Wicked Ambition. Victoria Fox

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      Ramona’s mouth set in a grim line. Kristin could practically hear the thoughts turning over in her head. I’ve been doing this since the beginning, you moronic upstart. I created Kristin White and everything she is, every dime she’s made and every record she’s sold. Your fucking paycheck today comes down to me! But her mother stayed quiet.

      ‘Kristin, what do you think?’ asked the photographer, attempting diplomacy.

      ‘I’m happy with this approach.’

      ‘Then look it!’ crowed Ramona. The camera popped as Kristin fired a scowl in her mother’s direction. She couldn’t win. It was about control and always had been: the outcome was less important than the means used to reach it, and as long as Ramona had the last word and the final approval, she was content to proceed. Bunny abided by the same rules. Her sister was currently curled on a beanbag by the props closet, tapping away on her cell phone. She had a competition tonight, the last before the Mini Miss Marvellous rounds began, and according to Ramona could risk nothing in the run-up to ‘the ultimate pageant of all time’. Kristin wished she could take Bunny to the movies, or bowling, or a trip to the mall where they could get milkshakes and whisper behind their hands about boys—normal things that normal sisters did. Bunny was fourteen in two weeks’ time and was being made to dress and act like a forty-year-old. When would Ramona let up? Never?

      Kristin’s eyes brimmed with tears. As far back as she could think her life had been about pleasing Ramona, doing what Ramona wanted to do and when, and her opinion didn’t matter at all. Just like now.

      ‘I want her facing us,’ concluded Ramona, ‘with her arms stretched wide. It’s much more inclusive.’ She resumed attending to important business on her BlackBerry.

      The photographer acquiesced. As Kristin’s manager, her mother’s word was law. He smiled at Kristin somewhat sympathetically, making her want to burst into tears even more.

      ‘OK,’ he resumed. ‘Let’s try that out.’

      Ninety minutes later the shoot was over. Bunny had fallen asleep and had to be shaken awake by Ramona because the competition was across town and they were yet to get her through make-up. Kristin checked her cell for a message from Scotty and was disappointed not to find one. Since returning from Tokyo they hadn’t been able to see much of each other. She missed him. She couldn’t explain it, but he seemed to be growing distant.

      Was there someone else? There couldn’t be: aside from anything else, where would Scotty find the time? Every waking hour he spent either with her or with Fenton and the boys.

      ‘Go get ‘em, kiddo.’ She managed to give Bunny a fleeting hug before Ramona yanked her youngest daughter out the door. At least this meant she wouldn’t be around to peruse the stills: perhaps they could salvage the earlier shots, after all.

      ‘Your mom sure knows her mind,’ the photographer commented after they’d left.

      Kristin sighed. ‘Tell me about it.’

      Bunny White coughed violently as her mother blasted yet another flare of hairspray.

      ‘Isn’t that enough?’ she enquired timidly, meeting her bronzed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life reflection in the mirror, and in the same flash catching Ramona’s icy glare.

      ‘I say when it’s enough.’

      Bunny hurt. The sequins on her ball gown were sharp and uncomfortable, and when she touched her hair it felt like candyfloss, all sticky and fossilised.

      ‘Show me your smile.’

      Bunny smiled.

      ‘More teeth.’

      She smiled wider.

      ‘Good. Now hold it.’

      She did as she was told, the muscles in her face aching despite their rigorous training. Her lipstick tasted horrible, like emulsion, and she was tired. For the last month she had been kept up each night practising her routines, and when that was done, her Q&As. Who was her role model? What was her favourite food? Where was her dream holiday? Which did she like best, strawberry or chocolate? All for the Mini Miss Marvellous showdown. Her mom wanted her to win as many titles as she could in the run-up to secure her position as the mightiest contender on the circuit. Intimidate the competition, she’d been instructed.

      ‘We’re ready for our princesses!’ A fat woman entered the girls’ dressing room, wibbling with excitement as she beckoned the entrants. ‘OK, everybody, file up onstage!’

      A cacophony of squeals followed, the gaggle of baby beauty queens scrambling over each other with their stick-on hair and fake dangly earrings, desperate to reach the line first.

      ‘Elegance,’ snipped Ramona, holding Bunny’s shoulders in place with an iron grip. ‘A lady never rushes.’

      Tonight’s head-to-head was freestyle dance. Ramona had chosen a medley of disco tunes to accompany her daughter’s sequence, and as ever their strongest challenger was Tracy-Ann Hamilton, who strutted her stuff like a dynamo. Partway through her routine Bunny started to flag, and it was only the steel-grey glower of her mother that compelled her to continue. As she turned and twisted, jumped and spun, executing the painstakingly choreographed steps with all the dedication she could muster, the circus of surrounding faces became a gawking, gruesome carousel of grasping would-be victors, she at its centre, floundering helplessly like an animal in the road about to be shot.

      ‘Adequate,’ appraised Ramona as she came off to thunderous applause. Bunny’s heart was pounding, her breath short, and she bent over to catch herself, thinking she might barf. ‘You mangled the jazz axles. Why? Didn’t we go through them enough times at home?’

      She struggled to talk. ‘I thought my shoes were going to come off. They’re too big.’

      ‘Nonsense.’ Ramona knelt and roughly grabbed a stiletto, forcing Bunny to steady herself on her mother’s shoulder. ‘Stop leaning on me, Bunny, it’s amateur.’

      ‘Sorry.’

      ‘These are fine. Better too big than too small. If you weren’t complaining about this you’d be whining about blisters.’

      ‘And the winner of the Freestyle Miss Pretty California category is…’

      ‘Come on, you bitches!’ hissed Ramona.

      ‘Bunny White!’

      ‘YES!’ Ramona punched the air. Bunny looked up, waiting for congratulations but her mother was too busy accepting compliments from the envious parents around her. Seconds later she was being roughly pushed to the podium to collect the bouquet.

      ‘Curtsey! Curtsey!’ rasped Ramona from the side of the stage.

      Bunny obliged, rictus smile in place. Fleetingly she wondered if Scotty would ever get to see her take the spotlight like this—maybe when she began to compete internationally, maybe then. Her heart leapt at the thought of his name alone. Where was he now? What was he thinking? All she wanted to do was curl up in bed and dream about him.

      On the drive home she closed her eyes and tried to do just that. Not easy with Ramona grousing about how she could have been better, that with a little СКАЧАТЬ