Pretty Ugly: A Novel

by Kirker Butler

  Miranda made a left on Fredrica toward their little house on Cottage Drive, blowing through a stop sign she had long considered unnecessary. Placing her hand gently on Ray’s knee, she smiled.

  “You okay?”

  Ray wanted to look at her like she was insane, but his head was too heavy to move, so he gave her a weak so-so hand gesture.

  “I know. What a week, huh?” She sighed again.

  Miranda still hadn’t told Ray about her fight with Theresa and the humiliating end to Bailey’s pageant career, or about the hearing scheduled for next month to discuss banning Miranda from all future pageants on the Dolls circuit. It all seemed so unimportant now, especially since Theresa had agreed not to press criminal charges.

  Rolling his head off the window, Ray tried to speak through the gauze and Percocet. “Wheors” slurp “Bwiktong?” Slurp.

  “Mom’s got her. Everything’s fine. Don’t worry about anything, okay?” She sighed heavily, then tried to ease into a different conversation. “You know, you really should drink more water. The doctor said heat stroke can kill you.”

  Ray shook his head. “Id wushund heed stoke.” It was anxiety and stress and Ambiall and adultery and statutory rape and unborn illegitimate children and legitimately born children with Down syndrome and liens and money and debt and on and on and on.

  “Don’t be embarrassed, baby. It’s not unmasculine to faint.”

  He nodded, giving up, and leaned his head back on the window, watching the quiet homes zip by. They were nice houses, old but gentrified, well maintained. He’d lived in this neighborhood for over a decade, passed these houses every day, and he knew the names of maybe three of his neighbors. Ray wondered what their lives were like behind those comfortable reclaimed wood doors, and if maybe they would want to trade with him.

  “The doctor said you should stay in bed for a few days. Christie said she’d cover your shifts at the hospital, but I’m going to need some help around the house.”

  Ray tried to speak, but his tongue felt like an uncooked chicken breast, so he shook his head and let out a series of grunts that were intended to mean, Sweetheart, I will be fine. I can help with Brixton. I don’t need to stay in bed.

  “So … I did something.”

  Ray looked at her.

  “Mom’s knees are really bad, and four kids are just way too much for her to keep track of, especially at her age. So I hired a babysitter.”

  “Okah,” Ray said, knowing there was more to the story. “Woo?”

  “Courtney.”

  Bloody cotton shot from one of Ray’s nostrils.

  “Wha?! No!” Shaking his head, he tried to speak, but his mouth was too full. He reached toward his back teeth and began pulling an endless stream of bloody gauze from his mouth like a clown at the world’s worst children’s party.

  “Ray, stop it. She’s so sweet, and I just felt so bad for her losing the last of her family and her house and getting pregnant by some selfish … asshole who won’t support her. And you should have seen her with Brixton when you fainted. She was so good with her.”

  Lightning bolts shot through Ray’s face as he carefully forced words through his shredded lips. “No. No. Absowutewy not. Cowtney’s a cwient. It’s not effical. I dow’t need hewp.”

  “Well, I do need help, Ray. And I think this a good opportunity for us to do something nice for somebody less fortunate than us. She needs money, and we can help.”

  “Miwanda. Wook at me. No way.”

  “Well, I’ve already asked her and she agreed. So it’s happening. There’s nothing more to be said about it, so you might as well just put that stuff back in your mouth and be quiet like the doctor told you to.”

  Ray considered opening the door and jumping.

  “And it’s not like she’s moving in. She’ll just stay a few nights a week, tops.”

  Miranda pulled into their driveway, and Ray’s stomach lurched. Standing in front of his house were J.J., Junior, and Joan, who was holding Brixton while Bailey helped Courtney pull a massive suitcase from the trunk of Marvin’s 1998 Crown Vic.

