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He pretended he didn’t hear her as he perused his fabric swatches and laid out dress pieces that he could easily put together while observing Caitlyn during their interview. Izzy had told her to wear something “sparse and delicate” so Gunnar could get her whole picture, curves and all, and the best Caitlyn had on hand was a light sweater over her slip. Christine wasslightly scandalized until she realized Gunnar had been gay the whole time Caitlyn knew him.Thenit didn’t matter what the hell Caitlyn wore around him.

“Tell me where you are in your womanhood right now.” When Caitlyn looked at him as if nuts were falling out of his ears, Gunnar explained, “There are so many potential dress designs that would be an absolute knock-out on a figure like yours.”Oh, you flatter me, Gunnar.How could Caitlyn not smile as someone with a keen eye for beauty gushed over her? “But if we want to wow the judges and the audience at home, we’ll focus on what makes you stand out as a woman who is confident in her own body. Gone are the days of showing as much skin as you could get away with while your grandma is watching, honey. Unless you want to. I hear that Colorado is goingsheerthis year.”

“He knows that because his husband is the one dressing her,” Izzy said.

Gunnar rolled his eyes. “The only time Frank and I don’t see eye to eye on style is when he has a size two ingenue that’s over 5’9. He can’t help himself. God knows why.”

Caitlyn put some of the fashion puzzle pieces together while her team talked. Christine brought out flavored water for her daughter and coffee with cream for everyone else. “Oh, I like that,” Christine said while looking over Caitlyn’s shoulder. “A svelte body-hugging dress like the one you wore at the holiday fundraiser a few years ago! I still have that picture of you in my bedroom. White is truly your color.”

Caitlyn didn’t disagree, but she worried that long sleeves would betoodemure for a married women’s pageant. Even when she was competing in the single women’s pageants, the idea had moved away from covering up married women to make them more morally acceptable to the public palate. And Caitlyn knew what her best assets were.

“Strapless.” She pointed to a heart-shaped bodice that would accentuate her cleavage while still covering up the most important part of her goods. “Gold fabric, with something to cover it. Perhaps a gauzy overlay. Blackish, maybe? Or…”

She and Gunnar said the same thing at the same time. “Beads.”

“Ah, excellent,” Gunnar agreed with her. “Beaded gowns are all the rage now. Yes. I can work with this.”

“Someone remind me.” Christine took the dirty dishes from lunch back to the kitchen. “Is there a swimsuit portion anymore? I know they got rid of it for Miss America, but this isn’t that.”

“Mrs. United States of America does not have a swimsuit portion, per se,” Izzy answered. “It never has. Would have been considered tasteless at its inauguration.” She cleared her throat. “Instead, it’s an athletics portion where you show off how healthy and fit you are. Ahem.”

“That’s right, Mom. Only your court-ordained lesbian wife can see you in a bathing suit in this country.”

Everyone but Izzy laughed. “This gown will be the centerpiece for everything but the talent portion, assuming you need to change. Are you still doing a monologue?”

“Gosh, I haven’t done that in years! If it’s all right, I’ll perform something original.”

“Do you have it finished already? I’d love to take a look at it.”

Caitlyn shrugged. “I’ll work on something while I’m here. I haven’t had the chance to properly write anything in years. Ooh, maybe I should perform it in Cantonese. That’s new since I last competed.”

“Sooo much has changed,” Gunnar said. “Have you heard that ratings are atrocious these days? They were already waning in your heyday, Cait, but you’ll be lucky if one million people across America are watching you next month.”

“Fine with me.”

So the days went by with Cait being measured, fitted, and committed to keeping her health in tip-top shape as she prepared for November’s competition. Izzy went through potential interview questions with her, honed Caitlyn’s walk, and continuously reminded her that even though she might not care about winning and was doing this as a favor, shewasqualified to be there. Even if women could hardly make money from doing pageants anymore. Not without investing more money than they won back in either cash prizes or school scholarships.

“That’s how I paid for most of my college, you know,” she reminded Rebecca on the phone one night while Nairing her legs. “It was my part-time job, the whole pageant thing. If I focused on single women’s pageants for college-aged girls, I often got enough scholarships to get by. Wore a rotation of the same five gowns I got on clearance from a dress outlet and my mom’s best friend did most of my hair and makeup because she was a former employee at a news station who did exactly that every day. They took makeup seriously in Chicago.”

Rebecca yawned on the other end. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on when I get there next week.”

“Oh, that reminds me, my mom will be the one picking you up at the airport. Bring stories from New England with you, because it will be the two of you in the car.”

“Good thing she loves me.”

“My mom loves anyone who loves me too. It’s kinda sweet when you think about it.”

“You should write your poem about your mom. She would die.”

“Kinda the last thing I want, really, Becca.”

“I’m not sure if you’re thinking of that literally or not…”

Neither was Caitlyn, who merely knew that she wasn’t interested in monologuing about her mother on a nationalstage. She preferred to acknowledge the woman who raised and supported her in private, through sappy greeting cards and floral arrangements delivered straight to her door. Christine appreciated those things more than large declarations anyway.

She asked how things were going with Jane and Cecelia, having already heard about the homecoming dance and Mr. Merryweather scoping out the new foreign kid in his school. Caitlyn regretted having to miss the dress shopping, but not the drama that probably erupted when Jane faced aboycoming to their door.She doesn’t like men on “her” turf.The office was fine. That was a neutral space where the topic was almost always work and not much else. In herhome?Jane was either smiling through her teeth or outright hostile, assuming she ever came out of her room. Rebecca learned that the hard way when she made a couple of guy friends at a hobby shop and invited them over to watch the extended edition ofLord of the Ringswhile they painted models of elves and hobbits.Jane, Jane, Jane.The woman who holed herself up in her office and pouted until Caitlyn told her to get over herself and go say hi.

Damn. Caitlyn missed her.