Beauty Queens (31 page)

“Sinjin, I think we may have just found your talent.”

“What? Chest thumping?”

“Humanity.”

Sinjin wanted to toss off a witty comeback but found he had none. “Thanks, luv,” he said softly, sincerely.

“It’s the truth, Ruth.”

Sinjin put a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I’ll have you know it’s Shirley. I could never be a Ruth.”

“You know what I’m going to give you, Shirley?”

“What?”

“A makeover.”

Sinjin crawled over her, going for the kiss. “What if I look Droodful? Edwin Droodful?”

Petra winced. “Oh, good God.”

“Sorry.”

“Just for that, you’re getting the works.” Petra took Sinjin by the hand and dragged him into her tent.

Guitar at the ready, Ahmed sidled over to Nicole and Shanti’s hut with Charlie in tow. “Can I hang with the nondrinking party? Not a big fan of slurring my speech and walking like a toddler with a poopy diaper.”

“Totally,” Shanti said, making room.

Ahmed strummed and crooned softly. Jennifer lay her head in Sosie’s lap and Sosie stroked her hair absently.

“I feel like we’re in one of those old surf movies and we’re gonna have to do the Watusi,” Nicole said.

“No Watusi for me. I made a pledge of purity,” Tiara said.

Shanti shook her head at Nicole. “You’ve done all you can.”

“You know, I’ve watched Miss Teen Dream every year,” Ahmed explained. “I’ve got five sisters. The best was the time they did the Night of the Living Beauty Queen opening number and everybody looked like zombies in sequins? They were pretending to shamble and eat each other’s brains but they still had to smile and shout out their states? That was so wrong, it has its own zip code of wrong.”

“You have no idea how hard all that stuff is,” Shanti said.

“Doesn’t seem so hard,” Charlie scoffed.

“Really?” Shanti said. The girls exchanged glances. “So you think you could be in a pageant?”

Charlie shrugged. “Yeah. I do.”

“You think you could put up with all the things girls put up with?” Nicole pressed.

Ahmed shook his head. “No way, mate. I was there when my oldest sister gave birth to my nephew? That’s hard-core.” Ahmed nodded to the ekwe. “Cool drum.”

“Thanks. Made it myself.” Nicole pounded out a rhythm.

Ahmed bopped his head in time. “Dead brilliant.” He plucked
out a tune on his acoustic to accompany her. The others filled in with what they could find — sticks, coconuts, hollowed bamboo. Sosie did a wild Watusi in the sand while Jennifer stood next to her pointing one finger up and down in a deadpan disco.

Summoning up her courage, Shanti sang an Eastern-influenced riff and broke into a rap about living on an island, eating grubs, rescuing pirates, and eating weird berries. Her singing wasn’t special, but her rap was funny and tight, and the others whooped and applauded.

“You should record that,” Ahmed said.

Shanti adopted a ridiculous gangsta pose. “DJ Shanti Shanti. In the hut,” she said and laughed, but she didn’t feel like a fraud.

Sinjin called from the beach.

“Our master’s voice,” Ahmed said and rolled his eyes.

They looped back to the fire. Sinjin was sitting bare-chested with Petra’s blue feather boa wrapped around his neck and draped over his shoulder. His long dark curls had been teased and sprayed into a sexy mane. Heavy black eyeliner rimmed his eyes. “Am I not gorgeous? I want to snog myself. I’m like a postmodern Lord Byron.”

“You put the ironic in Byronic,” Petra quipped.

“Well said, luv.”

“Every time he calls me
love,
an angel gets its wings.” Petra’s sarcasm was unmistakable, and Sinjin seemed to enjoy it.

“Is this our new look, then, Captain?” George asked.

“It’s
my
new look. Get your own, mate. Petra was giving me an appreciation for what the other side goes through.” Captain Sinjin adjusted the boa. “Got to let a tasteful hint of man-nipple show.”

Tiara looked confused. “Men have nipples? Is that new?”

“Men. Have. Nipples!” Adina shouted.

“Adina’s been teaching us stuff at Smart School. Like about geography and real estate companies and feminism,” Tiara explained to the pirates.

“Cool,” said George.

“Yeah. It is.” She squinted in thought. “Do you think my new feminism makes me look fat?”

“Darlings, do you know what I think it’s time for? I think it’s time for your captain to have a soliloquy.”

Brittani covered her eyes. “Oh. Um. You can just go behind the tree. That’s what we all do.”

