Summer Pageant
The car is silent. I sit and peer through the ice-covered window. My mom hums an uplifting tune while she drives to make up for the silence between us. She keeps humming the same line of a song and eventually I can tell that she is even boring herself, as she leans over to the radio and turns it to radio station 93.3. Her efforts to lighten the mood prove to be useless as I sit here staring out the window. And the worst part of it is that she knows I don’t want to talk to her, but she somehow thinks that music can be a substitute. She knows that the only way I’ll talk to her is if she turns the car around and goes home. But she won’t do that. Not even if I begged.
As we stop a red light, my mom grabs her makeup bag from the middle compartment of the car, and rummages through it. I watch her in annoyance, being careful to turn my head once she looks at me so she doesn’t notice I was paying attention.
“Goodness. This cold weather really chaps my lips. Doesn’t it chap yours? Would you like some of my chapstick?” she asks me. I slowly turn to look at her with a blank expression and shake my head. She sighs. I know she’s annoyed with my attitude and I know I have an attitude. But sometimes I have a right to have one. I think that this qualifies as one of those times.
She continues driving and I look to the right and notice the same pink and green boutique with the sign “Madame’s Pageant Boutique” across the door that I’ve seen so many times before.
My mother pulls into her reserved parking spot. It looks the same even though I haven’t been here in about 4 months. The car stops, and my mom quickly gets out of the car. I sit for a moment and reluctantly pull the handle to my door and climb out of the car. The cold hits me like a wall of ice and wind. My mother is already making her way to the door of the boutique, being careful not to slide on the ice beneath her feet. She opens the door and holds it for me when she notices that I am not behind her. She turns around and looks at me and I realize that I haven’t taken a step towards the boutique. My mother scoffs at my stubbornness and walks inside. It takes every ounce of will to follow.
Inside, I notice every detail that I’ve seen every year since I was 3 years old. Glass countertops, pink curtains with butterflies, polka dot dishes, green and yellow walls with gold accents, and bedazzled pillows on the pink velvet sofas. I look at the racks and racks of clothing, dresses, and accessories. Sparkly silk ball gowns, chiffon and lace skirts paired with sequined tops, and rhinestone and plastic tiaras. Any other 13 year old girl in a shop like this would go crazy over all the beautiful sparkly things. But all I could see and remember was embarrassment and failure.

“Bonjour! Hello! Ca-va? How are you?” The voice of Madame Ciel was ear piercing. She had a heavy French accent and often interchanged English and French when she spoke. I was used to this and was now able to speak back after a lot of practice.

“Ca-va bien…I think I am here for a fitting. Is that right?” I asked her. Before we left the house my mom told me I would be going to try a dress on for the pageant. I wasn’t too thrilled about the idea of doing this but I owed it to my mom. Madame looked from me to my mother and nodded.

“Come to the back. Je vais vous aider,” she practically sang. She was always excited to show off the fact that she could speak English and French. My mother nudged me to follow her. Madame Ciel came to the back shortly after with a dress bag in her hands. She laid the bag on the chair.

“I got this dress for you, Samantha because it is simply perfect for the Winter Wonderland Pageant you will be attending next month. I hope it fits. I even ordered the gloves to go with it. They should be in the bag. Let me know if you need anything, darling,” Madame said to me. She always was a nice woman. I’ve known her since I was 3, so she is basically part of the family even though I haven’t been around recently.

I take my dress bag and put it on the hanger in my changing room. I won’t even bother asking my mom if she wants to see the dress because she only likes to see new dresses when I’m wearing them. I peer at the white plastic bag hanging on the green hook inside my own exquisitely decorated pink and purple little room. I notice that the room has recently been repainted; the chips of paint are now perfectly smoothed over. I grab the bag with both hands and use my right hand to start pulling down the zipper of the bag. I start to see white and gold sequins. As I pull further, I notice the beautiful pattern of glitter and lace, all across the top of the strapless ball gown. I unzip the entire dress, being very careful not to get the zipper stuck on all the lace. The rest of the gown is gold with a sparkly texture.

I unwillingly pull the dress over my head to try it on. I soon realize that pulling this type of dress over my head wasn’t a good idea considering now the waist part of the dress is stuck on my shoulders.

“Mom! I need you! I’m a little bit… stuck,” I say loudly enough for my mom to hear me, but quietly enough so that no one else can. Soon I hear footsteps at a rather quick pace. My mother opens the curtains and gasps.

“Oh my goodness Samantha! This dress is absolutely beautiful! You’re so lucky you get to wear it. I would kill to be able to wear something like this,” she exclaims, all while I’m still stuck in my dress. “I mean, just look at the lace! I need to contact whoever designed this dress to see the rest of their line! Hold on one second.” And she was gone.

