"You let 'em mangle my'ose?" Her voice felt m.u.f.fled, as though she were speaking from within a pile of carpets.

"Mangle? Hardly. You now have the nose of JenniLu Wheeler,Mrs. Arkansas America."

"Id's... my 'ose." She felt nauseous. Her jaws ached.

"Don't get so exercised, sweetie."

Susan tried to move her body, which seemed to weigh asmuch as a house. She'd never felt gravity's pull so strongly. Mari-lyn said, "We have to stay here in the recuperation room for sixmore hours. How do you feel?"

"Woozy. "Eavy."

"It's the painkillers. I had them give you a double prescrip-tion with two refills. You know how Don the Swan's back can actup." Don, Susan's stepfather had, over the years, evolved into awhisky-sunburnt, perpetually incapacitated repairman.

"Don seems to be able to lift his SeaDoo and his bowlingb.a.l.l.s from the bed of his pickup 'enever he needs to."

"Susan! We're selling the SeaDoo to move to Wyoming, or areyou conveniently choosing to forget this?"

"I don't wont to go to Wyoming, Mom. It was your idea. I'm fif-teen. Like I 'ave legal say in the matter."

Marilyn smiled. "Oh! The treachery!"

"Mom, I'm too 'ired to fight. Go get me a mirror." Marilyn paused upon hearing this. Susan said, "I look 'at bad, huh?"

"It's not a matter of good or bad, dear. I speak from ex-perience. You're covered in bandages. You'll look like h.e.l.l nomatter what."

"Mom, just show me the stupid mirror."

Marilyn brought a yellow-handled mirror from the coffee table. Outside in the hallway bandaged figures were beingtrolleyed by on gurneys. Marilyn held the mirror up for Susanto see her face.

8-4"Ee-yuuu. I 'ook like a used Pampers balled up and stuffed in atrash can."

"Such an imagination, young woman," said Marilyn, whisk-ing away the mirror. "In three weeks it is going to be scientifi-cally impossible for you to take a bad picture. Do you haveany idea what that means? I've already lined up a photographerto come up from Mount Hood. An ex-hippie. Ex-hippies makethe best photographers. I don't know why. But they do." She litup a Salem. "Speaking of JenniLu Wheeler, I heard that thenight before the Miss Dixie contest, her eyes puffed up from toomany c.o.c.ktails with a handful of senators, and they put leechesunder her eyes to suck out the puffiness. I never told you that one, did I?"

"No.You 'idn't."

"She bled like a pig for two days, and she missed the t.i.tle be-cause of it. Or so the story goes."

"Lovely, Mom." Susan relaxed and sunk into the mattress. Anurse stepped into the room and asked Marilyn to extinguishher cigarette.

"Excuse me, young lady, but are we in Moscow right now?"

"It's rules, Mrs. Colgate."

"Where's your manager?" Marilyn asked.

"This is a hospital, not a McDonald's, Mrs. Colgate. We don'thave managers."

"Mom, this is a 'ospital, not the Black Angus. Stub it out."

"No, Susan-no, I won't stub it out. Not until I get an apologyfrom this insultress."

"It's rules, Mrs. Colgate." But the nurse lost her will to pushthe issue, and walked away.

Marilyn took a deep victorious inhale. "I always win, don't I,Susan?"

"Yes, Mom. You always do. You're the queen of drama."

"And that's a compliment?"

Susan decided the smartest course of action was to shut hereyes and feign sleep. It worked. Marilyn returned to her maga-zine's personality quiz and smoked her victory cigarette. Susanmentally flipped through a catalog of Marilyn's seamless dra-mas, such as the time in the changing room she spritzed a tightly aimed spray bottle of canola oil at the swimsuit of Miss Orlando Pre-Teene after a close call in the talent contest. Susanplayed her Beethoven Fur Elise, but Miss Orlando had played aBach Goldberg variation, which could sway even the most mu-sically nai've listener in her favor. As a result of the canola oil (towhich Marilyn was never linked), Miss Orlando was forced toborrow Miss Chattanooga's one-piece and lost the pageant.

