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corners of the stage, then went over to Caron, who was now gaping at Eunice.
    â€œWhat happened to the weight?” I asked her in a low voice.
    â€œHow should I know? Who is that woman, Mother? She is totally bizarre, and making no sense whatsoever. Did she say she was Cyndi’s trainer—as in German shepherds?”
    Inez made a small noise. “I think it’s more like an agent.”
    â€œJust because your sister is in the pageant doesn’t make you an expert,” Caron said without mercy. “She used the word trainer, as in dog tricks. Besides, I think she’s crude.”
    I left them and joined Luanne, who was looking increasingly pale and wobbly as the woman lectured in her face. “You’d better go back to the office and sit down,” I said, ignoring Eunice. “If you don’t, you’ll end up with your head between your knees.”
    She nodded, then hobbled away, leaving me to smile vaguely as Eunice muttered, “We can’t have that sort of thing. Bad for the complexion. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.”
    â€œYou’re Cyndi’s trainer?” I asked, not sure what was bad for the complexion and not wanting to find out at length. “What does that entail?”
    â€œI manage her career, and see that she makes as many of the local and regional pageants as possible. We’ve got our eye on the Big One, but she needs more work before we take a run at it. I may let her try the first round this year.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said politely.
    â€œAre you the pageant director?” Eunice huffed.
    â€œLuanne Bradshaw is the official director. I’m helping
out because of her ankle—and I have no experience with beauty pageants. I’ve never been to one, and I’m afraid I don’t understand the jargon.”
    â€œYou’re an amateur? How on earth do you plan to run a good pageant with no experience in the necessary details? Why, even the little local ones require diligence, hard work, and attention to an incredible number of issues. Last year this utterly incompetent woman tried to stage the Miss Chicken Drumstick with no idea—no idea at all—about the problems she would encounter. It was a nightmare from the judges’ luncheon to the final scoring. She even had someone use low-wattage lightbulbs in the dressing rooms, if you can imagine. It wasn’t even worth our time.”
    â€œWell, this one will be a shambles,” I said with a bright smile. “Luanne was in a couple of pageants years ago, but neither one of us knows what she’s doing. It’s somewhat of a lark for us.”
    Eunice snorted at my charming candor. “We shall see. I’m going down to the dressing room to check on my gal, then I’ll come back here so you and I can discuss what’s been done and what needs to be done. You go fetch a notebook and a pencil; I’m sure I’ll have a long list for you and that other woman. Exactly which pageants was she in?” Her voice fell to a chilling whisper. “She surely never made five, did she? Her cheekbones are unruly.”
    â€œFive what?” I hissed back.
    â€œThe top five finalists.” Eunice turned and stomped across the stage, no doubt appalled by such ignorance. Once she had vanished down the stairs, I told Caron and Inez to go home. I then stopped at the office and repeated Eunice’s threat to help those of us who were deficient in the language and clearly unlikely to make the top five.
Luanne grabbed her coat and locked the office door. As we reached the small lobby surrounding the box office, we heard Eunice’s booming voice.
    â€œWhat’s this about a nail?” she demanded loud enough to be heard anywhere in Farberville, or perhaps the immediate county.
    I went home.

THREE
    W hen I picked up Luanne the next morning, she was gray about the gills. It took her a long while to find her