  Before the Jeep had even stopped, Ray was leaning out the door retching. The remaining gauze, however, blocked the vomit’s egress and rerouted it up through his very tender nose, where it shot out of his one unplugged nostril in hot, painful bursts. The backs of Ray’s eyes burned, and he managed to pull out the last of his mouth gauze just in time to throw up again. Stomach acid connected with his exposed dental nerves and white-hot electric pain pulsed through his body, causing Ray to piss his pants and fall out of the Jeep into the warm puddle of vomit in the driveway. Rising to his knees, Ray tried to spit the acrid taste of partially digested blood from his mouth, but he dislodged his newly reattached tooth, which shot down the driveway into a storm drain, where it was whisked away to the murky depths of the Ohio River.

  chapter eighteen

  “I’m sorry the room is so small.” Miranda said, moving a pile of sashes off the futon to make room for Courtney’s suitcase.

  “No, it’s awesome. Such a cool space,” Courtney said politely. “I don’t want to be any trouble, Mrs. Miller. I’m only staying a few days.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. And call me Miranda. I’m not that much older than you.”

  Courtney almost laughed. Wasn’t Miranda like thirty-five or something?

  Before the room became a shrine to Bailey’s career, it had been Ray’s sanctuary from the house’s rising estrogen levels. He’d managed to squeeze in a futon, a Papasan chair, a small TV, and his guitar, which he would lazily strum and try to write songs while getting high on low-quality marijuana. Over the years, Ray’s increasingly busy schedule forced him to give up both the pot smoking and the guitar, which limited his time in the room, leaving it vulnerable for a takeover.

  After a hard-won trifecta of Princess, Cover Model, and Grand Glitteratti at the Golden Glitz and Glamour Pageant (Memphis, Tennessee), Miranda and Bailey celebrated by taking a tour of the Holy Land of the South: Graceland. Both were fans of Elvis—at the time, Bailey’s talent was a heartbreaking interpretive dance set to “In the Ghetto”—but neither was prepared for how inspired they would be, especially by the trophy room. The labyrinth of gold records, Grammys, and humanitarian awards showed them how a true king presented his success. And if he could do it, then so could a true queen.

  In the early days, Miranda had displayed Bailey’s awards on cramped shelves in her room until they spilled out onto the dresser, the nightstand, and eventually the floor. After years of successful competition, Bailey was literally tripping over the spoils of her success.

  “Mommy,” the girl said, as confident and proud as any six-year-old Miranda had ever heard, “I need an Elvis room, but for me.”

  It was scary. Sometimes Miranda thought Bailey could read her mind.

  Miranda had always thought Ray’s “sanctuary” was self-indulgent and temporary, a place for Ray to keep his “guy junk” until they figured out what to do with the room. Well, Miranda had figured it out: She would build a shrine to the career she had built for her daughter. And if Ray felt like he needed a place to be alone, there was always the toolshed in the backyard, which is where Miranda moved his stuff before he got home from work that night.

  Ray was not pleased.

  “But baby, all this stuff, our crowns and trophies and plaques and sashes, it finally gives this silly room a purpose.”

  Ray looked at her, furious and baffled and disappointed. Apparently, she had not been listening when he just explained how the room’s purpose was to be an island of refuge in a sea of crowns and trophies and plaques and sashes. But it didn’t matter. He’d lost his room, and his wife’s regard. The next morning Ray woke up early and applied for a night job as a hospice nurse.

  Unpacking her suitcase—much of the contents still untouched from her aborted Gatlinburg trip—Courtney reevaluated her plan. Moving in with Ray’s family was definitely not something she’d considered, but now that she was in
the house, it kind of made sense. The closer she was to him, the easier it would be to influence him. It was definitely better than her other plan, which was basically “trust Ray.”

  Watching Miranda set out clean sheets and towels, Courtney felt bad, but only for a second. Miranda seemed like a nice enough lady, and her kids were really sweet, but Courtney had to think about her own future. With Marvin gone, someone needed to take care of her, and that person was going to be Ray whether he liked it or not.

  Crossing to the stack of plastic storage bins that would act as her dresser, Courtney bumped into a six-foot trophy from the South Georgia Miss Peach Festival and Car Show (Valdosta, Georgia).

  “Careful!” Bailey snapped.

  “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry. There are just so many of them. It’s really impressive. I mean, seriously. These are so awesome, Bailey.”

