Beautiful

by
Elmo Lum

I haven’t felt any good in any weeks.  There’s been a bug making the rounds that I caught early on in the season, the exact wrong time of the season, because I was still working a job.  It’s bad this year, the bug, and it put me down for days and days when I couldn’t afford to set aside any days.  Then, by the time I came to, they’d already replaced me on the job, and that didn’t leave me enough money to swap out the tires on my truck.  So of course one of them blew, and then patching it cost me a chunk of change, so again the year is turning over and again I’m flat broke.  I’ve been trading in electrical work down at George’s for food and fuel, but the bigwigs there frown on enterprise, so we’ve been keeping the deal hush-hush.  If I didn’t know the night manager I’d be starving and freezing my ass this winter.  Another gut-starving and ass-freezing winter.

Plus yesterday the beautiful people drove through, perched in their vans and SUVs, weaving the lanes and potholes of town:  another Daughter’s Day.  Which is damn near worthless to me, since I’ve got no daughter and no son, but especially because I haven’t got a daughter.  Not to mention they kill jobs for us, because — while they like to spruce everything up — the beautiful people bring in their own help, which leaves us locals out in the cold.  Which means I probably won’t find much work until springtime at least, the way this winter’s been unraveling for me so far.

The beautiful people made a pass through town, then circled back again; by now we’d lined the main drag (myself included, even though I’ve never had a daughter).  The second time through they stopped and stepped from their vans to pass out bananas and grapefruit to the throngs of us (myself included — I haven’t peeled a banana in years).  From the high school came running daughters, smoothing their hips and snugging their ponytails, baring thighs and shoulders and navels though their skin was stippling from the cold.  Behind them, resting hands on their shoulders, came mothers from (usually) George’s, still dressed as greeters and cashiers, preening themselves along with their daughters.  We men (myself included) got crowded to the rear, as is usual for us men for Daughter’s Day.

To the girls the beautiful people passed out compliments along with their fruit.  The girls who pushed to the front all bit their lips and chewed their hair.  This included the girls who got pushed to the front by their mothers (from, usually, George’s); behind them watched the girls too young for Daughter’s Day.  The younger girls all bit their lips and chewed their hair, too, half-mocking and half-pretending to be their older sisters.  The older sisters kept on their smiles until the beautiful people passed, then cussed out the younger girls before shoving them away.  Away up the street were the girls who turned up their noses at the whole affair; entirely hidden were the fat girls, the awkwards, the uglies, and the weirds.  (I remember from my high school days, before I dropped out, the principal and teachers herding them into the auditorium until the beautiful people drove away.)

Four weeks, said the beautiful people before driving out through the crowd, leaving only enough beautiful people to snap portraits and take down names.

“My mother was once a finalist,” confessed Inez.  She dragged on one of my cigarettes.

We were in bed.  “No kidding,” I said.

“No kidding.  I guess my mother was a hottie.  Back in the day.  Isn’t that what they used to say?  Back in your day?”

“What do they say now?”

“I don’t know.  Different things.  There’s not one word that means that now.”

“So are you going to try out?”

Inez blew smoke in my face.

“Your mother want you to try out?”

“I hope not, God.  I haven’t talked to her.  She’s been working swing, remember?  Anyway, that’s not quite up to her.  That’s not quite up to me.  You know that.  Don’t you always tell me you remember?”

“They still make you try out at school?”

“Of course.  If you’re not deformed, obese, or weird.”

“Maybe you should act weird.”

She shook her head.  “Even if you’re weird, sometimes they still make you try out then.”

“Let me take a drag.”

Inez didn’t give up the cigarette, just held it to my lips.  When I pulled away, she took a last pull, then stubbed the butt of it out.  “Maybe I should go obese,” she said.

“Don’t do that.  I’m putting my foot down.”

“Your foot can go to hell.  I could do it.”

“In four weeks?  You couldn’t afford to go obese in ten weeks.”

“Maybe my boyfriend will help me out.  Buy me lots of ice cream.  Gallons and gallons of it.  I keep a secret boyfriend, you know.”

“Do you?  Well, if your boyfriend hails from these parts, he couldn’t afford ice cream, either.  Ice cream hasn’t been sold here for years.”

“Oh, yeah.  I was eleven years old.”

