Pamela Bauer - Daddy's Home

“Why is that?”

“Well, for one thing, I was very shy.”

“Now that I find hard to believe.”

“It’s true,” she assured him. “My mother had to drag me by the hand to school. That’s when she decided to have me enter child beauty pageants. She figured that competing in the pageants would give me self-confidence, make me more outgoing.”

“And did it?”

She shrugged. “It did help me get used to being in front of an audience and I did learn how to be comfortable in an interview, but I never really enjoyed the competitions the way some of the girls did. I would gladly have traded the crown, sash and trophy for a chance to be a regular kid. One who went in-line skating in the street and played softball in the park.”

“You didn’t get to do those things?”

She shook her head. “Mom was always worrying that I’d skin a knee or bruise a shin. Besides, there wasn’t much time for play. There were dance lessons, piano lessons, voice lessons, sessions with a personal trainer, costume fittings...” She sighed wistfully at the memories. “I guess it probably wasn’t any tougher than what athletes go through when they train for competition.”

“You don’t strike me as the competitive type,” he observed.

“I’m not,” she told him, pleased by his comment.

“But Mom was?” he prodded gently.

She nodded, then felt embarrassed. “That’s not to say she was some kind of crazed stage mother. It wasn’t like that. She was always so proud of me, even when I didn’t win.”

“I find it hard to believe you could ever lose a beauty contest.”

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