by Mary Monroe
“Then don’t keep puttin’ on more lip gloss or anything else,” Maureen advised.
“Mama, you wouldn’t understand. I have to be the one to decide when I look beautiful enough,” Loretta replied with a casual shrug. She applied another coat of lip gloss.
Maureen rolled her eyes and shook her head. Loretta continued to work on her face.
Loretta always looked like she’d just stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine. She didn’t wear ripped jeans or oversized T-shirts like a lot of the other kids. On this particular day, she wore a white silk blouse with ruffles at the end of the sleeves, a plaid skirt, and white tights with black pumps that she had wiped and waxed so thoroughly she could see her reflection in them. She never wore sneakers or flip-flops, not even to the beach. She wore her long black hair with bangs almost touching her eyes, like Cher used to wear hers back in the sixties.
When Loretta joined Maureen in the kitchen a few minutes later, she had changed into a pink silk blouse and black leather skirt with a split up the side. A white silk scarf was around her neck.
“Lo’retta, why did you change clothes? You looked so cute in your plaid skirt.”
“I know I did, Mama, but I just remembered that I wore that outfit last month. It wouldn’t be cool if everybody saw me in the same clothes again so soon,” Loretta explained. She smoothed down the sides of her skirt and brushed off the sleeves of her blouse.
Even though Maureen showered Loretta with compliments on a regular basis, she always countered them by telling her that looks were not everything. That only made Loretta suck on her teeth, roll her eyes, and shake her head.
“A beautiful girl is special and has to act special. If she behaves like regular girls, that’s what she’ll be—regular!” Loretta insisted a few days after the lip gloss and plaid skirt episode.
“A lot of beautiful women lead regular lives,” Maureen told her.
“Mama, you need to get with the program. The whole point of bein’ beautiful is so you don’t have to be regular. I bet if Liz Taylor hadn’t acted special on account of her beauty when she was my age, she would have ended up bein’ just a housewife sittin’ on a porch with a cat,” Loretta insisted. “Endin’ up like that is my worst nightmare,” she added with a grimace.
The following week, a man who was one of the sponsors of the annual “Miss Black Teenage Citrus Princess” pageant called up Loretta and invited her to be a contestant. Loretta was already in a good mood that Saturday afternoon. A few hours earlier, she had been among a huge crowd of spectators watching the filming of a Miami Vice episode, her favorite TV program after The Cosby Show. She had attracted the attention of one of the film crew members. He had made such a fuss over her beauty that her head felt like it had doubled in size.
As far as Loretta was concerned, no other teenage girl could compete with her. When it came to beauty and style, she was as good as it got. She eagerly accepted the invitation to be a contestant. She planned to put together an acceptance speech before the event because she was convinced she was going to win. It was an annual event, but last year when Loretta had expected to be invited to participate, no one had contacted her.
When she took it upon herself to fill out the application to be a participant, attaching to it the most glamorous picture she had ever posed for, those blind idiots ignored her! Loretta decided that the sponsors were a bunch of fools and that the whole event was probably nothing more than a dog-and-pony show anyway. Now that she’d been invited to compete, it was a completely different story.
Ben Porter, the elderly man who lived in the apartment next door to Maureen, was going to be one of the judges. When that information reached Loretta, she immediately began to visit Mr. Ben. She volunteered to perform a variety of chores for him. She was so relentless and determined to impress the old man that she didn’t even utilize Mona’s services. This was too important, and she had to be the one to get the credit. She ran to the store for Mr. Ben, mopped his kitchen floor, took his trash to the Dumpster, did his laundry, and one day she even baked him a pecan pie.
“Oh, Mama, this is just the kind of showcase I need to show people what a real black princess is all about. I’ve already memorized what I want to say when they put the crown on my head! Do you think I should sing somethin’ or dance for the talent part?” Loretta gushed.
