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“Damn straight.” Adina high-fived her.
Taylor emerged from the shadows. The firelight deepened the planes of her face till she seemed an X-ray of a girl. “You know, ladies, I’ve been listenin’ to y’all over here talkin’ while I work out because I am a very good multitasker. This is not about Girl Cons and Sex Monkey workshops, which, frankly, makes my mouth feel soiled just sayin’ it. This is about Miss Teen Dream! The pinnacle of teen girl perfection.”
Adina stacked pieces of fish on her stick and twirled it over the fire to cook them, as she’d learned to do. “Taylor, I think we’re kind of beyond Miss Teen Dream now. I mean, look at us — look what we’ve built here in the past however long we’ve been here.”
“Beyond Miss Teen Dream?” Taylor sat on a log and stared at the girls, dumbfounded. “Miss Teen Dream is all I ever wanted from the time I was six years old. This is the big one. The one that matters. Don’t y’all remember why we’re here?”
The girls looked at one another.
“Maybe that’s where I started, but I’m not sure now,” Miss New Mexico said. “Doesn’t seem like enough anymore.”
“Well, you can be a quitter if you like, Miss New Mexico. I’m in it to win it. And as team leader, I say that we need to get back to practicin’ and beautifyin’ if we’re gonna be ready to go when we get back. Once they rescue us.”
“But what if they don’t rescue us?” Nicole asked.
“They will.”
“But what if they don’t?” Nicole said. “I just think maybe we should think about trying to rescue ourselves. Sorry, it’s just what I think. I mean, no, I’m not sorry. It’s what I think.”
Taylor fell into her three-quarters pose, a reflex, a battle stance. “Miss Teen Dream is the ideal of young womanhood.”
“The ideal? What ideal?” Sosie asked. “Says who? All they do is keep raising the bar, adding things we have to do or prettify or fix to be accepted. And we take the bait. We do it. That’s what Miss Teen Dream represents. Well, not me. I’m out. I mean, Taylor, what are you going to do when your pageant years are over?”
“Over?” Taylor repeated. “They’re never over. Life is a pageant, Miss Illinois. Everything I’ve learned will help me on my path.”
A bloodcurdling scream interrupted the standoff. “My ring! It’s gone!” Mary Lou held up her ring finger. All that remained was a band of pale skin where the ring had been. “You have to help me look for it! Please!”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” Petra said. “Is it a family heirloom or something?”
“No, it’s just — it’s very important,” Mary Lou said, near tears. She crawled in the sand.
“It keeps her purity vacuum-sealed to preserve its freshness for her future husband,” Adina sniped.
Petra glared. “Just because you’re funny doesn’t mean you get to be cruel,” she said in a low voice.
Adina swallowed hard. She got down on her knees and patted the ground, searching for a glint of silver. The girls lit torches and combed the immediate area, but the ring was nowhere to be found, and it wasn’t safe to go any farther.
“Sorry, Mary Lou,” Tiara said. “I know we’re not saying sorry anymore, but I’m still sorry we didn’t find your ring.”
“Thanks,” Mary Lou said. She sat on a rock staring out at the ocean, her face full of misery.
“Hey. Don’t worry. We’ll find it tomorrow.” Adina put an arm around her friend. She hated everything the ring stood for, but it mattered to Mary Lou and so it mattered to Adina. “It’ll be okay.”
Mary Lou shook her head and placed a shaking hand against her St. Agnes medal. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand at all.”
MISS TEEN DREAM FUN FACTS PAGE!
Please fill in the following information and return to Jessie Jane, Miss Teen Dream Pageant administrative assistant, before Monday. Remember, this is a chance for the judges and the audience to get to know YOU. So make it interesting and fun, but please be appropriate. And don’t forget to mention something you love about our sponsor, The Corporation!
Name: Mary Lou Novak
State: Nebraska
Age:17
Height: 5’ 4”
Weight: 135 lbs. A lot of it is muscle.