“God, I’m an old man.”

“You know, I remember you when I was eleven.”

“Get out.  Why do you lie, Inez?”

“No, I’m serious.  I remember you drove that car.”

“What car?  Only car I ever drove was my truck.”

“Didn’t you?  I remember this.  It was a little two-door convertible, brown, and the top was flaking off.  Come to think of it, I guess the brown was flaking off, too.”

“I know what you’re talking about.  That wasn’t mine.  That was French’s.  He moved away about that time, when the George’s took away his daddy’s business.”

“I didn’t know whose car that was.  I just always saw you around it.”

“Yeah.  That was the only wheels between us.  So of course we were always around it.”

“You look the same.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You remember me when I was eleven?”

“What are you saying?  I ogled eleven-year-olds?”

“Can I have another cigarette?”

“If you let me smoke some this time.”

Inez flicked the cigarette lit, pulled, then fingered it over to me.  She blew a plume.  “You know, I was a cute eleven-year-old.”

“Are you saying you were an eleven-year-old hottie?”

Inez laughed.  “They weren’t even saying that when I was eleven.”

“I am an old man.”

“Tell me about it.”  She took back the cigarette.  “So what I’m hearing is you don’t remember me.”

“I can’t say I do.”

“You were just waiting until I reached high school, weren’t you?”

“You know it, hottie.  I was just biding my time.”

Inez laughed and smacked my arm.

“You’re ashing on the sheets again, baby.”

“Oh, shit.”  She brushed it out, a gray smear.  “Mama’s going to be home soon.”

“I know.”

Inez stood, passed me the cigarette, started to pull on her panties.  “You have any gum?”

“You don’t?”

“I ran out.”

“I might have some left on the dresser.”

Inez rummaged.  “Last piece.”

“Go ahead.”  I watched the shape of her tug on her pants, hook on her bra, pull her top over her head.

“Mama’s got a double coming up on Thursday.  See you then?”

“Oh, baby.  Two shifts for the price of one.”

“You’re such a dirty old man.”  She pulled out her gum to kiss me, then put it back.

“It’s important to have goals.  They still tell you that at school?”

Inez rolled her eyes.  “Yes, God.  So Thursday?”

“With bated breath.”

“What?”

“Don’t even ask me why I said that.  I don’t even know what bated is.”

Inez zipped up her jacket, smoothed her hair, stepped into her shoes.  “Sometimes you’re very weird,” she said.

They came with paint.  They came with nails.  They came with spools and spools of wire.  They came with light bulbs, they came with tar paper, they came with bags of cement.  They brought in new plants for the window boxes, brought in new trees for the street, tore up the sidewalks to dig out the old ones, then planted the new, fresh trees in place.  They set out park benches along the sidewalk even though there isn’t a park for miles.  They broke into the abandoned businesses, filled the windows with outside merchandise.  They painted new signs over the old signs, painted new names on the plate glass windows.  They put up an awning over Ted’s old hardware store, set out tables like for a cafe.  Where Sara used to run her mama’s diner, they installed a flower shop where the flowers they showed “for sale” were all manufactured from cloth.  Where Greta used to do dry cleaning, they cordoned off a staging area (that was what the signs and sawhorses read:  “Staging Area”).  Where Lee used to be the butcher, they installed an espresso joint where the beautiful people were allowed to gather but was off-limits to us.  They commandeered roofs and second floor windows for lights, cameras, and equipment.  They towed our cars from the main drag to bring in two backhoes armed with jackhammers.  To a slow and steady rhythm they punched a grid of holes in the street, followed after by the milling machine that chewed off the top few inches.  The ground-up asphalt was spit off a conveyer and into a waiting dump truck.  Then came the pouring of new asphalt, smoothed at first with a crew wielding rakes, then driven over with a roller truck to finish it off.  The street was new and black; they painted on crosswalks and center dividers, even hatch marks where you were supposed to park your car.  Last, they put up new signs at both ends of the main drag:  the street was to be closed to local traffic for the duration of the shoot.  Instead, to run our errands, to get our supplies, to go to work and school, we had to crowd the dusty alleys and rutted side streets.  None of us could see the reason we couldn’t drive the street in the meantime, so we convinced Dierdre, our mayor, to bring it up with the beautiful people.  They told her they’d consider it.  They’d hold a meeting, they said.  That night they posted guards at each end who perched on stools and crackled walkie-talkies.  When winter rained, they put up awnings just big enough for the guard.  When the sun came out the guard would move his stool to perch in the sun.  According to them, this was a minor inconvenience.  According to them, this was a boon.  After all, they said, we would be keeping all this once Daughter’s Day was finished.

