Chapter 54

And so he took the stage to open the show. Miranda stood next to him in a dazzling white evening gown, the Miss Cactus Rose tiara—dent and all—enmeshed in a flurry of red curls, but she said little more than a demure “Hello” and a couple requisite “How we doing, Crossing?!”s.

“Thank you everybody so much for coming out to our first show,” Ashok said. “I’m Santa Fe’s Miss Cactus Rose for 2014 Raima Reason…”

“Disguised as a boy,” Miranda interjected.

“You forgot to say ‘brilliantly’ disguised as a boy,” Ashok said.

Miranda gave him a quick once-over. “It’s not the most convincing I’ve ever seen,” she said to laughs.

Ashok laughed, too, and carried on. “This, of course, is also Santa Fe’s Miss Cactus Rose for 2014, Miranda Wright.”

“And if you don’t know why there are two of us,” Miranda interjected again, “you weren’t at our pageant, and boy did you miss a show.”