Beautiful Beast

by Dayle A Dermatis

  I loved trying on clothes, and gowns made me feel like a fairy tale princess. So many colors, styles, fabrics, but all of them with a level of elegance you didn’t find anywhere else.

  Taryn plopped down in an upholstered easy chair and pulled her phone out of her brown canvas messenger bag. I wanted to ask her for her opinion, what color dresses she thought would look good on me, and I was a little sad she wouldn’t care. Even if she wasn’t great at dressing herself, with her artistic eye, she’d probably notice details I’d never think of.

  And I really did want to know what she thought.

  The saleswoman was a thin black woman with bright red lipstick and retro-looking red-framed glasses to match. Her calves were like sculpted marble from the sky-high heels she wore, heels that brought the top of her head to my nose. Kiara, according to her name tag. She was tiny and somehow terrifying.

  We left Taryn to her phone and went back to the changing area. There was only one, and it was easily big enough for all three of us. I didn’t expect there to be an all-three-of-us in the changing room, and because all the walls were mirrored, it felt as if there were far more than three of us.

  Kiara had already hung up several possible dresses: a strapless, daffodil-yellow chiffon with a tight bodice and poofy skirt; a formfitting sequined crimson with a halter top; and a sort of pinky-peach one with a lace overlay and antique silver beading and a train. The dresses did not have price tags on them.

  I expected Mrs. Wentworth and Kiara to leave so I could try on the dresses, but no. They stood and discussed them until I just went ahead and stripped down to my bra and panties. It was one of the new sets Mrs. Wentworth bought me, but still, it was discomforting to be appraised so carefully. Because Mrs. Wentworth and Kiara were looking at me more critically than they had been at the dresses.

  “She could stand to lose a few,” Kiara said.

  Ouch. I stood straighter and sucked in a little.

  “Already working on it,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “She’ll be ready. We’ll try larger dresses on now, order a size down, and do alterations the day before the pageant.”

  Even I knew last-minute alterations cost a pretty penny. I didn’t say anything. Mrs. Wentworth had committed to paying, and we’d hit a point where me protesting that every time was just sounding rude and ungrateful.

  I was immensely grateful and beholden to her.

  Mrs. Wentworth handed me a pair of four-inch heels and I exchanged them for my church shoes.

  Kiara took the yellow dress off the hanger and turned to me. “No bra,” she said.

  “But…”

  Of course I couldn’t wear a regular bra under a strapless dress. But wouldn’t I need a strapless bra? Didn’t they have those here? I had average-sized breasts, I thought, and they were perky enough, but I wasn’t used to going braless.

  I mean, I showered in the school gym, changed in the locker room. But there, none of us were looking at each other the way the two women were looking at me.

  I didn’t have a problem intellectually—models posed topless, had to be fitted for things—and I was proud of my body, whether or not I could stand to lose a few. (I glanced in the mirror. A few where? My hips? Were my hips too big? Did I have back fat? Now my body looked all wrong somehow. Every part was suspect.)

  As I reached back for the clasp, Mrs. Wentworth said, “Panties, too. Can’t have lines, dear.”

  So I stepped out of them, too, and stared straight ahead as Kiara dropped the dress over my head. For a moment I was lost in a sea of lemon meringue before everything shifted down and my head popped out the top. Mrs. Wentworth zipped me up while Kiara fluffed the skirt.

  “I’ll announce you, and then you come out as if you’re being presented onstage,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “Walk like we practiced yesterday.”

  I nodded, they left, and a few moments later I heard Mrs. Wentworth say in an announcer-type voice, “Miss Annabelle Moss.”

  My smile was already in place. I took a deep breath, focused, and walked out from behind the curtain.

  “Walk like you own it,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “Head up. Look out, not down at us.”

  I felt as though I’d forgotten half of what she’d taught me. I posed while she and Kiara picked apart the dress and me in it. Apparently I did have some kind of side/back fat that was making the dress bulge under my arms.

