When Shari Jenkins is crowned Miss Red River Louisiana, Peg Pendarvis closes the backstage curtain, mutters sonofabitch under her breath, collapses onto a sofa in the dressing room and says, to the row of empty dressing tables draped with discarded clothes, “If only I hadn’t sewed that goddamn snap.”

*

Peg Pendarvis’s daughter Bethany had only one ambition in life: To be crowned Miss Red River Louisiana. Miss Red River had her color photo printed in the local paper and was guaranteed a spot on the signature float of the annual Red River Days parade. The true spoils could not be listed in practicalities, however, because the real reason an Okalousa girl wanted to be Miss Red River is because Miss Red River was, by virtue of her title, the prettiest gal in town. The pageant crowning, held on the stage of the local community theatre, led to prom invitations, which led to going steady, which was followed by marriage to a good Okalousa boy and at least two well-behaved Okalousa children.

*

Fifteen girls signed up for this year’s pageant. Half of them are long-shots. Bethany is more of a middle-shot. It is said that Candy Benedict – blonde, blue-eyed, and much too tan for November – “has it in the bag.”

“She’s not even that pretty, really,” says Bethany, to her mother, before the pageant begins. She says it quietly backstage so the other girls can’t hear – she doesn’t want to seem catty, even though the other girls are saying virtually the same exact thing to their own mothers. All except Candy, of course, who primps quietly into her dressing-room mirror.

Peg, snipping wayward threads from her daughter’s dress with sewing scissors, says “mmm-hmm,” and checks the dress for any additional flaws. She looks at Bethany’s coiled brown hair and sparkling eye make-up and sees someone who is definitely viable for the short-list of Miss Red River contenders.

“Her nose is a little big,” Bethany continues.

Peg adds some body glitter to her daughter’s chest. She reminds Bethany to mind her manners, which means that she can think mean things, but she shouldn’t say them out loud. She also reminds her to smile and asks if she needs some Vaseline for her teeth, because this is considered a sure-fire way to force a smile on a pageant girl’s face.

The stage manager, a woman named Margie Mitchell who went to high school with Peg and is a former Miss Red River, hurries backstage and tells the girls to line up just as Peg dips her fingers in the Vaseline.

“Hurry, line up! Line up!” Margie says, waving and clapping. Margie takes the pageant very seriously, so the task of managing the girls puts her on the verge of a breakdown. She flashes a quick hello-smile to Peg, and Peg flashes a quick hello-smile in return, even though both of them know that twenty years ago, Margie told everyone in school that Peg had crabs, even though it wasn’t true, and the rumor followed Peg all the way to high school graduation and afterward. Even though there is no evidence that Margie has changed at all, Peg still gives her the hello-smile, because she is minding her manners.

The girls line up in a hurry as requested and disappear through the curtain, one by one, as Mitch Gantry, reverend of the New Light Church, announces them. Then Margie reappears and says that the mothers have to return to their seats.

The mothers tip-toe back to the audience through the backstage door; Peg is about to step out, too, when she hears a noise from the theatre, which she will describe later as “a collective gasp.” Instead of returning to the audience, Peg walks up to the backstage curtain to investigate. When she peeks outside, she catches the final second of the grand tragedy – Candy Benedict is on the recovery end of an embarrassing fall. When Peg sees her, she is re-balancing herself on her four-inch heels. Peg has two thoughts, one right after the other: Poor girl and Hallelujah.

*

It’s anyone’s game now that Candy has taken the fall. There is no way Okalousa, Louisiana, would shame the crown by naming her Miss Red River after the tumble, which Peg soon learns was caused by the long hem of her dress. When the girls return backstage to prepare for the next level of competition, Peg joins the ranks of teen-age girls who are telling Candy that the fall was “no big deal” and it “wasn’t that bad,” even though they all know that the fall was the biggest deal of the year and it was so bad that at least one dozen people on the front-row, mostly mothers, got a brief look at Candy’s cotton thong.

Still, Candy is no longer a threat, so the other contestants give her hugs and wish her well.

After this spectacle is over, Margie reappears. She sees Peg with Bethany, but doesn’t tell her to return to her seat. Peg suspects it’s because she knows she never fully repented for the crab story two decades earlier.

Instead, Margie shuffles the first girl onto the stage for the introductory portion of the competition, which requires that each coiffed girl to walk to the microphone, say their name, how old they are, what school they go to and what their hobbies are before exiting with a Vaseline-slathered “thank you.”

As the girls strut through the curtain and onto the stage, Peg leaves Bethany to her make-up mirror and approaches Candy, who is surprisingly calm.

“Sorry about that fall,” Peg says, and she means it.

Candy shrugs. “It’s okay. I shoulda known not to wear such a long dress. I can be a klutz sometimes.”

Candy seems genuinely uninterested in the fact that she has sacrificed her Red River crown. Peg thinks it’s because Candy already has a boyfriend – Tim Abshire’s son, Rex. Peg made out with Tim Abshire back in high school; when she refused to go all the way, he told her it was probably for the best, “since you got the louse,” then he made her walk seven blocks home in the dark. Peg wonders if Rex is as much a gentleman as his father.

“You can still win, if you do well in the other competitions,” Peg says.

“I don’t care if I win or not. I didn’t wanna do it anyway. My mom made me. She lives for pageants.” Peg knows Candy’s mother. Her name is Rachel. Peg remembers that Rachel never put out in high school. In a whisper, Candy adds, “The whole thing’s stupid, if you ask me. We walk on the stage and a bunch of old pervs give us a score of one to ten.” She rolls her beautifully decorated eyes. “I don’t want to waste my time doing this.” Candy goes on to explain that she has many more important things to do, like finish up her college scholarship applications, write her English essay, or read her novel.

Peg just nods, smiles and returns to Bethany. Peg doesn’t say anything out loud because it wouldn’t be polite, but in her mind, she thinks Candy is a liberal, which is worse than being a Catholic.

*

It’s the evening gown portion and two inches of Bethany’s dress have come unsown. This is the final competition and Peg is convinced that Bethany is ahead of all the other girls. To have an unsown hem and suffer the same embarrassment as Candy the Liberal was Bethany’s greatest fear, so Peg immediately pinches a sewing needle between her lips, drops to her knees, and sews the hem back while Bethany is still wearing the dress. She finishes just as Margie frantically motions for her to go on stage.

Peg inches closer to the curtain so she can get a peek of her daughter prancing around. She’s scared to death that she’ll fall, so when she hears a gasp, she jumps, but realizes that the gasp has nothing to do with her daughter. It’s the Jenkins girl. She’s third next in line and holding the top of her dress against her chest. It’s obvious that something has popped off.

“My snap,” Shari explains, to Peg and the two girls ahead of her in line, who are all looking at her. “It popped off.” She is panicked. If she lets go, the top will fall. “I can’t go out there like this.”

Shari is near tears, which embarrasses Peg, because Peg and everyone else knows that Shari Jenkins could never be crowned Miss Red River Louisiana, even if her snap hadn’t popped off, because Shari Jenkins lived on Third Avenue. Shari Jenkins went to Washington High School, on the north side of town. Shari Jenkins had never been in a pageant in her life. Worst of all, Shari Jenkins was black.

Margie waves the next girl on stage.

Tears rim all sides of Shari’s eyes and make them sparkle.

Peg still has the sewing needle between her lips.