His Saving Grace

Chapter Nine

"Good evening, Arizona!" the emcee said. The crowds errupted in cheers. From Tempe, we went on a twenty minute drive by car with John's family to the Celebrity Theathre in Phoenix, where the pageant was being held. The Celebrity Theatre was amazing--the stage revolved. Well, call me shallow, but we didn't have revolving stages back there in Tempe. The theatre itself was huge--it could accomodsate about 2,000 people. The backstage was nice and roomy and not 5 meters wide, unlike the backstage we had in school.

"Hi." I looked behind me, and lo and behold, another extremely gorgeous girl. She had the number 9 pinned to the bottom of the skirt of her dress. She smiled brightly at me, showing a set of perfect white teeth.

"Hello," I said in reply, smiling at her. She had violet eyes and brown hair, and unlike me, she was slim, her hair was perfect, and her face didn't have a single zit on it. Goodbye, self esteem.

"I'm Arianna," she said, sticking out a hand. "I come from here. How about you?"

"Katie," I said, shaking her hand. "Tempe."

"Ahh," she said, flipping the hair out of her face. "Who's your partner?"

"His name is John," I said, trying to sound as casual as I could. I had a problem with socializing with girls, which was why I only had one real best female friend and the rest were boys. I couldn't trust most of the girls in our school. "John O'Callaghan."

"I see," she said calmly, nodding her head. 

"Yeah," I said, surprised why she didn't seem so excited, where as most of the girls who'd seen him today were practically throwing themselves at him.  "You don't seem excited."

Arianna laughed lightly. "Why should I be? We used to date."

I blinked at her statement. She didn't seem to notice that I wasn't responding--she just kept twirling her brown locks around her index finger. If John dated someone as pretty as Arianna and they didn't even last, then he'd never like me. 

Oh well.

"John's a really nice guy," Arianna said, staring at the huge velvet curtain in front of him. "So are you like, close?"

"He's my best friend," I said. Arianna nodded, though she didn't say anything in reply. I didn't know whether I should be bothered that she didn't say anything for the next five minutes.

"Contestant number 1! Ciara Lewis and David McKinley!" the emcee called as the music started playing. The crowd cheeered and clapped. Is hifted nervously in my place as numver 3, 4, 5 and 6 were called, and when number 7 was out the curtain I felt like fainting.

"Good luck," Arianna said. I nodded. 

"You, too."

"Contestant number 8, from Tempe, Arizona! Katie Lawrence and John O'Callaghan V!" 

Breathe in, breathe out. 

~~

The crowd was louder when John and I entered--maybe because John was a famous singer and all that. It was good, since they didn't have to pay much attention to me and my super plastic smile and my awkward walking in three inch heels.

So we walked, and posed, and turned, and posed, and walked again. John looked cool and collected, flashing his famous smile to everyone in the crowd. whereas I felt like my heels were going to break.

"You okay?" he whispered to me once we got into position beside number 7. I shook my head, still smiling at the crowd. Sweat started forming on his forhead. I couldn't blame him: there were lights in almost every square inch of the ceiling. My legs felt like giving in.