CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Back at the camp, the girls rushed around, pasting sequins on their faces, sewing palm fronds into gowns like plumage, making last-minute touch-ups. They welcomed the old routine, the surge of adrenaline associated with pageant nights. But tonight, there was a little something extra.
Adina made it back just as the cameras were put in place. The black shirts had torn down another hut to make way for a sound booth. They’d rigged the stage area with lights, the wires feeding into a generator mounted on a rusty Jeep.
“I was starting to worry,” Nicole said. “Taylor?”
Adina shook her head. “She’s too far gone. We’ll have to do it without her.” She shimmied out of her shorts and tank and into her official pageant dress, a blue cocktail number with a poufy skirt. If Adina did die, she hoped to God it wouldn’t be in this tulle-and-lace monstrosity.
“Remember the plan: Jen, you and Shanti are throwing the race. As soon as they announce Top Five, whoever’s not named needs to make a break for the volcano and the control room and let the world know what’s really going on. During the musical number, the rest of you peel off and head for the boat. The minute they announce the winner, we’ve got to run like hell. Mary Lou and Tane should have the yacht ready to go.”
“Do you really think we’ll make it?” Tiara asked.
Adina looked into Tiara’s trusting face and thought about Alan holding out his arms, waiting to catch her, promising he would. She hadn’t believed him, but her mother had, and Alan had come through for her. In the past several weeks, Adina had learned to take that fall, and these girls had proved to her that you could still trust in the world, that there was good among the bad. Sometimes, that was all you needed to keep going.
“We’ve made it this far, haven’t we? Don’t count a pageant girl out, Miss Mississippi.”
Tiara smiled weakly. “You sound like Taylor.”
“Well.”
“I can’t believe I used to worry so much about people not liking me. Seems so unnecessary now,” Nicole said, watching a group of black shirts laughing over some private joke. “I swear, if I get out of this, I’m going to tell my mom to back off and let me live my own life.”
“I’m going to go to law school and start changing some things,” Miss Ohio said. She dabbed at her eyes. “Crap. Is my mascara smeared?”
“You’re good,” Petra said, wiping a smudge from Miss Ohio’s cheek. “I’m going to hunt down Sinjin St. Sinjin and get my heels back. And then beat him with them.”
“I’m gonna stop worrying about that third nipple,” Brittani said.
“What if we don’t make it?” Miss Montana said.
Shanti shook her head. “Don’t talk like that.”
“But the deck is really stacked against us. You really think we can win against all of that?” Miss Montana swept her arm toward the juggernaut on the beach.
“I don’t know. But I’m so totally not gonna just roll over for them.”
“Me either,” Petra said.
“I don’t give a damn ’bout my bad reputation,” Jennifer sang softly.
“What are you talking about?” Sosie asked. She looked to Jennifer, who softened.
“Kicking ass,” she spelled out.
Sosie nodded. “Go big or go home, bitches.”
“Go big or die,” Nicole said quietly.
There were shouts on the beach, last-minute preparations, the verbal-and-static gunfire of walkie-talkies. Farther out, waves broke on the rocks. The jungle insects tuned their constant hum to a high-pitched clamor.
Shanti closed the curtain. “Ready?”
Nicole put out her hand. Petra placed hers on top. The others followed till their hands seemed to form a giant fist.
“Miss Teen Dream,” Adina intoned.
“Miss Teen Dream,” the others echoed, and they brought their hands up and apart.
“I’m scared,” Miss New Mexico said.
The guard stuck his head behind the curtain. “Ten minutes, girls.”