She's No Beauty Queen

Angelina Dawson had always had bad luck. People thought she lived a charmed life because of how beautiful she was when they first met her. Then they found out about her epilepsy and felt sorry for her or joked about how someone as perfect as she was had to have some sort of flaw. She never thought it was funny.

She didn't get to have a normal childhood both because of her seizures and the fact that her mother was trying to vicariously live out her failed dream through her. Her activities were limited to what would help her win talent portions of pageants.

She could sing, dance, play five different instruments including one that wasn't technically an instrument at all (musical glasses), twirl batons, hula hoop with five hoops at once on various limbs, and speak three languages fluently but never had a proper friend. She had to be friendly to everyone she met but couldn't get close.

The other pageant girls saw her as competition. The kids at school thought she was too perfect to approach.

For eighteen years her primary social contact was her mother, who only saw her as a tool to get what she wanted. The only warmth Angelina ever got from her was after winning a pageant. Losses resulted in gaslighting and isolation.

All she wanted for most of her childhood was love from her only family member. But when she was about fifteen she realized that her mother only liked her when she was winning and didn't care about her the rest of the time.

She tried rebelling by losing on purpose but that led to severe punishment. She realized she needed another strategy. As a minor all of the prize money went to her mother but once she was eighteen…if she went all the way and got the ultimate scholarship she would be able to free herself and do whatever she wanted.

The petty part of her also realized she would be able to rub the fact that she had won the competition her mother had lost in her face any time she tried giving her grief after that. It wasn't much in terms of motivation but it was something.

Then her mother died. It was completely unexpected but Angelina wasn't even sad about it. The only problem was that her mother's death didn't free her.

Her manager continued carrying out her mother's wishes after her death. The very same day of the funeral even. He wanted to land a big fish to sponsor her as she entered the adult playing field.

What else could she do? She might be a legal adult but she hadn't graduated from high school yet. Her mother's money was still going through probate so she depended on him to help pay the mortgage and provide her with food money in the meantime. That meant doing what he wanted.

Besides, pageants were all she knew. Even with freedom looming in front of her after graduation she had no idea how to survive on her own. It was better to keep going with the pageants to fund her dream as originally planned because it wasn't like she had any other useful skills yet.

That had been a sympathy card her mother liked to pull during interviews but she always thought of Angelina's condition as a drag. She complained about medical bills and the inconvenience of taking her to doctor's appointments and managing her medications all the time.

A lifetime of resentment toward her mother made her snap on the day of the funeral after being forced to schmooze potential sponsors and even drink against her doctor's orders and the legal drinking age. She was at her worst when she met the man that ruined her life.

Eddie was so handsome. Relatable too. Not to mention oddly considerate since he had to know her manager was targeting him.

He understood better than anyone else she had ever met what it was like to be seen as an investment rather than a person based on the bitterness in his tone when he told her to join the club. He listened to her drunken rambling and actually asked questions about it like he cared what she had to say.

Then he helped her through her seizure and didn't take advantage of her at all despite her lack of caution. When she came to her senses later she realized how strange it was that a man hadn't taken advantage of an intoxicated pageant queen that sort of threw herself at him. So when her manager asked her to have dinner with him later she had no reason to say no.

Finding out he was the richest man in Monterey County was a bit of a shock. It did explain how he understood being taken advantage of constantly though. After all her years of etiquette training she had been slightly horrified that she called such a big shot 'Eddie.'

He didn't seem to mind it. In fact, he said he kind of liked it and encouraged her to keep addressing him that way. Once that awkwardness and the expectation of getting any sort of sponsorship were cleared away they managed to have a nice conversation for the rest of dinner.

Angelina was surprised that Eddie continued asking her to dinner but it was sort of nice. Almost like having a friend that actually understood her.

He didn't want anything from her and she didn't want anything from him so they were able to talk normally and joke around like anybody else. She had never experienced that before and it was refreshing.

She noticed he had a mischievous streak as well, since he admitted that he was using the potential sponsorship as an excuse to have good conversation over dinner since he normally ate alone. His ability to admit that cracked her up for some reason.

Here was arguably the most powerful man in the city messing with a person that annoyed both of them in order to have a little fun. How could she not find that funny?

Seeing her manager fret about when the sponsorship would be nailed down knowing it wouldn't happen had been deliciously satisfying as well. For the first time in her life she felt like she had a partner in crime. It was the most fun she'd had in years.

But since nothing in Angelina's life ever went the way she wanted it to those two weeks of fun weren't meant to last. Her first and last foray into the waters of friendship was destined to end badly.