  Kiara met me in the back and helped me out of the yellow dress. Goodbye, pretty Disney dress. Before I could put on the sequined red dress, I got to experience a new level of having my personal space invaded: boob tape. Apparently the halter dress required cleavage—but not too much cleavage. I was now learning the subtle difference between pageant cleavage and streetwalker cleavage. To be honest, it was a little hard to tell the difference.

  I tried to pay attention to what Kiara was explaining—she seemed a little taken aback by the idea that I wasn’t already an expert with boob tape—even while I was trying to be Zen about her manhandling me.

  We repeated the critical discussion process with the red dress. And again with the pinky-peach dress, which I secretly loved. Neither of those were quite right, though, and so the process continued with even more dresses, and more again. Every time I thought I had surely tried on every dress in the shop, Kiara produced more. The fun was starting to wear off, honestly. What time was it? Had we missed lunch? I was starving, and starting to feel a little dizzy.

  Mrs. Wentworth handed me a bottle of water but cautioned me to take just a few sips. “You don’t want to bloat out and ruin the lines of the dresses, dear,” she said. “That will just make this more difficult.”

  As Kiara eased the current dress off me, I looked in the mirror, searching for bloat. It was possible my tummy was a little bit distended.

  By the time they had me try on some of the dresses a second time—given how much criticism there’d been, I hadn’t even realized any of them had stayed in the running—I wanted to burst into tears. But at the same time, I also felt curiously detached. Being naked except for a pair of four-inch heels didn’t bother me anymore. The critical dissection of not only the dresses, but my body in them, seemed far away.

  This wasn’t the experience I’d been expecting. Of course, when I’d envisioned it in the past, my mother was sitting where Mrs. Wentworth was. And my mother probably wouldn’t have been so picky. Then again, Mrs. Wentworth knew a hell of a lot more about this stuff than my mother had, so while I was better off pageant-wise, I guess I missed the delighted smile on my mother’s face when she saw me in the pretty princess dresses.

  I found myself looking to Taryn for…something. Support? Reassurance? Just some sort of touchstone. But she never looked up from her phone or her sketch book, which she’d pulled from her bag at some point along with a set of colored pencils.

  We weren’t friends, I reminded myself. She didn’t hate me—she didn’t seem to actively dislike me—but we weren’t friends.

  She also looked as though she was having more fun than I was, but that, I decided, was just my exhaustion and hunger talking.

  At home, I didn’t have much time to do more than guzzle water and eat a protein bar Mrs. Wentworth gave me before the personal trainer, Carlos, arrived. In the workout room, wearing a pair of capri Spandex leggings and a bra top, I stood while he circled me with the same appraising eye as Kiara had.

  “All right, let’s get measurements,” he said. He was pretty young, with skin like an acorn, both in color and texture, and white teeth that stood out against it. His hair was short, almost buzzed, and he had a tribal tattoo around one biceps. His muscles were impressive. Not body-builder bulgy, but I was pretty sure he could snap me like a twig, run a marathon, and then start his daily workout. He smelled like soap.

  Emilia would have been all over him, and Brittany and Madison would have at least appreciated him, whether or not he was their type. Hot guys were pretty much all their type.

  I could appreciate that he was hot, sure, but…but if I was supposed to feel someth
ing more, I didn’t.

  Like I hadn’t with the few guys I’d dated, either.

  Mrs. Wentworth wielded the measuring tape while he tapped the results into his tablet. She measured parts of my body I didn’t even know needed to be measured. I stepped on the scale, had my body fat percentage measured with a digital device I held in my hands.

  “Okay,” Carlos said finally. “We’ll be looking at a lot of core work—we want you standing straight and tall; it makes you look leaner. Leg work, of course, for the swimsuit portion, but no running starting four days before the pageant or your muscles will be too puffy. And your arms, need to have them toned but not too muscled. A nice little curve to your triceps would be perfect. We might not achieve that in three weeks, but we’ll do the best we can.”