Susan won a mink coat and a Waikiki weekend, both ofwhich were exchanged for cash, and used to cover travel ex-penses and the household bills. The money was nice, but it wasby no means the sole reason for pageantry. "Susan, there is noprice tag that can be placed on accomplishment and superiority.

Even if you were the richest girl on earth, do you think youcould simply buy yourself a crown? Winners have an inner glowthat cannot even be dreamt of in the soul of a nonwinner."

Marilyn called the pageant business "shucking bunnies," eventhough the hutches in which she once bred rabbits to raisemoney for gowns were long a thing of the past-since Susanintegrated Barbie into her essence and began winning sol-idly around age seven in the Young American Lady, West Coast Division.

"Hey, sweetie, looks like rabbit pelting season sure did starttoday.The bunnies are hopping for their lives tonight!"

When things were good, when both Marilyn and Susan wereon the road, stoked to win, their systems charged with the smellof hair products, Susan could imagine no other mother more wonderful or more giving than Marilyn, and no childhoodmore exotic or desirable. School was a joke.

Marilyn regularlyphoned in and lied that Susan was sick. In lieu of school, shemade Susan read three books a week as well as take lessons inelocution, modern dance, piano, deportment and French."School is for losers," Marilyn told Susan after spinning anotheryarn about kidney infections to yet another concerned vice-princ.i.p.al. "Trust me on this one, sweetie-you'll never lose if you learn the tricks I'm teaching you."

And Susan didn't lose. She rea.s.sured herself with this thought as her false sleep faded into real dreams.

Chapter Eleven.

Half a year after Susan's cosmetic surgery, Marilyn learned in a pageant newsletter that a judge previously unfavorable towardSusan would be on the panel at the upcoming Miss AmericanAchiever pageant over the Memorial Day weekend at the St.Louis Civic Auditorium. Marilyn knew that this judge, EugeneLindsay, had blackballed Susan after her performance of Fur Elisein the talent segment of Country USA pageant at the Lee Green-wood Dinner Theater in Sevierville, Tennessee, the previous fall.After that night's events, from the other side of a freezingly air- conditioned banquette table at the Best Western lounge, Marilyn, drinking a double vodka tonic alone, had heard Lindsay's unmis-takable TV-smoothened voice say: "I am so G.o.ddammed sick ofthese wind-up-toy midgets and their G.o.ddammed robotic ren-ditions of Beethoven Lite. I hear them play that f.u.c.king tune somuch that it feels like I'm in a purgatory engineered by what-ever a.s.swipe it is who chooses the on-hold music for the DeltaAirlines ticket line." Marilyn was taken aback neither by his lan-guage, nor the sentiment. But she was deeply surprised to hear such a blatantly truthful expression of the dark thoughts thatlurked in the hearts of panel judges. She had wondered herself if Susan's Fur Elise was maybe getting a bit thin, and by thenhad already initiated proceedings to have Susan perform a Greasemedley.

Eugene Lindsay was to Marilyn an almost unbearably hand-some opponent, against whom none of the other pageant momscould be rallied ("Why, sugar," said one pageant mom, torn be-tween propriety and carnality, "I'd let that man hug me ragged").Although Eugene was a weatherman in everyday life, Marilyn knew that when he died, he'd likely land himself the biggest Ford dealership in heaven. Eugene went through life like a GreatDane or a speeding ambulance, exacting the unfettered aweof whomever he pa.s.sed. He did the nightly weather on an Indiana NBC affiliate, and was hooked into the pageant circuit through his wife, Renata, a mail-order-gown specialist for thegenerously proportioned, who also sidelined in hairpieces.

The day before the Miss American Achiever pageant, Marilyninsisted she and Susan spend the day visiting Bloomington, In-diana, Eugene Lindsay's home town. "It's research, sweetie. I want to check out Renata's store. It'll be fun."

Soon Susan would decide her mother was out of control, buton this trip she pa.s.sively flowed along with Marilyn to Bloom-ington, the two of them surrounded by an asteroid belt of lug-gage as they strode through Bloomington's Monroe CountyAirport, Marilyn ensuring that the little clear vinyl windows onthe gown bags faced outward: "So that pa.s.sersby can know theyare in the presence of star magic."

