “Permission to speak honestly, sir?”

  MoMo spread his arms wide. “Of course.”

  “This seems like a setup, Ser Peacock.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, Ser. I do.”

  “Huh.” MoMo thought for a moment. Then he reached into the gold-plated soap dispenser, pulled out a gun, and shot the guard dead. He pressed the intercom. “I am to need a cleanup on aisle nine, please.”

  MoMo didn’t like feeling suspicious. But you didn’t get to have your own country named after you for being a tool. Insurance. Mutually assured destruction. MoMo found the DVD and looked for a place to hide it. He uploaded it to his laptop and labeled the file Yacht Systems.

  Nameless guards started dragging away the body of the unfortunate guard. MoMo stepped over the dead man on his way out. The yacht slipped into the secret docking cave. Flanked by a contingent of black shirts, Agent Jones waited to greet the dictator.

  “Ser Peacock,” Agent Jones said, bowing slightly. “An honor.”

  “You do not acknowledge my advisor, Agent Jones?”

  The stuffed lemur sat on The Peacock’s shoulder.

  “Welcome, General Good Times.”

  A black shirt approached Agent Jones. “Sir, corporate can’t make a decision: Should we go with blue one or blue two on the lights?”

  Agent Jones’s eye twitched. “I don’t care.”

  “Blue one is sort of a cerulean, and blue two is more of a sapphire.”

  “What is going on?” MoMo demanded.

  “It’s not
hing. Just a beauty pageant.” Agent Jones glared at the black shirt.

  “A beauty pageant? Here? On the island?”

  “Miss Teen Dream,” the black shirt answered.

  MoMo let out a cry of happiness. “Ladybird Hope was Miss Teen Dream. Most famous pageant. General Good Times and I accept commission as judges.”

  Agent Jones mopped at his brow with a handkerchief. “MoMo — I mean, Ser Peacock. You can’t be seen. You understand the nature of our deal is private.”

  MoMo waved Agent Jones off with his fingers. He took a back seat in the Jeep beside the lemur. “The general and I will be very quiet. No one will to notice us in the back. I love the pageants. So much sparkle. Like Elvis. And explosives.”

  “But the weapons, Ser Peacock.”

  “Weapons later. First, pretty girls. Drive, Agent Jones. Before I lose my patience.”

  Reluctantly, Agent Jones climbed behind the wheel and gunned the engine. He was already regretting not filling out the early retirement form.

  46Your Blood Is, Like, So Hot, the premium cable TV series about small-town predatory hemophiliacs who lie around looking anemic and sexy while trying not to bruise. Based on the French drama Le Monde C’est La Mienne (rough translation: Life is pain. Here is some soft cheese).

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Back at the camp, the girls rushed around, pasting sequins on their faces, sewing palm fronds into gowns like plumage, making last-minute touch-ups. They welcomed the old routine, the surge of adrenaline associated with pageant nights. But tonight, there was a little something extra.

  Adina made it back just as the cameras were put in place. The black shirts had torn down another hut to make way for a sound booth. They’d rigged the stage area with lights, the wires feeding into a generator mounted on a rusty Jeep.

  “I was starting to worry,” Nicole said. “Taylor?”

  Adina shook her head. “She’s too far gone. We’ll have to do it without her.” She shimmied out of her shorts and tank and into her official pageant dress, a blue cocktail number with a poufy skirt. If Adina did die, she hoped to God it wouldn’t be in this tulle-and-lace monstrosity.

  “Remember the plan: Jen, you and Shanti are throwing the race. As soon as they announce Top Five, whoever’s not named needs to make a break for the volcano and the control room and let the world know what’s really going on. During the musical number, the rest of you peel off and head for the boat. The minute they announce the winner, we’ve got to run like hell. Mary Lou and Tane should have the yacht ready to go.”

  “Do you really think we’ll make it?” Tiara asked.

  Adina looked into Tiara’s trusting face and thought about Alan holding out his arms, waiting to catch her, promising he would. She hadn’t believed him, but her mother had, and Alan had come through for her. In the past several weeks, Adina had learned to take that fall, and these girls had proved to her that you could still trust in the world, that there was good among the bad. Sometimes, that was all you needed to keep going.

  “We’ve made it this far, haven’t we? Don’t count a pageant girl out, Miss Mississippi.”

  Tiara smiled weakly. “You sound like Taylor.”

  “Well.”

  “I can’t believe I used to worry so much about people not liking me. Seems so unnecessary now,” Nicole said, watching a group of black shirts laughing over some private joke. “I swear, if I get out of this, I’m going to tell my mom to back off and let me live my own life.”

  “I’m going to go to law school and start changing some things,” Miss Ohio said. She dabbed at her eyes. “Crap. Is my mascara smeared?”

  “You’re good,” Petra said, wiping a smudge from Miss Ohio’s cheek. “I’m going to hunt down Sinjin St. Sinjin and get my heels back. And then beat him with them.”

  “I’m gonna stop worrying about that third nipple,” Brittani said.

  “What if we don’t make it?” Miss Montana said.

  Shanti shook her head. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “But the deck is really stacked against us. You really think we can win against all of that?” Miss Montana swept her arm toward the juggernaut on the beach.

