COMMERCIAL BREAK
INT. BEDROOM – MORNING
(A PERKY MOM carrying a laundry basket enters her TEEN DAUGHTER’S bedroom. The girl lies on the bed, upset. The mother’s face registers concern. She sits beside her daughter.)
MOM
What’s the matter, honey? Why aren’t you ready for school?
DAUGHTER
I’m not going to school today, Mom!
MOM
Not go to school? But you love school. You’re a high achiever who fulfills my narcissistic need to outshine the other mothers on the block.
DAUGHTER
I know, Mom, but I can’t go! Not with this unsightly lip hair.
MOM
(Smiling smugly, Mom pulls a large white plastic vat from her laundry basket.)
Oh, honey. You just need some of this. New Lady ’Stache Off with triple beauty action™.
DAUGHTER
Lady ’Stache Off. Isn’t that what you use to sanitize our toilets?
MOM
(laughing) It does both! And now, with new Lady ’Stache Off’s triple beauty action™, you can moisturize and self-tan while you rip that unsightly hair from every pore.
DAUGHTER
Wow! (biting lip) Does new Lady ’Stache Off with triple beauty action™ hurt?
MOM
Oh, honey, of course it hurts! Beauty is pain. But you don’t want to look like a troll, do you?
DAUGHTER
Mom!
MOM
It’s more than that, sweetheart. Every time you use new Lady stache off with triple beauty action™, you’ are contributing to our ecoonomy, our way of life. Don’t you want to be a contributor to our economy? Don’t you want to make sure we can have bikinis, cable, and p**n ? What are you, a communist?
DAUGHTER
Mo-o-om!
MOM
(Smiling and hugging)
Of course not! You’re my eager-to-please teenage daughter with a hair maintenance problem, and I am your sympathetic mom here to help you. In addition to new Lady ’Stache Off with triple beauty action™, there’s also Lady ’Stache Off Organic with bonus buffing pad.
DAUGHTER
There’s an organic hair remover?
MOM
No. Not really. But don’t you love the package? Look, it has butterflies.
DAUGHTER
(holding out hand)
INT. CAR – LATER
(Teen daughter emerges with a freshly plucked upper lip. She also has porcelain teeth veneers, hair extensions, and a body-hugging school uniform. Her skin is artificially tan and shiny.)
MOM
Wow! Look at you! You’re looking great!
DAUGHTER
Thanks to you — and new Lady ’Stache Off with triple beauty action™.
MOM
Lady ’Stache Off. Because there’s nothing wrong with you … that can’t be fixed.
MISS TEEN DREAM FUN FACTS PAGE!
Please fill in the following information and return to Jessie Jane, Miss Teen Dream Pageant administrative assistant, before Monday. Remember, this is a chance for the judges and the audience to get to know YOU. So make it interesting and fun, but please be appropriate. And don’t forget to mention something you love about our sponsor, The Corporation!
Name: Petra West
State: Rhode Island
Age: 16 1/2
Height: 5’ 11”
Weight: A lady never tells
Hair: Caramel blond
Eyes: Topaz
Best Feature: My mouth
Fun Facts About Me:
I love old Hollywood glamour, and my dream role would be to play Marlene Dietrich’s role in The Blue Angel.
My mom is a seamstress and artist. She taught me to sew, bead, knit, smock, and just about everything else. I make all my own costumes.
My favorite novel is Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. I’ve read it four times.*
The Corporation product I couldn’t live without is Lady ’Stache Off. It leaves my legs silky smooth for days. Sometimes it gives me a bad rash first, but that’s the price of beauty, right?**
I can do all the moves from the video for “You’re My Only Girl, Girl” by Boyz Will ? Boyz. But only if you beg.
I believe in mystery and old-school modesty, so I wear a sarong in the bathing suit competition.
The thing that scares me most is not being myself.
7Che Guevara, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary who later became a bestselling T-shirt icon.
*Pageant official says I should change this to something more “relatable,” like I Love You So Much I Forgot to Have a Real Life. But that book makes me want to yak.
**Pageant official also says not to mention rash.
CHAPTER SIX
Petra woke before the others and began the search for her overnight case and the necessary medication hidden inside the lining. The tide had delivered a few more of their belongings in the night — random shoes, clothing, beaded headdresses, gloves — and Petra’s heart beat with new hope as she moved up the beach toward a skull-shaped rock and its tongue of a jetty where a few colorful garments floated, stopped by the natural barrier.