“I’m sure that whatever you do, you’ll be the best, baby,” Maureen told Loretta, praying that she would do well. Maureen was afraid to even think about how severe Loretta’s meltdown would be if she didn’t win first place.
Loretta was on cloud nine. For the next few days, she pranced around the house singing and dancing like she had already won first place. She was convinced that her beauty contest victory would be a potent tool for her to use when she approached the Miami Vice people. The least they could do was use her as an extra until she was old enough to play some fictional big shot’s wife or girlfriend, or something. It would make up for the fact that Maureen had told Loretta that she was too young to try out for a part in Scarface (her favorite movie)—which had been filmed practically in their own backyard—a few years ago.
Unfortunately, things came crashing down a few days later when Loretta received a list in the mail with the names of the other contestants. She stormed the kitchen, where Maureen was cutting up the chicken they were going to have for dinner.
“Mama! Mama! You won’t believe this! Just take a look at the names of the girls I’ll be competin’ against!” Loretta shrieked with a strangled gasp. Words could not describe how horrified she was. “I can’t believe my own eyes!” She waved the list in front of Maureen’s face, frowning at it like it was a soiled diaper.
Maureen quickly snatched the sheet of paper out of Loretta’s hand, squinting her eyes as she scanned it. “Hmmm. I see your best friend Mona Flack is one of the contestants,” she said with an incredulous grunt, giving Loretta a puzzled look.
“Can you believe this?” Loretta growled.
“Mona’s a nice girl, but . . . I don’t mean to sound mean, but I think she’s kind of plain to be in a beauty contest. What’s goin’ on, Lo’retta? Is this supposed to be a joke?”
“No!” Loretta roared. “This ain’t no joke!”
Maureen’s eyes got big as she stood there with her mouth hanging open. She glared at the list of names as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing with her own eyes either. “Do you mean to tell me that this is a real beauty contest?”
Loretta’s face looked hot, but her voice was like ice. “Beauty contest? This is goin’ to be more like a ‘who’s who at the zoo.’ Just look at the rest of these other names!” Loretta was so upset her finger was shaking as she pointed from one name to another. “There’s enough apes on this list to make a Tarzan movie! And the name of every dog except Lassie is on this list!”
Maureen scratched her chin. “Maybe they don’t want to focus too much on looks,” she threw in.
Loretta’s face was so hot by now she had to fan herself. “What’s wrong with you, Mama? Since when do people have pageants that don’t focus on looks?” She paused and stomped her foot on the floor so hard, some glasses on the counter rattled. “I can’t believe those people asked me to be in this contest. What kind of funky mess are these people tryin’ to pull?” Loretta hollered, looking at Maureen like she was the one behind the funky mess.
Ten minutes after receiving the list, Loretta called one of the sponsors and withdrew from the contest. She told him that she had a family event on the same day as the pageant that she had overlooked. When the sponsor told her that he would definitely want her to compete in the pageant next year, she promptly decided that she would have another “family event” to attend on that day too. She would come up with a lie each year until she got too old to compete, or until they stopped asking her.
When Mona won first place, Loretta was stunned, horrified, angry, and depressed. “That’s the last time I get involved with one of these chitlin-circuit events,” she vowed.
“Because the sponsors were black, all the girls were black, and only the black newspapers and black radio stations covered the pageant. Just like in the olden days when black entertainers got caught up in everything that was for black folks only. I should have known better. I am not goin’ to settle for no chitlin-circuit lifestyle like you did.”
Maureen’s jaw dropped and she flinched as if Loretta had slapped her face. “Huh? What—For your information, Miss Ann, I have a good life! If it’s what you call chitlin circuit, that’s fine with me,” Maureen retorted in a tight voice. She was tempted to remind Loretta how she always gobbled up at least two bowls of chitlins every time Maureen cooked some, but she didn’t. She decided that there was already enough tension in her residence.
