Part 10

It doesn’t take long before the situation in the ballroom turns very ugly. Sheila stands first, Sheila Conners and paces towards the older black detective riding herd on these mommas and their offspring. But before Sheila and her tattoos arrive she’s joined by the stringy ex Marine, Samantha Smith. Sam is rangy, skinny and tough looking to Sheila’s plump rough biker chick cum 7-11 appearance. They surround Detective Conyers and both speak almost simultaneously, shouting about missed deadlines, blown pageants and let’s get this show on the road, oh hells yeah! I’m close enough to the front to hear the exchange, seeing Roger Conyers spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture, hearing the most calming blandishments come from his mouth. I understand fully why the HPD has sent him down, to be the soothing effect in a jarring situation. His words and gestures aren’t enough for either Sam or Sheila, Sheila roughly grabs his elbow and shouts something about who’s going to reimburse her fucking money for this fucking pageant if they don’t get a fucking chance to fucking compete. Sam stands aside, arms akimbo and nods and mutters, “Uhu” in a bored voice as Conyers explains again that the first priority is finding out where Atlanta Bledsoe is. Samantha says in a angry voice that their plan isn’t good enough, her and Rayvyn didn’t come here to sit on their asses in a ballroom, and she started to push Conyers hard on his chest. The look of shock on his face is almost comical except that in that instance the air shifts suddenly and the angry intensity I felt earlier boils over into a reality.

Many of the moms leap up, leaving purses, gaudy costumes and crying children as they swarm forward to scream at and pummel Detective Roger Conyers. For the first time I’m afraid. No good can possibly come of this. Giselle grabs my arm hard, burying her face into my shoulder as I look back and try to assess how many people have remained in their seats. Not many, myself and Giselle, Butt Ugly Mr. Steve, the other Mr. Steve, the judges and a handful of others. The rapper in particular looks confused, I‘m betting this is nothing like what he anticipated by agreeing to judge a childrens beauty pageant. I can almost read his thoughts, he’s thinking how bizarre white folks are. Butt Ugly Mr. Steve just shakes his head sadly as we watch the world’s largest pageant moms brawl. I can just imagine how this is going to play out on the Houston evening news, the headline surely thought up by some wag and it goes something like “Beauty Pageant Gets Ugly As Moms Riot” I shudder, stand, pulling Giselle with me and we move backwards in the room, all the way back to where Butt Ugly Mr. Steve is sitting with Jooniper. Jooniper is crying along with many of the other kids.

The cops have gone mad, as mad as the pageant moms, wading into the roiling crowd to slap cuffs on and drag off as many women as possible. They line up the cuffed offenders against a far wall as another of them shouts into his walkie talkie that a 10-108 is occurring and that all officers should report to the ballroom with cuffs and pepper spray asap. I’m glad that we’ve moved to the back of the room as the new arrivals show no compunction whipping out canisters of pepper spray to blast the moms with. The arid scent drifts back to where we’re sitting and I have to admit it makes me squeeze out a few tears. The police officers continue cuffing and hauling aside women, but women who are crying and gasping from the pepper spray. I see that pageant director Leslie Leehanna’s wig is askew and her makeup has smeared into a dripping wet fright mask.

By the time it’s all over Detective Conyers is on his knees crying from the spray as the sergeant in charge is reading off the Miranda rights to the roughly 50 plus moms cuffed against the far wall. They’re being charged with a whole laundry list of crimes, from assaulting a police officer to malicious mischief to public nuisance. The funniest charge of all is child endangerment. I don’t know how they’re going to make that stick but I get the feeling that the cops are sick of dealing with these whiny bitches and they’re going to throw the book at them while they can. Someone else gets on the horn and calls for an ambulance for the obviously injured Conyers while someone else calls for a paddy wagon to haul the moms downtown in. A third officer calls for a fleet of folks from CPS to come for intakes on the crying children left behind. The rest of us stay frozen in our seats, mortified by the behavior of the others and afraid to draw attention to ourselves in any way lest we too end up in the back of a squad car facing a pile of legal charges.

No one says a word as paramedics haul away Detective Conyers and the women are led out in a line for transport. It’s only when CPS arrives that we start to wonder what will happen, bunching together in the back and whispering among ourselves. The two Mr. Steves are eating this scandal up like it’s an ice cream sundae sprinkled with nuts and cherries. “Man, I just want to get the hell out of here..” I hear the rapper judge mumble beneath his breath. I nod because I feel the same way. What happens to us?

Agent Naquin and Detective Hull show up, watching as the uniformed officers and CPS workers sort through the kids and start hauling them away. We freeze guiltily, we few remaining, as Naquin levels his deadly serious gaze on all of us. “We would like all of you to return to your rooms here in the hotel immediately. Officers will escort you one by one.. except for you Miz Arceneux, we’re reserved a room here for you and an officer is going to help you and Miz Gilbeaux pack up your suite and relocate you here..” Before he can finish talking about his plans a shout interrupts Naquin. A shout from just behind the stage, coming through the doors leading out behind the hotel, “We found her..” Naquin’s eyebrows nearly shoot off his face in surprise and he chokes out, “Status?” as the young officer shouts back, “Henry John”

I don’t need to look at the cops faces to figure out what this means. Many years ago I’d dated a cop, helping him study for his sergeants exam right down to helping him review his police codes. A Henry John is a homicide involving a child. As I’m remembering this a young rookie rushes into the room bearing the body of Atlanta Bledsoe with her beauty dress pushed up around her waist and blood smearing her legs and lower torso. The knotted sash from her dress is dug deeply into the flesh around her throat, her face a strange shade of dark. One of the female judges screams before fainting at this ghastly sight. I can feel that next to me Giselle is choking, trying desperately not to puke. Sobs all around at the reality of what’s happened to Atlanta. The few children remaining scream in horror for their mommies.

“What are you doing you idiot!!!” Detective Margarite Hull roars at the rookie, “You’re supposed to leave the body where it’s found so we can process the crime scene. You’re destroying the entire crime scene you fucking moron!” As she’s shouting the rookie has laid the child’s corpse right on the stage, beneath the glittering lights and gaily bedecked stage decorations. She shouts again, “Everyone out, everyone not law enforcement out right now.” We comply as Agent Naquin steers us to the lobby to await our escorts to the rooms.

Part 9

So I lied, I'm going to still try when my computer programmers elbow and lots of vicodin will allow me to..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once we head into the ballroom a sort of nervous hysteria can be felt, just right below the surface. It’s quiet, a quiet as a graveyard but the undercurrent is there just the same, just like in the ocean when a killer tsunami is on the way. The surface of the water is calm, dead calm, with just the few ripples breaking the glassy surface but beneath that placid exterior a deadly force roils at hundreds of miles an hour with the potential to destroy everything in it’s path. You can just tell secrets have been exchanged, mulled over and passed on. Everyone is suspecting everyone else, the slightest look or whisper is subject to scornful suspicion.

I see lots of teary faces on the kids and hear the occasional whimper. This has been going on at least two hours now and I don’t know how much longer the Houston police dept. is going to be able to keep everyone penned up here without an uprising on their hands. Most of the moms look restless in their jeans and polyester clothing. I see looks of frowning faces to go with the murmuring voices. Restlessness and agitation telegraphed by body language. The cops have to do something soon or the mutiny will get ugly quickly.

After a quick secretive look around Giselle and I take a seat towards the front of the ballroom as it seems the farther back seats are all filled. Unfortunately the seats we’ve chosen happen to be next to Mary Byrd Walters. Mary is pretty vile, she’s extremely obese with a short hairdo like someone slapped a bowl over her round head and cur around with dull shears. But it’s deeper than the physical, she’s foul mouthed, unpleasant and supposedly a Christian. The problem is that she blames everything on the devil, every little tiny monkey-blessed frickity thing. Raining outside? The devil. Run in your pantyhose? The devil. Your kid didn’t even place at a pageant? The devil and his whorish minions - other pageant moms. And she doesn’t shut up. You get in her way and she’ll start shouting about casting your demonic addled ass out with the blood of the lamb and end trying to call down fire from heaven on your cloven hoofs. Mary has been on one of those dumb reality shows that lets you switch with another wife for a week and behaved the same exact way she does here. Really gave Amite, Louisiana a black eye.

