Are they about to ask me about the rock in the museum?
Years of the government blocking off the crater site, decades of rumor about whether it holds secrets about life in other worlds, and millions of whispered speculations from both residents and visitors.
Is the emcee about to ask me to settle all of that?
“Estrellita,” he says. “What is the most important thing you think is missing from your hometown?”
He holds the microphone in front of me.
My next breath turns hard in my throat.
No girl wins Miss Meteor without a sugar-packet-white smile and a love for her hometown so bright it shines. And now the judges are asking me to criticize it, to pick it apart, to say what Meteor needs that it does not have.
I am a brown-skinned girl. I love this town, but if I say what I really think it’s missing, if I say where its sharp places and weak points are, the judges will cast aside my name before we even get to swimsuit.
The emcee and the microphone and the audience and even the craning-forward contestants are waiting for me to say something. But there is no way to answer this question without half the town, and half the judges, counting me as even more of a traitor than they already think I am.
I scan the audience, finding the horrified faces of Bruja Lupe and the Quintanillas.
Bruja Lupe.
She hated the idea of me entering, but she’s here anyway, and now she’s watching me try to answer an impossible question.
If I say nothing’s missing from Meteor, I’m lying. I’m lying about myself, about the Quintanillas, about Junior, about Cole, about everyone who isn’t exactly what Meteor thinks we should be.
But if I say the truth, if I pick this town apart the way this town picks us apart, Bruja Lupe will have to watch me get booed off the stage.
My eyes keep moving.
They stop on Cole.
He was right.
They are setting me up.
This town thinks I charged their star cornhole player with an old bicycle. They think I’m a girl who exists to wear down everything they care about.
And now they have me on this stage, where they’re trying to get me to admit it.
Because I cannot answer this question without being the girl they already think I am.
He nods slowly, urging me on.
He knew.
He asked me to trust him.
And I have to trust that he gave me that answer to take with me for a reason.
I put my hands on my hips, give my best Rita Hayworth smile, and call out, “World peace.”
The audience stares at me.
They look to the emcee.
They look at each other.
Then they start clapping.
They really start clapping, because they take my answer to mean that there’s nothing missing from Meteor, that to find something missing from Meteor I have to find something missing from the whole world. They clap because they love the idea that the only thing wrong with Meteor is that the rest of this planet can’t be exactly like it. They can’t not clap, because they can’t not clap for the idea of world peace, especially not at a beauty pageant.
“Cole,” I whisper under my breath when the microphone is clear from my mouth. He does know more about beauty pageants than anyone would guess.
He knows the one answer no one can object to.
“Well,” the emcee says into the microphone, “I think we all can agree on that, right, ladies and gentlemen?” That cues another round of applause.
Then it’s over. My first event in the Fiftieth-Annual Meteor Regional Pageant and Talent Competition Showcase.
“Thank you,” I mouth at Cole as I follow the other contestants down the stage steps.
I did it. It may have taken one Kendall and many Quintanillas, but I did it. I managed, for the first time, not to screw up a Miss Meteor event.
My relief only lasts until that night, when I find new patches of stardust covering my thighs.
Less than one day. I had less than one day of what it feels like when this goes right, when I don’t let everyone cheering for me down.
Less than one day. That’s all the time my body would’ve had to wait for these new starfields to show up on my skin.
If the stardust had kept up its slow crawl, I would’ve been fine. The tasteful one-piece Cereza chose for me for the swimsuit competition would have covered it. But now the stardust is crawling up my back and down my thighs.
That tasteful one-piece stares from where it hangs on my closet doorknob, taunting me with every sparkling reason I cannot wear it onstage.
Chicky
IT’S A PACKED house when we arrive for the swimsuit competition, and my ears are still ringing with the argument Lita and my sisters had about waxing, of all things.
Thankfully, Lita won. No waxing. Fresa is still fuming.
“Just contestants past this point,” says Mrs. Kendall, who is, of course, holding a clipboard and looking official. She looks at me like I’m something gross she stepped in, and I bristle.
“I’m Miss Perez’s manager,” I say, channeling sixth-grade me as I step forward with my arm through Lita’s. On her other side she’s carrying a strangely bulky bag. I make a note to ask her about this later.
“Contestants only,” Mrs. Kendall says more firmly, stepping forward.
My sisters head for their seats, and I’m about to follow when I catch a glimpse of Kendra through the doorway, her golden hair pinned up in an elegant knot.
“Friends and family and . . . little helpers are free to take their seats in the audience.”
“Right,” I say, feeling Lita shrink a little under her gaze. “Because we wouldn’t want anyone’s family members being inappropriately involved in pageant business. Might be a conflict of interest, right, Mrs. Kendall?”
Her self-important gaze becomes downright murderous, but Lita giggles, straightening her slumping shoulders.
“I’ll be back with the pageant director,” Mrs. Kendall says. “Melody Summers? She’s a close personal friend of mine.”
She disappears, and now I’m laughing too, Lita’s and my strange friendship stalemate melting away for the moment. “Close personal friends, right,” I mutter. “More like close personal Botox buddies.”
“Stop!” Lita says, clamping a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing too loud.
“I should probably sit,” I say, unlinking our arms. “But I’ll be in the front row if you need anything.” I clear my throat. “You know, as your manager.”
“Right,” Lita says. “Officially.”
“Okay,” I say, the tension creeping back in. All the unsaid things. “Good luck out there.”
“Thanks.”
It’s only as she flattens her bag to step through the doorway that I realize I forgot to ask her what’s inside. But like, how bad can it be? She probably just brought her stuffed Marvin the Martian to keep her company or something.
I take my seat next to Fresa and command myself to chill.
The lights go down, same as they did last night, and a buzz of anticipation ripples through the crowd. I’ve told myself since middle school ended that I’m above this pageant and everything it represents, but when Uva grabs my hand and squeezes it, I squeeze back. It’s not just about destroying Kendra anymore, or even about the money for the diner.
I want Lita to win because she’s Lita, and the world needs a little more of her magic in it.