I knew he was right, but I was afraid to wish anything big for myself. I guess I've always been modest and shy. Maybe that was because I was afraid of committing myself to anything that required a longterm effort. We had been so nomadic, moving like npsies from town to town, city to city, so often I was terrified of becoming too close to anyone or too involved in any activity. Goodbyes were like tiny pins jabbed into my heart. How many times had I sat in the rear of the car looking through the back window at the home I had just known as it disappeared around a bend and was gone forever?
However. Daddy wasn't the only one who used superlatives when remarking about my looks. I should have been building up my confidence. Wherever Mammy took me, even when I was only six or seven, people complimented me on my features, my complexion, my eyes. I was often told how
photogenic I was, and how I should be on the covers of magazines.
When I was about eleven. I sensed that my male teachers looked at me and spoke to me differently from the way they did the other students and especially the other girls. I could feel the pleasure I brought merely being in front of them. In my early teen years, my male teachers seemed to flirt with me. Other girls with green eyes of envy muttered about my being Mr. Patter's pet or Mr. Conklin's special girl. They complained that I could do no wrong in the opinion of my male teachers. They even assumed my grades were inflated because I knew how to bat my long, perfect eyelashes or smile softly so that my eyes were sexy, inviting.
I suppose it was inevitable that Mommy would want to enter me in a beauty contest. Six months after we had arrived in Lewisville. Mommy heard about the Miss Lewisville Foundry beauty pageant and discovered that through some oversight there was no minimum age requirement. She decided I could compete with women in their late teens and twenties and filled out the application. She made Daddy ask his boss to consider sponsoring me, and I was brought to the dealership to meet Mr. Kruegar, a balding fortyyear-old man who had inherited the business from his father. It was the first time I was paraded in front of someone who looked at me like some commodity, a product-- in his case, like a brand-new car. He even referred to me as he would refer to one of his new model vehicles.
"She has the chassis. That's for sure. Charles," he said, drinking me in from head to foot, pausing over my breasts and my waist as if he was measuring me for a dress. "Nice bumpers and great chrome," he added and quickly laughed. "You're a beautiful one, Rose. No wonder your father's proud of vou. Sure we'll sponsor her. Charles. She's a winner and I can't get hurt by the publicity. Not if she's going to wear a Kruegar T-shirt and a Kruegar pin. That's for sure."
Mr. Kruegar wiped the tip of his tongue over his thick, wet lips and nodded as he continued to scrutinize me with his beady eyes. I felt like a dinner for a cannibal and wanted nothing more to do with the contest or him, but Mommy assured me he would have little to do with what happened.
"You probably won't see him again until the actual event," she promised.
With a good budget now for my preparations. Mommy set out to buy me an attractive evening dress, a new bathing suit, and a pretty blouse and skirt outfit. The contest took only one day. Like the Miss America pageant, there was the question and answer period, which at least pretended an interest in our minds as well as our bodies. Then there was the swimsuit competition, and finally, the evening when we could sing, read poems, dance, whatever. I did a Hawaiian folk dance I learned off a videotape Mommy had bought. After we were all finished with our talent show, we paraded in front of the judges for the final evaluation, supposedly based upon poise and grace.
I knew the older women were infuriated that I had been entered. None of them were friendly. As it turned out, a woman named Sheila Stowe won the title. I was first runner-up. Everyone in the audience, except Sheila's family, thought I was cheated because Sheila, as it turned out, was a relative of the Lewis family.
After the contest, people insisted on calling me Ms. Lewisville Foundry or just Miss Foundry whenever they saw me. They sympathized with my mother, cajoling and insisting I was the true beauty of Lewisville. I can't say it didn't put daydreams in my head. I,began to imagine myself on the covers of the big
gest and most glamorous magazines, eventually developing products under my name. I started to think of elegance and style more seriously, and began to dare ambition.
"I'm expecting you to become someone very special. Rose," Daddy told me as he sat there in my room. "I have high hopes. I know that I haven't exactly made things easy for you and your mother, but," he said. smiling, "you're like some powerful, magnificent flower plowing itself up between the rocks, finding the sunshine and blooming with blossoms richer than those of flowers in perfectly prepared gardens. Just believe in yourself," he advised.
Daddy hardly ever spoke so seriously to me. It kept my heart thumping.
"I'll try. Daddy," I said.
"Sure you will. Sure," he said. He played with the loose ends of my bedroom floor rug for a moment, holding his soft, gentle smile. "I guess I never had much faith in myself. I guess I move on so much because I'm afraid of making too much of an investment in anything. It would make failure look like failure," he said, looking up. "instead of just a temporary setback I can ignore.
"Don't be like me. Rose. Dig your heels into something and stick with it, okay?"
"Okay, Daddy," I said.
He stood up, leaned over, and kissed me on the forehead, twirling my hair in his forefinger and reciting: "Your eyes are two diamonds.
Your hair is spun gold. Your lips are rubies and your skin comes from pearls. My Rose petal."
He laughed, kissed me again, and walked out.
I never heard his voice again or his laugh or bathed in his happy smile.
2 Gone
Mommy was up almost as early as Daddy Saturday morning. When I came down to breakfast, she told me she must have just missed him. She was sitting at the table, flipping the pages of her cookbook, searching for a new and interesting recipe for duck.
"I'm tired of having duck, but if we don't eat what he brings home, he'll make me feel like I've committed a sin, having him kill a duck for nothing."
"You always make it delicious. Mammy," I said.
"Um," she replied, her eyes on the recipe she had found.. "I've got to go to the supermarket to get some of these ingredients."
"I'm going to the movies tonight with Paula Conrad," I reminded her. She nodded. half-listening.
"Mammy. Daddy didn't say anything about us having to move soon, did he?" I asked, and she brought her head up so fast, I thought she would snap her neck.
"No, why?"