Before the first pageant she attended she started talking trash on the boards about her daughter, how she was going to win everything against the reigning pageant queen, Laureen Ying. She’d say things like , “She is a newbie.. hasnt ocmpeted nationally yet been trained by the best coach, has new top clothes. And she is by far prettier than any kids anyones ever seen at pageants.. and Ive knows beautiful.. seriously. She is 5, has gorgeous long dark brown hair, huge green eyes (odd bright green too), perfectly arched eyebrows, big nice natural white teeth (and no flipper hmmph), and a butt chin...she is perfect. shes gonna kick laurren yings chink ass” Truly classy huh?

Well that’s not exactly what happened. Her tiny version of herself, tubby with pasty white flesh and triple chins except with longer hair, arrived at Toytown Girls pageant and didn’t even place. Momma cried and demanded to see the score sheets, cornered judges and harangued them about what does and doesn’t count for scores to no avail. And it’s been like that at most of the pageants since even as she’s bought more and more expensive dresses, piled the makeup on deeper and kissed a million miles of ass. Tiny Tubs has only scored a few runner ups. In the week following a competition two things will happen that I know of, she’ll call me up to bitch and moan about how this latest dress didn’t help before trying to beat down my price for making a custom dress followed by her posting wild accusations all over the internet about what happened at the pageant to stop her little sweetums from winning. The funny thing to me is that every pageant she wants to moan to me about her dresses yet I’ve never actually sold her a thing.

Sure enough, Lil Louisiana Fats is starting to cry and rub her face on her momma’s shoulder as Mary Byrd barks out an order not to smear her makeup. Just behind Mary Byrd I hear the gravid tones of another mother, a newbie from West Virginia, Sheila Conners, all of about 20 years old. She works at a 7-11 most days, standing behind the counter with a bored expression on her flaccid face selling Big Bites and Marlboros in between refilling the coffee pots. She’s reputed to have the foulest mouth of all the pageant moms. Most of the moms save their nastiness and their vitriol for the message boards and groups online, masquerading behind the anonymousness of the internet to spew their annoyance with each other. Not Sheila, she’ll call you a motherfucking cunt right to your face, while she’s spitting in your face and you stand there confused, trying to figure out which eye to look at in her face because her false eye doesn’t point in the same direction as her one remaining real eye. She’s nothing much to look at and she’s got an impressive collection of tattoos on her exposed flesh. I look at her angelic two year old, all blonde ringlets, blue eyes and smiles and wonder who’s kid she stole. LaWonder could not be her natural child you think. But she is. I’m not sure exactly what type of freakish situation occurred or what twisted humor exists in heaven to allow her spawn to look so beautiful. Sweet child as well.

At that moment Sheila is telling the lady next to her that she’s going to kick some cops ass if he thinks he can shut down the contest her baby is winning just because some idiot can’t figure out where her kid ran off to while she’s drunk. I have to shake my head at that statement, as much as I dislike Miz Tanya I actually am starting to feel sorry for her, the crowd in here would willingly string her up by her thumbs right at this moment. The feeling in the room is ugly, like what you’d imagine the mood would be in a Roman coliseum waiting for the lions to attack the Christians.

Dropping Out...

due to severe right arm problems. I'm only able to use my right hand a few hours each day and keeping the family going takes priority over my novel...sniff... I'm so disappointed....

Part 8

I’m still laughing as I stagger down the hall away from the hair and makeup room currently being used as a makeshift interrogation room. As I left I asked Detective Hull’s permission to wait in my sales room instead of going back to the ballroom. She grants it and as I’m escorted away I start talking to the nice young patrolman, picking his brain about why a detective from the Homicide unit is investigating a child disappearance along with an FBI agent. He tells me not to spread the news but that the FBI had been digging into the possibility of a link between the subculture of pedophiles and the beauty pageant industry. The feds insisted that a Homicide investigator be assigned to this missing persons case because of it might have some small link to what they were looking into. He encouraged me to go to Agent Naquin if I had anything useful to contribute, anything I might have seen through the years. As I went through the doors of the sales room I’d laughed, telling that earnest young man that I’d seen plenty through the years but I didn’t know if any of it applied to the investigation.

Just as I was afraid of Giselle was beside herself, upset over the occurrences of this morning. She was so pale, I noticed and shaking, her lips taking on a bluish tint as she murmured that she was so glad I’d come to sit with her. As I walked in I noticed her kneeling in the corner, eyes closed with rosary beads clutched tightly in her thin lips, pale lips moving in silent prayer.

I’m nervous and on edge about what’s going on here too but I figure it’s not going to help solve the situation by losing it. Speaking with the police was a bit unnerving but I’ve done nothing wrong I kept reminding myself, no reason to be upset, even Tanya’s insane accusation would be proven to be nothing.

Our room was a mess, trunks opened and overflowing, dresses tossed on the floor, the table having heaps of things everywhere. It looks like the searchers went through this room with a leaf blower. So I decide that what we’ll do when we’re waiting is to pack up everything as best we can. It’s not likely that the pageant will resume, at least not today. So we start picking up tiny dresses, smoothing the wrinkles caused by mishandling as best we can, wrapping them in fresh tissue paper and packing them away in our large black trunks.

I had thought that having Giselle engaged in something practical would calm her down but I notice as we’re putting things away that her hands still shake and a lone tear slides down her face. In an effort to inject some levity into the room I start naming off all the upcoming pageants in the most sarcastic manner possible, giving them all dumb names and taking on the voices and mannerisms of various problem clients we’ve had.. Pretty soon Giselle is laughing, joining in my game, adding her own versions of the pageants.

“Lil' Miss Split Peas allllllllllll the way!”

“Was that the one where the girl with the franks and beans swimwear won? I was shocked she definitely didn't follow the rules with those franks on there!!!”

“That outfit had more rhinestones and gold and silver glitter than that pitiful OTR outfit your child had on! You can take that to the bank,girl!”

“Yes it had rhinestones but it also had HOT DOGS and that's not allowed”

“The Pork n bean National !!”

“I didn't like that pageant! My child's fartwear was the best and she was completely overlooked!”

“The Lil' Miss Deep Fryer Turkey Shoot and Pageant”

“and the winner gets a Wal Mart Wardrobe??”

“Little Miss Cheetohs was my favorite!”

“Yeah! It would be your favorite! We all know your child won grand. Do you have to rub it in?”

“My daughter would have won if the director would not have catered to Chester.”

“Yeah your kid didn't deserve grand. That little orange plastic crap dress was no match for my Tootie's plush orange velvet cheeto dress! It was breathing and it was made by a top new up and coming pageant designer, IMA Chicken! She knows more about Cheetos' than you any day. PS: It's for sell on Ebay right now. A super duper , breathing, spectacular, one of a kind, princess, mistress, woman, little girl pageant dress. Never worn! “

“PSS: The dress has never been worn but it has supremed every time!”

“Hey don't be orange , sorry meant green. We earned that title fair and square. That orange dress was made of pure 100% cheeto bags! It took a lot of parties at the trailer to empty all them bags.”

“That's a lie. I know that's you Tempura! You think you're a gift to the world and you're not! I checked those cheeto bags and the paint rubbed off! That was Koolaid bags under there. Cheap glued on Koolaid bags. Read the rules next time.”

“Hey! Instead of using rhinestones on the next dress I design I think I'll use skittles. What ya'll think?”

We’re laughing so hard we don’t notice that Agent Naquin has shown up. He must have knocked and we didn’t hear him because he’s opened the door and is standing in the doorway with a funny look on his face, listening to us parody the entire pageant thing. He’s holding my hotel suite key and says somewhat gruffly, “Here.” I have to stop what I’m doing, which is stuffing hair pieces into a box and collapse laughing before saying, “So did you find whatever it was you were looking for in my suite?”

