For the previous edition of the Coconut Queen, go to the Never Ending Stories Tab above.

Backing up until her back pressed against the wall of Miss Louise’s attic, Essie May stared at Mrs. Drew.

“Project?” she squeaked.  “What do you mean, project?”

“Darling, if you want to win Coconut Queen, we have a lot to work,” Mrs. Drew informed her.  “Those judges have been doing this for so long they can smell a phony five miles away.”

“But I’m not a phony!” Essie May protested.  “I’m just not obsessed.”

Mrs. Drew crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow.  “You don’t respect beauty queens,” she pointed out.  “Your main motivation is to beat Queenie.  And, for heaven’s sake, you hate coconut!  Honey, you’re phonier than my cheap wig.  What I need to know is if you’re willing to work.”

Essie May sighed and buried her face in her hands.  Her shoulders slumped as she slid slightly down the wall.  Her thoughts were swirling around her head so fast it felt like someone was blending her brains.  All she had wanted to do was make her mother happy.  Now, on top of spending her days dancing and training and starving herself,  she was to change everything she believed in.  Taking a deep breath, she took her hands away from her face.

“It’s for the scholarship,” she muttered to herself.  “All I’ve got to do is get the scholarship and I’ll never have to do this again.”  Looking up at Mrs. Drew, she nodded.  “Ok,” she said.  “I’ll do it.”

“Fabulous!” Mrs. Drew cackled, her grey frizzy hair jiggling as her entire body vibrated with raspy shrieks.  “When are your pagent classes over tomorrow?”

“Seven,” Essie May replied.

“Then I’ll see you at seven thirty,” Mrs. Drew promptly decreed.  “Don’t be late.  Eat a light dinner.  Nothing heavy or large. See you then.”   Without another word, she trotted toward the silk gowns in the dressing room.

“Everything settled?”

Essie May whirled around to see Miss Louise waiting behind her.  “I think so,” she said uncertainly.  “To be frank, I really have no idea what’s going on.”

“Good,” Miss Louise said, pulling open a wooden door.  A spiral staircase lay on the other side.  She gestured towards the stairs.  “It’s better that you don’t.”

“Why?”  Essie May asked as she began to descend the twisted wooden stairs.  The stairs had been carved out of a rich reddish wood with elegant detailing on the walls and step edges.  Still, the walls seemed to inch closer and closer together with every step.

“Because you would have never agreed if you knew everything,” Miss Louise answered behind her.  Essie May gulped and hurried down the stairs as fast as she could without saying another word.  As soon as they had exited the staircase, she turned to Miss Louise.

“Maybe I made a mistake,” she said.  “I’d hate for you and Mrs. Drew to go to so much trouble.  I can just take my chances with Queenie.”

Miss Louise snorted.  Her ice blue eyes bored into Essie May’s terrified ones.  A car horn blared outside and Essie May jumped, squeaking slightly.

“See you tomorrow night,” Miss Louise murmured, her eyes flickering with amusement.  Turning to the staircase, she bellowed, “Come on, Myrtle!  We’ll be late to the club!”

“What club?” Mrytle bellowed back, stopping her enthusiastic warble mid-song.  “It’s far too early to go dancing!  Besides, we have a bigger problem.  There’s a mouse around here!  That lady’s brother was right.”

Not stopping to hear Miss Louise’s reply, Essie May barreled out the heavy front door of the old Victorian house and down the front porch steps.  Dashing to her mother’s car, she jerked the side door open and leaped into the front seat.

“Essie May, really!” her mother exclaimed, pressing her lips together.  “Act like a lady!  You’re far too old to be running like that!  And in those nice shoes.”

“Sorry,” Essie May muttered, flopping back in her seat.  She wasn’t sorry at all.

“So, tell me,” her mother breathed.  “What did they say?  What did you learn?  Did they give you any tips on how to beat Queenie?”  She tapped the steering wheel with her hands rapidly, her eyes wide with interest.

Looking down at her seatbelt, Essie May bit her lip.  “She said I should work on liking coconut more,” she replied carefully.  “She implied a lot of it was believing in the pageant, believing in myself.”

Barbara deflated in the front seat, her eager face crumpling in a mess of sweaty eye shadow and smeared lipstick.  Looking good in the Texas heat required a air conditioner of Arctic temperatures, something Essie May’s father’s old truck didn’t have.  Pursing her lips in a mixture of a pout and sneer, she shook her head as she pulled the truck into drive.

“How do you like that?” she fumed as the truck rattled down the road.  “I ask for help–skipping church, even–and we get nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Well, let me tell you, the next time Miss Louise comes sniffing around for my cinnamon roll recipe or donations for that club’s charity of hers, you can tell her…”

As Essie May’s mother ranted in the front seat, Essie May gazed out the window at the white clouds floating in the light blue sky.

They looked a lot like coconut cream pies.

For the next week, Essie May promptly showed up to Miss Louise’s every night at seven thirty.  Her mother thought she was getting additional dance training; her father thought she was at the library.  No one but her knew the truth.   Miss Louise and Mrs. Drew had a myriad of activities for her to try–walking in a ballgown, cooking a coconut pie, answering hours of pageant questions, making coconut cupcakes, coconut cookies and coconut cakes until the hidden beauty pageant hideout looked like a coconut factory had exploded.  But every night, the result was the same.  Mrs. Drew and Miss Louise would sigh, look at each other and shake their heads.

Finally, Essie May blew up.  “Listen here!” she yelled, kicking off the silver sky high heels they had stuffed her in.  “I’ve been patient.  I’ve been working.  I’ve made every coconut creation on the planet and it still makes me want to barf.”

“They are very well made though,” Miss Louise mummured as she dug into a plate of coconut pie.  “Tasty, too.”

Essie May ignored her.  “I don’t understand what we’re doing here!” she bellowed.  “I could prance around in ball gowns and bake pies in my other classes!  How is this going to make me love pagents?  Right now, all I want to do is blow up the stage!”  She glanced at Mrs. Drew, who was snoring as she stood upright with a tape measure in her hand.  “Mrs. Drew?” Essie whispered gently, touching her arm.

“That’ll never work on a narcaleptic like her,” Miss Louise muttered, grabbing two pot lids.  Banging them together in the sleeping woman’s face, she bellowed, “I ate your pie!  Every single piece!”

“Pie?”  Mrs. Drew snorted awake, blinking rapidly.  “Where?  Who?  When?”

“Over there,” Miss Louise replied, pointing.  “I ate most of it.”

“You ate my pie?” Mrs. Drew howled, rushing over to the small table the half-eaten pie laid on.  “How dare you?”

“You can eat the rest of it later,” Miss Louise informed her, steering her away from the pie by the shoulders.  “Right now, we got more important things to worry about.”

“Waht’s more important than pie?” Mrs. Drew asked, her eyes threatening to close again as drool ran down her chin.

“Essie wants to quit.”

Mrs. Drew snapped to attention.  She locked eyes with Miss Louise.  “After all this?”  Miss Louise nodded.

“Then it’s time,” Mrs. Drew said, pressing her lips together in a firm line.

“It’s time,” Miss Louise agreed.

“Time?” Essie May echoed, her forehead crinkling.  “Time for what?”

To be continued…

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!  Tomorrow we have a new recipe and Friday, a new Twirl!  Plus, we have a new creative woman this weekend!  Stay tuned!