the first picture I saw of her. I can’t really see that it’s the same person. “Can you believe? She just had a baby two weeks ago!” Jennifer says. “She sure got her figure back quick,” Susan says. “Yeah, but her boobs are still small,” Diane says. “ No bigger than mine.” Everyone laughs. “When did she get married?” I ask. I want to be married. I want to be an adult. I want a meaningful existence before I die. I want to sleep all night with the man I love. “Well,” Jennifer snickers. “Of course she had to. Her name is now Raquel Welch.” Raquel Welch is wearing a strapless full-length gown. Ice blue. She isn’t as pretty in real life as in her photos but she holds my attention. The other judge I recognize from the woman’s page of the Tribune, don Juan, a famous fixture in San Diego high society. I still don’t understand the concept “ society” except that where he goes, it is. He’s always being photographed with a celebrity family of blondes—mothers, daughters, cousins. He escorts them in parades many of which I’ve marched in, to charity balls and museum openings, down to the docks to meet important ships from across the seas, big Gabor lips across everything, the Captain, the sea, the newspaper, don Juan. Rt a h q e u e d l a r r e k a , l t l h y e i s e , a a r s th e . v S e h ry e o h n a e d s a n e b e a r b s, y M tw ex o i w ca e n e . k I s l a ov go e . Her second baby. She has milk. I’m sucked into her as into a cave, the hole so visible from the recent birth. Raquel makes her way across the crowded room. Don Juan rises from his seat. He wears a white Mexican tuxedo, a red cummerbund around his small waist, a sombrero with tassels around the brim. She is being introduced by the TV host, Mrs. Raquel Welch, nee our very own, our favorite ex-Miss Fairest of the Fair, Miss Raquel Tejada from La Jolla. Though the don has often announced his preference for blondes, and though she is an ex-queen, married, two times a mother, for this night he will be the gracious escort, like Gino is mine, for this damsel in distress. He removes his sombrero, a grandiose gesture, sweeps it behind his back as he bows, and, holding out his hand, into which she slides her small fingers, he bends, very deliberately, the upper lip lined in a pencil-thin moustache, and kisses them. The Indians finger the strings of their guitars. A little snare. God. What will I do if he does that to me? The contest begins. Lily, Susan, Jennifer, Ella, Mona. Jamie’s dream is to run her own business. “ I know I can do it,” she says, “ but it will be like climbing the tallest mountain in the world.” Diane says she’s going to be an airline stewardess if she can just make it to twenty-one. Everyone laughs. For the first time I realize Diane has personality. And now, for our only blonde in the contest. The spotlight blinds me. I can’t see anyone. But I’m smiling. I’m smiling till my face hurts, the bilateral sides of my face. People always complain that I don’t smile enough. I’m determined not to lose the contest for that old fault. They said the crash was so sudden my cousin Bobbie Sue still had a smile on her face though every bone behind it was broken. The host is so stupid I don’t know how to answer his questions. A TV camera zooms in. Under hobbies I finally wrote “ drawing." “Oh,” he jokes, his grin omnipotently large, the camera moving into my aching mouth. “ I bet you really mean drawing men.” The room roars and something rushes through my face. I guess so. Relax. Relax. The last thing Gino’said as he shoved me forward. “ Relax*.” Cal ordered. “ The Chamber is counting on you. We'll never win unless you relax.” Relax. Relax. The chant up and down, my strapless falling down. The smile on my face will kill me. I ’m in the second grade and my parents take me to an office on Sunset Boulevard. A Hollywood movie agent. He has seen me in two school plays, one in which I star as the diptheria germ and the other in which I ’m an old woman. As Di- ptheria I wear a bedsheet dyed with black spots to symbolize the lethal germs, I loom and hover evilly around the world. As Granny, my hair is brushed with cornstarch, turns silver. I rock, cackle, make witty, sarcastic remarks to all the young ones. I t ’s magic to step into another’s body. I love the stage, the audience watching. But ever since then I ’ve been cast in straight roles, always the pretty innocent girl, a role I can’t play. The dark-suited movie agent pulls on his cigar, leans way back in his swivel chair and demands, “All right. Let’s see how cute you are. ” Recite nursery rhymes. I don’t know any. Mirror, mirror on the wall. They bore me. The only verses I can recite are from the Bible. Who’s the Fairest of them All? Can’t you be cute and coy like you ’re suppose to be ? Like a seven year old. Like a sixteen year old. It ’s awful to disappoint him. And my parents. I don’t know how to be cute. I have no personality. When I try to be as they want I embarrass myself. Mama always blesses this day though. She says the nature of Hollywood is contrary to mine. From then on she applies herself very seriously to the task of making sure I don’t grow up to be a movie star. Letters from agents, the agents themselves come to the house, telephone, but she never lets them talk with me.-So why am I here now? When I leave the spotlight, my oldest name is hissed at me, Blondie, hey Blondie*. During the balloting we crowd together into the restroom to refresh our make-up, comb our hair, consult Liz. To rest my face from smiling. In the huddled group I lose myself a little. I feel like one of them, a part of the human flux, a feeling I love. Once I read that an artist’s collage of a thousand faces makes the most beautiful face anyone has ever Seen. But then suddenly this old sense fills me with alarm. Tonight I’m in competition with my friends. I’m to be the most visible. “Oooh! Just imagine! One of us will soon be Miss Ramona!” Diane squeals in the center of the swarm. A wave of embarrassment sweeps through us. Her lust to win, as with so many things about Diane, is undisguised. But light irradiates her large eyes. She’s beautiful. I never thought so before. She’s an F student and her reputation is horrible. Probably none of us is without sexual experience, but she makes no effort to hide hers. Somehow she’s related to Ramon, a cousin. Like his, her Mojave mother disappeared after her birth. The Mojaves are superstitious about half-breeds. The county is always taking her away from her white father, a local car mechanic who never got over his penchant for drunk reservation women. He disappears for days at a time into the local reservations and Diane runs from her newest foster home. That’s what she’s doing with Lincoln Quintarra. She runs to older men. I move out of the bathroom, into a dark corner behind the throng of people. The band is playing “Mood Indigo." Raquel Welch is standing in front of me. She’s just standing there in her ill-fitting blue gown, small and un- glamorous, thinking no one is looking at her. Light doesn’t spark off her as it does the girls in the contest, as I can see it coming off me. The nostrils of her thick nose flare with each breath. She really is, as everyone sneers, Mexican. I love the dark, the earth. She had a baby two weeks ago. Her second baby. She has milk. I’m sucked into her as into a cave, the hole so visible from the recent birth. Why are you wearing a dress that’s too large? Maybe you almost died. Bridgit comes through the crowd to take a picture of me. She recognizes Raquel and takes it of her instead. “ Raquel Tejada!” she emotes with the flashbulb and instantly the dark sullen figure becomes sparkling light. But too late for the photograph. And before world fame. Before plastic surgery, age and film make you large. Before silicon, before Italy, before the starry debut. Before the great actress. You stand in front of the old photographs of my hometown, a stage coach on dusty Main, the army with Kit Carson the day before the massacre, Nuevo printed in white ink above your head. I’m a white ghost behind you. Miss Ramona in her turkey feathers. Your hair is cropped, your head too small, you are too ROCKJAZZ-BLUES-SOUL PRINTING DESIGN CALLIGRAPHY 7740 SW CAPITOL HWY IN MULTNOMAH 246-1942 12 Clinton St. Quarterly—Summer, 1988 POSTERS&COMICS Cafe & Delicatessen 404 S.W. 10th Portland CATERING SPECIALISTS and special occasions. THE MARTINOTTI FAMILY Italian Specialties Wine Bar • Cheeses • Sandwiches Desserts • Salads • Sundries Weddings, Anniversaries un bel glomo 224*9028 ARMAND-DIXIE FRANK-VINCE CECELIA-DIONE EDDIE
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