He taciturnly nods no. But I cannot resist asking, “So do you still want that writing exemplar?” He speaks and I notice his accent is not local, it’s not Houston and it’s certainly not Southern. I’ve had to put it at West coast perhaps, with a touch of Latino. “No, we’re pretty sure you didn’t write that.. and your alibi during the pageant checks out.. Ms. Bledsoe is obviously too distrait to give us much to go on. You were there, you see anything that you didn’t mention earlier?”

What can I say? I shrug and resume packing wiglets into plastic bags, “You know, the whole pageant world is.. a little... odd, for want of a better word. So I’m not sure what to tell you. I saw nothing unusual, if hysterics, verbal cat fights, very swishy men and children dressed like Vietnamese hookers is the usual.” Why pretend any longer I think as I say these words, from what he overheard coming into the room it should be obvious I’m no fan of these contests or the people that populate them. Somewhere behind me Giselle nervously giggles. I wink at Giselle, which really sends her over the edge into laughter.


“I’m glad you ladies find this all so amusing,” Agent Naquin snipes in disgust, turning back towards the door. I feel instantly guilty, asking softly, “You have to excuse me sir, I’ve had about all the pageant I can take, in fact this weekend makes me think that perhaps selling my pageant business might not be such a bad idea. What’s happening with your investigation? I take it you haven’t located Atlanta yet?” He paused in the doorway just long enough to say, “Not yet.. we’ve searched the interior of the hotel and the uniforms are about to start on the vehicles and exterior of the building.. in fact, we’re asking everyone to come down to the ballroom to wait until we’ve completed the search. I’d like both of you ladies to go to the ballroom as soon as you’ve secured your merchandise.”

It didn’t take us long after Agent Naquin left to finish packing things up and securing the trunk locks. Even if I couldn’t have seen the pale shade of Giselle’s face I’d have heard her continued nervousness in her voice. She was so shy and retiring under normal circumstances that something like this was enough to send her into a real tizzy. In the time she’s worked for me I’ve tried to impart the lessons Madame taught me years ago, how to handle people, how to stand up for yourself, how to dress but much of what I’ve passed on seems to have gone in one ear and straight out of the other. She’s clearly flustered, making the odd mistake with the inventory, dropping things and starting one task only to leave it unfinished and moving to something else.

Part 7

After a while my own name is called out and I can only guess exactly what this means. It means that Miz Tanya Bledsoe has erroneously given the detectives my own name as one of the last people to see Lil ‘Lanta. I’m beginning to believe that the pageant mommies are right and that Tanya has pulled some sort of stunt in an attempt to disrupt the pageant. I sigh, getting up from my chair slowly, feeling my old bones creak from having sat motionless for a while. The young cop waits for me to make my way to the door impassively, the expression on his face giving away nothing. As I pass Sam she grabs one of my hands, squeezes it and whispers, “Go get ‘em, tell ‘em what a stupid lying bitch Tanya is..”

I follow the young man through the hallway, across the lobby and over to the meeting rooms. We pass the room that holds my inventory of pinata diarrhea and Giselle. Giselle sticks her head out and gives me a look, a look that indicates to me that the cops have talked to her already and she’s afraid for me. I can also see that the contents of our room are in a massive disarray, so they’ve searched the sales room already. I have to wonder even more what Tanya has told them. Lord help us all.

As we walk along I have to reflect the first time I met Tanya. She came to my shop, all breathless and excited, looking for a fully crinolined dress for a one year old and asking me if I thought hair extensions were too much on a baby. She was also looking for someone who would dye her baby’s naturally brown hair to a golden in time for the next big national pageant. The thing I remember the most is that she was exhausting, I’d traipsed around after her in the shop going “No Ma’am, yes Ma’am”

I realize as my escort opens a door that the detectives have taken over the other Mr. Steve’s hair and makeup room. Oh, he’s going to be pissed off. It’s the smallest of all the meeting rooms here and was cram packed with every conceivable type of makeup and hair appliance. As I enter I see the detectives have roughly pushed aside his careful array of makeup, looks like they just swept it with one arm into the cardboard box on the floor. I smile just imaging the fit Steve’s going to have. He’s notorious for wanting things just so, lining up everything in a certain order and by color, as if it’s a giant living palette.

Detectives Hull and Naquin are sitting at the makeshift makeup table, heads together comparing notes. As I step up I notice that Hull is eyeing me, sizing me up from head to toe with a sharp glance, dissecting me already in her mind. Naquin indicates I’m to sit and so I do as they say a few opening pleasantries. But before long they get down to the real reason I’m here.

“Ms. Arceneaux, you’re aware of why we’ve called you in, , aren’t you?” Agent Naquin asked, his green eyes honing in on my light brown ones, seeking to see if I’m going to lie to him. I smile sadly and reply, “Because Atlanta Bledsoe is missing and her mother probably told you I was one of the last people to see her.”

Detective Hull leans back in her chair, tapping a pencil idly against her leg and frowns before stating, “She said you were the last one to see her daughter, not one of the last ones..you wanna explain that?” I have to snort in derision at Tanya’s accusations, “Oh please, that woman is completely delusional.. what happened was this, she called me over to where she and ‘Lanta were, over to the side of the ballroom. ‘Lanta’s dress had been donned too quickly and it was twisted around her. I came over, straighten the lines of the dress, adjusted it minutely while Tanya Bledsoe complained about everything under the sun. I got up and walked away and they went backstage for beauty, passing by at least a dozen other pageant mommies, both of the Mr. Steves and the pageant director and backstage people. I’m sure we were in full view of the judges as well. She disappeared into the backstage area with the child. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you I never went backstage, I wasn’t the last one with the child and that actually I went to the back of the ballroom to watch the beauty competition because I wanted to see how the dresses I’d designed recently looked under the stage lights.”

Agent Naquin is busy writing, taking notes on what I’ve said as Hull looks hard at me, like she finds me loathsome and says, “Who would be backstage at a thing like this?“ I shrug and reply, “Lots of people could be backstage, from the mothers to the coaches to the hair and makeup people doing last second adjustments, photographers, the pageant emcee.. Find out who was backstage and you’ll find who snatched that child... that’s if someone did..are you entirely sure she didn‘t just wander away from her mother. Tanya drives that child pretty relentlessly. Perhaps she‘s sleeping off the sugar rush from a can of Red Bull. Tanya usually gives her some sort of chemical pick me up before talent, Red Bull, Double Shot Expresso and sometimes a tiny corner from her diet pills so ’Lanta might be crashed somewhere sleeping..”

They both stare at me, temporarily horrified by the thought of a mother using chemicals, prescription or not, to cause a child to behave differently for a pageant. Naquin speaks first, “Are you serious? She’s giving the girl one of her precrips?” I smile sickly, “Yeah, well it’s pretty common way of doing things for the mommas that don’t give a damn about anything but the win for their kid. Tanya’s one of those. Do you know that the other mothers in the ballroom are speculating that she created the story of Atlanta being missing to disrupt the pageant since Atlanta was doing so poorly in the earlier parts of the pageant. She’s pulled a boatload of underhanded stunts through the years and you’d have to go a long way to find another person on the pageant circuit as disliked as Tanya Bledsoe”

A piece of paper gets shoved in front of me as Detective Hull asks, “Like this? Is this typical?”

I scan the paper, reading quickly.

The Seafarers Miss Mermaid pageant was a disgrace to the pageant world. The prizes were not what was advertised and no I am not referring to the 15 dollar beauty win. I mean the 1/2 inch crowns and the photo frames and the dollar sashes for a Mini National, is this director serious? It did run on time that was a plus but it was a very long day. The schedule was wacked. I think the directors selection in judges was horrible. They knew absolutely nothing about what they were talking about and their comments proved it. Their scores further evidenced my point. There was a huge variance in scores, children would get 9.8 from one judge and 7.1 from another, how are we to know what they were looking for? I questioned a judge in the ballroom and when I asked what did she mean by a certain comment she said oh I don't know what I was thinking at the time. Why bother coming to crowning if you can not justify why you scored a contestant a certain score or have any CORRECTIVE criticism. I use the term corrective loosely because the comments were harsh. Sometimes the truth can hurt and it may be an eye opener but their comments written were just plain wrong. We paid good money for this pageant and my daughter won $15.00. The win did not feel like a win, the crown was a 3 inch crown, I felt like I was at a Sunburst Prelim and we all know how that goes. Needless to say we will not be returning and will not recommend the system to any others. If her intention was to prove street children could win against well seasoned pageant kids, then she did that however she ruined her reputation as a director. I do not think one person in the ballroom thought the winners were "on" even the mothers of the contestants that won were shocked their children won. That's saying something. One day someone’s gonna get sick of her shit and there will be real hell to pay. I hope it’s soon.

