Beauty and the Beach

Modesty prevents me from telling you about the time I had a former Miss Teen Canada drooling all over me in the back seat of a car. No, wait… “modesty” isn’t the word… What’s the word?.. Oh yes… “lawsuit”. You see, the former Miss Teen Canada is probably still protective of her image, and I can imagine her charging me with defamation if she discovers that I’m revealing unflattering anecdotes from her past. On the other hand, she may still be so busy striving for world peace that she never finds out. The worst-case scenario is that she cold-heartedly tracks me down and stabs me to death with her tiara.

I’m going to bet on her never finding out, mainly because my mother is the only one who reads my blog. So here goes …

It was Spring Break in 1988, and five of us university students decided to cram into a car and drive down from snowy Ontario to sunny Florida for the week. Other than me, the quintet was comprised of two other sophomores, Liz and Sonya; Liz’s older brother, Richard, who owned the car; and Lori, the former Miss Teen Canada. Lori was a brilliant grad student who was the Resident Advisor in our co-ed dorm, and although she sometimes needed to play the authority figure, all the boys had huge crushes on her. Circumstances worked out in such a way that we five dovetailed our vacation plans and made the road trip together.

And that’s how I ended up in the back seat of a two-door burgundy Ford, squished next to an ex-beauty pageant princess who at one point fell asleep, her head on my shoulder, drooling all over me. I really didn’t mind. She had very pretty drool. I vowed never to wash that shirt again — which wasn’t saying much, since male college students never do laundry anyway; they just throw dirty clothes into a heap in a corner until it all miraculously smells okay again several days later.

When we got to Fort Lauderdale, evenings were spent hanging out at the dance clubs along the beach. After working up a sweat to the latest hits from Kenny Loggins and Michael Jackson, it was refreshing to amble across the road, take off our shoes and wade into the surf shin-high to cool down for a few minutes. One night Richard strolled into the water without removing his sneakers. The suction from the sand pulled them right off. They were never seen again. Cursing his luck, he retrieved from the trunk of the car his only other shoes. He lasted thirty seconds on the dance floor before a bouncer tossed him out for doing the moonwalk in Arnold Palmer golf cleats that left grooves in the parquet.

As a result, Richard missed out on seeing the club’s “Best Legs” contest that night. Uninhibited girls in shorts paraded across a stage and showed off their lithe limbs to the delight of the audience and a panel of judges. Lo and behold, our very own blonde bombshell, Lori, brought her Miss Teen Canada charisma to the spotlight and strutted her stuff. Sonya, Liz and I cheered loudly for her.

She came in third.

For hours afterward there was no sign of Lori. We split up to do a search. I investigated down one end of the moonlit beach and eventually found her, perched on a big rock like the Little Mermaid, weeping.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I came in third,” she sobbed. “Third!”

Clearly, when it came to appraisal of her physical attributes, Lori was unfamiliar with anything short of abject worship.

I sat next to her on the rock. “Y’know, third isn’t so bad. There were twelve of you in the contest.”

She put her head on my shoulder and I felt a hot tear splash my forearm. I vowed never to wash that arm again.

“It’s silly, I know,” she sniffled. “But I’m not used to second place. Academically or aesthetically. It’s just the way it’s always been for me.”

“You weren’t second place, you were third,” I reminded her gently.

She cried some more. Her heartbreak moved me deeply. I wanted to hold her… hold her around the neck and strangle her.

“It’s going to be okay, Lori,” I said. “It was just a dumb contest. Don’t let it get you down. You’re amazingly beautiful and incredibly smart, but life’s not always going to hand you a tiara.” I was thinking of a bittersweet time in Boy Scouts when I won a wood-carving competition but didn’t get a tiara.

“Just remember, Lori… when disappointments happen, God’s there to help you through. He made you and He loves you. And He doesn’t make junk.”

She smiled and nodded. We walked back up the beach to the dance club, past Richard, who was stealing Reeboks off a sleeping drunk.

Lori, wherever you are today, I hope you won’t mind me telling that story after all this time. I share the tale out of nostalgic affection for you. I want you to know that.

I also want you to know that my forearm really, really, really smells. I’m sorry, but I may finally wash it.