Beauty Queens Part 3

My platform is Identifying Misogyny in American Culture. It's all about helping girls ID the objectification of women when they see it. You know, like when girls are asked to parade around in bathing suits and heels and get scored on that.

The thing that scares me most is falling in love with some jerkwad and ending up without an ident.i.ty at all, just like my mom.

I intend to bring this pageant down.

You will never see this.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Alone on the dark beach, Adina had to laugh at her lousy luck. Unlike the others, she'd entered this cheesy pageant as a revolutionary act. She hated the Miss Teen Dream Pageant. Hated everything it stood for. Mostly, she hated how much her mother loved it. Ever since she was four, Adina and her mother had watched Miss Teen Dream. It had seemed to Adina then to be a TV fairy tale: All those pretty girls smiling and waving and showing off their tumbling skills. And the gowns! Such sparkles and movement!

"Those girls will never have trouble getting husbands. They'll have their pick," her mother had said dreamily.

Adina's mom had had her pick, too. She'd gone from one guy to the next, in an act of downward husband mobility, until she'd married Alan the Tool. Alan, who ran self-improvement seminars for business leaders. Alan, who spoke in blowhard aphorisms like "A bird in the hand can still p.o.o.p in your palm" and "If you want to beat a snake at its game, you have to think like a snake and not like a duck."

It was both Adina's mom and Alan who encouraged her to enter the Miss Teen Dream Pageant to show that "just because you're smart doesn't mean you can't also be pretty." They told her if she placed in Miss New Hampshire, they'd buy her a ba.s.s for her all-girl punk band, Drink My Sweat. They figured once she got wrapped up in the pageant work, she'd forget all about the ba.s.s and the band and her journalistic aspirations.

Adina had entered ... but for her own secret reasons. She would smile and pose, and when the time was right, she would show everyone what a joke this was - what a joke her mom's life was. How stupid the girls in her high school were for believing in this beauty and happily-ever-after c.r.a.p. She would use the money from the publication of her expose to buy that drum kit herself. Maybe she'd even write a song about the whole experience. "Artificial Girl." Or "Teen Dream Armageddon." Yeah. Adina liked the sound of that. She would be a beauty pageant Che Guevara7.

A thick fogbank had rolled in at dusk, and now, between the intense dark and the fog, it was impossible to see much of anything except for the volcano outlined by the moon. A small tickle ran up her neck. Adina had the feeling she was being watched. It was silly - they hadn't found any other survivors and they hadn't seen any other signs of life. Still, a shiver pa.s.sed over her, and she forced herself to concentrate on the soothing sound of the waves coming in, going out. Soon, her eyelids flickered with fatigue.

A quick flash of lights near the volcano startled her awake. She stood up quickly, gasping as she got too close to the fire's warmth. She looked again. Nothing. But she had seen them: short blasts, like signals. Or were the night and the events of the day getting the best of her? In the watery moonlight, the island's volcano was a formless monster wearing a halo of thin gray clouds. Adina saw no repeat of the mysterious lights, but she hunched closer to the fire, grateful for its light like some primitive ancestor. The jungle nipped at her confidence with each sudden screech or low growl. She'd managed the heels. The swimsuit trauma. The endless interviews with steel-eyed judges asking if she'd ever sent naked pictures of herself to a boyfriend or anything else that could cast a shadow of scandal over the pageant. She'd thrown herself into each challenge with total commitment, thinking only about the endgame - taking down Miss Teen Dream for good. With each victory, she felt emboldened and determined. Giddy, almost.

Now, for the first time since she'd started this crazy project, she felt afraid.

CLa.s.sIFIED.

ISLAND.

22:00 HOURS.

Sheltered by the dark, the agent watched the girls sleeping on the beach and shook his head. This was not good, not at all. They were six weeks away from Operation Peac.o.c.k, and this was a serious wrench in the monkey works. The Boss wasn't going to like this. Better deliver the bad news now and get it over with.

The agent crept back to the catamaran stashed behind the rocks and paddled through rough surf to the far side of the island. As he walked onto the beach, a sudden hiss-growl came from the right. A nearly extinct breed of giant snake particular to the island leapt onto the sand, blocking the path. It puffed out its Elizabethan ruff of colorful neck webbing in warning, and with a terrifying hiss-screech, it lunged. In an instant, the bullet tore through the colorful neck. As it fell, the snake's expression was one of surprise, as if it had shown up to work only to find someone else sitting in its desk and using its stapler. And then it was dead.