“Yes, I hear some grumbling about the Seafarers pageant. I didn’t attend so I can’t tell you first hand what occurred but I do know that many were extremely pissed off by the outcome.” The man looked thoughtfully over at the lady detective and for a fleeting second I thought I caught the barest glimmer of something between them, something smoldering and hot but the next second it was back to business as Agent Naquin baldly stated, “You wanna give us a handwriting sample and the key to your hotel room?” I laughed, long and hard, before fishing the electronic key to my suite out of my bag and gasping, “Oh detective you are so barking up the wrong tree if you think I had anything to do with ‘Lanta’s disappearance. Personally I do not give a rats ass what happens to these pageant folks, from Tanya to the next one. I only care that their money is as green as everyone else’s. Long green and spends, that’s all. Another couple of years I’ll sell my shop and retire. Move somewhere that is warm and do what I want, raise orchids, read, take long walks on the beach..” I’m laughing so hard I’m crying, punch drunk with fatigue and tension, and I reach forth to try and take that pencil from Detective Hull as I giggle out, “I wasn’t even at Seafarer but I’ll give you a writing sample because I ain’t got nothin’ to hide.” I’m so tired I’m lapsing back into 9th Ward ghettoese. Agent Naquin makes a small face to indicate he finds none of this amusing before saying, “Don’t fuck with my cha cha... get out of here..”

Part 6

We all stare at the man, even the smallest of tiny blonde haired girls falling silent at the sight of the Houston Police Dept. Detective taking the stage and commandeering a microphone. Even the glitter on the painted back drops seems to dim in an effort to silently genuflect before real authority. He seems a ludicrous vision , poised the dignified on the stage of the Oh You Beautiful Doll pageant, standing among glistening cardboard cutouts of kewpie dolls. None of the mommas dares to breath waiting for the next thing.

He speaks and I cannot clearly concentrate on the words coming from his mouth due to the distraction he poses just by standing here under the hot lights. Handsome, when’s the last time I’ve seen such a handsome man who wasn’t clearly homosexual, I can’t even remember it’s been so long. I stare at him as he introduces himself to the crowd as Detective Roger Conyers and proceeds without much in the way of small talk to tell us why he’s here. Just as I suspected he’s here because ‘Lanta Bledsoe is officially missing. We’re all instructed to take a seat on the light green padded chairs lined up in the ballroom because the police will be doing a systematic search of the hotel, starting with the ball room and meeting rooms here on the ground floor before moving to a room to room search on the guest floors. No one can leave and Detective Conyers says they’ll want to talk to anyone who may have seen anything. Damn, I cannot help but watch this beautiful man and listen to his beguiling accent that spoke of his heritage somewhere in the Caribbean.

As the Detective wound up his speech I noticed that the other two detectives, the lady with the expensive shoes and another man, had eased silently into the room, coming to stand next to the stage. No sashaying among this bunch I notice, all business. Detective Conyers introduces the lady as Detective Margarita Hull of the HPD and says that her partner is Agent Michael Naquin of the FBI. I have to wonder what the FBI has to do with a missing kid in a Houston Texas beauty pageant.

Detective Hull steps up onto the stage to take charge, immediately outlining what type of information they are after, saying that they already have a list of pageant attendees they’d like to talk to first as she reiterates the need for all of us to stay put right where we are as the search for Atlanta takes place. “Atlanta’s missing,” deadpans Butt Ugly Mr. Steve next to me, “Well someone better tell the governor of Georgia..” except he pronounces Georgia as “Jaw-Ja” stretching out his Mississippi accent to such exaggeration that it seems more a mockery. I giggle mindlessly but I pay no real attention to Mr. Steve, I’m occupied studying the lady cop, wondering what it’s like to be the lone woman in what is primarily a very macho mans domain. She gives off an aura of no nonsense, about as different from this pageant mothers as a woman could get and not be considered butch, dark black hair in a chin length bob, truly lovely skin like luminous old ivory with green eyes. I notice her makeup is subtle, nothing as overwhelming as anything seen in this room. Detective Hull is clad in a updated version of the classic black pants suit with those shoes I’d been admiring, black leather shoes with gracefully scalloped stacked heels. She and I were the only ones in this room that didn’t look like we belonged on QVC. Cop or not in those first moments I took an instantaneous liking to this detective.

Now her partner, the FBI agent, looked as though once upon a time he could have been a biker or some sort of societal outlaw, he just had a certain mad gleam in his cat green eyes that bespoke something more than riding a desk toeing the law enforcement line. I’d bet that he’d seen his fair share of undercover jobs in a hell of a lot of bizarre places. His rumpled suit couldn’t disguise this about him. Agent Naquin might have sported a buzz cut like many a well scrubbed copper but he had the air of a decided bad ass.

“Cute, ain’t he?” I overhead Samantha Smith stage whisper to another woman. I smile, cute indeed as Agent Naquin is I can just imagine he and his partner have just landed behind enemy lines into very hostile territory and I’m guessing that they do not know this yet. Already behind me I’m hearing furious whispers of how dare they interrupt the competition for something like this. Even as Agent Naquin is droning on about the importance of finding a missing child within the first few hours I’m seeing Leslie Leahanna Cannon, the pageant director, frown deeply as she realizes this is going to put a damper on her personal pageant. “Young man,” she says in a bored voice quite loudly, seeking to be heard over the building buzz of the room, “Exactly how long is this going to take? We’re in the middle of an event here and cannot be bothered by the parenting problems of one person..” Naquin isn’t what I’d call young, later thirties if I had to say exactly how old and he glares at the very ancient Leslie Leahanna in her chiffon ball gown and frosted Zsa Zsa Gabor-alike appearance as he replies, “This will take as long as it takes. Remember the well being and safety of the missing child is paramount in our minds right now.” Well, this is obviously not good enough for Leslie because she stands, all five feet of her and she announces in the same sort of voice you’d order a waiter do something incredibly distasteful for you, “That is simply not good enough. Investigate if you must but we must continue the show while you’re looking for this girl.” Everyone freezes at her words, the room silences and the tension becomes almost a living thing in the air as we see the FBI agent’s facial expression shift subtly from serious and stern to downright threatening as he says, “Lady sit down, shut up or I’ll be forced to charge you with impeding an investigation.. you’re seriously screwing with my cha-cha right now..” She sits down like someone boinked her on the head, shocked silent with her heavily rouged lips opening and closing like a trout hooked on the end of a fishing line.

The rest of the afternoon starts to pass with the slowness of time spent watching the clock. Some of the kids in the ballroom get bored with sitting still this long, protesting to their mothers while some simply fall asleep, grateful to have a moment’s rest during this unexpected break in the usually hectic pace of children’s pageant competitions. Every inch of the ballroom has been searched, under the chairs, the stage, behind the tables and banquet set ups. De nada, the rooms yields nothing more than the usual tasteful yet bland furnishings that could be found in any hotel in any city in the United States. I do have to smile as the contents of several of the boxes hidden behind the stage are opened and displayed to the officers, the usual assortment of cheap trinkets given out to the girls by the pageant officials, the even cheaper gift bags given to the mommas and the other assorted crapola passed off as the winners due. Once someone pointed out in great sarcasm when a mother complained about the cheapness of the pageant goodie bags that they’d be better of dressing their child up and taking her to Chuck E. Cheeses if she wanted cheap prizes for a low fee. Days later this wicked piece circulated the pageant message boards and lists..