“No, luv. A soliloquy. A speech.” Sinjin toasted another stale marshmallow. “Imagine, if you will, that I’m sitting on the ship’s deck, in a spot of moonlight that is doing absolutely fantastic things for my bone structure. Really, I’m like a god right now. Can you see it? I can see it. It’s exciting me. Eh, mates?”

“Arrrrggggh!”

“Well said. I didn’t set out to become a pirate. I’d hoped to become a barrister. Wear a powdered wig like a sexy beast. Hot!” Sinjin brandished the marshmallow and everyone jumped back. “That was before the tragic fire that took Mom and Dad. I was away at boarding school. Then me and my mates witnessed a murder and had to go on the run.”

“I thought that was the story line for the show,” Shanti whispered to Nicole.

“Hello! Mid-soliloquy, luv. Give us a moment in the moonlight. Where was I?”

“On the run, Mr. Micawber,” Petra prompted.

“Right! On the run.” Sinjin’s smile faded. “Look. We weren’t entirely honest with you before, about being blown off course. The truth is, the ratings for
Captains Bodacious IV
have been down. Really down.”

“More people watched
In Your Grandma’s Attic,”
Chu said. “We couldn’t even compete with granny’s old brooches going to auction.”

“Marketing says pirates are over — it’s all about hot trolls now. They’ve got a hot troll show lined up and ready to go in our time slot:
Trollin’ on Delaware Beach.
Ridiculous! Like, who is going to
watch a bunch of trolls getting drunk at clubs and trying to entice college girls to their place under the bridge? I heard goats mentioned, too, and that’s just wrong.”

“It’s always about whatever’s next,” Petra said ruefully. “When I was in Boyz Will B Boyz, they treated us like little gods, then threw us away the minute Hot Vampire Boyz came along. They think they can toss you away like garbage.”

“Rubbish,” Sinjin said.

“Exactly.”

“No, I just like saying
rubbish
better than saying
garbage.
Hotter. But you’re right, luv. They’re beasts in programming.” Sinjin tested the marshmallow’s temperature and, finding it satisfactory, fed it to Petra with his fingers. “Anyway, The Corporation was going to cancel us. So we thought, what could we do to really raise the stakes? I know! Let’s go rogue! Be real pirates. We thought we’d take a joyride in the boat, get a bit of press, jolt the ratings up again. Except when we got to the docks, we saw something we shouldn’t have.”

“What was that?” Adina said on a yawn.

“There were these blokes in black shirts. And they were unloading cargo from Corporation boats.” Sinjin’s face darkened. “Human cargo. Trafficking.”

“Whoa,” Shanti said.

“They saw us and started shooting! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be shot at? It’s nothing like in the movies, I can tell you that. It’s terrifying, and you feel like you’re going to soil your pants.”

“I did soil my pants,” George said. “Oh. I got new pants. No worries.”

Sinjin pointed a finger. “They would have killed the lot of us. Didn’t care who we were. So we sailed off and took our chances. It was like reality imitating reality TV, which is one meta more than I like. We disabled the radio so they couldn’t track us, hit a squall our second day out, and got blown off course. We’ve been on the run for two weeks now, trying to figure out what to do and how to survive at sea.”

“We’ve been trying to figure out how to survive, too,” Nicole said.

“It’s kind of a mixed-up, messed-up world we’re inheriting,” Shanti said. “When we get back, we should do something to change that.”

“Add that to Girl Con,” Adina said.

“What’s Girl Con?” Ahmed asked.

“It’s what we’re going to do instead of pageants,” Tiara explained.

“Ugh.” Adina pushed aside the bottle of rum. “No more rum. I’m sorry. We have to break up, rum. But we’ll still be friends.” Adina stifled a burp and made a face. “Or not.”

Duff stood and offered his hand. “Want to go for a walk on the beach? Fresh air would probably sober you up some.”

“I take umbrage at that, sir! I am not drunk.”
⁴³
Adina took a step and stumbled over her feet.

Duff helped her up. “I admire a girl who can use
umbrage
even when she’s not-drunk drunk.”

“Well, a little tipsy, maybe.”

Duff squeezed his thumb and forefinger together. “Maybe a little.”

“Walkies,” Adina said decisively.

Duff lit a torch and they walked along the curve of beach for some time, back and forth, until Adina’s head was not so rum-muddled. The tide sucked at the sand beneath their toes. The sea breeze was bracing. Stars glistened in the velvet dark beside a fat white moon.

“Hey! Did you see that?” She pointed in the direction of the volcano.

“What?” Duff said, following her finger.

