Red(64)
The blackmail had to stop. There was only one way to make it stop. Gabby had left her no choice.
Felicity abandoned her untouched breakfast and took a long, hot shower, then sat quietly as her mom curled her hair and peppered her with competition pointers. When Ginger was happy with her work, she pulled out the hair spray and enveloped her daughter in a sticky cloud. Felicity coughed, tasting the bitter chemical tang at the back of her throat.
“Perfect,” her mom announced. “That should hold just fine, but spray it again before you go onstage. Now, let me see your nails.”
When Felicity was thoroughly painted and primped, her mom stepped back, clasped her hands, and regarded her daughter with misty eyes. “Oh, Felicity, you look so beautiful. I’m so proud of you I can barely stand it. You have no idea how wonderful this is for me, watching you up there, dancing to my music. You’re just like a mirror of what I used to be.” Ginger hugged Felicity fiercely, careful not to muss her hair. “You know I can’t show favoritism once we get to City Hall, but remember that I’m sending you all the love in my heart and rooting for you with every cell in my body.”
The toast churned in Felicity’s stomach as she thought about how furious Ginger would be when she saw the new tap routine. Her mom had spent seventeen years forcing her into a mold she didn’t fit, but Felicity knew that every moment had been out of love. It wasn’t just about the prize money—Ginger believed in Miss Scarlet with her entire heart and soul and truly thought this was the best possible path for her daughter. The guiltaconda slithered back around Felicity’s chest and began to squeeze, and she was suddenly afraid she might cry. “I could never have gotten here without you,” she said.
“I know you’ll pay me back by winning.” Ginger pulled back and touched Felicity’s cheek. “I always knew you were a winner, right from the second you were born, and today you get to prove it to everyone. Just do everything exactly like we practiced, and I know that crown will be yours. Do you need anything else before I go?”
Felicity shook her head. “I’ll be fine. But thanks, Mom. For everything.”
Ginger embraced her one last time, and Felicity hugged her back, hoping that somewhere deep down, her mom would understand that she couldn’t go through with the pageant exactly as planned. She wanted to win, but she needed to do it her own way and for her own reasons. Even though her mom loved her and wanted the best for her, she had no idea who Felicity really was.
Today, it was time to show her.
It was time to show everyone.
City Hall was in a state of jubilant chaos. When Felicity opened the front door, a cheer rang through the packed lobby, and she had to swim through a sea of patting, squeezing hands to reach the auditorium. She gave the crowd a quick wave, as she knew her mom would want her to, and a fireworks display of camera flashes went off in her face. Momentarily blinded, she stumbled through the auditorium doors. “This is insanity,” she muttered as she heard another cheer go up outside.
The room was empty except for two volunteers taping down cables on the stage. Felicity made her way to the sound booth, praying it would be unoccupied so she could swap her music before anyone noticed her. Unfortunately, the scrawny, sullen sound operator was already there, bent over a graphic novel.
“Hi,” Felicity said. “Matty, right?”
The boy looked up slowly, as if it took incredible effort to raise his head three inches. His squash-colored hair fell over his eyes, and he made no effort to brush it away. “Uh-huh. ’Sup.”
Felicity put on an authoritative voice. “I’m Felicity St. John. The music for my talent sounded a little weird yesterday, so I burned a new CD, and I need you to swap them.”
She worried for a moment that he’d argue with her, but Matty was far too catatonic to care what she did. He leaned sluggishly to the side like a melting snowman, providing her access to the box of CDs on the table. Felicity slipped into the booth and swapped the discs, stuffing the old one into her bag. “There,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Uh-huh.” Matty righted himself and returned to his book.
“Hey, listen,” Felicity said. “When you play this, someone might come running up here to tell you it’s the wrong music, but it’s not. Don’t let anyone turn it off, no matter what, even the people in charge. Okay?”
Matty shrugged one shoulder and mumbled something that might have been “Whatever.” Felicity wasn’t sure her comment had registered, but there was nothing else she could do. She headed backstage.
The dressing room reeked of hair spray and hot curling irons and was packed with pageant volunteers, mothers, and contestants in various states of undress. The sickly-green linoleum floor, fluorescent lights, and rolling costume racks were hardly glamorous, but they were familiar to Felicity from past pageants, and the sight of them made her relax a little. Ginger was nowhere to be found, so Felicity checked in with Brenda, then found an empty spot at the mirrors next to Haylie. Her friend was sitting perfectly still in one of the orange plastic chairs, eyes closed and earbuds in, oblivious to the chaos around her as she did breathing exercises.
As she did before every competition, Felicity lined up her beauty supplies in tidy rows on the table: magnifying mirror, hair spray, curling iron, round brush, bobby pins, tissues, makeup, antistatic spray, Topstick fashion tape, lint brush, sewing kit, stain stick, and a Sharpie for blacking out unexpected scuffs on her tap shoes. Seeing everything laid out neatly made her feel safer, like she had some small measure of control over the day.