Since some pageant moms want:
BIG guaranteed cash prizes,
Expensive Gifts,
Fancy Party,
Giant Crown,

and you don't want:
to pay to enter,
to bring a handful of cheap gifts,
to be first in your group but don't want to enter on time either,
to lose,
to compete against someone who is really good
pro-am
retouched pictures
door badges
door events
and free gifts from the director (if they're inexpensive)

Why don't you buy yourself a crown and take a trip to Chuck E Cheese on karaoke night. All the excitement and you can afford it!

It’s an expensive hobby and the pay off isn’t very deluxe regardless of which pageant it is, Santa’s Gingerbread House pageant, Holly Daze, Miss Sunshine N Sweetness or Yankee Doodle Dandies. The most I’ve ever seen awarded as a cash prize is a thousand dollars. The crowns are made in Hong Kong, bought by the case cheaply , filled with cheap glass rhinestones and molded from metal not much thicker than aluminum foil. The party for this pageant was planned for tomorrow night, balloons, sodas and lots and lots of Kleenex. Candy for the kids and secret stashes of booze for the mommas, at least for those that aren’t hooked on Prozac or swacked on valiums.

Don’t know how much more of a pageant there will be this weekend considering how the officers searching the ballroom have been accidentally mangling all the accoutrements of the show. One tried to move aside the crepe paper masking the bottom lip of the stage and managed to shred it into confetti as another one dropped the stack of crowns he was moving. I can just feel Leslie Leahanna’s blood pressure rising at the sight of the younger men roughly pawing through her pageant supplies. A nervous looking rookie with blonde hair knocks over a false wall stage right that’s bedecked with paintings of dolls and turns quickly batting over a large potting palm with his dangling night stick.

Butt Ugly Mr. Steve sits next to me in the padded chairs, his five year old daughter Jooniper napping with her long arms and legs akimbo across his lap. Steve keeps whispering to me and I long to tell him to shut up, to leave me with my thoughts. But I don’t and as a result he doesn’t shut up. He continues on with his running commentary on everything that’s happened so far today through topics as silly as the tight fit of the uniformed officers pants and if you could get them to use their nightsticks and handcuffs on you in the bedroom. “If these chuckle heads had a clue they’d know everyone in this room has reason enough to want to piss off Miz Tanya, get in line, take a friggin’ number on who’d mess with her precious daughter, mores the pity that the brat is probably safe and sound somewhere sleeping off a sugar od. You do know that Tanya gives that child a Starbucks Double Shot Espresso in the can right before she goes on.. Nothing like sugar and caffeine to get a kid to be magically sparkly and energetic..”

Even the judges look like they’re feeling exactly what the rest of us are, alternating between the extreme boredom of being stuck in this room and feeling weirded out by the entire police force of Houston Texas crawling around the place like curious ants in uniforms. This pageant features a former Miss Texas from the stone ages, a hapless airline pilot roped into judge duty by his pageant mom wife and a hapless local rapper trying desperately to do anything that might help him build local name recognition before his debut CD is released. Ghetto boy with nappy dreads, baggy pants and the nervous look of a man caught red handed doing something forbidden. Bet he’s secretly praying none of his homies hear about his turn as a beauty pageant judge. He’s sandwiched in by two nearly identical looking blondes who own and operate a local charm schools. They looked freaked just to be sitting next to a guy they wouldn’t give the time of day to on the streets for fear he’d carjack their mini vans. The final judge is a woman who was a pageant mom before she discovered that she liked to take the photos for pageant portfolios. I stare at her, realizing that the strange shading on her upper lip is actually hair, she has a slight mustache. Very freaky.

Every now and again someone’s name is called out by a uniformed officer and that person is escorted out for times ranging from just a few minutes to as long as a half hour.

Part 5

Things go on almost as usual for awhile after Miz Tanya is hauled off. Girls parade around the stage slowly to the warblings of Celine Dion and Michael Bolton, pink dresses crisp, eyes held unnaturally wide like they’ve received a shock from a cattle prod and grins firmly on display. Fake teeth. Yes, people will tell you that the judges don’t count off for teeth being less than perfect much less the missing teeth of childhood but that is a lie. Everyone here knows it’s a lie and most are using a dental appliance like a flipper, a small row of fake teeth to cover the child’s front teeth. They look like big ugly Chicklets, big, shiny and white, held in with glue. Fake hair, fake teeth, fake beauty.

The mothers are all abuzz about Tanya , barely paying attention to the tots on stage for a change. Even Sam is pulled into the gossip so much she doesn’t stand within Rayvyn’s sightlines and make frightening faces at her or mouth furious instructions. The local Texas moms seem to be the loudest, and I catch the occasionally drawled word, “makin’ a scene,” or “cheater”.

Beauty competition changes, going into the talent section. Spare us from the talent section please, filled with the untalented. In the years I’ve done these things I seen mostly such things parade as talent as wiggling around in time to music or fake gymnast routines involving coming forward to smile cutely at the judges along with the usual song mangling, baton twirling and more twitching as supposed dancing. Dear gawd, you should see some of the outfits through the years that my shop has churned out for the talent section of the pageant, more pinata diarrhea except without being limited by style of dress like the beauty dresses. The beauty dresses are those standard little girl Alice type dresses but made with lots of crinolined layers under the skirt so it will puff out, tons and tons and tons of rhinestones, pearls and lace. Most of them are some shade of pink and down in an expensive luxury fabric like silk or costume materials. I’ve seen and made some beauty dresses that are actually fancier than a standard wedding dress.

As I stand here and watch I realize my feet hurt and I think about sneaking out to go back to my hotel suite for a nap. Long ago I learned to never book a room to stay in at the same hotel that is hosting the pageant. Book a meeting room for the business, or book a room to do sales out of but do not stay on premises. If you do stay at the same hotel what will happen is that you’ll be deluged with ladies at all hours of the day or night pestering you, unfamiliar with the concept that you need rest or food. You’ll constantly be fending off people asking for free advice, or seeking your services in a panic. One of the first pageants I did I was awoken at 3 am by a pounding on my door of a hysterical pageant mom wanting me to get up and fix the lace on her beauty dress that someone else had designed and sewn. I’ve learned to stay away and to bring someone like Giselle who can crank out a few quick repair jobs in the sales room at a hefty fee.

Here in Houston the pageant is being held at a high rise hotel in the middle of town, soaring towers as defined by the Sheraton corporation. I’m staying across town at a Marriot suites hotel a stones throw from Harris County BBQ. Last night Giselle and I had a massive pig out at the BBQ joint before heading back to our rooms. Tonight we’ll do the same but we’ll have today’s scandals to devour as well. I might even haul Giselle to the Mall near our rooms and dress her, force her to get some properly fitting clothing for a change, the girl seems to want to fade into the woodwork.

As I watch Autumn Amber Joy completely flub her dance routine I watch “Butt Ugly” Mr. Steve with his daughter , watch as he readies her for her talent turn. She’s beautiful, this little Miss Jooniper, or she would be if so much about her wasn’t fake. Flippers, lots of blonde hair extensions, what hair is actually this child's is dyed a glossy blonde, it’s rumored that she wears violet blue contact lenses for the contest as well. Too bad she dances like a fat kid on crack. Too bad her gay daddy named her for a bush and then misspelt it in an failed attempt at cleverness. I don’t get a chance to see how she does for talent, to watch her dance routine because a angry Sylvia Landreax heads straight for me.

“You’re supposed to alter this sportswear for me and sportswear is next! Autumn Amber Joy cannot lose!! Did you see what happened with her talent, she cannot have an ill fitting sportswear to bring down her score..” The woman is shrieking now, arms flailing about and feet stamping. She bumps against another pageant mom and the next sight I see is her wig sailing through the air. I have to squelch a desire to bray out laughter as the spectacle presented by Sylvia Landreax’s wigless head and grimacing face. She turns without another word to me and proceeds to lay a hard right hook onto the garishly made up face of TouTou Touissant’s mother. I have to nervously skitter away, because this looks like the very beginnings of a pageant mom brawl, something I’ve only seen once before. Even the action on the stage stops again, the girls staring against the bright lights trying to figure out if their mommas are somehow involved in the shoving and shouting against the back wall. I keep smiling and stepping backwards until I’m almost to the door.