“Over there, in the fog. I saw lights.”

For a split second, the fog pulsed with red light. “Yeah. That’s really weird. It’s like some kind of signal. Are you sure you’re the only people on this island?”

“We haven’t seen anybody else. But we haven’t explored all the way over there. It’s a long way.”

“Maybe it’s one of those towers that tries to make contact with deep space or track weather.”

“Except it’s not a tower. It’s a volcano. Volcanoes only do volcanoey things. And that” — she pointed to the distant point — “is not a volcanoey thing.”

“Yeah,” Duff said. “Weird.”

Adina gazed at Duff. His bare chest was an advertisement for living shirtless. Oh God. She was objectifying him. Reducing the sum of him to the hotness of his parts. She couldn’t help it.

He caught her staring and she looked away quickly.

“Can I ask you something? Why don’t you like me?” he asked.

“I-I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Adina stooped to pick up a shell. “I don’t not like you.”

“Thank you,” Duff said with mock seriousness. “I can’t tell you how much that sentence has restored my ego.”

Adina laughed. She palmed the shell. “It’s just, all the girls were losing their shit over you guys, and I just …” She tossed the shell back into the ocean. “I’m immune to the romantic pirate trope. Nothing personal.”

“Right. Romantic hero. Got it. And I’m hiding a deep and tragic wound which I mask with arrogant wit and pained grimaces?”

“Absolutely. Comes standard.”

Duff picked up a shell, too, and rubbed the sand from it. “What if that weren’t a lie?”

“Right,” Adina said, saluting him. “Moon’s high. Stars are out. Your deep and tragic wound, take one.” She clapped her hands together. “Action.”

Duff tossed the shell into the sea. “Never mind. Let’s head back.”
“Wait!” Adina grabbed at Duffs arm. “What did I say?”

“You think I’m an asshole.”

“What? No! I — I’m sorry. I’m not great at this.”

Duff rocked back on his heels, his hands in his pockets. “You do make it hard for a guy to open up.”

“I’m sorry,” Adina said. “Deep and tragic wound, take two. For real. How did you end up on this ship of fools?”

Duff walked in the tide and Adina kept pace. “It was my sister’s idea, actually. She thought I should audition for season four. She kept bugging me about it.”

“Wow. Your sister really wanted the PlayStation to herself, huh?”

“No. She died of leukemia.”

Adina closed her eyes briefly in embarrassment. “Oh God. I am so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. That was such a jerky thing to say and —”

He held her hand and she felt the warmth in her toes. “Adina, it’s okay. Really.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Thanks,” Duff said. He picked up a conch and wiped the sand from it. “Anyway, I went a little crazy after that. Ditching school. Breaking and entering. Me and some blokes I knew stole a car and ended up in jail. I was headed for nowhere good when I saw the casting call notice for season four. The producers were looking for a bad boy. I was looking for a way out of Newcastle.” He shrugged. “There you go. Deep and tragic wound explained.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, do you fancy a swim with me?”

“What, now?”

“Why not?”

“Because …” And she couldn’t really think of a reason not to.

“Last one in’s a rotten egg,” he said. He shucked off his pants and shirt, and Adina, who had taken a life drawing class, Adina, who prided herself on her body comfort, that Adina blushed
very hard. There was a world of difference between a body in the abstract and a body you desired, and Adina desired Duff’s body very much.

“The water’s bloody lovely,” he called, shaking the water from his hair.

“It’ll be fine,” Adina said to herself. She stripped down and eased into the waves. He was right. It was bloody lovely.

It is said that the moon is very powerful. It influences tides and weather. It has been worshipped and deified. Perhaps it was the moon that loosened the bindings on the night and the secret wounds held so close. For hours, Adina and Duff allowed the waves — also under the sway of the moon — to carry them as they talked easily about life, school, music, family. The rum lost its effect on Adina, and something more intoxicating took over.

“It’s just that my mom had been married five times. Five times!” Adina said. “And every time, she says, ‘This is The One, Deen. This is the guy I’ve been waiting for. My real life starts now.’ Except it doesn’t.” She let a tiny wave ripple her up and back down. “It’s so painful to watch. I just don’t want to be like that, you know?”

“I know. My dad played the field. Once he and my mom split up, I lived with him. He was always ‘the man’ and I idolized him. Always out with these beautiful women. Always a bespoke suit and a twenty for the guy at the door — and believe me, he knew all the guys at the door. Real flash.” Duff swam long, slow circles around Adina. “But after a while, I realized he couldn’t do it.”