  “I don’t know. But I’m so totally not gonna just roll over for them.”

  “Me either,” Petra said.

  “I don’t give a damn ’bout my bad reputation,” Jennifer sang softly.

  “What are you talking about?” Sosie asked. She looked to Jennifer, who softened.

  “Kicking ass,” she spelled out.

  Sosie nodded. “Go big or go home, bitches.”

  “Go big or die,” Nicole said quietly.

  There were shouts on the beach, last-minute preparations, the verbal-and-static gunfire of walkie-talkies. Farther out, waves broke on the rocks. The jungle insects tuned their constant hum to a high-pitched clamor.

  Shanti closed the curtain. “Ready?”

  Nicole put out her hand. Petra placed hers on top. The others followed till their hands seemed to form a giant fist.

  “Miss Teen Dream,” Adina intoned.

  “Miss Teen Dream,” the others echoed, and they brought their hands up and apart.

  “I’m scared,” Miss New Mexico said.

  The guard stuck his head behind the curtain. “Ten minutes, girls.”

  A WORD FROM YOUR SPONSOR

  In a few moments, the most important Miss Teen Dream Pageant ever will be broadcast live from a remote island. Backstage, the girls wait in their gowns. Oh, see how they shine in their sequins and glitter? But there is something more tonight, yes? A gleam in the eye. A determined set to those glossed lips. A refusal to play the part assigned. They are ready. Hidden in a stack of props is the jar of Lady ’Stache Off and the flare gun, their twin hopes for making it out alive.

  In his white Elvis jumpsuit, MoMo B. ChaCha waits to be entertained before making his arms deal, and Agent Jones waits with him, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. In the shadows, the black shirts wait, unseen, costumes on, guns at the ready, while in a television studio for Barry Rex Live, Ladybird Hope sits in a chair as a makeup artist prepares her face. She glances at the notes she’s written in her palm, rehearses what she will say when the time comes, when she, the most famous Miss Teen Dream who ever lived, will announce live the murder of the beauty queens. It will be her face America sees reassuring the nation in time of crisis, promising vengeance on the shores of the ROC. It will be Ladybird Hope’s finest hour — until her election.

  And across the great land, from the glistening malls on the prairies to the department stores in the teeming cities to those small, cracker-box houses that can barely contain the bottled-up dreams and discontent of those who must be more, the televisions flicker, bathing the watchers in its seductive blue-gray glow. Already, the narratives are being written: Scrappy beauty queens survive in hostile jungle. How they lost weight! Learn their secret jungle beauty tips!

  The world has tuned in. It is watching.

  All of this is brought to you by The Corporation.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “Live in three … two … one … go!” The man behind the camera sliced the air with his arm. The curtains parted. Heart thumping, Adina walked out into the glare of the generator-run klieg lights and stepped to the microphone.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Forty-first Annual Miss Teen Dream Pageant, live from a creepy island in the middle of nowhere. I’m Adina Greenberg, Miss New Hampshire, and I’ll be your host this evening. And now, let’s meet our contestants!”

  The girls paraded in their evening gowns as if this night were like any other pageant they’d smiled through. Before them, the audience of Corporation employees clapped and cheered. Behind them, the jungle answered with its own cacophony. The girls disappeared behind the curtain and Adina called them one by one to answer questions about world peace and being role models. According to plan, they gave the standard answers, the ones everyone wanted to hear, until halfway through.
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  Adina tried not to seem nervous as she called Miss Ohio to the microphone. Miss Ohio sauntered onstage in her long, hot pink gown. In her hair, she wore a bright purple island flower. She did her flirty wave to the cameras, which made the audience chuckle.

  “Miss Ohio, what would you say was the toughest part about life on the island?”

  “Oh, wow. Eating grubs was pretty gross. We didn’t even get ketchup!” She beamed as the audience laughed. They were giving good TV. “But you know, I’d have to say finding out there was a Corporation compound right here on the island the whole time and we never knew it. I felt like such a doofus!” She shook her head without losing her smile.

  “Thank you, Miss Ohio,” Adina said, gently pushing the girl toward the curtain as Shanti made her way in.

  “I am for Miss Ohio, General,” MoMo whispered loudly to General Good Times. “Her buttocks remind me of tiny cats.”

  With a rigor mortis–style grin, Agent Jones put a finger to his lips to remind MoMo of the need for secrecy.

  “Shanti Singh, Miss California, can you tell us about your platform?” Adina said.

  “Absolutely.” Shanti faced the audience and smiled. She wore an emerald green gown with iridescent seashells sewn around the waist and hem. “My platform is called FemPower Me. It is about microloans for women in developing countries. What you may not know is that many big corporations exploit female workers.”

  Adina pretended to be surprised. “Really! That’s so interesting. Tell us more.”

  Shanti’s smile did not falter. She stood in a perfect three-quarter beauty queen stance. “Like, for instance, let’s just say that The Corporation had a secret outpost here on this island. First, they would clear the land of indigenous peoples and force them from their ancestral homes, killing them if they were, like, really difficult or whatever. You know how those indigenous people can be about their land and stuff, Adina.”