The agent lowered the silencer. d.a.m.n snakes. They had no manners. They were tasty, though. Just like chicken. But there were more important things to tend to, and so the agent rolled the creature's corpse out into the surf, watching it go under. Then, whistling the jaunty Miss Teen Dream theme song about a world of pretty, the agent turned and disappeared into the jungle, covering any trace of his tracks.

Armed guards in black shirts nodded as the agent pa.s.sed through security and into the secret compound. He punched in four digits on a keypad and the door hidden in the rock facade slid open. The elevator shot him down five floors. He took the hallway to the conference room and used the red phone. There was a beep and the agent said two words: "Operation Peac.o.c.k." He put the phone back on its base and waited. In a moment, the large screen on the wall crackled to life.

"This better be good," the sleepy voice said from the screen.

The agent cleared his throat. "We've got a problem," he said before giving a full status on the plane crash and the surviving girls. The person on the screen listened intently as the agent spoke.

"Agent Jones, in six weeks, Operation Peac.o.c.k is a go. Nothing can interfere. Nothing. A rescue mission to the island will mean attention. We don't want attention."

"I understand. What about the girls?"

"Six weeks is a long time, Agent. And it's a hostile island. They'll be lucky to last two days," the Boss answered. "Brief everyone in the morning. The official word is that there were no survivors. Operation Peac.o.c.k goes on as scheduled."

COMMERCIAL BREAK.

INT. BEDROOM MORNING (A PERKY MOM carrying a laundry basket enters her TEEN DAUGHTER'S bedroom. The girl lies on the bed, upset. The mother's face registers concern. She sits beside her daughter.) MOM.

What's the matter, honey? Why aren't you ready for school?

DAUGHTER.

I'm not going to school today, Mom!

MOM.

Not go to school? But you love school. You're a high achiever who fulfills my narcissistic need to outshine the other mothers on the block.

DAUGHTER.

I know, Mom, but I can't go! Not with this unsightly lip hair.

MOM.

(Smiling smugly, Mom pulls a large white plastic vat from her laundry basket.) Oh, honey. You just need some of this. New Lady 'Stache Off with triple beauty action.

DAUGHTER.

Lady 'Stache Off. Isn't that what you use to sanitize our toilets?

MOM.

(laughing) It does both! And now, with new Lady 'Stache Off's triple beauty action, you can moisturize and self-tan while you rip that unsightly hair from every pore.

DAUGHTER.

Wow! (biting lip) Does new Lady 'Stache Off with triple beauty action hurt?

MOM.

Oh, honey, of course it hurts! Beauty is pain. But you don't want to look like a troll, do you?

DAUGHTER.

Mom!

MOM.

It's more than that, sweetheart. Every time you use new Lady stache off with triple beauty action, you' are contributing to our ec.o.o.nomy, our way of life. Don't you want to be a contributor to our economy? Don't you want to make sure we can have bikinis, cable, and p.o.r.n? What are you, a communist?

DAUGHTER.

Mo-o-om!

MOM.

(Smiling and hugging) Of course not! You're my eager-to-please teenage daughter with a hair maintenance problem, and I am your sympathetic mom here to help you. In addition to new Lady 'Stache Off with triple beauty action, there's also Lady 'Stache Off Organic with bonus buffing pad.

DAUGHTER.

There's an organic hair remover?

MOM.

No. Not really. But don't you love the package? Look, it has b.u.t.terflies.

DAUGHTER.

(holding out hand) INT. CAR LATER (Teen daughter emerges with a freshly plucked upper lip. She also has porcelain teeth veneers, hair extensions, and a body-hugging school uniform. Her skin is artificially tan and shiny.) MOM.

Wow! Look at you! You're looking great!

DAUGHTER.

Thanks to you - and new Lady 'Stache Off with triple beauty action.

MOM.

Lady 'Stache Off. Because there's nothing wrong with you ... that can't be fixed.

MISS TEEN DREAM FUN FACTS PAGE!.

Please fill in the following information and return to Jessie Jane, Miss Teen Dream Pageant administrative a.s.sistant, before Monday. Remember, this is a chance for the judges and the audience to get to know YOU. So make it interesting and fun, but please be appropriate. And don't forget to mention something you love about our sponsor, The Corporation!

Name: Petra West

State: Rhode Island

Age: 16 1/2

Height: 5' 11"

Weight: A lady never tells

Hair: Caramel blond

Eyes: Topaz

Best Feature: My mouth

Fun Facts About Me: I love old Hollywood glamour, and my dream role would be to play Marlene Dietrich's role in The Blue Angel.

My mom is a seamstress and artist. She taught me to sew, bead, knit, smock, and just about everything else. I make all my own costumes.