  “And there’ll be pageants after this one,” I said.

  Mrs. Wentworth stiffened. “Yes, dear, that’s true, but the pageant you’re working for is always the most important pageant. There’s no slacking just because you can enter another pageant. Either you win, or you’re not a winner. There are no do-overs.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right. I get it.”

  I didn’t get it, not entirely. I wanted to win more than anything, absolutely, but there was only so much I could do in three weeks to get a triceps curve. I would do everything possible to get one, but I had no idea if anyone could get a triceps curve in that amount of time.

  I wasn’t going to look it up. Carlos was the expert, and I was just gonna have to trust him.

  After a two-hour workout, I wasn’t sure I trusted him anymore. Or maybe I still trusted him, but I certainly didn’t like him.

  When he left, he recommended I run three to five miles a day on top of our workouts, and if I wasn’t a lady and a pageant contestant, I might have decked him. I imagined Taryn would have decked him, and my exhausted lips (every inch of my body was exhausted) twitched. I’d have to tell her that.

  I had just enough left in me to pull myself upstairs (squats, oh, so many squats), shower, and come back down for dinner, which was grilled halibut and vegetables and riced cauliflower. I inhaled it, and even though it was really good, I wished for a steak.

  Maybe we could celebrate with a steak after the pageant? And sea salt caramel ice cream?

  No, I had to stop thinking like that, I reminded myself as I staggered back upstairs. Mrs. Wentworth was right. There are no do-overs.

  I wanted to win.

  Ten

  I turned the faucet on to just below scalding and added half a bag of Epsom salts. Then I poured in a high-end bath product that virgin lavender buds had died for and made bubbles the size of my head, and poured myself in after it.

  I took a selfie of my head surrounded by bubbles and posted it with the caption, Post-workout treat. #pageantprep

  Then I called Aunt Pat. The sound of her voice lifted my spirits. I made Carlos and my wobbly legs into a funny story and enjoyed her hearty laugh—it was one you could hear across a crowded room, and she had no embarrassment about letting it rip when something tickled her. She updated me on her and Rhea’s weekend, and then we ended the call.

  I had settled in and read most of the tech blogs—Before You Need It was apparently still glitchy—when someone knocked on the suite door. I had the bathroom door open, because I’d decided all those closed doors were major overkill.

  “Come in,” I called, because my body was still completely obscured by bubbles. There was a time when this would have felt too exposed, but after today, my decorum lines had shifted.

  Taryn walked in, but stopped in the bathroom doorway. I craned my neck to see behind me. She was staring at the wall at the foot of the tub rather than looking at me.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll come back.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “I wondered if you wanted to watch something?”

  I was surprised that she was suggesting it, and happy. I didn’t want to be the one suggesting everything.

  “I’d love to,” I said. “Give me fifteen minutes? It’s probably going to take that long to get out of the tub, the way my legs feel.”

  She snorted and, as I started to sit up, backpedaled and headed for the door.

  I left my hair piled haphazardly on my head and pulled on sweats and a T-shirt with a nerdy math joke on it. Funny. I was dressing a little like Taryn, although my outfit wasn’t nearly as baggy or obscuring as hers.

  I even ran downstairs (no, actually, I walked very carefully, holding on to the banister like a lifeline) and grabbed us diet sodas.

  We decided on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because we’d discussed it last night.

  “So I have a question,” I said as she was pushing various buttons and scrolling to find the movie.

  “What?”

  “Were you really paying attention in church today?”

  She looked over her shoulder at me, and even though I couldn’t see her eyebrows, I could tell one was raised. “Seriously? I know she’s going to ask what I thought of the service, so I pick something I can comment on so she thinks I was listening. It’s kind of like a game now.”

  “Oh.” Huh. “So I have another question.”

  “What?”

  “How does your mother take care of the entire house? It’s immaculate.”

