She's No Beauty Queen

Lily steeled herself as they arrived at the soup kitchen. Her crown and sash were already on and she saw another young woman standing around outside wearing the same things. Miss Monterey County, Darcy Flynn. She was a real knockout despite being dressed as casually as Lily was.

Her smile seemed genuine when she spotted her. "Hey, Angelina! Long time no see!"

"Yeah, it's been a while," Lily agreed. According to Mark, the last time the two of them saw each other was back in December when they attended a Christmas party some of the pageant organizers were holding. "How are you?"

"I'm doing great. This year's pretty busy for me though between preparing for Miss California and my sister's wedding at the same time. That's what I get for being the maid of honor. What about you?"

"I'm okay," she lied. She was about as far from okay as possible. "I just have school stuff to worry about aside from my Miss California duties."

That did seem to be the cause she was championing every time she competed. She had participated in fundraisers for various epilepsy research foundations over the years according to her public figure social media accounts.

Lily couldn't help but wonder if she even had enough friends to warrant private ones. It would be hard to keep your lover and child a secret if you were remotely close to anyone.

Her twin was a mystery but one she felt sorry for. There was more to her situation than met the eye that was for sure. She might not support all of the decisions Angel had made but she didn't know the reasoning behind them so she couldn't think she was a terrible person.

Despite their differences, she felt connected to Angel somehow. It must be because she was the only blood relative she was aware of. Their being identical twins might have something to do with it as well.

Darcy smiled. "Oh right, I forgot you were in school. You want to be a doctor, right?"

"Yes, a neurologist."

"Kudos to you! I can't even imagine being in school that long. I'm not even trying to get my bachelor's degree until I'm done with the pageant circuit and that's all I'm doing."

Lily laughed. She didn't plan on getting a master's degree or anything either so she totally understood that. "It is a lot. Remind me what you want to study again."

"Communications! I want to get into public relations. It's not that different from what we're doing now," Darcy said with a shrug. "Anyway, we should probably take our picture and get inside."

"I'll take it," Mark offered. She had nearly forgotten he was standing nearby.

"Who's this? Did you get a new manager? I thought you liked doing things yourself."

"Temporarily," Lily said lamely. "I need someone to help manage my schedule with all that's going on these days. Preparing for Miss Americana takes up a lot of my time and has left me a little frazzled."

"Ah, I get it. Maybe I should get myself one…but I'm just a small fry right now so it seems like a waste of money." Darcy handed her phone over to Mark. "Here, take a picture on mine too."

The two young women put their arms around each other and Lily did her best to copy the pose Darcy was making to show herself off to her best advantage. Mark took several pictures with each phone so they could decide which ones they liked best.

They took off their crowns and sashes to head inside. Mark took Lily's from her to put back in the car before following them in.

The owner of the soup kitchen seemed very happy to see them—and get free publicity because that would likely help him recruit more volunteers and get more funding—and gave them hairnets and gloves as he explained what they would be doing. She had never done anything like this before so she was a bit nervous about messing it up somehow.

Her experiences volunteering normally didn't have much to do with interacting with other people. And they never had to do with serving food.

She had picked up trash, helped nurse sick and injured otters, cleaned aquarium exhibits, and fed seabirds live crickets and worms among other things. This wasn't exactly her cup of tea. She was more about digging in and getting herself dirty than PR.

Lily had never been all that great with people. She was too passionate, too opinionated, and too likely to offend others be it accidentally or on purpose. It was why despite her friendly nature she didn't actually have all that many real friends.

Most of the people she hung out with were Randi's friends. She had lost contact with almost everyone from high school other than on social media because they all moved away for college.

Generally, if she had free time she was chilling with her family. They accepted her exactly as she was and didn't expect her to tone herself down.

Once they were situated in the food service assembly line Lily got lucky. Darcy was on the other end of it and she was right next to Mark so she didn't have to worry about blowing her cover as much.

Asking people if they wanted what she was serving with a smile was a fairly mindless task so her thoughts began to wander. She didn't want to think about what might be happening to Angel right now or that she might never be able to meet her twin.

Instead she pushed those thoughts away by mentally reciting as many random facts about marine animals as she could. When she was younger her favorite book had been a full color encyclopedia of marine life so she already knew quite a bit going into her major.

Going through her list of encyclopedia facts was a surefire way to get unwanted thoughts out of her head. It hadn't failed her yet.