“I’m fucking starving.  I’m fucking ravenous.  I’m fucking famished,” Inez said.  “Mama’s been starving me and starving me, for weeks for that fucking show.”

“Oh, yeah.  I forgot about that.  But I bet the other girls are starving, too.”

“Fuck the other girls.  You got something to eat or don’t you?”

“Easy, Inez.  It won’t be gourmet, but I’m sure I’ve got something around.”

“I don’t care.  I’m fucking starving.”

I followed her into the kitchen, watched her tear into a loaf of bread.  She gnawed a slice of bread rolled up naked of anything else on it.

“I’ve probably got fixings for a sandwich.”

“Maybe later,” muffled Inez through the bread.

“You could toast that, too, you know.  I definitely got some butter and I might have some jam.”

“Toast, yes,” she cottoned through her mouthful.  She loaded the toaster with two slices, started chewing up a third.  “If the power holds out.”

“It will.  They always keep everything running through the last day.”

I looked in the fridge and it turned out I’d got left a little jam, so I brought it out, set it out on the table, rattled a knife out of the drainer.  Inez clattered a dish from the cabinet.  Still chewing on the bread, she stood tapping the dish and watching the toaster toast.  When the toast dinged up, she plucked the toast with her fingers, saying, “Hot, hot, hot.”  At the table she spread one slice with jam, then bit a semi-circle out of it.  While she chewed she battered out the last of the jam over her last slice of toast.  She bit from one and then the other, each toast held in each one hand.  When she finished, she fingered up crumbs from the dish and licked them off her fingers.  “I’m still a little bit starving,” she said.

“There’s more,” I said.

“You’re out of jam.”

“I meant other things.”

“I know.  I ate all your jam.”

“I didn’t even know I had jam left.”

“Well, now you don’t.”

“I guess that’s true.  You want something else?”

“Maybe later.  Mama’s working another double.”

“I know.  You told me.  I’ve been counting on it.”

“I know you’ve been counting on it.”  She stood to give me a kiss.

“You taste like jam.”

“That’s such a lie.  Taste me again.”

I kissed her again.

Inez said, “That’s not the way I meant it.”

I said, “Give me some credit.  I hear you speaking in code.  I’m just doing the first thing before the next thing.”

The last time I saw a Daughter’s Day I was about to drop out of high school, and when I was about to drop out of high school, half the girls were just like Inez:  at least when their mothers weren’t looking, they were sarcastic eye-rollers who whispered behind cupped hands about the other half of the girls.  About the ones who threw themselves into the fray:  the primpers and preeners, the hair-sprayers and mini-skirters, the girls who laid their plans to make it out of our jerkwater town.  The ones who looked ahead, who wrote down goals like they teach you in high school, etched over and over in ballpoint pen on their binders:  Get out of this jerkwater town.

Thursday was slotted for Daughter’s Day, so by the following Wednesday (said the beautiful people) they could have the film edited and ready for broadcast nationwide.  Right up until that last week, Inez’s mother worked double shifts to make up for the ones she traded in to help Inez get beautiful that week.  Up until that last week, right up through Sunday night, Inez came over, ravenous, eating, then screwing, then sometimes eating again.  She was starting to carve a dent in my wallet, plus I’d been calling in favors at George’s, so I was relieved at least by half when Monday finally rolled around.  After that I knew I wouldn’t see Inez again until after Daughter’s Day, what with her mother watching her every minute and every move.

A stage was erected at one end of the drag along with shining, green bleachers that the beautiful people told us ahead of time weren’t going to be for us.  On the bleachers and lining the street they’d arranged to bring in extras from out of town to play the folk (that’s how we were called now:  the “folk”).

Said the pageant director:  “We’d love to have you folk be there to cheer on your daughters, but to get that television verisimilitude, we need people who can take direction.  And as much as we’d love to have you — and as much as I’d love to have you — we just don’t have the time to train you for it.  Arrangements have been made to set up seating on one of the rooftops over there for any and all who want to watch.  And I promise:  we’ll pick a good rooftop, won’t we?”

