Under the Crown

The newspaper headline didn’t do the spectacle justice, really. Daughter no longer wanted to compete in pageants. She’d made this clear to Mother by not showing up to the Miss Elegant America registration, letting Mother stand in the auditorium’s lobby alone, red-faced, wearing a rhinestone crown pendant on her Kmart-bought blazer, surrounded by “sixty-some-odd girls who actually gave a damn about their futures,” Mother said, after hunting down Daughter at the library.

“I told you after Miss American Beauty I want to focus on poli sci.”

“You can afford college without me?”

The remark landed with a blow that made Daughter’s eyes burn with tears. With no father nor siblings, only a few friends, and practically no money, Daughter’s studies were all she had. It wasn’t unusual for Mother to threaten her, but she’d always thought her education was sacred.

“Do the pageant or no more tuition payments. It’s that simple.”

Daughter forced her refusal down her throat like a scream that, when it hit her stomach, choked and died.

On each of Daughter’s nipples, Mother stuck half a jellybean, adhering the sugary pebbles with fabric glue.

“Not too much.” Daughter hated it when she whined like a five-year-old, but she knew it would hurt when it was time to remove the red candies.

“Not my fault your nipples aren’t perky.” Mother blew on Daughter’s nipples to dry the glue and went on to say, “You know the gown has a layer of chiffon at areola level that’s just begging for some nipplage,” and then cackled at her own joke, the crown pendant rising and falling with her sequined jacket.

Coach laughed through cigarette-stained teeth, though with less intensity because he had a detailed list of “checks” to get through.

Teeth check: With a flip of his blonde hair, Coach removed the whitening trays, and Daughter’s mouth, raw with the taste of peroxide, zinged repeatedly with pain from too much bleach for too long.

“These babies are as white as a sheet of paper,” Coach said, fingering his lips as if reaching for a cigarette when none was there.

Butt check: Hers wasn’t round enough so they padded the back of the dress with a silicone insert. And since gown was formfitting, Mother said Daughter’s silhouette had to be “perfect. No. More than perfect. It had to be the mother of perfect.”

It was telling that Mother thought “the mother” was more than the child.

Why these clothes of beads, chiffon, and sequins? Why this style of hair-sprayed tresses and shoulder pads? Why sexual abstinence? Why thin? Why polite? Smiling? They weren’t only creating a fantasy, but also a goal—docile, grinning, and unquestioning, like Barbie, Miss America, and Cinderella, innocent and unsullied.

Wardrobe arrived and sewed Daughter into the garment. Daughter wore the gown like heavy flesh that had been added over her own to mask the imperfections. She imagined it as Mother’s skin covering hers, making sure no one saw the square-shaped butt, the flat nipples, the waist that wasn’t properly cinched.

In gray sweats with a plaid shawl about his shoulders, Wardrobe said the obsidian-colored beads were hand-sewn; the work had been intricate and time-consuming. Each time Daughter moved, a shiny ball dug into her skin like a bite. She imagined the black orbs as tiny bloodsuckers intent on making her body thin, shapely, and “perky.” She pulled back her sleeve to reveal a mess of miniature cuts.

“Honey, don’t tug at it.” Wardrobe was breathy and sweating above the lip. “If you get one loose, the rest will unravel from the line and fall off.”

The mirror was missing from the dressing room. Daughter assumed Mother had removed it, thereby forcing Daughter to rely on Mother’s eyes. Daughter couldn’t help but stare at the wall where the mirror should have been and imagine herself as a puppet, with strings sewn into her skin where the bead-pricks were. Daughter would tell Mother she wanted...