There were no cabs at the airport. A buzzing triad of fel-low pa.s.sengers from commuter flights stood on the taxi islandpointlessly craning their necks as if, Manhattan-like, a fleetmight momentarily appear.

Shortly a single cab approached, andMarilyn pounced on its door handle, inflaming the triad. "Hey, lady-there's a line here."

Marilyn swiveled, removed her black sungla.s.ses the size ofbread plates, looked at her accuser point-blank and chargedahead.They checked in to their hotel, then visited Renata's nearbystore, which was interesting enough. Susan thought that forsomebody dealing in large-size pageant wear, Renata herself hadabout as much body fat as a can of Tab and three cashew nuts.Marilyn spoke with Renata, and Susan browsed through the farside of the store, which was filled to her pleasant surprise withregular craft-shop art supplies.

Later that evening, up in the hotel room, Marilyn suggestedthey go for a drive.

"We don't have a car, Mom."

"I rented one while you were in the workout room."

"Where are we going, Mom?"

"You'll see."

"Is this something nasty again, Mom?"

"Susan!"

"Then it is, because you haven't said 'sweetie' once yet, andwhenever you fib, you drop the nice stuff."

"Oh sweetie."

"Too late."

Marilyn pursed her lips and looked at her daughter, swaddledin track pants and a gray kangaroo sweater. "Well then. Comealong." Marilyn brought two pairs of gardening gloves, a boxof trash bags and two flashlights. They drove out into windingresidential streets of a repet.i.tive stockbroker Tudor design, the type that, when she was younger, Susan a.s.sociated with thewalrus-mustached plutocrat from the Monopoly board. Nowshe more realistically a.s.sociated this sort of neighborhood with car dealers, cute amoral boys, sweater sets, regularly scheduledmeals containing the four food groups, Christmas tree lightsthat didn't blink, the occasional hand on the knee, cheerful pets,driveways without oil stains, women named Barbara and, ap-parently, weathermen for regional NBC affiliates.

"That Lindsay guy lives here?" Susan asked, looking out at acolonial with a three-car garage, as colorfully lit as an aquarium castle, surrounded by dense evergreens that absorbed noise likesonic tampons.

"Shhh!" Marilyn had killed the car's lights the block before."Just help me out here, sweetie." They sidled over to the cansand Marilyn removed the lid from one. "Beautifully bagged.Like a Christmas gift.

Susan-quietly now-help me lift the bag out." The bag made a fruity, resonant fart sound against the can'sinner edge as Susan hauled it out, and she laughed.

Five beautifully wrapped bags of trash made their way intothe car's trunk and back seat. Marilyn squealed away from thehouse, with her lights out for the first, almost painful, nervouspuffs of breath.

"Where now?" Susan asked.

"A Wal-Mart parking lot."

"A Wal-Mart lot? Isn't that kind of public?"

Marilyn turned on the lights. That's precisely why we're going there. We'll look like two lady lunchbucket losers sifting throughtheir own c.r.a.p, most likely in pursuit of an eleven-cents-offcoupon for house-brand bowling b.a.l.l.s."

And Marilyn was correct. She parked within ten stalls of the store's main entrance, and not a soul gave a second glance to themother-daughter team purposefully ripping through deep green plastic umbilical cords and placentas like industrial midwives.

"What are we supposed to be looking for?" Susan asked.

"I'll know when I see it. One bag at a time. Spread the con-tents evenly on the trunk floor. Good. Now hold open your bagand I'll put things into it, piece by piece." Marilyn hawkeyed theitems, which afforded a gla.s.s-bottom boat tour of the homeand lives of la famille Lindsay. "Bathroom," she said, "b.l.o.o.d.y Kleenexes, three; Q-tips, two; bunion pads, four, five, six; pre-scription bottle, contents: Lindsay, Eugene, Stellazine, a hundred milligrams twice daily, no refill.""What'sStellazine?"

"An antipsychotic. Powerful. Diggety-dawg, this is a keeper."Marilyn's elder sister, a fellow escapee from their yokel origins,was a schizophrenic who, before jumping off the 1-5 bridge indowntown Portland, had been a pharmaceutical bellwether forMarilyn. "Let's go on. Disposable razor, one."

