Part 3

I amble over to the momma calling my name, seeing that Miz Tanya is getting very agitated, waving her plump little hands in the air, her plump red lips a perfect O shape in the middle of her moon shaped white face. I have to struggle inwardly not to show my distaste towards her as I approach, “Can I help you Mis Tanya?” I asked politely just in time to hear the fat lady sing out, “Ohhhhh it’s ‘Lil ‘Lanta’s dress..” I take a long hard look and realize what’s wrong with Atlanta’s dress is that Tanya hurriedly dropped it down over her head and fastened it without making sure the heavy beadwork and lace was straight so as a result it looks like ill-fitting pile of pink frosting.. I kneel and straighten, tugging this way and that, careful of the faux pink pearls encrusting the sleeves and bodice until it looks again as it’s supposed to, like frosted pink crap.

While I’m working on the kinder tart’s attire momma stands over me and unleashes a steady stream of inane prattle about everything from how the pageant director cheapskated everything on the pageant thru her opinions on what rip off artists the photographer she used for “Photogenic” division was. I nodded, every now and then I even acknowledge what she’s said by uttering a “uh huh” but I do not comment. This derision of pageant officials, other moms, photographers, hair and makeup artists, it’s a common theme that runs under the pageants, bash everyone you can, behind their backs of course, and smile in their faces. I know as soon as I walk away I’ll be fair game for Miz Tonya too, dollars to donuts at some point she blames me to someone else for that “ill fitting dress”.

With a final pat to the dress, I stand, preparing to get away from Miz Tanya to sneak off and smoke another cigarette out in back of this Sheraton hotel. I can’t help but notice again how sick and twisted it is that Miz Tanya thinks it’s alright to cover her naturally beautiful four year old daughter in clown whore makeup and dress her up in this pinata diarrhea. But looking over at Miz Tanya perhaps it’s not so surprising, Tanya herself shows no fashion sense either, dressed in a too tight polyester dress the color of moldy mushrooms clinging to every roll of fat on her spacious body. She also sports the clown whore makeup look and same long teased fake blonde hairdo as her daughter, like something straight out of the 60s spaghetti westerns. All this just serves to make Miz Tanya look like the world’s ugliest drag queen. But I don’t say anything to Tonya about her lack of style, years ago I learned not to when I innocuously offered to dress a pageant momma only be handed my head for daring to suggest someone wasn’t the height of fashion.

I learned never to cross these bitches, just smile and take their money.

It wasn’t until I got involved in the pageant world that I realized how much of a valuable education my years working with Madame had been. She’d molded and shaped me, informed my tastes for the elegant and had taught me how to handle people, even the most tasteless classless assclowns on the planet. Even pageant moms.

Slouching towards the back of the hotel ballroom I stay just long enough to watch the lineup for the Beauty division, little girls four to six years old dressed like pastel frosted cupcakes grinning cheesily while an obviously over the top flaming gay man in a bad tux vocally mangles a Michael Bolton love song, pausing to warble tunelessly to each girl individually. I think thank God I only do the most major pageants now, preferring to send my assistant in the pageant side of things, Giselle, to handle the repairs and the sales room. I realize with a start that I’ve left Giselle alone past lunchtime so I trek back to our meeting room to relieve her. I don’t get too far before someone I try to avoid, the mother of reigning pageant queen Autumn Amber Joy, grabs me to start gabbing about a fitting issue with her daughter’s sportswear outfit. I promise her that I’ll fix the fit if she’ll just stop by the shop with both Autumn and the outfit. “Autumn Amber Joy,” she smugly corrects me, “We ALWAYS use all three names, Autumn Amber Joy, now don’t forget that again..” I smile cruelly and say, "And I've reminded you that my name is Madame Alsace Arceneaux but you seem to forget that as well" The affectation of calling myself "Madame" is something I picked up from my Madame, in honor of her as well as the fact that it does create some formality between myself and my clients, something I've discovered is only a good thing.

I get back to the sales room just in time to see that Giselle looks frazzled. Giselle is a sweet girl but not the most confident. I hired her shortly after we moved our entire operation from our original shop in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans. Giselle had limped into our store shortly after we opened and said that we probably wouldn’t have anything for her to do, would we? I looked at her and saw a very plain girl, a white girl, who seemed beaten down by life and felt like I knew what was inside of her, I understood. So we hired her on the spot and I haven’t regretted it since. She’s loyal, she works hard and she never complains. One of her legs is slightly shorter than the other and she limps as a result. In her mind her slight limp disqualifies her from happiness or a life. I’m trying to take her under my wing and make her see that just isn’t so. Just like Madame taking me on so many years ago and showing me my own potential.

Cynthia and I were both glad to leave our hometown after we were mugged several times coming home from the shop and once some crackhead robbed the shop at gun point. We decided that with the massive amount of pageant clientele we were doing combined with the fact that New Orleans seemed to be degenerating into more lawlessness that we should move. And we did, moving everything just an hour away from New Orleans to Baton Rouge Louisiana. This made more sense for us in every way but particularly since the costs of renting a building was cheaper in Baton Rouge, their crime rate was far lower and it was the state capital. Many of our devoted pageant moms lived in that vicinity too. We felt that the time was right for a move and it was.

After we took over an abandoned car dealership building on Airline Highway I was able to separate the businesses, have the sewing and design shop in one half of the building and turn the other half into a one stop full service pageant shop with everything from wiglets and fake hair to coaching, dance lessons and accessories. Cynthia ran the seamstress shop side and I worked on the pageant side, hiring a staff for that including a dance student from nearby LSU named Kipford Pennington III to teach dance and modeling. I even lured a pageant coach to operate out of our shop. We also opened a shop in the building that sold Mardi Gras supplies and costumes that eventually evolved into a party store. Oh lord how the money rolls in.

Baton Rouge has been kind to us, no one sussed that we’d spent most of our lives living in the poorest section of New Orleans, the Ninth Ward. We’d been able to reinvent ourselves here. Hell, Cynthia was able to reinvent herself the most, exchanging her coke bottle bottom glasses for green contacts, a new hair do and an elegant wardrobe. Cynthia even managed to find a guy and get married. They live in a suburb of Baton Rouge named Baker and she’s happy.

I didn’t manage to find anyone here I’d like to spend the rest of my life with but I do most definitely date a much better class of men than I could in New Orleans. There was a poor girl with a sewing shop from a bad neighborhood, here I’m a successful business owner with a large home off Jefferson Highway. I live well here and there are days when I wish my mother could have lived long enough to see my success. Baton Rouge is a place where anything could happen and the American dream seems attainable for anyone. I’ve even managed to take a few courses towards a degree at LSU.

Giselle is just starting to tell me about her own encounter with Sylvia, the mother of Autumn Amber Joy and the tale of the sagging crotch on the sportswear when we hear it, a scream, first one and then another and we rush out. The music inside the ballroom falls silent and the only sound to be heard is the hysterical screams of Miz Tanya crying, “My baybeeee,, my bayybeee.”

Everyone mills around in confusion, a buzz starting as whispers start. The girls on stage freeze, unsure for the first time exactly what to do, stealing glances at their mommas, their coaches for some idea what’s going on. The shrieking from Miz Tanya gets louder and I notice that she’s screaming something about Atlanta being missing.