I wasn't a coincidence, I wasn't a happenstance, I was acalculation.
I was a manifestation of her success.
This face was made to stand on the highest pedestal, under the brightest lights, while listening to the roar of a crowd praising me, basking in the warmth of their adoration.
That's what I was made for.
My mother, Bella Cabot, was a textbook rags-to-riches story—that true American grit, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and becoming successful all on your own. She was born into a lower-middle-class family inNowhere, Massachusetts.What she lacked in money, she more than made up for in beauty with a face to kill for. In this country, that was enough currency to get where you wanted to be.
So, she used what she had and stole what she needed.
During herMiss Massachusettsreign, she'd glide through children's hospitals and soup kitchens with a megawatt smile and that high-pitched, practiced voice.
"I'm so blessed," she'd chirp to the cameras, painting a perfectly executed modest-but-charming expression on her face,while inside she was reveling in the attention as if it were her lifeblood.
Before she was Bella Cabot, my mother was Bella Underwood, a beauty queen extraordinaire. At twenty-six, she began to feel the grip of her youth fading. You have an expiration date in the pageant world. There will come a time when you're old and washed up. Someone younger, more beautiful, who wants it more, will come up behind you. If you're not careful, you'll end up with the tread of their heels on your back as they walk all over you to victory.
My mother was a great beauty queen. She had a good enough talent routine, said all the right words, and possessed a killer bikini body thanks to high-energy workouts and an almond a day diet. But she knew it was fading, that it would be over soon, and she needed to make a move for her future.
She was a realist and understood that theMiss Americacrown was not going to be placed upon her head. Not whenMiss New Jersey—a childhood leukemia survivor with wide eyes and a grateful smile—was in the running. The writing on the wall was clear as day.
No one beats a survivor.
So, Bella Underwood did what she does best—she adapted.
She started planning, making friends in high places, cozying up to older men with fat pockets and fatter address books.
And that's how she met my father, Ellis Cabot.
He was a friend of a friend of a friend of the man who ran the pageants—some real estate mogul billionaire with eyes that lingered too long on the girls in the dressing rooms. Ellis was thirty, a real estate executive who came from family money, drove a brand-new custom Benz, and wore his wedding ring proudly. He was blue-blood handsome. I saw that from their wedding pictures—he's where I got my natural blonde hair from,where my mother's came in a box. I got his eyes, his height, but my face is all Bella's.
Other women would see the ring on his finger, the way he talked about his adoring, beautiful wife, Claire, and move on to cut their losses. But my mom saw a challenge, and she never backed down from one.Never.
He liked sweet, so she did sweet—aw shucks-ingher way to him, playing the part of the gracious and humble beauty pageant queen to him, snaring him into her trap. Not that it took much effort; my mother was beautiful, seemed sweet, and cared deeply about babies, animals, and world peace. When she had said the word baby, talking about how all she wanted in the world was to become a mother—even more than theMiss Americatitle—it caused something to flicker across my father's expression. A longing.
Jackpot.
My mother gave an Oscar-winning performance for my father, arranging business lunches with my father and his friends to get closer to him, which gradually evolved into one-on-one lunches and dinners hidden from his wife.
At first, they just spoke about the pageant and her plans for the future. Then he started venting about his wife—her infertility, the treatments not working, the stress she felt to give him an heir.
My mother offered sympathetic eyes, sweet, caring words, and gentle, comforting brushes of her fingers. She was an artist, able to hit every single note on cue, turning it into a symphony that stroked his ego the exact way he wanted.
If you want to know how I know this, it's because my mother told me thisin detail.
When I was fourteen, my mother sat me down in the way other mothers do when they give their daughters 'the talk'. Ialready knew about sex, so my mother had instead told me the really valuable lessons—the way of the world for women.
You consume, or you're consumed.
And people who are willing to be consumed are the most delicious.
While my mother thankfully spared me from the graphic detail of their consummation, I could read between the lines. Two months later, my mother was pregnant with me, and Ellis had filed for divorce from his wife, who was broken into pieces seeing the newer, younger, upgraded model Ellis left her for.
My mother played the part, telling people it was true love and that she wouldn't let anything stand in the way.
Love didn't mean much to Bella—at best, it was a means to an end.
But power? That wasimmortal.