Marilyn then found three 8-x-10s of Eugene's face, sand-wiched together with a layer of Noxzema.

"Dammit, why doeshe have to be so G.o.ddam handsome?"

Susan grabbed one of the photos and her eyes sucked him in.She felt the way she had when she won a side of beef in herhigh school's Christmas raffle. "He is good-looking, isn't he?"

"They always are, honey, they always are."

Susan snuck the photo into her pocket, then shivered.

"You're cold, sweetie."

"No. Yes. Sort of."

"You sound like Miss Montana did in last month's pageant."Marilyn laughed, and even Susan had to smile. "Only give de-clarative answers, sweetie."

The next bag must have been from Renata's bathroom, a per-fect bin of high-quality cosmetics, items which earned grudg-ing admiration from Marilyn.

Next came several bags of kitchen waste: junk mail, coffeegrounds, mostly unopened upscale deli containers and several cans of unpopular vegetables-beets and lima beans.

One bag remained: "Come on, Eugene! Give me what Ineed." It was evidently office waste: dried-out pens, a typewriter'scorrection ribbon, opened bill envelopes from Ameritech,Chevron, PSI Energy, Indiana Gas and-"What's this?" Marilynreached for an askew clump of similar-looking photocopies.

Shechose one at random, and began reading it aloud: " 'Ignore thisletter at your peril. One women in Columbus chose to ignorethis and was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning a week later..."A chain letter." Marilyn skimmed the copy. "Well andgood, but why so many of them, Eugene?

What the-?" Atthis point her eyes saucered and her brain flipped inside herhead like a circus Chihuahua. "Susan! Look! This weasel's beensending out hundreds of chain letters to dupes around the country-Canada and Mexico, too, and look-he always putshimself at the top of the chain on all the lists."

Susan was young and unfamiliar with chain letters. "Yeah?"

"So even if a fraction of these suckers mail fifty bucks, he stillscores big-time."

" Let me see." Susan read the threatening letter more carefully.

Marilyn, meanwhile, yanked out a folder cover: "KLRT-AMRadio, San Jose, California, All Talk, All the Time." Inside thefolder were printout lists of names and addresses, each crossedoff. There were also folders from other cities-Toronto, Ontario;Bowling Green, Kentucky; and Schenectady, New York. "I get.i.t-these are names and addresses of station listeners who filledout marketing cards."

"Why them?" Susan asked.

"Think about it: if you've nailed down a file of people whoenthusiastically identify with whacko call-in radio shows, it'snot too much extra work to squeak a fifty out of them. Kid'splay. Here, help me put these papers in neat piles. Eugene, I loveyou for helping dig your own grave."

They stacked and collated their booty. Back in the car Marilyndrove to a dumpster behind a Taco Bell and said, "Chuck theleftover trash in there." Susan took Eugene Lindsay's rebaggedgarbage and daintily lobbed it over the bin's rusty green rim.

At the hotel, Susan got fed up with Marilyn and her cacheof papers. The TV was broken. She lay on the bed and triedto find animal shapes inside the ceiling's cottage cheese stip-pling. "Mom, are we with a host family or at a hotel tomorrownight?"

9O.

"A hotel, sweetie."

"Oh."

"You'd rather we stay with a host family?"

"Yes and no."Yes because she got to peek into other people'slives and houses, invariably more normal than her own, and n.o.because she'd also have to smell the host family eat their foodand have yet another host dad or host brother try to cop a feelor mistakenly enter the bathroom while she was having her shower, and she'd have to put a sunshine smile on everything toboot. Her mind wandered to a group of women who'd picketedthe California Young Miss pageant earlier on that year in SanFrancisco. They'd called the pageant entrants cattle. They accusedthe mothers of being butchers leading sheep to slaughter.

They'd worn meat bikinis. Susan smiled. She tried to imaginebeef's feel on her skin, moist and pink, like the skin beneatha scab. "Mom-what did you think of those meat women in San Francisco? The ones with the flank steak bikinis."

Marilyn drooped the papers she was holding. "Angry, emptywomen, Susan." Marilyn's temples popped veins. "Did you hearme? Lost. Absolutely lost. No men in their lives. Hungry. Mean. Ifeel sorry for them.