Maureen didn’t like to think about what Virgil had told her about how Loretta might turn out because of the way she was being raised and because of the high opinion she had of herself. However, Maureen couldn’t stop herself from thinking about Virgil’s comments. Especially after the way Loretta had reacted when Mona won the contest. Maureen finally admitted to herself that Loretta had begun to believe that she was too special and even better than other people. Now she understood what Virgil had meant about beauty being a double-edged sword. Because the sword had begun to swing in Maureen’s direction, and it was not a pleasant feeling. It wouldn’t hurt to nip this problem in the bud while she still could—not too aggressively, though, Maureen told herself. Just aggressive enough to keep Loretta’s attitude on a level she could tolerate.
“It would do you a lot of good to get down off that high horse you keep ridin’. You ain’t no better than nobody else. Even though you are the prettiest girl around here,” Maureen allowed, using a tone of voice that she didn’t like to use. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to be a little more humble.”
“Humble? Do you think Diana Ross got to be where she is by bein’ humble?”
“You ain’t Diana Ross. Bein’ humble is a virtue that can be just as beneficial as beauty.” Maureen cleared her throat. She was angry with herself for letting things get to this point. “You can be beautiful and humble at the same time. That’s how people succeed. Even Diana Ross.”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Loretta fumbled. As weak as her apology was, it still made Maureen feel better. “I want people to see that I’m just as humble as I am beautiful.” She wrapped her arms around Maureen and hugged her so hard that Maureen had to push her away so she could catch her breath.
“That’s better,” she told Loretta. It took only a few minutes for her to forget just how sharp and painful Loretta’s chitlin-circuit comment in reference to her had felt.
CHAPTER 4
MONA CAME TO VISIT THE DAY AFTER THE PAGEANT TO SHOW OFF THE crown she’d won and to invite Loretta to spend that Sunday afternoon at the mall with her to help her spend the two-hundred-dollar first prize.
Even in makeup, a hairpiece, and a cute blue denim dress, Mona was still an absolute plain-Jane. Loretta gave her best friend a hug and congratulated her, and eagerly accepted her invitation to go shopping. That made Maureen feel better, but Loretta was still angry.
Mona treated Loretta to a steak and lobster lunch and bought her the latest Prince CD, but even those generous gestures didn’t make Loretta feel much better. She couldn’t stand the thought of another female, no matter who that other female was, getting what she wanted. When Loretta returned from the mall with a scowl on her face and went straight to her room to sulk in private, Maureen assumed she was still upset.
Maureen waited a few minutes and then she went to Loretta’s room and cracked open the door. Loretta was lying on her bed with her face buried in her pillow. Maureen couldn’t stand to see her baby hurting, so she racked her brain for something to say that might help ease her pain. “This is probably the only time any of those girls will ever be in a pageant. Someday you’ll be so rich and famous everybody will be fightin’ over you. You’ll be on top of the world, but those other girls will just be housewives sittin’ on a porch with a cat,” Maureen offered. “Mona will never win another beauty contest, so she deserved to win this one. At least she was nice enough to let you help her enjoy her prize money. Don’t forget, you thought that this pageant was just a creep-show anyway.”
A few moments passed before Loretta sat up and faced Maureen. She had been crying. She sniffed and wiped a trail of tears off her face with the tail of her pillowcase. “You really think I’ll be rich and famous someday, Mama?” Her voice sounded like it was coming from beyond the grave.
“I know so!” Maureen said firmly. “You’ll be all over the place. Even on TV with Johnny Carson and Phil Donahue.”
Despite the fact that Loretta was extremely self-centered, she was still a good daughter as far as Maureen was concerned. Therefore, she deserved only the best, and Maureen planned to do everything in her power to help Loretta reach her goals. Since Loretta might be the only child Maureen ever had, she couldn’t bear to lose her or see her unhappy. Because of the loss of Loraine, Loretta had become two children rolled into one. How could Maureen not do twice as much to please her?
A few weeks after the beauty competition, Loretta told Maureen that she wanted to be a model. After that beauty contest fiasco, Loretta needed to find a way to restore her self-esteem.
