Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [72]
DeeDee, a blonde with enormous eyes and a wreath of flowers in her hair, marched across the stage, grinning and blowing kisses. No trace of her backstage tears.
“Miss Rosemary Birmingham!”
Rosemary, a pigtailed brunette, crossed with her thumb in her mouth.
“Miss Kayla-Ann Green!”
The tiny girl with the poofy dress, who I’d observed making faces in the mirror. I glanced at Momma. She looked concerned. I didn’t know what she was so worried about. The other girls were adorable, a tribe of glittering pixies, but none had my sister’s voice. And I’d bet my entire rock collection not a single girl could sing in Italian.
“Miss Frederica Jones!” Mr. Ferber continued. “Miss Madison Matthews!”
And then I heard my name.
“Grace Carpenter!”
I jolted around in my seat and searched the room. A multitude of unfriendly faces stared back. I turned to the front again, admonishing my imagination.
“Miss Lily Morehouse!”
The red-lipsticked redhead flounced across the stage. She did have a figure. Possibly better than mine.
“Gracey, come on! Let’s go!”
This time, the voice was unmistakable.
I stood, frantically scanning the crowd. A gray-haired woman across the cafeteria table complained that I was blocking her view, but I didn’t care. At last I spied Mandarin tucked into the nook of a closet doorway. She waved her hands wildly.
My heart soared. Mandarin had come for me! All the way to the tri-county pageant at the Benton High School cafeteria. Of course, I didn’t know why she’d come, but it had to be for something exciting.
“Grace!” It was Momma this time. “Grace, sit down! What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, Momma … I have to go.”
“You have to go where? What are you talking about?”
“I’ll be home later tonight, okay?”
“You will not! You—”
“Miss Serena Bond!” the announcer called.
Momma, distraught, glanced at the stage, and then back at me, and then back at the stage again. The grumbles around us amplified into quiet curses as I hovered there, half in and half out of my seat. Finally, Momma gestured me away.
“Fine! Just go, go! Get on out of here!”
I clambered over the tangled legs of the angry crowd, to the aisle where Mandarin waited. “Took you long enough,” she said, grabbing my hand. Together, we rushed along the dim corridor toward freedom.
“Miss Taffeta Carpenter!”
My hand slipped from Mandarin’s. I caught the door before it shut between us, and turned to look.
Taffeta stepped out of the row of little girls. Her grin seemed to catch the light and send it back at me, like sunshine zinging off a car windshield. I couldn’t tell if she was sucking in, but it didn’t matter. She was beautiful. I watched the tilt of her head as she gazed out at the audience, scanning, searching.
And suddenly, she was looking straight at me.
I doubted she could see me all the way in the back of the room, where I hunkered like a fugitive. But then her grin faltered. Her eyes widened.
My fingers slid a few inches down the door.
“Come on, Gracey! Let’s go!”
Ducking my head, I followed Mandarin into the evening outside.
“Look,” Mandarin said. “Heat lightning.”
We stood in the parking lot of Benton High, on either side of her father’s truck. Far across the badlands, the evening sky faded into a gradient of flashing light. The whole earth seemed to rumble faintly, as if something were awakening.
“What causes it, anyway?” I asked as Mandarin stuck her key into the driver’s-side door.
“Dragons,” she said.
There was a shudder of wind right as she said it. Wildwinds. Or maybe not. I pulled the cuffs of my cardigan over my hands and shivered. Mandarin reached across and unlocked my door. I hopped in and slammed the door behind me.
“So … I see your dad let you use his truck again.”
“It’s my truck now.” Mandarin patted the steering wheel.
“Really?”
“I still got to pay him back. But how’d you think we were going to leave town in the first place?”
The wind quaked against the sides of the truck, and the heat lightning seemed to crackle into the cavity of my chest. I suddenly became