“Wait mom! I need help!” All I heard was the sound of my mom’s Chanel heels clicking and fading down the hall. No response. Great. I wrestle myself free from the tight dress and sit down. I try putting the dress on the correct way, and I am successful. I manage to zip up the back without catching my skin or hair and turn around. I am taken back by this dress. I mean, it was very beautiful. I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I look beautiful in this dress, but not even this dress can make me feel like the real me. Madame was right. This dress is perfect. It just isn’t perfect for me. All I see is my failure four months ago.

Four months ago I competed in a summer pageant when I wore a very preppy yellow sundress with blue and white boats all over it. Not my style at all. To be part of the pageant, one must answer a series of questions, as well as trying to look like the most put together girl there. I needed to be perfect. I needed perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect clothes, perfect skin, and perfect makeup. Imagine that. Everything about you is judged. No wonder we all have a hard time not judging a book by its cover. I was doing so well with the looking presentable aspect.

I remember being so nervous at the pageant. I really wanted to win. The parents and crowd cheered and clapped as I walked down the runway to be judged on my appearance. I truly felt on top of the world.

“Beautiful!” the parents said as I walked by. And I must say I really did feel beautiful.

The next part of the pageant was the speaking portion. I was always great at that. They always asked the easiest questions.
“What would you do to end world hunger?” the judges would ask. And I was trained by my mother to give the sweetest answer I possibly could, every time.
“Well, I think I would use my knowledge of the problems in the world to give all the deserving people food,” I would tell them. In reality, I would never say anything like that. But that’s what it takes to win. I always got a medal of some sort, but this pageant was the most important. That was that pageant that my mom spent months getting me ready for. She did pageants when she was younger but she never won anything. I now realize the reason she wanted me to do them. But I had no idea at the time.

After my runway walk, I waited in the dressing rooms backstage while the other girls finished their runway walks. They girls already in the dressing room were slowly being called back to stage. Eventually, my name was called.

My thoughts get interrupted when I hear footsteps down the hall. I know it must be my mother.

“Samantha, oh my gosh okay. Turns out, you’ve worn a dress from this designer before!”
“Really? Which one?” I asked her. She seemed so excited; I thought I might as well just ask her.

“It was the yellow one with the boats. I think the last time it was worn was your Summer Pageant,” and then she froze. There was no speaking for a couple seconds as she realized that she had probably brought up bad memories for me. If only she knew that the dress I am wearing brought up those memories before she even said anything. I think back to the summer pageant .

My name was called for the answering questions portion of the pageant. I unfolded my legs and planted my heels on the ground, and stood. I quickly pulled my hair to the side to make it look nice and swiped on another coat of Raspberry Ice lip-gloss. I walked up the stage and to the microphone where the host was standing.

“Okay Samantha. Now, I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions,” the host said to me. It seemed easy enough. I was ready.

“Now, Samantha, just to get to know you a little, how close are you to your family? How important do you think it is for family to be there for each other?” The first thought to go through my head was about my mom. I am an only child, so for me, that question was all about my mom and my dad. I thought about how much my mom lived through me. She had high expectations from me and I tried to always meet them. The next thought was about my dad. I thought about how I never saw him because my mother divorced him when I was young and now he wants nothing to do with me. I swallowed hard and tried to answer the question as best as I could.

“I think it’s important to be best friends with your parents because … they’ll always be there for you. Family is family and it will always be the most important thing,” I swallowed and looked down at my feet. My arms were shaking out of embarrassment. It felt like the entire audience was staring at me as well as making judgments about me. They were all friends in the audience. They all knew the situation with my dad. The host wasn’t helping me either. She just stared at me. I couldn’t speak. My eyes started tearing and I muttered, “Sorry,” and ran off stage. I actually felt like I was going to be sick. I got to back stage and all the other girls were talking about me. My mom met me backstage and we went home straight away. That was the only pageant where I didn’t win. My mom was disappointed in me. That day was the first day I ever showed any emotion about my dad.

From then on, I declared I was done with pageants. The embarrassment was too much. I told my mom I was done four months ago. She convinced me to give it one more try and do the Winter Pageant. I agreed, but only because she wanted me to so badly.

“Well, that’s nice,” I said to my mom. She looked hurt because she thought that she had hurt me.

“I didn’t mean to bring up the Summer Pageant, Samantha. I really didn’t. Now, the dress looks beautiful. But I want to ask you a serious question: are you doing this because you want to, or because I want you to?” I saw the fear in her eyes. If I told her the truth, I would never have to do another pageant again. But that would also mean that she would be heartbroken. I owe it to her. Pageants have always been her specialty. Not mine. If I lie, I save her happiness. She has to be happy. I need to lie.

“Yes Mom, I want to do the Pageant,” I said, very convincingly. And for a second, while my mom pulls me in for a long, warm embrace, I actually believe myself.