That’s what she said on Tuesday.  Come Wednesday morning came the darkening sky, come lunchtime came the prickly air, come afternoon came the rush of hammering rain.  The beautiful people went frantic, ducking their shoulders beneath their clipboards as they ran to unplug the stage lights, shade the catering, tarp the cameras.  They’d just been ready to start their dry run as they called it, where they coached the girls through their motions just before the big day.  The girls weren’t all dressed or painted up, but they huddled under awnings anyway, holding their scripts (or directions, or whatever they were clutching) in umbrellas over their heads.  I’d managed to swing work as a plucker (was what they called it), plucking dead leaves from the trees, so there I was when the rain started pounding down.  To us they issued ponchos of clear plastic before we climbed the ladders to pluck wet leaves with a fingered gripper we triggered at the end of a pole.  After a half hour of even that futility they finally called us down and paid us half our contract, for “half of the contract’s work,” they said.  The rain finally died at midnight, and they kept all the girls up  late, the beautiful people, to finish off rehearsals and coaching and whatever other whatnot they said.

Thursday broke.  The rains began again, draining steadily down.  Everything — high school, post office, George’s — was closed up for the show.  So there wouldn’t have been work, anyway, even if I’d had a job to go to, and I wasn’t going to be able to see about finding more work, anyway.  So I wandered out to the main drag about the time the show would be happening, and walked in behind Ted’s old hardware store, where a brick propped the back door open.  From there rose a flight of stairs to reach the roof, where folding chairs were set out, where a bunch of us locals had already started to gather.  We were here because Ted’s old hardware store was set away from the action, but mostly because Ted’s old hardware store was built with a flat roof.  Although the beautiful people hadn’t bothered to tent the chairs, so every seat was wet.  Instead, everyone bunched the one corner draped over with a tarp.  There a table was unfolded to hold a coffee thermos near a bag of paper cups (halfway empty; the thermos was empty all the way).  The only other thing on the table was a television that showed the stage, with its speaker hooked up to the sound system cabled to microphones down the street.

Nothing was rolling yet.  The beautiful people all milled about, eyeballing their watches and chewing their sandwiches, pointing at the crew and snapping instructions what to do.  The girls — in full regalia, blossoming gowns and painted makeup — huddled under tarps jigged up over the staging area.  The camera crew and sound crew checked the monitors and cabled connections, sometimes unplugging and replugging a line before taping it back to the ground.  I got in a talk with Eduardo, and with Jay and Andy and Yuri, about the chances of catching some cleanup work, even just sweeping and raking and trash.  Yuri and Andy had asked about that, but the beautiful people wouldn’t commit to hiring, just told them to come back after filming was finished to maybe work something out.  Jay looked a little bit hopeful at that (his son was just starting first grade) but Eduardo, who was single like me, gave a look like that sounded like no.

The rain was staying and they hadn’t turned on the sound yet, so it was pantomime as the pageant director panned her palm at the rain before ducking back under an awning.  She hollered into a headset hooked on her ear, pointing and waving one hand, her other hand pressing the headset tight to her ear.  The other beautiful people were shrugging their shoulders, glancing at watches, sitting at mixing boards, or picking at food on a table.  We locals were getting antsy, too, especially parents with their daughters in show, saying, “They told us the show would have started by now.  Why haven’t they started the show?”

Noon passed.  Then one o’clock.  Right up getting near two, the rain was still dropping — not heavy, but still falling steadily down.  The pageant director signaled the camera crew; the cameramen crouched at their cameras, ducking beneath clear plastic sheets that were draped over the tops of the cameras.  The extras trotted out from Sara’s to press against the sawhorses lining the sidewalks; the pageant director gave the microphone a tap.  The sound man at the mixing board thrust a fist out, thumbs up; the pageant director glowed on a smile and stepped out on stage.  The extras lining the sawhorses all cheered and waved their arms while a camera  hooked to a dolly was towed slowly up the street.  “Who’s ready for this year’s Daughter’s Day?” called the pageant director into the microphone, and the extras all waved their arms, shrieking, “We are!”