  Taryn made a scoffing noise. “Hardly. We have a housekeeper who comes in every day, and the housekeeper oversees a couple of maids. She also brings dinner, prepped. All my mother has to do is stick it in the oven, or do a little stovetop cooking, and serve.”

  I tried to wrap my head around that. “What are they, like the cobbler’s elves? Do they only come at night?”

  She laughed. It almost startled me; I didn’t think she’d ever laughed at something I’d said. I liked how that felt. “Not exactly. My mother hates seeing them, so they work around our schedules. They come when we’re not here, or in the early morning, and they take the back staircase.”

  I kept forgetting the back staircase. The very thought of staircases made me moan. I knew my legs were going to hurt more tomorrow. “What this place needs is an elevator.”

  She plopped down on her end of the sofa. “There is one. It’s by the back staircase.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know that’s kind of insane, right?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t build the place, though. I just live here.”

  I threw a pillow at her. “Well, no shit.”

  She laughed again. “Shut up.”

  We hadn’t gotten much past the Interpol warnings at the beginning of the movie when Mrs. Wentworth walked in. She came around to stand at the end of my arm of the sofa. We had most of the lights off, but despite the low light, I could tell she didn’t look happy. Taryn found the remote, paused the movie.

  “Annabelle, I’m disappointed in you,” Mrs. Wentworth said.

  My stomach dropped. “I’m sorry. What did I do?”

  “That photo you posted online was completely inappropriate.”

  I thought I’d looked pretty. No makeup, sure, but I’d put a filter on it.

  “You were in the bathtub. How do you think that looks?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Taryn’s head whip around towards me.

  “It was just of my face, surrounded by bubbles,” I protested.

  “Imagination is a powerful thing,” she said. “Bubbles meant you were in the bathtub, which implied you were naked. It could even have implied there were additional photos that showed…more.”

  This coming from a woman who’d stared at my unclothed body today and pointed out where it needed improvement. And wasn’t I going to be walking around in a swimsuit and high heels in front of an audience? I seriously didn’t see how a picture of my head surrounded by gigantic bubbles was an issue.

  But I had a pretty strong sense that arguing with her would be a mistake.

  Plus, maybe I was wrong. She knew far more about
this than I did, had far more experience.

  “I guess I didn’t think,” I said.

  “No, you didn’t. I hope you’ll think twice next time. I deleted the picture off your social media. I hope I got to it fast enough.”

  “Thank you,” I said, because I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was.

  “Just see that it doesn’t happen again,” she said, and left.

  I picked up my soda, but didn’t take a drink. My hand was shaking a little. I’d barely just gotten here, barely just gotten my chance in the pageant, and I’d almost thrown it all away.

  “You get used to it,” Taryn said out of the shadows. I thought I heard sympathy in her voice.

  “Used to what?”

  “Her moods.”

  “Well, I screwed up,” I said.

  She sighed. “If you say so.”

  I didn’t get her. Fact was, I was more interested in understanding Taryn’s moods that her mother’s.

  My legs were screamingly sore the next morning, but I went for a short run—okay, really just a jog—to loosen up, and to be able to tell Carlos that I had.

  Mrs. Wentworth said I needed to adjust my breakfast to egg whites rather than full eggs, in order to stay on track. When she was out of the room, Taryn offered to use the full egg in my scramble, but I declined, and asked her to add more garlic, for taste, and veggies, for bulk.

  I really missed toast, but I’d already lost a pound and a half, so I wasn’t complaining.

  Taryn volunteered at the animal shelter in the mornings, so I went with her and did my shift at the same time. We’d had a dog and two cats when I was younger, but the dog and cat had died before my father fell ill, and by the time he was better, the second cat had gone, and we were struggling enough with bills that we couldn’t afford another pet. I’d missed not having a furry creature around, and didn’t mind cleaning out litter boxes and scooping dog poop if it meant I got to pet a few puppies and kittens in the process.