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Alex stayed silent until it was clear it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “First of all, you’re not pathetic. You’re struggling with something right now, but that doesn’t make you pathetic.” She paused. “It makes you human.”
“Yeah, well, for someone who’s spent a lifetime perfecting her stage presence, you find out pretty quick you’re being judged a little more harshly than everyone else. I should be used to it.”
“I can see where that would be true. You have an acting background?”
Charlotte smiled, then raised her feet out of the water and watched until the ripples faded away. “You could say that. I’ve been competing in pageants since I was two. I turned thirty this year, and I just couldn’t go for Miss Georgia again this year and not get it.” She turned back to rubbing the center of her palm, her thumb white from the pressure. “Not that I would’ve placed in the big one anyway.”
“What’s the big one?”
“Good God.” Charlotte shot her a look that was only half teasing. “The Miss America Pageant in Vegas every year. It’s the holy grail for my mother, or at least, it was until she gave up on me.”
Alex nodded, watching as Charlotte gripped the edge of the dock, her arms locked and stiff. “I’m guessing that you competing was pretty important to your mom?”
Charlotte laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “We’re going to need a much bigger word than important. I was an only child, and I think my mom decided pretty early on we were going to win everything in the world of pageants. And we did for a while. And then I grew up, went to college, and wanted to quit.”
“Let me guess.” Alex watched an iridescent blue-green dragonfly land delicately on Charlotte’s shoulder. “And she didn’t?”
“It was worse than that.” Hurt flashed across Charlotte’s face for a split second until she pulled it back into neutral. “When I decided I wanted to really concentrate on college instead of always pulling out to do competitions, she just deflated, so I stayed in them, and somehow, I managed school at the same time. But this year, I was just done. I can’t even explain why. I didn’t tell her until it was too late to enter.” Charlotte’s shoulders slumped, and she let her feet sink deeper into the water. “I didn’t want her to be able to talk me back into it.”
“Actually, that makes sense. You were protecting yourself and your autonomy as best you could at the time.” The dock lifted gently and floated back down with each wave of a passing wake. “What do you mean she deflated?”
“She said it was the biggest disappointment of her life.” Charlotte’s voice cracked, and she focused her gaze on the island across from the docks. “That she’d sacrificed so much her whole life to give me this opportunity to win Miss America, and I shit on it.”
“Damn,” Alex said. “She didn’t mince words.”
“Southern women do not take pageants lightly.” Charlotte paused, her voice flat. “She doesn’t even know I’m gay, so even without the pageant thing, the fact that I’m not married to a man with multiple kids by now is the ultimate failure.”
The sun shimmered over the water, and the silence settled beyond the dock as the last of the retreat-goers finally made it into the main lodge for dinner.
“I get that.” Alex pulled up a picture on her phone of her mother, dressed perfectly for Sunday Mass, and showed it to Charlotte. “Clearly, I’m not praying the rosary every day and turning out an endless supply of Catholic grandchildren, so there’s always been an understanding that things could be more to her liking. But to her credit, she was great about the gay thing. I think she figured out early on that I wasn’t going to be needing a closet full of pageant clothes.”
“You’re from Cuba, right?”
“Yep. That’s where I get my fabulous fashion sense, or so I’m told.” Alex paused. “How did you know that? We’ve never talked about it.”
Charlotte cracked a smile and answered in perfect Spanish. “Well, no offense, but either you were the hottest Florida retiree to ever play shuffleboard, or you grew up in Cuba. The accent just wrapped it up for me.”
Alex leaned back on her hands and laughed, then continued in Spanish. “That’s scarily accurate. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it put like that.” She paused. “Also, you speak literally perfect Spanish. I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming.”
“No one ever does,” Charlotte said, watching the dragonfly as it hovered in front of them and flitted off across the water. “I have a degree in Romance Languages from Tulane University, and a master’s in Third World Development Studies.”
???“Damn, girl.” Alex nodded slowly. “Want me to be honest with you?”
“Sure. Why the hell not?” Charlotte shook her head. “Can’t get any worse.”
Alex chose her next words because they were the truth and left the softer, easier ones on the pile. “You’re smart as hell, but somehow, every bit of your self-worth is still wrapped up in your looks.” She paused. “I get it, though. That pageant shit is notoriously hard to shake.”
Charlotte shot Alex an annoyed look but stayed silent for a long moment be
fore she looked back over her shoulder. “Go on.”
“And you’re feeling unfulfilled because you’re still stuck in that place of needing approval at any cost instead of telling people to go fuck themselves and doing what you want to do.”
“Damn, Alex,” Charlotte said, not quite suppressing a smile. “Don’t hold back. Tell me what you really think.”
“Look, you’re clearly underestimating yourself and that big, beautiful brain, which is a damn shame, so I’m not about to mince words with you. Besides, I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.” Alex paused, waiting until Charlotte met her gaze, then held it as she spoke. “No one is coming to save you here. You have to save your damn self.”
Charlotte took out her phone and asked Alex to hang on for a moment while she pulled something up from her email. Alex knew the words she’d chosen were rock-bottom blunt, which wasn’t the route she’d take with a client, but this was a different situation, and sometimes, when people were ready to hear the truth, only the truth would do.