Among us, up above Ted’s, were a few mumbled, “We are’s,” too.  Out now were the camcorders, aimed by parents with daughters in show.  At first a few tried to shoot over the parapet, aiming their cameras down the street, but pretty soon they all trained their lenses on the television.  From where we listened the echo was terrible — there was a lag between the sound as it squawked from the television and as it boomed from speakers up the street.  Little girls sat before the TV, behind them ducked the camcorder parents, and behind them huddled the remainders of us as the daughters were introduced.  As every daughter crossed the stage, parents or friends raised fists and cheered.  Inez on screen looked a little bit nervous, taut in the glare from the lights.  Inez’s mother pushed her camera forward, closer to the television, saying, “Look!  It’s my Inez!  There she is!”

(Every time a daughter crossed the stage, the street extras cheered with that terrible echo.  After a minute of that, Andy wormed up to the front.  He fingered the volume off.  Now we could finally understand.  The sound was lagged behind the action, but at least we could make out the words.)

Nothing was changed from years ago, from the last Daughter’s Day I’ve seen.  The first part of the show was daughters traipsing to the mike to announce in order:  their name, their age, their weight, their interests.  Then the daughters changed into swimsuits.  They crossed the stage once more, stopping at the mike to tell their goals:  Wedding!  Beauty!  Children!  Peace!  Even in my day these were scripted, and had to be memorized ahead of time by the girls.  Inez’s goals were to travel to South America before graduating medical school, practicing a few years, then having a girl and a boy.  “In that order,” she said.

(Cue laughter from the extras in the bleachers.)

Normally then would come the first round of judging.  But the rain was lapsing then, so they rushed the daughters back into their gowns, herded them back up the street.  From there, the beautiful people had them walk the length of the street up to the stage so they could film the opening procession.  The cameras followed the daughters, smiling and waving at the crowd of extras who sometimes cheered their names, or whistled and pressed the sawhorses.  Halfway through the rain took up, and they had to abort the procession while the daughters stood before  heat lamps, drying the raindrops from their gowns.  They stood and waited while the sprinkling faded to drizzling, faded to mist, then the beautiful people signaled the daughters to march again.  The cameras followed the daughters, smiling and waving at the crowd of extras, who sometimes cheered their names, or whistled and pressed the sawhorses.

Then it was back to their swimsuits and back on stage to start the judging.  The judges called not the names of the winners, but the names of the daughters who’d missed the cut.  Partway through, Inez was among them.  On the roof of Ted’s old hardware store, Inez’s mother looked crushed, lowered her camcorder.  “She didn’t even finish the first round.”

Talent was what always followed.  I knew from my high school days that they cut the first round for talent, so the only daughters left were daughters who could perform something for the cameras.  Most of it was music or dancing, making speeches, the usual cycle, but the beautiful people were always looking for something to break the repetition.  Lee’s youngest daughter Dina did a piece of stunt archery where from twenty paces she could strike a plate spun midair over the stage.  Yuri’s stepdaughter Michaela had been deep into yoga some years and up on stage twisted her body in strange and balanced contortions to applause from the extras.  Trudy (who mostly took care of herself now that her mother was on disability) tried to wheelie her motorcycle across the stage but couldn’t quite pull it off.  She could do it, too (she’d been an addict now of dirt bikes for years) but her ninety seconds were up, so she had to ramp her motorcycle off the stage.  On the TV the cameras zoomed up to her face to get a good shot of her crying before she let go the clutch and throttled her bike away.

Then it was back to formal gowns for judging another round.  The pageant director called names, the daughters called out had to march off the stage.  Of the final six, none were daughters I knew (through myself or somebody else) although I recognized one of blondes (I’d seen her with Inez on a couple of occasions).  The final round was nothing more than the daughters walking in a circle while the judges looked them over and poked their votes on computer screens.  After that, the judges all huddled with the pageant director at their table, where she eyed the votes before stepping back on stage.  A drum roll rolled through the speakers, and — from smallest to largest tally — she called out the names of the daughters who weren’t going to be named the winner.  The last daughter standing was one of the other blondes; she clutched her mouth and broke into tears while the extras whooped and shrieked and whistled to cheer her on.  One of the extras ran up to the stage to wrap the blonde in a hug (an extra playing her mother, who was actually on the roof, crying in her circle of friends:  “I’m never going to see her, I’m never going to see her, she’s going to be a someone,” she said).  Down on stage, the extra yelled, “I’m so proud you’re a winner today, baby!”

