Candy Girl

feelings are fatal

"You need more sleep," she said as she looked at my face. "Put some makeup on that. I'll see you in the car." She walked away. I took one more look at the mirror and did as she told me. I followed her inside the car, we waited a few minutes until she started honking.

"Serenity!" She screamed out her name. "I'm leaving in two minutes. If you don't get inside the car, say goodbye to any house party this weekend!"

Serenity raced towards the car, and opened the back door of the car. My mom made a face, Serenity sat next to me silently.

"Do I look like an Uber driver?" She ordered. I looked over at Serenity, who's eyes were glued at the window. "Someone sit in the front now."
I got out of the car and sat in the co-pilot. I hoped the ride would be silent. It wasn't.

"Next weekend, you gotta bring a partner. It's for the entrance of the ball." She was looking at the rode, but I could clearly feel this was directed at me.

"Carrisa is not allowed to bring any cousins!" Serenity jumped out the second the statement left my mom's lips. "I will deal with my own social life problems, but I will not fight Carrisa's battle."

"Serenity, please, it's a family event."

"Mom, they think we are that kind of family!"

"Okay, will you too get off my back? I will get you a date who makes you comfortable and I promise it will not be a family member. Happy?"

I felt my anxiety raising, but didn't say a word. I felt a knot in my throat. Do it for her, do it for her.

We arrived to the country club. The ball room, were the pageants were held, was beautifully decorated, the flowers were a mixture of wild flowers and lavender. There were about fifty girls with their mothers. All of the girls were wearing amazingly expensive dresses. I felt plain, my hair and my dress suddenly seemed out of place. The girls looked like models with their faces covered in flawless foundation and super skinny bodies. They had their perfect and equally good looking mom aside from them.

As soon as we entered the country club, I had to take a big breath and place a smile upon my face. This was the hardest part of it all. I knew if we didn't look happy, they would eat us alive.

"Oh, hi girls!" A flock of my mother's friends attacked us with their high pitched voices and their salutations. They had their eyes glued at either of us, trying to finding anything out of place. Personally, my worst nightmare was her friend Elvira. Her stares were even more brutal than my mother's. She was younger than my mother, and her daughters were still too young to participate, but she had the absolute hold of the pageants. She organized them, she was part of the judges, and even sponsored it. Okay, no, her husband did.  She was married to our father's closet's friend Andre Dorsey. That man owned this town, he had even been interviewed for Forbes once.

"Oh, Caroline." Elvira spoke out in that same sarcastic tone my mother used, as she wrapped tightly her hands around hers."If you're gonna keep working at least put some cream on your hands."

This was the first swing.

My mother returned the smile, but I could see some lighting in her green eyes. She took her hand back, "I'll try."

"Oh, you should; they're quite rough." She chuckled.

Another woman joined in the conversation, "Is that you, Caroline?" She said as she wrapped her hands on each shoulder and greeted her with two kisses, "It's been so long since we last saw you. I feel I'm looking at a ghost."

"Yes, I'm a bit busy with my work at the moment."

"I heard you're doing a lot of extra hours, is that true?" Elvira asked. "It must be so hard to pull all that, doesn't your husband help out?"