“Kendra. This is the first time I’ve ever been glad of . . .”
He trails off.
Heat fills my cheeks as I realize Cole Kendall is staring at my boobs that have been duct-taped into defying gravity.
“What?” I ask.
“Sorry.” He shakes his head like he just now realized he’s been staring at my rack. “I’m sorry.”
“No, tell me,” I say, gesturing at my chest. “Does it look weird?”
He winces and blushes. “No.” His voice sounds strained. “Looks great.”
“Good,” I say. “For what it’s gonna take to get it off later, it better.”
He pulls his eyes back up to my face. “Anyone taught you the baby powder trick?”
“What baby powder trick?”
“Exactly what it sounds like, put baby powder on your chest before you tape. It’ll help in the heat and later when you want to get the tape off. Kendra does it every time. She likes to pretend she never sweats, but I know better.”
Cole Kendall and I are talking about my breasts, and worse than that, we are talking about the possibility that breasts perspire, which I am sure is on the list of things beauty queens cannot think about let alone talk about. I wonder if the judges can sense my thoughts through the curtains and are deducting points before they’ve even gotten their first look at me.
Kendra Kendall has to tape her breasts too?
Cole knows what baby powder is?
“You know what baby powder is?” I ask.
“Yeah, of course,” he says. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You’re a guy?”
“I use it when I pack. It helps the silicone slide instead of stick.”
“Pack?” I ask. “Are you going on a trip?”
He laughs. Not his usual mild, good-natured laugh. A full-on, I-startled-him-with-something-funny laugh. “So that’s the one Trans 101 article you didn’t read.”
His eyes flash down to his pants and up again so fast no one else would catch it. But it’s enough that I feel my face heat. Even though I still don’t know what packing is, I can now guess, but I can’t think about it too much, because I cannot be thinking about Cole Kendall and his pants when I go out there.
I can’t even look at him without my cheeks turning as hot as the pageant stage light bulbs, so instead I scan the other girls.
“What are you even doing back here?” I ask.
“I need to talk to you for a second.”
“Now?” I look around. “Kendra’s not gonna like seeing you talking to me.”
“Kendra’s still looking for her shoes.”
“Why?”
“Because I hid them.”
“Cole!”
“Relax, they’re in my mom’s car, she’ll find them, I was just stalling her.”
“I do not need you sabotaging my competition.”
“Yeah, speaking of that.” He pulls me aside, out of earshot of as many contestants as he can. “I know I’m the brother of your competition. I know you probably think I know nothing about this, but believe me, I know more about beauty pageants than I ever wanted to. And I have the advantage of overhearing things because I’m a guy and everyone thinks I don’t know what any of the words mean.”
“You definitely know what words mean.”
“Thanks, but not the point,” he says. “Point is: you’re about to be set up.”
“Set up?” I ask. “This is a beauty pageant, not a 1940s detective movie.”
He blinks a few times.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing, that’s just the kind of thing people are usually saying to you.”
“I have about ninety seconds, Cole. Can this wait?”
“No. It can’t.”
“Then make it quick.”
He checks the curtain entrance again. “I’m about to ask you for something, and I just need you to trust me.”
“Trust you with what?”
He leans down a little to talk to me. “When they give you the question, just say ‘world peace.’”
“What?” I ask.
“Look, I don’t know what they’re gonna ask you, but I heard enough to know they’re gonna go hard on you. So whatever they ask”—he lands hard on each word—“say world peace. It’s one of the few things you can answer to just about any pageant question. Believe me, I’ve been to enough of these things to know.”
“But what if the question’s about . . .”
“Lita, please, just do this for me.”
I back up, my bare shoulder blades brushing the worn velvet of the curtain.
“Just say world peace,” he says, quieter this time.
Then he’s gone, a few seconds before Kendra strides in, annoyed, with a metal train case.
She walks right past me.
Before I can sort out everything Cole just said, the coordinators herd us onstage.
There’s applause as we all walk out for the first time, but I hear it dulled, like it’s far away.
Mr. Hamilton, I mean, the emcee, introduces each of us, and I smile more from muscle memory than from meaning to do it.
He asks each girl a question. I barely hear them, these questions about where they would most want to travel in the world (“Europe, the whole thing.”), what they would do if they had a week to live (“I would pet every puppy in the world.”), if they’d been an animal on Noah’s ark which one they would’ve been (“The dove, because I like to think of myself as a sign of hope to those around me.”), what’s the first thing they would do as president (“Send everyone a bouquet of daisies and then get right to work fixing things!”).
Applause rushes through the air after each girl finishes. Their answers twinkle; I can hear it in their voices even when I can’t make out all the words through the fog of the ones Cole left with me.
World peace, no matter what the question is.
Was Cole asking me to throw this competition? So his sister can win? So his family can get current on their bills?
And would I do it for him when the Quintanilla sisters got me this far?
Then it’s my turn, and the man grinning into the microphone is standing in front of me.
“Next up is another hometown gal, Estrellita Perez.” He rushes upward on the syllables of my name to cue the clapping.
Very scattered applause.
Most don’t know me.
The rest hate me.
The emcee continues with as big a smile as if I’d gotten a standing ovation. “Your question comes from Judge Halpern.”
The judge nods, one in a line of men and women in pressed business attire, sitting at a shaded table.
“Estrellita, you’ve lived in this town your whole life,” the emcee says.
“Is that the question?” I ask.
This gets a laugh, more from out-of-town visitors than anyone.
It’s still a laugh.
I curtsy and smile, my eyes finding Cole in the audience and shooting him a “what exactly were you worried about?” look.
“You’re a lifelong resident of this fair town, and we want your take on the real Meteor, New Mexico,” the emcee says into the microphone.
Oh no.