I thought of his fingers laced with Cathy Peabody’s in the photo we’d found on the back of the property, but I could see him holding almost any woman’s hand.
That familiar feeling of missing something crept back into my gut.
In my tiny cottage I lay back on the couch as much as I could in my dress. I thought back to my arrival at the Rose Palace, being dropped at the front steps by Lacy, wandering into the mansion on that first day, chatting with Savilla, the meet and greet, the three judges ascending the stage.
Something inched its way forward. I closed my eyes, seeing that moment in the ballroom again—before Mrs. Finch had come in and fainted and turned the entire show on its axis—when I’d waved my arms as I’d danced next to Savilla.
Her eyes had been warm with nostalgia as the pageant song had played and we’d swayed across the stage, practicing the choreography.I grew up listening to this song over and over while Mommy and I ran errands, she’d said, and I’d tried to imagine a childhood filled with pageant tunes. Neither the mention ofMommyorrunning errandsrang true for how she referred to Mrs. Finch, whom she always called, rather strangely, StepMommy.
My mind scrolled back through our school days. Graduation, Junior Dance, Sophomore Social, Freshman Retreat. Backward and forward through the years, I traversed play performances, choir recitals, art shows, Valentine’s Day parties, and end-of-year programs.
Mrs. Finch had been at most events and performances and achievements. Mr. Finch had come to about half. Had there been anyone else? Someone I was missing?
My mind jumped forward to Cathy Peabody’s quote. I sat up and opened the book that I’d dropped onto the coffee table.
“My child will grow up in a different kind of world than even I did,” Ms. Peabody said. “I’m here at this pageant to create a better world for her.”
My eyes roamed back up the page to the only other mention of this woman.
At the Miss 2001 competition, I spoke with a young woman named Cathy Peabody, who grew up in the nearby mountainson a farm with her family. Instead of blue-blood, she’s from a blue-collar family, but she hopes to one day work on the Parisian runways.
I organized the information in my mind:
Grew up near here
Farm
Blue-collar family
Parisian runways
Wait. That last one. That was it. She’d wanted to work in fashion, likely near home, which could mean in Aubergine. There were only two people with any sense of fashion in this town. My aunt and…
My eyes widened as I saw all of these moments again, this time conjuring kindergarten graduation. I thought of how Lacy and I had found our class photo in the file for Miss 2001 in Aunt DeeDee’s office, something that hadn’t made sense at the time but could be explained if somehow the winner had been in the photo, standing on the edges, watching and waiting.
That same person had hovered in the background of many of my childhood memories until Savilla had graduated from high school a decade ago and her services had no longer been needed. That’s when she’d opened her own boutique. That’s when she’d become a judge at the annual Rose Palace Pageant. I dropped the book as I realized that I’d known Cathy Peabody, Miss 2001, almost my entire life.
After serving Glenda Finch glass after glass of whiskey on my first night, I’d pretended to admire the paintings in the room. When I’d asked about the depiction of Miss 2001, the women had gone silent. I’d thought it was because Savilla and Katiedidn’t want me reminding Mrs. Finch that she’d once only been runner-up, but no, it was because all three of them knew that the actual Miss 2001 was in that very room.
THIRTY-SIX