“Uglier than three day old fried chicken, aren’t they,” says Butt Ugly Mr. Steve as he holds the door open for me. “Let’s sneak out and have a ciggie..” I look at him suspiciously and say, “Don’t you have to be in there when Jooniper is dancing..” He laughs, “Oh hell naw, I can’t hardly watch her dance. It’s the weakest part of her routine.. I work with her and Roy works with her and it’s still pitiful.. I have to sit out watching her sashaying towards doom.. makes me too nervous” We pace the long hallway outside the ballroom towards the front doors and sweet freedom. I ask him in idle curiosity, “Where’s Cedar been? I haven’t seen her at a pageant in ages.” Cedar is Mr. Butt Ugly Steve’s eldest daughter, also on the pageant circuit, she used to be the one to beat, the reigning queen of everything and she never danced like a fat kid on crack. She’d be about fourteen now. I’ve obviously said the wrong thing because Steve looks down and frowns for a moment, “You know how hard it is to work with a rebellious teen? She just suddenly stopped wanting to do the whole pageant thing. Over night she went from blonde princess to surly girly with moody black hair and bondage clothing.. listens to some sort of music called ‘Emo’ and moved in with her mother.. says I don’t understand her..” As I listen I realize that Steve is actually getting teary eyed and I have to reach over and squeeze his arm and mutter, “Oh honey I’m so sorry..” He makes a joke of it all, “Maybe I’ll start sponsoring a pageant for her and little buddies, the Anti Pageant, we can judge them on who has the blackest hair and moshes the best..” I smile back, “That’s an idea..”

We get as far as the front door when we both have to pause and stare. What looks like every single patrol car in the city of Houston is in the parking lot, cherries on top spinning. Cops jump out, earnest and well scrubbed, flat topped, black clad, it’s impressive. I mutter to Steve, “Officer, thank Gawd you’re here, crimes against fashion and nature are occurring in the ballroom.” Steve whoops with laughter, not realizing I’m not entirely joking here. We stand, cigarettes forgotten and watch as the best of HPD pile out of the cars and congregate in front of the building. Accompanying them are four commanding looking folks in suits, detectives I’d guess. I listen as the lone woman detective barks at the crowd of cops to seal every entrance in and out of the Sheraton pdq. Some of the cops scatter and the rest fall into step behind the detectives, coming into the lobby through the big glass front doors. They push through like they own the place.

Instinctively both Steve and I back up, reversing our steps back to the ballroom. He whispers that this must be something serious with one of the guests. I say nothing but my gut feeling tells me that the hotel management must have summoned the cops after talking to Miz Tanya. That must mean that Atlanta is really missing. This isn’t good, not good at all.

Sure enough as we pace back towards the ballroom the cops are right behind us, overtaking us to flood around us like a river of black uniforms eddying around us rocks. I could feel Steve shrinking back against me, I’m betting as a flaming gay man he’d had some interesting experiences with cops. My only knowledge of cops is that in New Orleans you pay them off and you try to avoid them. If they ventured into the 9th Ward you didn’t know nothing, you didn’t see nothing and you sure didn’t tell anything at all. You might find yourself in the Mississippi taking a permanent bath if you complained of police brutality. Police were to be avoided.

We weren’t so lucky, one of the men stops with us and asks who we are and what we’re doing here. We explain as best we can that we’re here to work at the pageant but I’m not sure this young man understands. As we talk I get the feeling from his expressions that we might have been speaking Mandarin Chinese for all he understood. He dismissed us to go into the ballroom where the other cops had congregated with the exception of the detectives. I’d seen them go directly to the managers office, all except the older black detective, he’d gone forward with the bulk of the officers. Okay, l admit, I’d been looking at the female detective’s coat and shoes, wondering how much cops make. Either they have hefty pay or this lady is a smart shopper. She’s wearing what looks like expensive shoes and a designer coat. I can’t help looking at clothes, fashion is my life.

It’s chaos in the ballroom, some of the girls have burst into tears onstage at the appearance of the police. The music comes to a jangly stop, even Gay Tuxedo Host is stunned and wordless. The mothers fall silent, save for a few that quickly go to remove their child from the stage. Once the room is completely quiet the detective takes the stage and motions to the host for the microphone. I notice as he takes the stage that this is a very dignified black man, with silver shot through his short hair, dressed in an off the rack dark suit with a white shirt and a very plain tie. He has that command presence about him, you can just tell no one ever gave him any shit, or if they did they quickly came to regret it. His presence on the stage commands your immediate attention.

Part 4

People mill around like confused cattle as Miz Tanya screams again and again, frantically rushing around the large ballroom. Groups of pageant moms knot together and whisper, no one offers to help because Tanya isn’t exactly liked. The moms are a tight knit group, anything negative said by one gets back to all the rest.

Don’t believe me? Just take a gander at a million pageant message boards on the internet where this woman complains that her child should have won the Grand Lil Miss competition but that so-and-so bribed the judge and that one complains that the photographer doesn’t know what she’s doing because she expected better looking pictures for all that money. Oh, and the two Mr. Steves hawk their coaching, hair and makeup services. One of the Mr. Steves had to resort to flooding the boards after he was drunkenly heard to mutter that he could take a girl, any girl, even a butt ugly girl and make her look like a pageant winner with enough makeup. Then he went on to say most of the girls he worked on were ’pure butt ugly’. And they aired this on HBO. Oh my how the moms did gossip about that for months, no one wanting to think he might possibly have been talking about their little girl.

I’m sure some in the crowd are thinking that whatever moment of fright Tanya is experiencing is something she’s brought on herself. She’s fought with the others online and off line and her biggest faux pas was that she got mad enough with the pageant system that she set up her own pageant three years ago. The Seafarers Miss Mermaid pageant held in Waveland, Mississippi. Her pageant was an abysmal failure, disorganized, chaotic and committing the worst sin of all in pageant land, she was slow about handing out much in the way of cash prizes.

Many moms will tell you that they only do the pageant circuit so that they can have the child win enough money to put aside for college. Another lie and one that I cannot figure out how they self justify. To come and compete in the national pageant system runs between two and four thousand every weekend you do it. And that’s not taking into consideration the long term expenses of this hobby, coaches, custom made outfits, dance lessons, personal hair and makeup artists, this is just skimming the surface of costs. I’ve often secretly wondered how most of them raise the scratch to keep going, none of them seem the type to be married to millionaires. I’ve seen the rolling scrap iron cars they arrive at my shop in, I’ve seen the threadbare coats and worn shoes. I’ve also heard the rumors of second mortgages and maxed out credit cards. It’s an awkward situation when you’re handling a sale and your customers credit card is rejected, they smile tightly and proclaim they haven’t a clue why this is happening and you smile tightly not believing them but pretending that you do.

Mr. Steve of the “Butt Uglies” pushes through the unsympathetic crowd to reach Miz Tanya, who’s now trying to tear through the layers of glitter bedecked cardboard that separates the ball room from the backstage as she wails. He grabs her, wrestling her bulk to the side of the stage as little girls scatter. Tanya manages to break free from his grasp and rush towards me, pointing and wailing to yell, “You were the last one to see her...where did she go?” I can feel the blood draining away from my face as I realize that this unbalanced woman is about to do what she does best, pass the buck for any personal responsibility. I shake my head and say kindly, “You were the last one with her. I straightened her dress and you guided her towards backstage.. you’re mistaken Miz Tanya..”

