The Myth of Wile E

Miss This & That

Mama had been putting Gladys's hair in rag curls as usual, each night of the trip. Now the hot, dry air was making all the curls relax. It was as if the desert air was sweet-talking her hair into giving up. Gladys's hair just hung there, hypnotized straight.

Mama told the Indians about all the beauty pageants Gladys had won prizes in. She explained that Gladys was already a local celebrity back in Hodgenville, Kentucky (where we were from), and had been a little beauty queen ever since she was eighteen months old, when she'd won a Most Beautiful Baby contest during the grand opening festivities of a new shopping mall. First prize in the beautiful baby contest entitled Gladys to a college scholarship, but no one was expecting Gladys to go to college. Mama had other plans. "If a girl's got looks, she doesn't need books!" was one of Mama's signature aphorisms. She often said, "Ask anyone what'd they'd honestly rather be: a movie star, or a mathematician . . . and what do you think they'd choose?" To Mama this was a rhetorical question, but when she posed it to the Indians they just looked at one another.

"Go on, Gladdy. Show the nice Indians your pictures," Mama prodded.

After so many years of impending fame, Gladys was getting better at concealing her embarrassment regarding the Photo Ritual. For just a split second she rolled her eyes like she had some kind of facial tic. Then her right hand came forward basically of its own accord to surrender her pink purse.

"Now don't be shy, Gladdy, it isn't the thing anymore," Mama said. Mama always knew what the "thing" was. "Notice how the girls who win Miss America these days not only have the biggest hair but are also the ones who speak up."

Mama grabbed the purse and fished out a pink wallet-sized photo album that had MY SPECIAL PHOTOS embossed on the cover in gold. She flipped open the album.

"See, this is Gladys as the Furlong Mall's Most Beautiful Baby—isn't she gorgeous?" Mama said to the Indians. Gladys wore the exact same smile in the picture as she wore that day in New Mexico. It was Gladys's special "pageant smile" that she had to practice every night, like practicing scales on the piano. I felt bad for Gladys, having to rehearse smiling so much when I just sort of picked up the whole smiling thing on my own without any lessons. (I thought that meant I was precocious, but apparently it meant the opposite. Mama told me being too happy is a sure sign that one is simple-minded.)

Mama flipped through pages and pages of photos. Gladys at three: The Baby Belle of the Lincoln's Birthday Parade. Gladys had been seated on Mama's lap in a convertible, wearing a tiara that was tenaciously pinned to her head. Her hair was curled like big egg noodles. With one arm she struggled to hold her very first bouquet of roses; her other arm was up in the air for two hours, being drained of all its blood. She waved her little hand until it was numb, and blew kisses at the crowd. (At the time of that parade I hadn't yet been born—but by four years old I'd already heard every detail a hundred times. And I'd seen the pictures again and again.) Gladys at four, at five, at six; decorated relentlessly, with roses, sashes, tiaras.

For a while it had seemed Gladys couldn't miss at being Miss this and Miss that. Only after second grade had she begun her descent into runner-up and finalist and semi-finalist status. Mama said it was because the judges were getting tired of Gladys winning all the time, and they wanted to give some other girls a chance. But when Gladys didn't even place in the statewide Derby Darling competition, Mama said it was because they had a silly essay component—five hundred words in praise of horses—and Gladys could hardly tell an apple from an Appaloosa. After all, she had better things to worry about. Such as keeping track of whatever the "thing" was.

When Mama got to the middle of the album, she noticed that Gladys had taken out all the runner-up and finalist pictures, and had replaced them with pictures of her friends from school, of her bedroom back in Kentucky, and of our dog, Goldie (who'd been sent to live on a farm after he ate Mama's old ballet shoes). Mama flashed Gladys a disapproving look but said nothing in front of the watchful Indians. She clapped the book shut and passed it back to Gladys.

Mama told the Indians that Gladys's destiny was California, where there were no biased judges and silly essay contests, just television and movie scouts, and that soon, Gladys would be America's little sweetheart, like Shirley Temple used to be. The Indians smiled politely again, but did not request any autographs.

That was when I noticed an old Indian woman in the corner. She was weaving what looked like a spiderweb; it was about the size of her fist and was stretched across a twig-ring. As she worked, she sang softly to herself. Her voice was just a little whisper of air that sounded like a tumbleweed blowing by. Now and then she would weave a blue bead into the web.

She was working at my eye level, and I was so drawn to what she was doing that I crept forward, until my eyes were just inches away from her weaving. As if my eyes were two blue beads ready to be caught in her web.

When Mama noticed me standing there she yanked me away. "It isn't nice to stare," she said. At that, the old woman started laughing, although she didn't look up. She laughed, and then she went right back to singing. Maybe the laughter was part of the song, like the beads were part of the web.

"It's a dream catcher," one of the other Indians said, and held up a completed one. It looked just like the old woman's, except that it had feathers dangling from it. "You hang it over a bed or crib. Good dreams, they go right through. But the bad dreams stick, and when the sun rises it burns them up. You like one? Only six dollars."

But Mama said, "Forget it, Baby. I'm all tapped out."

Mama stuck a piece of prickly pear candy in my mouth to pacify me. I stood gaping at the old spider-woman in the corner until the tow truck arrived. I utterly forgot to chew the candy. I think it eventually slipped out of my wide-open mouth and got petrified in the sand.