Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [32]
For a moment, I hoped that the bimbos had a wicked sense of humor, since one of the prizes was dinner for two at a local steakhouse. But as I watched the barely-clad judges hug and kiss and fawn all over the winner, I realized that wasn't the case. This skin-and-bones bod really was the envy of the all-female panel. Lia's crowning as the Third Annual Homemade Bikini Queen was a victory for binge-and-purgers everywhere . . . a realization that, appropriately, made me nauseous.
The outcome also left a sour taste in Bethany's mouth, but she was more reluctant to leave.
“I've got a babysitter!” she shouted. “I'm not ready to go home!”
I was. On the way out, we had to fight our way past the throng of guidos vying to buy Cricket her first consolation beer. Oh, now they had money to burn. I spotted the MC working his mojo on Sammi, well aware that Cricket was way out of his league. Lia, the anorexic queen, was still holding court with the augmented skankbots. I had almost made it out the door when I was shoved by a steroidal elbow, which made me crash into the body in front of me. I said I was sorry even before I realized that I was apologizing to Ginger Lynn, the girl who less than a half hour ago had pulled out all the XXX stops—and failed.
Ginger Lynn looked at me with tired, blue-mascaraed eyes and said, “Hey, it's okay. We're both just trying to get out of this hellhole.”
In cut-to-the-crotch Daisy Dukes, a tube top, and cowboy boots, she was wearing considerably more than she had onstage—but it didn't help. Ginger Lynn was the unsophisticated type that this publication loves to mock, a Miss on the Hit or Miss? page of life.
But at that moment, I didn't want to make fun of her. I related to her. I understood her. Ginger Lynn and I were both invisible in that bar, and united by our desire to get out of it. But one monumental difference was clear to me then, even if it wasn't to her.
Ginger Lynn would definitely be back.
the seventeenth
I knocked on Tyra's door to find out whether she would prefer an electronic or hard copy of my first draft.
“Mighty Aphrodite! I'm so thrilled to see you!”
I blushed with pride, honored that she was so excited to read my essay.
“You need to read this book,” she shouted, thrusting a hot pink paperback into my hands. “For inspiration!”
And Tyra started going on and on about how the author was one of the brightest among a new breed of social satirists, and how the Park-Avenue-born-and-bred author had reinvented the submersion genre of journalism by going undercover at a podunk New Jersey high school to see what middle-class life was like there, and how the author had crafted a Fast Times at Ridgemont High for the MTV generation, and how the author had eviscerated suburban culture with her razor-sharp wit and wisdom, and how the author had surprised them because as a Manhattan heirhead she had no reason to do anything with her life besides go shopping and clubbing, and how the author was being profiled in the New Jersey issue because the unreleased film version of the book was already generating a lot of bad buzz and she wanted to relaunch herself as a social activist . . .
“Have you heard of the author?” Tyra asked. “Have you read the book already?”
What to say? What to say?
Do I tell her that yes, I have not only heard of the author, Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, and the book, Bubblegum Bimbos and Assembly-Line Meatballers, but I hung out with the author when she was hiding behind the name Hy and also, unintentionally, provided her with the title of her hip-hop opus? Do I tell her that I have read this book already because the “fictional