  “Thanks,” Bailey said, softening a bit. “I’ve got more at my grandmother’s house. There’s not really enough room in here to hold them all.”

  Bailey didn’t know why she was bragging, but she couldn’t stop herself. The mortifying end to her pageant career had made her surprisingly nostalgic. As unfulfilling as it had been toward the end, she had to admit she did enjoy the attention. Since Brixton’s birth, and with no pageants in the foreseeable future, Miranda had barely spoken to her.

  “Not many girls have a whole room dedicated to how awesome they are. I know I never did.” Courtney took one of the crowns and put it on her head. “I only won one trophy in my whole life. For gymnastics. I won Most Improved, which basically means I was a bad gymnast, but I showed up every week for practice and didn’t break my neck, so they had to give me something. Oh!” she said, remembering. “And I took home a spirit stick once at cheerleading camp my freshman year, so I guess that counts.”

  “Did you ever do pageants?” Bailey asked, hoping her tone implied that Courtney should take her crown off her head immediately.

  “Me?” She rolled her eyes. “No way. I’m not really the pageant girl type.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Bailey asked curtly.

  “Bailey,” Miranda reprimanded, “tone.” She then turned to Courtney with a look that demanded she explain what that was supposed to mean.

  “Nothing. Just…” She hesitated. “I’m not really pretty enough, like pageant pretty, you know? And don’t you have to answer a bunch of questions about what’s going on in the world and stuff? I don’t watch the news really, so I wouldn’t do very good.”

  Miranda laughed. “Sweetheart, with that body, you’d be just fine.”

  Courtney blushed. “Thanks.” She bit her thumbnail, looked back at the wall of awards, and wondered if Bailey had any idea how lucky she was. “Granddaddy didn’t have a lot of money, so I didn’t ask for much. Even my prom dress last year was a hand-me-down from my neighbor, Big Judy. She got it new for her prom when I was in, like, seventh grade, and I just loved it. It was pink and shiny and flowy. It looked like Glinda the Good Witch’s dress from The Wizard of Oz, but shorter and sexier and it showed off my boobs great.”

  Both Bailey and Miranda stole quick glances of Courtney’s breasts, then glanced down at, then away from, their own less-impressive chests.

  “Big Judy let me wear it, and I looked so hot. I mean, I looked awesome. Then at the after-party, my stupid date threw up Crown and Coke all over the front and stained it. He was a jerk. Cool car, though. Big Judy was so mad. I mean, she was a real you know what about it, so I didn’t feel too bad ’cause she was so mean.” She took a breath, realizing she was sharing too much about herself and changed the subject. “So when’s your next pageant, Bailey?”

  Miranda looked down at her hands, remembering the feel of Theresa’s hair between her fingers, and blushed. The shame she felt for wanting to smile made her blush even more.

  “I’m retired,” Bailey said blithely, as if giving a sound bite to Access Hollywood. “It was time.”

  Miranda nodded for a long time. “I guess so.”

  The ensuing moment of silence felt heavy, like a tribute to a fallen soldier.

  “Well,” Bailey said as an amen. “I’m gonna go play on the computer.” Then taking the crown from Courtney’s head, she placed it neatly back on the shelf and left the room.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Courtney asked Miranda.

  Miranda sighed, giving the question more weight than it called for.

  “There was a … misunderstanding at Bailey’s last pageant. It was more like a fight. She’s embarrassed by it.” Miranda paused, embarrassed by it. “Actually, I think it’s probably for the best.” She picked up an armful of trophies from the nightstand and dropped them into the toy chest. “I was hoping Brixton might take her place, but … I guess that won’t be happening.” Miranda inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to force a smile, but her lips wouldn’t move.

  “Why not?” Courtney asked.

  “Well … you know.” Miranda waved her hand across her face and shrugged. “You know.”

  “No. What?”

  “Brixton has”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“Down syndrome.” It was the first time she had said it to someone other than a family member, and she found it strangely cathartic, almost empowering.

