Dumplin - Julie Murphy Page 0,41

this particular drawer is a red velvet box with a Christmas ornament inside. A white iridescent globe with puckered red lips wrapping around its circumference alongside Dolly’s signature in gold. A souvenir from Dollywood—a place Lucy had always wanted to visit. El’s mom had won a set of airline tickets at work, and she immediately offered the second ticket to Lucy. They would go to Dollywood, like they’d always dreamed.

They made plans. They looked at hotels and rental cars. They drove the three hours to the closest airport only to find that Lucy would have to purchase an extra seat on the plane because she wouldn’t fit in one. The airline was kind, she’d said, but firm. In the end she was too mortified, and decided to go home rather than take up two seats on the plane. Mrs. Dryver brought home the ornament for Lucy. You knew it was expensive because instead of a metal hook, it hung by a red velvet ribbon.

I shuffle back to my room with the old pageant registration form and the ornament. I spend the rest of the afternoon studying the form and am surprised to find that the only real requirements are that the contestant be between the ages of fifteen and eighteen and that their parents give consent. For all the requirements I’ve made up in my head, I can’t wrap my mind around how simple it is to compete in the pageant and how many girls are actually eligible.

An obscene thought crosses my mind, and before it becomes anything more, I stuff the registration form away in the bottom drawer of my dresser.

My mom’s voice fills the house as she comes in through the back door. “I don’t think she’s in the right state of mind to be an active member of this committee. I’m sorry, but this town is not ready for an opening number set to Beyoncé.” I can’t help it. I laugh when my mom says “Bay-yonsay.” “Even if it is one of her tamer songs—or so she says—I am not taking the flak for that.”

I plop down on my bed. Riot trots in from downstairs and spreads himself out in front of me until I scratch his chin.

“Well, ready or not, registration opens this week,” Mom says.

I grab my Magic 8 Ball from my nightstand and give it one good shake.

Signs point to yes.

TWENTY-SIX

On Sunday morning, I’ve got this major emotional hangover. Last night I made a decision—a really stupid decision. I tell myself that I don’t have to hold myself to anything because no one else even knows about it except me. If I chicken out, I will be my own sole witness.

It’s kind of like when you see someone drop their lunch tray at school, but no one else notices. Nobody will know if you don’t help them. But you’ll know.

I flip-flop back and forth all day, not even really paying attention to the fact that my mom and I have been sort of civil today.

After dinner, I lock myself in my room to catch up on some required reading. But instead I find myself looking over the registration form again. I can’t imagine it’s changed much since 1994. The idea of me in a poufy gown, gliding across a stage like I own it is ludicrous.

There are so many things that Lucy never did. Not because she couldn’t, but because she told herself she couldn’t and no one made her believe otherwise. I won’t lie to myself and say that Lucy was the picture of health in the last few years, but that’s such a horrible reason for her to have deprived herself of the things she wanted most. It’s not even that I think she wanted to compete in the pageant so badly. But it’s that, even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t have.

I pick up my phone and hit the call button.

“Hey! Your sentence is almost up,” says El.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

I could chicken out now and tell her never mind. Or I could tell her about Bo and how some parts of me can’t let him go. Even now when my head is full of so many other things. But instead, I say, “I’m entering Clover City’s Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant.”

The line is silent for a second, a second almost long enough for me to say, “Just kidding!”

“Oh. Hell. Yes.”

“You don’t think I’m crazy?”

“Well, you’re totally nuts, but this is going to be awesome.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Have