“The girls in the big-time magazines make more money in a day than a lot of people make in a month,” Loretta told Maureen, waving the latest edition of Seventeen magazine in Maureen’s face.
“You’d have to go to New York to work for the big time magazines,” Maureen pointed out.
“I can get started down here,” Loretta argued, a pout already forming on her lips.
Maureen shook her head. “Modelin’ would take up too much of your time right now. I don’t want your grades to suffer. School is goin’ to be out in a few months and you need to study real hard now.”
“If I wait until school is out, I’ll have to compete with a thousand other girls for work. Mama, let me try it now for just a little while. If my grades slip, I’ll give it up. Just think of all the extra money we’ll have comin’ into the house. You won’t have to be dodgin’ all those bill collectors you’ve been dodgin’ all these years.”
Maureen gasped. “Well, the only reason I have to dodge bill collectors in the first place is because I buy you everything you ask for,” she reminded her, offering a smile so Loretta wouldn’t get too upset. “I’ll think about it. You have some real expensive tastes, so I guess it wouldn’t hurt if you did start makin’ your own money.” Then Maureen gave Loretta a weary-eyed look. It was the look of surrender that Loretta had come to recognize as another one of her mother’s numerous weaknesses. Loretta decided that Maureen had already given her consent to let her pursue a modeling career.
Loretta ran up to Maureen and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Sometimes you can be the best mama in the world!”
“Not so fast now. I said I’ll think about it,” Maureen sighed, knowing that she was already going to give in to Loretta’s latest demand.
The next day Loretta ran up to Maureen again. This time she didn’t just hug her; she grabbed Maureen’s hand and covered it with hungry little kisses. “You goin’ to let me be a model or what?”
“I told you I would think about it,” Maureen responded with a weary sigh.
Each day for the next week, Loretta gently badgered Maureen until she gave in.
“All right, Lo’retta. You can try it out for a little while, but only on weekends and after school as long as it’s not too late in the evenin’ and only on the days that you don’t have a lot of homework. If your grades slip, you have to give it up.”
The following Saturday, Maureen began to drive Loretta around Miami in her three-year-old Taurus from one photographer to another, hoping to find one who would put together the kind of photo portfolio Loretta deserved. Loretta was hard to please, tho
ugh. She decided that one photographer was too old. Even though he seemed like a nice man and he was very professional, he kept calling her “LuAnne,” which meant his memory was on the blink. A geezer like him would probably cancel appointments due to one age-related ailment after another, Loretta predicted. Another one was too fat and slovenly. Loretta didn’t think that it would be good for her image to be associated with a slob, and there was not a chance in hell that she was going to work with the one female photographer they had encountered. Had Loretta known that L. B. Spencer was a woman, she never would have made an appointment with her in the first place. A woman! A woman with so many tattoos on both arms they looked like sleeves!
“Mama, did you notice how long and hard that lady photographer stared me up and down? She’s a straight-up dyke,” Loretta complained with a frightened look on her face as soon as she and Maureen made it back to their car.
“She didn’t look at you any longer and harder than the other photographers did,” Maureen countered. “If you feel like that about a woman in this business, there is no tellin’ what a male photographer might try to do.”
“That’s why I need to be careful which one I decide to work with. Some of these photographers are up to no good from the get-go. They think models are stupid, so they take advantage of as many of them as they can. I read about a dumb blonde in Hollywood who was so stupid, a couple of photographers passed her back and forth until she got pregnant.”
“I bet that blonde won’t let somethin’ like that happen to her again,” Maureen commented.
“She sure won’t because she’s dead. One of those photographers strangled her when she tried to blackmail him.”
Maureen looked at Loretta and shook her head. “That’s a horrible story! Maybe we need to think this modelin’ thing through some more. I didn’t know they had photographers runnin’ around loose, takin’ advantage of young girls and then killin’ them.”