  Courtney shrugged. “So? I mean, is there some rule that says a girl with Down syndrome can’t compete in pageants? Because that would be super-messed-up if there was.”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so, but—”

  “But what? You should totally enter her. They’d have to be superracist not to let her in. She’s a really cute baby. And isn’t that what matters in a kids’ pageant? Who’s cutest?”

  Miranda looked at this girl, not much older than a child herself, and wondered: Where did all this wisdom come from? Of course she could enter Brixton in pageants. Nothing but other people’s prejudices was keeping her from it. That, and perhaps good taste, but that had never stopped her before. If Tesla Maguire could stomp around on stage with that insulin pump hanging from her waist, certainly Brixton could compete. As an altered version of her former plan started to take shape, Miranda noticed a crown among Bailey’s awards. She’d seen it a hundred times before, but today it triggered an idea that ranked with one of the best she’d ever had.

  “The Chattanooga Christmas Angels Pageant and Winter Spectacular,” she mumbled.

  “What’s that?” Courtney asked.

  “Hm?” Miranda said, forgetting for a moment that Courtney was there. “Oh, the Chattanooga Christmas Angels Pageant and Winter Spectacular. It’s one of the biggest pageants of the year. It’s in Chattanooga, Tennessee, around Christmas.” She took the crown off a shelf and handed it to Courtney. “Bailey won Little Miss Snow Angel when she was four and a half, the youngest in the history of the pageant. Historically it’s been very lucky for our family. I think Brixton might do well there.”

  She picked up her phone and started making a list of what she would need: pictures, makeup consulting, hairpieces, three different custom-made outfits. Girls up to a year old didn’t compete in talent, but she could try to teach her a bit of a song, “Happy Birthday” or “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or something. Brixton was only four days old, but the pageant was two whole months away, and Miranda could do a lot in two months.

  “If you need some help, I’m available,” Courtney was surprised to hear herself say. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was a genuine gesture or a part of her plan. It just felt like the next thing to say, so she went with it.

  Miranda put her hand over her heart. “That so sweet, but you’ve got so much going on: school and the house and the baby … The next few months are not going to be easy for you.”

  Courtney nodded. “I know, but … I was thinking of dropping out of school anyway and just getting my GED. I really don’t want to be one of those girls walking down the hall trying to hide my belly in a big sweatshirt. Everyone thinks those girls are sluts, and I’m not a slut. I’m pretty smart. I’ve got a B average, so
I won’t have any trouble if I ever want to, like, go to college or something. You can get Brixton ready for Chattanooga and I can be your assistant. It’ll be fun!”

  Miranda’s eyes filled with tears. For the first time, she knew the true purpose of this room. It was never meant to be a sanctuary for her husband, or even a trophy room for her daughter. This room was meant to be the place where Miranda Miller met an angel.

  chapter nineteen

  Ray awoke in bed unable to open his eyes. They were puffy and tender like fresh blisters. He pried them open with his fingers and winced at the light streaming in from a bedside window. His drug-induced half sleep would have been a welcome respite had it not been riddled with nightmares he sadly recognized as scenes from his actual life.

  “Mawanduh!” Ray tried calling, but he choked on a mouthful of fresh gauze. He gingerly started pulling it out, but the drugs had dulled his agility, and he scratched an empty tooth socket, sending fiery pain rippling through his skin as if every hair on his body was hooked up to a car battery.

  “Owhh … fugh,” he moaned, and wiped his watering eyes on the already blood-smeared pillowcase.

  Waiting dutifully on his nightstand was an open bottle of Vicodin and a glass of water. He sighed happily then shook six pills into his hand and delicately placed them in the back of his throat.

  Across the room, Ray’s bloody suit hung limply over the back of a chair. Miranda had thrown out the snowman tie after forcibly prying it away from Junior, who wanted to wear it to church. The letter from Marvin peeked from the inside pocket of the jacket, mocking him. Ray wanted to read it, but on top of everything else, did he really need a dead man calling him an asshole? Suppressing a wave of nausea, he tried again to call for Miranda, but his stitched lips weren’t capable of forming anything that sounded like words. Instead, he let out a long, animalistic groan and hoped someone heard him.