Fangs

Chapter 8

Violet walked into her house after school with a bag of books and a flier she'd picked up outside a corner shop. It was for "Miss Petite's Boutique." They had "Designer Dresses at a Fraction of the Price!" Which was probably still too expensive for Violet.

Violet walked into her room and nearly tossed the flier into the trash can. But then she noticed a photo of a model on the back wearing a simple black dress with a rhinestone collar that looked like a diamond necklace. Violet could imagine herself in it, standing atop the float and sparkling for the whole town to see.

She sat at her desk and cracked open her Algebra book and tried her best to focus on her homework. But over the equations, she kept imagining herself being crowned Queen. When her name was called, she would act surprised and put her hands over her mouth. Maybe she would cry, even though that wasn't like her. She had seen beauty pageant winners do it on TV all the time, and so that seemed the right thing to do. It was maybe what people expected.

Her hour's worth of homework turned into two as she kept imagining the Autumn Festival. A few times, she even practiced her surprised look in the mirror balancing a small glass bowl on her head as the crown.

She finished the last equation when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Violet said and stood up from her desk.

"Are you ready for dinner?" her mother asked, opening the door.

"Yeah," Violet said even though her stomach felt full as though she had already eaten.

They went into the kitchen where the air was thick with the smell of salty soy sauce and fried rice. Her mother liked to make the dish at least twice a week ever since she'd picked up a cookbook and wok at a garage sale. She liked to talk about how cheap and exotic it tasted. Violet halfway listened to her and put a little of the rice mixed with stir-fried vegetables on her plate. She sat at the table and put a spoonful in her mouth, chewing slowly, and her stomach twisted not wanting any. Her mother dug into a pile of rice with plastic chopsticks decorated with lilies. Violet watched as she struggled to wrangle a few grains of rice into her mouth.

"You should give up and use a fork," Violet said.

A pile of rice fell off the sticks and onto her mother's lap. Violet laughed, and her mother used a napkin to clean it up.

"I'll get the hang of these sometime," she said. "So how was your day?"

"It was okay," Violet said, wondering how her mother would react when she heard the news of her nomination to the Autumn Queen Court. "How was yours?"

"Oh, it was fantastic. Actually fantastic."

"Why?"

"I don't want to get too excited, but I got an in-person job interview in Portales," she said, grinning. "I just have such a good feeling about this working out for me."

"In New Mexico?" Violet stared at her, unable to smile and coughed as though choking on a piece of rice. She gulped down a glass of water. Her mother looked happier than Violet had seen in a long time and that look made her feel guilty. Violet didn't want her to get the job. She would rather them struggle until another came along than move to New Mexico. But she couldn't tell her mother how she really felt.

"Yes, it's a small but quaint place!" she said.

"That's, um...err, great," Violet forced herself to say. "When's the interview?"

"I'm going out there tomorrow," she said. "We'll see how it goes. I shouldn't get too excited, I guess. Well, aren't you excited?"

Violet felt her body deflate and knew she couldn't bring up her news about being on the court. She wanted to be happy when she told her mother instead of feeling the numbness that coursed through her body and into her limbs. She wondered if she would even be around by the time the Autumn Queen was crowned. She put her fork down on the table and shifted in her chair.