MOMA CALLED SOMEONE WITH A BIG EGO “SUCH A much.” I was certainly supposed to spend time and energy on my appearance, heeding my mother’s remonstrance that women must suffer to be beautiful, but I wasn’t supposed to act prideful about the results. This confusing message left me with only disdain or indifference about the beauty pageants that were endemic to the culture in 1966 (it seemed as if there was a Miss Magnolia Blossom or Miss Local Carburetor Shop being lauded in the papers every other week). I considered beauty pageants dorky and myself anti-establishment: failing gym, cheating in Latin, smoking Prince Edward cigars with Jane, and sneaking out for sex. Ignoring my disinclination to enter such a contest, my cousin Tom Byarly (son of Great Aunt Edith, who crawled into the fireplace) decided that I was the perfect candidate for Miss Teenage Memphis and kept sticking that application under my nose, saying, “Just sign it.” With no real enthusiasm, I signed. Every aspect of the contest was scrupulously regulated.
