Mom has me doing standing squats in her pageant room upstairs as she thumbs through the Miss Lone Star Princess applications. To Mom, everything is training for the pageant. And the pageant is training for life.
She gets chipper when calling out familiar names—girls I’ve known since kindergarten, daughters of her friends from church.So-and-so is so cute, she’ll say, like she’s rooting for them. But I know what she’s really doing. This is reconnaissance. A threat assessment disguised as chitchat.
Each contestant gets an index card, a color-coded dot, and then a pushpin onto the corkboard mounted above her desk. The board looks like something out of a war room, all neat rows and shifting ranks.
The way I see it, there is no competition.
In Anhalt, Miss Lone Star Princess isn’t just a pageant. It’s a religion. The board of directors is made up of the same women who’ve run it since before I was born—the mayor’s wife, the head of the First Baptist Women’s Missionary Union, a few former queens who still wear their sashes to town events. They worship tradition, legacy, and perfect posture.
And since Mom won the title twenty-five years ago, everyone already knows whose turn it is next.
But my mother is nothing if she isn’t thorough.Complacencybreeds failure. Another of her maxims. Probably something she picked up from one of those white-teethed, “unleash-your-power” seminars she swears are “life-changing” every time.
I’ve won crowns before—plenty of them, enough that the shelf in my bedroom sags under the weight of rhinestones. But those were practice runs. Every step, every sash, every stage-ready smile has been training for Miss Lone Star Princess.
This is the pageant Mom cares about. Because, for her, it was the beginning of everything.
“Hold and squeeze at the bottom, Sarah Lynn, and go slower on your way up,” she says, nipping at me. It’s like being in the room with a shark circling, only instead of biting off chunks, she nibbles off the pieces of me she doesn’t like.
I glance up at the life-sized photo of her Miss Texas 2006 crowning, anchored in a large frame in the center of the room. The roses in her arms are lush, velvety red. Her hand covers her mouth, eyes glistening with tears. She wears a smile so genuine and giant, it’s like she could swallow the whole of the world. She is at her most beautiful and, I know, it’s the happiest moment of her life. I love this picture, even if it’s kind of sad that Mom’s pinnacle came before my brother, Kayden, and me.
I fix my eyes to the portrait and squat low. My thighs burn, and a bead of sweat slips down my spine. I force myself to stay steady, to look composed, to make it look easy. That’s part of the training too—never let her see you struggle.
“Hannah Campbell?” Mom says, “is that Melanie’s daughter?”
Slowly and with control, I push myself back up to standing. “Yeah, she works with me up at Smoothie Palace. She’s brand-new to pageants. Actually, do you think she could train with us today? She’s going to need it,” I say, hoping to soften any of her predatory inclinations. I told the girls that the pageant will be fun. And, for them, it will be. They have no stake in this game.
“Sure thing,” Mom says, jotting a quick note on Hannah’s index card before pinning it up in the yellow—“unknown”—section. Thenshe pauses at the next name, tapping her pen on the paper. “Hmm,” she says. “Sabrina Doyle signed up.” She presses a red dot onto the card and pins it high on the board, in the “watch list.”
I roll my eyes. Sabrina Doyle is pretty, sure. A cheerleader with a mama that will buy her the best dresses money can buy. But she’s never set foot on a stage. Sabrina Doyle is not a threat. None of the girls on that corkboard are.
No one has trained like I have—early mornings and late nights, countless coaches, wardrobe fittings, mock interviews. Mom’s been raising me for this stage since I could walk in heels. Some cheerleader in a brand-new gown is not taking this crown from us.
No one is.
CHAPTER SEVENCAT
I cross the bridge, the river threading beneath it, and turn in to Sherman Ranch, heading back to the model home. My groceries slide sideways in the trunk, and I try to remember if the kid at H-E-B double-bagged the champagne. That’s just what I’d need—a car reeking of alcohol. My sponsor would love that.
At the development’s entrance, bouquets slump in the sun, petals browned and curling in on themselves. A few teddy bears sag against the post, rain warped and matted. One fading poster board sign asks:WHERE IS IZZY?
All this construction has dug up more than dirt. It’s brought the story of Izzy Whitmore back to the forefront of everyone’s minds. Twenty-five years ago, Izzy disappeared without a trace. Everyone in town believes she’s buried somewhere right here, on the Sherman land. And now they’re all just holding their breath, waiting for one of these backhoes to dig her up.
I wonder if that’s partly why her sister, Iggy, is back in town. Though I know from Melanie that her mom is sick. I passed Iggy on the road a few minutes ago, and the sight of her nearly gave me a heart attack. I wonder if she gets that a lot—if she’s used to people looking at her and seeing Izzy instead—and if that’s why she moved so far away.
I pull up and park in front of the model home. On the porch, beside the rocking chairs, the plaid throw, and the vase of sunflowers, standKennedy Claire Preston and her copy-paste daughter. Oh, Lord, I haven’t seen Kennedy Claire since high school, and, annoyingly, she looks just as good as she did back then. I have the momentary urge to shift the car back into drive and escape.
But she’s already spotted me, throwing up her hand and waggling her lilac-painted fingers at me. I take a breath and open the door.
“Cat?” she says, lifting her sunglasses to the top of her blond extensions so she can squint across the yard. “Cat Dennis? I heard you were working here, honey. Good for you.”
I ignore the subtle dig. Back in high school, Kennedy Claire was the master of the backhanded compliment. I go around to open the trunk, loading my arms up with groceries.
“What a surprise,” I say, walking toward her. “You look amazing.”
She looks down at her dress, smoothing the skirt and smiling like she agrees. “This is my daughter, Sarah Lynn.”
“Hi, ma’am,” Sarah Lynn says, holding out her hand. I notice that her fingernails are painted the exact same shade of lilac. Even without the matching nails and matching hair, the resemblance is uncanny.