Before either of us can possibly utter another word one of the other pageant moms, a tough cookie named Samantha steps forward and gripes loudly between exhalations of cigarette smoke, “So are we gonna keep on here or what? I don’t want to be here waiting for beauty to finish until 2 am.. chop, chop folks..” Many people stare open mouthed at Samantha Smith with shocked expressions. I don’t, I know Sam all too well. Sam was once a Marine and she doesn’t play, she’s all business, as tough, rude and straight to the point as a drill sergeant. In fact I pity Sam’s small daughter Rayvyn, I’ve seen Sam drill Rayvyn relentlessly on her pageantry skills, to the point where she stands in the back of the ballroom, her blue eyes burning an angry hole into her daughter’s small blonde skull as she mouths instructions or the words to whatever song Rayvyn is singing for talent. Sam is so butch, so extremely masculine, that I’m not really sure what exactly she’s getting from all of this, unless it’s some sort of validation of her femininity via her child. I notice as Sam gripes again that she has white powder rimming one of her nostrils again. The rumor is that Sam is also very hooked on blow, but this is the first real evidence I’ve seen of it. I figured it was more jealous sniping by the moms because Samantha Smith is the only one of them that could possibly be called svelte.

The gay in the tux starts his song again just as the hotel security men surround Miz Tanya and forcible haul her off. You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the crowd as things settle down into a semblance of normal, well, as normal as a glitter-bedecked mirror-balled room filled with children dressed like frosted Vietnamese midget hookers can get. I have an uneasy feeling about all of this even as I can tell everyone here is dismissing Miz Tanya’s outburst as just more of her usual craziness. I can hear two mothers nearby discussing it, one saying that this is obviously going to lead to Tanya claiming some weird extenuating circumstances as the reason Lil’ ‘Lanta didn’t win any of the top prizes. Usually I’m the most cynical of the bunch, it comes from years of dealing with the capricious weirdness of this all, but this time I’m sensing that something is seriously out of kilter more than the scheming of another mad mother.

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.

Part 2

As a younger woman I left Godchauxs on Canal Street, packed up my wristlet of straight pins and measuring tape and joined the employment of Madame. Madame Clotilde was one of the Crescent City's best kept secrets, she was literally a designer as talented as anyone in Paris, New York or Milan. A clothing designer with a limited and ultra rich clientele. Rock stars came for their skin tight leather pants, society ladies came for unusual dresses and suits and everyone in between. I learned early on to keep my eyes down, my countenance bland and my body language subservient when I was called into one of the private fitting rooms to start the long process of customizing a garment.

Sometimes interesting things happened within the confines of her atelier, once a bride to be fainted during a fitting and it turned out she hadn’t eaten in days, trying to diet down smaller. We ended up calling for an ambulance and the bride was confined to the Touro Infirmary until she’d gained five pounds back. She missed her wedding date.

Rock stars would show up at Madame’s high on a variety of substances with a bevy of strange people in tow. The entire energy of the hushed rooms would change by the physical presence of the musicians. We’ve seen accidental OD’s in the fitting rooms, spats between gay lovers, and once even a fist fight between the drunken members of a heavy metal band. The worst fight that occurred in the fitting rooms actually involved two New York society ladies, one a wife and the other a mistress of the same man. Bloody noses and silk.

Once I was kneeling between the feet of one of the rock world’s biggest most enduring idols when he propositioned me. Me, plain Alsace Arceneax, too dark to pass as white, too light to be really black and plain as a post, nothing in my features to make me stand out either way and this rock n roll legend is asking for a blow job. I remember staring at him in shock, stopping measuring his inseam, dropping my tape measure and bolting from the room listening to him cackle out an evil laugh from between those thick lips of his, calling out that he’d been teasing and to come back in and finish. Eventually I did, but I couldn’t look at him, preferring to stare at the carpet when I wasn’t applying pins to his pants.

“You should have complied to his request, Alsace..” Madame has told me as soon as the man left, “ a girl needs experiences in life, exciting experiences, things to remember when she’s old. and he‘s wanted by millions of woman.. why not enjoy yourself..” Typical Madame. She never understood that I was too shy to ever do such a thing as that. My life revolved around going to work and going home, my elderly mother would have dinner ready and afterwards we’d watch a little television. Sundays church. It was a quiet life. Many times Madame would tell me I should take myself to the Garment District in New York and hire on at one of the big fashion houses, that I was wasting my skills here in this glittering backwater. She didn't understand I wasn’t prepared to leave either my mother or my home town, not even for my passion, creating beautiful clothing. What chance did I have in the big city? Me, a barely educated black woman from the wrong part of New Orleans? I’ll tell you what chance, none. I didn’t understand until much later that education can be acquired in many ways and that once you leave your beginnings behind the world is your oyster. I preferred to save my wages and play it safe with Momma. So I stayed, she lectured me and things remained istatic for more than ten years.

Two things happened in quick succession that ended my quiet existence. My mother died without warning of a stroke. She was on the job, the same job she’d worked since she came into the big city from her family farm in Paincourtville. Momma had been working as a cook at Commanders Palace all those years, one minute she was stirring up a roux and the next she was dead on the floor. I felt like I’d been cut adrift and it was only the kindness of Madame that got me through it. I decided to keep my mother and father’s shotgun house in the 9th Ward and keep on working. But as time went on I realized I was lonely, lonelier than I’d ever been before, the night time hours stretched out forever. I started going out some, to the bars in New Orleans, making a few friends along Bourbon Street and in Fat City, a few lovers too.

But before I got too comfortable without Momma the second tragedy visited me, Madame died one night in her sleep. I hadn’t realized just how old she was before that point. She was in her eighties but possessed the energy and elegance of a much younger woman. With both Madame and Momma gone I felt like I’d lost the only family I had left for Madame had come to treat me like one of her daughters in those years. She’d treated all of us long time workers in her atelier as though we were hers. After Madame passed I decided not to go to work for anyone else, no returning to Godchauxs, encouraged by my new friends along Bourbon Street I made the decision to open a seamstress shop. And that is how I became involved with the pageant industry and the moms.

When I first went into business I hired a young girl that had started at Madame’s only a few years ago, Cynthia. She lived right around the corner from I and we got into the habit of taking the long bus right from our small enclave of the city into the wide streets and clean vistas of Kenner where the new shop was. At first our business was primarily altering men’s suits and ladies clothing, at least until the first Carnival season hit. We ended up creating and making the costumes for several different krewes and from there came the strippers and female impersonators. Making costumes for the denizens of the bars along Bourbon proved to be even more lucrative and I had to take on several helpers in the business.

One typical Louisiana winter morning, while Cynthia and I were just having that first steaming cup of Community brand coffee a lady entered the store. I noticed her right away because she behaved like she had all the time in the world, opening the door slowly, allowing the damp winter air to breeze so we all shivered while she walked in regally, head held high. She wore a designer dress with pearls and a fur coat and big Jackee O sunglasses, projecting the aura of someone who either was important or thought she was important. Cynthia and I exchanged looks over our cups of coffee as the new arrival cleared her throat and slammed down a thick sheaf of magazines on the counter top.

That morning was as eye opener. The lady introduced herself as Diana Setzer, owner of Pageant World on Veterans Boulevard. The magazines she’d brought contained photographs of pageant attire. What she wanted was for our shop to make dresses for her, for her shop. Cynthia and I had thumbed through the glossy pages, wincing sometimes at the uglier designs as we listened to what Ms. Setzer was proposing. Off the top of my head I quoted a figure to churn out one of these fabric bedecked travesties only to have Diana Setzer agree readily. Later I discovered I’d undercut her other supplier by a few hundred dollars even as I thought I was quoting her a disgracefully high amount. I hadn’t really wanted to take the contract but how could I say no when I was being offered a virtual fortune. After Diana left Cynthia had poured both of us a fresh cup of coffee as she said, “Those dresses, looks like a pinata had diarrhea..” forever dubbing the pageant clothes we turned out as “Pinata Diarrhea” That’s what we called them in the work rooms.

The short version of what happened next is that I whipped out my colored pencils and sketch pad and designed a pageant line while we hired two more ladies from our neighborhood to sew this new line. Eventually I had to open a complete division of pageant wear and I started making ever larger sums once Diana Setzer’s shop filed for bankruptcy. I suddenly became the only game in town, really in the whole southern part of the state to buy pinata diarrhea. Unfortunately I discovered to keep top dollar flowing it behooved me to actually appear at the pageants as a fashion consultant. And that is when all the real fun started.

