The contestants lined up according to the photographer’s instructions, grinning and shifting poses every few shots. After about half an hour of that, the photographer waved the judges in, seating me, Sana, and Beth in the middle and having the girls crowd around us.
“Yes! Absolutely gorgeous. Maybe we can do individual profiles on all the judges as well?” the photographer asked.
Beth agreed, but I hesitated, remembering the trash they printed back when my aunt’s restaurant was in trouble a few months ago. Sana also looked uncomfortable with the idea of a profile centered around her. The photographer must’ve sensed this because he added, “You’ll see everything beforehand and it’ll only go to print if you approve it. We’ll even sign something attesting to that if you want proof.”
Signed paperwork might not stop them if they found anything too juicy, but it was better than nothing.
“All right, but I also want you to throw in an advertisement for the Brew-ha Cafe.” If I had to subject myself to invasive questions on the pageant and myself, I was going to milk this for all it was worth.
“Not a problem. If the rest of the menu is as good as the samples you provided today, the Shady Palms News team would be happy to run an endorsement.”
With the photos done, everyone had a half-hour break before the individual Q&A sessions started. Sana and I dashed to the Brew-ha Cafe table, where Elena was handing out my ube chocolate chip cookies, calamansi-chia seed mini muffins, salabat-spiced banana bread, and other goodies, as well as coupons, to the people helping themselves to the cold brew and house blend coffee dispensers.
“Caffeine!” I poured some cold brew into my insulated water bottle and chugged it, then refilled it. “If I’m going to interview three dozen teenage girls on their beauty queen aspirations, I’m going to need to take this entire thing back with me.”
Sana laughed. “I’m sure it won’t be as terrible as you think. Valerie came up with some pretty insightful questions, so hopefully we’ll avoid the usual cookie-cutter replies.”
“Where is Valerie?” I asked as Sana poured herself some of the house blend and accepted a muffin from Elena with a smile.
Valerie had been present for the first few group photos, but had slipped away while we were talking to the photographer. She’d been oddly quiet throughout the event, letting the mayor and Beth handle all the talking.
Sana looked around, but nobody was near enough to overhear us. “I think Valerie’s upset that Beth has taken over as head Thompson. You saw how she was when she talked about her place in the family business. She probably thought this was her chance to make an impact on the company.”
She paused, fiddling with her recycled paper cup. “It hasn’t been made public yet, but I think Beth is the new head of the company. I can’t even imagine how Valerie feels, considering her relationship with Beth and that she isn’t even blood.”
“How do you know all this?” Elena had finished handing out samples and wandered over to where we stood.
Sana’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I do coaching work for the Thompson Family Company, remember? Not that Beth has ever bothered attending any of the sessions. She’s smart enough to not say anything too obvious since there hasn’t been a press release yet, but she’s not the most subtle person in the world. The life I’ve had, you really learn to look past the marketing copy to discern the true intent.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that with Rob gone, there would be a shift in leadership in the Thompson family business. Would Valerie have killed her brother for a shot at taking her rightful place in the family hierarchy? Or had Beth known she’d be the likely successor and wanted to speed up her rise to the top? Since Sana did coaching work for the company, would she have a better insight to the company’s power dynamics? Remembering Beth’s earlier remarks, the two seemed to have a rather contentious acquaintance, with Beth having little respect for Sana’s profession. I wondered what the story was there. Maybe something for the aunties to sniff out? The Calendar Crew must know something about all this.
“Did you make these muffins, Lila?”
Beth slipped into our circle so seamlessly, I let out a yelp, worried she’d overheard our little tsismis session.
“Uh, yeah?” I cleared my throat and attempted to speak with more confidence. “Yes, one of my partners,” here I gestured toward Elena, “requested that I make my own version of her favorite muffins. I replaced the usual lemon with calamansi, which is a small citrus fruit native to the Philippines.”