Where was Carmen Molina when you needed her? Adolescence was murder.
For guys too, remember.
Temple pointed to the bloody nick on her shin. “Nothing is smooth, Mariah. Everything hurts a little. That’s how we know we’re alive. And we want to stay that way.
I’m afraid someone around this competition doesn’t feel the same way.”
“Yeah.” Mariah ran the disposable pink razor up her still fuzzy lower leg. “That’s obvious. We gotta find out who. That’s why my mother sent you here.”
“You think so?”
“No, she wanted you here as my babysitter but I’m not a baby anymore, so you might as well do something more useful.”
Temple gave her a high five. “Baby, you are so right!”
They were all on a schedule. Boot camp for beauty. That made them predictable targets.
Temple didn’t like being separated from Mariah for most of the day but they were on opposite ends of the age meridian.
The moment when Temple realized that she was old enough to be Mariah’s mother, she got cold chills. And then she heard her own biological clock ticking. What did she want? To be a pal or a parent?
But this wasn’t about her.
And then there were more one-on-ones with the judges in their advisor capacity.
First up was her very own maternal aunt, Kit Carlson.
Temple went to that one chewing a wad of gum big enough to choke a camel (and therefore disguise her voice).
She slumped on her tailbone on the single rattan chair before the Consultant Room One desk, and snapped gum.
Aunt Kit remained admirably cool to the whole act as she flipped through Xoe’s file.
“You wouldn’t be here at all if Manship hadn’t liked your cheeks,” Kit finally noted, slapping the file shut to gain Xoe’s attention, and staring at her over the rims of her half-glasses.“Men are easy.”
“Men are only fifty percent of the vote.”
“Yeah, what’s that Elvis guy here for anyway?”
“Apparently local color. I think he’s like Jai on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. A cultural consultant, always a vague and unrewarding position.”
Temple shrugged. “Who cares what any of you do or think? I don’t want to win anyway.”
“I bet not. Losing can become a way of life. You get to sneer at the winners, whine, be cynical.”
“Cynical. Like it’s a sin? Sins are cool.”
“You try not to show it but you’re obviously a very bright girl.”
Temple sat up, indignant. “What makes you say that?” Kit smiled, making Temple feel like a rat for the masquerade.
“You worked that guy like a pro,” Kit said, woman to woman.
“Pro what?”
“Pro girly girl. No prob. That’s what this exercise in media exposure is about. Question is, is there a real person under that persona?”
“Persona? Lady, what big words you use. I’m more real than all those bottle blondes out there put together.”
“Granted. But what wins? The obvious. I almost voted against admitting you to the contest but I had to admire the crass way you played on Manship’s crassest inclinations. I have a weakness for chutzpah.”
“Is he really the deciding vote?”
“He’s the audience favorite. Everyone has a mean little devil inside aching to bust out. He feeds that need. That makes him a man of power. The temptation for women everywhere is to play the man of power. That’s the way women lose it. Lose it for winning.”
“So what are you doing here if the game’s so crooked?”
“Restoring balance? Plus, I’ve never done anything like this. I thought it’d be interesting. And it’ll help my career.”
“You’re just in it for the fame and fortune.”
“Anything wrong with that?”
“Just don’t go pretending you actually care about any of us.”
“But I do.”
When Temple snorted and looked away, Kit went on. “If we women leave it up to men to judge women, we’ll end up with the Taliban.”
Temple was speechless at the conviction in her aunt’s tone but Xoe squirmed in her chair. “This is way heavy stuff, lady.”
“She ain’t heavy, she’s my sister.”
Temple blinked. Maybe she had to banish tears. “That’s brother, lady, that quote. ‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”’
“It can’t work both ways?”
“Not in my world.”
“Get a different world, then. Make one.”
“I’m trying.” For an awful, role-playing moment, Temple was Xoe Chloe Ozone, teen girl rebel. Her Aunt Kit was good. Very good.
Kit smiled crookedly, at her. “Try a little less hard, and try being a little more soft, huh? Being interesting isn’t the kiss of death in the real world. It just looks like it sometimes.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Temple stood and slouched away. She was such a fraud.
Who else around here wasn’t?
Including a stalker/killer.
Before she reached the door, Kit leaped up to intercept her.
“Oh, fashion faux pas! You’ve got mascara smudgesunder both eyes. You surely don’t think raccoon eyes are punk?”
Before Temple could defend her waterproof brand of mascara, Kit leaned close and whispered, “We need to talk somewhere. Privately.” Kit nodded to a small door at the left and whispered again. “Adjoining privy. They had it right in the old days, didn’t they?”
Temple recognized the word for “private” as applied to old-time bathrooms. But Xoe Chloe just looked puzzled, then nodded and followed Kit past the coffered wooden door into a bathroom equipped for a Victorian household, wood-paneled, with matching enclosed tub and toilet.
Once there Kit turned the faucets on full, retrieved a pair of thong panties that were drying over the edge of the tub, thought better of it, grabbed a tea-rose-embroidered hand towel instead, and tossed it over some sort of sprinkler spigot in the ceiling.
Thong panties? Temple thought. “I don’t think they can have cameras in the bathroom,” Xoe Chloe whispered.
“Just to be safe, sweetie.” Kit sat on the broad tub surround and kicked off her shoes, a pair of svelte but sensible pumps. Pink. She was an ex-actress after all, and tended to dress for real life as if it were a play.
“Not in the bathrooms,” Temple said. “Invasion of privacy. Even for reality TV. Cross my heart. But it never hurts to be safe.”
“Exactly,” Kit said. “What’s up, niece?”
“Oh, darn! I was afraid you’d make me.”
“The big, black hair and big bad attitude did the job until I spent a bit more time with you. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, and it’s even worse to play your old Aunt Kit. What happened to your dear curly red head, which I first glimpsed when you lay in your mother’s arms spitting up on my fifty-dollar infant jumpsuit christening gift, which was a lot of money when you were born, dear, although now it wouldn’t make a decent tip at Lutèce.”
“Wigs are us here in Las Vegas. So I was an ingrate from the first, huh?”
“An expressive child, I would say. Not one afraid to make her opinions known, of the infant menu or the world at large.”
“How did you end up here—?” they began in unison.
Kit took the next line. “Money, dear heart. My feeble celebrity as a romance author doesn’t get me many freebies but this was one of them. I bet the producers thought my theatrical background would make me more exciting on camera. Poor things. The stage was my métier.”
“You’re plenty lively. And just who are the producers? We keep hearing about them but never see them.”
“Money men. It’s the same everywhere. They keep out of sight so no one can dun them for funds or tell them what to do. I call this particular set Toddman and Goodson, an old-fashioned pair of late-middle-aged men living vicariously through the stuff that dreams and network profits are made on. All the hip young producers are making CSI imitations. I imagine you haven’t seen them, my dear, because they look like accountants and you’d never recognize them as the powers that be. So, why the wild child persona?”