Pretty Ugly: A Novel by Kirker Butler Page B

say, “We are talking about a girl who has just received her color and become a woman. What exactly is the problem here?”
    Miranda looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and sighed. She was now as old as her mother was when Miranda was Bailey’s age, and that made her feel ancient. The thin smile lines around her mouth and eyes seemed to be reaching out to each other like desperate lovers, straining to meet and deepen their bond. She made a silent vow to smile less. Her hair was dry and brittle, so she wrapped it into a loose bun, but the yellow highlights made it look like a Thanksgiving centerpiece. The tube of hemorrhoid ointment was empty, and the swelling around Miranda’s eyes was barely noticeable. Her actual hemorrhoids, however, were bulging and stung like she was getting a tattoo on her butthole. She hated the sensation because it reminded her of the tattoo she got on her nineteenth birthday.
    After drinking too many banana daiquiris, Miranda staggered into a beachside tattoo parlor in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and got the Chinese symbols for “peace” and “harmony” tattooed on her ankle. Years later she discovered the symbols actually translated to “rabbit nephew,” and she cried for three days.
    Using the heel of her hand against the countertop, Miranda managed to force a dime-sized dollop of Wal-rhoid from the tube.
    “Thank Jesus,” she said as she hoisted her foot up onto the toilet and massaged the ointment into her fiery anus. The relief was sublime. As she rubbed, Miranda was hit with another brilliant idea. While it was obviously against pageant rules to bribe judges, as far as she knew there was no rule against bribing cameramen of third-party reality shows. Wiping her greasy finger on the Shania Twain T-shirt she’d slept in, Miranda rushed to her purse and found twenty-one dollars in her wallet. In the front pouch of her suitcase she discovered a crumpled five and added it to the few emergency bills pulled from the zippered purse pocket where she usually kept her tampons and lighter.
    “Forty-seven dollars?” she said after counting it. “What am I supposed to do with forty-seven dollars?”
    Three seconds passed between the moment she noticed Bailey’s purse sitting on the dresser and when she casually knocked it onto the floor. Its contents—the pink iPod, three different colors of lip gloss, a picture of Mark Ruffalo torn from a magazine, and a dog-eared paperback of The Lovely Bones —spilled across the carpet. Miranda nudged the purse with her foot until she saw the iCarly wallet Ray got Bailey for her eighth birthday. Miranda casually opened the wallet, pretending to just be curious. Another picture of Mark Ruffalo looked back at her, and Miranda made a mental note to keep better track of what Bailey watched on TV. There were a few phone numbers scribbled on pieces of notebook paper and a school picture of a nerdy boy in glasses who, according to the handwritten note on the back, was named Dashiell and “hearted” Bailey. Then, hidden in a side pocket, Miranda found what she was looking for: a neatly folded, obviously revered twenty-dollar bill. Where had she gotten so much money? Probably from her father. Ray was always spending more than he made. It was one of the reasons they were in so much debt. Money was the thing they argued about most. Money and pageants. Holding the bill between her fingers, Miranda considered the difference it would make to a cameraman. Sixty-seven dollars sounded a lot better than forty-seven, but she still didn’t think it would be enough to bribe someone from Hollywood.
    The doorknob rattled, and Miranda let out a small caninelike yelp.
    “Mom! Open up, I forgot my key!”
    Miranda quickly closed her fist around the money and scooped Bailey’s belongings up off the floor, stuffing them hastily back into her purse.
    “Hurry up, this ice is freezing my hands off!”
    Miranda opened the door, pausing briefly at a mirror to see if she looked