2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 56

Later that evening, I asked mom to help me pick out an outfit for the event. We ended up settling on a bright yellow cami with ruffles that draped softly off the shoulders. A black satin skirt. And sequined pumps.

On Saturday, I arrived at the hotel early. Most buildings in the heart of Vancouver are towers made of glass, but Hotel Vancouver stands out like a dream out of a medieval fairy tale. Opened by the Queen in 1939, it sits on a prominent corner of West Georgia Street. Even its blue-green iron roof had pointy turrets dotted here and there. It looked like a castle to me.

Crossing a mirrored hallway, I turned a bend and quickly found the banquet room – a cozy space with coffered ceilings and elegant walls papered in patterns of paisley. Several event staff were setting up rows and rows of chairs. Seeing I arrived, an organizer guided me to the backstage.

There I found the girls fluttering about in various stages of getting ready. Some were draped in lace, their soft curls swept up in low chignons, shimmering with the understated elegance of pearls. Others dazzled in striking corals and gold belts, glossy like pages out of a magazine. I stood there and watched them from a distance, thinking to myself who's the prettiest of them all? Who among them will get on the real show?

For a moment, I relished how lovely it would be just to take in all this prettiness as an observer. To be free of the pressure to perform. To compete. But I hadn't come as a spectator. None of us have. Despite all friendly faces, we were all here for the same thing – the ticket to Nanjing.

I took a deep breath and began to circulate. An accountant from Taiwan smiled at me sweetly in her bright orange cocktail dress. I chatted with her briefly, before moving on to a university student in a flowery black dress, then a financial advisor from Victoria, in a stunning, off-the shoulder evening gown. Much to my surprise, nobody was intimidating. Not even the power suits.

Maybe it's the plush carpets that absorb sound, which inadvertently softened our voices, or the mood lighting, which softened our features, I felt like I'd entered the "soft snap" lens of Instagram filter. Everything is prettified from its subdued-ness. Everyone felt so soft. None of that hard-edged cat fight or puffed-up self-importance that strangles the air of reality TV.

The general atmosphere here was of a relaxed tea party. Like paper-thin mille-feuilles, the girls fluttered about delicately, tentatively. Nobody was quite sure how competitive to get. Or how badly they want this thing.

I pulled back the velvet curtains to take a peek of the audience section. Rows of crimson chairs had already been laid out on either side of the T-shape stage. I counted about 400 of them.

I had no idea so many people were coming. People had to pay for tickets for this thing too. Starting at $25/person. Why make such a big production out of an audition?

I glanced at the girls around me, giving each a careful once-over. Objectively speaking, they are all attractive in their own ways. Objectively speaking, none too attractive to be threatening. So I sauntered past the girls to the powder room to admire at my own reflection in the mirror. Smugly.

A few minutes later the organizer floated over to check in on us. He explained the process will be very similar to the real show. Then, he added, "At the end of this show, there will be a 'voting element'."

As soon as I heard the word "vote", my stomach churned – this popularity contest just never ends! Can't we just impress the judges and be done with it?

My head buzzed with the various POSSIBLE selection criteria. Is it humour? Wit? Academic excellence? Professional success? I certainly didn't feel particularly remarkable in any of those respects. What if I'm just average? I AM average. Then I had a sudden horrifying image of the FCWR producer sitting in the audience, hiding among the people, coldly observing our performance, and deciding right there and then, who's going to Nanjing for the real deal.