In formal gowns, the daughters made the final procession down the street, away from the stage, in toward the outskirts of town.  They were followed at last by the winning daughter, waving and cradling roses.  The extras cheered her on while she was helped into a limousine.  When the limousine turned at the end of the street the pageant director called cut.  The cheers ended.  Then the beautiful people began breaking down the stage.  Jay corralled Andy and Yuri and me (and tried to corral Eduardo, too) to talk to the beautiful people about maybe some cleanup work.  Eduardo put his hands in his pockets but followed behind us anyway as we walked to the street to try to flag someone who could maybe hire for work.  Security was out in force, though, telling us to keep our distance, so in the end we didn’t even hear from someone, not even to hear a no.

Because Saturday was her mother’s regular day off (and she’d taken off Friday, too, according to Inez) the Sunday following was my expectation.  Sunday, the swing or the night shift.  But Sunday afternoon grayed to evening, blackened to more rain:  no moon — no Inez.  That next morning I drove to the high school.  A block away I parked, watched the girls all walk to class.  No Inez.  Then the bell rang, so I drove to the office.  No companies were renting labor, so I drove back home, and again:  no Inez.  Then Tuesday:  back to the high school, back to the office, back to the same old waiting.

Eduardo was seated in the waiting room, waiting for day labor, too.  “Hey — you know what a grip is?” he said.

“A grip?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Like a job, it’s like a job, like working with movie cameras and shit.  It’s one of those jobs you don’t think about when you think about making movies.”

“A grip?”

“That’s what I think it is.”

“I don’t know.  Why do you ask?”

“I never heard of it.  Jesse asked me what a grip is.  But I didn’t know.”

“Who’s Jesse?”

“Jessica Serra.  You know her?  Moved here maybe ten years ago, works at the Purina plant.  She’s got that — what do they call it? — lazy eye.”

“I don’t know her,” I said.  That was a half a lie — she was mother to Inez.  I pointed at my eye.  “I know who you’re talking about, though.”

“That’s what she asked.  ‘What’s a grip?’ she said.  I didn’t know, so that’s all I told her.”

“Why’d she ask you something random like that?”

“You know last Thursday?  She had a daughter in it.  Her daughter wasn’t the winner, but I guess she ran off with one of the camera crew.  A grip.  That’s why she was asking.  Her daughter, she’d run off with this guy, and she doesn’t even know the guy’s name.  All she knows is his job:  he’s a grip.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Yeah, I had to tell her I didn’t know what that was, either.”

“Run off with one of the camera crew, did she?”

“The daughter?  That’s what Jesse said.  But hey — what can you say?  That kind of thing is bound to happen, right?”

“What?”

“You know — the daughters.  The girls.  They see all the money, the lights, the parade, and the action, and a handful are going to start to think:  ‘I want a piece of that.’”

“Yeah — I guess.  Huh.  What can  you say?”

Eduardo shrugged.  “You can say nothing.  Nothing is as much as you can ever say.”

If the companies looking to rent day labor don’t come looking by afternoon, they never come.  So come two o’clock Eduardo and me split the price of a six pack.  Then it was home again, this time driving the main drag of town.  The trees were starting to brown and lean and the asphalt was starting to chatter.  Yuri, who’d once been a mason, said they used the wrong kind of mix.  Or else they poured it too thin, or else both problems together.

Wednesday night was the broadcast of all the different Daughter’s Days from the different towns; ours took maybe ten minutes; Inez didn’t make the cut.  Mostly they just showed the winners, the girls who were driven off in white limousines, escorted to the big cities, where they were promised to be made into someones.  Just before getting in the limousines, the different winners from the different towns all wept and promised to the camera that they would never forget their roots.  Once she was big and once she was someone, every girl promised she would come home.  Once she was big and once she was someone, every girl promised she’d still remember.  Those lines were part of the script, probably, although probably that didn’t matter.  I’ve yet to hear of daughter who ever managed to bring herself home.  You can’t place blame — if I was a daughter, if you were a daughter, if anyone was a daughter:  it would take some kind of naive to turn back home.

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