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Chapter 3
Melanie blinked under the hot studio lights, looking around, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. Hoping she didn’t look as fat as she felt. The camera put on ten pounds… everybody knew that. With her luck, it would probably be fifteen. All the millions of people watching from home would see someone who resembled a giant, puffed-up marshmallow in a hastily purchased, shapeless dress.
Next to her Rhys reached out and clasped her hand, but it wasn’t the gesture of a child seeking reassurance from his mother, it was the gesture of a kind heart comforting a faint one.
She couldn’t believe it. All the while that Rhys had held the phone camera for her as she stared uncomfortably into it, explaining as briefly as possible why she thought being part of the Missed Opportunities Movement would change their lives, she’d had her doubts. But he’d been encouraging, slipping into Hollywood director mode: “You need to look sadder when you say that!” or, “Smile, Mom. You’re so pretty when you smile!”
Then he’d used his skills as a digital native to edit, splice, filter and whatever, until they had a clip that was two minutes thirty-nine seconds long, and sent it off. Immediately, she shoved it out of her mind, the way you did when you bought a raffle ticket to help a school raise funds for a new water cooler. It never crosses your mind that you could win.
But here she was, the first of Queenie’s four Missed Opportunities Princesses, and all eyes were upon her expectantly, as if she would suddenly sprout great wisdom or do parlor tricks or something.
Across from her, ensconced in her golden throne, sat Queenie, looking regal as ever in a midnight blue satin gown with thigh-high slits, and dripping diamonds from her throat and earlobes.
Her attention for the moment wasn’t focused on Melanie. Instead, she was looking into the camera, speaking with melodious venom. “This goes out to my dear, dear friend, Gaia—”
Howls of derision and even boos from the live audience.
“—who of course I hesitate to call a rival, since to be a rival, one would actually have to pose me some competition!”
Cheers and applause. More hoots for Gaia.
Melanie listened with interest. Gaia was a popular talk show host on another network, an Italian American New Jersey native who liked to wear pretty, flouncy, flowery dresses, à la Little House on the Prairie, and yet her makeup, hair, and nails were positively gothic. Long, dead-straight black hair with spiky bangs fell past thin, alabaster white shoulders, and her red lips framed way too many tiny, sharp teeth. Her stilettos would give a lesser woman a nosebleed, and whenever she shifted or crossed her legs on camera—which was often—it was apparent that she favored black net stockings and merry widow garters.
She looked like a cross between Laura Ashley and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and her rivalry with Queenie was eight years old and going strong. Both held sway over groups of viewers that numbered in the millions, and factions had been known to square off in coffee shops and bars over which station should be playing on the public TV.
Every now and then, internet news sites reported on bizarre standoffs and clashes, such as a reciprocal Queenie vs Gaia panty raid at a well-known college on the east coast, or rashes of competitive giving at Christmas time, when rabid followers struggled to out-buy toys for kids at children’s hospitals, or out-decorate trees in public parks. The rivalry was rabid, and compromise was not allowed. You were either Team Queenie or Team Gaia—never both.
“Sweet, sweet, Gaia,” Queenie was saying in her syrupy thick southern accent. “I want to thank you for the gift of one hundred funeral wreaths, which you had delivered to my office this morning. There were those among my staff who thought that you were attempting to signal that my career was dead, but I said, perish the thought!” Her candy pink-painted lips pulled back in a wide smile. “I said, ‘Fiddle-dee-dee! Never!’”
And just like that, Miss Scarlett O’Hara was in the house.
“I said to them, ‘Oh no, dear Gaia is a woman of grace and class. She would never do anything so utterly vulgar and cheap!’” She waggled acrylic-tipped fingers to dismiss the silly idea.
A rumble rolled around the audience.
“What I told them was that you, a proud patriot—even though you live north of the Mason-Dixon,” she grimaced slightly at that dubious address, “intended those beautiful arrangements to honor and celebrate those who have given their precious lives in defense of this great country of ours. As such, I have had all 100 of them delivered to the Marietta National Cemetery right here in Georgia—”
She was interrupted by a riotous standing ovation which took a full three minutes to quell, and, looking incredibly pleased, Queenie lifted a hand for silence and swiveled to face Melanie and Rhys. “And now, we move on to something much more exciting. We’re pleased to have with us today Ms. Melanie Meyer, our first Missed Opportunities Princess, and her darling son, Rhys.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Melanie felt the shiny glass eye of a TV camera swing towards her, and a voice inside her head yelled in panic, Why am I here? What the hell did I think I was doing?
“Princess Melanie, darling, tell us a bit about yourself,” Queenie encouraged benevolently.
Melanie heard her own voice talking robotically, reeling off details of her life as if she was filling out a form. Her age and origins, and the fact that she worked as a cook in a diner, and that she and her son had moved to Georgia just a few months ago, following a divorce.
The word ‘divorce’ brought an image of Wilder to her mind, and she hoped she didn’t flinch visibly. The only reason she wasn’t worried that Wilder was watching her right now was the fact that he loathed Queenie, calling her a mean, man-hating bitch who made her money bamboozling women into following her like rats after the Pied Piper, leading them astray and goading them to give their men backchat and refuse to know their place.
“And how has it been for you since your divorce?” Queenie asked, propping her chin on her palm and leaning forward like they were best girlfriends. A nightmare, Melissa wanted to say, hiding from a man who was bent on tormenting her son, getting by on less money than she was used to, swamped by the guilt about uprooting her boy from his school and friends and everything he had known.
But she smiled weakly, first at the audience and then at Queenie, signaling, Take it easy on me.
And Queenie did, lobbing softball questions at both her and Rhys, who handled his with solemn grace, as if being under the glare of hot lamps and the gaze of millions didn’t faze him a bit.
Then Queenie turned to the subject at hand. “Now, Princess, as the first winner of our Missed Opportunities contest, share with us the dream of your heart. What are you hoping to achieve during your trip to France?”
Melanie wet her lips. “Well, I have a fine arts degree in interior design, and I’ve always loved old houses.” She giggled nervously. “As a matter of fact, my favorite TV viewing—after your show, of course….”
“Of course,” agreed Queenie, straight-faced.