I hear a cry of Alsace, Alsace Arceneax, and hearing my own name I turn around thinking that someone has torn their dress because there’s a note of panic in this woman’s voice. A torn ruffle minutes before ‘beauty’ could mean enough points taken off that a girl wouldn’t win even the smallest of consolation titles. It’s a tragedy. To the moms at least.

Part 1

LISTEN UP -- No name, 21:48:34 10/19/05 Wed [1]
Thank you (Pageant Director) for the awesome fair
pageant, it only cost my mommy and daddy $1250 to
enter. And $15,000 over the last 6 years to line your
pockets so I can have this guaranteed win.

Thank you (Hair and Makeup Artist) for the awesome
Hair and Makeup that my mommy and daddy paid you $300
for and you got a free ad on my banner too, to promote
your business (he he) good thing I looked good.

Thank you (tanner) for the great dark tan, my parents
have paid for 30 tans with you now, do you think that
you could throw in my next one for free? Oh here is a
plug for you under my banner too, there certainly is
nothing like free advertising, saving you that $10 for
a banner of your own.

I want to thank (Photographer) in some cases there are
more than one. My parents paid anywhere from $300-$700
for a sitting fee with you, and then at least
$150(that is the low end for a print) for my over
digitalized photo that helped me win photogenic. I
just love my pictures and so does mommy, she says that
you are the bomb, ooooo.... Oh a free ad for you (all
of you) too, we all know that you don't make enough
money.

Oh Oh Oh (Swimwear) Miss Sandi Henry my swimwear is
the bomb, you out did yourself on this one, out of the
3 you have made us, mommy likes this the best. It
doesn't matter that there is only $15 worth of
materials and it only took the lady that sews the
shells for you 1 hour to put it together, I am so
happy that we paid you $375 for it. This picture of me
in it is so cute maybe we can get you a few more
orders. Here is your free ad too. Maybe when we order
our next swimwear you can give mommy a better deal?

Thank you (Miss Dress maker) This color looks good on
me, unfortunately everyone is wearing this color
combination. Oh well, it is a pretty dress and without
it I would not have won Grand Supreme. You are welcome
for the free ad even though you charged us $2700 for
the dress and another $1500 for the sportswear.

Thank you (The finger and toe painter) Mommy was tired
and does not have the patience to pain my toes and
fingers, you are the bomb and they look so
professional. You did not pinch my fingers or toes
when you painted my nails, I will ask mommy if we can
use your services again. You are welcome for your ad.
I think that maybe we should be getting a volume
discount from you too.

Thank you to (My coach) my routine is awesome, even
though you only come to town once every 6-8 weeks, you
are responsible for my success in modeling. Wow, I
really think I ought to thank Mommy for making me
practice. Wow, you have been my coach for a year now
at $150 per hour and at least 2 hours every time you
come out, wow that has added up. Oh but you are worth
it, I hope this ad gets you some more students and me
an attaboy.

I want to thank (my wanna be coach) that works with me
a couple days a week. I know that we only pay you $35
an hour, but you are worth it too. Here is your free
ad, maybe we can get some other kids to coach with you
too, since you are less money than my big name coach.

I want to thank (Mr. ?), wow when you sang to me on
stage, I love that. Never mind that you spit on me
when you were singing, I am so happy that you made me
feel so special. My pageant experience would not have
been complete without some gay man singing to me and
exposing me to his germs. Yummy. Thanks for calling my
name as a Winner. It was a thrill that my mommy and I
will not soon forget. Maybe more pageant directors
will use you at their pageants since I mentioned your
name. Good Luck with that here is your ad, maybe I
should include your email address too.

Thanks Mom and Dad, you are the best. You have taken a
second mortgage on the house so that I can do a
pageant 1/2 way across the country every weekend. It
does not matter that we can't afford the extra
payment, we will figure it out some how and maybe you
can use some of my winnings to pay that bill.

Thank you Gramma and grampie too without all that money we
get from you we would be in more dire financial
straights than we are.

I want to thank (the banner maker) it is okay that
your name is bigger than mine on my congratulations
banner. I only paid you $10 for you to cut out all my
pictures by hand and make my banner special

And last but not least I want to thank Jesus for
letting my light shine. I know that I am always at
pageants instead of in Sunday school but I still think
about you. Please accept this ad, and maybe more will
come to know you.

Thanks to all my pageant friends(list them all)
because we all know that because you are my friend and
your mom is a pageant vendor - I am getting more wins.
Thank goodness for mommy again, because I would not
know who to be friends with, without her.

The day it all fell apart someone handed me that charming missive. I read it and chuckled aloud at the truth of it even as it takes pot shots at my profession as well as everyone else that makes money off of children's beauty pageants. It was one of the judges that handed it off to me. Earlier he’d been smirking and laughing over the absurdity of pageants and the money spent as we whispered together out back over cigarettes and a forbidden flash of bourbon. He’d told me of one pageant moms attempt to score a win for her little girl, doing a comical impression of momma, all three hundred beehived pounds of her offering him a blow job if he’d pick her daughter for Mini Grand Supreme Burrito. “Honey, she is so barking up the wrong tree!” he’d gasped as we both laughed over the thought that she didn’t have a clue that he was gay when it was so obvious.

I suppose she must have made the assumption that he was like the dueling Mr. Steves, willing to play occasionally for the other team. The Mr. Steves were both coaches, big time coaches, who also did hair and makeup as well as did the extensive portfolio photos of the girls. They were the two most sought after coaches in the industry. But both were so stereotypically swishy gay they were almost a caricature of homosexuality, except that they weren’t. Entirely gay that is. Both had their serious gay relationships disappear into thin air when it came out that they’d slept with the random pageant mommy. One of them had even managed to father two children during his forays into the land of heterosexuality. Both girls he’d managed to manipulate into being top winning pageant girls. Still the Mr. Steves caused mass consternation, confusion and gossip among the moms with their bed hopping ways;. The scandal hasn’t hurt their standing in this industry, in fact it’s helped.

And make no mistake about it, This is an industry. Money changes hands, lots and lots of money. Careers are made or broken by the mommies. That is the dirty secret no one talks about, the money that flows like manna from heaven. It’s a costly hobby and I’ve seen many women end up wrecking their family and their lives over this nonsense. Homes lost, marriages ruined over the obsessive need to make the unspecial special. Every mommy thinks their daughter is the most beautiful thing to ever walk the planet, even if their butt-ugly, bucktoothed and bow legged. And every pageant mom is willing to bet the family farm to prove it. I’ve often wondered what these women’s partners thought about spending an average of a couple of thou every weekend there’s a competition

Too bad the product we’re producing has no real value. Just knowing that has made me reconsider what it is I do for a living. It gives me the occasional long sleepless night. I keep promising myself no more only to find some unexpected bill of beguiling designer bag changing my mind. I do it for the money, not much better than a whore.

Some of the moms say that they do it because it gives their kid confidence and it’s good practice for going out in this world. I personally cannot see it, all I see are a bunch of ugly women dressed in fashions rejected by Wal Mart as too frumpy trying to live vicariously their own fantasies through their very average small child. That’s the other big secret of pageants, it’s not about the girls, not at all, it’s all about feeding the moms egos. They whore out their children to make themselves feel better about the ordinariness of their own lives. If you can’t be beautiful yourself then trick out your child like she’s beautiful.

At least I’m not one of the moms,. if anything this industry has made me not want children. When you see children exploited for ego -driven reasons it tends to turn off any so-called biological clock. Better than any birth control. So what do I do? I’m a seamstress, a custom clothing designer and maker of little girls dresses. Don’t care much for the style of the kiddies dresses, but it’s lucrative, more lucrative than most of my old jobs designing and sewing. Even the drag queens of New Orleans didn’t pay me as well as this does.

But had you told me years ago when I was a teenager taking the bus out of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans to work as a tailoring seamstress at Godchauxs Dept. Store that one day I’d design and make dresses that look like a pile of pink frosting sprinkled with faux jewels I would have laughed and told you I would do no such thing. But here I am, a million miles away from where I started but geographically not very far, just down the road a patch as my father used to say.